[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] >> our campaign 2020 coverage continues with candidates campaigning and debating. c-span, your unfilthered view of politics. >> the house is in recess. but members return at 6:30 p.m. eastern for votes and speeches. the chamber's been working on several bills, including a measure that requires all annual federal agency budget and appropriation requests to congress be made public. this week a resolution condemning anti-asian bias following the coronavirus pandemic. and before the end of the month, measures that would decriminalize marijuana at the

federal level and 2021 federal spending. current funding expires september 30. follow the house live here on c-span when members return at 6:30 eastern. p.m. eastern on c-span 2. announcer: washington journal continues. host: from philadelphia we are joined now by pennsylvania state representative malcolm kenyatta commit the first lgbtq -- malcolm can yada -- nothing can and he isfirst lgbtq just 30 years old. why did you first get involved in politics? guest: first of all, thank you for having me. like with many people, my genesis in this started with my mom. i lost her a couple of years ago. forget, when ir was an or 12 i was following issues in my neighborhood that i represent.

my mom said, if you care so much, do some something -- go do some thing about it. that was the first thing i did in terms of getting physically engaged, and as a young age, it imparted to me that each and everyone of us in our local communities, in our faith communities come at our schools, in our cities and our states, that we can get involved and have a voice, and that is critically important that we do so. in 2017y did you think you could win a general assembly seat in pennsylvania? guest: i wasn't sure i could, but i knew i needed to try. i thought they were a variety of different issues that were critical not only to folks in my community but pennsylvania families across the commonwealth, that you could look at the investment we need to make in our young people, k-12 and also in terms of decay and early learning -- of pre-k

and early learning. , they reallytaxes question them, whether or not they can stay in their homes. and i think about issues of health care and climate change, so many of these things -- the battle front of them are right in our state capitals. not every single issue is going to be solved in the oval office, certainly not in this oval office. but many of the issues that we face are happening at the state and local level, so i felt that was an important place to be involved, running a competitive race come in here we are. host: when and why did you decide to endorse joe biden? you look atnk if everything going on right now, it really has made more for him, what i said about the vice president when i endorsed him on the day he announced his campaign, that we really need a leader that has the confidence, the compassion, to really guide us through incredible

challenges, challenges that covid-19 pandemic has made more pronounced, challenges around our social safety net. around racial justice and how we reform policing in the criminal justice system, challenges around dealing with the environment. we are seeing right now massive historic fires all over -- all across the west coast are really loggers and our farmers and individual families who have had to pack up and leave their homes during a pandemic. so i thought it was critical that we have somebody who understands the challenges that we face, who understand american families. leads going to be able to us in a way that unites us as opposed to divides us. host: how do you get young people excited for a presidential race between a 74-year-old and a 77-year-old?

guest: put on the table the two men who are running. one person, president trump, says, change is a chinese hoax. the other. , vice other person president biden, has put together a robust plan that tackle head on climate emergency. looking at it as an opportunity for us to build sustainable good paying jobs. one person says he does not have to worry about or care about what is happening in terms of the racial injustice in this country, and another person who really addresses our need to really shift some of the structural challenges that we imagine the way we give our communities safe and the way that we treat one another in this country. one person has really looked at the constitution.

about all these -- that is thewe choice we have. when the vice president talked about the soul of the nation, he is also talking about the future . for some families like my own, the future for folks all across the country that see a divisive -- a divisive leader, and really need that person replaced with someone who understands the challenges that have laid out all proposals and is going to be ready on day one. --ling with a one generation host: pennsylvania state representative out of north philadelphia, malcolm kenyatta is here to take your phone calls. if you are a biden/harris

-8000.ter, 202-748 if you are a trump-pentz 2002-748-8001. if you are undecided, 202-748- 8002. california, supporting joe biden. go ahead. caller: yes, sir. joe biden going to do with the opioid epidemic? i am an opioid user, and i want to get off of them. i have a marijuana -- that is license and i cannot afford it. i would throw away my opioid products for marijuana products. what is his plan for helping me out with my problem? guest: thank you so much, william, for your call and for being so candid and honest. what you are expressing about the opioid crisis is what so many families are struggling with here in pennsylvania and

across the country. it is one of the areas where i know the vice president's history of being able to pull people together is where we are really going to need that. one of the things he has talked about is holding accountable pushedig forms that have these medicines, these drugs out into communities with very little accountability. even within their own internal data, when it says that they are overprescribing, so we really need to hold people accountable and do that. when you look at the issue of looking at pain management end other things, the vice president wants to allow universities to begin the type of robust research that she wants to decriminalize it and states like yours and states like pennsylvania to decide whether they want to

expand medical or go to recreational. i think that is the type of holistic approach that we need to take. the cornerstone on that is going to be ensuring that we hold these drug manufacturers accountable. reporting,lot of looking how they have pushed out opioids to gain a profit, even as the addition has crippled communities and destroyed families. so that type of accountability is going to be critical not only in health care but across government. so thank you for the question. the undecided line, this is beth on the -- from tampa. muchr: you know, we see so going on, all these disasters and the devastation, fires, hurricanes, the pandemic, the rioting, the protesting, and joe

biden is a very calm, compassionate man, but his fragility concerns me. i watch him when he speaks, and from the past. and trump is aggressive and he speaks what he feels. he says what he feels, and he doesn't -- i sometimes believe he doesn't think before he talks. , but heffends people also has good decisions behind his motives, but he is also a very abrasive person. and he is open, saying what he feels. together as to come persons, not democrat, republican, but we need to do what is good for everyone. we were living fine before the pandemic, the way it seems to me. maybe i was blind to the world, but to me, everything seemed to be flowing right in the world. was i in my own orbit?

i don't know. but all of a sudden the pandemic came and everything fell apart. host: when do you think you will make your decision? i will when i watch the debates. host: thanks for the call from tampa, california. guest: thank you, beth, and we joeneed you voting for biden and kamala harris. it is not just the president's way of engaging with people, which is as you said, incredibly embrace -- abrasive and divisive. but it is about having a leader that is honest with the american people. one of the things that is deeply troubling is that we now know from the president's own words, when you talk about the pandemic, that he knew very early on this was airborne. he knew very early on that this was worse than the strenuous flu, and he went out again and

again and lied to th