legacy of theodore roosevelt. exploring the american story. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. former georgia republican congressman buck barnes is with us now. bob barr is with us now, he is currently the ceo of the law enforcement education foundation. the question we asked our viewers today for the first hour was are they concerned the political division in this violenceill spur before action -- or after the election, how would you answer that? guest: it's a question we should never have to ask, but the state is such that it is relevant. we have seen over the past six months or so significant violence erupting across it is

coast-to-coast and then the heartland. the question is how much of the violence is related to the political environment and whether it will continue after the election. none of us really have an answer to that. but i worry a great deal that if president trump is elected, those who are opposed to him, which seems to be many of those engaged in violent acts, will continue their violence. say, anddifficult to it's unfortunate to say that we are in a situation where the question has to be asked. guest: -- host: what does it say by the state of the country when a september poll, which politico cited from you guys found that that 41% said there would be at least a little justification for violence if the other party's nominee wins the election. guest: it is something that i

think back to, when i was in college back in the late 1960's, and we had significant violence across america. we had many bombings, which thankfully we have not seen these days. but the difference is, with the today -- fromthe today as opposed to the late 1960's, there are public officials at the state, local and federal level that seem to to they turn a blind eye violence that's occurring, but explicitly discounted and thereby encourage it. that's the significant difference from the late 1960's, when you had rampant violence in many cities. and you had consistent and very uniformed pushback by public officials against that. the fact that nowadays we have public officials who not only will not condemn the violence,

but in some instances seem to encourage it. that makes a very dangerous situation. host: which public officials would you point to as perpetrators of that? guest: you have the mayor in chicago, her response to the chicago is to condemn president trump as if he is out there in the streets looting and burning cars and attacking police. and she calls for more gun control, which is irrelevant. particularly in chicago which has some of the strictest gun control in the country. gun control has nothing to do with the violence and the looting and the burning and the attacks on police and the constant high murder rates in chicago. yet the mayor of chicago does not seem willing or able to address that. host: you are part of a group of

about 60 republican national security leaders who have endorsed president trump in 2020. does president trump need to do anything to lower the temperature? guest: it is always good for president to say things that lower the temperature. i'm a little concerned about that not happening consistently. but at the same time i think it's important for the president, as he has done, to be out there supporting law enforcement and talking about law and order as an important component of national leadership. host: do you think the law & order message is getting through in a time when there are so many major issues competing for the issue of campaign 2020? guest: it's an interesting question. at the end of the day in any election, at some level, people and voters are certainly concerned about violence. as president nixon said, back in

1968, when we were seeing a great deal of violence sweep across america, he said the most fundamental, or one of the most fundamental civil liberties that american citizens should be able to enjoy is to be free from domestic violence. i think this year is going to play a higher degree of relevance in the campaigning than it normally would. but it is certainly not the only issue. theissue of the economy, issue of the health of the american public, but law and order is certainly going to play a role in the election, particularly as you have seen in recent months with a surge in street violence. bob barr, our guest, he served eight years in congress as a republican from georgia, currently the president and ceo of the law enforcement education foundation. if you support the trump-penn's ticket, call in at (202)

748-8001. if you support the biden-harris ticket, support -- call in at (202) 748-8000. as folks continue to call in, what is the law enforcement education foundation, what do you do? laweef issues mediaes and pull together stories which are important for law enforcement, and are important for americans to know about law enforcement. we also provide some small grants to law enforcement department across the country, for example of the department needs some additional protective vests, but does not have the funds through their local government to obtain them, we are able to help out. important,is most law and order -- what is most

important law and order story we should know about this week? inability continuing of many national -- or unwillingness of many national democrats to firmly support their police. and law enforcement. and i think it was senator harris who spoke recently about reimagining the police. nonsensicalort of stuff that doesn't move us anywhere. and even in the recent debates, both the vice presidential debate and the presidential debate between president trump and former vice president biden. there seems to be a tremendous hesitancy on the part of democrats to come out and say the reason that we have had this in recent years, decreases in violent crime against america is because we have strong law enforcement. and we have support for law enforcement by our governments at all levels. if you take away that support

and you leave law enforcement without having their backs covered by local and state and federal government, you are going to see those statistics over the last few years. you will see the drop in violence crime -- in violent crime. plenty of callers already, terry is in california on the line supporting the biden and harris ticket. caller: three questions. i am constantly hearing that the reimagining of the police force .s a hit against the police currently we have put more on police than they should handle. they shouldn't be handling the homeless. they should not be handling the mentally ill. they're not trained for it. we start seeing the abundance of violence, and unfortunately deaths because you have police officers that should not be people.n mentally ill

they only have 10 days or even 10 hours to learn about it. you need to have people there that are familiar. the second -- let'sthat is a big topic, have bob barr come in. guest: the collar makes a good point. on the one hand we are demanding more of law enforcement, but we are not giving law enforcement the tools to handle or deal with those issues. -- your caller points out of an important issue. you have mentally ill people on the streets, particularly in these major cities. yet when police try and deal with it, they are not trained comprehensively to do it as your caller points out. but when they try to deal with then there's a problem, sometimes as we saw during the obama-biden administration the federal government will come in and criticize them for not being able to deal with mentally ill

and will then bring court action against them. which then further limits how the police can operate. so it's a good point that your caller makes. florida. is out of on the trump-penn's ticket. go ahead. caller: you asked in the first segment how to stop the violence , one thing you could do is never having someone on like your first guest, who is just provided a lot of divisiveness and hatred and did a number of lies. the second thing, i think the current democratic party is probably the largest divisive hate group in the u.s.. so what i would like for mr. barr is why don't democrats condemn antifa? and what can the democratic party do to stop the violence and hatred? antifa is very much in the news these days. there's an argument over whether antifa exists or means anything

whether it's organized or highly organized or poorly organized. but the fact of the matter is, it does exist. it's out there. we have seen its advocates throwing trash cans full of fire , looting buildings and so forth. they're helping to organize these peaceful demonstrations which then turned into riots with looting and burning. and yet for some reason on the caller poses a good question. it would seem to me to be a no-brainer for vice president biden and senator kamala harris and other democrat leaders at the national level in particular to say we condemn antifa. we might not know everything about it, we might not know how it's organized, but we see it, we see what it's doing, and we condemn it. it would go a long way towards differencebridge the

, the gulf between democrat and republican tickets online order. if the democrats would simply say we condemn antifa, which is the sort of thing they are demanding over and over as don that he condemn white supremacy violence. which he has. host: we spent a lot of time talking about political divisions in this country. question, do you see a new american civil war looming? guest: no, i don't. i would hate to have to answer that question. i doi see a great deal of divis, but that is nothing new. we have seen this building for several election cycles now. end ofultimately, at the the day, tremendous faith in the american people that they will not down that route. example,aw, for

yesterday in michigan, the fbi and i think it was the state attorney general's office in michigan, take action against a small group of men who apparently were plotting against both the police and against the governor of michigan. uncovered, and those people now will face our justice system. so, yes. while there certainly are elements of fringe groups on all sides of the political spectrum, i don't see that taking hold as a broad movement that would result in a civil war. florida,ksonville, frank, undecided. caller: thank you for taking my call. good morning, mr. barr. there are some things that you said that i am kind of baffled at. why the violence. i am originally from birmingham, alabama.

forace that is known violence. hearing bombs every day and communities. i want to know, is there some situations with the education of the department of police -- what training do you suggest the police get to make them more sensible to all elements of protecting the citizens? makes again, your caller a good point and focusing on police training. this is an area where both in a lawd my position enforcement education foundation and a number of experts, i don't include myself as an expert, but have identified one of the problems in modern law enforcement as the lack of good

comprehensive training for law enforcement officers. part of the reason we are seeing a decrease in proper training for law enforcement officers is a result of budget cuts. a local police department faces a budget cut, one of the first, if not the first, place they cut his training.-- is that is unfortunate. not only are we getting police officers that don't really understand how to use the power they have, such as we saw in minneapolis with george floyd earlier this year, but they aren't receiving the type of training necessary to make them forize how important it is them to understand the community in which they are operating. that is very important. it is important for both the public to understand the job and the problems police officers are facing, but equally important for the police to understand and

be compassionate with the community in which they are serving. it's a very good point, and i would like to see more training and better quality training across-the-board for the police in this country. congressmembers of the and president came to bob barr today and said "we want good, comprehensive police training," what would you say it would cost and who would lead that training? who is guest: guest: doing it right? there are at the department of justice a number of programs, grants, that go to police departments, but they are insufficient. one of the things i would urge would be for congress, the house and senate, to come together and better fund the current police grant programs through the bureau of justice assistance, for example, but also to increase the scope of that training.

unfortunately, the environment in the congress right now, in the house and senate, is so divisive that even on something like increasing police training, both the funding and scope of police training, it doesn't seem they could get together. that would be one area that i think would be very productive. i also think that in the prior administration, the biden- administration, there was almost an adversarial relationship between the department of justice a local police departments that didn't help at all. we need a better working relationship between the federal government and local police that is not antagonistic or adversarial. windermere, florida, endorses the biden -harris take it. caller: i was wondering what you

thought about the fbi director being criticized by president trump right now for not going after antifa, and he said it was not as big a problem as the white militia groups. he could get fired if trump says i don't like what you are doing, i will fire you. should the president the april 2 ?ire the fbi director be't he supposed to independent from the president? guest: the director of the fbi has a degree of independence that is broader than a lot of officials in the executive ranch. it doesn't completely insulate him, nor should it. the director of the fbi serves at the pleasure of the president, and there should be a good working relationship in

terms of the priorities between headead of the guy and -- of the fbi, the president, and the attorney general. if you don't have that, that could have problems that were to the local level if you don't have a good working relationship between the president, the attorney general, and the director of the fbi. in recent years have been pretty good about not exercising their power to relieve the head of the fbi simply over policy disputes. if the president is going to remove the director of the guy he must have a good -- the director of the fbi he must have a good reason for it, and that must be explained to congress. in regard to chris wray's comments in regards to dangers posed by different groups, violent white supremacist groups have always demanded, and it

should continue to demand, a high priority by the fbi, as should movements like antifa. i don't think the director of the fbi is saying antifa is not a problem, i think what he is saying is it's more difficult to the with that because of disorganized structure of antifa. and itainly is a problem, would be concerned if the director of the fbi said it wasn't a problem at all, but i don't think that's what he was saying. at least i hope not. out bloombergy reads fbi director chris wray has no intention to design as president trump and his supporters step up demands for the release of sensitive files they say will show spying on campaign.16 he doesn't plan to step down at this time according to an fbi official who spoke to bloomberg on the condition of anonymity, though trump could fire him at any time for any reason as he

did with his predecessor, james comey. ticket. the trump-pence caller: it is good to see mr. barr on c-span. c-span is a microcosm of how the media treats conservatives and is indicative and illustrated by who spouted lie after lie and you didn't ask any follow-ups. mr. barr talked about how the allowingsupporting and these violent protests and you asked him for proof. he talked about chinatown, chicago -- chi-town, chicago, but what about the summer of love? c-span, to me the biggest law enforcement issue right now is the premier law enforcement and intelligence agencies that

conspired with the hillary clinton campaign to unseat a duly elected president. when is c-span going to do that story some justice? host: willie, appreciate the feedback. we are doing something right if we have a guest you agree with and a guest that you don't agree with. we try to find balance and let people call in and ask their own questions, but we appreciate the feedback will stop and you want to weigh in? we can go to the next caller. guest: i would like to go back to what the caller said in regard to the mayor in seattle with her summer of love pronouncement, which was pretty ridiculous to say the least, and very unsupportive of the law enforcement in her own city. then we have mayor wheeler in who through his tepid reaction to the violence in seeing weeknd up

after week after week of incessant violence. some of these mayors, in addition to the one i mentioned in chicago, have really not only done nothing to stop the violence, but through their ridiculous policies encouraged announcer: campaign 2020 coverage continues with candidates campaigning and debating. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. announcer: 35 senate seats are up for election with 15 of them considered competitive. if democrats were to take a senate majority, they would need to net four additional seats. the race in colorado is considered a competitive election. next, cory gardner of