wallace, she talks about her father's controversial career and political conversion after an assassination attempt. she also talks about her friendship with congressman john lewis of georgia. that's next sunday night at 8:00 eastern on "q&a." announcer: watch c-span daily unfiltered coverage of the government response to the coronavirus pandemic with briefings from the white house, congress, and governors from across the country. plus, join in the conversation on our live call-in program, washington journal. if you missed our live coverage, watch anytime on demand at c-span.org/coronavirus. announcer: "washington journal" is next with two perspectives on race relations in america first democratic strategist michael

starr hopkins. followed by commentator armstrong williams. and john dicken talked about infections in nursing homes. "washington journal" is next. join the discussion. host: one week ago today, african-american george floyd died at the hands of the minneapolis police. protests, civil unrest, and violence and reaction to that expanded to some 75 u.s. cities, building to a crescendo over the weekend. good morning, and welcome to "washington journal" for this monday, june 1, 2020. we'll start the hour asking you this hour about the president's leadership in response to the unrest, the president largely communicating, commenting on the issue saturday, some at nasa, and largely leaving his response to twitter. what are your thoughts?

republicans, use 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. and independents, all others, 202-748-8002. you can also send us a text, that line is 202-748-8003. and make sure that you leave us your name, tell us where you're texting from. @cspanwj., we're, your comments welcome on our facebook page as well. we'll start with a column in "the washington post," posted last night, printed this morning in "the washington post," and the headline, online, america is at a low ebb, shaken by multiple blows, and trump adds to the distress. this is the state

of the union, as the nation reels from multiple blows, each one arriving with swift and overwhelming force. long-standing, untreated inequalities have been exposed anew, and they in turn have highlighted the country's real vulnerabilities. what has been just below the surface, known but barely acknowledged, and rarely addressed seriously, is now impossible to ignore. your thoughts on the president's leadership, 202-748-8000 for republicans. 202-748-8001 for democrats. nd all others, 202-748-8002. politico is writing this morning about what we can possibly hear from the president in the coming days and the debate over that inside the white house. the white house divided on trump addressing racial tensions. they write that as protests continue to flare across the

country, president trump and his top aides can be settle on the next steps the white house should take to ease tensions after the latest death of an african-american man detained by a white police officer. white house chief of staff mark meadows has been pushing for the president to deliver a formal address to the nation, to emphasize his support for law and order and police officers, the familiar trope for the republican party and one that typically plays well with its base. they write that trump senior adviser and son-in-law jared kushner, along with several other top aides, argued against such a move, fearing the tone could alienate key voters ahead of the november election, including african-americans, whose support the administration has been trying to court. politico writes that an address would also detract from the president's message of trying to restart the economy as quickly as possible, allies say. the president's last formal address in mid-march from the oval office dealing with the growing coronavirus crisis was not viewed internally as a success.

since the white house had to clarify several points from the hastily written speech, which trump appeared uncomfortable delivering. your thoughts this morning on the president's leadership, we'll show you a headline from "usa today" and read more of this in a bit. susan page, their chief washington bureau chief, i should say, trump is failing the text of leadership. that's the headline of her piece this morning. dalia first up in miami, florida. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning. i just want to say that president trump, i agree with him, and i'm very glad that he's the president. lead e of being able to the country was obama. ok? an tough ahas grown and grown and grown, and no one wants to o anything about it.

down near miami last night, by 10:00, the city was quiet. the night before, they had 57 arrests. only 13 people lived in miami. they tried to loot last night a c.v.s. store. the police moved in, wouldn't allow it. there was no soft touch. the cities that have the problems are the mayors that are run by democrats who are liberal, like that idiot in new york. thank you very much. host: she mentioned the word antifa, the president yesterday commenting about that, tweeting about that. the "new york times" writes that the president said his administration "will be designating antifa has a terrorist organization," referring to the shorthand for anti-fascists. but they write antifa is a movement of activists who dress in black and call themselves anarchists, not an organization with a clear structure that can be penalized under law.

moreover, american law applies to terrorist designation to foreign entities, not domestic groups. by targeting antifa, however, mr. trump effectively paints all the protests with the brush of violent radicalism without addressing the underlying conditions that have driven many of the people who have taken to the streets. from the "new york times," this is elaine, next up, democrats line in st. louis. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you so much. i just wanted to start off saying that c-span is such a wonderful service. thank you so much for all of the programming. just last week, c-span3 covered an excellent program that talked about violence in america. it's in our blood. america started in a violent nature. we respond to violence. what's happening now,

unfortunately, has been bred throughout history. i can't remember the name of the program, but it was on c-span3. nd it broke it down. but i can understand why the reason why people are looting. the whole idea that we've been quarantined at home, sheltering in place, and mitch mcconnell refuses to give support to the average joe, that is disheartening. host: elaine, do you think that looting is more of a reaction to the pent-up nature of the shutdown over the last few months, rather than the anger over the killing of george floyd? caller: i think it's -- i think it's both. it's a sign of helplessness.

we really don't have any honest truth about the pandemic, whether we should -- we shouldn't wear masks, the next month we should. and i understand that we're learning, but the president has silenced dr. fauci, who i really did trust. you feel like you're in limbo and then when you see that they're rushing to open have hing and you don't -- if you are low income, you on't have a job to go back to. and you do -- you're doing a little bit better on unemployment insurance, but you hear the republicans saying, oh, no, we want to get rid of that. and they want to continue to to large ollars

companies. host: ok, elaine, we're going to go to our republican line next and hear from david in texas. caller: good morning. as far as trump making a speech or anything else, i don't think that's going to matter. the democrats are going to hate him no matter what he says. they still think he's a traitor, treasonist, russian stooge, no matter how much new stuff comes out. the media is going to report their predetermined slant, so 90% is going to go that way, and more than half of the newspapers, probably three-fourths of the newspaper articles and opinions you're going to read are going to paire it back. so again, what's the point? what happens, what he does, and hopefully getting some of the democratic mayors -- because probably 95% of mayors in america are democrat. certainly 95-plus percent of the large cities have been run by one party for a hundred

years practically. that's probably the biggest single reason for the economic mess that the cities are in, which is, in my opinion, more to do what w what's going on, the economic issue than the racial issue, although they're both connected. the lady was just talking about republicans not wanting to help people out, mitch mcconnell this, mitch mcconnell that. that's poppycock. the republicans, i have a small business, none of my clients paid me for 3 1/2 months. the republicans and the trump administration have done an absolutely unbelievable job of pushing money out into the economy. i listen to c-span a lot. they had a report out that said that, in fact, it was on one of the financial shows that said that wall street was going up right now because one of the key statistics they looked at was people being late on their rent, that was only 2% over prior quarter, and that's because so much more money has been pushed out. the unemployment part really

isn't against people getting unemployment. the federal part that was kicked in was in large degree because the states couldn't get -- here's a computer system couldn't mail in such a way to make sure people got what they were earning before, so in most cases they got paid more than before, which makes it more difficult to get people back on their job. that's the issue there. but nobody's trying to keep people from, republicans or anything else, they're trying to get the money out as fast as possible. the democrats have held things up for at least two weeks, back at the time when it was super critical. i was right at the point getting the p.p.e. when it ran out of money and then i got to sit on pins and needles waiter for nancy pelosi to come on again. host: david from texas. politico in their playbook today, about a potential address from the president, further comments from the president. david kind of reflected this. they say ask yourself this, if

you don't like the president, is there anything he could say that you'd be satisfied with? if you like him, is there anything he could say that you would reject? miamisburg, ohio, next, your thoughts on the president's leadership over the recent days in response to the unrest. go ahead. caller: well, i don't know. i'm just a dumb tennesseans. i was born -- i didn't see a black person till i was 12 years old. and the way that they treated them at that camp, they beat him down in the barrel and then kicked the barrel over. they beat him with a leather strap. there's no wonder there's animosity. and then i don't claim to be a genius like trump. i lived in west palm beach for 12 years. my wife lived there since 1953. her sister went to school with psycho don all the time he was at palm beach county schools, which lasted three days. to me, he is a dictator, but

he's a dick without a tator. and i'd rather tell it to his face than tell it to you. host: "usa today," their headline this morning, george floyd's horrific death lights a long smoldering fuse, and that fuse lit in reaction to the killing of george floyd a week ago, as we mentioned, in minneapolis. governor tim walz of minnesota spoke yesterday about the situation there. >> one of the things i was most proud of, and i think as minnesotans, many of you across the world may be getting your irst look at who we are, and that's unfortunate, but it's real, and we'll take that, that look. but one of the things we're proud of, our public schools consistently rank at or near the top. we're a state that extends from the canian border, we have lakes so scompleer pristine, they're 40 foot deep and you can see the bottom and drink from them. we have iron ore mining that

the steel was used to build this country. we're a top agriculture producer. we're home to a higher concentration of fortune 500 companies than almost anywhere else, and we're home to the mayo clinic. we innovate. we're passionate people. and again, back to that statistic. as governor, i like to talk about this and the things that we say. we don't just rank near the top on educational attainment. we rank near the top on personal incomes, on homeownership, life expectancies, things that make this -- and one that came out a wild back, we rank second in a survey of the 50 states, second in happiness, behind hawaii. but if you take a deeper scomplook peel it back, which this week has peeled back, all of those statistics are true if you're white. if you're not, we rank near the bottom. and what this week has shown all of us is those two things can't operate at the same

place. you cannot continue to say you're a great place to live if your neighbor, because of the color of the skin, doesn't have the same opportunity. and that will manifest in things that are the small, hidden racisms. it will manifest itself in a child of color not getting the same opportunities or a black community not being able to acquire wealth through homeownership because of lending practices. and as we all said last week, the ultimate end of that type of behavior is the ability to believe that you can murder a black man in public and it is an unusual thing that murder charges were brought days later. so what i would like say, and again, i want to thank everyone who participated in our ability to restore trust to our streets. it was incredibly complex. it was incredibly difficult. but that simply gets us back to

a place that we were before. and that place is not good enough. that place is not one that will get us the solutions. host: tim walz from yesterday, asking enthuse morning, first hour here on "washington journal," about president trump's leadership in response to the crisis. 02-748-8000 for republicans. -- 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. independents, 202-748-8002. if you would like to send us a tweet, that's @cspanwj. several here responding to our questions. harriet says this, somehow i don't blame the president for covid-19 or george floyd. i find liberals more at blame, russia impeachment, open borders, china cheating, covid-19, police brutality, looting, antifa, liberal-run democrat cities. lynn says trump's response to the violent protests and unrest in american cities rs this weekend has largely fwone blame democrats for not doing more to

"get tough" with the protesters in their states and from cities. what leadership, asks amy. he's cowering in the bunker eating fast food. gut chunk says he's handling it perfectly. one says he's hunkered down in the white house bunker, bone spur syndrome. lizzie says if trump information his safe place, his secret service took him there, keep calling him bunker fwoy it makes you feel good. and from jim who says you'll ask about mr. trump's leadership in this mess. the first line responsibility is the mayor's office. the second line is the state governor. the final link is the white house. let's go back to calls and hear from the independent line. sandra in new york. go ahead. caller: yes, good morning, c-span. thank you for taking my call. i just want to say i was really very saddened by all of the looting, the looting, the robbing.

and we were all supposed to honor george floyd for the orrific way he died. but as far as president trump, no, he doesn't really need to say anything. i was so turned off when the looting starts, the shooting starts, and then he had to try to turn it around saying, oh, i meant this. blah, blah, blah. then the other one, oh, cross the line, you're going to be met with vicious dogs and weapons that you've never seen before. come on, america. this really has to stop. and once again, c-span, i watch other news. the democrats this. the liberals that. and they're trying to talk like the republican states are really doing so much better. but like i said, we have a pandemic out here.

everybody's out here protesting. great. no masks. what do you think is going to happen in the next couple of weeks? i do believe the numbers will go up with the sickness. but yes, sir, our president right now, he's always saying something inflammatory. and to my white americans, you have to see it. all his tweets are not good. they're divisive. and this is where we're at now. host: here's what sandra was talking about, in case you missed this, this particular series on a number of tweets over the weekend. one in particular she's talking about, president trump tweeting on friday, these thugs are dishonoring the memory of george floyd, and i won't let that happen. just spoke to governor tim walz and told him that the military is with him all the way. and we will assume control. but when the looting starts, the shooting starts, thank you. he also says great job last night at the white house by the u.s. secret service.

they were not only totally professional, but very cool. i was inside, watched every move, and couldn't have felt more safe. they let the protests scream and rant as much as they wanted, but whenever someone got too frisky or out of line, they would quickly come down on them hard. didn't know what hit them. the front line was replaced with fresh agents like magic. big crowd professionally organized, but nobody came close to breaching the fence f. they had, they would have been greeted by the most vicious dogs and most ominous weapons i've every seen. that's when people would have been really badly hurt. at least many secret service agents just waiting for action, we put the young ones on the front lines, sir, they love it, said the president in a tweet. and the president said, and they've been greeted, and it is possible that -- so that was from the president over the weekend. we wanted to play you the comments of senator tim scott on fox news sunday yesterday, asked about that series of tweets in particular. >> but you have seen racial

tensions in this country. when you hear about the looting starts, the shooting starts. when you hear about vicious police dogs, is that kind of talk from the president of the united states constructive at this moment? >> well, those are not constructive tweets, without any question. i'll say this. i spoke with the president yesterday morning, and he and i had a good conversation about what are the next steps. i told him what i'm going to tell you, which is, mr. president, it helps us when you focus on the death, the unjustified, in my opinion, the criminal death of george floyd. those tweets are very helpful. it is helpful when you say what you said yesterday, which is that it's important for us to recognize the benefit of nonviolent protests. it is helpful when you respond to my request to have the department of justice led by attorney general barr have it commissioned in a conversation around race and justice in this nation. mr. president, it is helpful

when you lead with compassion -- >> but senator scott, i've got a minute left. did you, sir, did you speak truth to power, and did you say to him, when you talk about thugs, when you talk about looting and shooting, and you talk about vicious police dogs, what did you say about that? >> i used similar words you just used, which is we talked about the fact that there is a constructive way to have a dialogue with a nation, and it's similar fashion that we had a conversation after charlottesville. the president will listen if you engage him with the facts of the issue, and then you ask him to focus on his attention on making progress as one nation under god. i think his tweets yesterday were far more responsive after the conversation. i'm thankful that we can have that conversation. we'd alza gree. i did not agree with his tweets beforehand, but we had the ability to sit down and dialogue on how we move this nation forward and not let the detracttors get in the way of what has been a pretty

phenomenal couple of years economically. host: back to your calls. shirley next up, new castle, pennsylvania, republican line. caller: good morning. i want to thank you for taking my call. and the first thing i do want to say is, i thank god that he has brought a president and a vice president whose working so hard to bring love, respect, and prosperity to each one of us. but the most important thing that i want to say is, i would like to reach out to every clergy throughout this great united states of america, and i don't care what denomination you are, i would ask that you would start this morning making phone calls, forming prayer rallies all over this united states. god doesn't look down. he's our heavenly father. he created all of us, black, white, we're all his children, and we need to understand that.

so we need to get together. we need to join hands. and we need to pray like we never prayed before. pray without ceasing. and i guarantee you that god almighty will see us through this and bring us wonderfully, wonderfully, loving each other, and helping each other at the end of this. it will be a beautiful thing, if we all get together and pray. host: one of the most historic churches in the country, the st. john's church just off lafayette square north of the white house, was partially burned yesterday in the protests here in the nation's capital. the church attended by every living president since 1816. the fire contained large the basement of st. john's. no further word on damage. we go to jacqueline in philadelphia, good morning, republican line. caller: good morning. first of all, i'm noticing that a lot of women are calling in early this morning. i have to think about that. i don't know what it means.

so i'm a mother. 'm 84. i watched that thug cop kill a man right before my eyes. i couldn't believe it. no one stepped in. i wonder, knowing myself, would i have said get your knee off his neck, he can't breathe. i don't know. knowing the way i am. but i'm also a schoolteacher for hoe years. i had little kids, african-american, with attitudes, had to straighten them out. i have a daughter-in-law that didn't want to like me. she's african-american. she likes me in spite of herself. and looting, all it did yesterday was upset me. it's not the answer. why do they do that? and then steal on top of it.

you want to break a window when you're mad? we've all done something like that. sneal no. it doesn't do anything for the african-american at all. it makes me look down on them. i don't like it. i don't like it. host: appreciate that, jacqueline. chuck up next, democrats line, charleston, west virginia. caller: yes, good morning. you talked about the possibility of donald trump addressing the nation on this issue. i think something that would make me happy is if he would announce an investigation into what i think might possibly be some systemic racism among police officers in the united states. to all the republicans out there, i know that most of the people who voted for donald trump in 2016 do not think of themselves as racist or zeen

phobic or anything like that. most of them, i'm sure, were just more interested in jobs and the economy. but what i think is the big elephant in the room is the fact that all of the white supremacist groups, the white nationalist groups, the militias, proud boyz, all of the people, those are the people that hillary clinton was referring to when she was referring to deplorables. those are the people that are the deplorables that she was eferring to. the fact remains that those behind ere 100% solidly donald trump, and there is no escaping this fact. and so when something happens like, you know, i've had this growing suspicion that -- and i know this may sound like a conspiracy theory, and i am not a conspiracy theorist, but when something like what happened to george floyd happens, it kind

of reinforces a suspicion that maybe there's some kind of underground network of white supremacists that have infiltrated police forces all over this country, and they are determined to foment a race war, and it really, really scares me. and that's something i think donald trump should address. host: thanks, chuck, on his comments about the president speaking to the nation. this is jim on twitter, who says this, just simple being a loquacious president does not mean trump is a leader. he's not an effective leader and cannot lead through unrest or another situation in a positive, effective manner. i can't noo news and had a poll over the weekend over the unrest. their headline, most americans say race was a major factor in george floyd's death, but opinions on protesters are split. americans are large united in seeing racism at play in the killing of george floyd and in policing more generally, but

they're divided over the violent protests that have gripped minneapolis and other major u.s. cities in the wake of floyd's death, according to the i can't noo news poll conducted over the weekend. a clear majority of adults, 61%, believe race was a major factor in the may 25 death of george floyd. an unarmed black man in the custody of minneapolis police who lost his life after officer derek chauvin held his knee on the back of floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes while floyd complained that he could not breathe. only 9% in the poll said race was not a factor. lakewood, new jersey, republican line, next. hello there. caller: hi. ood morning. i don't know where to begin. first i feel so bad for that gentleman that passed away, mr. floyd. i'm tired of democrats using the race card for everything. they just finished using it on the virus, that it was a racial

thing. you know what? it's starting to go on deaf ears, first of all. now, you knock president trump on everything. everything. what about obama? what the hell did he do for the black community for eight years that he was a president? he ran away from every problem. he couldn't even handle saving four people from benghazi. he couldn't save those children in syria there. if trump went in and saved hem. he belonged with the underground borme. wrrt democrats? where are all the people that were for obama? they talk about -- and then that gentleman making excuses for hillary, for what she called republicans that voted for trump. let me tell you something. he even tried to give the

children in poor communities, black communities, charter scoosms he offered them charter schools, and who turned it down? it was pelosi and the rest of the democratic party. you know why? because of the union. the unions didn't want it. but he wanted to make life better for those children. not for the rich. the rich kids don't need it. host: huffington post this morning writing about president obama, comparison with the reaction of president obama during the ferguson protests, trump blamed the guy in the white house is their headline this morning, when protesters railed against the 2014 police killing of michael brown, an unarmed black major ferguson, donald trump knew who -- knew just who to blame, the tweet from donald trump at that time, our country is totally fractured, and with our weak leadership in washington you can expect ferguson-type rye sandots looting in other places. trump also claimed the rest of

the world had laughed at america, and then president obama over the ferguson riots tweeting then, can you imagine what putin and all our friends and enemies throughout the world are saying about the u.s. as they watch the ferguson riots? that is from huffington post this morning. our question for you this morning about the president's leadership will go kathleen, excuse me, edward next in jersey city, independent line. caller: good morning. bring comment on my dissatisfaction with the president's response to the unrest in the country, i have another comment, and it's about c-span. i do love c-span and i do believe you're the best media service we have in the country. and i just believe you're also not above reproach. and i believe you failed us yesterday, your viewing community, when you titled that night another violent of protests in the u.s.

it's important that the narrative is straight and i just feel like you did a disservice to us because it's tainting the entire movement of protests in a negative light. and so police consider basically what i have to say, but i'm dissatisfied with the president's response to the unrest. i felt like, well, i voted against him in 2016. i din believe in him and his vision, if you can call it that for our country. but he failed us all the way through. and i think now his response to it with wanting to send in national guard, you know, which is his per rag active as president, i still think he's the worst example that we have of a president, and i would like for c-span to do something to tap into the energy in the country where americans may be looking to build coalition, you know, to protect us and to go against a violent, militant government and military, military response. thank you.

host: ok, up next, cecil in florida, republican line, go ahead. caller: yeah. i just wanted to respond. the president has nothing to do with what's going on. it all happened between a couple three cops in minneapolis, and that's where it should have stayed. and they got this racist thing going, especially the democrats. they're the worst. they got this thing going, and we're really -- where it really started was in the obama administration when they started black lives matter. well, let me tell you something. to me, all lives matter, not black. and they're blaming the president for what he's doing, and he has nothing to do with it. and as far as this one guy don't want the national guard, that's what they're for. the national guard are to protect us people, not the hoodlums that's doing all the damage. these people that are doing the

damage, most of them are younger, most of them are college ones, and all your college and teachers are democrats, and this country, if trump don't get in this next election, this country has gone down the tube, and we will have a war here pretty quick. host: david in texas on our democrats line, good morning. caller: good morning, yes, i understand that we'll have war pretty quick. and i can see it coming. and i'm ready for it. i think that it's late and it's coming. if people don't seem to understand thousand look outside the box and see that our government is destroying our country from the inside out, and it's not republican-democrat. they're all the same thing. host: david, when you say the other caller mentioned war, what does that mean you're ready for war? caller: that means that i fully expect america to go to civil

war, and i approve. i'm ready for it. because it's the only thing that i feel is going -- that's going to fix all this. if we arrest everybody in our government and throw them in prison, where they belong, so that we can put our military and our police on the right side of the people where they belong and not against the people where they seem to be coming against us every day. host: there's pennsylvania, kathleen on the independent line, welcome. caller: good morning. thank you for letting me speak. i really agree with the man that just called about a war coming. and that it's late in coming. host: so you would welcome a civil war in this country? caller: i would welcome a revolution at this point. i think that he's perfectly right. the government is against the people at this point. but i did want to say that i

think trump has been inciting violence against people of color, and, you know, we're all people of color. one of these days i think racism is going to be erased just through genetics, but, you know, the first thing, he got into office on build the wall, so we were all supposed to be against mexicans. and then it was against muslims. and he's backing police violence against black men. and as far as the looting goes, i'm 60 years old. i'm a woman. and i would take up a brick and smash it through a wall right now, too. i'm so angry that this is still going on. 60 years after woodstock, this is unevolved, doesn't give me a lot of hope.

host: here's susan page, the lead article in the "usa today," trump is failing the test of leadership our headline. at times of national trauma, commander in chiefs have often seen themselves as consolers in chief. barack obama after the sandy hook massacre. george w. bush after 9/11. bill clinton after the oklahoma city bombings. f.d.r. during the great depression. not donald trump. in the middle of the busiest intersection of disasters in modern times, president trump on sunday presented himself more as the confronter-in-chief. he denounced the media as fake news and labeled protesters in the street, some peaceful and some not, as radical left anarchists who should be crushed by the national guard. his model was more like richard nixon, who's unyielding war and order stance against the vietnam protesters helped him win the white house in 1968. now the combination of crises has overshadowed even that

historically tumultuous year, writes susan page. the moment has underscored the power of the white house as a bully pulpit and the difficulty of any other voice filling the role of national unifier if the president does not. instead on display sunday were america's divisions at a time of death, fear, and violence. the mayor of washington spoke yesterday about the president's leadership. here's what she said. >> well, i think that the president has a responsibility to help calm the nation, and he n start by not sending divisive tweets that are meant to hearken to the segregationist past of our country. and he can start by doing that right now. and we certainly urge him to do that. issues in ematic our country to address, and it's going to take us at every level, federal and local.

it's going to take community and government to heal the hurt that people are feeling. so what you see in cities across our nation is what we saw last night, people who are angry and people who are hurting. in ways not doing it that are helpful to our cause, but we still have to acknowledge that hurt and that anger. thoip our republican line we go. we hear from richard in little rock, arkansas. caller: howdy. couple things. the times gone on in past few days, the more the president brought up is the more that scommares governors are going toward now that they have to bring in more police, more national guards to put these things down, because the one thing that i've noticed, which i haven't seen happen one time in one city, one province, one state, is that if we have this group of good protesters and then this, as they say, smaller group of anarchists and everything, i have not yet seen

one group of good protesters, whatever you want to call them. everyone tried to stop anyone from looting, stealing, hurting people. i've heard people yell and say don't do it, but what good americans do is this. if you see somebody breaking in, hurting, robbing your neighbor, you're supposed to stop them. i've not yet seen anybody attempt to stop the people doing bad in any way so. where are these supposed good protesters? i know there's a reason for it. i know there's a lot of people out there that are doing it for the right reason. but i have yet seen anybody stand up and with their right reason try to confront the people that are doing all the things that are wrong and dragging it through another area. the last thing is that everybody constantly say bad things about president trump, but when you ask them for details, facts, they all come one i heard it off or something. hey, i appreciate your time. thank you. host: thank you. sadie next up, fort lauderdale, democrats line.

caller: good morning. i just want to say that trump is the worst president the united states ever have. he's a bully. he's no good. and it reminds -- he can't walk in obama's shoes, no way. obama have a gentleman. this man is not. i remember jim jones, a white and o lured 900 people mix up arsenic and kool-aid and they all died. and so these followers from right now are blind. they cannot see above their nose. trump should never be president of the united states. he's no good. thank you. host: next up, west sacramento, indiana, excuse me, west sacramento, california, on our independent line. good morning. you're on the air. caller: good morning. thank you for giving me the , politics issue, i

am so concerned about -- i flive california for 46 years. i have children and grandchildren who are born here. i'm concerned about their future, and i'm concerned about the future of u.s. and the lady calling and saying hat that person was passed away. he was killed. i sought video. he was kid. he was not passed away. if they're pro trump, that's fine. but doesn't mean that they should hide the fact. the other gentleman is calling, oh, this is not the president trump's issue. president trump is the leader of the country. he's the leader of the largest powerful country in the world. he should be -- he should not

-- he should -- he should have a concern about the feeling of the people, and that is very bad. i see another problem for the future of u.s., and i hope everything gets better. and i'm sorry that i'm a little bit emotional, but i cannot help it because pro trump, people talk. this is not right for the country. this is not for the future. it's not for the future of my children, my grandchildren. thank you. host: ok, we go to judy, caller from irwin, pennsylvania. caller: hello. thanks for letting me talk. i get so sick to my stomach when i see these people burning down buildings and churches. and small businesses. this has got to stop. why? why are they doing that? they're not protesting one

man's life. they're agitaters and they're following these agitaters. i heard someone talk about white supremacists. what about black lives matter and antifa? i mean, those people are in protesters.s of they've got to stop. president trump is not responsible for this. out s the mayors, crowds of control. and burning and looting. i see that, and i just can't stand it. it's horrible. why? i mean, you got to stop it. these mayors have got to get it under control. i live near pittsburgh, and they really did it. and the next day they had volunteers going down there cleaning you want streets and boarding up. that's what people should do.

not be so cruel. and offensive. this is not one man's fault. this is the fault of being cooped up for 10 weeks. host: judy mentioned antifa. the president saying he's going to designate that group as domestic terrorists. this is the reporting of "usa today." and the broader issue of who may be involved in the rioting across the country. officials blame "out of state" agitaters, but those at the heart of the protests, they write, are home grown. "usa today" says the narrative offers a simple, tidy explanation for violence that allows politicians to simultaneously support the ethos of the movement and the police officers trying to keep the peace. but they write it's not true. the overwhelming majority of people who posted on social media from the precinct fire and those they arrested on friday night in the protests in

the twin cities live in the area, according to a "usa today" review of police jail records and more than 100,000 tweets. they did an analysis, "usa today," an analysis of more than 1,800 twitter users who posted from within a three-mile radius of the precinct fire on thursday and say that 85% had a history of posting inside the greater minneapolis area before george floyd's death. to eric, next up on our democrats line, in memphis, tennessee. caller: yes, i appreciate you giving me a chance to speak. but i'm listening to everyone's comments here, and they're talking about -- republicans are talking about obama. they are talking about blame obama, blame obama. obama been out of office for three years. this is ridiculous. this man was killed on film, on

tape. he was brutalized. and they can't see why these folks are angry, and it's not blacks. it's not black folk, black lives matter. look at it. it's a lot of asian-americans. it's a lot of white americans doing a lot of this looting. look at some of their kids. their kids are on the front line. look at who's on the front line at the white house. blame them for the fires. look at the ones throwing the bottle. look at the ones busting the window out at cnn. no one wants to blame them, but they want to say antifa, black lives matter. it ain't just them. it's a bunch of racists. if they would just look at that time and stop saying trump this. trump is in charge of the d.o.j. william barr is a d.o.j. what is william stpwhar you ain't heard a word from them. please let us know what is william barr's stance on this gentleman getting killed.

why hasn't he got with the prosecutor of the u.s. attorneys and try to -- host: we lost you there a bit, eric. we'll go to ken in binghamton, new york, independent line. caller: good morning. i want to preface my call by saying i'm a 64-year-old white man. when i was a youngster, i wanted to be donald trump. i joined the republican party, because they had that conservative permit that i have. however, as i noted, i called on the independent line, and i changed to independent a long time ago, when it became apparent to me that the republicans were only interested in money and achievement and so forth, and they didn't care about the people. i also didn't go to the democratic side because it did seem like, you know, that they just didn't represent what i wanted. so i decided to go independent. having said that, all right, additionally i did read donald

trump's book. but, you know, once a man started talking, it was apparent he's not a very good person. as far as being a leader, he can lead his base. and everything that comes out of his mouth seems to be for his base. the people that call in this morning, and i found it interesting that one of his callers, somebody said parroting in regard to the democrats, it seems like every word out of their mouths is hillary, obama, socialist. now it's the fisa serve, now china's fault for the pandemic, it's the world health organization. well, they're all things coming out of trump's mouth. now he's sitting everyone's hair on fire with regard to an antifa, because they're a left group, with no mention the possibility of any white supremacist on the right side. my heart breaks, again, i'm a 64-year-old man. my heart -- white man -- my heart breaks for what i have

learned to be injustice. i was fortunate to grow up in a community where it was a small community. there were multiple black families. and it didn't matter. and then through going to college, then teaching and being in an urban area, and seeing how black people were treated, i came to the realization. so for people to demall and say there's no racism, you better -- you should open your eyes, because if you're not opening your eyes then you are a racist. host: we'll go to maryland and hear from dennis next on the republican line. caller: hi. how are you guys doing this morning? host: fine, thank you. caller: hey. i just wanted to say about the caller before. i agree with him. i'm a 58-year-old white male, republican. i don't want to have to establish what i am in this country. we're all from the human race. and yes, there is racism in this country. that's pretty obvious. just wanted to say that think

about how many buildings and things have been burned and how many people have lost their jobs in the middle of the biggest down turn in the economy because of this pandemic. you know, you just exacerbated the problem. you're putting people out of business, and you come out here and you take -- take antifa, you take whoever else, but you take the ku klux klan. if trump wants to put antifa on the terrorist list, put the ku klux klan on there, too, because i'm all about america. i'm not about a party. and i don't have to vote for him. i did vote for him, but i don't have to vote for him, but i just won't vote for people who won't do something for us. they got to work for us. stop playing both sides. the democrats and republicans, play people against each other. and if people need to open their eyes, and i hope this time, in this place, this man

had to get killed for reasons that's unknown, it's actually ridiculous. i cried twice looking at this, i can't watch it more, that man. host: dennis in maryland, that state opening phase one of their reopening beginning today in the state of maryland. that state's governor, larry hogan, over the weekend yesterday on cnn's state of the union commented on the president's leadership and his use of twitter. >> look, i think one of the most important things that a leader can do right now, and i went through this in 2015 during the rye knots baltimore, one of my primary focuses was to try to lower the temperature , and that's not helpful. it's not lowering the temperature. it's sort of continuing to escalate the rhetoric. i think it's just the opposite of the message that should have been coming out of the white house. >> what lessons could you teach

minnesota and the nation, having dealt with the freddy gray crisis, and for those who don't remember, freddie gray was picked up. he was in a police vehicle, and he was in a coma after that. it was a rough ride, people said, and the police officers ultimately were not convicted. >> well, i think we dealt with this crisis in baltimore really decisively and quickly. we acted quickly. within a couple of hours we sent in 4,000 members of the national guard and 1,000 extra police officers to try to maintain peace and protect the citizens of baltimore. the vast majority of whom were protesting peacefully, which is what i think we're seeing in many cities across america, but we had a smaller element who was burning and looting, and we were trying to stop that violence, and we did it very successfully after the first few hours. there was no more burning or looting or violence.

. body else got hurt but we let the payest protest go on for a solid week in baltimore. i walked the streets of baltimore for a week, talked with leaders in the community. and my advice to these leaders in other states would be to not let the situation get out of control. but our theory was kind of peace through strength. we did not let it escalate to violence where the crowds were overpowering police, but we separated the violent acts and the destructive acts from the peaceful protesting, and we tried to get in there and communicate with the citizens. and frankly, many of the people in the community are also trying stop the violence and all of the bad activity that's taking place. they don't want to see it. it's not really helpful to any part of the situation. host: twitter, @cspanwj, a couple of comments. mlb says there's literally no

such group, club or place called antifa. however, there are this many white supremacist groups with a link there. no callers. we do not need a civil war. just vote. i don't care who you vote for. just vote. andrea says what response? he has made a real response? didn't think so. but no response is a response. vote, vote, vote. since when does refusing to take responsibility for anything pass for leadership? he doesn't know the meaning of the word. the lead editorial this morning in "the new york post," don't let the rye on thing thugs derail america's search for justice. the opinion writer saying that the president, of course, this is not a protest, this is not a statement. it's a handful of people taking advantage of a situation for their own purposes, and they need to be treated as criminals, said the commander in chief. a handful of criminals and thugs who tore up the place. "the new york post" writes, the president, of course, was barack obama talking about the rioting that followed the

protests over freddie gray's 2015 death in baltimore. the difference is obama faced a fraction of the backlash from the liberal media as donald trump did for tweeting the same word to describe the looters, thugs. both presidents were right, writes "the new york post," a thug is not a black or a white. a thug is a person who takes the righteous anger over an injustice like george floyd and burns down affordable housing complex. a thug is someone who uses a protest to rob a sports store in minneapolis owned by a black firefighter who poured every cent he had into the business. read more at nypost.com. andre in conyers, georgia, democrats line, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing? i would just say that this president's response is typical. now, i'm not a donald trump hater. but you would say that this president would support the protests in hong kong. those people in hong kong were protesting for months, and if

i'm correct, they're probably still protesting, and they have done more violence and burnt down much more stuff than the people near america have. and he signed a bill supporting the protesters in hong kong. he would support the yellow vest protests in paris. and he tweeted in support of them, saying something bad about the president over there at the time of the prime minister, but he will not support the protesters here. he didn't call the chinese protesters over there in hong kong thugs. he didn't call the yellow vest protesters thugs. but whenever there seems to be black-related issues, he likes to bring that word out and call them thugs. and that's just -- that is a fact. and that seems to be the ongoing theme throughout, i would say, the republican/conservative movement. they will support r other protest for equal rights across

this world except when it comes to the support of black people. host: andre, eagle to our independent line. baton rouge, louisiana, this is michael. caller: thank you. appreciate it. i've been listening to so many people call in, call in to c-span. they -- it's so unbelievable where we have gotten to in such a short period of time. and i have a son that i'm raising right now, and i just -- i was hoping that the world would be a whole lot better than it is right now. i think the -- news media is the thing that is tearing our country apart. they ally cnn, msnbc, have been just dragging this whole country down, the whole

gutter for the last four years, since the man took over office. he game he came in with opposition from republicans and democrats from -- i mean from all the pibbles he had opposition from bodes sides. he came in to try to change this country and turn it around and all he's got is hell. and hell and more hell. and now we're going through a major hell. when is it going to stop? hat's it going to take to stop ? we have to stop it. these kids are tearing our country apart. host: more ahead on "washington journal." two guests joining us next to discuss race relations across

the country considering the recent events in minnesota and elsewhere. we'll hear first from michael nd later conservative radio tv commentators armstrong williams will offer his thoughts on "washington journal." join in the conversation on our live call-in program "washington journal" and if you missed any of our live coverage watch any time on demand at -span.org/coronavirus. >> with the federal government at work in d.c. and throughout the country use the congressional directory for contact information for members of congress, governors and federal agencies.

rder your copy online today. tonight on the communicators former f.c.c. commissioner talks about ways to reduce hate speech and extremism online. >> companies when they find terrorist content they will tag so that others don't copy it. and there's now much greater cooperation than we had even two years ago. but there still is a tremendous amount that needs to be done. he pressure needs to be there. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we're joined next by democratic strategist michael star hopkins to talk about the events in the country race relations in the united states following the death last yeek week of george floyd in

minneapolis and the protest and civil unrest. his podcast available on spot fi and apple podcasts. when we first booked you to come on the program, the idea was to talk about the reaction to the george floyd killing which has grown exponentially just in the last coupling of days. just broadly, your reaction to what you've seen in the country. >> it's heartbreaking. specifically the d.c. -- i'm from d.c., i grew up here. my grand -- i graduated from the first integrated high school. it's personal. we keep seeing shootings, an indifference to black life so i think now we're at a tipping point. we're dealing with 400 years of tragedy and i think a combination of factors have come together and they're not going to allow us to ignore it. >> host: when you look back at the video to watch of george floyd under arrest, police officer with his knee on the nevk of

orge floyd for eight or nine minutes, the reaction of the people in the crowd. obviously there's filming going on. does it surprise you that these sorts of tactics still exist in american police forces given the presence of not just social media but media in general, given the presence of changes in leadership including minneapolis and promises to change practices in u.s. police forces? guest: it does. inherently it surprises me. but given what we continue to see it doesn't. you would think with cameras, with the abundance of social media and the speed with which things go viral when people see a camera you would think it changes their attitudes but instead we see just the opposite. we saw the police officer in minneapolis knowingly keeping his knee on somebody's neck knowing the camera was pointed.

that's the scariest thing that people's behavior doesn't change knowing that they're being watched, knowing that everyone can see what they're doing. host: of course in the days after the officers were fired the particular officer has been arrested and charged with third degree murder second degree manslaughter. initially what sort of message do you think that sends to the public? >> well, i think the firing i think was quick and smart. i think they needed to be fired. all the evidence was in the video. in terms of prosecution, i think the d.a. made a mistake by coming out and saying that there wasn't enough evidence. it looked political. i will say people in minneapolis and people around the country are going to hold the people in minneapolis and police departments and elected officials all over the country responsible. there's not going to be a continued effort to cover these

things up and normalize it. people are demanding a change and i think the country is listening. host: the "wall street journal" writinging this morning about the federal involvement. the headlines task force has echos of rodney king. mr. bar oversaw the department's response to the videotaped police beating of rodney king that led to the los angeles riots in 1992 when mr. barr was attorney general under george hb wush. how confident are you that attorney general bar the u.s. justice department can handle the case of george floyd and prosecute it to its fullest? guest: sadly i'm not confidbt in attorney general barr at all

after his response to the mueller report and his manipulation of that evidence, that report, and just his rhetoric overall. i have zero confidence in him. which is sad because the department of justice isn't a personal attorney for the president, they're the attorney for the people. i have no confidence that they will not only protect black lives but lives across the country. host: talking about the unrest and the reaction to the george floyd killing and racial relations in the u.s. the numbers are on your screen. let's talk about another case the aubrey shooting case in georgia which happened earlier in the year but just made known in march headline in the nbc

news says d.o.j. is considering possible federal hate crime charges in the arbri shooting. what do you see as the difference between that and the george floyd case given the suspects involved? >> well i think the clear differs is one is a state actor in the george floyd case versus in the aubrey case which was civilian but we still see a common thread through both. in the aubrey case you had those individuals hunt down mr. aubrey and murder him. and on the floyd case you have very similar situation where an officer just inhumanely took the life of someone on camera and -- i do have to always point to those two minutes and 28 seconds when mr. floyd had gone limp. he was already unconscious and the officer continued to put his knee on his throat taking away any oxygen.

ost: what sort of police modifications or reform needs to come out of these recent cases? >> i have to say i think one of the thing that is d.c. has done which has been successful and one of the reasons growing up i didn't inherently have a fear of police was most d.c. police are from the area. they're from here. they're our neighbors, they're people we see every day at restaurants. and so there's a sense of belonging. there's a sense of shared community. i think a lot of police districts need to get back to that. if you look at new york for example, i think someone like only one in seven new york police department police work in one of five burows, that's problematic because you need people policing areas where they live. there needs to be a shared interest there. so i think that's one of the first steps that police can

take. host: you said you don't have a fear of police growing up in washington, d.c. area. let me ask you about a piece published that says the there is one epidemic we may never find a vaccine for fear of black men in public spaces. he writes in this opinion piece that in terms of the videos that have been out there, i don't look at many of these any more because they're so soul crushing. all these have depressing familiarity. it's part of the racism of our everyday lives. why do you suppose that black men that white america according to his column has that fear of black men? guest: part of it is stereotyping. historical stereo typing. you look at movies like birth of the nation played in the oval office 60, 70 years ago there's always been a characterization of african

americans, especially african american men as aggressive, oversexualized. and so those stereo types have stuck. and now what we're dealing with oving forward is black men their skin color being weaponized. we're seeing that in just the long litany of videos of african americans being shot. but it has a psychological effect as well. i think of when i'm walking through the city if there is a white woman in front of me ten feet in front of me, i make a very conscious decision to slow down so that i'm far enough behind her or speed up to walk ahead of her because of that just inherent fear that i could be accused of something that she'll think i'm following her. it's things like that. last night i had to put on -- when i put on a sweat shirt i was very cognizant that i was dressed in all black and that

could seem men asing so i needed to make sure that i had color on so that it's more friendly, more welcoming. things like that that are everyday, everyminute thoughts that are survival instincts that i don't think fellow americans who are white consider. host: you mentioned your folks were part of the first integrated high school in d.c. how early do you recall your mom or dad saying to you giving you guidance on being in public and the potential ramifications of that? guest: i would imagine four, five. as soon as i could begin comprehending and begin being able to participate kind of in the things going around, i was told when you go into a store don't pick things up because you could be accused of stealing. if the police ever stop you make sure to take your hands out of the pockets slowly,

calmly, don't flinch. and it wasn't so that i wouldn't get in trouble. it's so that i would get home, so that i could make it home. and one of the things now that i'm of age where my friends are having kids, where people are getting married, it never hit me and it never hit a lot of my friends that we would still be having those conversations, that we would still be sending kids out wondering whether they were going to come home at the end of the night. host: let's get to our callers. michael star hopkins. we go first to brad independent line. , a er: i am a christian veteran, and an african american. i just call things as i see them. a protest is not looting. a protest is not taking over a city street.

protest is not trying to intimidate or be a predator trying to create a reaction from the police department. let them know what you're protesting about. i come -- christians are supposed to forgive 7570 a day. how are these guys protesting something that happened 200 years ago? you have problems in the community because you have bad actors and the people of the community don't call those bad actors out. you're a house of jesus or you're a house of satan. host: michael. guest: wing we need to make a distinction between the people who are protesting and the people who are rioting. i was in the protest in d.c. on saturday in front of the white house that got really scary

really edgy quickly. and during the day there were protesters there young people, families, kids. they were making their voices heard and they were doing so peacefully and were not looting, rioting, breaking things. and at night things changed. people who weren't there during the day showed up. and those were the people who you see dressed in tactical gear, who are breaking things. and i think that there's been kind of a disservice done to what's been going on because there are rioters. but those people in my opinion seem to be coming from outside influences. those aren't the people who are there marching, chanting, asking, begging for their humanity. these people seem to have another agenda and are coming for ulterior motives. host: so when those people showed up did you make a

conscious decision to get out of there? guest: i want to stay as long as i could because i'm covering this, i want to know what's going on being able to speak to it from a first person perspective but after a certain point i did have to leave. there were a lot of explosions, dumpsters being set on fire, the police were moving forward and shooting rubber bullets. so at that point. host: here's john on the republican line in pennsylvania. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i believe that we should be having the conversation about race that has been advocated for many years actually. but it has to be based on an open, truthful, fact-based discussion. now, i do believe that it was appropriate for the policemen to be charged with murder. he's been charged and that's

going to play out. but very few people know that according to f.b.i. statistics black males make up 6.5% of the population but commit over 50% of the homicides or murders. also according to f.b.i. statistics, about 90% of the interracial violence is black on white, not white on black. a person you should have as a guest is heather mcdonald she's a yale educated lawyer and city journal. host: i'll let you go there. heather mcdonald has been on our program multiple times. michael star hopkins your thoughts. guest: i want to touch on the statistics for a second. when you talk about the high crime rate among african americans, let's remember how historically we got there.

when you take a group of people and give them poor education, you give them no opportunities, and then put them in a condensed area, there's certainly going to be crime. when you throw overpolicing into that and put a police force that is primarily in poor neighborhoods and specifically looking to break up crime in those neighborhoods, you're going to even raise that rate higher. in terms of the interracial crime rate you said -- i don't know specifically what that speaks to but what i will say is that as a former public defender in manhattan you can make statistics say anything and when you look at the rate of crime among african americans there are very specific historical reasons why there are those rates. and when you look at the crime rate among white on white and black on black those statistics fall apart very quickly. host: so going back to your comments earlier about your

observation on the washington protests on saturday i believe ou said, these outside influences that you observed coming in could they be taking advantage of that situation and usic it sort of an acsell rant to their needs not only in d.c. but other areas? guest: absolutely. that's absolutely what it appeared to be. they were well -- they had planned, they were able to communicate with each other. we would see the police coming in to break up things and then you would start to see these people in tactical gear move out kind of spread out and start to hit areas where they knew the police weren't there. and it wasn't -- these weren't people with signs. these weren't the people who were in shorts and a t-shirt just from the community. these people were prepared. and that i think that was the scary part because there was a

clear distinction among who was there to make their voices heard and who was there to cause anarchy. and i think at its most basic level that's what some of these people were there to do. host: we'll go to steven from louisville. caller: good morning. i want odd to ask you a question. were you at the protest in louisville? is that where you were the other day? i live in louisville myself and when you said paint balls or you were talking about -- you know what i'm talking about when they were shooting those balls or something that's what they were using here. and i didn't know if that's where you were when you were referring to being at the protests the other day or not. i did want to just add my two cents. i keep listening to all these people this morning, some cooks calling in about swars and we need a civil war and all of this. i think no we don't knee a war.

we've had enough war as it is. i think we've had it up to here with war right now. what we need is reform. we need -- also, i sympathize with people that talk about a resistance movement but i personally don't agree with the resistance because i don't think it goes far enough. we need a transdental movement. i say we probably need a drive or move party to rival the coffee party and the tea party quite frankly right now. and quite frankly it doesn't help matters much when we have the leader of the free worled equating champions of social justice with domestic terrorists back in 2017 during the charlottesville tragedy. host: we'll let you go there and hear from michael. guest: i think one of the biggest problems is a vacuum of leadership.

normally in times of tragedy our president comes before the country to ease those tensions. we saw that with bill clinton 1992 after the oklahoma city bombing. we saw that with george w. bush after 9/11. barack obama after the shootings and the murders in south carolina. we're not seeing that now from our president. and i think that is causing fear and consternation among the american public. but it's also allowing people to seize on that lack of leadership and i think that's where you're seeing some of these rioters, some of these anarkists come in. when there's no one to come before the country and ease those tensions, i think people just kind of freeze. i think right now we're seeing what's already a country that's very divided among racial lines, among partisan lines, become even more divided. so i think until we have some leadership, someone -- whether it's the president, whether

people are calling on barack obama to come forward and make a public statement, not just one in writing but to really speak to the country, i think we're going to see these things. host: you're a democratic strategist you worked for the obama campaign. what do you think the presumptive democratic nominee joe biden needs to say at this moment, needs to do at this moment? guest: it's hard for me because there's the political consultant side who says joe biden should do exactly what he's doing now and let trump continue to sow cords of division, because electoral it's good. we're watching biden's numbers go up and up. but as an american, as a black country, we this tensions. er the

and i think joe biden needs to come out and talk about the tragedy that he's seen in his own life, whether the death of his kids and his wife when he got ready to tensions. and i think joe biden needs to come out and talk about resume the senate or whether it's the death of bow biden a couple years ago. i think he needs to share that common tragedy. i think that's something that has worked for him before. i think americans want to feel connected to something and know that someone feels their pain. i think joe biden's always been really good at showing empathy. so moving forward if he is going to make a big speech, do the thing that politicians do, i think that's the message he should touch on. >> next up, from milwaukee. caller: i just want to say i'm very disturbed to say how a lot of callers tend to call in and just denounce the fact that there is racism, systemically occurring in this country. i live in milwaukee, wisconsin one of the most hyper segregated cities in the nation. in 2016 we had what they called the uprising in sherman park that stemmed through a police

shooting. but what a lot of people don't understand is that the police shootings are just a match that lights the fire. this is a system of 400 plus years of racism that has this profound lack of economic opportunity, the 13th amendment. that alone of itself is modern slavery. and with guns, drugs, hatred, you have destruction of self-and community. the high school i went to was segregated. white people in the front, black people in the back. the lutch tables were like this. the whole city. nobody's telling us to do this but it's a subconscious remnants ofert past that we're living. and we know what the problems are. why we have this disparity but where's the change? i can't understand why if i drive down one street in a white community full of business and people jogging with their children and living in this like nostalgic world with no fear, and i go into the

black community and it's sheer dest tuition, blight, crime, drugs, violence. i mean it makes no sense to me. this is what people are mad about. we're frustrated. we get empty promises. we don't have solutions. people want solutions and that's my comment. host: ok. michael. guest: the caller hit the nail on the head. people are desperate. there's a lack of opportunity, there's a lack of hope. when you look at the storm that's occurred, we had coronavirus hit and so which disproportionately affect it had african american community because of the systemic issues we talked about today. we have that hit and then combine that with the high unemployment rate now, combine that with the fact that people still haven't gotten stimulus checks, people still haven't gten access to ppp money. and then you have the aubrey case back-to-back with the george floyd case. it's the perfect storm. and so i think what you're

seeing now is, one, people being fed up, people demanding to be heard. but also because people are at home, schools are out, summertime. people don't have to be at work as much on a monday morning so they can go out and protest on a sunday. and the like. i think this is just the perfect storm. and sometimes things happen for a reason. we have to hit these apexes so that we can really be forced to deal with them. i think that's where we are today. because we're dealing with a country that has not wanted to deal with its race relation issues, not wanted to have uncomfortable conversations about why there is ab inherent fear of black men. so now we're going to be forced to have that conversation. we're all home, we don't have anywhere to go, and whether we like it or not this is a conversation that's going to have to be had. host: kelly in west virginia.

good morning. caller: good morning c-span. i just wand to make the comment first of all i think the minnesota leadership did things wrong to begin with. i think that he should have been arrested for murder right off the bat and that would have calmed things down. but my statement is that -- and the reason you see so many protesters of every race out there is no american citizen should be treated that way. none whatsoever. and i think that a lot of the police shows that we see on tv are stoking this because of the way that the police treat people. thank you. host: ok. thank you. guest: i just want to say i think that caller touched on something also. when you -- when we give police all of this militerized

clothing, all the these militerized weapons, when withway dress them up like they're gi joe they start to act like it. we also need to talk about why we're militerizing local police. we should be able to tell the difference between the louisville police and the f.b.i. and a lot of these protests you can't. when you're walking down the street and as a black man i get pulled over a lot. let's be honest about it. and when i get pulled over and a cop walks up to my window there's no reason why that officer should have tactical gear on, why they should have assault weapons with them. that i think that is bad for the psyche of the country because it scarce the people they're supposed to be policing and it shows the citizenry that the police are scared of them as well. i heard a commentator the other night on another network say that the police should be dressed up like they live in may bri not like they're going

off to fallujaha. host: michael star hopkins. democratic strattist and you can follow his podcast available on spot fi and apple podcasts. thank you for being with us this morning. guest: thank you for having me. everybody stay safe. host: we'll get another perspective next from armstrong williams with us. later the government accountability office's john dicken will be here talking about a new report on problems within w infection prevention and control at nursing homes even before the outbreak of covid-19. >> companies when they find

terrorist content they will tag so that others don't copy it. and there's now much greater cooperation than we had even two years ago. but there's still a tremendous amount that needs to be done. he pressure needs to be there. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from the presidential primaries during the impeachment process. and now the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of c-span's public affairs programming on television on line or listen on our free radio app and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily "washington journal" program or through our social media feed. c-span, created by america's

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the president from public affairs available now in paperback and e book. presents biographies of every president organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst and features perspectives into the lives of our nation's chief executives and leadership styles. visit our website. c-span.org/the presidents. to learn more and order your copy today. wherever books and e books are sold. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we're joined next by armstrong williams, longtime radio tv talk show host author and commentator mr. williams thanks for being with us here on "washington journal" this morning. guest: good morning and thank you so much for having me. host: we started our segment last hour with michael hopkins saying that we asked both on to

talk about the reaction last week to the death of george floyd at the hands of the minneapolis police but as the protests have grown, the civil unrest has grown and rioting. we want to get your reaction overall to what we've seen particularly in the last three ys over the weekend across the country. guest: the beauty of america is our right to protest in a very peaceful way. and the majority of the protesters are very peaceful. they had the moral high ground no different than what happened when you had the terrorist attacks on the church in charleston. and members of that community even though they thought there would be looting and burning and vandalism and my cousin was one of those killed for no reason at all, the community kept the moral high ground and it galvanized the world. and so what you're seeing in places across the country are people who have the moral high

ground but it has been hijacked. they're no different than the law enforcement officers that i consider to be their behavior to be no more than thugry the way george floyd was killed for no reason at all and others just stood around and did nothing as if it was something that they were accustomed to even though the cameras were rolling. you have to asked yourself what happens to these few bad apples that were causing the reaction in such a way to not show any humanity. it's also a lack of humanity to burn, loot, destroy, burn precincts and to disrupt where people have a larger message. this has gone on for so long. it just did not start on the clock of president trump. it happened during president obama, bush, and clinton. we always have these situations. baltimore's burned, d.c. was burned a long time ago, and just continues. and why this happens, and these thugs should be taken into custody and booked and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

there's just no place and they're not representative of the majority of people who want to find a peaceful solution and say to law enforcement we cannot tolerate this any more. you've got to respect humanity and you cannot treat people as if their lives have no value. host: what do you think the responsibility is those you talk about had the moral high ground the movement has been high jacked. how do the folks regain that moral high ground? guest: you're not going to lose the moral high ground when you watch that video of what happened to george floyd. no matter what you may think about law enforcement and the communities and people protesting you cannot see that -- i don't know if many people were able to watch the entire nine or ten minutes to see that kind of cruelty. i think people were shocked to see something like that. and it's unfortunate that there are those who have their own agenda and i can't say whether they're being paid for by someone.

i don't get caught up in conspiracy theories. i don't know what it is that causes people to do further damage and harm to communities already suffering through the pandemic and covid-19 and yet i see these people. so what do i have to do with this? i believe you destroy my life i'm already suffering i'm not getting ppe money, i've got employee that is need to be employed and yet you're showing disrespect. you're going to always have this. and i also don't think the answer is telling law enforcement in minnesota and other places to stand down. i so respect it had mayor of atlanta who just stood up and said she was outraged there's no place for this, this is unacceptable. you're destroying the cause. we have to have more mayors like the mayor of atlanta to stand up and take the moral highground and they can this back away from this thugish behavior. host: our guest, armstrong williams pods cast. in terms of the police and in

particular the george floyd incident you mention it had term bad apples it's been mentioned by the national security advisor of president trump over the weekend. do you think that the police incidents, the racial incidents in the country are examples of bad apples in police forces or is there a broader systemic issue among police forces? guest: both. for me personally i have been stopped 4:00 a.m. going to the gym driving, i've been stopped in the deep south driving. i've never had a bad experience with law enforcement. i've only seen the best of law enforcement in my entire life of dealing with them. and i find that 95% of law enforcement are just that way. our offices are literally next door to capitol hill police and i know many people in the washington, d.c. metropolitan police department and they comport themselves well they care sometimes we find ourselves on the weekend at our

favorite breakfast place at eastern marked we speak with each other and show each other respect. i can tell you they too are just ashamed and embarrassed and humiliated what they see in the law enforcement and what they will tell you is what happens is that if someone like this, you ask yourself how is it that someone like him can have 17 infractions and continue to be promoted and move through the ranks. the reason why is no different than you ask why is it sometimes in the catholic church these priests continue their abuse of these little boys. the reason is you cannot share their record. the person that gets them at the next parish have no idea of what their past records were. that needs to change. if you have that kind of behavior it needs to be shared not only with the police department thinking about hiring them because you need to make a decision. you should be slow to hire these law enforcement officers because something else we don't talk about many of them are badly damaged. they come from broken homes,

abusive fathers and some get into law enforcement just to continue the work out their own psychology with what you've seen and the situation with george floyd. so the issue is they should be slow to hire but quick to fire immediately when you see this kind of behavior you should not pass this law enforcement officer to another precinct where they can harm kill and destroy lives. host: our guest armstrong williams. the u.s. house coming in briefly at 9:00 for a proforma session. the phone lines the numbers are on your screen. we'll go to our democrat's line first in maryland. caller: how are you doing today? host: fine thank you. caller: basically a couple things. one thing about this policeman,

what he did was he conducted a form of extreme torture. it wasn't just murder. nine minutes of torture and he knew people were watching. he knew it was caught on film. he didn't care because he knew there was a great probability that down the road the type of guy in new york or all these other places, even the guy who shot brown, said that he would get lots of money from at right people to defend themselves and he would eventually walk out. that's the frustration part of it is that they know that they're going to say, ok, let's take four or five years to determine given enough time for these people to forget about what this man has done and he'll walk out. the f african americans have been dealing with this kind of stuff for 400 years of rep tishes negative reinforcement. imagine that happening to our counterpart. 400 years of always negative

reinforcement of who what and how you are. how god created you. not just here in america. look at brazil and other places where you have people formerly from africa brought over as slafse. host: we'll get a response from armstrong williams. guest: i agreed with him in his opening seconds but he lost me on the at right. it's not the alt right that treat people like that. we so want to malign the left, we want to malign the right, democrats and republicans. it's about right an wrong. it's about moral. the fact is the sments allowed him to stay on the police force. and you could only imagine if the police force, if it allows you to stay on the force and you get away with what happened to him and the native americans similar situation, you begin to believe your behavior is ok so

you become an enabler and thaffers obvious when his colleagues were standing around him watching him do. they had no humanity. they looked in their eyes they were just as guilty as he was. so the bottom line what creates this kind of attitude and this kind of behavior when you see a person first-hand and it's being recorded and you do absolutely nothing. i'm not joust rageds over the fact that george floyd died because he was black. i'm outraged that he died because he was a human being. when he dies a part of us dies also. i could care less about the officer's race. i care about his behavior, his attitude towards his human being that could have been me or anybody else. i think it'size to understand the narrative when it's black and white. and the caller is right there's a history of this happening to american blacks and this should not happen. you ask yourself would it have been different had it been someone who happened to be

caucasian and would he have behaved differently? irtsdze not about race it's more about law enforcement and what they believe and what they're allowed to get away with. but i hope at some point that we become outraged over the fact that a human being lost his life and not the race of the person that caused him to die and not allowed him to live the to fulfill the promises that he and his family had for his life. host: upper marlbror. maryland. caller: good morning, c-span and good morning mr. armstrong. you andry not total strangers. god bless cnn and for an opportunity -- c-span and for an opportunity to speak out. i am a nearly 83-year-old totally blind i'm only blind physically not in the ways that count. i'm a fully ordained minister. i was brought in to activism by the blood of emity til so i've een here a little while.

lot of moving parts. america has to understand that it is perfectedly capable of overcoming -- we are not going to allow another execution and that's precisely what it was to take place under the full view of a horrified america under the supervision of a white house that's smelling increasingly like a an out house. we have an opportunity to throw ll the garbage out the window. an election is coming. let's not bother about the ultitude of reasons. we have an opportunity to do what a cowardly emass clated

republican senate could not do. let's impeach the unworthy person in the white house at the polls. host: gloria in maryland. armstrong williams, your response. guest: you know, the truth be told if president trump were not in the white house the situation would be no different. as i said it happened on all the watches of the president of united states. if you think that you want to blame this on president trump or past presidents or congress and all of a sudden this problem goes away it's much deeper. it's a problem we must face and deal with. how we view and how we treat our fellow man, even when no one else is watching. it's all about how we rear and teach our children and what they see we do is exactly what they become. and we must value humanity not because of what humanity looks like but because we're all

created in the eyes of god. we may make different choices, grow up in different circumstances but just because someone has wealth or poverty doesn't mean they have character. character is developed over how you treat people, how you live, and the good that you do and the life and time it's given you. while it's easy to bring politicians into this, obviously the politicians cannot resolve this issue for us. we've got to reawaken the sleeping giant which is the american people. and when you see protesters speaking out not because of the color of their skib but the outrage of how we continued to destroy humanity then and only then will politicians follow as we lead them. host: president trump tweeting just moiments ago, just two things november 3rd tweeting the election date. here we are about five months from the election. how do you think the president's chances for reelection have changed given the covid pandemic and the

recent unrest and violence in u.s. cities? guest: we're so focused on what's going to happen in this election, whether it's the president is been impacted by joe biden, we remember in 2016 when the press told us he did not have a snow ball's chance of winning the white house. joe biden, we know far less than we think we know. let the people decide. the people will decide whether donald trump is deserving of another four year or whether they want to change with joe biden. whatever that decision is, at the end of the day when that election is over that person becomes my president of the united states and will remain my president of the united states. this is a republic. i respect it and let the will of the people decide. i think the president is doing the best he can. i think he cares about this country. obviously he's frustrated by covid-19. i think he's frustrate bid the riots. he doesn't always say the right things, doesn't always tweet the right things.

i wish he had more discipline and self-restraint. but i never want to take away from the fact that i don't believe he cares. he cares about what happens to this country. when he talks about loot and shooting but those looters looked like many americans they were not necessarily americans who happened to be black. i think the issue is the frustration of people who take it to another level, who want to breach the white house security gate. i think sometimes you have to have law and order in place. you cannot just stand down. i wish it were not coming from the president of the united states. i wish the city mayors and governors would stand up and take a strong stand to say we're not going to tolerate this kind of behavior. and if you conduct this kind of behavior it comes with consequences. host: we'll go to ray in north carolina. what's the name of your town? fuqua, north carolina. host: go ahead. caller: i just want to mention and i think armstrong is amazing.

that was very descriptive everything that he has said. at first i was thinking of just how trump is being blamed for so many things that it's obvious he had nothing to do with. and not only in this matter but in many matters we're ignoring the local, the state, and the federal folks involved in this and i can't help but think that those are democrats often in those positions. even the attorney generals, the people who enforce the laws, the people who set the tones are the leaders. we're going to listen to our local leaders but more importantly we have to stop ghting it seems that we're fighting religion, we fight morality, every time i turn on the tv there's all kinds of

killings and the language is horrendous. i have a ten-year-old grandson and an eight-year-old grandson and finding something decent to watch is hard. in today's culture. just very quickly, russia was proven to want to create discord in our country. i don't think they really cared who won whether it was hillary or trump. they love this. our enemies love when we are divided like this. host: armstrong williams. guest: you know, i respect everyone's opinion. we all get to where we are by experiences and the thing that is have shaped us. and i do think that we're too dwinded on the left and the right but we're -- divided on the left and the right but we're fighting something we've we all get never seen before. in the midst of covid-19 we

said that the country would be shut down. people were self-quarantined and they found something that was significant where they were saying i'm no longer allowing myself to be locked down because i've got to step out and fight for humanity. if i get sick or even if i die. in that strength we have to find unity. we've got to see that we have far more in common not just the covid virus now we're talking about the dissidents and the rioting in america. sometimes we don't want to mention because it's not polite society to say that god is trying to tell us something, that maybe there's a deeper meaning to this, maybe there's a spiritual illness that we need to take a closer look at. what i've found in my life with me is that the hardest work that i have to do is 24 hours a day working on myself. it's always easier to look at somebody else's faults and what somebody else is not doing and blame them but i find when i

work on armstrong williams 24 hours a day something amazing happens. automatically the world improves around me especially me, armstrong wmings. while you criticize and do whatever you do don't forget we all need to work a little bit on making ourselves better to build greater part of this humanity. host: let me ask you about the ash bri case february 23rd in the response of the district attorney. initially to that. this is what their decision not to prosecute initially they said we do not -- arrest. we do not see the grounds for arresting any of the three parties. it appears they were following in pursuit of a burglary suspect with solid first-hand probable cause in their neighborhood and telling him to stop. it appears their intent was to stop and hold this criminal suspect until law enforcement arrived. under georgia law this is perfectly legal. obviously that's changed. there have been three arrests

in that case. what do you think that the actions of those, the alleged actions of those individuals says about -- and obviously two of them had an affiliation previously with the police department. what does it say about broader american society in terms of their watching people like this and taking police action into their own hands? guest: a very good observation. it's the old boys network and we all have it. we have relationships that no matter what we do, whether it's killing somebody or killing a crime, you have people in the system that will cover for you and protect you because they put their friendship and relationship above the rule of law. and when you do this it has deaf stating consequences. the d.a., prosecutor -- and we don't talk about enough how unevenhanded prosecutors are and how they're responsible for a lot of the chaos that we see today because they pick and choose whom they want to prosecute. and when they prosecute them it's never the crime that

they're being accused of. there needs to be an overall hah of this system. to me they're culprits in this too because mcmichael never had the authority to carry a gun, to arrest anyone. he lost that authority because never renewed his livesance and he had other infractions which caused him to be suspended. obviously this guy who was taping and he had it. he wasn't taping it for a good reason. they assumed this would go away but it didn't because his family did not tolerate this injustice and they cried long enough the media, it blazed around the world. even if you look at what happened in central park with amy christian and look at what happened with -- amy cooper and christian cooper her trying to blame him saying she was being threatened.

but video technology has brought this to light. if we did not have the technology we would not have known whether christian cooper was telling the truth or not. even ash bri. even with the videotape rolling oftenentitlements they still don't care. iteu it goes back to what the baseball tells us whatever is done in the darkness will come to light and the light is on in terms of technology and you can no longer get away with this behavior framing people accusing them of crime and making these allegations without your being held accountable. and this is a good thing i would say. host: comment at twitter from shawn. how does rioting and looting bring justice for george floyd? caller: thank you for taking my call. good morning mr. williams. i have a positive comment to make. i am proud of my community for the protests they held yesterday as the police

department marched with the protesters. i would like to know where the mayors and governors of this cities, the hiding behind their security blankets or on tv. they should have been out supporting the protesters like my community did that shows how leadership is done. guest: i saw a congresswoman, may have been columbus, ohio, where she was out marching. she was maced just like all the other protesters. i'm not going to judge them for not being out protesting because there's so many things that are on their plates that they're navigating, they're dealing with. i think they should be on the front line but i'm not going to come to the conclusion that they do not care. host: armstrong williams, we asked michael star parker this question as well. the question about the cnn piece by john blake in last week on cnn the headline of his

piece, there's one epidemic we may never find a vaccine for. fear of black men in public spaces. what's your personal experience of that and why do you think that there is this fear of white some white men some hites in general of black men? guest: listen, it's an optic. if you look at the media if you look at the movies, if you look at entertainment with what is stereo typical of what it means to be if you look at the a blac relation to what they are. you never see the stereo types of people like somebody who is a pediatric neuro surgeon. you don't see enough of those stories like a robert smith who went to moorehouse college and gave a commencement address and decided with the graduating class he was going to underwrite everyone's college education. those stories are not sexy and they're not doing it because they're black, they're doing it

because they carde, they're brilliant, bright and prepared for life. people don't commit crimes because of the color of their skin. they commit crime because of the behavior and trauma they've experienced in their lives. when you read the story about what happened in central park between amy and between christian a white woman and black man. no, it was a woman who was very man iptive and who lied, and a mab who was very eloquent. you could tell that he had no mallice in his heart. he even asked the people, i saw him where they were trying to get him to criticize and cry racism. he said no i forgive her. what is the difference if she's going to call the cops on me and i could have lost my life and you're threatening her and threatening to destroy her way of life then i'm no different. those are the kind of examples that we need to have in the world. and media doesn't always do the best job they reinforce these stories. but tell good news. the bible tells us if there's

something good you should tell that story also. so they are just as responsible for everybody else as to why that narrative continues to exist. host: we appreciate you coming in. the u.s. house is coming on for a brief proforma session. we'll go live coverage here on c-span.