susan: the full title is "imperfect union: how jessie and john fremont mapped the west, invented celebrity and helped cause the civil war." thanks for the hour. steve: glad to be here. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] >> all q&a programs are available at our website or as a podcast at c-span.org. >> coming up next, look into racial disparity in the u.s.. we first hear from the recent op-ed which looks at income inequality in the u.s. and ways to address it. then we speak with kristin clark, president and executive

director of the lawyers committee for civil rights under law. she will talk about efforts to end racial injustice and advance criminal justice reform. "washington journal" ♪ this good morning on monday, june 16. we begin with the latest on this coronavirus pandemic -- according to johns hopkins, over 2 million confirmed cases in the united states and over 115,000 deaths. we start with your thoughts on whether or not he would support if you seen shutdown a spike continue. if you support the idea, to a 2-748-8000. also text or put your comments c-spanwj. at

good morning. "the new york times" had this story posted online. "coronavirus cases spark across sun belt as the economy lurches into motion. arizona, texas, florida, reporting their highest numbers yet. as of saturday, coronavirus numbers were climbing in 22 states amid reopening. governor,mo, new york one a press conference and guidelinesollowing on social distancing, masks, and other guidelines. [video clip] governor cuomo: we are getting reports of social distancing being violated, people not wearing masks. we've gotten 25,000 complaints to the state of businesses that are in violation of the

reopening plan. 25,000 complaints. we have never received more complaints in a shorter period time. 25,000. just think about that. what is alarming about the 25,000 is the volume, but it also shows how smart people are and how offended people are that -- calling and complaining. this is a time in history we have never seen before. think about how concerned new yorkers are, not just to see the violations, but then to care enough to come back and write a letter or call, registering the complaint. you know why, because they are afraid for themselves. they walk past the business. they see the business is

violating the rules and they are saying my health is jeopardized. my health. that is why they are complaining. 25,000. especially at bars and restaurants. , this is a situation and these are the facts. well, they are not being ethical, moral, good new yorkers -- great. they are also violating the law. this is a question of violating the law. not just feel guilty. you are violating the law. this is a very serious situation and i want to make sure everybody knows the consequences here. a bar or restaurant that is violating these rules can lose their liquor license. the new york governor yesterday. the headline in "the new york daily news" governor cuomo

threatens to reverse reopening amid violations. we turn to these -- support or oppose a shutout. rob, boca raton, florida. you support the idea. why? what is happening where you have? caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. it is all over the news that florida and palm beach county is on the rise. i just said to my neighbors yesterday, older people, that we have to be even more cautious now that the numbers are rising as we have been cautious along as compared to a month or two ago. you have to be even more vigilant, taking care, doing all the precautions, wearing masks, washing hands. it just occurred to me. by the way, i love the way that you moderate. you do a chap. host: york.

you.r: do i --host: thank caller: thank you for that. we have to take even more precautions. i was going to say this covid perfect thing for this president to use too divide us. -- president to use to divide us. it sounds strange, but here we have another controversy where there should be no controversy, and the president is able to make the silliest controversy over whether not to use a mask and these types of issues. anything to distract us from who , from his incompetence, from his inability to discuss issues in a detailed, intelligent manner.

he distracts us constantly from who he is. i was thinking over the weekend, he is a guy -- in this business where he could not function at the west point where he was using his secondhand -- this is a man with extreme nervousness. that is where he cannot lift a glass. host: tie this back to what we are talking about -- support or oppose a another shutdown. caller: this is a man that is so ashamed of himself that he uses things like the covid virus to distract us from who he is. host: ok. heard that point, rob. here is a headline -- with 2581 new coronavirus cases, florida hit a record high for the third day in a row. todd, brentwood, california. you oppose shutting down again. why do you say that? to --

caller: because we should not have shut down in the first place. i am watching c-span, it is like watching cnn. you started by reading "the new york times" you do that every day. "new york times and washington post. you know the new york times hates donald trump, they are not objective. how can you pass off something -- like "therump new york times" to balance "the new york times" you would have to go to breitbart. white hue resort to "the new york times" daily? host: we read a variety of papers. the washington examiner" which is continued -- considered conservative, "washington post,"

this is what washington insiders are reading. we're not promoting them. we let you know what others are reading. you can disagree with it and voice your opinion. "the washington post" this morning on the economy -- the pandemic might hobble the economy. todd saying he disagrees with the shutdown in the first place. ripples from downturns will affect businesses big and small. christopher in obama. you support shutting down again. why? what is happening? yes, where i live in oklahoma, we have had an increase in cases. --urday, we had an increase a few hundred and 25 cases or something. where i live, no one wears masks, no one wears gloves. everyone pretty much just acts

like it is normal. i don't know. the tourist attraction where i live -- always people coming and not lane masks or gloves. videos on youtube of people coming here from texas and louisiana and people that , and they areals at the lake, and no one is wearing any of that stuff. host: christopher, what you think about the president holding a rally in oklahoma? his firstin-person -- in-person rally in months. caller: i think donald trump is psychotic. host: this is a headline from "the tulsa world news" tulsa health director which is the president would postpone the rally as local covid-19 cases surge.

todd, marino valley, california. good morning to you. share your thoughts with us. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. aboutller that complained c-span not being fair -- that is uncalled for. there should not have been any economic shutdowns to begin with because people are out of work long enough, they can become andless, starved, and die, right, turn into a war, recession. all the businesses should remain open as employees wear face , and checkgloves customers temperatures when they come in the door. with something like a large sporting event or concert -- same thing, just have it spaced out. host: todd, would you pay more

for that ticket to attend the sporting event if they have to sell less tickets to space people out? wouldn't,personally because i like to watch football at home because it is free and clear. i personally wouldn't, but that is just me. host: mike in south carolina. good morning. what is happening in south carolina? caller: well, i think we have experienced five straight days of the seven-day averages of new cases increasing, so i obviously would support continuation or increase in the shutdown. it is, to me, it is a public health issue, not a political issue. gets think the more it turned into a political issue, i

don't want my politicians "managing public health." i want the public health officials managing it, and in south carolina, our public health official says we are headed towards increases in both hospitalizations and in potentially deaths. , with thet think increase in taurus coming here to the hilton head area -- tourists coming here to the hilton head area that we really are smart insane continue the continue-- in saying the shutdown because businesses are not operating safely. host: what about the economic argument, mike? take a look at "the washington post" -- more than $65 trillion that in the first half of the year.

the pandemic punched a hole in the u.s. economy that will measure $800 billion in the second quarter alone. the shortfalls reflected in tens of millions of newly unemployed workers cutting back on purchases. mike? caller: i don't think we manage the financial issue and the financial destruction by, sort of, damaging the public health. and i understand the financial issue very strongly. at the same time, i just don't see that we can let the public health concerns go by the potentially we can get the financial aspects back into the shape, and it is going to take a long time for that to occur. host: ok. kudlow,isten to larry

the chief economic advisor on " fox news sunday morning futures" and what he had to say about the economy. larry kudlow: i think the recovery mode. this is like an act of nature, a bad hurricane or a terrible snowstorm. it will pass. it hurts. there is hard chip heartbreak as it hits, but when it passes, you get a v-shaped recovery. you recall the jobs numbers, plus 3 million last friday -- and you recall also unemployment insurance claims down 10 straight weeks. i noticed a column in the wall street journal reminding us how strong retail sales are going to be when they are published on tuesday. general merchandise, department stores, groceries, and so forth -- a lot of those indicators will be above year-ago levels.

the rescue package and the reopening of the economy as we transition, 80% of small businesses, according to the chamber of commerce, are reopening. new business applications are roaring. tremendous demand for housing and homes. i think we are off to the races and will be a very strong v-shaped recovery. host: larry kudlow with his production on the county. john in bridgewater, north jersey -- it is your turn. you oppose another shutdown. shutdown was for the and ashley. my house ineft three months. i am in my 70's. itid not like how they used against trump every day, every night. it was his fault. now, after the protests, it is

mask people everywhere -- nobody said anything about don't worry about it. that turned me off. i understand it is politically -- purely political. i do oppose a new shutdown bangse it is only used to trump. host: robert in aurora, indiana. what do you think this morning? i am for keeping it open. they did not worry about it when there was burning, looting, writing in the streets. they did not worry about it then. they are trying to defund the police. i wish the cops would take off for a month and let these idiots know how much we need them. stupidity that we have

people out here against president trump, who is trying to get this country straightened out. it is people's fault that do not pay attention to what is going on. host: robert in indiana approaching -- proposing another shutdown. texas reportsting its highest number of covid-19 hospitalizations in this outbreak. we are asking if you oppose or support another shutdown from where you live. from the "new york times" story, they say overall cases are steady, stuck on a hotel. every day, cases on the much lower than the numbers from a month ago. in cases, 800 people died each day. those numbers have died each day. shifting course from what had been downward

trajectory. glenn, you support another shutdown. what is happening there? caller: i think we need another one. this thing is like playing with dynamite, and you're not getting people,t, and these with the white castle and the eight-foot fence around it, all it did was give us a big bulletin board to hang on. we definitely need to do something and not let this thing get out of hand. eric in here he, pennsylvania. good morning -- here he, pennsylvania. you oppose the idea. caller: good morning. yes, i am extremely concerned about the spread, including for myself personally. i am self-employed. have no health insurance.

i will be 50 in a couple of months. i certainly do not want to get sick, and there is a lot we are not going to know about this for in terms of time longer-term effects on the human body and health. i favor a series of sanctions put in place,s -- strict requirements as a matter distancing,asks and , and holdor stuff individuals accountable to serious consequences they violate it. a complete shutdown is, at this point, quite possibly the breach of civil war. and who would do that type of policing that you are talking about -- tracking the following

people, finding them, putting them in jail -- i don't know int you are proposing, but what city or town would have the resources to do that? caller: well, it would be something less official and more community based. i personally would like to see from our american police, when there is a bad apple, i would like the other apples to let us know as the community rather than us having to find out the hard way far too late in the neighbors,oworkers, so forth, are going to have to be willing to look people they care about in the eye and say it is for your own good, mine, and everyone else's that you behave appropriately, and because you are not, i am going to snitch you out. we all have the ability to take photographs in an instant these days to document that people are in breach of the social contract shouldn't be too difficult.

the, it will be troublesome -- yes, it will be troublesome. but the reality of something like a public health crisis does require everyone, if they are truly patriot -- patriotic, to act in the best interest of the andtry, the greater good, wearing a mask, and putting that on par with something like tierney and filling up the state capital for the guns, that is absurd that that is the kind of plantor people choose to their flags when they accept seatbelts, child safety seats, motorcycle helmets, and all the other restraints against the so-called liberty. a mask during a global health crisis that is killing people in some serious numbers that you cannot ignore -- the county i am

in, eureka, pennsylvania, is a ,ransplanted -- erie pennsylvania, as a transplanted new york, our case count got to a little over a hundred in the last 12 weeks and in the first 6 -- last six weeks we have quadrupled that number. businesses are screaming and erieng for the governor to county a green rating while it is still yellow, and i am looking at the numbers skyrocketing and how they can -- i point out they can explain that to us. if the rules are as they are for how we go about the protocol for going into yellow, then red, then coming out -- everyone is just willing to ignore the numbers. the best thing we can do is hold individuals accountable. eric the question because of this headline in "the

wash -- the wall street journal," the unrest heightens the need to bolster public safety and from that article, "the wall street journal" reports that amid drops in sales taxes and other revenues, nearly 90% of cities expect revenue shortfalls. a national league of cities report estimated that as many as one million public-sector employees, including police, could face layoffs due to falling revenue. it goes on to say that states are expected to lose more than $200 billion in tax revenue compared with budget expectations before the pandemic. olean, new york. shutting down again. caller: maybe not a full shutdown, but at least a partial. we still need doctors, and

things like that. over 100,000 people have already died. trump.e is talking about he has no care for anyone's life. he has not tried to do anything about anyone's life being lost. dave in seattle. you support shutting down? caller: yes, i support shutting down. gun, isp is jumping the going to get us in trouble. here in washington state, i think jay inslee has been a very good job of keeping us shut down and we are improving here, we are getting better, but it has not been easy. host: what has the governor done? what are the restrictions in place? you can go places, but

you cannot go to the restaurant. you can get groceries, go to the park, but you cannot go to a restaurant or a bar or anything like that. host: and you think that is working. caller: the death rate is going down. host: what about gatherings? caller: churches cannot gather. you can do it by video or whatever, but no church gatherings. a lot of the parks are shut down for big gatherings. host: dave in seattle. jerry in portland, ohio. you oppose. good morning to you. caller: good morning, greg. -- gretta. beautiful as ever. we live out here in the country. had, there were only three in this county in march and april. they are better.

, i would like to see you all get someone on the program who can tell the people how they can do things to increase their immune system. the personal responsibility here for everyone -- increase your immune system so you don't have to worry about this stuff and don't fall into this fear mongering that goes on. the numbers so far have not been steady or whatever -- they are all over the place. one day you hear the experts say and the next day they say that. none of the experts agree anyhow. you have heard them on your program. i heard one guy saying there is no such thing as boosting your immune system with supplements. he is a doctor. he wants these drugs, pump more

drugs into this system. president trump, i remember when they had the roundtable and he asked the pharmaceutical experts are you working on a better vaccine for the regular flu. .ot one of them said a word not one of them said a word. if they ever come up with a vaccine for this thing, they are going to require everyone to get it, it will be unproven, and they won't know the side effects for years to come. i have not had the flu since i raisedhild because i was to take care of miami and system --be person responsible for yourself. wayne,adeleine in pennsylvania. good morning. what is happening in wayne, pennsylvania, that you would support another shutdown? caller: well, two things that i am very concerned about --

society in general is very stressed right now with not only what occurred in pennsylvania with the pandemic, and wayne is just outside of philadelphia, a very hot zone, for quite some time. we did successfully do the , but i wish that we searchrganize others of -- ourselves -- i am fortunate, i work in health care. i work every day through this, but young families, how are they supposed to jump back in and pay day care bills, health-care costs, and the possibility of restriction against? i wish the government would speak to the larger employees about money for paying the day ,are in an organized fashion

and modify their schedules. i think the pandemic, as bad as it is -- it is true, but watching the people do not have to sit on the expressway for hours of time, trying to get here, there -- i worry about those things and i wish the larger employees -- employers would come together and say we will ease you back into the workplace or protect them. the second thing is i really think also that universities and colleges also need to come take away thatst stress from the parents and say .veryone will have a gap year everyone here is chimed to make up their own rules about coming back on to college campuses, universities, this sort of thing. -- they are too unknown. these are kids that are 17. some of them go to school as

minors. they are kids. who is supposed to supervise all of these activities and, again, monitor what is going on? there is no vaccine, yet all of the schools are telling them they will come back. that is a lot of stress on the american families, and those two things are my main concern. host: you bring up returning to work -- larry kudlow yesterday was asked about unemployment benefits, the boost that was given by congress early on in this pandemic. it expires at the end of july. here is what he had to say. [video clip] benefitsemployment will not stop in august. what may well stop -- and this reform is necessary -- all businesses on both sides of the aisle understand that the $600 states above the unemployment benefits they will

receive is in effect a disincentive. we are paying people not to work -- it is better than their salaries would have gotten. that might have worked for the first couple of months. it will end in late-july. returning to employment -- the administration is looking at a reform measure that will still provide some kind of bonus for returning to work, but it will not be as large and it will create an incentive to work. that goes along with the other incentives we have generated, the tax rebates, and most ppp, therly, jake, the payroll protection program, which i think was a huge success, $500 billion in forgettable loans, and that is what the man jobs report showed -- may jobs report showed, 3 million people suppress everyone. we want people to go back to work. temporary jobs and furloughs can go back to work. unemployment insurance, the

weekly numbers, falling 10 consecutive weeks. we are on our way, we are reopening, businesses are coming back, and therefore the jobs are coming back. kudlow on the cnn sunday show yesterday. "the washington times" with the headline trump and senate republicans delay push on relief spending can democrats passed a 3.5 trying dollar deal -- bill send direct aid to localities. back to this "washington times" piece, the publicans are reluctant to spend more. they argued that we had a massive surprise on the upside. if we have another massive surprise in june where there was hiring in may, we will have a much different demand for stimulus than if it goes the other way. we are preparing a plan for

upside surprises and downside surprises we will pursue in july. -- theer factors are budget deficit and a record 1.8 8 trillion. about half of the $3.3 trillion in emergency aid approved has not been spent. mr. mnuchin, this -- the treasury secretary said the president is considering a direct payments to americans along with what democrats approved -- 1200 per adult, 1200 per child up to three children. that would be more generous than the payments in march. the first round of direct 260 $7s totaled around billion. according to the committee for responsible federal budget, from four22013, the first fiscal years of which mr. obama was responsible, the national

debt rose 4.4 trillion. mr. trump is projected to add more than 6 trillion. a moment of reckoning will be the democrats proposal to extend into next year the increased federal unemployment benefits. the cars act -- the cares act added $600 per week benefit. republicans have expressed concern it is discouraging workers from returning to their job, as you just heard mr. kudlow argue. ron in michigan. you support another shutdown. why is that? well, gretchen -- gretta, it seems to be working in michigan. our governor has brought on the number of cases. that is good. people going the into stores -- they don't wear their masks. i support the shutdown. it is doing great harm to the economy. if people are getting more money

being unemployed, boy they must have lousy jobs and pay to start with. i guess they are getting tired of winning so much. the fact of the matter that we are seeing the red states, trump supporting states starting to tell the truth about the numbers of cases and it is growing -- that it's a good thing, because those people are protected by trump and his holiness with the bible. those people with the red states, they don't have to worry about it. i support the shutdown, but these people don't, and we see him open that up, and his people getting sick and then dogs and that is the only way we will bring up a number of his people when elections. california. you support the shutdown. good morning. tell us why. caller: i support a shutdown because it is just going to

spread. you have these riots people are going to -- they're going to be contaminated themselves. it is going to be contaminated more or less by all of these riots and so forth. in jonesboro, arkansas and you are next. you oppose. caller: hello. how are you? host: i am well. our you? caller: i was fine until i hear the older man invasion -- until i heard the older man in b off.an bla i oppose it until a time that we are able to open gradually. like mr. hutchison is doing. he is a smart man. he is letting people go back to work. it is time. i have a daughter and a

son-in-law, and i have all my siblings able to go back to work -- they have not missed one day. paying all ofare these people to get all this money and not go back to work -- what about the people that are working and feeding all these people? they are not getting any extra money. all these essential workers -- it is time that we pay them extra money for what they are doing. --caller: host: hazard --host: hazard pay? caller: yes, hazard pay. all these unemployment benefits for the people not working, it is time we switch the coin and give the hazard pay to all of myse front-line workers, daughter, my son-in-law, my brother-in-law, my sisters, all of them working now in bringing home the bacon to all of the ones not working.

caller: what do your family members do for -- host: what do your family members do for a living? caller: my sister works at a doctor's office. host: i put you on the spot. caller: i have some siblings that work for the government. they don't miss a day. they have not missed a day, even when they are sick. my daughter and son-in-law work in a processing plant. works seven days a week and sometimes 14, 16 hours a day. host: at the processing plant. caller: not one day does he complain one bit. have they seen any cases that this processing plant? caller: i can honestly tell you truly they were diagnosed two of their with two

girls, and that was it. two. host: what did they do in response to having two of the employees have the coronavirus? caller: they removed the girls, and what they have done is they --e put the dividers up everyone in the processing plant all have to wear their ppe or however you all call them, and arb, as i to wear the g call it. every time they leave that part of the area, they have to take everything off before they go out of the door and when they come back in they have to put everything back on, and they are really cautious.

they said that is just the way it goes. this is how they have to protect everyone and everything. host: thank you for the call. fran in annapolis. you support shutting down. good morning. caller: pardon me. host: you are on the air. caller: i support the fact that they are shutting down. i think that just for the well-being of the nation i really worry about these young rioting, and ie think are going to do more harm than good, and i don't think how they are theing the country to prove point, and i worry about them. the virusout

spreading. almost of all -- all of her family during the influenza flu. if this thing goes crazy, it will happen to us again. our economy is probably going to be secondary to the loss of the many, many people we have in this country. to think rationally about this, but i do worry about what is happening now and i think it will hurt our country a great deal. host: jane. center valley, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i oppose. we continue to get mixed messages from these different leaders. they allowed all of this looting and rioting, and i heard none of these democrats liberals that are running these cities where

the looting is running rampant -- i have not heard them condemn this behavior. it continues to be an agenda to create chaos in this country. there is a larger picture. had an article about that how the black lives movement is part of a bigger agenda. it is important to expose this. it has been going on for a long time. covid is here and we need to have to -- we have to continue to practice safe measures as we open up, but i oppose keeping it shutdown, and cdc has been no help. now they continue, and they oscillate back-and-forth with their messaging, and they are trying to blame our president.

he has not been the one working at the cdc for how many years getting these salaries. it is time they start speaking the truth and they be consistent. the only people that are paying for it are the hard-working americans who have to get back to work so they can pay their mortgages and keep their homes. thoughts in pennsylvania. woodbridge, virginia. jo. caller: i completely oppose another shutdown for the following reasons. point, thet this democrats are using the coronavirus as a political hammer to shut down trump rallies and to try to hurt him politically. i base that on the following -- you know, in the beginning, we did not know a lot about the coronavirus, so the shutdown, i believe, was put in place for a good reason. ourid not want to overwhelm

medical systems until we were able to produce more ventilators and more masks and the like, so i did not oppose it in the beginning, but now that we are to speed on all of those things, and we see how much it has hurt the economy, and the numbers are coming down, i believe now it is just being used as a political weapon to hurt the republicans and to hurt trump in an election year. host: ok. 's supporters's marked his birthday yesterday in gathered forndreds foot tell on the water. look at "the associated press" picture as people marked his birthday and motorcycle rides. these are associated press photos from yesterday, the president's birthday. you can see that there. "associated press. ,ichael in newhall, california

who supports shutting down again. why is that? caller: because i feel like it is a little too early. i know this virus is going to come back and do a lot of damage to the american citizens did everyone seems to be worried about the money. the money means nothing. our resources covers that money. we need to keep this place lockdown until we not only find informing should be our american citizens about the zinc levels and iron levels. if you remove that by using zinc, you can lessen your chances of receiving the disease. do not why young people get it because their iron is cleaner. they are getting it because of the corrosion on iron blood cells. scientists know that that they are not informing the public of that. there is a way to beat this disease.

we are trying to find something that our bodies carry. we carry zinc for that reason. it can't affect you in any other way. that is why your teeth ago brown -- that is the rust on the blood cell when it is receiving all the corrosion. they know this, but no one is saying this in public, and that is what i don't like. they are slowly killing off americans. china was prepared even before it came over here. knewprepared as if they they were going to release it, and no one is looking at this. host: ok, michael, we will hear from liz in new jersey. what is it like where you have? caller: new jersey has had a tough few months with covid. totewide, we are almost up 13,000 that have been killed by the virus. somethinger 160

thousand confirmed cases. our numbers are coming down. they are much, much better than they were in march, but we have not done it by running around as if the virus wasn't here, and even with that, we lost 13,000 stood since -- citizens. we have to open up, but it has to be strategically done. we cannot do things that put a lot of people in close proximity . we have to wear masks. i don't enjoy wearing a mask. nobody enjoys wearing a mask. raising that for some the northeast and people love wearing masks -- we don't, but we like it better than ending up on a ventilator in a hospital. you have to pick which is going to be the most successful to

save your life and your family members life. i daresay a lot of the signal that don't want to wear the mask or whatever, they think they are immune, they think they will not lose a loved one. they have no guarantee. host: as you are talking, cnn reporting that dr. anthony fauci won't be until -- and returned to normally won't be until the fall or the winter and travel researches will not be released this summer. host: jeff. how are you. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i wanted to backtrack a little i'm ad mentioned -- biologist -- i practicing medicine, and i understand everyone who has suffered -- we have suffered in houston. we are, kind of, more still

naive to the virus then, say, the northeast. it is when you spread more in texas because we have such a low infection rate relative to, say, the northeast, but we need to track something other than cases. there is very good evidence that the virus has eight asymptomatic cases for everyone that we track. no wonder everyone panicked because all we were monitoring for a long time is individuals that show up in the hospital's. eight -- it is expected to be around 15 million right now. that is from the low estimate of 5%. the high estimate is about 25%. if you want to know.

is we're going to encounter this virus -- what you need to decide is if you want to -- if you can really shutdown forever. i think it would be shut -- much better -- we have ways of limiting the disease right now. i think it is much better to have a healthy, normal summer because the viruses, like this one, including other coronaviruses are depressed in the summer months, that way fewer people will be getting it in the winter, where the mortality will, indeed, again be high. how do you explain this headline?

coronavirus cases spike across the sun belt -- arizona, texas, florida are reporting their yet.st case numbers caller: i mentioned that. texas is fairly naive. we have had a low death rate and a low case rate or there is a huge naive population. it is spreading rapidly for the first time. if you will notice, it is a lot of cases, and the new york times is not talking about the death , which instead of what it once was -- they were expensing 5% and 10% in some areas. we are below 1%. in thehey do mention it article saying every day about 21,900 new known cases are reported, not much lower than the cases a month ago, 800 people die, and those numbers

are lower than a month ago. is that what you are referring to? caller: yes. the daily death rate is hovering around 1000. host: tony in fairbanks, alaska. you oppose another shutdown. what is it like where you live? caller: i do oppose. i feel it people need to get back to work and i feel like this virus is going to spread through the population of matter what we do. people are going to get it. we waited until the hospitals had time to prepare -- we have masks, things that are needed. i feel like it is time to get back to work. we cannot keep dumping money without money coming in. it is a double-edged sword. it is going to get really bad later on. tony.ok, gina is in texas. good morning to you.

i don't think it is that big of a deal anymore. i mean, we have seen people come out -- they have said that the cdc, and the president have said the sunlight is helping. people out protesting or at the beaches -- if sunlight is ,elping and killing this virus i think everyone should be pretty safe. it is very sunny out there and all over our country. to me, it is like they are putting on a smokescreen and they want to keep pushing fear so we don't pay attention to what is going on with the senate hearings with the flynn case, and trying to get hillary that shen to testify keeps putting off over her emails. i think it is a smokescreen to keep americans in fear so we don't want to go vote and that with the election can be hacked.

that is pretty much what a lot of texans and people i know are looking at them they are saying. host: ok. gina. jackie. more snow, pennsylvania. good morning to you. werer: i want to say you posing the question as a binary question, and i am in the new york metropolitan zone, and i support governor cuomo's approach to reopening, and i want to backup to say that the reason we had this nationwide shutdown is to make sure hospital capacity could be met, and new york did a really good job of doing that. newaw the horror show in york with hospital capacity being overwhelmed in the beginning, and new york is using the approach of looking at graduallyd reopening as the cases go down and the

infection rate goes down. right now the infection rate in the metropolitan new york area he -- whichh means means you need 100 people to infect 75 people. regards to the shutdown, i want to go back to the hospital capacity of wherever the hotspots are in the country, and using the hospital capacity and rates of incline or decline as thoseuge of when particular areas can reopen. also, i want to say that we know this virus is highly contagious, and most people have mild cases, or asymptomatic, and until we in a public tested health arena, we will know exactly how many people are affected. smallight have some amount of immunity. that will happen, hopefully

before there is a vaccine, or also to lose people demonstrating, or mass rallies -- mass gatherings, who are infecting each other, let them infect each other until hospital can be not overwhelmed and they will need to be a shutdown. the economy needs to open, but we need a rational reason why it is reopening, and i also want to heard immunity -- heard immunity or extensive, masks and social distancing, where the virus has no place to go. the virus. host: and on your point about hospitals, the new york times reports that hospitals in arizona have been urged to activate emergency plans to deal

with the flood of covid cases. florida saw its largest, and of cases since the pandemic began oregon pause what had been a gradual reopening. if you missed what governor brown had to say, you can find her announcement on pausing that reopening our website, c-span.org. drew in largo, florida. you support another shutdown. why is that? caller: good morning. not because some people are saying alterable want to do is kill the economic situation. it is important that people open up. we are in florida, and we are currently loaded with people -- we are in the most populated county in the state, and it is all tourist business here. we have a governor whose only concern when spring break was on was making tourist dollars and

kept the state open until the first of april when everyone was saying they should have closed it up, and now we are speaking here in florida over 2000 cases a day for the last few days. sarasota,bay area, county, 10 -- bradenton the only thing they are concerned about in florida is making money and getting tauris, which people need, but it does not do any good if people are dropping dead right and left. host: your thoughts from largo, florida. angela. you oppose. good morning to you. caller: good morning. i say don't shut down our country. president trump is allowing the governors of each state to make their decision. if you compare each state, then you will see that those states that are not shutting down are

really not spiking, although we cannot trust the media. really it is a leftist mentality to try to instigate people to stay home, most of which, some of which against their will -- to stay home and collect government money, especially the younger generations. they are learning to rely on the government instead of going to work to earn their own money, period. host: angela's thoughts in louisiana. we will switch gears in the next hour of washington journal to talk to michael petrilli to discuss how blanket policies and packed economies and education. we will be right back. ♪

>> tonight on "the communicators," federal communications commission announcer: tonight, federal communications commission or michael o'rielly. >> i think everyone is faced with the difficult circumstances from the covid-19 pandemic. the communications network as a whole seems to be working well. i don't like to promise anything or congratulate anyone too early. i am pretty impressed with where things are now. issues, of connectivity work from home issues, certainly conferences can be done through this medium -- is more likely to increase over time. i would not say this is the new normal, but more this way than the old-style.

p.m.ncer: tonight at 8:00 eastern on "the communicators, quote c-span2. ♪ announcer: c-span has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events. you can watch all of c-span's public affairs programming on on television, online, or our free radio app. be part of the national conversation through "washington journal," social media feeds. c-span, created by america's television companies as a public service. host: michael petrilli is president of the thomas b fortin institute here to talk about an opinion piece.

what is the fordham institute? guest: it is a think tank located in washington, d.c. we also do work in the state of ohio. host: what is your goal? track everything happening in education policy and reform. we are big fans of public charter schools and other forms of school choice. we believe in holding all schools accountable for results, especially those funded by the public. schools accountable for results, especially those funded by the public. we are engaged in trying to improve our school system. host: you wrote in the wall street journal piece, it is not that her rural areas have become more equal, it is that other areas have become markedly less so. income inequality is virtually in rural counties and metropolitan ones. as the middle class shrinks, big

cities are increasingly divided between a highly educated upper-middle-class, and a low wage poorly educated service sector. what does it mean, a metropolitan phenomenon? hearinge have all been about income inequality. it likewe talk about it's happening everywhere, but the big change has been in these big metro areas. places like new york, washington, d.c. it is not happening in the same way out there in smaller metro areas or small towns and rural areas. i was surprised to learn that back in the 1970's, the rural were the most unequal. it makes sense if you look at those economies back then. one guy owned the coal mine mower had a huge farm, that guy was super rich and everybody else was poor. that creates this inequality.

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if they get a trade credential, that should tell us we need to i think young -- people want to start working on an apprenticeship, start getting a trade. we dismantled it, for the most for the mostvery few

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host: for our viewers who want to learn more about michael petrilli's organization, you can find it online. thank you for the information this morning. guest: my pleasure. thanks for having me. host: we're going to take a break. when we come back, we'll turn to the protesting across the country and get your thoughts on use of force laws. there are the phone numbers on your screen and the number for law enforcement, 202-748-8002. after that we'll talk to kristen clarke, a lawyer's committee for

civil rights under law president and executive director on efforts to end racial injustice and advance criminal justice reform. we'll be right back. >> the president from public affairs. available now in paperback and ebook. 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/thepresidents, to learn more about each president and historian featured. and order your copy today. wherever books and ebooks are sold. >> tonight on the communicators. federal communications

commissioner michael o'reilly. >> well, i think everyone's faced with a difficult circumstance from the covid-19 pandemic. the communications network as a whole seems to be holding quite well. i don't like to promise anything or congratulate anybody too early. so we'll have to see if things hold. but i'm pretty impressed where things are now. in terms of some of the connectivity issues, some of the more work from home issues, certainly, you know, conferences being done through this medium is more likely to increase over time. i wouldn't say this is the new normal but it's a lot more this way than returning fully to the old style. >> tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the communicators. n c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: good morning, everyone. we are back and getting your thoughts this morning on use of force laws across the country. this is from "u.s.a. today."

the atlanta police shooting over the weekend stirs outrage. the police officer was fired. a new chief was at the helm and a wendy's restaurant burned sunday as the city became the latest epicenter in the urgent nationwide demand for social change. rashard brooks, 27, was shot outside the wendyy's late friday. he had fallen asleep in his car in the drive-through. as many of you know. that also is part of the headline in "the new york times" this morning. police killings prompt reassessment of laws allowing deadly force, as continuing deaths of black people by the police are undermining support of the wide latitude officers are given in cases where an encounter ends in a death. inside "the new york times" they write this.

host: now, of course, police reform and this issue is part of the sunday talk shows yesterday. south carolina senator tim scott, a republican, was on cbs' "face the nation." here's what he had to say about any potential police reform in this country. >> officer misconduct, you've been talk about having information sharing when it comes to hiring. but what about the firing? democrats in particular emphasize that reducing

qualified immunity, making it easier to fire bad cops needs to be in legislation. are you open to that? >> well, there are two ways that you can deal with that. from the republican perspective and the president sent a signal that qualified immunity is off the table. they see that as a poison pill on our side. we could use the decertification of officer. except for the law enforcement unions say that's a poison pill. so we're going to have to find a path that helps us reduce misconduct within the officers, but at the same time we know that any poison pill and legislation means we get nothing done. that send the wrong signal, perhaps the worst signal, right now in america. i think we're going to have legislation that can be negotiated, that gets us to the place where something becomes law that actually makes a difference. that's got to be our goal. >> so to be clear, you personally would be open to reducing immunity but not removing it completely?

>> no, i think there's a way for us to deal with the decertification would be a path that i would be interested in looking at. that is a path that has a roadblock because i don't have the votes on the other side to make that into law. if we do it right, i think we can reduce the number of times that we're dealing with misconduct on the police departments. if we don't do it right, then we'll have the same situation where there is no law, we can do better than that as a nation. and we will. host: republican senator tim scott yesterday. jim clyburn also yesterday discussing any compromises on police reform in congress. >> i've never called anything a nonstarter. there's always potential for compromise in my opinion. when you're trying to do legislation. our system was designed that way. we were designed to have the house do its business, the senate will do its business, and we try to come together in a conference.

i've seen conferences produce a better result over a compromise. so let's let both houses do whatever they're going to do and then get down to the serious business of reconciling our differences. once again, we have a senate that's made up totally different , one african-american american republican, two african-american democrats. and 97 others. so we need to bring those others and these three together and come up with something that we over in the house with 53 african-americans can do something to reconcile. 54. 53 democrats and one republican. host: democratic congressman jim clyburn there, talking about what congress can or should do, how they can compromise on police reform.

should use of force laws be considered? from "the new york times" this morning. the swift decision on sunday to fire the white atlanta police officer who shot and killed a black motorist intensified the growing re-examination of the use of deadly force by the police. challenging longstanding principles that have given law enforcement officers wide latitude in cases in which an encounter ends with a death. although host: let's go to john in hudson, florida. john, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you today? host: i'm well. what are your thoughts on this? caller: my thoughts on this is first of all, i believe in the law. i mean, i come from a family of law. my brother's a retired police officer. i got a son that's a police officer. and if we don't have law and order in this country, what is

-- we're going to have something like brooks who fight ising with officers, grabbing things, then when he's shot, he could have been trying to shoot his leg, it doesn't matter. he wasn't following the rule of law and what happens? m.l.l. over there and the protesters burn down something, is that the kind of country that people want to live in? hey, they don't get what they want, they burn things down? i've seen that. protest, i blame them because they do not denounce the rioters. they're all in one group in my ind. they're protesting, the rioting and the burning and that is not the rule of law and i want a country that's a rule of law. and yes, just like in minneapolis, i say that police officer was wrong. he should be charged. but i don't -- brooks fighting with the officers, that's totally wrong. host: john's opinion there. ed in raleigh, north carolina. ed, what do you think of these use of force laws? caller: i think, thanks for taking my call, first of all. your last caller is a perfect

example of what's wrong with this country. he's the same type of person that feels he needs to carry a gun to protect his space and the george zimmerman, trayvon martin is when all this started. when george zimmerman decided he needed to stand his ground. so all we here is -- hear is one side of the story. if you look at the video of atlanta, the policeman that actually ended up firing the fatal shots to the back of what would have been a minor misdemeanor charge, and he's saying the rule of law. he already had started to apply a choke-hold. you can see his arm come underneath that gentleman's neck and he was trying to apply a choke-hold on that person. it was a misdemeanor charge. this guy says the rule of law. well, the rule of law is i don't

understand why that cop has not been arrested ant put in jail -- and put in jail. i don't understand. and the just -- this is an opportunity, i think, in our country to address a lot of issues that exist. i don't feel -- and i'm opposed to people carrying guns in open, open carry state. virginia's an open carry state. what other country can armed insurgencies walk into a -- insurgents walk into a state capitol building with arms while the governor -- and we saw it on tv. host: ok. let me ask you, going back to the atlanta case, do you -- would you like to see congress or states ban choke-holds? caller: you know, we put a lot on congress to do and, yes.

if it takes congress to do it. but i think just in general we need to relook at -- and i'm not saying defund, i'm saying rere-educate. maybe we need to spend more time training our policemen and make it more difficult, a year of training. educate our policemen. host: ok. so what has been proposed on the house side so far by democrats, their justice in policing act of 2020 prohibits racial and religious profiling, amended federal criminal statute to prosecute police misconduct and improves investigations of misconduct on the federal level. it this from the house judiciary committee. what are your thoughts on use of force laws this morning? take a look at "u.s.a. today." their headline below the fold, floyd, george floyd, was not the first. at least 134 have died while

being restrabe strained -- restrained. james in stafford, virginia, james, you're in law enforcement. what do you do? caller: good morning. i'm retired. i was 30 years a corrections officer. and i look at what i see as the use of force by the police department and i realize that as a corrections officer, we had to think first. we were outnumbered 60-1 in most cases. we did not have a weapon of any kind. i mean, no tasers, no gas, no baton. we didn't have those things. so a confrontation, and believe me, many corrections officers have died, the average life expectancy for a corrections officer is 58 years old, we've died. but we realize that we have to think, we don't get to just react, we don't get to just pull out a gun and shoot you. so we have to look at the

situation and determine whether that situation is a viable situation to get involved in by ourselves. and you have these police officers with their weapons and believe me, i do not believe in defunding the police. i think that's ludicrous. i am all pro-law enforcement, but i am not pro-officers just deciding, i have a gun, i can shoot somebody, or you have somebody who is selling illegal cigarettes, it's ok to use extreme force on that person and, of course, that's one case that person ended up dead. it's a cigarette. it's not threatening anybody's life and that's what i'm not understanding with the police use of force continuum. if it's not life-threatening, why are you pulling out your weapon? if the crime isn't hurting anybody, i mean, physically, why

are you shooting them? and i think that we have a lot of that going on and i don't think that that's what is being lenl slated. i think that -- legislated. i think that also, if i did anything at as a corrections officer, -- anything as a corrections officer, i could be possibly -- lose my job or go to prison for what i did. so how do you get to shoot somebody or kill somebody who already has handcuffs on? i'm not understanding. that person can't harm you. they can't even run because you can trip them. they don't have hands to stop themselves. so, i don't understand and as much as i am pro-law enforcement, i really think that there needs to be some change in the way that police are allowed to get away with things that no one else would possibly be allowed to get away with. they're not above the law. they're there to protect and serve and administer the law.

host: ok, james. james there in virginia. hang on the line, if you've called in. continue to dial in as well. we're going to get back to your phone calls here in just a few minutes. but joining us on the phone is a.j. who is a correspondent with floridapolitics.com to talk about the republican national committee moving the convention to jacksonville, florida. so, how does this change come become about? guest: it came about slowly, then quickly. basically the mayor of jacksonville recruited the republican national convention and it seemed like it wasn't going to happen for a long time. then what happened was charlotte fell through. north carolina governor roy cooper didn't want the full occupancy convention and governor desantis and mayor curry said, bring it to jacksonville. that's basically what happened. host: is jacksonville prepared? guest: that's an open question. the officials say they are. they say there's enough hotel rooms, but the reality is this. downtown hasn't had a new hotel

in a long time. south bank hasn't had a new hotel in a long time. they're leaning on nawca county, clay county, all these other outlying areas for hotels. i also wonder about protests. you have the issue with protesters in the streets here and everywhere else. can jacksonville handle that? the other issue in play is hurricane season. late august is the beginning of the peak hurricane season in this area. and you have to wonder how they'll handle that. other than those issues, jacksonville is ready. host: that sounds like a lot of issues. how many people is the city expecting? guest: they're saying like 50,000, thousands and thousands of journalists and, again, it comes down to where you're going to put those people. , these entities say they can make it happen. that's a big bet. a lot of the national media that saw the super bowl a came here,

about 15 years ago -- that came here about 15 years ago, there were no hotels sufficient for that. what happened is they were in cruise ships and things like that. if you can imagine convention ears being in a cruise ship in 2020 with all the negative press cruise ships have had, that may be one optic that comes into play here. host: how is the city preparing and what is their schedule for ramping up? guest: your guess is as good as mine. they've been pretty mum about it. right now the next 10 weeks, city governments are going to have to be full bore into this. that's at the same time you're dealing with these other issues like the tearing down of onfederate monuments and the anniversary saturday that correspondents with the convention. for those of who you don't know, it was 60 years ago, basically it was one of the most violent racial acts in the city. basically attacks on nonviolent

protesters downtown. so 60 years later, that's the anniversary and donald trump's coming to jacksonville. host: and where will the convention be held and what sort of guidelines or restrictions are in place for covid-19? guest: sure. it's going to be -- [indiscernible] -- the arena is about a 15,000-seat facility. they're saying there's going to be testing, there's going to be masks and all these things. but there's a lot of wiggle language. the governor said, got to look at the shape of the epidemic as it gets to august. that sounds like pretty much what the governor of north carolina was saying but in florida they're base chi saying, we're going to get to yes and if we have to change course, we'll change course. but the rap in north carolina is they weren't willing to commit to using a full-scale convention as first priority. this was all happening when covid cases are going up in the

state. like this weekend has seen an epidemic rate that's been higher than previously. so when you look at that issue, you've got to ask yourself, is the city and state ready? that's an open question. host: for our viewers who want to follow this reporting and find out more about the r.n.c. convention, you can go to floridapolitics.com. thank you for the update. appreciate it. guest: thank you. host: back to our calls on use of force police laws in this country. thanks for waiting on the line. charlie in kingsport, tennessee. good morning to you. go ahead. caller: yes, madam chairman. i appreciate you taking my -- yes, ma'am, i appreciate you taking my call. i'd like to bring up a point a lot of folks may or may not have thought about. if the police stop their attack, people better hope the criminals do the same thing. after all, you have your ms-19,

the bloods, the aryan nation, k.k.k. is still there. i know this for a stone fact because the area of the country i live in, you have your outlaw biker gangs all across the country. three or four in our area alone. and they are just praying that the police and that the people really do let the police drop their tactics that they use to where they can take over the united states. and if you don't think this is going on, i mean, you'd have to be an idiot not to see this. host: ok. and take a look at "u.s.a. today's" headline. police got 454 million military gear since 2017. armored vehicles seen during the recent protests, and they write here that law enforcement agencies have received almost this amount of money, $454 million, surplus military equipment, since trump -- the president lifted restrictions on the 1033 program.

this is about the same amount law enforcement received while the obama administration's restrictions were in place. using federal data the analysis found that law enforcement agencies largely gave up controversial items such as grenade launchers and bayonets prohibited under the obama administration. police have increasingly obtained other military-grade equipment such as riot gear and mine-resistant ambush vehicles, the vehicles designed to with stand explosive blasts in iraq and afghanistan. such equipment has been spotted in minneapolis and spokane, nwaba washington, during protests in response to the death of george floyd, an unarmed, handcuffed black man. it goes on to say that legislation unveiled last week by house and senate democrats will go further than the former president

host: we're asking your thoughts on use of force laws. greg in pennsylvania. you are next. good morning to you. go ahead. caller: good morning. i have a couple questions, first and then i'll make my comment about the issue. first, on the issue of the day, does the host, in this case you, have any input into that? host: the question? caller: yes. host: yeah. i work with and the producers of the show all kind of come together and work on questions. sometimes it's decided the day before by the producers. depending on the news cycle. but, yes. caller: and second question. as to the media sources you refer to on that particular issue, is that your call? host: we all look at the same amount of -- or the same sources, if you will. national newspapers. then we do checks online at different websites. maybe go to daily call or

"politico," "roll call," "the hill," etc. we're showing you and reading to you what people in washington are reading. caller: ok. and i think that's -- that should be done. but it appears to me that it's skewed way to the left side of the spectrum. so that's my comment. i've made that many, many times. now as to the particular issue today. in 2020, with the election year, i think nothing needs to be done . this is going to be a referendum on whether we want law and order or not. if the congress decides to pass something, it allows both parties to claim some kind of victory. i think this is a late 1960's moment. i think it's time for people to stand up and say, let's invest -- investigate, now, remember,

everybody wants to investigate reede before tara reaching any conclusions but we don't want to investigate what happens in minneapolis, we don't want to investigate what happened in atlanta. that's a mistake. and in my opinion, c-span and you in particular have been more solicitous to the left side of the spectrum. it is time for us to agree. the united states is the best country in the world. best by far. we have more people wanting to come in here than wanting to leave. so we must doing somethinging to more right than wrong. that's my opinion. host: ok, greg. we'll go to balanceny, georgia. -- albany, georgia. bill, good morning. we can hear you. use of force laws. what are your thoughts? caller: some of these people, quick comment on people that call in.

they have no idea of law enforcement. i come from a law enforcement family. i have a father who was a lieutenant warden at maximum security prison. i have a brother and sister who were both prison guards. and then my little sister got a job working for 911 operator. now, i know about -- i was a volunteer fireman. my dad was also. and i know the racism that goes on in all these places because i heard it from my dad, all his friends. i heard it from the prison guards. i heard it from all of them. ok? and it was nothing but racism. ok? nd so how can you have these tests being done by your psychological tests being done when there's so many police officers being allowed in the police force that take these tests and pass? obviously we need to rethink that whole psychological testing program.

me in my life, three times i've been choke-hold. twice by a baton. and once when i was 16 years old. and each time it was just for not supposedly respecting the police officer. so that gave him a right to put me in a choke-hold and kind of throw me around and stuff. but so i know very well what a choke-hold feels like. now, i think what we need to get back to is to have laws that are equal for everybody. and have the police de-escalate situations first before they use violence first. now, we have special police units, swat, tactical units and everything to do the hard jobs. but regular cops ain't trained like that. they should be in military gear and being out there applying military tactics on regular folks. we have swat and these other people to do that. if we need to take down a drug dealer or anything like that,

they should do that. we need to take down a biker gang, they do that. ok? so, a regular person is not a biker gang or a drug cartel or anything like that. ok? and also we need -- now, if you look at any police force in the united states, no matter where it is, you got a whole bunch of cops that are chubby. ok? i am very much against police officers sitting back, collecting pay, sitting behind a desk or not doing anything, just riding the car because they're too fat to go chase anybody. and then they have a skinny partner who does all the chasing. they need to get back to doing beat cops where the cops walk in the neighborhood and they do that for eight hours, day and night, and they walk their neighborhood routes and they get to know the people. when you get to know the neighborhood, you get to know the people, then you can do something good. ok? they need to get away from cops just going in there, arbitrarily, don't know anybody, don't know the neighborhood,

don't know nothing, and then they're beating the hell out of people. host: ok. i'm going to leave it there so i can go on to linda who is in west grove, pennsylvania. hi, linda. caller: hi, how are you doing? host: good morning. caller: i was calling about all the stuff going on. the first protest they had, they should have never -- after that there should have been no more. we should have gone in and stopped it then. this is the united states of america. i can't believe the american people are doing this, not standing behind their president and stuff. they ant want this chaos we have right now? is that what they want? it's crazy. and the statues, taking all the statues down. are they taking them all down? what about martin luther king's statue? is it going to come down? it offends me. they're going to take that one down? host: why does it offend you, linda? caller: because they took our statues down. and it stands for something, just like ours stand for something. and then they take it down. you know what i'm saying? it's crazy what's going on. it's absolutely crazy.

and that omar -- host: moving on. we'll leave it there. we're going to dig down a little bit deeper into racial injustice and criminal justice reform. we'll talk with kristen clarke who is the president and executive director of the lawyer's ♪ announcer: tonight on the communicators, federal communications commission or michael o'rielly. everyone is faced with difficult circumstances from the pandemic. the communications network as a whole seems to be holding well. i don't want to promise anything or congratulate anybody to early. -- too early.

i am impressed where things are now. in terms of the connectivity issues and the work from home issues, certainly with confidence is being done through this medium, it is more likely to increase over time. i would not say it is a new normal but it is a lot more this way for returning to the normal style. announcer: tonight at 8:00 p.m. on the committee caters on c-span2. -- communicators. ♪ c-span has unfolded coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events. you can watch all of programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio at and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily washington journal program or social media. america'seated by

cable television company as a public service and brought to you by your television provider. ♪ washington journal continues. host: kristen clarke, the president and directive of the lawyers committee for civil rights under law. talking about efforts to end racial injustice. what is your organization? guest: my organization is the lawyers committee for civil rights under law. we are one of the nation's leading civil rights organizations that was founded in june, 1963. for the past 57 years we have been fighting to deal with issues like voter suppression, fair, justice system, equal opportunity when it comes to jobs, housing, and more. we are on the front lines working with the private bar to safeguard the rights of african-americans and other vulnerable communities across the country. ont: what are your thoughts

what happened in atlanta over the weekend in the shooting at the wendy's restaurant? >> another tragedy. this is a moment where you would expect that law enforcement would be on their best behavior. in the wake of the killing of george floyd and breonna taylor and with the protests that are happening across the country, it is fair to say that law enforcement is under a microscope. this is a moment where you would expect the very best when it comes to how they are engaging with communities, engaging with african-americans. , an is most unfortunate unavoidable tragedy. what we understand is that this man was in his car and may have been asleep at the wheel. it is unclear whether we needed to deploy law enforcement in an instance like this.

there was no report of a violent or any threatening activity on his part. it truly was an unavoidable tragedy. democrats ande senate democrats have proposed sellable reforms in their justice and policing act of 2020 for having racial and religious profiling, admitting federal mental statutes to prosecute policemen conduct, improved investigations of misconduct on a federal level, create a nationwide police misconduct registry, banned chokehold and no knock warrants and make federal lynching a crime. your thoughts? guest: this is comprehensive policing reform we have needed in our country for decades. we are at across loads. -- crossroads. the reason we are seeing people march every day in this country is because communities are saying enough is enough.

we have sat back and dealt with the tragic killings of unarmed african-americans for decades. rarely do officers help. rarely do departments take the reform to root out violence and put in place policies that would safeguard innocent lives. i am excited that congress has introduced legislation that might put the country on a new path. many of the reforms you mentioned are baseline reforms that we need in every single police in our country. no choke-holds. a ban on racial profiling. a mechanism to hold officers accountable by strengthening a core federal statute that can be used to prosecute officers. i think this is one of the most important provisions in the bill. that is a provision used by the justice department and u.s. attorneys offices that allows

officers to be brought to account where they use force to violate someone's civil rights. there has been a very high on the standard that would be modified by the bill and actually allow us to start seeing officers prosecuted when they take life without justification. we would also end qualified immunity for officers as well and create a database that allows officers do track misconduct so that we can keep an eye on hotspots across the country and most importantly, keep tabs on police officers who carry long records of misconduct. senatertant bill -- the will hold hearings this week. my hope is that we will see it passed into law this month because it is responsive to one of the biggest crises that has gripped our country in a generation. headline, "s this

the executive order on police reform is expected to use -- include guidelines for misconduct. it would include the creation of a national standard for use of force policeman conduct -- police misconduct." what do you think of that as an i willve order? guest: put my faith in congress's hands because this is an issue they have studied for decades. here is that we have seen when it comes to policing reform. former attorney general jeff sessions abandoned the use of -- that has been put in place to address police reform in our most broken police departments. we have seen the president make a number of speeches to law enforcement groups that really sends a dangerous message when it comes to use of force.

order falls flat with me. it seems that it does not carry the same comprehensive scope that we see in the justice and policing act. i will put my faith in the work that congress is doing right now to really address this inference -- crisis we face the most effective way possible. the: heather mcdonald with manhattan institute conservative group wrote this in the wall street journal. " officers are being assaulted and shot at while they tried to arrest suspects and respond to the rights. it will encourage more civilization to destroy violence ."

guest: the most important thing to remember here is that overwhelmingly the marches have been peaceful and right now there is intense grieving on the part of families that have lost loved ones. the family of george floyd, the family of breonna taylor, eric garner, tamia rice, philando castile, all in sterling, and the list goes on. it is time that we focused on the issue at hand which is addressing a crisis that has really ripped innocent african-american lives away from their families and communities. i do not condone the violence we have seen, but i do think it is a distraction. again, the overwhelming number of marches and protests we have seen take place in our country have been peaceful, focused, and

intentional on lifting up the message of unchecked police violence and racial bias and systemic discrimination that is tearing apart our country. they are marching for the purpose of promoting healing and bringing communities together and addressing a problem in a way that we have not previously and that is the issue that we should focus on. host: we will go to evelyn in virginia. democratic caller. go ahead. caller: yes, i agree with ms. clarke 100%. i feel that it is too much police brutality. i feel that there should be new trailing. sometimes when police stop you, they affect they are your father rather than a civil worker because they are paid by taxpayer money. ,he way that they approach you

and then you cannot defend yourself. if you defend yourself then you are resisting arrest. i am 69 years old. when i see a policeman drive behind me, i am afraid. i have to talk to myself and say, you have never been in trouble, why are you afraid? they need to change the law rather than shoot people down like wild animals. i feel the law should be changed. you should not be able to just shoot somebody. you should be able to sue them in the leg somewhere that is not life-threatening. -- shoot them. you are affecting their whole family, their children, mother, sister, it has to stop. as far as the tearing down the

statues, i am 69 -- when i was five years old, i saw a confederate statue. as a little girl, i thought there was something wrong with it. i felt like it was too much of a superior figure that was not good. i did not know anything about confederate or none of that during that time. it affected me. -- there arewant black confederates, too. rewrite the books. -- white supremacists, ku klux klan, they have taken over the confederate flag and made something bad. there's nothing wrong with the confederate because there were black confederates, too. it is because you have let the white supremacists take that flag over and this is why you are having that problem now.

, when as the looting america goes to war, they fight. when they go to other countries, they fight. i don't agree with the looting and all of that. 60's with thethe looting, especially in your own neighborhood. you are not listening. people are on their knees and you are still not listening to the cries. we are not crying for no reason. we have been held back. i went to a separated school. i remember white kids on the bus we were walking to school. so it has to be done. it will be done. now you are killing white kids. how can you go to a school like

columbine and shoot of the school and come out alive? but a black man, $20, you are dead. host: kristen clarke? guest: she raises a number of important issues. one congressional piece of legislation is not going to fix this crisis. we need to transform the culture of policing in our country. a lot of that work happens on the ground and in communities. the folks who are marching and demonstrating need a seat at the table in talking about how we reorient the relationship of law enforcement to communities. there is this warrior mentality that is pervasive throughout american policing where police officers position themselves at -- as in all swiss communities. that there is an enemy on one side and a combatant on the other. and we have to get rid of that. we need police officers in our

country who are community oriented, who see themselves as guardians of the community, as serving and protecting the community. to really have that culture change in policing is going to take a lot of hard work and investment of law enforcement early working with communities on the ground. the caller'stand concerns about the fear that she feels when she sees law enforcement in her community. i was driving through washington yesterday and i saw a cop who pulled closer to me and i chose to pull over and let law enforcement pass. distrust of law enforcement is incredibly problematic. we want to believe they are there to protect us, not to be our enemy, not to instill fear.

there was going to be a lot of work that needs to happen outside the homes -- halls of congress to overhaul policing in a meaningful way. host: we will go to pittsburgh. patrick, democratic caller. caller: you know it is stunning when you look at the length of time that corporate prison systems have been putting our brothers and sisters in jail for crimes and exacerbating that reality by utilizing mandatory animums along with corporatized, media driven, race baiting -- let's sell the narrative over again that black people are bad. i just heard about cops being eliminated. i have always said that was a terrible thing. but we need a structural re-examination from a national corporations,llow

especially people in media, who need to take a much broader look at the criminality within wall street. look what we just saw in wall street during the pandemic was all of the pump and dump assets. they walk away with $560 billion in profits during a pandemic and during the terrible murder of this man. there is no excuse for this and we cannot as a national society allow the pervasive misuse of our brothers and sisters of color. we just can't. i am a gay man. i can completely relate to the fear factor. i have lived through that. dominantw these abusive forces can be brought to bear against me. you have a good day. host: kristen clarke?

guest: this is a great development. cops no longer on the air, a show that really glorifies use of excessive force by police. use of force, the dramatization of misconduct -- this is a campaign waged by our friends, an important step in the work we need to do to change the culture of policing in our country. caller, itened to the think about the criminalization of poverty and a blind eye we do turn to a lot of the crime that plays out in a corporate context. let's take mr. floyd for example , allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill. i think about eric garner in new york allegedly selling a loose cigarette. allegedlyn louisiana selling cds from his trunk.

notwithstanding whether any of these allegations are true, it is unclear why law enforcement needed to be engaged with any of those individuals, needed to use force on any of those individuals. all of those scenarios to me make clear the problem we have in our country of over-criminalizing conduct, criminalizing poverty, entangling law enforcement in communities of color in ways that are unnecessary and it is dangerous, if not, fatal. this needs to be the problem that we unpack and work to figure out how do we make our communities safer. there is a movement underway that focuses on this theme of the funding. i am supportive of the concept of defunding aspects of policing. we need to shape the footprint

of police officers in our community to put more social workers, invest more in education, addressed poverty, and bring about the holistic reform needed to make immunities safer. host: if you defund police, what would police have less of? aspects ofnding policing. rather than expanding the size and scope of the police department, keep it as it is, if not, reduce it and use the taxpayer dollars to invest more in social workers. dallas,jefferson in texas last fall dead after her neighbor play state welfare check called to a non-emergency line. he saw that her door was open and said, not sure if everything is ok. just thought i would report it. they send a police officer out and she ends up shot standing

inside of her own home with her little nephew feet away. a law-enforcement officer did not be -- need to be deployed for that welfare check. it could have been a social worker. if so, that woman would be alive today. policing andnd think about the resources that need more support, more funding so that we can have communities that are safer. int: we will go to jeff washington. democratic caller. committeeu are on the for civil rights under law. an't it a given that constitutional right that any the law andding by minding their own business is granted the right to be left alone by police? guest: yeah. that is an important question that we are tackling right now.

why do we have police officers unnecessarily entangled in african-american communities, communities of color, in our schools? half of our schools have a resource officer and law enforcement presence which feeds into this school to prison pipeline. this is a problem that starts at the earliest -- at the youngest age for some communities. people have the right to be left alone. we need cops to protect us. there are crimes that unfortunately happened. but many of the deaths we are seeing, including the ones that happen in atlanta over the weekend are ones that could have been avoided. instances do not even warrant the deployment of an armed police officer. we have to think about how do we

reduce the footprint of police officers in our community. how do we deal with the racial bias that affects so many aspects of leasing in our country? host: new jersey, gary is watching. caller: i do have the connection. host: gary, you are on. go ahead with your question or comment. i have to move on. joan in minnesota. democratic caller. caller: i have a question. and we a justice system are judged by our appears. .t seems like -- our peers if you are a black man, you are not reproved. i think that is fear in some of the people. i think if you look at

policeman, there would be reprisals. people might fear that, too. back in the early 20's, there was a video on a tv talk show that was taken secretly of the military training the police forces. when you give police the choice of being for the people or following the military veteran trying to teach you something, you are in a very tight spot and that is one of the problems. the other problem is i wonder how many people that are blind to the hate groups in this country. they are indoctrinating the police force. there is a continuance of plain out killing.

there is evidence of criminality by itself. we need a clean sweep and we need to expose everything and we need to address all of the problems and not hide any of them if we are going to get to a good society where everybody is worth something. godre there by the grace of and they will all be together under that gun at some time. come on, people. let's join together and be a nation that we can be proud of. shamee that has so much going on right now. thank you so much. it is very interesting to hear the caller we count something from the 1920's and here we are 100 years later still talking about the same issue. it is a reminder that while we have made progress, we still have a long way to go especially

when it comes to confronting the need for police reform in our country. militarization is a theme that she brought up. i should know from the justice and policing act currently before congress would deal with this problem. there was a program called 1033 that has allowed militarized equipment, tanks, and other military items to end up in the hands of police. that feeds into this warrior mentality. it results in the escalating attention in communities unnecessarily. it is important that we deal militarizeeed to de- policing in our country. the caller talked about accountability. she is right. when you look at the statistics, it is extremely rare for you to see law enforcement officers who are held to account and brought to justice for using deadly force without basis.

the numbers hover between zero to two on average every year. the congressional bill would deal with this by changing the standard of a critical federal statute. it would end qualified immunity for officers and actually create seethway where we might those who break the law, violate civil rights, take life without basis, actually held account and not see people held above the law. the final what i want to make as she talks about this problem of policing,has infected this is an issue that i organization has worked on. to root out hate crime and white supremacy that sometimes has infected the ranks of policing. officerr we exposed an

who was tied to an extremist group serving in connecticut. fortunately that officer has resigned. but we need to make sure that we do a good job explaining carefully for this important role people who harbor racial bias, harbor extremist views, who endorse white nationalism as an ideological platform do not deserve to carry a gun and a badge in our country. those are precisely the kinds of people often behind many of , hateracially motivated driven incidents that sometimes typicallyss-of-life, lots of african-american life in communities across our country. host: military gear, the headline in "u.s.a. today" is that police have received $454 million in military gear since 2017 since president trump

lifted restrictions on that program, restrictions that the obama administration put in place. we will go to louisiana, democratic carter -- democratic caller. caller: how are you doing? i am a retired police officer for three years. i believe what is going on is police officers need to be trained. 14 weeks is not enough to be in the police academy. they are teaching them the basics. and when they finished with the basics, graduation, then putting them out on the street. trained by aop is senior officer. they are teaching them the basics. and when they finish with the basics, graduation, they are putting them out on the street. is trained byp that senior officer. that senior officer has been on the force 20, 30 years.

he is teaching that rookie cop his way of law enforcement, which is dangerous. ok. we were not trained in the police academy with chokeholds. we were not trained like that. i don't know where all of this is coming from, but if we would retrain our police officers, have more in-service education, send them to college for two hollerif you want to about restructuring the police department, send them to school. they need to go to school or online classes to understand basic human civil rights. they don't know. no, police officers are not social workers, but they need to know the roles of the social worker or understand or get with social workers so they can understand how to handle the human factor.

superintendents together and more community activism, then we can get this police department together. that is the only way we will be able to do it. but civil unrest and all of this, no, i do not go for the riots. a routine things like traffic stop, which i did, i wrote them a ticket, and i went on. i did not force them to get out of the car and all of this. that is unnecessary. host: ok, veronica. i am going to leave it there. kristen clarke, your response? guest: i think about sandra bland, who would be alive today would be alive today if she simply got a ticket for the traffic stop and was left alone and not forced out of her car, which led to a slew of events and ultimately the end of her life, the loss of her life. we do need better training in our country.

when you measure the united the united states up against other modern democracies, we do not invest the time that you really need to have a professional professionally trained law enforcement. there are no chokeholds, no neck holes. one in which there is a uniform standard governing when you use force. you use force. we need to invest in training. there is another related issue here that i want to make sure we include in this conversation, and that is the need to address the ways in which police unions are often acting and functioning as a barrier to reform. many police union contracts, for example, make it difficult to put in place new policy reforms, make it difficult to implement better training protocols, make it difficult to discipline rulesrs who violate the and who commit misconduct. so one of the issues we are

working at at the lawyers' committee for civil rights under law is looking at the national crisis. how do police unions sometimes stand as a barrier to many of the reforms we are talking about and that we know are necessary to really overhaul and improve policing in our country? thank youten clarke, for the conversation this morning. appreciate your time. guest: thank you for having me. host: you can learn more if you go to lawyerscommittee.org. we will return to the conversation we had with you earlier about us enforcing laws. we want to hear from you this morning. 2-748-8002. back to your phone calls in just a minute. >> tonight on "the communicators," federal

communications commission or michael o'rielly. >> i think everyone is faced withcircumstances from the covi9 pandemic. difficult the communications network as a whole seems to be holding quite well. i do not like to promise anything or congratulate anybody so we will have to see if things hold but i am impressed with where things are now. some of the connectivity issues, the work from home issues, certainly throughce is being done this medium is more likely to increase over time. i would not say it is the new normal but it is a lot more this way than returning to the old style. >> tonight at eight apart p.m. eastern on "the communicators" on c-span2. the presidents, from public affairs, available now in paperback and e-book. it presents biographies of every president organized by their

ranking, by noted historians from best to worst and futures perspectives into the lives of our nation's chief executive's and leadership styles. visit our website c-span.org/presidents to learn more. order your copy today wherever books and e-books are sold. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we will go to kevin in princeton, indiana, per our conversation on the use of force laws by police in this country. kevin, you are up first. what do you think? caller: i think it is a bigger problem. i honestly believe the police are being tasked with a job that no one in this country can do, no matter how much training you provide them. the socialproblem is experiment that the democrats and progressives have perpetrated on the

african-american community for the last 50, 60 years. they destroyed the nuclear family. these children coming out of these homes, the single-parent homes, have no guidance. they have no moral code because they have never been taught a moral code, and then they get pushed into society and are told, you have to do this, you have to do that. they have never been told they had to do anything in their lives. they never had any discipline, no structure, no anything to their life. just kind of floating through life. and then they get into the real world and they have interactions with police. they are not taught how to interact with the police officer. and then police officers are put in a position where they want to go home to their families every night. night. they don't know that each one of these individuals that resist arrest or do anything does not have a knife, is not going to stab them in the neck or shoot them in the head. people don't realize it takes very few milliseconds to pull a weapon and blow somebody's head off. but to tell a cop, hey, just

give them some space, you cannot give people that are in a violent position space. so again, it is not about the cops. it is about the moral degradation of our entire society. not just the african-american community out of wedlock births the last 60creased years. it is all races. but the african-american community has been hit more than any other. i think it is upwards of 70% of all african-american children are born out of wedlock. that right there is prescription for disaster. until the african-american community and progressive left fix that problem, you are not going to fix this problem with police interaction. it is not the police's fault. host: kevin in indiana. we will go to macon, georgia. audrey is winning is. what do you think of the use of force? caller: first of all, i think the man from indiana needs to go straight to hell. i am a black woman, an

african-american, and i came from a single-parent home with nine children. not because my mother was not married but because my father was buried the day i turned two and i was the last of the bunch. he can go to hell. i had structure. what i want to say as far as the say as far as theis police department is concerned, i used to run every day six miles a day. -- running onrete concrete caused me to have bilateral knee replacement. i started back walking two or three years ago. i am walking. mind you when i am walking, i have on white shoes with lights on them. i have reflectors on my ankles. white socks. white pants. a white shirt. reflective vest. white hat with lights on it. and a radio on my head. in a lit parking lot. i saw the police long before i got to them. when i got to them, i stepped

off the side of the sidewalk to go around him, and he grabbed me by my shoulder and snatched me around and asked me, what are you doing out here? who are you? what's your name? how old are you? where are your parents? what is your drivers license? a whole series of questions. called backup. cops came. all i was doing was doing my morning walk. host: audrey, what happened next? caller: one police came and got out of his car. as he walked up, all he said was, why did you stop her? look at her. just look at her. she can be doing anything out here. this look at her. the whole time he was talking, he had his hand on his gun. i am blessed to be alive. other cop saidhe no, i am looking at her, why did you stop her? just look at her. look what time it is. i know what she is doing out here.

he said, i have been looking at years. the last few he said what i do when i see her, pull over to the side to make sure nothing happened to her, like what you are about to do right now. she is exercising. that, this same cop followed me for about two weeks. i had to stop walking because i did not know what his plan was me. host: ok. mary in detroit, michigan. hi, mary. caller: good morning. host: morning. what do you think of these use of force laws in this country by police? caller: that is totally unnecessary. this is a form of domination. a form of domination. this is all it is. to keep black people in their places. and that is all it is. it is all from slavery all the

way up through jim crow. it is a form of keeping black people in their places. nothing else. thank you very much. have a good day. host: mary in detroit. policew york times," killings prompt reassessment of laws allowing deadly force. undermining support for the wide latitude officers are given in cases in which an encounter ends in a death. undermining support fora swift o fire the white of winter police officer who shot and killed rishaad brooks, a black motorist, intensified the growing re-examination of the use of deadly force by the police challenging the long-standing principles that have given law enforcement given law enforcement officers wide latitude in cases in which an encounter ends with a death. the pbs is reporting this onning that president trump

tuesday is expected to sign an executive order that will lay out several new initiatives focused on police reform, including the creation of a national standard for use of force as well as trucking police misconduct. an attorney who represents a number of black families whose loved ones, including antwon rose and botham jean, were killed by police officers, shared the details of the plane with pbs newshour on sunday after speaking with white house officials. the president is expected to sign the executive order during a rose garden event featuring merit and attorney general william barr on tuesday. mary -- excuse me, john in sanford, north carolina. hi, john. good morning. caller: morning. i used to be a correction officer. i worked behind the fence. i had 22 inmates. 19 of them were in for manslaughter. in basically for -- and

-- androught up on i got brought up on charges of use of force. five investigations. but what it was, it was me, i called for help. i used minimum force, pepper spray on both of them. i got charge because i got both of them. sprayed the pepper spray. after the investigation, the inmates found out what i had done. people do not understand what the force is, what the training is they go through. getting down as fast as you can. use what force you need in getting them under control. these guys don't want to do that. they don't want to listen. i sat there thinking they enjoyed to intimidate people. talkyou try to stop them, to them, hold them, they don't want to listen.

they want to intimidate you, force you to go to the next step. host: ok. south portland. on the front page today they say fou fold george floyd was not the first. they say george floyd was not the first. at least 134 have died while being restrained. let's go to david in albuquerque, new mexico. david, your thoughts? caller: you had a caller two or three ago saying it takes a split second. you cannot determine when the guy -- let me tell you something. that is the truth. that is the truth. you look at the cases, they resisted arrest after what they were doing wrong to begin with. they put themselves in that spot. nobody put them in that spot. but i will tell you what. this is a pick and choose thing because you have a lot of white, hispanics,

hispanics, asians, a lot of other people getting killed by all these cops because of the resistance. if they would just go ahead and do what they need to do, the breathalyzer test, all he had to do was go to the car and they would have taken him to jail but he wanted to escape. and the other guy and the one in ferguson. all those guys did wrong and put themselves in that spot. i don't understand why you are still a democrat. because you know the ku klux klan and them, they are all democrats. all them. them. you need to understand that. host: ok, david in new mexico. michael from south carolina sends in this text. what about civilian supervision and oversight of the police? tommy in tennessee, good morning. caller: good morning, greta. if a suspectt comes towards the police officer with a weapon in his hand, then that police officer should shoot the weapon out of his hand

first. should shoot the weapon out of his hand first. and then if he reaches down with his other hand, then he has the right to use force to kill him. because a police officer should not wait and see if he will be killed or not. and also, too, i remember how peaceful this country would be if women were running all the police departments in this country. host: tommy in tennessee. , whatn, maryland, ken , what think this do you think this morning? caller: i have a multitude of thoughts, but i will say this. the internet is rife or youtube is rife with videos that show white people beating police officers, taking their weapons, resisting arrest, and not being murdered. so for those folks who think you aret because

aggressive that you deserve it, as you can see or if you check it out, you will see not everybody are the recipients of force. to me, that tells me the police officer has a choice. the police officer has a choice as to whether and when to use excessive force. when it comes to black and brown it comes to black and brown people, the overwhelming majority seem to use force. it comes to black and brown people, the overwhelming majority seem to use force. the individual who called from indiana could not have been so, so wrong in his life. his thinking is the kind of thinking that has permeated this society and police forces. and there are a lot of policemen who have the stereotypical image of black people and they react accordingly. i do not fault anybody who wants to go home at night.

but that suspect also wants to go home at night and should not be killed for selling a single cd's out or selling car orback of his reaching for a legal document to prove that he has a concealed carry permit. it is a mindset, greta. it is not just the use of force. it is the mindset of the majority population. and it is in their hearts. and it will never ever end. it is not just the use ofi don'g police officers get. if it is in their heart, it will always prevail. unequalorce and an treatment of people will always prevail. host: so what do you do about it? it?ler:

caller: greta, i don't know. i hate to say this. i don't know if there is anything we can do about it. it starts from within the individuals. that person from indiana, no matter what, and he is not alone. there are many people who feel this way. they have these ingrained ideas and perceptions that black people are hostile. brothers, a mother and father who raised us, and we are all law-abiding citizens. but all these people see is maybe tv or read things or hear things and they think all black people are -- no. i don't think all white people i give klan so people the benefit of the doubt. police officers should be able. cognitive thinking has really eroded. people are now black or white. i don't mean in terms of color. i mean they either see it this way or that way. there is no or there is reduced

nuanced thinking these days. so i don't know what can be done in society to change that. host: ken's thoughts there in clinton, maryland. jim clyburn was on cnn "state of cnn "state of the union." he was talking about prospects for police reform and compromise in congress. this is what he had to say on the issue of defunding the police. >> i was super say as ias have always said, nobody is going to defund the police. we can restructure the police forces. restructure, reimagine policing. that is what we are going to do. the fact of the matter is that police have a role to play. what we have to do is make sure that the role is one that meets the times, one that responds to these communities that they operate in. i did not grow up in favor of police, even in the environment.

we never favored the police. but all of a sudden now, i do favor the polic fear the police. the young blacks few the police. why? because we have built a system that is responding to brown versus board and education. when i was growing up, we did not have black police officers. i remember to this day two of them. is this of the matter is the structure that has been developed and we have to and we have to deconstruct. so i would not say defund. deconstruct our policing. host: jim clyburn yesterday on cnn's sunday show. tom in chicago. you are in law enforcement. what do you do? caller: i am currently a university police officer.

i have been adc police officer for almost seven years. host: what do you think of use of force laws? a d.c. when i was police officer, the standards are pretty much universal across the country. i keep hearing people say they are different. they are not. they are pretty standardized. you should go online and look at forcederal use of force continuum. it is standardized as far as what the police can and cannot do. forceare the guidelines we continuum. it is standardized as far as what the police can and cannot do. those are the guidelines we use. host: and what are they? caller: basically, if there is a threat of serious bodily injury or death to yourself or another person, you can use deadly force. below that, you can use intermittent range of force, which is to try to control an individual where you can use impact weapons such as the spray

or taser if you happen to carry that device. host: what do you think about this, the use of force continuum? i am a black man as well as a police officer, so i see both sides. i want peopleing to understand, i hope every person is able to please take a ride along with your local police department so you can get an idea of how a lot of this stuff works and why. the use of force continuum is dictated by the individuals we are interacting with. things we can legally do and cannot legally do once the situation changes. so if an individual presents a weapon, a certain level of force can be applied to that based on circumstances.

one of the things i keep hearing people talk about, training, training, training. i think the key factor in a lot of these situations that the officer is not putting into play, not all of them but in some of these situations, is good old common sense. unfortunately, common sense is not something you can teach people. you either have it or you don't. result ofely, as a that, people are dying and getting hurt. host: tom, i think i am looking at the use of force model that i found. it said it was developed by dr. franklin graves, federal law enforcement training center. and it starts with risk perception categories. professional, technical, threshold, harmful, going up to lethal. yes.r: host: when you look at what happened in atlanta on friday night, break down what the .olice officers did theithere

and what should they have done? caller: i cannot speak to -- obviously i was not there. i have to speak to the footage. one of the concerns i felt when i learned about tasers, and this is not from the police departments but somewhere prior to that, that the device of a taser can incapacitate officers. the ultimate concern in that situation is a police officer is taught that every fight they are involved in or every conversation they are involved in, they are always armed. armed. the concern with a taser is that if you are incapacitated, you cannot defend yourself or stop an individual from taking your firearm from you. the ascension has to be that if a person is bold enough to ifault you in full uniform, a person is bold enough to remove a weapon off of your partner, that person is probably killbold enough to

you. as a police officer, you have to assume that person's intention, after having done these previous actions, is to kill you. if you approach it any other way, your assumption has to be --t, well host: we are listening, tom. caller: i am just so emotional over all of these situations because, you know, the officer sitting on that man's neck breaks me up. that is not what we are trained to do. .hat was just so far beyond we don't kill people. we defeat the threat. and that gentleman was not correct. whereas in this other circumstance, i just get frustrated because they both involved police officers being painted with the same brush. the taser situation specifically

frustrates me because in the previous week, the mayor of that city fired those officers for using a taser. those officers are currently being criminally charged, stating that the officers used deadly force against those citizens they extracted from a vehicle. but then at the same time, there time, thereeration is no consideration that, well, a taser is not deadly force so why did you shoot that individual? in that situation, it is the same police agency. you cannot have it both ways. taser you believe is deadly force or is not deadly force. the dealing with -- i just feel like give us rules and we will give us rules and we will

follow what the rules are. officers step out of line of that, then so be it. but we can't change the rules. we can't keep moving the goal posts. we need to decide what we want society, telling us that we are going to have all these other agencies go handle stuff. when i worked in the district of columbia, that is not what was happening. every time another agency went somewhere, they called the police to come deal with it. every issue. they call the police to come they call the police to come deal with it. we used to call other agencies to come deal with children who are in certain situations. we cannot get there until tomorrow. we need you now. tom in chicago, police officer. we will go to dan in omaha, nebraska. dan? excuse me. was not the last one? i apologize to dan. that was the last call.

link you all for calling in today. we will return tomorrow morning 7:00 a.m. eastern time for more of our conversations with you. thank you for watching. thank you for calling. enjoy the rest of your day. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> coming up on c-span, a discussion about the death of george floyd, policing, and racial justice with minnesota senator amy klobuchar and former klobuchar and former attorney general eric holder. at noon eastern time, live coverage of the hearing on the impact of budget cuts to covid-19 and public education. later, the congressional black caucus. represented karen bass will discuss representation to

address police violence and racial profiling. live at 2:30 p.m. on c-span. >> former u.s. attorney general eric holder talked to senator amy klobuchar about racial and social justice. before joining the senate, the minnesota democrat was a top prosecutor for minneapolis, the county covering minneapolis, where george floyd died in police custody. the conversation was hosted by georgetown university's institute of public policy and also included questions from students. mo: i want to thank everyone for tuning in tonight.