to enjoy you can hang out with all the boys ymca it's fun to stay at the ymca man there's no need to feel down young man, pick yourself off the ground democratic presidential joe biden campaigned in tampa. coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span, online on c-span.org, or on the free c-span radio app. >> we are back with howie hawkins, the green party presidential candidate. he's going to tell us about how his campaign is going and what the green party offers for his candidacy for president. good morning. >> good morning. >> we have not seen each other

since july. tell us, what has happened with your campaign from july until now? your campaign is going. guest: well, the first thing we've focused on, july is when we got the national nomination, me and my running mate angela walker, then it was a mad scramble to get on ballot lines. we started with the green party having the 21 state battle lines and left 30 more petitions to do and we were appealing the state governments for relief during the covid pandemic because it was against public health guidelines to be out there physically asking for petitions and when we did we looked like hazmat workers with gloves and visors and masks and disinfectant. it was a mad scramble to get on the ballot and in the end we got on 30 ballots representing 73% of the voters, 381 electoral votes, you need 270 to win. and then you count the write-in

states we're on and we're 96% of the voters and 514 potential electorate votes out of a possible 538. that was july and august. even more difficult barrier is getting in the national media dialogue about the campaign. we get in on a lot of local media when we show up but in terms of the network news, the big newspapers, the cable news, we've been blanked out. and so that's a big frustration. we are running on things we think people want, medicare for all, a green new deal, getting out of these endless wars. it's frustrating for us to know we maybe have the most popular platform and we're not getting covered. host: so you're part of the original u.s. green party. tell us about the history of your party and how it was

founded and how it's changed since it was founded? guest: we started in august of 1984 with the first national meeting and the inspiration was the german green party. they had got into their bundesgog, ed the we have grassroots democracy and nonviolence and wanted to build positives around that. for the last 36 years now, that's what we've been doing. we elected about -- we won about 1,200 races and about 100 green in local office now. and really our goal is to build that up, elect thousands as we go in the 2020's and build from local office to state office to congress. then when we run somebody for president they won't be able to ignore us. that's what we're doing and one of the purposes of the presidential campaign is win ballot lines. the percent of the vote we get or in some states an absolute

number determines whether we have a ballot line the next election cycle which makes it a lot easier for our down ballot candidates to run, 1%, 2%, 3% or 5% in most states and that's one reason we're running for president in order to run more candidates at the state and local level going forward. host: tell us about the green party, how many members does the green party have in the .nited states and and you referenced the green new deal and tell us what the main party platform is for your green party and run for president. guest: if you count the number of people that enrolled in the green party in the various states is about 250,000 and if you project it in the states where you can't enroll in the green party because we don't have a ballot line, there's maybe 500,000 people in the country identified with the green party and that's a pretty good base. our leading issues i said three

life or death issues. one is the climate crisis where the green new deal comes in. i was the first candidate to campaign on that in 2010 running for governor of new york and we're talking about getting to 100% clean energy and zero green gas emissions by 2030 which is what we have to do to avoid catastrophic climate change and is a plan to invest $27.5 trillion over 10 million to ing 38 care for people of the planet and make the economic transition. and the second issue is the economic crisis. we've had a economic bill of rights to end poverty and economic insecurity and those rights should include the right to a job with the government as employer of last resort, a guaranteed income above poverty, medicare for all, affordable housing in the public sector, lifelong public

education and raising social security benefits so seniors can retire instead of working until they drop dead because they don't have other sources of income and they can all live above the poverty line. the third issue and this is a big frustration because nobody in the major parties are talking about it. we're in a nuclear arms race. we want peace initiatives to reduce tensions and reopen the door to nuclear disarmament. the doomsday clock is the closest it's ever been to midnight. three years ago 122 nations agreed to the text of a treaty of a prohibition on the nuclear weapons. the rest of the world is scared about this. but post of our major parties are committed to this nuclear modernization program that is deploying new nuclear weapons in the strategic sector and more tactical nukes in the conventional forces. this should be a top campaign issue and not being discussed. we're talking about whether our peace initiatives, deep cuts in military spending, getting out

of these endless wars and pledging no first use of nuclear weapons and then trying to open, reopen nuclear disarmament negotiations with the other nuclear powers with world public opinion on our side, those countries that want the prohibition of nuclear weapons. host: let's let our viewers take part in the conversation as well and open up our regular lines, that means that republicans, you can call in at 202-748-80001. democrats, 202-748-8000. dependents, your line is 202748-8002 and open a special line for green party members, we want to hear from you, your line is going to be 202-748-8003. eep in mind you can text us at 202-748-8003 and we're always reading on social media on twitter@c-span wj and on facebook at

facebook.com/c-span. howie, where are you seeing growth in the green party in the united states? are there a certain demographic you're going for or certain areas where you see the green party moving forward more than it was in other areas? guest: yeah. the people we're looking to, sometimes people say we spoil the election for the democrats. the truth is we bring new people to the polls. according to exit polls, we wouldn't have come out if jill wasn't on the ballot. we're looking at the 100 million people that didn't vote in 2016 and disproportionately working class, people of color and young. that's who we're aiming at articularly. we're getting a strong response from the young climate activists who know their future is on the line and have a serious program, the two other parties do not to deal with the climate crisis and we're getting a lot of young people

of color because we've been very active in the black lives matter movement and we have a program that goes beyond what the democrats have been willing to offer which is use of force reforms. we want community control for the police and end the war on drugs which is the pipeline to mass incarceration. we think african-americans need reparations and indigenous americans need their treaty a ts looked at and we need rights program for those communities that have been racially depressed communities and invest in the homes and housing and schools and health care and jobs to improve the communities. when they talk about defunding the police, they're talking about getting those services to the communities but there's not enough in the police departments and needs to be a federal program. e're getting a good response

from african-americans and latino people in particular and see that in the crass holves and the polls. there's a small sample in the crass halves but inconsistent in the polls we're included in and getting a good response and can see that to the people coming to the campaign. i would say the groups that responded most are young climate activists and young people of color. host: let's let our viewers take part in the conversation and start with dave who is calling from ohio on the green party line. dave, good morning. dave: well, top o'the morning to you, sir. i haven't voted for a democrat or republican since 1996. when i voted for nader. i challenge your audience to read the green party platform. there's a lot in there for the working man to agree upon. and there has been $11 billion that has been put into this

election between the democrats and the republicans. hat is for bloomberg news. and if you're voting for a democrat or republican, you're voting for the rich because those are the people giving the money to the democratic party and republican party and if you don't think that they want something in return i've got a bridge to sell you. go, howie, go. host: your response there, howie? guest: well, the only thing i'd add is we want public campaign financing, elections are public functions. we should have a level playing field. and it's not just that the rich folks have spent $11 billion on biden and trump. a lot of money is dark money. we don't know where it came from. they put it in a 501 c-4, a so-called welfare association that doesn't have to report its donors and send some money on politicks to that organization,

they can't spend it all and pass it on to superpac's who say it got it from c-4 when it came from dark money and it can come in from anywhere, foreign countries or organized crime, we don't know where the money is coming from and that's a huge scandal. public campaign finance is another thing we need to have fair elections in this country. host: here's a question from one of our social media followers who want to know, do you support the green new deal and can you discuss any benefits from the green new deal? guest: i was the first candidate to campaign for a green new deal in 2010 and has been a signature issue to the green party for the last decade. unfortunately the democrat superslogan diluted the slogan in the nonbinding contract for a green new deal pelosi didn't let them vote in the house and voted present and not for in the senate and now isn't even mentioned in the democratic

platform. the green new deal we're talking about is public enterprising and planning in the energy and manufacturing sector in order to transform all our productive systems to 100% clean energy and zero to negative greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and we have a detailed budget. it's the only detailed green new deal plan out there. you won't find another one. and you can check our home work. ut we accosted it 10 years $27.3 trillion and creates 33 million jobs and we're going to employ people caring for people in the planet. that's the green new deal. check our home work. t's on our website hawyhawkins.us. there's been talk of a green new deal from the democrats and they don't have a plan, we do. host: let's go to mike calling from california on the republican line. mike, good morning. caller: good morning. you scare the daylights out of

me, my friend. couple points, the 31,000 signers on record deny climate change exists but can't get a voice because the elite liberal media sets them out. and then the -- so including the -- matter of fact, the guy who founded the weather channel is a scientist and repude eights it. far as reparations, i'm a white male, and my ancestry was all yankees and they helped free the slaves, in fact some of them died face down in the mud. so how is it possible that i should be on the hook for giving black people money from my family when my people died face down in the mud? guest: well, on the climate

change question, look, people like this gentleman donald trump calls climate change a hoax, they don't have the science. the problem for us is the democrats act as if it's a hoax because you look at the biden plan, is pro fossil fuels and want to go back to nuclear power which costs two to three times more than most forms of solar and wind pow tore produce electricity. we have a serious problem there. as far as reparations go, i had ancestors die on the union side of the civil war as well. but the question is these communities, the black community has been segregated, discriminated against and exploited not just during slavery but jim crow and right down to the last decade where in the after math of the great recession, black america lost half its wealth due to predator lending and foreclosures. and people like steve mnuchin who is the treasury secretary was in the middle that and not prosecuted and not by the obama

administration and not by kamala harris as attorney general and in fact her staff brought a thousand counts of mortgage fraud for consideration for prosecution and she said no, then mnuchin turned around and gave her a $2,000 contribution for a run for u.s. senate. there needs to be reparations for the corporate crime that stole black america's wealth just in the last decade. you don't have to go back to slavery crimes and is the continuation of hundreds of years of exploitation. so how about reparations for the last 10 years? and how about we prosecute these corporate criminals that are not just robbing black people blind, corporate crime, why don't we fight corporate crime. trump wants to talk about law and order, how about these corporate criminals, his administration is full of them. he's had more people in his administration indicted than he's got a record for that. so i think that's where we need to look at to make things right. and you want to talk about law and order, let's go after the

corporate criminals. host: here's another comment from another one of our social media followers who says, where is the green party down ticket? i might vote for a green party candidate in a race where they can win and prove themselves. i can't vote third party in the national election. facism is here and any vote that isn't for biden is a vote for trump and his blatant crimes against humanity. guest: first of all, if the democrats want to take care of trump they could have impeached him on the whole mile long rap sheet that is his criminal record. i was just talking about the corporate crime and the real estate industry, money laundering, self-enrichment and violation of the emol meant -- emolument clause of the constitution and if the democrats were to fight the far right would have developed an impeachment indictment includes all the ways trump is breaking the current law and encouraging law enforcement not to follow the law like on the border,

like when he told those long island cops to rough people up when they put them in the squad cars, and then all the ways trump has been hurting workers and consumers in the environment. and he could have built political momentum to get trump out of there. look, trump wants to be a autocrat but he's not a facist. there's no facist movement and it's not mussolini's germany with thousands in arms ready to smash the democracy and the workers movement. it's a different situation. you have a guy out of control and off the charts with his racist and scapegoating invectives but there's not a facist movement out there. we don't have indictments of anti-war activists like under nixon. people need to put this in perspective. i'm not saying he's good. he's got to go. but to say the only way to fight trump is with the democrats, they have accommodated the far right, clinton called it "angulation, biden calls it working across

the isle. i'm afraid we have a neoliberal hawk in the democratic nominee in joe biden. we can't afford that. working people, our life expectancies have been declining in recent years and why we need an economic bill of rights. we're getting nothing like that from biden. i'm tired of this oh, you've got to vote for biden. as far as down ballot, yeah, we've got over 200 candidates around the country and one of the purposes of our campaign as i said before is to get enough votes in the presidential race so we can have a ballot line for the next election cycle so we can run more candidates down ballot. host: let's go back to our poll lines and talk to tom who is calling from new york on the independent line. tom, good morning. caller: good morning, mr. hawkins, i'm sure you remember me, i was in 1994 new york state the green party's first federal candidate to qualify for the ballot which f.d.c. records will prove. and that was for u.s. congress again in 1996.

and i supported all their issues and so, yeah, we need an environmental party. but i came to realize while i shared their issues and basically i'm trying to give you a reason why you should not vote for green this year and that to have a party to beat the republicans and democrats, you need a big party and you need a lot of people. if you have an extreme agenda one side or the other, we're not going to attract enough people to be successful and save the earth. which is the goal. you look what happened in 2000 with mr. nader and 535 votes and fair to criticize gore's poor campaign but again, it's -- the greens were not on the ballot with ralph nader and chances are we would not have had an iraq war or president bush. again in 2016 in wisconsin, pennsylvania and michigan, the difference in those votes were the difference the green party got. now maybe pennsylvania is a little closer. what i'm suggesting is that if

you want to save the environment, as much as i hate the evils of the two-party system, it's imperative, the earth requires it of us to vote for kamala maris and joe biden as soon as possible. i agree with the platform and everything is great but it's not going to happen. we have to be practical. there's no more time in terms of climate change. the time is running out. host: go ahead and respond, howie. guest: yeah, that's why we're running because on the climate program, just take carbon emissions. they say net zero emissions which means they're going to keep burning fossil fuels and offset it with things like tree planting. we have to go negative and draw carbon out of the atmosphere with 350 parts a million in the atmosphere is the danger threshold. we're already at 415. so there's just not a serious climate plan coming from biden-harris. and that's why we need to be in the race. as far as what happened in 2000, before you ever get to

the nader vote there was over 100,000 black voters purged from the rolls. the greens didn't do it the democrats did and republican shoes stop attacking the greens and deal with that problem. then the electoral college. gore won the popular vote and bush ended up president because of the electoral college and instead of going after the greens, the democrats should, like we've been saying, since that election, replace the electoral college with a national popular vote for president using rank choice voting so you can vote for what you really want like the green party and not worry about somebody like trump because you can rank the democrats second if the greens come in third, our votes are transferred to their second choice and most of those votes will go to the democrats. that's what we need. instead of turning the greens. party suppression. people got to understand how authoritarian that is. the green party, the republicans suppressed black voters and other democrat

voters from photo i.d.'s to voter roll purges to not putting enough polling machines in black communities and so forth. but the democrats are suppressing a party. that's authoritarian and what we condemn in other countries. then most of our voters wouldn't come out for either party. they'd stay home. as i mentioned earlier, 61% of jill stein's voters in 2016 according to the exit polls would have stayed home. you plug that number into michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, it wouldn't have changed the outcome. but in michigan, there are 75,000 votes still sitting in detroit that were never counted because the republican sector put defective scanners in there. those votes were set aside. and it was the greens not the democrats that sued to have those votes counted and we got to court and the judge said well, you don't have standing because if you want those votes you still wouldn't have won michigan. the clinton lawyers were in the courtroom and the judge turned

it in and said you're outstanding. no, we're just observing. if those votes counted michigan would have flipped and only a 10,000 vote difference. then the democrats turn around and blame the green party. it's not the green party. so we don't accept that we spoil elections. it's the democrats that spoil the situation up because they won't embrace replacing the electoral college with a national popular voice using rank party voting and have been putting it forward for two decades and will keep putting it forward. that's the solution, not suppression the green party. host: you brought up rank choice voting in answering that question. tell our viewers who don't know what that is what rank choice voting is and i believe maine right now is the only state implementing it statewide but tell us what rank choice voting is and why it should be used in the united states. guest:: it's being used in maine up to the presidential

election this year. it's on the ballot in massachusetts as a referendum and can be adopted there. it's adopted by 23 cities and counties across the country. what it is, you go to the ballot and rank your choices, one, two, three and so forth. and then if nobody gets a majority vote in the first round of voting, the last place candidate is eliminated and their ballots are transferred to the second choice and that process continues until somebody gets the majority of votes. so what that means is if you like the green platform but you're really worried about trump, you can vote for the greens and rank us first and then you can rank the democrats second so that if we don't make it through the first round, then our votes are transferred, most of them would go to biden and trump would be defeated anyway. what it enables you to vote your hopes instead of your fierce and we get a result that reflects more what the people want. because right now with the greens and the democrats, can

you have the center left vote split and the right wing loser of the popular vote, or at least didn't get a majority ends up president. that's how trump got in and how george bush got in. that's what rank choice voting does, it lets you vote for what you want without worrying about helping your worst enemy. host: do you expect to see more states going to rank choice voting or is maine just the out lier here and only going to be seen in certain down ballot races? guest: i think -- there used to be a saying in the 19th century, as maine goes, so goes the nation. we may see that again with rank choice voting because we developed it at the local level in 23 cities and counties and now maine is the state that's adopted it. and now massachusetts is. and so i'm hopeful it's going to sweep the nation and we get it at the state and local level and that's how you sometimes

build momentum to get things at the federal level. this is an idea whose time has come and a high priority for the green party. host: back to our phone line and let's talk to bill who is calling from new york on the green party line. bill, good morning. caller: good morning. i've been registered and voting green since 1996. and i'm really glad that c-span is doing this today. my question for howie is what are the obstacles in new york state to getting on the ballot, and have these obstacles been increased by the democrats this year, is it greater now, more difficult now than before, and also could you say a word about angela walker? thank you. guest: sure. well, yeah, in new york they didn't go after our ballot like they did in some other states and we were in the courts and won some, we lost some. in new york they passed

legislation attached to the state budget bill under the cover of the covid pandemic when people were worried about other things. that tripled the number of votes we need to retain our ballot line in new york. used to be 50,000 votes every four years in the governor's race. now it's 130,000 or 2%, which ever is greater. it's going to be greater in the presidential year and we expect we'll need at least 170,000 votes. and the only time the green party in new york has got that many was when ralph nader ran for president in 2000 and i was the gubernatorial candidate in 2014. so 2014. we have a challenge to retain are valid. when new york times got wind of the democrat plan on this ecretlation, "democrats' s plan to kill third parties." this new threshold is triple

what we had before every two years, presidential and gubernatorial. if we lose the ballot line, we need 45,000 good signatures and a six week window, which means 90,000 signatures, because democrats challenge petitions and drag processes out. new york is one of the hardest states in the country for a third-party to get on ballot. joe biden is ahead 30% in new york. shame on any progress of the votes for biden, when the green party could lose their ballot line. we need that 2%, 170,000 votes at least. angelo walker is my running mate, someone i have known since 2014, she was running for sheriff in milwaukee, as an independent socialist against david walker, a trump loving and histive democrat,

slogan was, don't call 911, get a gun. she thought that was crazy. she ran for sheriff. she got 20% of the vote. 67,000 votes. we stayed in touch. justest, union activist. driver in the wisconsin uprising against governor walker's attack on .ollective-bargaining rights i wanted her to be my running mate. she is someone i know and i could work with and i am happy she said yes. she now lives in florence, south carolina. she is a truck driver. we are two workers for the white house. we need a better class of people

than what we have had because they are not helping working people. host: last time you are on the show was in july. then, there was supposed to be three presidential debates. there ended up being two. none of the third-party candidates were allowed to participate. what was the reason they gave y'all for not letting you and what message do you have to the commission moving forward for future debates? guest: debate commission is called the commission on presidential debates. it sounds like a government agency. in fact, it is a private corporation controlled by democrats and republicans. get out of the way! stop obstructing our democracy. media and civic organizations should develop a objective

criterion and invite candidates. what we have now is a contract between democrats and republicans, they negotiate what they want and they tell the corporate media, here is what is going to happen. grabbedhe commission the stage, it was the league of women voters, who was the sponsor. in the mid-1980's, the democrats and republicans muscle decide so i don't have much to say except get out of the way. news andponsored by civic organizations, we could have publicly sponsored debates. we have that in arizona where they have public financing for state elections. the candidate in 2018 -- [indiscernible] running as the green

candidate in new york. cuomo would not debate me. that is another thing we could get from public campaign financing. i think there are better ways to go. the only communication we have had with the commission over the them and tried to get them out of the way of sponsoring the debates. unfortunately, it is not a public agency. the real problem is the corporate media goes along with the sham. that is an issue we have to address going forward. i was in cleveland, nashville, ready to talk to the media. the big newspapers, network news, excluded us. just like the commission. that is unfortunate. deal,e issues, green new

medicare for all, getting out of endless wars, the majority of the american people support. we cannot present them in the debates. it is a problem. barbara onam, santa the green party line. i hadn't heard about rank choice voting. fantastic idea. member, not proud on an even playing field. that is not fair. howie, i support you. you coming across strong on the show. i live in california. opportunity/ability to vote green. california will go democratic. the democrats do not have the

best climate plan. i am concerned about the future of our planet. i have a child. would like him to be able to live in a healthy environment. is, which youn have addressed, is that the green party could be siphoning votes away in the swing states from democrats, who have some kind of climate plan, although compared to green party, it does not live up to it. i just cannot deal with another four years of trump. concernd you address my on this election cycle? thank you. your concern is shared. people whoshame

decide they have to vote for biden to get trump out. trump has poisoned the atmosphere in the country with his racist scapegoating that is dividing us. the worst thing is it is diverting attention from how to solve problems like the climate crisis. i understand that. personally, i don't recommend that in those states. every state is a battleground. ohio and pennsylvania. considered battleground. it is only the green party that is fighting fracking. building out a new fossil fuel infrastructure for gas, we will burn that for decades. that is a climate mom. -- bomb. any big city, on this affordable housing crisis, who are you fighting? the democratic machine. developers that fund that political machine.

those states need green party to fight on those issues. green, is to vote say they are sacrifice zones. that is why we are campaigning. i understand why some people say, i will vote for biden to get trump out of there. the thing we can agree on is trump has to go. host: social media follower question. "how are you planning on paying for the extremely expensive things you mentioned the green party wants to do? you could not tax people in business enough to pay for it." we do not have to tax in order to spend. the money is there.

how it pays for itself in the long run, the green new deal? we are doing a lot in the public sector. it should pay for itself in the long run like any good investment. we are building public housing. that brings rent. we are bringing a rail system, public transportation, both light rails within cities, high-speed trays between cities and freight rail, electrified, so it is nonpolluting. power,roducing electric through public power systems. in the long run, it should pay for itself. in order to make the initial investment, when the government spends more than it takes in, it issues treasury. people say the deficit goes up. they are an asset on the private side. it balances out in the economy. we don't have to worry about that balance.

we have to worry about spending too much money when we have full employment. we are not anywhere near that. when you get to that point, you may have an inflation problem. right now, you make a good investment, then you are producing more wealth, and that covers cost. the idea that we have to tax first before we spend, is an old gold standard, 19th century, that should be dispensed with. new priorities in the federal budget on military. we want progressive taxation, not so much because we need to raise money but because we need a more equitable society. right now, labor income is taxed more than capital income. that is not right. 45 years of stagnant wages, housing, health care, college cost going through the roof. working class living standards are under assault. we have declined life expensive

see -- life expectancy. there are reasons to have progressive taxation. finding the money to pay for what we need to do, it will cost more if we don't do it. climate change does not mean just more he waves and stronger storms. it means mass species extinctions as environments change, ecosystem collapse, agricultural degradation, we cannot feed ourselves, which means mass starvation. that is what we are looking at in the next century. if we don't make the investments now to correct that, we are being penny wise and pound foolish. pennsylvania,m democratic line. caller: morning. i think the word you're looking for is stupid.

i heard someone say, as a human survive. stupid to justicea supreme court saying climate change is debatable. points, my head is spinning. i'm glad you pointed out the flaw in the electoral college. maybe you can address the flaws of the senate? more people wanted hillary clinton to kick the nominee from the supreme court, more people wanted a democratic senate to confirm that justice. money in politics is the great disruptor. campaigns were publicly funded, your voice would be heard.

you are telling me things i never knew. average person in this country thinks the green party is a bunch of tree huggers only worried about the climate, water and air. you made so many great points about our society. i want to thank you for that, for opening my eyes. thank you c-span for giving you that voice. you.: thank i am a retired teamster. my running mate is a truck driver. people have their tropes about the green party that get put out there to attack us. i have been around social movements since the 1960's. we have socialist groups, on campus, they say the greens are not working, there are more working people in the green party than the socialist groups. you mentioned the senate. the hypocrisy of senate

republicans and the republican party is breathtaking. eight months before an election they say garland cannot be considered after antonin scalia died, then they turn around four years later and say, one month before an election, we have to rush this republican nominee through. the hypocrisy is breathtaking. i hope people see it. you cannot trust people like that. they don't have no principles. it is all about power. how would you tackle the pandemic? more more people getting infected, record numbers, yesterday. guest: this pandemic shows the governing parties in this country are presiding over a failed state.

measures.ic health was ableic rim, europe to suppress the virus and go back to work in school safely, not that they are not still contesting, but they have a program. it was to invoke the defense production act, scale up a program of rapid testing, contact tracing, isolating those infected/exposed. go back to work and school safely. i was disappointed. that question was asked in the debate in nashville. they did not give a clear answer. trump does not know what he is talking about. biden was not clear about the test, trace, isolate program. he mentioned we need more testing, he mentioned chasing

later on. he has not articulated a clear answer, that most countries around the world have done. that is what we need. tracing,testing, isolating infected, suppress community spread, then we can go back to work and school relatively safely. that is the immediate thing we need. it is astounding this country could not get that done. here we are, eight months into this, and it is raging. we are reaching record levels of new cases. it is astounding. it shows we need new political leadership in the country. concord,e, massachusetts, republican line. i want to tell the audience to read "apocalypse

never" i think you had him on c-span. climate activist and the view of covid, true global crisis, took a step back and really sorted of the level of severity environmental movement concerns, put in perspective. book, climatehat change, there are issues at hand. they are not a crisis. they are certainly not on the scale of covid. ie is, youn for how h are touching on many other crises, you are throwing them out left and right this morning, do you think you can build a party off of fraudulent crisis huckstering?--

is that how you will make a party? huckstering comes from the oil and gas industry since the 1950's. they knew that putting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would warm the climate. there is no question in the science. let's get that straight. we can build a party around the climate crisis. young people get it. it is their future. shows, even though it is not at the top of the list because of covid, health and economic issues, it is a concern that has broad support. we can build a party around this issue. it is a life or death issue. if we do not address it, we are leaving a disaster to our children/grandchildren. host: does the green party support prison reform,

reparations and defund the police? and theut prison reform defund movement. most people convicted of crimes do not need to go to prison, because they were nonviolent. drug offenses should not be offenses. marijuana should be legal. hard drug should be decriminalized, so you do not get a criminal charge, you get an appearance ticket, like an portugal, they have to appear before a doctor or lawyer, who looks, how can we help your situation? do you need treatment? are you using drugs to cope with other problems? do you need counseling? do you need a job? spreading,v is not they do not have drug related street crime, they do not have death from overdoses, less people use hard drugs. that is what we need to do to

reduce the number of people going to prison for drug offenses, when they really need other services. offenses,other including property crimes, where restitution, alternatives to incarceration, reconciliation with victims, there are a lot of things we can do, rather than just warehousing people. this country has the largest prison system in the history of the world. think about that. have 25% of the worlds prisoners. 10 times as many prisoners as we had in 1970, when nixon declared the war on drugs. what is going on? there are a lot of things we need to do. police,s defunding the our big thing is, yeah, you need homes for the homeless instead of vacancy charges, treatment for the drugs they did, rather than criminal charges for

possessing. when someone has a mental health crisis, you need mental health people to deal with that, not cops, who are not sure what is going on, and they have a gun, end up shooting people, no harm to anybody, they are acting crazy because they are having a crisis. there is not enough money in police budgets to fund social services, as bloated as some of the budgets are in big cities. that is why, as part of the green new deal, a marshall plan for the cities, investing in the services. affordable housing, so everyone has an option. allcare for all, including medically necessary services including drug treatment. to deal withople people with mental health issues. those kind of services, you just cannot fund out of local police budgets. defund the police basically means take some of the budget and put it into social services.

we want to defund the military and put some of that money into these services in our cities. i think that answers those questions. pennsylvania, green party line. america.ood morning, i am enjoying the conversation. so excited to hear from the green party. i watch a lot of cnn, msnbc. i never get to hear from the green party. it was like that in 2016, when bernie was running, it was like a blackout. it is important to talk about media as part of the problem. news, like ake broken clock, he is right about twice a day and wrong mostly. info important to frame and make sure people have it.

so many americans calling in don't have the information. i don't know what we will do about that. choices.ther political are you familiar with moving for a people's party? addition, i wanted to talk about the last election the democrats ran where the debate question was, how are you going to afford medicare for all? cost $32ie's plan trillion over 10 years, the democratic plan is going to cost 50 chilean dollars. -- $50 trillion. the media were certainly very biased and never helped the american people understand that. the american people don't have the info they need to make good decisions.

there are a lot of agendas. of the hucksters around climate science denial. the reason i'm not supporting joe biden, i live in pennsylvania, i find his climate science denial more dangerous than trump. the plan to address it by 2050 is too late. we will hit a tipping point. that is more dangerous than donald trump's outright denial. i will take my answer off the air. so nice to hear from the green party. guest: thank you. media reform. you're right. out of then blanked corporate media, cable news, networks. i think we are representing a platform the majority of people would support. media reform is another thing we need. we should go back to the kind of limitations, ownership of

platforms, monopolization of local media networks that were in federal law until the telecommunications act, 1994, which removed most barriers. for example, in my home city of syracuse, the only commercial station is 20 47, conservative, far-right talk radio. sued, filed a complaint with the fcc under the equal revision of the act to get equal time on rush limbaugh's show, not that he will listen to me, but a lot of people listen to his show because it is the only option on the radio, including in my hometown of syracuse. we should have multiple platforms. conglomerates. it is limited what we get to hear.

they can exclude alternative voices. print media is having a hard time because advertising revenue has gone to social media and their business model is in trouble. need publicly funded, investigative journalism with grants delivered in local media markets from public boards selected by juries, so there is no bias. you get a representative sampling of the community. they could award grants to investigative journalists so we could get reporting on what is going on in communities. there is nocities, investigative reporting left in the tv/print media. media reform is an important thing that has not been discussed in this campaign but is something we need to. we are not getting the info we need. we are not having diversity of viewpoints in media, so people

can get the full picture. you raise an important issue. aller,one more c south dakota, john, democratic line. caller: thank you for letting me speak. committee for the democratic party, south dakota. i understand about the event. i understand we may have five years left. mann,hansen, michael please vote democratic. is indigenous pipeline fighters. we don't want to split the vote with going green. please vote for the democratic party. please, i beg you. host: respond. guest: unfortunately, democrats are not fighting the pipelines going over indigenous lands like

northern minnesota, wisconsin, michigan, the ambridge line. they are ducking on that. the greens are fighting to get ballot lines in those states. it doesn'tkota, count right ins. we did not get a petition. we are not even an option in south dakota, which is a problem of our democracy. i understand this brothers concern about the climate. reality is, democrats have gone backwards from 2016 on climate. they got rid of the above energy language in the platform. that is what the sanders delegates were able to do. 2018, dnc reaffirmed the policy, which is now what we see in the biden policy. wind, solar is additional power. not replacing fossil fuels.

fossil fuels, fracking, pipeline, carbon capture sequestration, which will not happen because it is not economical, it is a pro fossil fuels climate plan, then going nuclear, which is a waste of money. under obama, they provided loan guarantees for six new nuclear power plants in south carolina and georgia. one went belly up because of the cost overruns and construction delays. the only ones going on our because brian campbell, secretary of state, suppressed the black vote, stole the election, and he represents georgia power in the southern company. they are pouring money down these plants in georgia, which were having cost overruns and construction delays. the democratic party's pro-nuclear for the first time in 50 years. they may be a lesser evil than trump, who does not know what the hell he is talking about on climate, but it is still not an answer. it is an evil. we need a positive solution. that is why the green party is

out here saying we need a full stream green new deal. we don't need half measures. real solutions cannot wait. host: tony, santa fe, green party line. i would like to say, i am a john adams independent. nothing to be dreaded more than a two-party system, acting in opposition to each other. until we get rid of citizens united and money out of politics, we are never going to change. if both parties do not announce the doctrine of discovery, the most racist doctor never written, we will still have the same problem. i do not like either party. i don't really support either. i think they are both a bunch of crooks, racists and climate change denial. we ain't going to have to worry

about this. our children and grandchildren aren't because they are not going to be able to breathe. they will not be able to drink the water. they will not be able to eat real food. i don't know what this game is. media,eds into corporate across the spectrum. the doctrine of discovery, which legitimized colonization of the americas, other parts of the world, is at the root of a lot of these institutional racism. we still have problems like with indigenous treaties. there is land that needs to be recovered under treaties. the federal government is supposed to be providing services and they are not. the major parties have neglected

this and still are imposing upon an digit is nations, like we were talking about the pipelines -- indigenous nations, like we were talking about the pipelines. the coup in bolivia, a majority indigenous country, they just had an election, and the indigenous people who backed the movement for socialism won the election by 20%. look at the amazon. corporate interests expanding into the amazon at the expense of indigenous nations. this problem has not ended. the doctrine of discovery set in something, the pope talked about a 500 years ago, is something we have not reconciled. that is something we need to understand and redress. host: we would like to thank howie hawkins, green party presidential candidate for coming on this morning and telling us about his platform in the presidential election.

thank you for your time. guest: thank you we will have live coverage of that starting at 6:30 eastern today. today, 8:00 p.m. eastern kamala harris will be speaking at an event with senator bernie sanders. watch c-span for life campaign 2020 coverage. >> with five days left until election day, on november 3, when voters decide who controls congress and occupies the white event --t year, this visit c-span. on-demand at

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