history of franklin roosevelt's attempt at quarterbacking. we will take your call and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." as the white house and congress debate on whether there will be another relief bill, attention is becoming focused on a possible second wave of covid-19. no vaccine inside, the number of infected continues to rise with the death toll also increasing. today we want to hear from you on how the coronavirus has affected you, your family, or your friends. tell us this morning, what has been your experience with covid-19? been personally infected, we want to hear from you and what you have gone

through. we want you to call (202) 748-8000. if you know a family member or friend who has been exposed and experienced the coronavirus we want to hear from you. tell us what they have gone through. we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8001. and our medical professionals. we want to know what you are seeing out there. medical professionals, your telephone number is going to be (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us as well at (202) 748-8003 and we are always reading on social media, on twitter and facebook. again, the day's topic is going to be your personal experience with the coronavirus or covid-19. already some people are thinking

that there will be a possible second wave as the cooler temperatures go across the united states. the new york times has a story on what is happening in the northeastern part of the united states. i will read a couple of paragraphs. northeastern united states, devastated by the coronavirus in the spring and then held up as a isel of infection control now seen the first inkling of what might become a second wave of the virus. the rise and the number of cases has prompted state and local officials to reverse course, tightening restrictions on businesses, schools, and outdoor spaces. once again, we want to know what you have personally experienced with the coronavirus. we want to hear from you. let's start with walter. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you very much for taking my call. this is a great topic.

i am a 64-year-old old man. about three months ago i was not feeling right, had a bit of a fever, a little sweats. the wife is like, you've got to get checked. i had it. it was like a mild flu. 10 days later i felt great. then the wife ended up getting it and five days later she was up bouncing around. we survived. it was nothing worse than a mild flu, actually. i don't see what the big who-ha is. 80,000 people die every year of the flu and the abortion clinics are wide open. i don't understand. it is a shame how americans are turning into being so afraid. i think is the media pumping this, they wanted -- want to blaine trump. it was no big deal to me. i think what trump said is right, you cannot live in fear.

you could get hit by a bus, you could get hit by a car. it was no big deal and i'm scratching my head watching all of these people running around with masks on. then they go to a restaurant and take the masks off. football players are unmasked. the whole thing is insane. that is just my opinion. what do i know? host: have you had any aftereffects? caller: i was fine. 10 days later i was up, back power washing the house, cutting the grass. i was shocked that i had it. -- we are sure. did i feel great? no, but it was basically lucky mild flu. i don't know. most of the people that are dying from this are all people anyway. well, when you are old you got to die anyway. nobody lives forever. i'm not trying to be cavalier. i served in the military.

i figured i might get shot and killed. i'm still an old man at 65 running around. i got more miles than i deserved. god bless you and god bless your family. everybody, just live life. when it is time to go, hugo. -- you go. host: let's talk to david who was in little neck, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. whoess i was in the group knows somebody who lost somebody close. that was a good friend of ours lost her father in brooklyn. he was 92 years old. everybody was very careful around him. they just delivered meals. we are not sure, but he got sick and passed away from the virus. host: was he elderly? was -- canomeone who

you tell us about your friend who died? was 92 years he old. he was active. he bowled. he was completely, you know, intelligent and had all of his wits about him. ake i said, it is still mystery to us how he was able to get the virus. his two kids would deliver meals to him. had very little contact during the lockdown. somehow mysteriously got the virus and passed. one of the things that has confounded me was how, as a country, our national security apparatus completely failed, our major medical institutions completely failed, our colleges and universities and our so-called experts completely failed. and i think congress should

definitely look into understanding and having a major understand how this broke down and then the expectation that we were able to keep tens of thousands of infected people out of the country and control the spread like new zealand and some of these other countries was somewhat unrealistic. is, how did our leaders in new york city like de blasio and cuomo say everything is fine? our national security apparatus let us down? that is what irks me the most. i think most of our leadership was surprised by this. we were having all of these impeachment hearings. i would like to look at the new york times and see, where were they in january, february, and

december with respect to this virus? thank you very much for taking my call. i love the professionalism c-span brings. host: let's go to davie -- viviana. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, we all got it. my family i husband began with that. .orrible headaches and i had a more respiratory problem, not being able to breathe for about two weeks. it lasted for about a month. it would come back, you will get better, then i will come back again. all of my three children had it. a milder one, just like symptom, you know, kind of flu. had all of the as thes that are known

kawasaki kind. that it was due to a virus. itthought it was a bacteria just continued -- bacteria, it just continued. ended up in the hospital with our child and they said no, what was happening. we put it all together and we went through a difficult moment, we are better now. one of the questions that has been asked over and over that we have not heard an answer for- how contagious is this children? how old were your children and this happened? and four and a half. host: all of them tested positive? caller: we were not able to test

because if you are not -- they told us if you are not in the er -- this was in early march. they said there was no testing. the reason why we know we had it is because we had the antibody test later. what is interesting is -- well, whoong -- my son, the one ended up in the hospital, is the one who tested with the antibodies. it was after the fact. the little one also had the antibody and my husband and i had very strong antibody. , a monthested later and a half later, our antibodies are almost nonexistent. almost not there. host: but everybody is doing better now? caller: yeah, but our antibodies have depleted. so it's like, i can get it again

i think. dotis.et's go to caller: good morning. it.ow a few people who have my son's father-in-law lives in older andnd he was had some health issues. somehow they believe he caught the virus in the hospital and he died. i know my neighbor's husband assed away because he went to church convention. they say he caught the virus, he was infected there. what bothers me is that my yorkr lives in harlem, new

pressure --hybrid high blood pressure that was under control and she had leukemia. she had the radiation, the treatment for it, and her blood count was fine. every time they tested her blood she was doing so much better. and we believe -- she died in december of last year. pneumonia and was having problems breathing. we believe that it was the virus. -- you know, my family, we are heartbroken. you know, i don't know when i will get over that. i just want to say something very quickly, because someone was talking about politics that the virus was mishandled. tapeard the bob woodward

and if we had done something sooner, people should be wearing masks and social distancing, and if we people do that i don't know why people are blaming people who say, where the mask, fauci said.i -- that is the problem. that is all i have to say. thank you. of ouret's go to one , dr.ts on the coronavirus adalga. he is a senior scholar and he is here to take us through and provide us facts about covid-19. good morning. guest: good morning.

thank you for having me. caller: -- host: let's get some of the straight information first. what is the contraction rate and how does that compare to other places around the world? guest: right now we are still having tens of thousands of cases each day. that is much higher than other parts of the world, but it is important to remember that our social distancing, our policies were aimed at trying to prevent the number of cases from becoming unmanageable from a hospital perspective. we were trying to flatten the curve to a point that stayed under hospital capacity. we were not trying to get it to zero. indeed, you cannot get a virus like this low because it spreads efficiently. the key will be that we have to do this balancing act between looking at hospital capacity and looking at where the cases are. that being said, we still have way too many cases because there have been so many cascading

failures to control this. we still, 10 months in, do not have the ability to test people, tradespeople, and isolate people. even though we were not trying to get it to zero, we are still higher than we need to be we still have hundreds to maybe a thousand deaths per day because vulnerable populations are not being kept out of those transmissions. i think when you look at the country as a whole we have not done well at all with this pandemic. we are beginning to see some new stories that talk about a second wave of coronavirus as we head toward the cooler months of the year. is there any way to tell whether we are still in the first wave or are we moving into a second wave? is there any way for us to figure out where we are? i don't get into the business of trying to number the

waves. we never got full control of this so we never had a trough. this seems like accelerations better occurring and places that were not hit hard earlier. nursing north dakota, wisconsin being hit hard. -- you are seeing north dakota, wisconsin being hit hard. sort of roving hotspots that intensify, think cool down, then other hotspots occur. when it gets colder, when it gets sunny, and people cannot do things outdoors anymore the virus will accelerate its transmission because it transmits better insight and those environmental conditions make it more likely to transmit versus summer. do we know what the current rate of death is for those who contract the covid-19 in the united states? is that a number we know?

guest: it takes some time to calculate because know we have problems with testing. we are not getting the right denominator. that denominator is constrained during a pandemic, especially like this. we cannot test everyone. maybe around 0.6% if you count everybody, including asymptomatic individuals. we are still undercounting, probably by a factor of 10. get thereme time to because our testing was focused on people who were hospitalized. that's going to give you the severity bias in the data and you are going to see a number of 2% or 4% waste on the fact that your tests are not capturing the full breadth of infection. with percentages that small, keep hearing different

conversations about whether this is as bad as the flu or worse than the flu. -- how doknow how to we look at this with numbers 1%, 2%? how do we know this is not as bad as the flu would be? guest: because the flu is much less deadly than this. this is, at the least, six times worse than influenza. you can look at the number of deaths. we have had this virus from january two october. over 100,000 people of die. maybe worst flu seasons 80,000 people die. this is much more severe than influenza. there are some differences in who it kills. influenza has in -- an impact on the very young. this clearly is a bigger

challenge than influenza. it is more deadly. we have less tools to fight it than influenza. and we have no population immunity, because it is a novel virus. in influenza we can count on some population immunity. host: we have had -- heard a lot of talk about comorbidities. how many people have died from covid versus though who died from comorbidities? guest: all of them died from covid. this is a misnomer. when you fill out a death certificate, people that are trying to say you have not died from covid have never felt out a death certificate. covid is part of their death, but it accelerates other diseases like cardiovascular disease, like diabetes. and you fill out a death certificate, you have to put their cofactors on their because we know these synergize. we've known from the beginning

that people with comorbidities are more likely to die. primary causee, of death was stroke, caused by covid. but covid synergizes an accelerates that death and the death would not have happened were it not for covid. that is the way you should interpret this. not that people are incidentally getting infected and dying from getting hit her car. these are comorbidities that we know interact with covid and covid accelerates their morbidity and mortality. caller on earlier who shared her experience with her children getting coronavirus. for a lot of talk about how this olderething that effects -- the older and does not affect children. do we know any scientific facts about the infection rate among children for coronavirus? guest: we know that young

children can get infected at the same rate as adults. there are some differences between very small children and children who are 12 and above. we know that children in general are mostly going to be asymptomatic, meaning they are not going to have any symptoms. they do have the virus, they are contagious under some circumstances, but not quite as contagious as adults. now they generally are not hospitalized and generally not the ones who die. it is less likely. there are some inflammatory reactions they can get. it seems to be pretty rare. we are trying to understand it. the answer to the question is, our children completely spared? that is now. the question is, what do they contribute to transmission? are there magnifiers? that is why there is this idea, especially with kids sixth-grade and younger about opening schools for them, because of the ways they don't transmit as

efficiently. again, there is a lot of questions about children and a lot of the data is skewed because early on we were not testing children as much because they were not coming to the hospital. we do not have a full picture of how the virus interacts with them. host: we heard about the president's experience with regeneron. what you think about that experience and is that something that should give us hope? regeneron isnk something that should give us hope. these are synthetic antibodies that are derived from people who have recovered and then the best ones are put into a synthetic form. this is something we have seen be instrumental in controlling bolo. you may remember -- ebola. you may remember zmap. this is something we have turned to her infectious diseases. right now the regeneron product, as well as the eli lilly product

are in trials. her symptoms, and maybe can prevent you from needing to be hospitalized. they have been filing for emergency use authorizations, so this might be something that becomes more widely available. all of us want to see the clinical data to know how well it works, who it works in, when it works. it seems the president had a good experience, we obviously cannot generalize from a sample size of one. coupling what his experience was with what we have seen in trial data, it does look like something that may be a bridge before we get a vaccine. that we have a treatment that may be able to change the game with this virus. host: we would like to thank dr. amesh adalja, senior scholar at johns hopkins, for coming on and giving us some facts about covid-19. thank you so much for your time. guest: thank you.

host: we want to know what your experience has been with covid-19. go back to our phone lines and , who wasichelin calling from kospi, tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. i started getting symptoms way back. i live in cosby, tennessee, which is 10 miles from pigeon forge. it is a tourist place. my first symptoms were terrible night sweats, confusion, and loss of taste and smell. doctor, where i got a flu test -- negative. they put me on some antibiotics and nebulizer. i was very sick and i live alone. my husband died last year. i was very confused. i cannot figure out how to use

the nebulizer. i also thought the night sweats were my going through menopause. well, i went through in a positive 15 years ago. lungs, i would lay here and try to breathe and i knew there was something wrong, yet it did not dawn on me to get back up and call an ambulance or go to the doctor. i was so confused, i could not tell you. weeks.tayed in bed for by march 19 i was able to go to the store and shop for one or two things, get back to my vehicle, then i would be home and back in bed. , no matter howon hard i tried to keep going. i sleep four hours a day, then at night i would sleep more. it was may 19 until i was able to go to the grocery store and

put a bag of dog food up on my shoulder and carry the bag out to my truck. the covid test, because they were not around. i still have terrible confusion -- and it is not confusion like i get up to get something and forget what i am going for. it is confusion that i have it right in my hand and i'm looking eyes do noty transfer that thought to my brain. i still have long problems. not all the time. it comes and goes. at this point i could probably go out three or four times a and nap.come back the other three days i can go out and do something and not have to nap. two good things that did happen is, i have never been able to

breathe through my nose before and now i can. that seems kind of strange. confusion is still here and that is probably the worst part, because i have never been confused before. my sister is a cancer survivor and we call him -- her chemo- brain. host: let's go to mike he was calling from lafayette, tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. my aunt has covid-19 and she said she would never wish the sun anyone. -- this on anyone. she said, if people think this is like the flu, boy they are wrong. she is ok, but she has the thing -- the same things as the last caller. swearountry, america, i it is just -- so many people do not follow the science. i was looking on today's

numbers. in taiwan, a country of 23 --lion, 529 cases, 36 deck 36 active. because the government issued face masks, social distancing, we were issued a warning early on. they did it in discipline. that is the way we are going to .ick this virus' butt i think you for your time. -- thank you for your time. host: last night president trump set down for his first on camera interview since his coronavirus diagnosis. >> when you were in the hospital, what was bothering you most? you werek it was just, tired. it was just getting to you from the standpoint, he didn't have that same energy level. my life is based a little bit on energy and he didn't have it --

you didn't have it. he could have led to bad things from that point, that i got lucky with a certain medicine. it really was something. i took a certain medicine that was very miraculous to me. i don't believe it is just in the head either, i believe it work. >> we scared, were you frightened? >> i took the regeneron. eli lilly makes a similar medicine. you have the eli lilly version of it. within a period of 24 hours i felt very different. i think i could have left the hospital earlier, but it made a tremendous difference. markedly so. i just felt very good. a sore throat, just to add what we were saying -- add to what we were saying, what i felt very good after

taking this for a period of time. it is a transfusion, not a shot. toould like to send it everybody. i have said, i'm going to send it to everybody that has got the problem. we are going to send it free of charge, including seniors of course. we are going to send it to everybody. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about their experiences with covid-19. here is one post from facebook. a few countries's cases are going up. my husband has heart issues and i have copd. always wear a mask going out in public and hope for the best. as a text that says, not everyone presents the same with this disease. some people do well, others the opposite. it attitude is ignorant and dangerous. there is another text that says, the media seems to be very sensationalized.

they don't report the increase in death rate, which is less than 10% and going down. any death is tragic and certainly we must be cautious. do have good treatments. i worry about irregular flu. another text that says, almost no covid in my rural area. one friend tested positive. mild symptoms, but a fever of 103. doctors advice -- take a tylenol. one last post. friends and family have had it. similar to my experiences with other flu strains over the years. once again, we want to know about your experience with covid-19. let's go to patricia. good morning. caller: good morning. my name is patria. my husband and i flew to california for a funeral in january for three days.

the second day i caught a sore throat. so i would gargle. i felt very weak, but it wasn't until the third day -- so, before going home we had to wend all day in bed, because had to attend the funeral. we both got sick. he caught it for me, but i suffer from asthma and i was we did notned, but go to a hospital. we didn't go to the doctor because usually we try and get rid of it on our own, you know, .ith taking emergency vitamin c we are pretty healthy. none of this diet this, diet that. just what we have been taught from growing up. we eat not too much meat.

my point is, i noticed that my taste did change, like, sometimes there was no taste like getting a cold. he hardly ever catch the flu. we hardly ever catch the flu. this was different. at that time there was no testing. i'm sure i probably have the antibodies to fight it, so basically what i'm saying is positive thinking is very important. because if you listen to the media it will scare you to death. he lived through it. we have our masks on. we go out, we do social distancing. i am a sociable person, but i try and be careful. it is the fear that most people, i think. you really cannot stay home forever. host: let's go to rob who was calling from new york.

good morning. caller: good morning. how are you today? host: i'm good. caller: i wanted to say that a good friend of mine just got out of the hospital who had covid. he was in there for five months. april, got middle of out toward the end of august. at a heart attack related to covid. was on the ventilator two different times. totally wiped out. doesn't even remember the whole period of time, basically. they did finally release him. mail who average size lost about 60 pounds. lost all of his muscles in his legs. it is in rehab now. doesn't know how he got through it. the doctors are surprised survived. but he did. it is real. we know some other relatives who

circlest people in their , who have died from it. quite a few friends who have experienced the virus, who have said it was the brutal -- really brutal. they did survive, and fortunately my wife and myself and our immediate circle of relatives and most of the people we hang with have not , but most of us have used good common sense. try to listen to the medical people and the scientists and follow the recommendations. i believe personally the biggest thing is trying to keep a very healthy immune system, to give you a little bit of an edge. and to just be smart. social distance, wear your mask when you are out in public. i am also a part-time musician.

i have lost a lot of work this summer, but it is what it is. i think you have to be careful putting yourself in harm's way events.s again, i think mr. biden has said that we are keepers of our brothers and sisters. wearing a mask basically shows respect for other people, even though we may be ok. i think those are the guidelines we need to follow. just think about those who are not as healthy or more vulnerable to catching the disease. asin, keep our own selves strong as possible. host: speaking of democratic presidential candidate joe biden , joe biden was in nevada on friday. he gave some comments on the

president's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. here is what joe biden had to say. >> his reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis, the stabilizing effect it is having on our government is unconscionable. he didn't take precautions to protect himself or others. the longer donald trump as president, the more reckless he gets. how can we trust him to protect this country? governor, you have seen how he picks fights with states and fits them against one another. look what has happened. more than 210,000 americans are dead. 420,000 have been hospitalized. from 700 tohere 1000 people every day. worse than any country in the world. more than 7.5 million americans have been infected, and we are still counting.

here in nevada, more than 82,000 cases in total. more than 1600 deaths 80% of those deaths have been seniors. black, latino, asian-american, and native american communities are especially hit hard. infection rate among latinos is almost three times higher than that of white non-latinos. the death rate is three times higher. havethan 40,000 latinos died from covid-19. my heart goes out to all of those families. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to julia, who was calling from columbia, missouri. good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: just fine. go ahead. julia, are you there? go ahead, julia. caller: can you hear me?

host: i can, go ahead. caller: i am a personal care attendant and i was taking care an 82-year-old woman who has a kidney disease. she caught it. it.i did not catch but along the way i was so scared -- and i have been scared. i have lupus. i always try to go to work and come home. go to the grocery store, come home. i haven't socialized with a lot of people since march. and it is difficult. i am afraid a lot. i worry a lot about catching it and i have two grandkids that are pretty small. about if i'my

doing the right thing. host: let's go to roxanne, who was calling from maine. good morning. caller: good morning. backeason i'm calling is in january i contracted -- i was not swapped because they did not have the testing at the time. is, it came up as influenza b. very sick. and i had had the flu shot. --reasoning for all of this and then in april, congestion. have to tell you, i started wearing a mask continually, anytime i was out since february. because of the consistencies of this. and i was in the hospital, the first thing i asked the attending nurse was --

she nodded yes. we knew the virus was spreading. we didn't know the situation in the areas were profound that time. this does not leave your system. .his attaches i am a microbiologist. the whole thing is, you have to understand -- and you can repeat. it will be repeated. it is a ghost. you could walk by somebody, you could have a great mask on, you touch a face, you touch it from your hand. you have to hand wash, and of course you are eliminating the good bacteria happens to be on your body because of the constant cleansing. people need to be aware of it. it does attach and it can be repeated. works at brigham and

women's hospital. she was on the front line of all of this for the first two months, trying to make decisions because thed died pandemic was so profound in acid juice it's at that time. , who in march went to the hospital, they sent him home. later he is back to the hospital, induced coma, on a ventilator. his legs are still very weak. it affected the nerves in his legs. he works mostly from home. so, it is a ghost. people need to understand this. people in the hospital where a mask when they are attending a patient.

you have to put a mask on, which -- because you don't know the susceptibility. us, veryn coming upon quickly -- and it is here. to experience both cases with flu, can beew -- extremely deadly. host: as we are talking about what is going on with covid-19, there is still a presidential campaign going on. the president is going to deliver remarks on the white house today around 2:00 p.m., which will be his first in person event since his return from altar read medical center. -- walter reed medical center. you can watch that event here live. on monday president trump plans to return to the campaign trail with a rally scheduled north of orlando. we will have live coverage

starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two. you can also watch that online at c-span.org, and of course you can always listen live on the c-span radio app. our last caller was talking about the flu pandemic coming up of the in the middle coronavirus pandemic. there is a new video from the white house featuring dr. anthony fauci on the importance of getting the flu vaccine amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. >> we are encouraging everyone six months of age or older to get a flu vaccine to protect you from flu. because if you do that -- there are several things. you could prevent from getting infected, or if you get flu you could moderate and minimize the symptoms of what might otherwise be a situation where you could get seriously ill. away from theakes complication of two respiratory

infections at the same time. we are working very hard to get . vaccine for covid i believe we will be successful. we already have a vaccine for influenza. so, go out there, do the kinds of things we tell you to do for covid. one of the things you can do -- you have now two reasons. wear our mask, keep your distance, avoid crowds, and washing her hands. the two reasons for that is, we know from our colleagues in the southern hemisphere that while they were trying to avoid covid during their winter, goes from april to the end of august, they markedly diminished rate of influenza. so you have a double-barrel wave -- way to block influenza. hopefully we will have a very,

very low level of influenza this flu season. host: let's talk to darlene, who was calling from gold hill, oregon. good morning. caller: good morning. i think i had my first experience with covid in december of last year at christmas. i flew to utah to visit my 92-year-old mother. i got sick of euro days later, she got sick three days later. my sister and brother-in-law. doctor and tested for flu. we had been vaccinated. none of us had the flu. they did not know what the heck we had. lost anotherthen sister-in-law. she died from it. her husband is hospitalized now and the daughter that has been taking care of them has been sick for over three weeks now with covid. she is about 60 years old. this thing, i believe, was here

before january. i was not sick when i left oregon and went through las vegas airport. two days later i was so sick i could not stop coughing. i cannot get my breath. i thought i killed my mother when she came down with it. it was awful. absolutely awful. wear our mask, like dr. fauci said. it will protect you from the flu also. and get a flu shot. if it all possible, a flu shot. it is the only way to keep yourself well. host: let's talk to david, who was calling from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. david is in the medical profession. caller: good morning. don't want to talk too much about our patients, but we did experience about 14 friends, fellow church members who had covid early on.

there were a range of them had to go to the emergency room once. most other folks were mild to moderate. at least one had some chronic symptoms. is a population of 15, and you have this whole range. it demonstrates how irresponsible it is to generalize so much from one case. so, it is particularly irresponsible in the president does it. experiences is almost irrelevant to what someone else might experience. particularly since he has s, as well asdrug' drugs that were proven. anybody that is listening should not pay attention to him generalizing it, because the problem in medicine is people

generalize from one case. we call it anecdotal evidence. it is the weakest -- and sometimes even dangerous -- form to do that. anyone,not encourage whether you support president trump are not, from a medical and scientific point of view, you cannot generalize from one case. host: david, i know you may not have this information, but i want to ask. you brought up a population of 15. i hope they are doing better, it has there been any lasting effects from the infection? caller: thanks for your thoughts. all of them are better, and i inw one person in particular the mid 60's who has symptoms. person did not require

hospitalization. none of them got any medicine, as far as i know. again, several of them -- the majority of them got better with nothing. so, you know, for someone like the president to tout, i cured this, or i'm being cured, or i'm strong -- that is just not true. 7 million people got over this virus without any medications at all. but we do have a percentage, 10% or so, that have some chronic -- we call them long haulers now. that is nothing to minimize. their lives could be affected for a long time. host: let's talk to ken. good morning. caller: hey, good morning. good morning, can you hear me? host: yes, go ahead. caller: i also work in the health care field. i work at the hospital.

inontracted the virus back april. for about 20work days and i was very sick with the virus for exactly one week. running overwere .00 to -- 102 i was tested on monday, and started running a fever on saturday. i didn't get the results of the test back until friday. positive and was put on some medications. the following saturday i had a terrible -- i had terrible swats

at night. my fever broke, then sunday i started getting better. just thems were really fever and i felt exhausted the entire time. it was like having the flu on steroids. it was a terrible experience. something i would not wish on anybody. i do suggest people get their flu vaccine, which i did last week. i am prepared for this season. with many worked patients of all different variety who have covid. for a while there the floor i work in at the hospital, we were

just taking covid patients. we are not doing that anymore. host: once again, even with everything going on with the covid-19 pandemic, politics continues here in washington, d.c. the supreme court confirmation hearing for amy coney barrett begin monday with opening statements. tuesday the nominee will begin taking questions from committee members. chairman lindsey graham says he expects the hearing will take 3-4 days. we want to remind you, you can watch live coverage every day of amy coney barrett's supreme court confirmation hearings next week on c-span, online at c-span.org, or you can listen live on the free radio app. let's go back to the phone lines and get more calls in before the top of the hour. start with alan, who was calling from michigan. good morning. caller: you very much for taking my call. i would like to cut back to the

remarks.- dr.'s he definitely set them things that are interesting, if you do the math -- 330 million people, if we had a 10% death rate that would make it 30 3 million people. if you had 1% of the people die, that would be 3.3 million people dying. that might be a pandemic. 200 15,000 people dying as a result of what has happened to our country's socioeconomic situation is terrible. it is irreversible people people have lost their jobs and health insurance, so if they get sick they are never going to be able to get serviced. that said, that .6% mortality then his remarks about the comorbidity you ask him about were very interesting. because at that point he kind of admitted that they put

coronavirus as a cause of death on every death certificate, whether they died of a stroke or not, which is a terrible thing and it distorts the numbers in their favor too much. i think you for taking my time. -- thank you for taking my time. host: let's go to earl. good morning. sir.r: good morning, god bless c-span. i get almost all of my news from you folks. i wife and i both came down from this virus early on in january. i am a homeless activist in my area and i allowed somebody to move into a spare room was wanting to change some of their behavior, you know? they talked me into it and i let them in. they play down being how sick they were, then she moved a friend in, and they had both been getting signatures for different amendments or what have you on the ballot.

they both had come in contact and they had this and we didn't write. i came down with it pretty fast after she left and i had it for about 10 days. i keep a product on hand around here, it is called tussin. you have heard of robitussin? i stock up. i get it at the dollar store, but i drank three bottles of it through the 10 days, just take a shot of it when i needed. it really helped keep my lungs clear. then my wife, we did the same thing with her. , sheshe came down with it drank three bottles. it took her about 10 days to get right of it. but all of the symptoms you are hearing, the source raw -- sore throat, the fever, thick off -- we had all of them.

here we had about a quarter of a million people. we have had about 25 deaths. most of them have come from a home and- from a rest the others have come from a school that takes students from all over the country and the world. but we are being locked down. our governor says we are going to be purple, whatever that means. but ist wearing my mask, tell you -- i heard later that one of the things they give you is a cough syrup. this is a very good cough syrup. host: let's talk to joy who was calling from palatine, illinois. good morning. hi.er: thanks for taking my call. my sister's son-in-law early in january went to the largest computer conference in las vegas. and he came home and said he had the worst flu he ever had. 140,000 people at

this conference in las vegas, and 40,000 people from china. they were all in these small boots -- booths. i checked online and saw people emailing each other like, what went on here? we are all getting sick. he said he has never had anything this bad, but it was before testing, around january 12. his wife did not get it, his three kids got it, but milder versions. has recovered and i have not heard anything more from my sister about any things lingering afterwards. host: let's talk to myron. good morning. myron. to have lost don, good morning. caller: good morning, sir.

29, thespitalized march day before my birthday. i spent a total of 60 days in a hospital with covid-19. while i was in the hospital i was sent to a recovery center whereupon i flatlined. i actually died. i was dead about six minutes. they brought me back. i had suffered a pulmonary because i had blood clots in my lungs. the virus attacks the lungs. i had the virus, the whole nine yards. the expenses for my hospitalization came up to nearly half $1 million. let me tell you, this is no

joke. saw the faces when i was in the hospital. they were suffering. they didn't want to put anybody else with me. my advice to everyone is do not take this lightly. that i had taken precautions earlier, and this might not have happened to me. host: we would like to thank everyone for calling and sharing their experiences with us this morning. next, an author and security security expert discusses attempts by russia to interfere with the election. and richard freeman discusses the history of franklin delano roosevelt's attempt to pack the court. we will be right back. c-span two has top

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wilson center and the author of america, russia, and 100 years of covert electoral interference. he is here to discuss his book on the history of russia's electoral interference. good morning. guest: thank you for having me. i'm excited to be here. host: what prompted you to write this book? after i was alarmed when 2016 so many commentators and analysts treated russian interference in the 2016 election as somehow unprecedented. treateden something is as unprecedented, that suggests there is no history behind it, create is easy to myths or lies. i restore history to the subject of covert electoral interference and debunk the myth that this is confined to just the 2016 election. i show how the soviet union interfered in elections, how the

cia and kgb went totally tow during the cold war, how is interfering in elections all over the world today, and only then do i examine 2016 and its aftermath. at the present moment russia is actively interfering in the 2020 election. to me, by restoring that history to public discourse and appreciating the fact this isn't new, we can defend against this threat in a more comprehensive and effective way. host: what is new about what russia is doing, and what are they doing that they've always done? what's new here? guest: i say what is not new is the idea of russia covertly election.g in a u.s. as i detail in the book russia, the soviet union, targeted america's 1960, 68, and 74 election to work against republicans.what is not new are the ideas behind what russia is doing, spreading

propaganda across a vulnerable news platform, or seeking to find and release private information about public figures, or stuffing ballot boxes visibly or digitally. what is new is because of the internet they are able to turbocharge those ideas, because of the internet they are able to penetrate america at scale, which the soviet union struggled to do, and what is also new is they are able to pursue two types of interference at once as in seeking to spread propaganda as in 2016, but also our voting elections. host: with what you know about what russia has been doing in the past, is doing now, what concerns you the most about the upcoming 2020 election? guest: i would say a couple of things are on my mind. the first, it is important to keep in mind there are always two ways to interfere covertly,

whether it is 1920 or 2020. manipulating people, public opinion, or by manipulating actual systems. we know that russia is seeking to manipulate public opinion across social media, and potentially by releasing information microsoft says it is trying to seal. what most concerns me is thinking from russia's perspective, what is our greatest vulnerability? trying to assess where we are weak. where we are unusually weak is around our actual voting process. there is so much doubt as a result of the coronavirus that this election will proceed fairly that the voting process can be trusted, the president is alleging that it's rigged. from russia's perspective, which aims to tear down american , to disrupt and delegitimize our process, if you can spread misinformation around our voting process or sabotage our system to so more doubt you can get a lot of return based on

relatively little effort based on how much doubt already exists that we will be able to hold a steady election this fall. host: that's remind our viewers they can participate in this conversation. we will open regular lines. .epublicans, (202) 748-8001 democrats, (202) 748-8000. .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 keep in mind that you can text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading on social wjdia on twitter and c-span and on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. we already have a question from a social media follower. maybe the expert can finally tell us what he means by interference. guy suppressing an opinion on facebook

interference, a statement by putin interference, or are they cracking into ballot boxes? guest: that is an important question. what i study and qualify as fitting into this subject is something known as covert electoral interference. to qualify as such you have to meet three specific qualifications. you have to be covert. the hand of your involvement has to be hidden. if you are publicly endorsing a candidate, if vladimir putin publicly endorses donald trump, count.esn't if russia steals and lease documents through a third-party, thereby hiding its hand, you are covert. you are in the ballgame. electoral.word is you have to be targeting an electoral process, a vote that determines the leader of your country. if you're just trying to mold public opinion or trying to influence legislation, that still matters, that is another type of operation, but it's not

an electoral operation. interference means that you are deploying active measures. as one kgb general i interviewed put it to me. you aren't just watching or collecting intelligence, you are seeking to manipulate people to affect change in a foreign democratic system. i define covert electoral interference as a hidden foreign effort to manipulate a democratic vote of succession. i found in my research that phenomenon underlies u.s.-russian relations for the past century or so and continues to threaten our democracy now. host: on cbs the national security advisor spoke about his recent discussions with russian officials in geneva in the message he delivered on the upcoming election. [video clip] >> i think our adversaries know the united states government is at the tiller and we are protecting the american people. with respect to russia and the elections one of the reasons i met with the general is to let

him know there would be no tolerance for any interference with our election, the voting, the vote tallies and demand russia not engage in that sort of thing. the russians admitted to doing so. it is russia, as president reagan said and president trump is trust but verify. the russians committed not to interfere in the elections. we will see what happens. that was a message i thought it was important for me to deliver in person to president putin's right-hand person. host: first react to what robert o'brien said, then tell us what does the fact that they have to have these discussions say about what russia plans to do about this upcoming election? guest: it is nice for russia to say they aren't going to interfere in the 2020 election, but they are actively interfering in the 2020 election now. the current fbi director testified under oath brush

is very active in interfering in this election. amplifieden information about voter fraud and other victories of its ongoing efforts to influence the election. on the one hand russia denied interfering in the 2016 election was not russia is denying interfering in the 2020 election. russia denied interfering in the 1960 election when they were the soviet union and were confronted officialinistration before the november election. i wouldn't pay too much heed to russia's denials. they don't actually bear out by the facts. on the other hand, i think it is a fine message to send. i think there is no downside to saying "don't interfere with our elections," and i wish the president would communicate that directly to the russian president rather than actually as het help from russia, did before the 2016 election in asking for them to help find

certain emails. on one hand helpful message, let's be clear eyed and recognize russia is interfering right now. while mr. o'brien seems to be talking about whether russia will seek to manipulate vote tallies, as i said, electoral interference can include manipulating people or actual votes. is defending the election defending against those threats. host: your focus is on russia, but are there other countries of concern like china and iran? what is going on with those countries? guest: i would say to date the history of electoral covert interference has primarily been a russian and soviet tradition and secondly an american tradition. beyond that no country has been in on the game to date in a systemic, continuous, sustained way. russia's 2016 operation became so high-profile and drew so much attention that i wonder whether

that could be a turning point in terms of other states seeking to imitate russia. i wouldn't expect china or iran to be the pioneer come in the event would neither be justified by their history or even by their current objectives, i would say they are probably making some sort of calculation of whether to try to follow the lead of russia. however, i would make the point that this is a global problem. russia is interfering elections on a global basis because russia has a global strategy to do so to support authoritarian-minded disruptive candidates that will undermine the democratic processes. i interviewed the president of montenegro, the former president of columbia, who said his social media environment is under siege . on one hand russia has a global basis for doing this. stacked that up against china or iran, who would need a global reason to interfere on elections on a global basis, and based on

their foreign policies i don't believe they do. you might see them interfering in specific elections are china may be in taiwan oral's trillion, but i would -- taiwan or australia, but i would expect russia to be in the front line in terms of pertinence and aggressiveness in terms to manipulate our voter processes. host: let's talk a little about solutions. in a video released by the fbi, several agency heads spoke about election security efforts, including the head of the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency. here [video clip] is a portion. [video clip] -- here is a portion. [video clip] >> there has been a lot of talk about securing our elections. i'm here to tell you that my confidence has never been higher. all-nationuse of an unprecedented election security effort over the last several years. we are focused on securing

our nation's critical infrastructure and essential services that underpin our society, and that pretty clearly includes election systems. since 2017 we have been working with state and local election officials who run our elections just for this moment. we pulled together the election communities across all 50 states and territories in d.c. to work towards a common purpose of protecting 2020. second, we helped make the election systems across the country secure and resilient. third, we worked to increase auditability of the voting process, including the vote itself. more than 92% of votes will have a paper record, and that's a great thing. election officials can check the receipt and make sure we counted right. host: how much more prepared if u.s topared is the fight against any foreign interference in this

upcoming election? guest: let's draw an important distinction. that video, i watched the whole thing when it came out, it was very helpful. the first type of interference is the influence voters. spread stolen emails, spread information across social media to influence public opinion. he wasn't talking about that will stop he was talking about breaching and manipulating our actual election infrastructure. it makes sense that's his focus, not only because of his job but where we were four years ago. as i revealing my book, i interviewed 26 former advisers to president obama, and i found the imperative and captivation was the second type of interference, was that russia was going to affect our systems. john brennan told me russia has the capability to alter the actual vote tallies of our u.s. citizens to the point to where on election day itself i discovered the white house and

dhs were running secret crisis sees racing for a russian cyber attack against our election infrastructure. in that aftermath, even though no such attack manifested, at the bare minimum we need to secure our infrastructure and i'm glad that's a focus. modalities often have the final say of election systems they are working, but the fbi and everyone else is looking to secure those systems. i worry, as someone else in the video you just played said, foreign actors are seeking to gain access to our election infrastructure. we have to be determined and resolute in defending our systems and efforts to infect our information environment over the next several weeks. host: let's go to our callers. anne from california on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call.

i want to ask you, you say russia, ok? i don't think it is putin interfering, i think it is more ukraine interfering in our elections. i really believe in 2016 they were interfering and they wanted hillary because there were incidents in new york, for example. this lady went to vote and kept voting for trump and it kept coming up hillary. so much fraud on the democrats' side it is pathetic. i wanted to tell you her story. anyway, my thing is if they are interfering, and i think it is ukraine not so much moscow or that, i think it is ukraine, and i think biden and his son, and they have a lot to do with it. their dealings with ukraine.

we need to get trump back in, i can't stress this enough. host: go ahead and answer, david. guest: thank you for the question. it is important to correct unfortunately the myth that ukraine was the perpetrator. i think the problem that we have as a democracy is before you are able to defend your election you have to agree on what the facts are. the facts have been established with 2016 that russia, by the orders of vladimir putin based on the consensus of our u.s. intelligence community interfered in the u.s. election to help donald trump and sow discord in american democracy. russia spread propaganda across social media through the internet research agency, based in st. petersburg, and reached over 100 million americans online. russian military intelligence

hacked and released emails from the democratic national committee and podesta, and probed and penetrated our election systems. we should talk about how to defend against efforts by not only russia but any country to interfere covertly in our elections moving forward, whether it be to help a democrat or republican. it doesn't matter. we should be as resolute defending against those because we are defending our democracy. we have to learn from the russian effort for years ago, which based on reports released by the senate, by the meuller investigation, the u.s. intelligence community, if you go into the weeds of those documents there is publicly available evidence as to what exactly happened and what we've learned from it. host: one of our social media followers has another question. doy want to know, generally,

you believe russian interference is solicited in american politicians? actually, i would say the tradition of american politics at the presidential level before 2016 was the opposite. ambassador onviet instruction from the leader of the soviet union approached stevenson, a leading democratic politician of the day, and offered in a closed-door meeting to help him win the presidency will stop stephenson said more or less get the hell away from me. i want nothing to do with this. the idea that he would rather lose on his own than win with foreign help. in 1968 the soviet ambassador by his own recollection in his memoirs revealed he approached hubert humphrey, the sitting vice president at the time, and offered to fund his campaign for the president -- the

againstcy to work richard nixon. humphrey wanted nothing to do with it. i hope that tradition will resurface. i believe american politicians, a democrat or a republican, if you believe in the sovereignty of our democracy you should believe in the independence of our elections and have no business soliciting from any foreign actor covert assistance in our electoral processes. something that came to the forefront in my research is the soviet union interfered in the 1960 and 1960 eight elections to destroy richard nixon. the 86 and 94 elections to destroy reagan, a republican. if the russians want to help a republican, for russian actors to choose our leaders and undermine the viability of the democratic model as a viable model of governance, that should offend and alarm all americans regardless of party loyalties. host: you said in an interview

earlier this year that the idea of interference is not just changing ballots, but to delegitimize the entire process itself. i will read your quote and i want you to talk more about it. we should be ready for there to be some sort of plan to degrade, disrupt our democracy by delegitimizing the outcome of the election. is chaos, is after dysfunction in corrupting democracy. trump is a means to that end, but there are other ways of achieving it. one of which is making americans wonder if there election was fair at all. talk about that. guest: i agree with myself. i would say the russian objective is you have to look globally. donald trump can be distracting. our current politics can be distracting. let's think about what their strategy is overall. to support candidates on the left or right who will help them to tear down democratic systems, to corrupt democratic systems

from within, to discredit, delegitimize, and degrade the democratic model. believesputin that serves his objective. domestically it shows his own people that the democratic model's flawed and undesirable. from a global perspective it divides democracies from one another and pulls them away from the international institutions that have typically underpinned russian'sower toward orbit. by targeting america itself in delegitimizing our democracy it shows the world how vulnerable the world's most powerful democracy is to subversion, makes us more divided, and undermines our ability to lead abroad. vladimir putin identifies many benefits to this strategy and is executing it aggressively. i would remind folks that something i discovered in my research is russia started its interference operation against us in 2014, before donald trump

andunced his campaign, russia continued its interference operation had donald trump lost in between 16, as john brennan and klapper detailing my book. this isn't just about donald trump. the threat of interference proceeded donald trump and will persist after donald trump, and it is up to us to defend our democracy, regardless of who the beneficiary of these operations might be. host: let's talk to jane from charlotte, north count -- james from charlotte, north carolina on the democratic line. caller: a lot of people, democrat or republican, but mostly republican, they don't understand our prosperity, all of this wealth we have, is based on us being able to project democracy throughout the world. this system of states we have no now,constructed -- we have

we constructed it after world war ii. that politics stopped at the border. now we have politicians who will collaborate with our enemy just to gain a little power here. ukraine wasy said, really the adversary. one, we have to determine what is the truth. we have to stop playing these games before we destroy ourselves. people don't understand our prosperity is based on how people get democracy. 1950's, there is no way they could have changed people's minds about who they were going to vote for or weren't going to vote for. the russians have been doing this for years. the government should pay attention to them, and not -- i don't know what you call it --

this camp and this camp. we don't care about patriotism, we just care about power. host: go ahead and respond. guest: on ukraine again, that is disinformation. evidence that ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. your broader point around the issue of covert electoral interference and how vulnerable we are, you are right. because we are divided we are more exposed. something history bears out -- i spent half a day with the former kgb general who made clear to me that when you're democracy is already in turmoil, or already has citizens at each other's throat, that is fertile ground for subversion, for covert electoral interference because it is that much easier to pour gasoline on fissures that exist. on me to get at this threat, one hand you have to abroad seek to detect and deter these

operations. we should be working with our ally democracies to defend our sovereignty together and punish those who would seek to violated. -- to violate it. we need to institute domestic reforms to renew our civil society towards being less vulnerable to this type of sabotage. to get back to a point where facts are agreed upon. where we are able to collaborate on the key issues of the day, regardless of which party you belong to, and at the bare minimum we need to secure our infrastructure, mitigate the effectiveness of hack and release operations, and social media propaganda operations. beyond that, we need to restore things like local media, education that provides people with the basis of knowledge, a shared understanding of the facts of the day. we need to urge our lawmakers to do their job and pass legislation, whether it be around health care, infrastructure, basic ideas that make it where we are better

functioning democracy. as we become more functional, we become less vulnerable to manipulation because facts are not up for debate, polarization is not so intense, and the distrust is not so pervasive in our discourse will stop as long as we keep traveling that road where no one can agree on things depending on your party affiliation or americans living in two separate realities, we will remain as vulnerable as we have been to manipulation, because we are sort of making ourselves an open target for this type of sabotage. host: david, i want to go back to something you mentioned earlier and get more into it. when we talk about global election interference, you pointed a finger at moscow, but you have also talked about washington, d.c. i want to read a paragraph from your book, and i want you to talk more about it. every instance of covert electoral interference can be understood across two planes. one has to do with individual

change with the intention of an operation to promote a friendly candidate, deseed and unfriendly candidate, or exhibit no preference. the other has to do with systematic change, whether the intention of an optimu operatios to weaken, strengthen, or not impact the function of a democracy. washington and moscow are equivalent across the first plane. we are talking a lot about election interference from a foreign country and the united states. the united states has been known for doing the same thing in the past, correct? guest: but i established very clearly in my book is there is a history of not only soviet and now russian electoral interference, but american electoral interference. those are not equivalent, not only because america has moved away from this practice, but because american presidents believed they could achieve systemic change towards building up democracies through these types of operations where soviet

and now russian leaders long believed they could tear down democratic operations. putting that aside, my argument is america has interfered covertly in elections historically, particularly war.g the cold the soviet union did it throughout the cold war and russia is doing it globally today. by studying that complete history and drawing lessons from our own past, as well as the past of other states, we will have as many facts as possible in seeking how to defend ourselves today. moving forward, i would leave it to readers to look at the past and decide, i am reading about the operations that harry truman, or richard nixon authorized. do i agree or disagree? all the way to bill clinton, who i interviewed for the book about a covert electoral interference operation that he authorized. i leave it to readers to judge the merits of those decisions, but i do leave that americans should turn the page and ban

this practice explicitly because it neither aligns with their interests or values to be interfering in elections covertly at a time when our elections are so exposed, where we are seeking to stand up for free and fair elections, where we should be seeking to rally the democracies of the world against this practice. we would be playing ourselves, undermining ourselves if we were to get into the mud and engage in this type of practice today. moving forward this should be something that is a part of the history books and not part of the modern discussions of american foreign policy. host: we have another question from a social media follower. i'm seeing several versions of this question. where you placed the information about the classified reporting about hillary clinton's incompetency and original story and don brennan amplified it from three years knowing that it was in part made up from democratic parties' political reasons? the nsa, cia, heads of

those agencies did not want the information released because it has alleged to be disinformation, false information planted by russian intelligence. and so, if readers or viewers taking that information, i would view it through the lens of dense information -- disinformation or it hasn't been determined. i would recall there will be efforts to distract from those facts.ing the underlying facts being that russia interfered in the 2016 efforts, and so those to distract, such as i believe the partial declassification, should not let us forget that the broader mission is to defend our elections. that russia enacted a sweeping and systemic effort to manipulate us in 2016. the russia is according to the leader of the fbi active in the selection now. the imperative is to defend

against those operations, and i wish that the partisan use of partial declassification authorities for political points were not a part of our discourse a few weeks out of an election where the goal should be -- and the only goal should be -- to ensure we can have an election free of foreign influence. talk tot's go back tim calling from ohio on the republican line. caller: good morning. my main question is, why did the cia start up radio free europe? the whole idea was to undermine the communist government. germany,t union was .russia, czechoslovakia

now it is just russia. they're using our playbook against us. they are using the internet and we used radio free europe. guest: the goal of what russia is seeking to do is to weaponize vulnerable information platforms. that used to be newspapers, tv, and radio stations. emails,s social media, trying to affect digital notormation environments. only are americans increasingly reliant on those platforms, those platforms are uniquely vulnerable to manipulation. a generation ago to get inside of a newspaper you typically had to recruit an asset. you had to have a journalist who was agreeing to publish articles ort might have been planted concocted by another person or foreign intelligence service. on social media, you can be sitting in moscow, you can create personas purporting to be

americans, and you can use those personas to amplify content, spread content, across dialogue in the united states so there is no need for third-party. the same with email theft or you can hack into and steal documents, and you would have to use if you wanted to keep it covert, third-party leaks to amplify them in a wide reaching way. the internet opened new opportunities for influence and is something that we as a democracy need to get our heads around in seeking to determine, how can we use this new information environment that is part of our lives and will remain so, while also seeking to as well as possible maintain our sovereignty in this digital world we live in? from birmingham, alabama on the democratic line. caller: yes, i have a question for mr. david. host: go ahead, victor. caller: i just need to know, if

-- host: are you there? caller: i'm here. i had to turn my tv down. sir? can you hear me now? host: yes, go ahead. caller: i just wanted to know, if we are going through all of these changes with people therfering, why not president? [indeterminable] host: go ahead and answer. guest: i had a little trouble understanding. can you make out with the question was? host: he wanted to know if there was so much interference, why didn't the impeachment count? he was trying to inflate the impeachment with election interference. guest: what the impeachment was was related here, which was the

president of the united states by aiting privately action foreign government that would undermine one of its political rivals, joe biden, who has now turned out to be the democratic nominee for president. i think that is something a president should not do. i think it undermines our sovereignty. i think it went against what it means to be the leader of the sovereign state. it was the judgment of the senate that was not an offense that was worthy of removal from office. he was impeached, but not removed from office. forward, i moving hope presidents will no longer, or 25, thebe in 21 u.s. president will not solicit help from china, ukraine, russia, or whoever, but rather win or lose domestic

elections based on domestic factors. that is based on our own process of succession and something that i found in detail in many cases in my book is that democracies die as corrupted versions of themselves, no longer independent versions of ourselves. we need to maintain our independence and get back to -- in 1888, there was a scandal involving allegations of foreign interference in our election, and that prompted bipartisan outrage and was viewed as offensive. we should be there now. we as a nation should be offended. that is an affront to our national sovereignty, our ability to function as such, and i see no reason why any citizen should be happy foreign agencies are able to manipulate the views of our fellow citizens or the whims and wishes of the american people. host: does mail-in voting impact

russia's ability to interfere in the election? guest: no and yes. no in that mail-in ballots are not excitable to duration by foreign powers. there is a record. secure thane internet-connected systems. in that sense it is for the good. it does open new opportunities for interference because of the immense doubt that exists around mail-in voting. based on one survey i saw, 31 percent of americans are very confident that their ballots will be counted accurately. that is an astoundingly low number and an astounding opportunity for russia, whose objective is to delegitimize our democratic model, to sow doubt about the legitimacy of our democratic process. we have seen reports russia is spreading disinformation about

voter fraud, amplifying allegations from the president that mail-in voting will lead to a rigged election. i expect moving forward that russia will continue to take advantage of mail-in voting to sow that type of chaos by spreading more disinformation or seeking to sabotage specific systems, as was the fear for years ago as i mentioned in the obama white house to make it,ricans wonder, wa can i trust this election? does this really reflect the wishes of the people? toadvice to voters is recognize the object of our adversaries is to sow that chaos, to alarm, to frighten. what we should be doing as citizens is voting and resisting the urge to be alarmed, resisting the notion that the sky is falling because russia's moves most likely will just be designed to make us feel that way when in reality the election is conducting itself fine and

will proceed as such from a foreign interference standpoint. that is a different question from a domestic standpoint, but based on the question of foreign interference, i don't think there should be worries about actual alterations, but attempts to make you think that that type of voting is insecure. host: hillary from michigan on the -- henry from michigan on the democratic line. caller: good morning. himer, you opened your presentation talking about what was a precedent or historic and russian voting interference, and then you talk about what is new in the interference. i wonder if you could explain to the audience one new factor that you didn't mention, which is have the russians ever had a -- whont who amplify

amplified their misinformation by conferring with vladimir atin on strategy, and republican party that is engaging in voter suppression and trying to subvert the democratic process? respond quickly before you run out of time. guest: absolutely. i was talking about systemic factors that have made us more vulnerable to foreign therference, but also specific actions by this president have absolutely made us more vulnerable. he has spread allegations of a e which plays into rush's objectives to tearing down the marker seat. they are amplifying that. he question the mental health of his opponent, russia is amplifying that messaging. he asked russia openly to involve itself for years ago. he asked privately ukraine and

china to take actions that would influence the 2020 election. i agree that none of those actions are in service of america's sovereignty. it is not in line with the history around past american presidential candidates were leading politicians. -- or leading politicians. i think moving forward that to practice hopefully our country can move away from and get back at the idea that our electoral sovereignty is paramount, and that the political future of individuals don't overwhelm or should not rank above the idea of election independence. that is where i fall in that view. in my book i detailing the 13th chapter how various advisors in the trump administration, the security teams are seeking to secure our elections will stop the institutions and our government, whether it is the fbi or dod, are trying to deter adversaries and shore up our

systems. but as the advisors say readily, that is not necessarily in line with where the president is at hand has often come into conflict -- president is at, and often has come into conflict with the objectives of those agencies versus the objectives or policy priorities of the west wing. host: we would like to thank david shimer, author of "rigged." here with us being this morning and talking us through this. thank you for your time. coming up, university of michigan law school professor discussing the history of franklin delano roosevelt's attempt to pack the court. we will be right back.

>> sunday night, author and 2020 book prize finalist talking about her new book caste: the origins of our discontent. >> i am shedding a light on holding of the country so we can see what is underneath these divisions, what is underneath racism. the infrastructure of division that predates race as a concept. it is a fairly new one dating back only four or 500 years. -- 400 500 years. 8:00 easternht at on c-span's q&a. the u.s. supreme court began its new term hearing oral arguments

via conference call. listen at c-span.org/supremecourt. tuesday listen live to two cases, consolidating cases of the united states v briggs and united states v collins. listen to the oral arguments live or on-demand at c-span.org/supremecourt. competition is on. be a part of this year's c-span studentcam competition. middle and high school students, be part of a national conversation by making a five to six minute documentary exploring the issue you want to the president and congress to address in 2020 one. be bold. show supporting and opposing owing to view. the a winner. $100,000 in total cash prizes,

including a grand prize of $5,000. the deadline is january 20, 2021. be informed. you will find competition rules, tips, and how to get started on our website. studentcam.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with richard , who is here to discuss with us the history of president 's court roosevelt packing attempt. good morning. let's start with information for our c-span viewers. what does the constitution say about the size of the supreme court? guest: nothing, really, except that there shall be a supreme court and achieve justice. the number of justices is left of congress to prescribe. host: the only people who can

decide on how many justices sit on the supreme court is the congress of the united states? guest: that's right. by ordinary legislation subject of course to the president's veto. host: what size did the supreme court start at? the constitution requires a chief justice. how many were there? guest: six at the beginning. it was an even number. in those days the nation was divided into judicial circuits. in those days the supreme court justices had real duties in each circuit. with respect to any given circuit. congress thought six seemed to be about the right number and there were six justices. the even number did not last very long. host: that was going to be my next question. it went from six to how many? adams andefly, john

the federalists were on the way out he tried to reduce it to five to deny the incoming republicans a nomination. no andjefferson said bumped it back to six, and three years later to seven, and in 1837 went to nine. that is where it stood, except for a few years around the civil war. then it was supposed to go down to seven, then back to nine. host: why has it stabilized at nine? what is the magic number that we have come to nine and we have stopped? nine is an, i think odd number, which is good. number.pretty good it means there is a court large enough. there is some diversity.

i think it is also, over time as sense that it really shouldn't be monkeyed around with. it is a norm of sorts, even though it is not constitutionally set that congress ought not to go around. of course roosevelt tried and fell on his ear. let's talk specifically about roosevelt. most people know the term court packing from the roosevelt years. what was his rationale for trying to add seeds to the supreme court, and what happened? guest: the rationale he gave at the beginning was one that he knew wasn't real. he said we need to bring in

younger people. it was presented as part of a reform movement for all the judiciaries. younger justices. the way he proposed it was that retire by 70n't years and six months there can on thew judge appointed supreme court. everyone recognized right away that roosevelt was frustrated by a conservative supreme court that rejected some new deal legislation, and he was trying to pack the court with appointees of his own, who would render more favorable decisions wil. the court packing began with roosevelt in an extraordinarily strong position, just winning

the greatest landslide in over 100 years, the greatest ever to that point in our modern party system. he had an enormous majority in both houses. , the opposition mounted, including among , and various things happened including the retirement of one of the conservative justices. the judiciary committee issued a said theg report that likes of this proposal should never again be presented by the free representative of the free people of america. which words that might still ring in their ears. it looked like roosevelt might be able to ge a couple of justices, but the majority leader was popular and hoped to get the first

nomination. evaporatored and the bill was tabled. nothing affecting the supreme court was passed. then because roosevelt had a thency, he filled it with liberal senator hugo black. other vacancies occurred within three years. roosevelt had appointed all but one member of the court. he got the liberal court he was looking for. host: has there been a serious attempt by any president since roosevelt to change the composition of the supreme court? guest: it has never been on the table until now. there really wasn't any serious attempt before roosevelt, since 1869. host: that brings us to today.

what do you make of the current calls by some of the left to "pack the court." guest: you can understand the .rustration there was the 2016 vacancy which the senate said we aren't going to act on that with a democratic president and democratic nominee . mcconnell said the voice of the people should be heard. now we have a vacancy in 2020 later in the year and mcconnell says, we have a president and a senate, we should fill that seat. democrats are, of course, very frustrated by. -- frustrated by it. if you are going to draw a line between february when justice scalia died and september when justice ginsburg died you think it would be the other way.

that february was early enough and september is perhaps too late. democrats are understandably and say if you're going to do that, we should use the power we will have, assuming biden is elected and a democratic senate. i am a democrat, but i have a strong feeling that if it had played out the other way democrats would have done something very similar. if it had been justice ginsburg, if she had died in february 2008, i don't think there is any chance with george w. bush in the white house and a democratic senate, i don't think there's any chance they would have been willing to confirm a push nominee.

overrule roered to v. wade. democraticith a and democratic senate, my guess is they would be a rush to confirm. for all of the taco principles, we are really talking about power politics -- for all the talk of principles, we are really talking about power politics. host: we will open the regular lines. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. richard, we have a question from one of our social media followers. they want to know why is court packing synonymous with adding judges? guest: that is interesting.

addidea of packing means to . i'm not sure if the question goes to the possibility of what v packing, and that has happened twice. i mentioned the early federalists tried to do it, and 1866it happened as well in when the republicans didn't want andrew johnson to get a nomination. they said the next couple of vacancies won't be filled. packing means adding, because that is the easiest thing to do if you want to get control of the court. what i have called depacking would prevent a president from getting a nomination. i am hoping that i am addressing the question. host: i suspect the motivations

for the question are we sometimes seem to have a negative connotation to the word court packing. you could call it court but what happened with roosevelt it seems like the term court packing has a negative connotation. guest: that's right. you could just talk about adding. i don't think roosevelt ever used the term packing. i think the negative connotation is because it's understood to be .one for political purposes in the environment today, that's whatin the earlier days when the 1837, i don't in aipacit was so much i in that sense with that negative connotation, let's get control of the court. of course, it did give the democrats in power extra

nominations. that they needed to expand the court because of an expanding country and they wanted more circuits. that is right. you could just add justices. if iterybody would know were done for political purposes now. host: let's, let our viewers take part in this conversation starting with michael calling from wilmington, north carolina on the democratic line. caller: i want to thank you for accepting my call. i have two questions. harris was speaking about abraham lincoln on the stage when she spoke about when he packing -- not court packing, but late vacancies. as far as, he did not feel that

he was right -- that it was right for the president at the time during the election not to pick another court justice until after the election. that is my first question, why did she mention that. my second question is, kamala harris mentioned during the debate that there were 50 people chosen to be picked from the list. why out of all 50 on the list was there not a black african american? i want to understand why that was not mentioned, why that is -- being host: go ahead. guest: i am not sure what you are talking about. i do not remember that part of the debate. host: you can answer his first question. wny diedhief justice ta

in october 12 of 1864 and lincoln did not make a nomination until after the election. very doubtful as whether he would be reelected. , we don't have a lot of precedence for vacancies this late. that is the only vacancy, the only other vacancy that occurred or that close to an election. on the other hand, there have been vacancies. in 1916, for example, a vacancy trail's in june went was nominated for the presidency and left the court to run against wilson. get theas able to

nomination to go through. to the extent that we are looking for president. june is early enough. october is very late. september is awfully close to october. but i don't know that tied in thes really senate these days in matters like this. host: our next color is calling from new york on the republican line. dan, good morning -- our next caller. caller: good morning. my main concern is that the supreme court now needs more expertise in various technocratic and specialty areas which are very much lacking now. i am for court expansion because it is not the whole court that makes all the decisions every time.

the supreme court judges that you can count on for some understanding in highly technical fields that they can adjudicate on without understanding the intrinsic problems, the physical problems that we have no control over. for example, environment and fracking. you would need a lot of expertise in there rather than some opposition to anyone idea of presenting facts.ves selected you need someone who takes the things.study those like in health, you need someone with a medical background. so the supreme court should be expanded with deference among the judges to the expertise of this one in that area, that one in that area. and we could make more rational than just some vague notion of the law which is very imprecise. guest: daniel, you raise some

very interesting points. it is true that we have what we call a generalist court and we depend on that court to make decisions across the legal landscape. i think you are also right that in many areas, people who are knowalists say they don't what is going on, they don't have the expertise, and it can be frustrating. but the entire court does make decisions. it may be that in a given area, some of the justice will differ somewhat to a particular justice who has expertise, say if it is a justice in border law or indian law, that justice's opinion may carry more weight. but they all seem to consider all the cases. there is no guarantee that if we or fouro justices

justices or however many, that there would be any more technical expertise in patents or tax, or indian law or water law, or whatever. these days, justices have gone to elite law schools and most of them have some experience judging. i really don't think there is any guarantee of that sort. there are other ways to address the problem. is,is that, what we do now in any case where there are technical issues, the court has the benefit of friend of the court briefs from various disciplines. is a specialized handlese court that specialist issues like tax matters, patent matters.

it would be possible to create certain courts of that sort. there have been proposals about sort for quite some time. i just don't have any confidence that adding justices would provide the projections the are mentioning. host: this whole conversation about court packing or court expansion, or adding george's, whichever term you want -- adding judges, whatever term you want to use, is going around the confirmation hearing of judge amy coney barrett, supreme court nominee. those confirmation hearings will on monday at 9:00 a.m. eastern, and you can watch it here on c-span, on c-span.org, or on the free c-span radio app. this is going on a few weeks before the election. republicans say that history is on their side. where do you come down with doing a supreme court nomination as close to a presidential election? guest: i think it is pretty

close. i think if there were any norms that guidemal rules behavior, i would say that sometime august 1 should be the latest, august 1 or september 1, somewhere around there. after labor day, is pretty really. wenderstand the view that are elected for all four years and all six years, but i think given that this is an appointment that is going to go future, i in the think it would be better to get the benefits of the next election. that, democrats would likely do the same thing.

once the event of mine is a democrat and he said, if it were reversed and the democratic -- if lincoln had said i would not make a nomination, the students said, i would be furious. so it is a matter of norms. but norms have been very much weakened. host: you another question from social media that says -- do you consider what the republicans have done with the lower courts court packing, and will do please explain why justices and other judges are appointed for life? guest: ok. packing asnk court such. they have not been adding justices. i think the president came in vacancies to

fill because the senate had made it difficult for president obama to fill them. and they have taken full advantage of the opportunities that they were given to them. it is hardball politics. goes. i am sorry, the second question was -- why are justices appointed for life, it is a good question. technically, they are appointed during good behavior, but no justices have been removed. is, and thereea is some validity to the idea, ,hat it provides independence because it justice is appointed and presumably will have no higher ambition for any other office.

it would be possible i think to achieve much of the same if we had say 18 year terms, which has been suggested. host: house democrats are planning to introduce a bill that would limit justices to just 18 years, at which would allow every president to nominate two justices for four-year term. what do you think about that plan? guest: it is an interesting proposal. the first reaction i had was that, it can't because additional because the constitution says judges are appointed during good behavior, which gives them essentially life tenure. but the proposals are interesting. they basically say, you are still on the court after 18 years, but you are a senior justice, something like that,

and only the active justices sit. there is a possibility that that would work, though that would be upheld. the romantic in me likes the idea of life tenure because there have been many justices that have done good service well after 18 years. on the other hand, he has some very old justices will hang around in some cases for too long. it had some appeal, the idea that every presidential election, there are going to be two justices nominated. we know it is for a set term and we wouldn't have quite the same politicking when it justice leaves the court -- when a justice leaves the court in an election year like we do now.

calling froms south dakota on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for accepting my call. is,first question i have you think the republican senators violated their oath of office when they failed to even consider it merrick garland, it seems to me that they are required to advise and consent and they didn't do either one with merrick garland. secondly, i would like to ask what you think about the fact that every senator said that during an election, the people, the electorate should ex-president, that should be the people that decide to the next supreme court pick is. republicans, almost every republican said that should be y refusedwhen the

to look at garland. and made the decision not to look into obama's pick. thank you. so, i don't think they violated their oath of office. it says the president shall nominate with the advice and consent of the senate. that means if the president gives the advice on the consent, the senate doesn't have to give advice and consent. the senate should be considering it. i think everybody would think there is some moment at which the senate can say, too late. say in the lame-duck session if the president has been voted out , many senators would say, no, i will not consider it. i think it is a matter of, when is too late?

so, as i said, it is a matter of power politics. they said, we think we can hold doing doing this without too much damage to the court, so it will have eight members for a while but i can get by for that -- it can getout by for that time and without suffering political loss. it turned out to have been a good calculation on their part. suggest -- i realize it is hypothetical, but there is always hypocrisy on both sides when it concerns matters of supreme court nominations. think democrats would have done essentially the same thing if the situation had been reversed.

for your second question, was it hypocritical? sure, it is hypocritical. on,cconnell had said right as a democratic president, and we are a republican senate, we think we can hold off on this, there is only a year and we will , had, the court will do ok he not moved on this, he would have been hypocritical. now it is republican senate, republican president, of course, we will take the opportunity. that is the reality of it. they just tried to dress it up in principle. i don't think there is any principle except the we have the vote -- except that we have the vote. host: our next caller is calling from florida on the republican line.

nelson, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. mr. friedman, thank you for your complete and total honesty regarding all of this. in 1992, the democrat-controlled senate did not go forward with the nomination from george h.w. bush. its biggest offender at the time was joe biden. that eventually led to, as you know, the nomination and election of ruth bader ginsburg to the supreme court after bill clinton became president. 2016, the republicans reminded everyone that that took place and they referred to it as the biden will. of -- the biden rule. of course, all of this has to do with politics. you are absolutely correct area i was just wondering perhaps if

you could comment a little bit on the 1992 refusal on the part of the democrats to go forward with the nomination. it so happens that i do believe that mr. garland should have received a fair hearing, but when i found out about the biden rule, i understand what has taken place. guest: there was no vacancy on areaupreme court in 1992 biden did make a statement to the effect that once a presidential election is on, that in nomination should not be made. so he has been consistent throughout. what theyam not sure made inthat was

respect to, it may have been a vacancy on the lower court. there is no vacancy that occurred in 1992. inre was one in 1991 then 1993. justices have realized in recent years that they should not retire in election years. thatt was just bad fortune two justices recently have died in election years to create this situation. callingt's talk to lynn from texas on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. , the thing -- i when the question --

electoral college took effect in was1980's, 1985 when reagan this give me that the gov. lamont: votes the president won. if you best the total a of votet the president won. if you could look at that for me , the total amount of votes when that took effect. guest: i am not sure i understand the question. host: i think that was a little off-topic. he was wanting to know the total amounts of votes for reagan and carter. i don't think either one of us has the answer to the question immediately. let me go to a question asked by one of our social media followers. we are talking a lot about court expansion. congress could also reduce the supreme court. our social media followers wants to know, if scotus seats were reduced

to seven from nine, how would that be decided? 70m age of justice, already opposition held, last in first out? -- sydney rt of position held -- seniority of position held? last in first out? way withe only historical precedent would be attrition. saying that have two vacancies would not be filled. it was because edition in the -- it would because constitutionally dicey. you could say that we are going to make senior members of the court and they wouldn't vote

unless there is a vacancy, but i don't know that that would fly. attrition is the normal way to do it. i didn't want to make a point of oft, i am not an enthusiast court packing, adding justices. i think it is good if we have a supreme court and we want that court acts like a court where it is and not just sit around for medical purposes. having said that, this is a little bit different from roosevelt in 1937 in that roosevelt was upset with what the court had done. here, if congress were to pack upseturt, it wouldn't be with what the court has done, it would be upset with what the senate has done.

i don't think that is enough to make a difference. one thing that occurred to me that if congress were to pack, if they could do, it could pack epack at the same time. it could say, we are adding to seats now but the next two vacancies will not be filled. essentially saying, because of what the republicans were able to do, we think that was dirty, so we are counterbalancing that with two seats now, or even possibly want. possibly one. we don't mean to alter the historic way of keeping justices at nine. it would be like you started it, we ended it. it sends a signal that we are not trying to just grab next to nominations.

it would mean that doing the following four years, if another vacancy occurred, the president would not get to pick it. that is, if the court is going to be packed, i think that would be a somewhat better way to do it. host: i want to ask this again. does the supreme court have any say in any of this? just political moves being made by the senate and the president in the house? does the court have any say in this at all? guest: the court has no formal site if congress wants to expand it took 15 or 70 or whatever. be number would constitutional. attempt were made to have byectively term limits,

making some justices senior justices who don't sit on the court, ultimately that would be presented to the court as was constituted and would have a say. the court could have an informal say in court packing. hughes, chief justice wrote a letter that said, hey, we don't need this for efficiency purposes. that was thought to have some political impact. so the court was word from batted in have a formal role -- the court was heard from but it world.have a formal host: eva is calling from georgia on the republican line. good morning. caller: i think that voters generally know little about the court. little evidence exists that the public cares about this for a= this about this fight, even though polling routinely puts

in supreme court is an issue the election since justice ginsburg's death. is still remains clear that it is health care and the economy surveys. i looked at the 2018 c-span survey and i found that 62% of americans couldn't even name a single one of the nine justices. even as overwhelming likely voters said they believe the court plays a major role in shaping their lives. the survey released that court packing term, that if you happen to come upon a political flashpoint. woman.suburban and i am voting for the biden-harris ticket. not because of the court, but because of health care, because of our children needing a future, because of my 90-year-old mom who is needing to have the safety and security of being in an assisted living facility that we have not been

able to visit. because we have lost many and we have not been able to bury our loved ones. more importantly, c-span, who i really appreciate, we have an electorate that is informed, educated and understands that we no longer can be a party, we have to be an american country now that creates a future for our lives and our children. host: go ahead and answer that, richard. guest: thank you very much. i agree that sometimes the role of the court is over inflated, and obviously there are many more issues that are pressing and significant to the lives of ordinary americans, as you are suggesting. i agree with that. i believe the court has played such a large role in political

discourse over the years mainly because of one issue, and that is abortion. i actually think that has worked to the disadvantage of democrats. i have a long theory that not only would democrats be helped ,f roe v. wade were overruled but relatively soon, abortion access might actually be improved because it is not very good now. -- political landscape would for the democrats if it were just fought over in legislative elections. that there is a lot going on that is going to affect our lives more immediately on a daily basis. host: what does all of this conversation around the court and confirmations of justices, what does it have to do with the opinion of the court

in american' eyes? for example, we have aa 10 u.s.rt that 7 in adults said they have a favorable view of the court, that includes two thirds of democrats and democratic-it leaning independents. what is this doing for the repetition of the court? guest: anything that makes the court appear to be a more political institution is not helpful. we don't need a political institution. we have the elected presidency and the elected congress. to the extent that the court seems to be a result of the elections, and we expect it to , it becomes will like any other sedition and

ines some of its value american public life and loses some regard of the american people. i think it is unfortunate. if nominations and confirmations seemed to be less political, it would be a good thing. i think if abortion were not so much a flashpoint, i think ultimately those numbers might even go higher. host: we would like to thank richard friedman supreme court historian and university of michigan law school professor for being with us and taking us through the law and history of court packing" expansion. thank you so much for your time this morning. guest: i enjoyed it. thank you so much and thank you for all of the questions. good questions. we will take a break. when we come back, we want to know about your experiences with

covid-19. you see the numbers on screen. when we come back we will be taking your phone calls. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ >> "the contenders," about the man who ran for the presidency and lost that changed political history. monday, the four-time governor of new york and first presidential candidate for a smithpolitical party, al on american history tv on c-span3. ♪ the senate confirmation hearings for judge amy coney barrett begin monday at 9:00 a.m. eastern with opening statements by judiciary committee members, introduction of the nominee, followed by an opening statement by judge barrett. on c-span.orgnd or listen live on the free c-span radio app. >> "washington journal"

continues. host: we will spend the last part of the show once again talking to you about your experiences with covid-19. if you have been personally affected or you know someone who has been affected with covid-19, we want to hear from you and especially our medical professionals out there, we want to know what you are's being with the coronavirus. -- what you are seeing with the coronavirus. we got a tweet from governor chris christie this morning saying, i am happy to let you know this morning i was released from moorestown medical center. i want to thank the extraordinary doctors and nurses who cared for me. thanks to my family and friends for their prayers. i will have more to say about all of this next week. this coming from new jersey governor chris christie, who had tested positive for coronavirus

this year and has been in the hospital. what you areow seeing and what you are feeling when it comes to the coronavirus. looking at what the "new york graphic, moreits than 7.6 million people in the united states have been infected with the coronavirus come out with more than 213,000 having died from coronavirus so far. so the numbers are still going up across the united states. we want to know what you think and what you are seeing as far as the coronavirus. vice president mike pence was in talkingon thursday about the administration's response to covid-19. here is what he had to say. [video clip] before theth

first documented case of committee transmission, president trump's leadership shone forth. our president did what no american president had ever done , he suspended all travel from china, the second largest economy in the world. [applause] said that was xenophobic, hysterical. he said it was fear mongering, and he wrote an essay in "usa today" but said it would make things worse. but i tell you as head of the white house coronavirus task force, president trump's actions in suspending travel from china saved untold american lives and bought us time to stand up to the greatest -- stand up the greatest national mobilization since world war ii. [applause] we reinvented testing. over 150 million tests done so

far. we saw the manufacture and delivery of billions of medical supplies to amazing doctors and nurses and health care workers. we partnered with major research companies in this country and developed medicines but are literally saving lives every day , and we are on track to have the first safe and effective coronavirus vaccine and tens of millions of doses before the end of this year. [applause] host: that's good our phone lines. abby is calling from waco, texas. good morning. caller: hello. say, for meto personally,, well, i am sure for a lot of folks who have had their elderly loved ones either come down with the sickness or nursing homes being closed, it has been a horrible, horrible time for us. my mother has never been in the hospital fo before, she is 90 years old. she came down with the covid

virus. actually, there were 44 cases in her nursing home that she was in. she almost didn't make it that she did pull through, thank goodness. but it has kept us from seeing her. we still have not had a chance to even visit with her during this whole time. there are others who have lost their loved ones in the nursing homes. it has been a horrible, horrible experience. i know my mother is not the same person either physically or mentally from this covid event. tragic forly been folks who have to experience the vet with their loved ones in nursing homes. abby, is there anything the nursing home is doing differently now than they did in the past to make sure the virus doesn't get back to the nursing home? caller: i think they are being careful. they have a sign in the foyer when the residents or

staff have the virus. by the way, there were both staff and residents that had it. they are doing all the precautions they should. i can see that they are sanitizing and wearing masks and forth, but i am not so sure that was happening in the beginning. obviously, the virus was brought someone, because the residents had not been out anywhere at the time. secludedbeen basically by the time they started having the virus infiltrate into the nursing home. so i am sure it was brought in by someone, probably a worker or someone that came into the nursing home. but i think it is better. now they are saying that if we are going to come and visit, we have to be tested before we can even go in and see our loved ones. they are limiting the number of

loved ones who can come in and they are using full precautions with distancing and so forth. it is better, that unfortunately, they did lose residents over this situation. host: let's go to val, calling from uniontown, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. on january 20, i went to the emergency room. i thought i had had a heart attack on the 19th. no, iid an ekg and said, didn't have a heart attack. then i came home and i had a respiratory infection. when i got back home and got in bed, in that bed i stayed a week straight and i lost 20 pounds within one week. they were even testing us to see if we had it,

but i know that is what it had to be. it took me two months to get back to myself. host: so how are you doing now, val? caller: i feel like i am back to normal now. host: are you suffering any type -- we have heard early in the show about the long-haulers, people who are still suffering after effects from heaven coronavirus. are you noticing any after about yourselfng now that you have had it and gotten over it? caller: no. it seems to me that i have gone back to myself, i have regained my strength. it took the. .ongest to get my strength back host: let's talk to david calling from jonesville, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. and mytly lost my mother favorite aunt from covid

isolation. i love america. i'm sorry. [sighs] people refuse how to see how this disease is still in our country. everything was fine. until the north koreans -- this is how it all started. it amazes me how people continue to trust this man after he had unprotected sex with a pawn stars. i don't get it -- with a porn star. i just don't get it. i am speechless. rosariot's go to calling from massachusetts. morning., good caller: good morning, sir. i have a friend who caught the coronavirus.

he doesn't want his name mentioned, that he wants me to ask this question -- but he wants me to ask this question. president basically dropped the task force with vice , basically took them away to keep us safe, and now he's saying that he is going it.ure, but he has got but obviously, there is no cure. why does he keep downplaying this tragedy and putting dr. birx on the background, dr. fauci. he brings in some guy that he looks like he is a pharma. i don't get it. why are they still trying to keep us in the dark about this disease? they should be transparent and

open with the american public. host: let's talk to maria calling from altamonte springs, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i just wanted to mention that i am a nurse and i worked through the h1n1 pandemic and we were having trouble with ppe at that point. we as nurses called on the hospitals at that point to get us more ppe and they did not listen. there wasn't any planning for the next pandemic, which was eventually going to come. using the statistics you presented on air, currently, the survival rate for covid-19 is 97.2%. oft is a good percentage people that are surviving. unfortunately in the very beginning, governors put covid patients in with the most vulnerable patients in their nursing homes and that increased

our level of deaths. and there is some problem with the data, because even if you died from a motor vehicle collision, they are considering it a covid death if you happen to have tested positive. so i think there was no possible way to keep the pandemic from coming into the country unless he closed the borders completely at the time when the w.h.o. was even saying that there wasn't human to human transmission, and i think the administration has done a decent job. they could have done better, we all could have done better, but they did a good job in trying to keep panicked down. toiletady were hoarding paper, of all things, oil they could prepare to get the biggest portion of the disease under control. host: the "wall street journal" graphic outand

showing that the coronavirus had spread in the united states long before we in the media or we in government knew about it. you can look here at the map that the wall street journal has, it is on its website. this is february 29 of early .his year february came to an end, there was a better than even chance of local transmission of the virus in 37 states. models from the northeastern researcher show. you can see the dark red areas of the country is where there was a likelihood of at least 10 locally transmitted cases in the united states. this is back in february, before any of the lockdowns or anything began. so apparently the coronavirus had been spreading amongst the united states long before any of the attention that is being given now had even started.

our phone lines, we will talk to daniel calling from madison, wisconsin. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i would like to first offer my condolences to those who have lost people and give my thanks to those who are on the front lines fighting for the pandemic. i myself am not a health care worker, but was considered an essential worker, and as of this week, we have had six cases of covid employees. the most recent one is a coworker whose father is a nurse. so it hits close to home. here in the midwest come out you see businesses closing and people out of work. i just hope that the american people are strong enough and they vote. we can take care of this, i know

we can do this. thank you. host: covid-19 was a topic of debate in one of the key senate races coming up this fall in south carolina. between senate judiciary committee chairman lindsey and his democratic challenger, jamie harrison. a bit from that debate. [video clip] >> if you are insisting the person you are debating have a covid test, what is the purpose of the plexiglas. is that a political prop? >> now, it is being safe. senator graham this past week was in the hearing room with two people who have tested positive for the coronavirus. two senators who are now quarantining at home. we have to take this thing seriously. the president of the united states has been out of office because he has the coronavirus. senator graham said folks want special treatment, nobody is asking for special treatment,

we are asking for the senior senator to take this seriously. he has gone to events and hasn't worn a mask at some of these events. he sat on the white house lawn less.000 people mosco mask as someone who has a pre-existing condition, and i don't know the conditions of all of you and your staffs, but we need our leaders to actually lead by example. >> is it not appropriate for you to take a coronavirus test in hearing?f that >> number one, i am the chairman of the senate judiciary committee that is about to confirm the most highly qualified woman i think ever nominated by the republican party. i am extremely proud of it. we are setting the hearing room guidelines.cdc i got a statement today from our architect at the capitol. he consulted with the house physician and said the room is set up in a compliant way. how many of you will go to work tomorrow? how many of you will be around

people tomorrow? if you are a waitress, will you inquire of the employer that everybody gets tested that comes into the restaurant? will you require that all your coworkers be tested whether they need to or not? you can't make that requirement? if you did, it would break our economy. we will have the hearing in a medically compliant way, but i will not live my life differently than you have to live years. for those of you who work for a living, you can't do what mr. harrison has amended. you can show up for work -- you can't do what mr. harrison has demanded. i got a letter from my doctor saying that i am cdc compliant, there is no requirement to test me. this is not about testing, this is about the vertical accountability -- political accountability. . calling from powder springs, georgia. good morning.

caller: i appreciate you letting us talk in the calls, really. i had a really bad case of pneumonia back in january, and i thought possibly a might have had covid-19. i am calling because of the woman that called earlier who didn't know that whether or not she had covid-19 but she seemed to think she did. about march, my doctor had me tested for antibodies and that is supposed to indicate whether or not you have had covid-19. my results came back negative. in january,very ill but i am fine now. i do not believe i had covid-19. and my other comment here is that, my problem is that the president of the united states

as not been willing to set good example for the people. i know so many people who do not believe that covid-19 is real, that people need to wear masks. there is so much confusion going on. i talked to several people who say, i don't think the masks do anything. the president refuses to wear one. he talks like it doesn't matter whether he wears one or not. i think our leadership has really failed not just in the way this has been handled, but the way they have presented it. all they have to do is tell people exactly what is going on, be honest with them, and let us know what needs to be done try to hide not things from the american people.

host: let's go to our social media followers. she wants to let us know what her experience was with covid-19 -- i got covid-19 in january. i have pre-existing heart issues and asthma. i was bedridden for six months and they seem to have permanent damage to my heart and copd. my greatest wish is that the fda stops playing games with the treatments that exist so others aren't left damaged. joanna is calling from massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for this program. i have a couple of friends who are and merit couple in their 50's who got covid despite of the husband, who works in a long-term care facility, having been meticulous easing ppe. he caught covid and his wife did too. their twentysomething college student daughter did too.

if the daughter had not lived at home, these people might have died. the husband and wife were so sick for three days, they laid down on the bed and could do nothing but crawl 10 feet to the back. and they were too sick to crawl to the kitchen to get food or let out the dog or feed the dog. when they recovered enough to talk to each other, they said that pain in their buddies was so intense that after day t, eachw of them was hoping they would die. othis kind of story is not getting out. i know two women whose husbands died of covid in the early 70's, one of whom had no underlying conditions. this government of ours needs to provide adequate masks for everyone in the health care field, frontline workers, and any citizens who want them so that people can go into grocery stores, post offices and etcetera, and not fear for their lives. thank you. host: let's talk to joan calling from morristown, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning.

i am employed by a school it just out here and seems kind of odd because it is so frightful. we have no idea what is going on in transportation. the school district seems to take care of their teachers and everybody. we have someone who tested positive. her husband. she did quarantine. now they are talking opening schools in november and these buses are going to be full of children. how are we supposed to keep a bus full of children safe when you can't social distance them? the teachers are pushing for a full-day school! it is absolutely ridiculous. and i'm frightened. i am 64, prediabetic, and there are a lot of older busters. this is just madness -- there are a lot of older drivers. this is just madness. i don't understand. everybody is left in the dark.

host: another one of our social media followers wants to know about -- wants us to know about their experience with covid. 45son is 40, my daughter is and got covid-19 in mid-february, then i got it in the end of february. we were all very weak and it took them weeks to feel better. it took me months to feel normal again. yes, the virus was here last year. let's see if we can take a couple of more calls. callingart with david from detroit, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning and to all of your "washington journal listeners. i had covid from march 22 through april 23. , was in hospital for 30 days 17 days in a medically induced coma. .a.m so thankful for the v

had i gone to the local community hospital, which is sinai grace, where they just had insurmountable deaths in that hospital because they --e overwhelmed by the covid i think it really spiked in march. you had asked the question earlier, what were some of the lingering effects of the virus? i can tell you that my breathing, i feel an irritation in my lungs, and i have this numbing in my left thigh. just recently, i went back and had an echocardiogram with the v.a. i am waiting for the response,

the analysis of that. but what i want to say, really quick, this is to all the trump people. we are not blaming trump for the virus. he is not responsible for it. but he is responsible for his response. when this thing came up and really blossomed, particularly here in michigan in march, when i went in the hospital, they saturation, oxygen believe it or not, was in the 70's. it is supposed to be in the 90's, i was in the 70's. they said i was basically almost dead. and holdt fault trump them responsible for the disease, absolutely not, but i do hold him responsible for his response. thank you. host: let's go to joe calling from north carolina. good morning. caller: yes. i am a retired internist working

in a correctional setting, who werere of folks not put in the hospital for covid but do need treatment. i have taken care of over 50. i have seen the deaths of about seven or eight people. this situation with covid is a crime that is attributable to the presidency of the united states of america. he saw the letter from the chinese consulate on december 31 saying they had an epidemic in will hunt -- december 1 saying they had an epidemic in wuhan. he told woodward that he knew about this. he knew that it was lethal and he knew how it was spread, but yet he procrastinated such that in prisons, where there are

masks and there is testing and there are temperatures taken, our positivity rate is in the 2% to 3%. but in the community outside in carolina, it has been as high as 9%. this means that people contracted the disease and they die unnecessarily, while our president and our leadership plays politics with people's lives. this is a crime. he needs to be tried for his negligence. and we need to hope and pray that god will send us the vaccine that is necessary to save our people. josephines talk to calling from morgantown, west virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you this morning? host: just fine. caller: ok. my niece knows a husband and

wife who have contracted the virus. home.re at the other thing i wanted to say is, i heard a lady just a little while ago talking about sending infected people to these nursing nephew works, my for a nursing home in new york and he has been tested over 40 they senthe said that those people to the nursing home because they would get $600 a day to take them in. that is what caused those people to die. como. not trump, but host: we would like to thank our guests, and i was social media followers for another episode of "washington journal." continue to wash your hands and stay safe out there. have a great saturday and we will see you tomorrow morning. ♪ [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy, visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> this afternoon, president trump host his first in-person event he will address a group at the white house from the south orrico balcony starting at 2 p.m. eastern, live on c-span joe biden --live on c-span. joe biden give remarks in pennsylvania. c-span, c-span.org, or listen on the free c-span radio app. watch the live supreme court confirmation hearings with judge amy coney barrett.

live coverage on c-span and thean.org, listen live on c-span radio app, and be sure to visit c-span.org to view a playlist of amy coney barrett's legal views. >> next, the vice presidential debate between vice president mike pence and senator kamala harris. post"that, "washington columnists give their assessment of the debates. candidatesar from running for texas 21st house district seat. now here is the ice presidential debate moderated by susan page. susan: good evening, from the university of utah in salt lake city, welcome to the first and only vice presidential debate of 20