online today at c-span.org. on tuesday, fbi director christopher wray responds -- discusses how his agency is responding to china's influence in the united states. then we will join up the house financial services subcommittee at noon. then a look at global the poston in shaping covid world with dr. deborah birx. house committee goes over security spending. noon, a house education and workforce subcommittee looks at the impact of covid-19. freeman, ceo of national city and county health

officials, discusses the rising number of cases in several states. nicole clowers discusses her y's reports of how relief funds from congress are being spent. ♪ the u.s. supreme court is wrapping up its term this week, issuing decisions in cases heard earlier in the term. one of those decisions upholds the electoral college, by saying electors""faithless defy the will of the voters. welcome to the "washington journal." it is four months until election day. we will start asking you about the electoral college. should the electoral college be abolished? isyou think so, that line

(202) 748-8000. if that answer is no, the line is (202) 748-8001. we welcome your comments on text. the line (202) 748-8003. we are on twitter. facebook.com/c-span. is expected to issue more decisions this week, wrapping up its term. a little electoral college one-on-one from the national archives. -- a little electoral college 101 from the national archives. the number of electors is equal to the number of members in the congressional delegation. there is a total of 538. neededlection day, 270 to elect a president.

five presidents have one without the electoral -- with the popular vote -- without the popular vote. john quincy adams, rutherford b harrison, george 44,000 with a hundred fewer than al gore, and donald trump. case, at ruling in the couple of cases. here's the reporting of richard wolf. courttes, the supreme addressed one of the potential problems facing the 2020 race, ruling that states can insist members of the electoral college the winner of the popular vote.

32 states require the people chosen on election day to cast ballots for the winner of the state's popular vote. estates, roguee electors can be replaced or find. -- fined. 18 states have no such rule. "the constitution passed text and history both support allowing a state to enforce and electors pledged to support the the president. " case, elenangton kagan said, the state instructs

the electors they have no ground to -- part of the decision, the majority opinion, yesterday. is should the electoral college be abolished? if you say yes, (202) 748-8000. .f you say no, (202) 748-8001 we will get to some facebook comments first. jose says yes and no. it should be proportional. if a republican candidate gets getin california, he should 45% of the electoral college. this one says -- cut the tuition. this guy says -- no. we are a republic, not a democracy.

let's go to brooklyn. yes, abolished electoral college. reasons include this decision that just came out. conflict and the the reasons our founders put the college in place. it was to protect democracy from rule by an educated mob. we know the founders were an elite cream of the time. they do not want to see rabble bringing their sentiments to bear on deciding something so important. asy wanted electoral college a buffer to filter the possibly inaccurate or inappropriate through of the mass

people with more education and to eliminatenough the chance of a demagogue or a rabble-rouser taking power. they, we have the problem could not have foreseen, a president who can communicate directly with the public through something like twitter and go directly at those uninformed passions to gain power. today,nders were alive usingould say a president twitter to gain power is exactly the kind of thing we were trying to avoid. we gave electors discretion. if we are going to give them that discretion -- if we are not. host: thanks. caller: good morning.

i am diametrically opposed to what the gentleman from brooklyn just said. the founding fathers were worried about mob rule. mobou want to know what rule is, look at seattle, minneapolis, new york city, washington, d.c. those are the uninformed electors. theychester, new york, tore down the statue of frederick douglass. are you going to tell me those people that tore that down are informed in know what they are doing? of course not. no. mob rule, we are seeing it now. we are seeing the woke culture, the antifa: mob rule. twitter -- we have a first amendment. people can make up their minds. we are not uninformed.

we are not the basket of deplorables. we just believe in the constitution of the united --tes, the rule of law, and it is just amazing that there are people out there that don't understand that. thank you. host: to mark, philadelphia, on the line. good morning. caller: i second what the first caller said. i am all for getting rid of this antiquated, you know, ridiculous provision from the constitutio , setting up the republican -- not only madison and hamilton. the last thing they wanted was one man, one vote. you can see what geniuses those guys were. might be a badte

idea, but we have it now. if you're going to have one man, one vote, let's have a real one. let's get rid of the electoral college and do it by the popular vote. texting.our line from keith in fort worth. he says, abolish? no. you might as well just toss the rest of the constitution. w largeot want a fe states picking every president. -- yes, the majority should carry the day. david -- yes. the electoral college should be abolished.

every other election is decided by majority vote. david says no. he is in st. paul. good morning. manipulationis a by the democratic body to get votes because -- host: from the brookings institution, this is the opinion of darrell west. at aites in the piece, time of high income inequality and substantial geographical disparity across states, there is a risk that the electoral college will systematically over represent the views of small numbers of people due to the structure of the electoral college. hasonstituted, each state electoral college votes regardless of its size.

represents -- over represent small and medium-sized states at the expense of large states. this will likely fuel continued populism and regular discrepancies between the popular and electoral college votes. presidents who lose the popular vote could become the norm and thereby usher in an anti-majoritarian era where small numbers of voters could use their institutional clout in left behind states to block candidates and legislation desired by large numbers of people. we are asking you about it. in west virginia, mary. abolish it.lutely this one vote, one person, that is important. until the electoral college is

abolished, one person, one vote has no power. host: to massachusetts. we say good morning to jean. -- sean. caller: hello. i think the electoral college should be abolished. it was established by the those whoo exclude they look down on. vote, thee man, one popular vote, is more important than the meaning -- in the meaning of our founders, that each should have an equal vote. host: what do you think the intention of the founders was in creating the electoral college? caller: to exclude the hoi polloi. to exclude the people they felt or less educated

who hadlanded or those not the educational basis for making decisions. and i think it stinks. fairlyou are from a popular state -- populous state. thatabout the argument states with fewer people, fewerr population, electors, and therefore will have less of a voice? that is athink that spear he is argument -- i think that is a spurious argument. 200-year-old ruling to

exclude the holy polo -- the hoi polloi. it is probably sexist. it is probably autocratic. and it is directly against the american constitution. will go to jackson, michigan and here from lucas. ear from lucas. caller: how will we find out results on election night? that is one thing i am currents about -- concerned about. one of the big goals of the electoral college, at least today, is it makes the president have to go across the country, campaign. i live in michigan, a big battleground state. when you have more swing states,

i think it encourages them to go out and get into the rural areas. getichigan, they had to mccollum county, oakland county. even that, you don't think about that. he did not win all these areas, but he still had to get a percentage. ignore big areas with the electoral college, but you have to take into consideration small states. host: thanks. here is some reporting from the wall street journal about the case. on faithless electors. ruled mondayourt that presidential electors can be required to cast ballots for the candidate who wins their state's popular vote. in the article, i want to read more into it. they write "by long-standing

custom, electors have nearly always voted in accord with their states. theearly 32 states and district of columbia, they are legally required to do so. the case presented the justices with a rare chance to define rules for the electoral college, theh justice kagan called 11th hour compromise chosen by the framers to select a president. " florida -- here is dorothy in florida. caller: i think it should be abolished. if you were on a committee, part of the senate, what pushes a

boat? it is the majority. is one that vote counts in every other instance i can think of. boards ofn on different companies in michigan. everything is majority vote in this country that i know of. why should electing a president be any different? a vote is a vote. soa majority says so and should be president, that is the way it should be. there will be states that do not have a large population. that is not important anymore. all the states have a lot of population. the ones that do not, that is where they choose to live -- too bad! host: david, hi there. i support the electoral

college because it has been around too long. none vote.ne to gorsuch ruled the civil rights act included gay-rights. gorsuch could have imagines a niche in -- could have imagination for people who live 50 or 60 years ago is absurd. host: peter. caller: it should not be abolished. provisionrs put this in the constitution specifically because the smaller states did not want to be dominated by bigger states.

also thato understand the presidency and now the vice presidency are the only elected offices that all the people elect. so every state has to get a majority in order to be satisfied that their input into this process was legitimate. you have to win each individual state in order to win the presidency. understanding that in the 2016 election, hillary clinton the vast majority of her extra votes from california.. if you took california out of the mix, donald trump actually got more votes than she did. this is a fact you could probably check. but not 100% sure of that, what i saw in the media.

i think it is fair and the founding fathers were smart to do this. fulcrum,s is from the an opinion piece by rick leroux. >even if the court decides they can change votes without consequences, that would not change the chaos of rogue electors conspiring or being bribed to change votes. electors, faithless are already rare and inconsequential. some pick them at just 16. they will become more rare regardless of the court's decision or any state. he writes, the electoral of democracysion in each election and its

capacity to cause chaos should concern us more. it violates political equality by weighing each vote differently based only on the state in which a citizen lives. 20% of the time, it delivers a theire election, in which winner of the popular vote is not the winner of the election. next is keith in denver, colorado. good morning, keith. caller: i am encouraged to hear so much support for abolishing the electoral college. i will tie a couple things together. the reason it exists is slavery. it is not even debatable. historyght there in the for anyone who wants to see. when we talk about systemic racism in america, yes, it is

woven into the fabric one way through the electoral college. now bear with me. a recent study, i think the southern poverty law center, of highnly 8% school students knew the civil war was about slavery. you cannot blame the students because the teachers and the school boards know what it was about and they denied that to students. we are doing the same thing to the electoral college. let's be clear. virginia cameof up with the idea for the slave states. moreight of suffrage was diffuse in the north than in the southern states. insured that the slave states will continue to have power.

dismantleng to systemic racism and have a real conversation about our republic, our democracy, and what we need to fix. let's start with the electoral college. the civildressed war and have finally defeated the confederacy. abolishily says do not the electoral college. she is in north dakota. caller: i have been listening to a lot of the comments. we do have direct representation in local and state elections. that includes your mayor. representation in our congress and other direct votes, but the president is a representative of the union. without the electoral college, our union would not stay

together. we would no longer be the united states. we saw that with the civil war. someone said it was about slavery. well, it was. but more importantly, it was about state rights. to keep the union together, we have to find a way to balance that out. that is through the electoral college and direct representation. again, we vote directly for almost all of our representation. we vote for the president. is ourctoral college means of making sure the states of the united states are represented. host: that 5% number. electionsyou the five since 1820 41 by the candidate that did not get the popular vote. are you comfortable with 10% rate of error?

it is my understanding that abraham lincoln did not get the popular vote. host: he did not get a majority of the popular vote at that time. the vote was split among several candidates. i do not think he won a majority of the vote. he won most of the vote. this is off the top of my head. i am trying to recall my history. it was not the exact same thing as we are talking with the five presidents here who were elected with the electoral college vote. caller: i will defer to you because you probably know this better than i do. we will keep having situations in this country where people do not agree. live -- i used to live on the west coast and now i am back in the midwest. the interests people have are

different. if you are an agrarian state you will have different issues than people living in a huge metropolis. it is not the same. inn the resources we have this country require different things. the president is supposed to represent all of the states. that is not easy. a time will come. themember when obama won election. everyone was so excited. butblicans were unhappy, generally speaking, all the states came together. we will have situations where states agree and disagree. part of this will be in line with what is going on in the world. right now, the world is in upheaval. if we forget that we are a union made up of states and have direct representation in a vote locally and in our states with

thatess, local government, is what makes us unique. i lived on the west coast. i know that if we only allow large metropolitan areas to go by popular vote we will not have representation. at sometime down the road, states will want to separate and we will not have a united states anymore. host: appreciate your input. my producer has gotten us the answer on the lincoln election. lincoln, elected 16th president, became the first to win the presidency -- republicans when the presidency. he won 40% of the vote. -- johncandidates breckenridge, john bell, and stephen douglas, u.s. senator for illinois. some comments on twitter and on

text. the plenaryis -- power of any state to determine how to deal with faithless electors. the super court -- the supreme court indirectly holds the austro college as immune from regulation by the federal legislature. i think it is time to get rid of an ancient practice like this. give courts the authority to punish faithless electors. if california chooses not to pass legislation to punish faithless electors, the decision is moot. in pennsylvania, we say hello to john. caller: good morning. from listening to "washington ,ournal" over the past months in order to vote, to cast your

ballot in a federal election, you have to be a citizen. some of the states let you to vote in state elections without being a citizen. castf them votes that are are citizens voting. oralit comes to the elect -- the elect tori a -- the electoral, they are chosen by the amount of representatives in each state. those representatives are chosen by the senses. -- the census. votes like texas that can these illegals are getting much more representation in the house of representatives and they are getting much more electoral votes. vote iselectoral actually a vote of people that

are not citizens of the united states, and that should not be. it should be the citizens that choose who the president is. read section one of the constitution, it is on how the census as to count people. the only thing they talk about is native americans are not to be counted. but the enslaved people at that time were counted as 3/5 of a person. when they abolished slavery, that is why you had black men getting the right to vote 50 years before women did. the reason was they realized when all these southern states got this representation, they would send the same tra

itors back to washington. they had to give black men the right to vote in order to not have the situation occur again. thank you for taking my call. host: about half an hour more of your calls. electoral college, should it be abolished? if you say yes, (202) 748-8000. no, (202) 748-8001. we welcome by text at (202) 748-8003. saying no, the heritage foundation, bradley smith writes this. the piece is titled "how the electoral college protects our republic." , he writes that, although our constitutional system draws legitimacy from people, it was ratified by the legislatures

of states. to win the electoral college, the candidate must appeal to a wide array of interests. isrequires a coalition that broad, moderate, and respectful of minorities. the emphasis of building such a broad coalition is a vital component of our national system, a system that has proven durable, avoided wild springs -- swings in policy, and provided respect for minorities. here is rachel in new jersey. believe the electoral college should be abolished for a couple of reasons. said the president is representative of the union. when i am abroad, and someone asks where i am from, i do not say new jersey. the union is also made up of people. it should therefore be one man one vote.

someone mentioned it has been there for a long time. there are a lot of things that have been in the constitution for a long time. thereunding fathers was to see to it that we had an amendment process. i think the electoral college is no longer the best way. jersey, a lot of people do not go to the polls because we are in the blue state and they think their vote does not matter. if we were to abolish the electoral college, i everyone will be more encouraged to go to the polls because they will feel their vote can make a difference. host: tennessee. caller: i do not think it should be done away with. whos both coasts picking will be president for the rest of the country.

i think a lot of the problems we are seeing today has to do with education and the school system. i do not understand where we are going with this communist talk. if people knew more about the hand actually african -- actual africans played in the slave trade. they actually sold their fellow man into bondage. upset.be pretty host: this is the pew research center. a of americans continue to favor replacing the electoral college. the constitution should be amended so the presidential candidate who receives the most votes wins. 40% preferred to keep the current system.

support for amending the constitution has increased slightly since the period immediately following the 2016 election. that is pew research. in virginia, good morning to sylvia. caller: i feel it should be abolished because i feel like when i go to the polls they do not feel i am intelligent enough to vote for the right person. i think times have changed. i believe that if the people could vote there would be less rioting afterwards. i was disappointed. we are in the fifth district. , indelegates voted against lynchburg, voted between rigell men and good and i feel like my vote was taken away from me. i feel like they do not think i was smart enough to vote for the right person. host: you're talking about in

the primary? caller: before the primary. done ingates -- it was convention. i felt my vote was stolen from me. i felt that every american to be able to run and be able to run to the end and be on the ballot. i do not feel one candidate had a chance. and i feel it was taken away. i could not go to the primaries and vote for him. host: could you have participated in that convention? caller: no. i am not delegate. -- a delegate. i feel they did not think i was intelligent enough to make the right decision and it depressed me afterwards. host: the lead editorial in the new york times. electors now even more irrelevant. they write, the supreme court got it right.

the justices did not address the bigger problem, which is the existence of the electoral college itself. systemite this is the cobbled together at the last minute at the constitutional convention to address the needs of a country vastly different from ours. it is rotting american democracy from the inside out. -- rot spreads in two ways first, by potentially giving the presidency to the candidate who owns -- who gets fewer votes, violating the principle of majority rule. trump saw how corrosive this feature was -- the electoral college is a disaster, he wrote in 2012. second, by violating the constitutional mandate of one

person, one vote, the value of your vote depends on where you live. if you live in the half dozen or so battleground states, it matters usually. asyou live in a safe state, a vast majority of americans do, it is irrelevant. ray joining us from elizabeth city, north carolina. hi there. caller: i absolutely oppose abolishing the electoral college for one reason. that is the votes of the smaller nonexistent be compared to votes of the big states. there will be mob rule. that will be the rule of the day. that is not fair for citizens of smaller states. one caller previously hit the nail on the head about representation of states, all

the states of the union. that is true. i mean, every election would be ruled by a bunch of states with large populations. host: tampa, florida next. roberta, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i actually agree with abolishing the electoral college. i think it should be one person, one votes. that i amted to add ok with the constitution being amended. there was not one woman or colored person there when it was written, so i am ok with that. florida,l is also in joining us in fort lauderdale. tell us about it. thatr: my overall view is

our founding fathers were smarter than we will ever be. the electoral college is an extension of federalism and federalism is something that makes america great. enableszed government dictatorships to happen. importantvery, very measure built into the constitution of our government. this person that called in about farmers not being smart enough to vote, that is not the reason for the electoral college. that, after the revolution, everyone got together and said, that was rough. let's have a happy party and we will be united. that is not what happened. what happened is four or five of the states were very hesitant about joining the union because they realized that their regions were very different than the centralized government. so what happened at the

convention was they talked the states into joining the union. they told the states, look, you will have meaningful representation in the united states. that is the reason we have the electoral college. what of california and new york were all white? your opinion, these people that think one man, one vote are so great, what if new york and california were all white? what would have happened to segregation? so think about it. our founding fathers were smarter than we will ever be. thank you. there is a movement called the national popular vote. it emerged in 2006. it has gained some steam. the way it works is the national popular vote interstate compact

would do the following. states and the district of columbia would award their electoral votes to the overall popular vote winner. joinedes and d.c. have with a total of 189 electoral votes. effect when the number of votes is 270 greater. thecan read more at national conference of state legislatures. support or oppose the abolishment of the electoral college. aftermath of a unanimous supreme court decision upholding the rights of states, washington and california, preventing faithless electors. fresno, california. good morning. caller: good morning. the only way i am going to support this is if we abolish

every party because you cannot have money going here, money going there, to one party. if you want the correct way to do it, you have no parties, right? it is just the american voter party. would that be the best way? host: all right. dennis is next in williamsport, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i think the electoral college should be abolished. we haveast 20 years, had two presidents that did not actually win the election, george w. bush and donald trump, trump losing by over 3 million votes. trump has given the vast majority of people that did not vote for him nothing but the --ger is hold time in office

his whole time in office. the electoral college has put a clown into office. hopefully he goes down in a massive landslide november. but the electoral college certainly does not give one person one vote as we have seen in this century already. so thank you and have a nice day. host: coming up. this is from the wall street journal reporting on tweets. questions nascar flag being." black nascarzed a driver, defended racially insensitive nicknames. they write, the race car driver offered a lengthy response to mr. trump on twitter,

concluding, always deal with hate with love. hateded, even when it is from the president. that is from the wall street journal. to questions, the press secretary of the white house. [video clip] >> the tweet was aimed at pointing out that the fbi report of the alleged hate crime at nascar concluded that the garage which had been there since last fall, was not targeted at a specific individual. it was there since last fall, long before these teams arrived. it was concluded by the fbi that this was not an intentional racist act. >> i am asking about the confederate flags. why is the president supporting flying the confederate flag? >> you're taking the tweet out

of context. >> does he believe nascar should fly the confederate flag? >> the point of the tweet was to note the incident, the alleged hate crime, that was in fact not a hate crime. the flag was mentioned in the broader context that he rejects this notion that men and women who go to these nascar events are racist. it turns out that what we saw with the fbi report was a complete indictment of the media rush to judgment, calling this a hate crime. host: the latest from gallup. the presidential approval rating. trump approval rating steady at lower level. it is holding steady at a lower level after a sharp drop in may and june with 38% currently approving of the job he is doing.

back to our question for you this morning. should the electoral college be abolished? comments on twitter and text, that line (202) 748-8003. mark says, i hate sports analogies, but would you change the rules in football so that the team with the most yards game?-- wins the sam from boston, absolutely not. the name of the country is the united states. it would not have been born without the electoral process. in the same reasons apply to the electoral college. it does not matter how many people. all 50 states get the same representation. in texas, no. will wery clinton one, be talking about abolishing the electoral college? i stand for the constitution we have.

in detroit, thank you for waiting. go ahead. caller: i want to make a statement. if you look in the state constitution, they say the electoral vote was put there to keep negros out of office. it is in the constitution. that is what i wanted to let people know. have a blessed day. tom is in newark, ohio. caller: good morning. i want to share with all my american friends that can hear fenton, named tom headed the judicial watch, has completed investigation in california. get this. they have uncovered a one million illegal votes in california. the state admits they have a massive problem with voting irregularity. they are using a system called

motor voter. if you have a license, you can vote. you do not have to be a citizen. this thing. opinion, the number could easily be double that. california, illegal immigrants, deciding your president, the do away with the electoral college, you fools. that is all i have to say. host: from brooklyn, next. they are notact is looking at the constitution -- they are not looking to abolish the electoral college, they are looking to abolish the constitution. there are doing everything in the world, the democrat leftists, to abolish the constitution. that is reason enough not to give them this opportunity to abolish the electoral college. what they are doing now is

revolution. they are destroying everything our founders worked so hard for. i do not think it is a fair thing to abolish the electoral college. host: ok. william says yes. abolish. calling from ohio. go ahead. should bethink it abolished and i think the racists we have up in washington -- i did not know what a black person was until 12 years old, and then some idiot, i mean -- host: another case the court ruled on. robo calls and cell phones. high courts keep ban on robo calls faced with the prospect of allowing more robo calls or -- supremestream

court took what many millions of americans might think is the obvious choice. americans disagree about many things, says justice brett kavanaugh, but they are largely united in their disdain for robo calls. the federal government receives a staggering number of complaints about robo calls, 3.7 million in 2019 alone. when the court found an unconstitutional provision in laws, abanning such different court found the solution was to eliminate the provision, not the law. banned as a result of monday's decision are previously allowed automated calls to collect debts owed or to -- owed to or guaranteed by the federal

government such as student loans and mortgage debts. john, you are next. caller: good morning. my vote is no. i do not want to abolish the electoral college. however, i want to make a comment on what you brought up, the national popular vote and the compact agreement. can you hear me? host: yeah. caller: ok. that national popular vote and the compact agreement. you guys need to do some research on that because even if the democrats are lucky enough to get to 270 votes, that is unconstitutional. there is an agreement. there is a thing in the constitution that directly correlates with the electoral college. statet states is that no can enter into an agreement with any foreign power or any other

influencen attempt to a federal election. that national popular vote is trying to do. the other point on that is -- think about this. i live in oregon. 2016, oregon voted for donald trump, but oregon is part of that agreement. oregon is going to say, they are all going to clinton. that nella size much -- that nullifies my vote. you need to do more research on that. i think you should run a show on it to really get the true facts out. host: we have done programs in the past on it, john. vote, theyl popular

write, the national popular vote bills will only take effect when states with the majority of electoral votes have passed similar legislation and joined the compact. states would have to pass the national popular vote bills before the compact kicks in. then this would take effect. we go to new carlisle, pennsylvania. go ahead. actually new carlisle, ohio. anyhow. i asked the person that answered the phone, i missed the making sure i'm am not duplicating someone. electoral college demagogues. besidethe two functions, the idea of smaller states

getting representation, is the electoral college was meant to help prevent the demagogue from becoming president. is, the-- "the fact electoral college was designed to stop a demagogue from becoming president." consider what alexander hamilton wrote in the federalist papers. the electoral college is supposed to stop a candidate intrigue fromelow becoming president. they were supposed to be men, the electors, capable. host: i will cut you off. where are you reading this from? caller: this is time magazine. there is another from the atlantic.

just google electoral college and demagogues. host: a couple calls left. some live programming today. we continue coverage of 2021 budget markups this morning at 9:00 a.m. eastern. the homeland security committee will be meeting to consider their 2021 measure. also, fbi director christopher wray will be disgusting china's influence in the united states, an event hosted by the hudson institute. that is live this morning at 10:30 eastern. twitter,on text, facebook. bob in missouri says this. states are democratic -- 50% plus one. federal government is different. rule, therevent mob

anarchists, bolsheviks, fascists, would be in charge. in a federal republic, the states decide. in this way, we prevent the tyranny of the majority. mark in pennsylvania -- to be fair, i would like to see the election settle by the number of u.s. counties. the electoral college should be abolished. it is a solution to a problem that has not existed for over a century. bobby in west virginia. hi there. caller: this is bobby. i am opposed to the electoral factge vote because one that corporate america has americaell -- corporate

pretty well controls electoral votes. running,when bush was we had a billionaire fossil industry colbert and -- coal baron and he was one of our electoral votes. how they picked these, i do not know. that goes to show you we have five electoral votes. i think one vote, one person should count. like the popular vote is the only way to go. iso not care if california the most populated state or what. the little guy is always left money inwer and

citizens united. there is a lot of thing that goes along with this popular vote. it starts with each state house ghost of the capital -- house and it to the capitol. all these lobbyists are in control. honesty, with all this protesting going on, i am glad to see that going on because there needs to be a change. the popular vote needs to be at the top. host: all right. we go to steve. caller: good morning. i think the point of the big state, small state issue the founders had is important. however, i think the other part occurrencee recent

or the popular vote and the electoral college are diverging is based on a problem in the size of the house of representatives. the house of representatives is fixed at 435. , the house is becoming less were presented of and so i think the size of the house, which would then make the electoral college more in sync with the popular vote at -- is an important underlying issue. the size of the house of representatives is not a constitutional issue, it was done by the apportionment act of 1929 and it's an arbitrary basis of sizing the house of representatives. sizeould be increased in so that the house becomes more of the house of the people, that is what the founders intended. host: any idea how big you think it should be or based on current

population, hominy members should be in the u.s. house? there's a number of methods. methods is toic say that the least populous is the number of people per representative. so if you do that calculation and it's based on population of the least representative -- least populous state, you have a simple proportional representation and you can calculate it that way. host: appreciate that. one foresting washington journal. thanks for that. maryland, anthony. caller: good morning.

you take a look at what happened , places a california -- york so you will know voting for him now or not. the minority is really the majority. host: thanks for your call this morning. to the coronavirus pandemic and the rising number of cases across several states. by loribe joined freeman of the national association of county and city health officials.

later on will be joined by the gao to talk of the covid-19 response and how that money is being spent. ♪ >> binge watch book tv this summer. settle in and watch several hours of your favorite authors. saturday we are featuring commentator, author and founder of national review, william f buckley. author of 50 books. and watch saturday, july 18 as alleature malcolm gladwell summer on c-span2. >> the presidents. from public affairs, available now in paperback and e-book. presidents of every

organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst. in lineres perspectives of the nation's chief executive and leadership style heard visit the website to learn more. order your copy today. washington journal continues. host: a number of states across the country are seeing rises in the number of covid-19 cases and how state health officials are addressing it and we are joined i lori trammell freeman, the ceo of the national association of county and city health officials. >> thank you. host: tell us about your association, what is its role and mission? associationational of county and city health

the national are nonprofit the represent local health departments across the country in a number of ways. them with resources and publication, we also are a liaison between our health department and the federal agencies. the cdc, health and human services, fema and others. and we basically advocate on , our government public health system. >> how are most city and county local health officials funded? funded through their , our federally at --ment, typically

allocate health funding to the states. in the states can also, have their own funding the resource the local health departments as well. >> what are some of the challenges you are hearing from the heroes -- from those across the country since the start of the pandemic. everything is hyper escalated , the other things that are on with the threat like covid-19, our health permits under extreme duress.

the can address the disease that have the other resources on the ground. that are used to mitigate the disease. >> without pointing out individual counties or cities. give us an idea of some of the better practices the local health agencies are doing to handle this. maybe some that aren't the practices that aren't working across the country. guest: our local health departments are always well-positioned that something they do, all the time, even when you're not in a pandemic state. the tip they the resources on peopleund that get access to care when they needed. access to testing. there contact tracers on the

ground. and try to mitigate with isolation and quarantine when necessary. without an active vaccine or antiviral, we are left with the tried-and-true public health measures, which basically comes down to effectively finding people and keeping them away from others. -- finding people and keeping away from others. host: we seeing rises across the country, states have reopened, what's your take? departmentsc health during something wicked pandemic actually have an authority to act the spread of disease. authority includes taking measures the spreading of

disease. isolating when you're sick or quarantining when you're sick. those are tried-and-true health measures. what are health partners are seeing we open our economies, will try to get back to a normal state of things, people are not inclined these best public health practices that we know work. extremist groups or activists trying to politicize public health advice instead of just recognizing its pure health advice. our public health departments are apolitical. they don't have political stance here. host: our guest is the chief executive officer of the national association county and city officials. respond those agencies

to the covid-19 pandemic and the rising cases across the u.s.? we welcome your calls. in the eastern and central time zones. 202-748-8001 mountain and pacific. 202-748-8002, that line we have set aside for public health officials. any kind. state, local or federal health official. where healthime officials both national and local health officials have been at the forefront literally in our face on camera, on briefings all the time. what sort of pressure has that put on some local health agencies. our public health officials are in this field to treat the entire communities, they know the community is their

responsibility. they are under increasing pressure here to keep their community safe, especially given circumstances with not everyone to the good advice. you are right. they usually fly under the radar come would like to say public health is successful in doing its job. that means you have claims -- in andater, pool to swim exercises. they are out front in this particular pandemic. in the carriers of this, they are often the targets as well. host: even prior to the

pandemic, the practice, those local health agencies to wait in terms of a national or local response to a national issue, has the practice been to wait for guidance from federal health nih?ials, the cdc, .uest: it's a close connection that is really important because it's often informed by what we , theabout the disease infection. with any disease there is a catch up. ,ou are gathering information the disease is evolving. occurring between the federal government, the state and local health officials and in terms of the guidance they are giving the

public. guidancedo need that and advice to inform the messaging on the ground. that's informed by the data and science we know being gathered in other parts of the government. host: would you prefer the federal government issue a nationwide mandate for wearing masks? guest: in this particular case because we know this disease spread so quickly, from person-to-person. wearing masks is going to help us stop the spread of this having an lieu of hard-core vaccine. the absolute best practice we have right now, it would be easier to do it, to keep one

another safe. , but the way we are set up as a country doesn't work that way. ability.ve the but as i've said, public health and they do have the ability to stop the spread in their community by wishing these masks ordered on the ground. this aou touched on moment ago in terms of staffing across the country. ,rom the connecticut mirror public health system faces more cuts amid virus. they say it's been start for decades and lacked the resources to confront the worst health crisis in the century. least 2.6 sickened at million in the u.s. and killed more than 129,000 people across

tens of millions of jobs. governmentocal health workers on the ground are sometimes being paid so little that they qualify for public aid. is a true crisis in our public health system. we need our governmental public health system to be well resourced so that we are ready for this type of threat. years, we have0 seen continued cuts to our at thehealth investment federal level. -- tricklele down down to the local level. when you look at that. the economic impact of this andemic related to payroll business taxes at the local level. thosef which

municipalities, though systems as well. this is really a terrible perfect storm of impact to the workforce. we are very concerned about it and our ability to keep communities safe. host: we go to provincetown, massachusetts and peter. caller: thanks for taking my call. have a very serious question. when the president crated the coronavirus task force, it was heavily politicized from the start. it was quite large in number and there was this sense it really didn't have a tie to the boots on the ground and able to give directives. it was just cluttered with political messaging. upfront,to ask you

would it have been better for president trump to create a smaller pandemic response? i would've recommended the use it on that board along without she and burks and a couple of other people and that would've been much more effective from the start. curious as to what you think about that. host: thanks, peter. guest: that is an excellent question. it brings up the point that our governmental public health system in place to address infectious disease and other public health threats that keep our communities, that have impact on our communities needs to be integral in that response. that goes from the highest tier , that federal government

is a 10,000 strong agency and some of our best and brightest public health experts in the world. down to our state health agencies and local governmental public health agencies. copart of theyou threat like this. needed correct that we and we still need much more to help inform this response. host: on twitter saying south korea is a robust system. south korea 40 community spread. terry is next in canton, north carolina. caller: good morning. weeks, we've few

noticed the death count has not raised that much. looking in major cities like new york and chicago, just last weekend we had over 200 shootings, 14 children under the age of eight murdered by marxist terrorist group. but the democrats call peaceful protesters. c-span, you are sitting here trying to deem that all of this is trump's fault because we have rising cases. i think the worst thing in this country is what the democrats are trying to do. the bernie brose out in the street today have called and said they would do this if bernie sanders was not nominated. we have people in the streets destroying property, threatening people, you can't even call the police because they are knocking to come. there people in st. louis had to

sit there and hold off an armed mob of blm marxist terrorists. host: just to let you know we are going to be talking in our last segment about gun violence in the u.s.. but to his point, the headline in the washington time. covid death rate plunges from peak in the u.s., any response? say that gund just violence and antiviolence is also a public health emergency. we consider it to be that and it's something we have to really pay attention to. up next,ndon is fremont, california. hower: i was just curious close do you think it is to fight the coronavirus in developing countries doing with heavy global poverty and 70 prevent pandemics in the future

and dealing with it in the states? guest: thank you. that's an important comment in question as well. in order to affect change in our we have to pay attention to the rest of the world. we arehts of the world normally traveling and people are bringing and spreading disease. all the time. the centers for disease control , we pay attention what's going on globally. doingerstand what it's and it's really a matter of keeping our country secure. and the rest of the world does matter and we need to be doing things like helping to support learning from around the globe about infectious disease spread

and understanding how that witht around public health a future threat like this. host: mere times is a look at health care workers. front page of the new york times, the coronavirus assessment center, some sites ran out of tests on monday in the photo those workers in nashville, tennessee. how concerned are you about the availability of tests? how concerned are they across the country? >> not in all cases do we still have available testing across the country to do what we need to do to understand how to stop and mitigate the spread of the disease. we need make your testing kits are available widely. for anybody who feels like they need to be tested whether to sickure, whether they feel

, that's prone, maybe they are an essential worker. it's our duty to ensure we have those testing kits and supplies readily available of our reallyties to help us catch just mitigating this disease spread while we don't have a vaccine or antiviral. ronald in salem, missouri. is about thell funding for the county health departments. recall thei can county hospital and all kinds of the states aand meal he turned to the federal government. live got to fund this stuff on

the local level. and in made sure supplies are capped up. around try torun beg, borrow and steal. we had probably the world's greatest -- not too long ago. we had the world's greatest public health system. it's a lack of funding doing it and counties are where we need to look. one is our country invest a lot of money in health care and treating people after they become ill. $3.6 trillion. the people don't realize only 3% of that is actually invested in public health.

the very prevention activities that keep people from getting sick in the first place, that's what her state and local governments do and so this gentleman is absently correct. we need to reinvest in our public health infrastructure, we need to do it now to ensure we can come through this. also be ready for the next time. we need to do it because it will save us money in the long term. for every dollar of prevention you will save far more dollars from people getting sick in the long term. host: the administration is termed the development of vaccine and the distribution of the vaccine when it becomes available. as your -- has your organization been informed about how the vaccine might be distributed and

administered nationwide? guest: those plans are rapidly developing with the announcement of operation warp speed. we've been involved in conversations that are looking to have this work inform fire state and local public health departments. ones, or local health departments unite the public against many other diseases. they are that position on the ground in the communities. giving us the vaccine dissemination and our state health departments need to be involved as well. once again we don't go down the road we started out. and not have governmental public health informing the work. we are working hard to ensure that our governmental public and that strengthened

investment and infrastructure can be in place to be ready for the next emergency. host: robert in waldorf, maryland. caller: good morning. bureaucracy, this is the job of the cdc to have the -- head these off. this is what they're supposed to do. they didn't do that here. why do we call this the covid virus smart it came from china which i'm sure everyone would acknowledge. weapon andiological why no one wants to call it that is beyond me. you guys sitting here claiming this is nothing and we need to wear masks. it's a ghost, it's a figment of your imagination and you can control the american people with this for as long as you want. if you really believe that this disease, this virus has killed

130,000 americans, we agree that it came from china, does that -- deserve a retaliatory response on china. if it killed one of 30,000 americans come one you tell the american people where this virus came from. host: going to let you go there. do you have any response? they could come from around anywhere in the world and they've originated from other places as well as her own country. we are aware of where it originated -- regardless of where it originated, it's a public health threat. we need to do that by proactively understanding where they are across the world and how they can potentially affect the future in being prepared and responding. there's a lot we can learn from

this pandemic response. there have been mistakes made shouldly and i think we learn from those. allow it to prepare us for the next time. host: we will hear from jenna in pennsylvania. i have a question about the crisis. i know president trump wants to cut the budget further. with covid-19 do you think it's possible again? i think we need to be investing strongly in our own governmental public health infrastructure. however we know from the last gentleman's call that these

diseases that sometimes originate in other parts of the extent weso to the ofd to maintain some level involvement with the rest of the world and understanding infectious diseases response. that we are not isolated from the rest of the world. host: the ceo of the national association of county, city health officials talking about the spread of the coronavirus around the country. the line for eastern and central time zones. 202-748-8001 for mountain and pacific. if you're a public health official, that line is 202-748-8002. many members how

does your association represent and how many states does that cover? guest: there are nearly 3000 local health departments across the country, representing every state in the country and their health departments in u.s. territories as well. about the spread of some of those cases, states restore restrictions as cases and hospitalization spike across the u.s.. they write that the nevada and arizona reported the highest number of coronavirus related hospitalizations in recent days. highs with the biggest increases in west virginia, tennessee, montana paid the seven day average a record high and in arizona they write 89% of the states intensive care bed units were full monday morning.

statesently hard-hit passed 100,000 cases. in the nation's capital is john, go ahead. i don't want to attack this young lady or her organization. however the majority of the vaccine testing that is going on inldwide is taking place black and african and dark skinned country -- countries and nations. some of these nations are used as guinea pigs for a vaccine that will -- iately be released don't want to say the majority population because they're not really, but here in the united states at any rate and in western countries, more white than black. worldwide62 nations

where the vaccine testing is going on and if you just take a map and markout these nations, you will see it's almost the entire continent of africa and the other nations not in africa are dark skinned nations. some of these people are jetting to being used as guinea pigs, those are there your -- those are their words. bill gates and some others are behind this testing. so when she says we know what's going on in other countries, we care about what's going on, i'm not hearing any evidence beyond a platitude. host: we will let her respond. guest: we absolutely do not testing that of use ofhat degree

populations that are already vulnerable to disease and vulnerable to other conditions. our black communities, african-american communities, other communities we know have underlying conditions to a greater extent than white populations, that is of usingnable in terms those to detect vaccines. vaccination is what's going to help us get out of this pandemic. development has to be progressive and moving as fast as possible in order to move out of this.

form shouldhape or we be using any vulnerable populations or ones that are impacted by disease to do this testing. host: the wall street journal is writing about vaccine testing. coronavirus research competes to enroll subjects in the vaccine tests. they say the vaccine researchers are trying new in an unprecedented effort to court -- use tens of thousands volunteers in the late stages of development. the wall street journal writes quickly lining up all subjects for so many studies at the same time poses several challenges. given the urgency, researchers are taking unusual steps such as recruiting at pharmacies, and askches were subjects around. back to calls, we go to vicki in austin, texas. caller: thanks for taking my call. i've called about this before.

it's about availability of masks for the public. early on i followed as best i could through other sources how the virus spread and what was the effectiveness of these homemade masks. understand wearing a mask is primarily to protect others and not yourself. these days you cannot count on other people doing their share and i'm cooped up, i need to go places, to go to the doctor or dentist. like tosperately would be able to have access to at mask or a mask it's going to be effective in protecting me. i know when i've called and before and had the epidemiologist on i got chastised for caring too much for myself and not about others. , care about protecting others as sony people not wearing masks

and the cloth master not effective at preventing the virus,of the aerosolized i am just desperate. i haven't gotten my $1200 covid money. i would just assume get 1n95 mask. is there any way the public can get masks as a public health system can they help with this? go to the dentist or doctor or grocery store or something. host: thank you. that's an interesting observation and comment. ppe production and supply chains open up, we are beginning to see more and more of these available. we can see those available at

the grocery store, i was glad to see those. any mask is still better than no mask. please understand that. strengthen the mask by multi-layering or filtering -- adding a filter bread as far as the availability of n95, the general public, certainly take , justomments to heart advised that any mask is better than no mask at all and it will help protect others around you. bill from albany, new york. caller: thank you. i'd like to ask ms. freeman regarding a question, i don't know if she would know regarding prescriptions and pharmaceuticals. my question is, or the city and health officials working with the government on this?

it's my understanding to be true generic to 95% of the ingredients for drugs are made in china. it looks like the american pharmaceuticals are about 10 years away from us producing our own medications. is there talk amongst your organizations about having this? i'm already seeing on my local level, manufacturer of one of my prescriptions went out of business and they had to find another manufacturer to get a similar drug. this? going on regarding it is affected by the virus. because of china all of a sudden decides not to send these

ingredients, we are going to be in big trouble with normal medications, not even the antivirus. i was wondering if there was a plan in place for this. guest: i have not heard of anything, but i am -- i have my eyes on this myself because i have a medication myself that has been unavailable for 45 days that is controlling a chronic disease. several are the underlying conditions that increase your this isgetting covid, important to me as well. i don't have any further explanation of what's being done, but i take your comment and i personally will look into what's happening here. host: you were quoted in a recent washington post article, the headline of which said amid threats and political pushback,

public health officials are leaving their post. how widespread is this and what was your comment in that article? what was your organization saying about this? guest: we are very alarmed because we are seeing increasingly a number of public health officials, members of ,heir staff being scapegoated fired or resigning suddenly, some taking early retirement. much of this has to do with them just doing their job and trying serveure the public they are safe from disease. politicization of mask distancing,social their jobs are made much more difficult. carl: from north carolina.

you're on the air, go ahead. ok. kim is in deltona, florida. -- ken is intel tona, florida. caller: i had a question for your guest. i would like her to explain the .dc rules how they can take and count the coronavirus. i want to give you a court -- a prime example. there was a big deal made here casesriday about the 9585 that were taken positive cases here in florida. over 78,345. when you take that number, that amounts to 8.173 people that

came up tested positive for the coronavirus. there is never a mention, are they asymptomatic or do they have the antibodies. they never break any of this out. told, thei've been cdc just counts everything as being a coronavirus. i think it's a very dishonest interservice to the american people when you don't break it out. they also do not say how many people tested negative for it. that --re a .17 people 8.17 people at tested positive 91.8at, you have over percent that tested negative for it. host: we will get a response. cdc uses data produced from state and local

reporting. it does not produce its own data. all of the data comes from other sources. with this pandemic, there are increasing numbers of entities that are testing outside of the public health system. we've had expanded public-private partnership that includes private drive up situations as well as pharmacies. ofwhen you expand that level accessibility to the public, you also risk a little bit of control of the data being reported. to the gentleman's point i will say their standardized data and information we collect that is supposed to be collected for cases and for testing. that beingcases is done for a variety of reasons.

that helps to muddy the waters a little bit with the data that's being aggregated in collected and reported. it's a large puzzle of 3000 health departments, 50 states, territories, and all the other commercial testing facilities that make up this data. with time i think it will be refined and get better and we will be able to refine that better. it is a challenge. host: lori heads the national association of city and county health officials. appreciate you joining us here on washington journal. guest: my pleasure. host: we will continue with your phone calls and comments on the spread of cases across the united states. lines remain the same. 202-748-8000 for those in the

eastern and central time zones. 202-748-8001 for mountain and pacific. we keep that line for public health officials at 202-748-8002 . -- some of the onments on sunday's program meet the press with the governor of new jersey. [video clip] see aare starting to small spikes of reinfection from folks coming back from places like myrtle beach and florida and other hotspots. to me it says we need a national strategy. we are only as strong as our weakest link. as you mentioned in the outset of the program, we went through hell and we can't afford to go through that again. from sunday's meet the

press, from this morning's monday time -- new york times. testsfor coronavirus stretched around city blocks. test ran out altogether in at least one site. new evidence the country is still struggling to create a sufficient testing system month into his battle with covid-19. goodrich, texas, this is amy. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my hall -- my call. i'm in texas and everybody sees what's happening in texas, it's a disaster. and i'm scared of it. specifically -- what are you doing to keep yourself safe? caller: i'm isolating. i'm 100% isolated. thing i want people

to think about. mutate, you need to take them seriously. i've had skin sent -- skin cancer surgery twice caused by a virus. no one really knows what coronavirus, what the after effects of the virus are going to be. hpv for instance translated into sin -- into skin cancer for me. people should take it a lot more seriously than they are. nobody knows what the after affects of the virus are going to be. host: to andy in kentucky. caller: good morning and i want to thank you all for what you are doing. is i know this thing is rising again and i feel like

we are not putting jesus first in our lives and this is a wake-up call to the churches and every christian out there who put jesus first in their life -- to put jesus first in their life. this closed everything down. it was getting ready to do the sec tournament down in nashville. call and we need to turn back to jesus and convert in our lives. until we do that, it's not any better. we need to put jesus first back in our lives in the lord will take care of this. host: nicholas in minnesota next. caller: thanks for taking my call. i believe this disease doesn't

know any borders. for thetogether countries in helping developing countries that don't have the resource to fight the pandemic itself. the eastern and central time zones, 202-748-8000. mountain and pacific, 202-748-8001. wall street journal this morning , virus tests protections for workers and mounting cases highlight the difficulty. they write that region -- recent emergency regulations by washington state to curb outbreaks are slowing fieldwork in ya, valley. the virus is still spreading according to agricultural employers. the farms produce $1 billion of crops each year. they're hiring for -- hi -- the house and senate are out

this week. we have coverage of the house appropriations committee's and others meeting on the 21 budget. there is more work ahead on the response the pandemic. this is in response to the washington post about the majority leader, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, detailed stance on relief bill. senator mcconnell outlined new details monday of what he wants to see in the next and potentially final coronavirus relief package including a five-year liability shield for businesses and a possible new round of stimulus checks aimed at workers making $20,000 a year and last. comments came in a series of events in louisville the first day of a two-week congressional recess. he laid down markers for democrats of what promised to be contentious negotiations when congress reconvenes on july 20. that from the washington post. k joining usom

from nebraska. caller: good morning. they say they've done 40 million tests, how many of those are retests? do they count all of them? host: have you been tested yourself? caller: no, you cannot get a test unless you have symptoms around here. i've been around someone who's been exposed. in the panhandle of nebraska you cannot get tested yet unless you've been exposed or have the symptoms. or insurance. host: you said you've been around somebody -- caller: no i haven't. host: you have not, ok. caller: i have been isolating. i do know, with comedy test they've done at the white house where they get tested every day, sometimes twice a day. so each one of those counts. but once they go positive they don't count, there's one positive and that positive goes

there but they don't count the next time they test positive. but on the negatives they count every single one of them and it makes it look like they're doing all these tests and they may be done 25 million tests original test, but how many are retests? that part people aren't getting. your commentste there this morning. entertainer, aan country legend was on this program many years ago. charlie daniels, country star charlie daniels dead at the age of 83, his death was confirmed suffering a stroke at the age of 83. we search the c-span video library for his appearance on this program many years ago. next, friendship, wisconsin. my thing is president trump, him not wearing a mask in

public -- host: you are on the air, go ahead. maskr: if he was to wear a and we couldn't see the lips moving, how would we know when he is lying? ok, back to the issue of monuments. we addressed it on the program on sunday and talked about several articles. the descendent of thomas jefferson with a feature opinion piece in the op-ed page of the new york times. take down the jefferson memorial. monticello tells the founders real story more revealing than all. they write that the story of monticello these days will tell you it was designed by jefferson and built by the people he enslaved. it would point out joinery and other furniture built by john hemmings, displays of rebuild cabins and barns where those enslaved lived and worked. at monticello you will in the history of jefferson, the man

who was president and wrote the declaration of independence and you learn the history of jefferson the slaveowner. monticello is no most perfect memorial because it reveals him with his moral failings and fall , and imperfect man, if flawed founder. that's why we don't need the jefferson memorial to celebrate him. he should not beyond with a bronze statue 19 feet tall, surrounded by a colonnade of white marble. the time to honor the slaveowning founders of our imperfect union is passed. the ground, which should have moved long ago, has at last shifted beneath it. duane is next up in seattle, washington. caller: my name is duane. host: you are on the air. caller: i would suggest all emtse, fire, hospitals and should be the only ones moving around, all airports should be shut down going and coming for

at least two weeks. that way we can get better control of the virus. seattle, was an early hotspot for the virus. what's the situation now? caller: right now it's gradually going and coming. people are starting to wear , social distancing is kind of critical. everybody is trying. but you do have negative people who don't want to participate and everything. generally you have people who don't want to follow the rules or regulation. the governor here is doing an outstanding job, everyone should follow his lead. we are not in trouble like florida and texas. in the beginning we were and now we are not. host: we will talk about this a bit more in our next segment,

headline here in the wall street journal. well healed and connected among recipients of prominent law firms, and politically connected businesses among the recipients of the $521 million of government dollars to help small businesses whether the pandemic. up next year on washington byrnal, we will be joined nicole of the government accountability office talking about the new gao report and how covid-19 funds have been appropriated by congress have been spent. your calls and comments welcome here on washington journal. ♪ >> america's future is in our hands. and ladies and gentlemen, the best is yet to come. announcer: president trump is

hosting a rally in portsmouth, new hampshire. coverage campaign 2020 on saturday on c-span, on demand at c-span.org or listen on the go with the free c-span radio app. ♪ c-span has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events. if you watch all of c-span's programming on television, online or listen on our free radio app. and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily programs, or through our social media feeds. c-span, created by america's cable television companies as a public service, and brought to you today by your television provider. "washington journal" continues.

host: we will talk about the spending of the covid-19 relief funds approved by congress over the past couple months. we are joined by the health care team manager, nicole clowers, for the government accountability office. guest: thank you for having me. host: tell us why the gao did this report. guest: the cares act passed in verch required us to ha oversight of the funding and activities of the federal government, specifically it requires us to provide oversight of the government's efforts to respond to and recover from covid-19. and it includes us assessing the impact of covid-19 on public health, as well as at the economy, as well as track the funding and use of the funding. the act requires us to report

everything, starting 90 days after an accident, so the june report was our first report, and we will be issuing additional reports every other month. host: as soon as the legislation assigned, enacted and -- signed, the gao is monitoring? guest: absolutely, we are providing real-time oversight. we have experience doing this. going back over a decade ago, for example, under the lease program that provided assistance to the financial sectors after the global crisis, we were required to provide ongoing oversight and issue a report every 60 days. so, we have experience and we have built on that experience to hit the ground running to provide immediate oversight and ensure accountability and transparency of how the funds are being used. host: let's take a look at the numbers.

trillion in spending. here are the figures on each package. ppp, paycheck protection billion.$670 the stabilization fund at $500 billion. expanded unemployment insurance at $375 billion. economic impact payments, $282 billion. public health emergency funding, $232 billion. $150 billion from the cares act, the relief for state and local governments. of that total, how much has been spent already? guest: about $677 billion. that is what we found in our work and collection of data. unfortunately, the treasury has not released over all spending data yet. under omb guidance, agencies are re report on their ca

spending, starting at the end of june. so we expect the overall spending data to be available starting probably at the end of july and august timeframe. in the absence of comprehensive data, we undertook our own efforts to collect what was out spending, so we collected information on the six largest areas you mentioned, as well as other federal agencies. and we got about $677 billion expended. -- spended. in $1.3 billion has been allocated. host: we are talking about the oversight of the relief funds, how that money is spent, with the gao's nicole clowers. we welcome your comments at (202) 748-8000 for eastern and

central time zones. (202) 748-8001 for mountain and pacific. i have to imagine that keeping track of $2.5 million is hard enough, but what were the challenges of tracking $2.57 trillion worth of spending? it is not all spent yet. and how much staff does it entail? guest: well, it is challenging providing real-time oversight, as you can imagine, as agencies are standing up programs. and they are figuring out how to toablish the programs, how track their own spending, and so that requires us to be agile and nimble and work with the agencies to keep opposite - - keep up-to-date. it requires us to work around the clock, frankly, detracted dollars, make sure we have a

good understanding, so we can provide that information to policymakers and the public. host: what were some significant issues you found in the way the money is being spent? ne thing that we highlight in the report is program integrity issues, risk of improper payments or fraud. that stems from the fact of how quickly the programs were stood up. on one hand, the workforce should be applauded for how quickly they worked, they were working diligently as well to stand up the programs and get the funds out the door, for example with the stimulus checks, as while as the paycheck protection program. they worked quickly to stand up those programs. in doing so, there is a trade-off between getting funds out quickly and it standing up

the programs quickly with ensuring appropriate safeguards in place. and we found in making this decision, there for some trade-offs in terms of safeguards. for example, in the paycheck protection program. one of the things that we noted in the report is that it relied on borrowers to self certified their eligibility. this means the funds going out the door quickly, but when you rely on self certification that raises the potential for fraudsters to take advantage of the program. host: how prevalent was the inue of fraud, in that case, the ppp, but also in the other measures you surveyed in your oversight? guest:guest: we are still doing work. we are looking at the issues of

fraud and improper payments. our work would indicate that when you have programs of this size, the speed at which they are moving, it raises -- or it creates a high risk for program integrity issues. that is why we have raised a red flag and we have made recommendations in this area, for example with the paycheck protection program, we told them to identify the risks and addressed of them -- address them. with insurance, we made a recommendation for the department of labor to work with states to help address potential program integrity issues. and so we are making recommendations to help address these issues in real-time. that is the advantage of us reporting on an ongoing basis, we can make these recommendations and then they can be corrected, so the

agencies can adjust and address the issues as we see them. policyn prevent future problems down the road. host: our listeners can read the report at gao.gov. if we can zoom into this brief timeline of the paycheck protection program, starting in march of 2020, basically through the end of june, now, and all the events happening, including the lapse and appropriations on april 16. and of the places where guidelines have been posted in this brief amount of time, and the total spent or the total appropriated for the ppp, which was initially $150 billion, correct? guest: the program was more than that. has --, the government

havegh the banks, they provided 4.6 million loans, scheduling about $512 billion. and i think that that graphic you are higher leading is a good one. it shows the trade-off being made when you stand up programs quickly. the goal was to help get the money out quickly to the businesses, to help shore up their finances during the economic downturn. but there is a trade-off. and as the graphic illustrates, guidance theyhe were providing to the lenders and borrowers were -- as they were learning more about the program and adjusting rules based on the questions being asked. see evolvingyou

guidance over the past couple toths, which has led confusion among the lenders and borrowers in terms of eligibility and loan forgiveness. host: we have some calls. tom is joining us from connecticut. good morning. caller: how are you doing? there ison is, i hope funding going toward a clear message. in the beginning they were using face masks, but the recommendation was not to wear them all the time. that has gotten straightened out. they have talked about distance. and then about wearing masks. crowd,somebody is in a talking or singing or whatever, people should not walk through that airspace for a moment, or for a little bit of time. there should be a coherent message and hopefully the

funding to pay for it. host: more broadly on the messaging, what recommendations did you provide? or the gao provide for future spending? guest: i appreciate that. this goes to one of the -- in the report we identified a series of revolving lessons learned. the issues we identified from the government's initial response to covid-19, as well as lessons learned from past public health emergencies. and one of the lessons learned clear andd for consistent communication. it's important during a pandemic that the government speak with one voice. clear messages in terms of what the public needs to be doing. we highlighted some examples. for example, conflicting

guidance on the size of gatherings that that should be allowed. on one day the cdc issued guidance, the next day the white house gave a different guidance. that creates confusion and it makes it harder for those people who want to follow the rules to follow the rules. we also highlighted, this is not a new concern, but we found problems with providing clear and consistent communication in past public health emergencies. for example, we cite during the 2009, thatic around there was inconsistent information going to the states, felt frustrated about the conflicting information from different agencies within the government. there was also inconsistent information about when a vaccine

would be developed. a date was given, that came and passed. events, those types of when they happen, the government loses credibility, credibility is diminished. so it's important that the government be careful in terms of what it is reporting. and when facts and circumstances change, because of the virus is evolving, we are learning, we need to be clear about how and why the messaging is changing so that people fully understand. host: that report is at gao.gov, opportunities to improve a federal response and recovery efforts. there are several tabs, including recommendations. so let's hear from frank in philadelphia. good morning. caller: hi. in a national emergency like this, i've always understood

that the government was andonsible for jumpingi in taking care of everything, but it seems that the president has dumped this on the governors. and the governors are ending up -- and the states are being bankrupt by this pandemic. in the past, i thought it was fema or another organization that ultimately covered these costs. and to care of the matter. am i wrong? guest: it's a good question. it's a collaborative effort. at the federal level, certain agencies are responsible and they have lead on certain issues. you mentioned fema, fema plays a critical role. the department of health and human services, they are the lead of federal department for public health emergencies.

and each of them plays a critical role. but in terms of different strategies and plans, over the years plans outline the governmental response, that it would require actions by the federal government, as well as state and local governments in addition to the private sector. the private sector will play a critical role, including in the vaccine development. exampleing to give an of how the importance of both federal and state working on the issue of stockpile or providing supplies necessary. foraintain a federal level the strategic stockpile. it contains a certain supplies for different emergencies, such as an infectious disease

outbreak. but the stockpile is designed to supplement state supplies. it's not designed to be the only source. it is supposed to be a short-term stop gap, at least as it works right now. andt requires good planning good coordination on both the federal government's part as well as state and -- in states across the country. host: robert in syracuse. good morning. robert, are you there? caller: yes. hello. i want to ask a question about the ppp program. i am a small business owner. i pay myself. i paid myself on the way up until february. february ibanks, in

was switching when covid-19 really started to take off. and i was being paid through a bp. every time i went onto the system for ppp, i would enter information and i would get booted off. the first shot was gone. then congress approved the second part. i finally got into the system, loaded up everything, and it said [indiscernible] -- host: you are breaking up. go ahead. caller: i uploaded bank statements and everything, and to this day i am still going back and forth with the bank. snd my fingers are -- figure are about $23,000. it's a small business. we are in up and growing company.

but it is just difficult when i see these multimillion dollar companies get millions of dollars. one thing i want to say and ask your opinion on. that was part one. doesn't steve mnuchin and donald trump on the millions of dollars, where they not agreeing to having full transparency on every dollar of the money? i know the democrats were holding off, trying to get transparency agreed upon. they held it off in february and march, the stimulus. then they were being blamed that they were holding up money from the u.s. people. my opinion is i think that anybody in government, when money is approved, whether it is hurricane sandy or this pandemic, every dollar should be accounted for. am i correct in saying that right now the trump administration is not under any agreement to show transparency

for these trillions? host: we will get a response. guest: on the first issue, in terms of >> >> the challenges that we face, i can tell you that we have heard similar stories from others in terms of the frustration with the technology and also confusion about eligibility, as well as whether the loans would be forgiven. on anybody working currently securing a loan, if you have a lender, that is who you should be working with. if you have other questions general, ibility in would go to the website and they have put out a number of frequently asked questions that could be helpful. i would also note that recently the ppp program was extended,

the application program, in a law that was signed over the last week. now it is extended until august 8, so people can continue to apply to the program. on the second issue of accountability and transparency, that was another lesson learned that we highlighted in the report. it is a need for mechanisms to be put in place. publicportant that the understand how these dollars are being used. accountabilitye mechanisms to help ensure that the dollars are going -- that were intended in the law. we highlight the example of the ppp as an area where additional transparency was needed. itthe time of our report,

was not information in terms of going.he dollars were over the last week, some information has been released by the administration in terms of where the money has gone. sometually received detailed information that we had been requesting just over the last week as well. we highlighted this in the report that we had requested the detailed loan information and had not received it. but we have been able to work with sba and getting the detailed information we wanted and we are currently going over the information and and analyzing and we will report it out in future reports. their"washington post," headline that the treasury s ent payments to dead people. it?widespread was

what was your recommendation for solving that issue, payments going to people that should not have gotten them? reported found -- we on what we learned from the treasury, which found that there was a little over one million o deceasedt t individuals, totaling $1.4 billion. because that occurred there was a legal interpretation led they on that treasury to believe that they did not have the authority not to send the checks to the deceased individuals because the act instructed them to anybody that filed a tax return in 2018 or 2019. the initial checks went out in batches. the first three batches, they

did not apply the filter that would have allowed them to stop checks going to deceased individuals, so those went out. there was an internal discussion that the treasury -- they decided they had the authority to put that filter in place, so they added the filter and now the issue has been resolved. what we recommended in our report was the number of checks that did go out individuals, to those who are deceased, we recommended that the irs take steps to notify family members or the appropriate people about how to return the checks. to the government. since we issued our report, i have been contacted through email by some who have said that a loved one passed away into they received a check, asking how to return that. there are many people who want

to do the right thing, so we wanted to make sure that the irs put out the information in terms of helping them return the checks. and the irs agreed to do so. host: it sounds like the speed with which the legislation was enacted, put into place and regulations generated, the speed of the program led to a a lot of problems. lot of problems. guest: that is correct. this was a huge federal effort that required action from most federal agencies. and there was a desire to get the programs up and running, to provide help to those in need. but in doing so, there is a trade-off. when you do not have time the federal agencies

did not feel like they had time to put the safeguards in place, so you see the consequences. nost: let's hear from ed i titusville, florida. guest: i saw the lady testify before congress -- caller: and i found it illuminating. i'm interested in ppp. i'm retired irs, so as far as the fraud end, i was wondering who would be chasing the money down at the backend, as far as the deceased taxpayers. i do think the irs will take that on. -- ppp, thethat money guaranteed to the businesses, who is going to owe that money when they default? some of these businesses will not be able to stay in business.

so who is going to go after the backend? guest: that is an issue we will be watching in terms of the sba's actions and monitoring the funding that has been provided loanecisions on forgiveness. i think it goes back to the comments i made earlier in that there has been a a lot of confusion with the program, including eligibility, but also whether the loans would have to be paid back and under what circumstances. i think when you have that level of confusion, it goes to your point that it will make the back end of the program difficult. we made recommendations for them to develop a plan to identify and address those risks, to address the program integrity issues we identified, but also

the effectiveness of the program, to worked to make sure that the program as it is being carried out is effective. host: let's hear from our caller in texas. caller: i had a question about the ppp. on thea mistake application. i was confused at the time. i was going to school at the time. i was studying it. in thelicked the $10,000 box, that should've been my payroll for 10 weeks. so when they went to pay it out, she told me even though they had all my payroll information that they cannot change that. it's going to run out. so i would take it and work on getting the balance of it. but there is no way to do that. so i have three weeks of payroll. i have used 100% of it for

payroll for my guys. there is no way. the sba will not talk to you about it. your mate says that you agreed to $10,000. so, now i am in dire straits. the business will make it, but i will personally go bankrupt to save the business because of this mistake. host: what is your business? caller: i own an air freight company that works directly with ford. host: any thoughts? guest: i am sorry to hear about your situation. is only advice i can offer you can work with your lender, but it sounds like you have already tried to do that. since the program has been extended, i think it would be worth you going back to your lender to have another conversation. in washington,

d.c., grant? caller: i downloaded the loans,e of ppp on 150 k+ and i saw three things of extreme concern. probably the most interesting was the number of nonprofits that mean leadership money overseas accessing the loans, like the friends of the israel defense forces got $2 million-$5 million, an organization that builds facilities in israel. the israel emergency alliance, which tries to portray israel as a great thing. the israeli american council, a pet project of sheldon adelson, got $1 million to $2 million. i question that they deserve the money. and the second thing, there are even two foreign banks involved

overseas. made 423 ppp loans, another originated seven loans. i am question and that foreign bank branches should even be in the business. and then renewable energies, a company that builds power plants in the west bank, got $2 million-$5 million in loans. you know, ford safety glass that departed the army delivering substandard bulletproof glass got $1 million-$2 million. there.everal things guest: we are doing the same thing you are doing. in the last week, we received sba.ls, the ppp data from

we are going through it now. and we will be reporting on this, the types of businesses that have received that information. we want to look at the data in a number of ways, the types, the locations of the businesses, the lines of businesses. we often have to do some mapping of where the businesses are versus it where there may be hotspots across the country, or certain particular downturns. and we will be reporting on this going forward. and in future reports. we think there is a lot of data mining we will be doing to provide additional transparency on where the dollars have gone. host: we will hear from john calling from massachusetts. caller: good morning. i'm a first time caller. about, youtions

know, how can we afford this program of the covid-19? what's iteasy to -- up to, like $2 trillion? you will break the back of american workers on this. how can we justify that when we have questions about whether it is a scam or not? a political ploy employed by globalists to defend their skin in the game financially, whether it is personally or they are financing american programs on. there is no transparency in our government. the media is not local. they used to say that politics is the highest percent local, but it has become international

media where the politicians and the people that represent us are so out of touch. and they are not responding. host: do you want to address the amount of money the federal government is spending in this response? guest: it is a significant amount of money, as we spoke at the beginning of the show, $2.6 trillion that has been appropriated and $1.3 billion of that obligated already. for a varietyent of activities. we have been talking about the ppp program for businesses during the economic downturn, but a good portion of the money also has gone to other efforts, including public health and issues of providing supplies, needed medical supplies, as well as testing.

one of the things we will be doing going forward is to be examining the impact on the nation's fiscal health. that is an issue that gao monitors and reports on often. we reported that the nation is on an unsustainable fiscal path. and of this additional spending path wether impact the are on. so, we will be monitoring that, as well as developing indicators assistancehow the provided through the cares act related to legislation is affecting different aspects of the economy. have developed indicators at that will be tracking on a monthly basis to determine we see positive trends

in different aspects of the economy, which will then go to whether the programs are having their desired impact. host: during the 2008 financial crisis, you are very involved with the asset relief program. you mentioned it earlier. compare the size of that spending and the speed at which it was allocated to the coronavirus spending so far. thet: the -- at the time relief program was one of the largest government interventions, if not the largest. i believe it was about $800 billion or $900 billion or so, so compare that to the 2.6 trillion dollars that that has been provided. you have to remember though with that relief program, it was

focused primarily on the o helpial sector t provide support and keep liquidity injected into the financial market, to help the economy. is not only trying to provide help for the economy, taking similar actions with liquidity and helping small businesses, but there are other are being addressed too, from public health and testing supplies to state and local government, to assistance to different sectors, like the aviation sector, as well as the international response. so, when you consider the magnitude of what the legislation is doing, it really does put that number in

perspective. and it goes to what a pandemic does. usuallyic often, it starts off as a public health crisis and it does remain that, but it has other effects on the economy to homeland security issues. that is what we are seeing. that is what the administration is trying to address, all these aspects with the pandemic. host: ron in independence, missouri. caller: good morning. what can be done to force the administration to be more transparent with these types of programs? the trumpthat it is administration that has decided the funds will be dispersed and people keep talking about globalism. it has nothing to do with that.

it is our own administration hiding, you know, hiding things and not revealing them. this is public information and it should never be hidden in the first placement should be front and center and everybody should know who is getting the loans, and why they are qualified. then there is no cronyism going on. host: we talked about that, how you are actively looking at that right now, correct? guest: that is correct. we are looking at the data provided about ppp. isi mentioned earlier, this a lesson learned we highlighted in terms of transparency and the need for a transparency mechanism. that is one of the roles gao plays with ongoing oversight. we have access to certain information. we have the audits ongoing.

we have about 50 audits that span the government. we will be reporting out on those, so policymakers and of the public will have that information. there are other accountability programs and committees as well. one is issuing a report as well. importantss plays an role in oversight hearings and transparency over how programs are performing and how the funds are being used. at a but we saw you hearing last week. ar you planning on pere dissipating and more hearings -- are you planning on participating in more hearings? guest: at this point, no.

but if they decide to hold a hearing on the report, we will be there because it is important for us to talk about the issues that we found in our report. reportsissued other that are related to this as well. and we will continue to do so. timothy and harper's bill, new york. arperville, new york. caller: i'm trying to find out when they will send another similar check, because i am really hurting. host: did you receive one? caller: i have received one. that money was spent as soon as i got it. nicole clowers, the payments sent out, there was a $1200 initial payment. what other payments went to individuals? what was covered under that spending? guest: there have been other

assistance provided to families, whether it be through the snap program. additional --ome if you were eligible, some rent forbearance, loan forbearance programs that have been enacted. so there have been some for families and individuals provided, as well as than the community, the businesses through ppp. at the state level, there has also been assistance provided, for example in the medicaid program. thelegislation increased federal share that's provided through medicaid. medicaid is a joint federal and state program. the federal government pays for

a certain percentage of medicaid. the states provide a certain percentage, they pay for a certain percentage of medicaid. and medicaid is a health insurance provided for low income or other vulnerable populations, so the legislation increased of the federal share, recognizing that states are facing significant economic downturns. and through that program that is another way that the legislation can work to help individuals and families. host: we appreciate you joining us, nicole clowers, the health care team manager with the latest report from gao on oversight for covid-19 relief funds. guest: thank you for having me. host: for the remainder of the program, we will focus on the gun violence that has erupted in a number of u.s. cities. to join the conversation come in the eastern and central time

zones, (202) 748-8000. mountain and pacific, (202) 748-8001. we will be right back. ♪ announcer: during the summer, reach out to your elected officials with c-span's congressional directory. it contains all the contact information you need to stay in touch with members of congress, federal agencies and state governors. order your copy online today at c-span store.org. journal": "washington continues. host: under 20 minutes left. we will open up the phone lines for your thoughts on the rise in gun violence in a number of u.s. cities. this headline from "the washington times,"" violence

grows." "gunfire is sweeping across america's streets. six children died in a span of shootings over the past five days as the levels of gun violence surpassed the deadly total at the same time last year." chicago reported 87 shootings from thursday evening through sunday night, at least 13 shooting victims were younger than 14. "new york reported 44 shootings and 11 deaths from gun violence from friday until sunday. philadelphia reported 31 shootings and seven deaths. atlanta reported 23 shootings and the death of an 80-year-old girl who was riding in a car with her mother when they passed a roadblock by a mob of protesters. law enforcement professionals say the european of violence is a perfect storm of animosity toward the police and liberal criminal justice reform policies that have put violent offenders

"ack on the streets. they write that booklet the police departments have -- that "the police departments it by order or fear of prosecution for the use of force have taken a hands-off approach to the growing violence." we want to hear your thoughts. (202) 748-8000 for eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001 for mountain and pacific. it had the attention of the president yesterday and his press secretary. >> i was asked probably 12 questions about the confederate flag. this president is focused on action. i am dismayed i did not receive one question on the deaths we had this weekend, i didn't receive one question about new york city's shootings at dublin for the third straight week, and shootings skyrocketed by 142%. not one question.

did not receive one question about five children killed. and i will leave you with this remark by a dad. the father of an eight-year-old. "you killed a child. we didn't do nothing about this." we need to make sure that all lives are safe. thank you. host: the white house press secretary there at yesterday's briefing. at governor of georgia deploying 1000 national guard troops to atlanta in the wake of the violence in that city. augment theto police in the city, so police can pay attention to law enforcement. the national guard used for patrolling federal sites. and of the what the new york times writes about the crime rate in the last couple months.

"crimes are down, but murder is up. what is going on? murder in the 25 cities is up steam .1% in relation to last year. it's not just a handful of cities driving the change. property crime is down in 18 of the 25 sample to cities. violent crime is down in 11 of them, but murder is up in 20 of the cities." this is the chart. "murder up for the year in chicago, up 34%. in philadelphia, 23%. down in oakland by 8% . up in nashville, new york, new orleans, indianapolis and jacksonville florida." this is the reporting of "the new york times." arnold in tennessee, good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: fine, thank you.

caller: i wanted to say that we need to get back to loving one another as quickly as we can. if we ever did. but love is the answer. there's no doubt about that whatsoever. and also ongoing gun violence,- on we have to have a license in order to drive a car. you should need a license to carry a gun. aren'tze that criminals going to do this, but there are carryingddress folks guns who shouldn't be. if we make the effort, we can succeed. we just need more regulations around guns.

oneyou know that at least child every day in this nation shoots themselves or someone else because they get a hold of a handgun that somebody left lying around? there needs to be laws about those who have guns, how you carry and store them. there are ways to enforce these things. you have to want to do it. you have to put forth the effort. host: we will though to bradley in california. caller: two things. first, the lady never answered the question about the stimulus check. and another thing, how many of these shootings are black on black? are you going to let us know about that? host: this is an opinion piece

from "the tampa bay times." what the city can learn from other cities. "america's celebrated the nation's birthday amid scores of violence. the balance comes as major measures are simmering with protests over police brutality. and the debate over whether to curtail the presence of local law enforcement. the area has avoided similar violence, but it is a reminder and anfective policing obligation to play a part. in chicago, 79 shot and 13 killed, with other deadly shootings in baltimore in philadelphia. in atlanta, an eight-year-old was shot and killed on saturday night in a car, near the wendy's brooks was killed last month.

she was one of more people shot in atlanta. another 150 people were wounded this weekend, including teenage boys, police officers officers and a seven-year-old visiting her grandmother." dominic in york, go ahead. -- new york, go ahead. caller: hi, i think this is manufactured by the left radicals. they do not have a prayer. money, theyies, the cannot go up against the policies of what he did. he stopped illegals from coming here. -- he is doing the right thing. they have to do this until the election. taking police off the street, i once worked in construction in manhattan, this was 1982, 1983. we were working late and a guy

took out a gun. so i decided to take the subway. we do not want citizens out with guns, we want police to have the guns. we want police to do their jobs. radical peoplell with the riots. it is out of control. the statute don't mean nothing to me. it is a way to get to donald trump. have a good day. host: he alluded to the mayor of new york, so too does the lead editorial in a booklet the new post."st -- in "new york they write that "30 years ago the post called on the mayor to do something about the soaring violent crime and heated. how about bill de blasio? the crime numbers are not as bad as 1990, but the direction is learned and new yorkers

in years that followed it is entirely possible to do something and make a world of difference. bill de blasio was around then, he was a junior staffer, meeting his future wife on the job, so he knows a turnaround is possible with sufficient leadership and political oil." the headline here from 1990. carl in virginia, welcome. caller: the gentleman that was two callers prior had the same idea, it all comes down to love. loaded so caught up in money and power, this is what is corrupting our minds, our society and our children. host: st. charles, louisiana, this is carmella. caller: st. charles, illinois. host: that is my fault. caller: it is ok. violence, it is

obvious to me, love. but we will always have criminals. the more we restrain our police departments, the good cops will not be able to do their jobs. they are afraid of being prosecuted, they are afraid of being convicted of murder trying to go after the criminals, and of the criminals are running around and knowing they can get away with things much easier than in the past. and this movement, and the media, is using this to drive more violence. i do not think they are doing the public a service, i think they are trying to drive a wedge and create more chaos. host: are you there? caller: yes. host: you think the media is trying to drive a wedge with the gun violence issue? caller: i think that the media is putting a lot of hate out there. i have relatives that work in the media on both sides, and what i see, i just think the media is putting out a lot of

hate. i do not think that they are being truthful on every level. i think that they are mixing truth with their own agenda. of angertrating a lot between all races. and the criminals will always be criminals, unfortunately. you cannot stop them. if we restrain people from having guns, the only people that will abide by that are the law-abiding citizens, not criminals, they get guns no matter what. host: this is reporting from "the washington post" with the headline, "you shot and killed a baby. the first bloodshed coming at a time,time -- a fraught amid demonstrations decrying police tactics, brutality and racism following the death of george floyd in minneapolis in may. in the people since, police have been facing calls further departments to be defunded and

operations to be stripped down, putting them on the defensive as they have been the center of a political and social tempest. in new york, where officials have bristled in the face of criticism, chief monahan described the july for holiday as 'one of them as violent weekends we have had and called it'srecord-setting,' ' obvious people are walking around with guns.'" this is scott in massachusetts. good morning. caller: hello. host: go ahead. i want to throw something else out there. on.e's a lot of stuff going i am in agreement with the media pushing this. and pretty much of is what is being done. ity are spinning this like

is the end of the world and everybody's grandmother has a gun and they are out to do whatever. it is a false narrative. the problem is what we are not looking at is this country has been stripped of its manufacturing and its ability to do what it used to do. we cannot do that anymore because the government is allowing everything to be offshored. when you take things from people and they do not have a purpose anymore, then people will do what they do to get by. and that is what it boils down to. this government, again i will say it, they're in breach of contract with the people. they have forgotten who they work for, they work for us, not the other way around. host: reaction on twitter.

steve responding to what was said, press secretary, "slowly mastering the distract and deflect, steering the topic away and cannot find an excuse." "how are the criminals getting guns?" loopholes,too many guns should be treated like getting a driver's license with background checks and tough laws." brandon says, "the gun laws are as overbearing as always, these acts are not by law-abiding citizens." sam says, "i itt something wrong with the people who use the guns do not give them the freedom." dottie is next. caller: in my opinion, there are too many guns in the united

states. we do not need every citizen walking around with two or three guns. are these people so afraid of other citizens that they have to have a gun to protect them when they go in walmart? nobody should have guns except the military and the police, or if you are going out in the woods to go hunting for food. that is my opinion. i know everybody will start screaming about the second amendment. they are not worried about other people who have a right to live. i went in a little grocery store. there was a man who was so old he could not even push his buggy, and he had three guns on him. and another man had his in his grocery cart. that is pitiful. host: the lead editorial yesterday from "the washington times." "the deafening silence on violence, why republican

candidates are not calling the vandals out." from raleigh, north carolina, dorothy. good morning. caller: the thing i am having a toblem with, we want police go after the people that shot the little girl, shot whoever or shot somebody, who did all the shooting. the people they are protesting about did not shoot anybody. they may have been pulled over for a ticket, breonna was shot in her house, george was on the ground shot, the other guy was running, they have not shot a soul who harmed anyone. the protest is not about police not getting the criminals, i love the police and i think that they do good, but if the police went after those kernels may be we would not have those killings otherseonna and and the who were not on the street

shooting anybody. the police should be focused on those criminals to get rid of them. host: that will do it for today's program. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern here and on c-span radio app. have a great day. ♪ ♪ [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] ♪ >> a look now at our live coverage on c-span today. coming up and a half-hour, fbi willtor christopher wray discuss china's influence in the united states. a house financial services subcommittee holds a hearing on the impact of coronavirus pandemic on jobs. that is at noon eastern today. white house coronavirus task

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