discusses this week's changes to the pentagon and the potential impact on the presidential transition. at 8:45. , professor of law at william & mary law school on how electors could impact the outcome. ♪ >> joe biden gained more votes last night in arizona's maricopa county, padding his win in his electoral college lead. good morning, it is friday, november 13, 2020. welcome to "washington journal." showing you video of the wilmington celebration saturday night. as president-elect joe biden begins to build his team and forge ahead into the transition, this first hour of the program, joe biden supporters only. how should he govern? here is how to call in.

202-748-8000 on the eastern and central time zones. in the mountain pacific regions, 202-748-8001. you can also send a text to 202-748-8003. on twitter, we are at at c-span wj. biden supporters only this first hour. we did republicans only yesterday at the same time. your thoughts on how joe biden will govern. should he align himself with moderate or progressives. again, 202-748-8000, eastern and central, 202-748-8001, mounted and pacific. this is the reporting of the arizona republic this morning -- biden increases lead, ending trump's hopes that continuing what count would put state in his column. seemingly every national news organization that had not already called arizona for

president-elect joe biden -- nbc, cnn,, "new york times" and it.washington post called fox news and the associated press had already called arizona for biden last week but at that point president trump had a chance albeit slim to pull ahead of his democratic challenger. biden needs trump with a margin greater than the estimated number of ballots remaining to arizona.d in the thursday evening results from about 4000 maricopa county ballots went 53% for biden and 43% for trump. -- it hadn't changed much, the map was already called for arizona by the associated dress. that is the data -- by the associated press. that is the data we use for c-span. quoting from the "washington post" -- turning arizona blue is

a huge achievement fro for biden. since 1998, only bill clinton has won the mother state. after saturday night's announcement that he went over the top electoral votes, joe biden said this about his governing mandate for the election. pres. biden: i said at the outset i wanted to represent what looks like america. we have done that. for all those of you who voted for president trump, i understand the disappointment tonight. i have lost a couple of times myself. but now, let's give each other a chance. [cheers and applause] away the harsht rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to and to makegain, progress come that we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. they are not our enemies. they are americans.

they are americans. [cheers and applause] the bible tells us, to everything there is a season, a time to build, a time to reap and a time to so, and a time to heal. this is the time to heal in america. [applause] [cars honking] , whatis campaign is over is the will of the people? what is our mandate? i believe it is this -- america has called upon us to marshall the forces of decency, the forces of fairness, to marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time. the battle of control of the virus. the battle to build prosperity. the battle to secure your family's health care. the battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic

racism in this country. [cheers and applause] planetbattle to save our by getting climate under control. [cheers and applause] decency,e to restore defend democracy, and give everybody in this country a fair shot. that is all there asking for. a fair shot. host: president-elect joe biden from saturday night. our first hour of biden supporters only -- how should he govern? the line is 202-748-8000 for those of you in the eastern-central time zone, 202-748-8001 for mountain pacific. headline today, joe biden is forging ahead. 's teamsident-elect gets briefing. our first caller, go ahead. caller: good morning. the question of how president-elect biden should

govern, i think applies to not only himself but also to our members of congress. we have to stop the name-calling. bothve to demonstrate that democrats and republicans are willing to work together, and that is also the responsibility of the republicans because of the level of distrust for both the government and elected officials that this point in time. it might be a good idea to establish a group to investigate and to make recommendations to ensure that our electoral votes are counted properly. and to encourage and to demonstrate, to actually demonstrate on the part of the president and members of

congress that they are willing to work together in terms of , and not in terms of retaining power. this is what concerns the american people. it is not so much for example the aca that is at issue, it's the way that it was passed. people in this country want to see their elected officials working together in terms of compromise. dominates and ignores the other party, you have a vast majority of people in this country that feel disenfranchised do joe biden is well-suited to that, to bringing over members of the other side, the republicans? caller: people have free will, and it is the responsibility of

disagreeing parties to be willing to come together. maureent's hear from next in redwood city, california, how should joe biden and his administration govern? caller: your last caller talked about unity. i am going to talk more about policy. havenk joe biden should everything as jobs, jobs, jobs, and the economy. then he can pick progressive policies to bring internet and rapid wrap jobs around that and satisfy both sides of the aisle. that which hedoes has been talking about, i think he will be successful. host: more rain, thank you -- you.en, thank the headline on the washington times -- progressive leaders in congress urge presumptive president-elect joe biden to "go big and go bold" with the

liberal agenda next year despite pushback from more moderate members of the party. quote, your instincts are there, but let's get things done and lead on the issues, from the progressive caucus cochair -- you know what to do but let's seize this moment and lead with bold ideas. on the first day of the progressive strategy summit, the cochair, representative pramila jayapal in washington outlined priorities for the but administration. the list includes dismantling president trump's orders on daca, implementing a federal $15 minimum wage, rejoining the paris climate accords, and canceling a large portion of student debt. next up is brenda in antioch, california. caller: yes. i think that he needs to govern from the center of the

democratic party. when he was running, one of the groups that came out strong for him, and he acknowledged it, was black america. so within that, i have to tell you that out there, one of the reasons that bernie sanders did not win was that everybody is not there yet to the far-left, that is not what everybody in the democratic party wants to do. so i think he has to govern and listen to everybody. likelyto do what is more to be able to pass. and he has to be pragmatic about it. i know everyone is not going to get what they want, and i want a president who is not going to worry about giving everybody what they want, that is going to be worried about doing things that could actually happen. time't want a lot of

wasted and fights that are going nowhere. i do think that i agree with the previous callers, they need to learn to get along with republicans. i am one of those people that have always said at, th republicans are not the enemy, they are people like us, even though they -- there are crazies and extremists on both sides, and i was scared [beep]less by trump, his jim jones mentality and the way i saw people behaving, that scared a lot of people and that is probably one of the reasons he lost. i just really hope that he will stick to what he said -- those announcements, those things he said he was going to do, and that he gets the best possible legislation on those things and weedst too buried in the and get nothing done. host: let's hear from philip in orlando, florida. good morning.

caller: good morning. -- acknowledgment as to what he can look forward to. be frank about it, first of all, i would hope to see some major changes in recent relations. -- in race relations. think they thing i for thet has to do american people are the dire issues related to the climate and how that is going to affect us. maybe he can build a platform of providing job opportunities toward the development of projects that can help reducing the carbon that in the atmosphere, which is heating up the planet, heating up the oceans, giving us the extreme weather.

i am very concerned about that. in addition to hiding the issue about the pandemic. i truly believe we are living in a time where the climate has really changed everything that we probably would have been thinking about doing in our normal life patterns, and -- we have the issue of have to prepare seriously. if we don't have environment and habitat for building, how are we going to succeed in all these other things? host: do you think joe biden as president, he has made clear that the pandemic is his number one priority, do you think in any way his efforts to nationalize the planning of the pandemic effort, making it his number one priority, will in any way diminish his goals of rejoining the harris climate

accords, or addressing climate change? issues you and other callers have raised. will that delay his action, acting on other issues? caller: i believe he needs to rejoin the paris climate accords as soon as possible to give an indication of his awareness about the seriousness of the problem and to take the lead. america should be able to take the lead and create the kind of technology that is necessary. we can do this, but we need all of us -- we need a unifier. in my book i wrote, we are subdivided, but it is going to take something of this type of magnitude to bring people together. host: you said in your book you what is the name of your book? caller: "run in my shoes." a journey to understanding the beginning of how races and began in this country -- racism again in this country. why it began and it continues to succeed. we have got to tackle both of them.

i am in -- i am an african-american. i love this country. i was born in alexandria, virginia, the product of an experiment to racially integrate the school. i came away with some positive feelings about race relations. but then gradually i saw things really go downhill. .ealousy and negativity it began, i believe it was in the bush administration, and is just continue to grow. so we need to tackle those things. we need to recognize that i it is a problem. host: one more question for you, phillip, wended the book come out? caller: the third edition came out after obama. host: thanks for calling in this morning.

we will plug the book there. thanks to our producer for offending the image of the front page. florida. florida.philip in steve in indianapolis, go ahead with your comment. caller: i think when of the previous callers did touch biden, he ist going to have to try to implement. obviously the pandemic is the elephant in the room. it will be hard to move forward economically in any other way without trying to tackle that, make some headway on that. but i just want to comment on, it is going to be one of the toughest jobs of any president ever. you've got trump, that won't even have anything at all to do with help, the transition at all, he can't accept any of his

defeat, and all the other republicans sitting back complacent, not helping whatsoever. biden has always worked across the aisle with his counterparts, but it seems like this is a different environment than he is probably normally used to so he will have his work cut out for him. it is a different climate with these republicans nowadays. i assume he'll have to play a lot of hardball with these guys. you have trumpism. how in the world can 70 million, over 70 million americans vote for what trump has stood for, which is the most anti-american person i have ever seen in my life that held any public office. it is just a terrible time right now. trump has caused most of it. host: one of the fallout from the election for democrats has been the loss of democratic

members in the house. likely their smallest governing majority in the house since the 1990's. the day after the election, they had a conference call. the headline about that -- centrist house democrats/out that liberal colleagues, blame far-left views were costing the party seat. one of those was abigail spanberger, democrat from virginia. this is audio from the conference call. >> we went to talk about funding social services and ensuring engagement and talk about what we are for. we need to not ever use the word socialist or socialism ever again, because what people think it doesn't matter, it does matter. in my background, coming from the cia, the first thing to do is always dig into everything you did write and everything you did wrong. if we are classifying tuesday as

a success from a congressional standpoint, we need to -- [beep] be torn apart in 2022. host: that was congresswoman spanberger, democrat from virginia. this is from the new york post this morning, "alexandria ocasio cortez defended her support for defund the police thursday night after an election season in which republicans weaponize the mantra to paint democratic opponents as anti-cop and soft on crime. democratic leaders complained about two issues closely associated with aoc, defunding the police and socialism as contributing to the losses last week." including the staten island congressional race. that race was called last night. colorado springs, this is douglas. go ahead. caller: good morning.

i guess my biggest issue i would have to say is, pretty much like everyone has been saying more or less is basically breaking down this dividing line of conquering and basically being able to reunite the u.s. more or less like the last few callers were talking about, i believe us joining the paris climate accord would basically be one of the best things we could do. however, i believe that if we don't knock down this wall of misinformation, we can't even isle athe tha all. when people hear the word defund the police, they think it means to get rid of the police when really it means to reduce the funding they get overall. i believe in coming together as a country. if we can't communicate on the simple issues and even understand what the other side is extra talking about, then how do we get to that issue in the beginning? host: this first hour biden

supporters only, how should the president-elect govern? 202-748-8000 in the eastern-central time zones. 202-748-8001 mountain and pacific. next caller, good morning. caller: in this morning's new york times" opinion, there is a piece by woman saying, vice president, high-risk move me to tears. imagine what the impact can be when a woman of color is president. this analysis, which is known as identity politics, i think it has been proven by renowned political scientist thomas theguson, in his book " investment theory of party competition." he shows the best way to predict how a candidate will govern is by looking at who fund them. if their major funder is the financial services industry, he shows politicians will and have in the past and not policies -- enact policies that are good for

the financial industry. i think he rightly cast the media's focus on identity and character as opposed to funding as misguided. my suggestion is the media publishes abuse that focus less on politician's ethnic origins and more on who funds them. this is a better indicator and i think it will better inform readers and listeners on what to expect in the biden administration. host: thank you. george in pittsburgh, hello. caller: hello. i think biden should govern based on labor. right now, because our past president governed based on the rich, giving them all the advantages of social security and stuff, labor has always taken a loss. he needs to concentrate on reparations, because black

people have never had an opportunity, even after they have been freed, as soon as they was freed, they started the black codes against them. their self interest in their ability to create wealth, they never had that opportunity. that is based on labor. god gave everybody the ability to work in order to create well-being. we will never correct america if ignore the black person in this country. so it is all about labor. host: george, what specific policies do you think about it administration, along with the 170th congress to address -- 117th congress could address in terms of addressing past

inequities? caller: one policy is house bill 40 needs to be passed so we can start looking at it, for real, start looking at giving blacks -- right now that people are on the trajectory to not be able to .reate wealth host: what would house bill 40 do? caller: it would get america to people.vesting in black during obama's time there were people working on libya to get them to start investing in black businesses, and what happened, the united states bombed them. that is messed up.

host: take a look at the reaction on twitter. it text, a guy from new york said this -- after 2010i think, it is best hope is to do what he can with executive orders and hope for a different congress in 2022. renee in virginia -- bipartisanship be nice it must be a two-way street. it is pointless for biden to reach his hand across the aisle if republicans just want to amputate it. begin with a plan to handle serious problems and do what the country needs most -- bob in missouri says that. how should he govern, just by asking himself how can i heal and reconcile this country? this one says, over 70 million people voted for joe biden. this included a coalition of diverse members of our society. he must never forget what and who put them there. it is time to work for the people. front page of the washington times, their headline about the of theof legal efforts

trump campaign. -- trump supporters starting to give up on legal challenges. senators acknowledge biden should get intelligence briefings. small but noticeable cracks in president trump's typically unbreakable support from republican lawmakers emerged thursday amid a barrage of legal challenges to the presidential election. several senate republican leaders said president-elect joe biden should start receiving intelligence briefings. one of the democrats who spoke was chris van hollen of maryland, talking about the actions of the president and what it could mean for future unity in the country. [video clip] biden asn: hollen joe a candidate has said he wants to bring the country together. -- en. graham: holle >> joe biden as a candidate has said he wants to bring the country together. he is looking for the opportunity to work on both sides of the aisle here in the united states senate and in the

house of representatives, to urgent matters before our country. so i ask my republican senate colleagues, how are you going to take the extended hand of joe biden when you are telling so many of your constituents back this is ant illegitimate election? how are you going to do that? what we have seen in the aftermath of the selection is caring, because we saw so many times in the last four years that our republican senate colleagues refused to stand up to the abuse of power in this administration, things that the obama administration ever thought of doing, they would be out there everyday crying foul and abuse of power. but everybody enabled that conduct. now after the election, when joe

biden is already over 5 million votes ahead in the national vote and winning the electoral college, you would think this is to come for everybody together, to give the next president of the united states a chance. the first hour, biden supporters only, how should he govern. an opinion piece from the washington post -- before your nightmare that awaits joe biden. take a deep breath, he writes. savor the fact that the president trump has only a couple of months left to harm the country with the power of the federal government. then replace that leaf with realism. joe biden will face higher obstacles to getting anything done. he writes that biden will face as many difficulties from a restive left. this year's election results are

yet more evidence that democrats require a broad coalition that includes, progressives, minorities, moderate suburbanites, and just enough for everyone else to diminish gop margins in for all americans. if democrats had not allowed themselves to be easy to find by the left wing, they would have fared better particularly in down ballot races. that is from a writer in the washington post. next up, a caller from jamestown, north carolina. welcome. caller: thank you so much. i think c-span is the best forums in america for us to share opinions. if i may elect to make three points. i think for president-elect joe biden, tackling the covid pandemic is first and foremost. talking about evidence-based solutions, it is countries like south korea, japan and taiwan, if they could tackle the problem, we need to do the same.

to, if i may, i would like talk about the shibboleth of misinformation that we are covid-19, where people are saying it is only responsible for 6% of mortality. if we make an analogy very quickly to h.i.v., when a patient is diagnosed with h.i.v., the patient dies usually or has died of opportunistic infections such as lymphoma, tb, and other opportunistic infections. when a person gets infected with covid, they are going to die of brain hemorrhages, kidney failure, heart failure, clots in the system. so let's get rid of the shibboleth of, you know, that covid-19 is like the flu. the next point very quickly, is

that the rejoining of the paris climate accords is paramount. this is an existential threat and we need to follow the ismple of germany that looking at providing sustainable ,nergy to their country by 2030 60% to be renewable resources. lastly, president-elect joe biden will reverse many of the detrimental things that have been done by executive order. and i would love to see cabinet positions that have been left vacant for the dismantling of cabinet positions filled with people that have integrity, but have competence so that cabinet and very important departments like energy, department of state, treasury, are all led by competent people versus people that were placed there to dismantle and denigrate

these aspects of our government. and with that, i think that our government and our country will be back. the ship of state will be righted both competently and morally in the right direction. host: on your first point on the pandemic, what single thing do you think embedded administration can do in january or -- a biden administration can do in january or february 2021 to distinguish itself from that of the trump administration, that would be the most impactful thing they can do in terms of a federal response to this pandemic? caller: yes, sir. i would recommend the reconstitution of the covid panel. dr. fauci, dr. birx, dr. scientists,d other to speak with one uniform voice. science has to lead the day. lead, in terms of

evidence-based methodology to get this covid-19 under control. and theoliticians person that he put, a radiologist, for goodness sake, who has no background on infectious disease. we need people like dr. fauci and other scientists to speak with one voice as to what we should be doing. if we listen to dr. fauci and dr. redmond, we would be in a better state. if they had not been suppressed 100,000nced, perhaps covid deaths may not occur by this christmas. host: ok. we'll hear from robert in chattanooga, tennessee. robert, you're on the air. caller: yes. good morning. i have a different kind of point

of view. good morning, neighbor. i think we the people have to support -- and i am not talking about just democrats -- we the people have to support president biden in his decisions. if we don't, we are making ourselves vulnerable to other countries, and that is not really being talked about, but at this point, we are vulnerable to other nations because of the divide here in our country. thank you. host: thanks. joy is next in chicago. top priorities, and how should the biden administration govern? caller: good morning, america. i am an african american woman, but i think the other gentleman who spoke about covid was spot on the money. i am health-care worker. everything he said, i would like that basically, i think we've got to tackle some of the issues with the protected races

in this country, like the indigenous native americans suffering from covid in record numbers and being virtually ignored with their issues there. theddition, to african-american community, i would like to see us as a protected race. it's been 400 years and i would like to see us face that and reconcile finally. only then i think we'll this country take a deep breath and move forward -- will this country take a deep breath and move forward. put money into small businesses, education, the whole school to prison pipeline, those things, we are hurting for. if we -- i think it is finally time to recognize us not as full of color but as african-americans who were enslaved in this country for 400 years and deal with us on that

basis, as well as native americans. top priority. and the indigenous people. that is all i have to say. god bless you. host: joy and other haulers have mentioned the pandemic is a top fire two for the biden administration. asking you at this hour how the biden administration should govern. biden supporters only at this hour up until it :00 eastern. the lead story in the wash -- until 8:00 eastern. the lead story in the wall street journal -- states are slapping new restrictions amid a resurgence of the coronavirus that some officials have said is march.t widespread since governors in minnesota, iowa, utah and other states have imposed new measures. the 90 day in the row that it topped 100,000. hospitalizations rose to a record 65,386 according to the covid tracking project. the u.s. death toll surpassed

242,000. total number of u.s. cases exceed 10 million. quote, it is on fire. we've got to slow it down, said ohio governor mike dewine in an interview. we have never seen anything like this, our spring and summer surge were no are like this. fauci in the composition yesterday talked about the current situation in the u.s.. [video clip] dr. fauci: the data speak for itself. we are in a very difficult situation. i have said that many times not to scare people but to bring a reality check to area. if you look at it, we have 10 million infections in the united states. almost 250,000 deaths. we have had 60,000 hospitalizations. and now last count, we had 143,000 infections in a single day. when i testified before the congress four months ago, i said, if we didn't get control of this, we could reach 100,000 infections a day, and people thought it was being hyperbolic.

now look what is happening. that is the bad news. . i think the encouraging news that people need to understand, that public health measures, not lockdown of the country, but public health measures that are rather simple and easy to understand -- the universal learned of masks, the physical distance it, avoiding -- the universal wearing of masks, the physical distancing, avoiding crowded places, it sounds simple in the context of this ominous outbreak, but it can turn it around, and that is what we need to do. >> to be at this level now of this new spike, is that just a little pandemic kind of working its way through the country and through the world, or are we doing something horribly wrong to be at that place again? dr. fauci: i would not say it is horribly wrong. i think what we haven't done, and it isn't just the united states, if you look at what is going on in europe and the u.k. now, they are in many respects

in the same books we are with major surges. but if you look at what happened in our own country, that we did not act in a unified way -- i always say one of the most wonderful things about our country that i love so much is that we are the united states of america, and we are a federalist country. we have states' independence. it said respects it is important that they are that way. but when you are dealing with an disease, the infectious disease does not know the difference of the border between mississippi and louisiana or between florida and georgia and south carolina. seesfectious disease the entire country. way.d not approach it that we had to many individual approaches toward how we were going to handle the outbreak. host: some criticism from the highest court of the land on how states and localities are handling the virus. alito criticizes state and coronavirus restrictions.

supreme court justice alito criticized some of the restrictions state leaders have imposed, saying they may violate the first amendment. casting them as part of a long dark turn toward lawmaking by "executive fiat." pete is saying, ink of the element that would be protected by freedom of speech, think of worship services, access to the courts, or accessed the speedy trials. they say, the supreme court has already been asked to hear challenges some covid-19 measures and may well be asked to hear more. that is from axios.com. stephen in gladstone, our topic this morning, how should biden govern-- he needs to from the center he is trying to be the president of all people. the president election work hard bipartisanship. also, he should try to build an appreciation for the power of

science, engineering and expertise and use evidence in making decisions. from virginia -- i hope president biden legalizes marijuana. the mass incarceration of citizens is to come to a halt. the field war on drugs needs to end. it hurts minorities, families, and wastes money. in florida -- just as he ran, biden needs to be dad. he needs to rebuild the entire country from the destruction trump and his allies did to our country. in washington, d.c. in the nation's capital, greg. good morning. caller: yeah. i believe that biden needs to work from science. moral. onhave a very big position helping the guys, the border states and things like that.

we need to work -- he needs to work from science, evidence-based information, and bring this country back from the #45 has doneat to the americas. thank you. host: next up is william in arizona. hi, there. caller: hello. the national institute of science several years ago identified some additional disabilities related to agent , and the current secretary of veterans affairs forrefused to compensate that disease. i would like to see biden nominated secretary of veterans affairs that will allow compensation for the additional presumptive disabilities.

thank you. host: thanks, william. susan in manchester, new hampshire. good morning. hi.er: i am the same. covid has to be the number one thing that biden have to work on. and then we can go to the economy after that. it, the economy has to be worked on. startedthe 1930's, fdr a civilian conservation corps. the biden administration could think of something along that line. i know my dad got in it and was able to send money to his family and stuff. maybe something along that line. and the job core plan -- job

corps plan. we need electricians, coming, carpentry.lumbing, nobody is taking were learning those jobs, so that is another job thing. docso want to say, i heard rivers. i am behind you 100%. if any african-american in the -- and any african-american in the country. that is why i voted for biden. i think they should award a l to the governor of michigan for putting up with all the harassment from trump supporters. she deserves a medal. host: let's go to gary in buffalo, new york.

gary, how should the president-elect and his and administration govern? caller: first of all, we have such smart americans of this morning. everything they proposed, everything that they have proposed should be looked at. serve it against the wall. the other side, they just can't admit. i say everything that these previous callers spoke about should be put up and discussed. the one thing that really bothered me was the last administration was the fact that -- i have to go -- if i gave subpoena, a -- if i get a subpoena, i have to go. if i don't agree to the subpoena, law enforcement is coming after me. that is the rule of law. if two fbi agent's come to your home and you lie to them, that is a felony. i don't know why these people that were subpoenaed to come before the house said they are not coming and thumbed their

noses and they wouldn't come and testify. shouldn't there be a penalty if they were caught lying? my part of it is rule of law. thank you, bill. host: the homeland security department addressing the security,ith some some assurances on how their vote was conducted. this is the headline of their report -- election officials contradict trump on photosystem fraud. they write -- on voting system fraud. they write that after trump repeated that voting systems deleted trump votes nationwide, he was contradicted by a group of state and local election officials who issued a statement declaring flatly that the election, "was the most secure in american history." and that there was no evidence that voting systems were compromised. in a statement by the coordinating council overseeing the voting system used around the country amounted to a

remarkable corrective to a wave of disinformation that mr. trump has been pushing across his twitter feed. the statement they rate was estimated by the homeland security's cyber and infrastructure security agency, which is responsible for helping states secure the voting process. coming directly from one of mr. trump's on cabinet agencies, it further isolated the president in his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the election. in the aftermath of the election, there is supposed to be a rally in washington this week. this is the headline on it from the hill -- mcinerney predicts a large turnout at million maga march in washington, d.c.. press secretary kayleigh mcenany said she expected the turnout at a march in support of president trump to be "quite large." the event is set to take lives in washington, d.c. on saturday one week after news networks projected trump had lost the election to democrat joe biden.

the saturday event seemed intended to bolster him. quote, "i think it is going to be quite large from what i am hearing, i don't have an estimate for you." when asked about the event, the newspaper writes, disparate groups are preparing for the with one gathering scheduled to take place in downtown washington, d.c. at 12 p.m. with a march to the supreme court at 2:00 p.m. we will keep you posted about any possible coverage plans on the c-span networks. sacramento, california, this is daniel. go ahead. caller: if you will allow me for a minute to go backwards and then go forward. back in the day when we had a place to where we could go to to enjoy each other, like a rec center, there is none now. we are not trying to defund the police.

we are only trying to get those rec centers back. just take a little bit of money from the police and do that. forward -- the republican party is just not doing what they need to be doing. they don't care about their people. they only care about their state. and the people who is funding them, and that is it. i am sorry if i'm sounding a early groggy, but it is and i had a stroke back in the day, about two years ago, but -- i think our state is doing what they can. , and,e a great governor the thing is, to me, also, is that people who don't want to wear a mask, they are killing themselves. and they are trying to kill us at the same time.

i don't know why they don't want it. i mean, trump is having these big rallies with no masks. that is why everything is going up. i don't get it. 70 milliont know why people voted for trump. but i thank you for letting me voice my opinion. host: let's hear from alan, calling from brooklyn. caller: good morning. thank you for your program. wonderful. a number of points. although biden basically won as a reaction to the atrocities of think itfour years, i needs to be very proactive in choosing a vision for government. you can't simply be the non-trump, which is in a select thing. biden is experienced. biden is courteous and considered. trump has been utterly the opposite.

so being the opposite of things is fine, but he must be more. without vision, the people perish -- the bible says. that does not mean just vision of things that are imaginary, it means things that are possible and in the future. one of the first things he used to do is bolster civic education, as the former supreme court justice sandra day o'connor has been very active in pointing to the deficit in civic education around the country. that is part of our infrastructure. there was a series on the rise of the nazis that started this week on pbs, and focused on so many similarities tween the rise of hitler from a very small force to something dangerous but threatened their democracy and overturned it ultimately. many of them were similar to what happened here. they used to speak up "make germany great again." working from the standpoint that they could take advantage

of mobs of violent young people without taking responsibility for them. the brownshirts and the stormtroopers. very similar to the proud boys and the biker gangs that trump points to. being its proud of would to change people's mind with the constant repetition of things that were untrue, knowing that if he's had them often enough, people would accept them. then the media. people don't realize the polarization of our politics again when ronald reagan, perhaps innocently, perhaps shortsighted lee, 35 years ago ended the fairness doctrine that said we are giving away public airwaves for free to broadcasters, they must give something of value in return. that was not just news, that was also a balance of abuse so that people would have it down as of ideas-- have a balance of when they go to the polls and decide what is true and not

true. now we are siloed. people are drawn to a particular stations that only have a view that reflects bears. we are living in at the chambers -- that only have a view that irs.ects the we're living in a go chambers. that is wrong. we need to remind people how we got here. that would include biden getting rid of the fairness doctrine, not only in broadcast but in table media. there must be a balance of viewpoints -- not only in broadcast but in cable media. there must be a balance of your points. you give a balance. c-span.your job at i think we need to progress by taking that model and making it one that applies across media otherwise we will have voters that cannot tell the truth from fiction, but are too easily led by demagoguery. host: you go, alan. when the new congress gavels in

in january, they will be absent two senators. georgia is holding runoff elections on january 5. an opinion piece on those races published in realclear politics this morning -- georgia may decide the future of our country is the piece. paragraphs, to get to what he is talking about in terms of where the country may be heading -- he says, what sort of radical laws could we be dealing with in the worst-case scenario? top senate democrat chuck schumer said it best, now we take georgia, next we change america. for those who don't want left-wing change, that better be a wake-up call. leftevious decades, the -right vote has often been marginal. it is not inconsequential but it is not existential either. that is not the sort of thing the left is talking about these days. they are talking structural changes to alter our system forever and the full march to the left in numerous policy

areas. the democratic leader in the senate as well talk about the races in georgia. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> we are going to win. we have two of the best candidates georgia has seen for democrats in modern times. they complement one another in terms of bringing out the vote. second point is this, if we do win both of those, we will still have to work on a bipartisan basis. it will be a 50-50 senate. to get anything done under the current rules, you have to compromise and work together. that is going to be the ultimate outcome. the question is whether it will be a mitch mcconnell veto to biden programs or whether it is going to be a cooperative, bipartisan effort? we have to govern from the center. we want to move toward a progressive agenda, of course, expanding the opportunity for health care is a good example of that. but are we going to move straight into medicare-for-all? of course not.

that is not in the horizon in the near term, based on the results of the selection. let's help as many americans as you can, particularly in this moment in history. host: back to your calls here and washington journal, asking biden supporters only, how should he govern? good morning to you, angelo. caller: good morning. thank you to c-span. i want to say bravo to our governor, john bel edwards, yesterday, who was taken to court a republican congress who wanted to do away with the restrictions he has put on our state that has stopped the deaths that have occurred because of what is going on with this virus. i say again, bravo. he believes in science. he is listening to the doctors, not the president. and i am so proud to have him as my governor. thank you to c-span. host: in missouri, jim is on the

line. caller: let's see. with trump's opening remarks about his administration's deconstructing the administered of state. to me that is a continuation of the republicans' desire to draw ownthe government -- dr the government incompetence. trump replaced people with incompetent yes men. one of the things joe biden should start with is restoring that in the institutions we always relied on. generals are not stupid. the cia is not corrupt. the fbi is not corrupt.

we need an education secretary the leaves in -- that believes in public education. an epa guy that wants to protect public lands. on and on and on and on. faith in ourr biden'sration should be primary objective. mcconnell, i don't see how he got reelected. apparently, republicans like liars and cheats. host: there have been a lot of news stories about how mitch mcconnell and joe biden during their set years together many senate years together had a good relationship. do you think that is a potential opening for some compromise to get things done between mitch mcconnell and the biden administration?

caller: well the self-proclaimed grim reaper has joined the dark side. capable ofnk he is working in a nonpartisan method. good luck, america. thank you. host: host: melanie calling us from new orleans. good morning. caller: the first thing the president-elect should do is about the pandemic, to try to make everything safe here. the second thing you should do police brutality is horrible. it's terrible how they are killing black people. all of the police applicants should be having a background if they are -- see or have ever been part of white supremacist groups.

the next thing they should do is understand these hate groups are domestic terrorists. they are coming in here, causing trouble to divide the country. should also see about the systemic racism going on. it's harder for blacks to buy a home. the high interest rates on cars if you want to buy a car. these are the things he could do to help the country get back gather. thank you. -- back together. thank you. host: jeff from chicago sends us this text and says, first, therapeutic tech needed -- keep therapeutics and medicines. vaccines being proposed will not be ready for two to three years. lifesaving therapeutic techniques will save

individuals. on potential economic relief from congress, here is where things stand. according to the part -- the washington post, democrats renew calls for expanded virus relief bill. democratic leaders accused republicans on thursday of refusing to confront the coronavirus pandemic and acquiescent president trump's false instances that he won last week's presidential election. the republicans dismissed the attack from did not weigh in with his only public comment coming through twitter. posts that include false claims of electoral success as washington has become paralyzed over the last 10 days. at one million more people tested positive for the virus and death numbers are climbing rapidly. the president-elect joe biden joins congressional democratic leaders demanding a new economic relief package to address the cruel -- the worsening coronavirus pandemic. mitch mcconnell rejected a

proposal while susan collins of maine implored both sides to begin negotiating as the virus appeared to send a new shutter through the u.s. economy. allison park, pennsylvania. albert, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. like to -- i think biden has a history of cooperation with republicans and those of different viewpoints. but i'm not sure if the environment exists for that to happen easily. republican leaders have not even acknowledged, for the most arts, -- for the most part, his election winning. it will be a tough call, but i think the ball is in the court , of agreeing to

biden at this point. we just need to wait and see, but it's a bad sign leadership has not acknowledged the election at this time. the other thing i want to point day, thereost every is certainly disparity between yesterday. today and there seems to be a bit more coherence, though i may not be a good example of that because i'm nervous. more basis in be reality for the callers today than yesterday. hour you mean the first republican only callers yesterday echo host: yes --

yesterday? caller: yes, and if the republican leadership is playing to that constituency, and it seems they are at this point, i pray biden is able to make some headway. i don't see the opposing sides coming together without leadership on the republican side that's maybe a bit more may be a bithat more flexible toward being a bit more moderate. host: we will let you go there. thank you for calls this hour. it more ahead. next up, todd harrison joins us for discussion on the pentagon, the recent shakeup on the pentagon, the work to do in congress on the defense budget, and defense authorization bill, and what could be the pentagon policy shaping up in the biden administration. later, with disputes over the election results alleged by the trump campaign, we look at the

impact of those type of lawsuits with william and mary law professor rebecca green. ♪ >> sunday night on q and a, university of texas of austin professor sarah brain talks about the use of big data and new surveillance technologies by law enforcement. >> the police have been long collecting their own data and information, but that is on people they have contact with. what's happening in the digital age is pete -- is police are increasingly gathering information on these people who have no criminal justice contact. part of that has to do with this variety component of the three visa big data, that they are increasingly purchasing data from companies, using tools like automatic license plate readers, so you don't have to be pulled over by the police for the data

to be put into their system. that kind of information is also being used. >> sarah brain, sunday night on c-span's q and a. author andpth with chair of african-american studies at instant university, eddie claude junior, live on sunday. books include eggs to this, democracy and black, and any uncommon faith. join in on the conversation with your phone call, facebook comments, text's, and tweets. -- texts, and tweets. noon that on book tv, eastern on c-span two. >> "washington journal" continues. host: todd harrison is the

announcer --icy analyst at csis. i wanted to start with your thoughts on the notable quick firing of the defense secretary early this week, mark esper. guest: it is certainly within the president's prerogative to change how members of his cabinet, but it is highly unusual to see a firing like this during a transition period. it was widely expected secretary esper would not continue secretary of defense into a second trump term, but given the way the election came out, i think there was an expectation he would finish out the term until january 20. that has been custom that most of the senior people within the administration, presidentially appointed people, would normally

inauguration, to ensure a smooth handover and be able to coordinate with our counterparts in the new administration coming in. right now, this is a bit unusual. host: do the sorts of moves -- first of all, are they unsettling to the rank-and-file members, rank-and-file military service members, and secondly to allies abroad, when they see the sorts of changes in transition periods between administrations? guest: it does. it creates uncertainty. it certainly will not be good for morale within the pentagon within both the military senior ranks and civilian, career civil service workers in between administrations who are not political. it is very unsettling. for allies and partners around the world, it puts them in this

awkward period during the transition where they are not sure who they should be coordinating with, and a lot of things are going to have to stay on hold. until january 20. fortunately, bad things can happen during that time period. -- unfortunately, bad things can having during that happened during that time period. there can be the event of an emergency, and that is why these people need -- positions need to be filled on an active basis. that's what we have now. host: and not just mark esper, other officials as well. a do any of these changes affect the work going on right now, the work you focus on in the development of the pentagon budgets for the next fiscal year and certainly wrapping up work on the current fiscal year, which is what congress has to do in the next couple weeks here? are already in fiscal year 2020 one, and congress has not enacted the fiscal year 2021

-- 2021, and congress has not enacted the fiscal year 2021 bills. they are waiting on congress to act on those and they may get around to doing that in the lame-duck session, or it may have to wait until january. that is up to congress. the changeover in the pentagon personnel does not affect the 2021 budget because that is just waiting on congress. right now, the pentagon is in the final stages of putting a -- putting together it's 2022 budget request. if it was a second trump term, that budget request would come out the first monday in february. changehere will be a of administration, that will probably be delayed until april or may. it is still all of the current people who are working in government senior positions putting together that budget request. then, they will hand it over to a new administration on january

20. the changeover of senior people like secretary esper and others in the pentagon right now at this critical juncture really comes up the works when it comes to making key decisions in the budget request. there have been rumors the trump administration might try to hurry up and submit the budget request to congress before the biden administration takes office. a long time ago, that used to be the tradition. it back as recently as 19 89, when the reagan administration was leaving, the outgoing administration did submit the budget request prior to inauguration. since then, that has not been the case. it has always been the new administration coming in taking the budget and crafting it to their liking, and submitting it to congress. it remains to be seen if the trump administration will deliver on that and submit the budget request early.

even if they do divide the do, the biden, -- administration will come in and resubmit it to congress. so it won't matter. the important thing is continuity in the planning of the budget between the outgoing administration, the new administration, and the continuity is in jeopardy. host: lots to get to, including the how -- including how the biden budget may be different. let's open up calls and phone line for the callers. democrats, (202) 748-8000, republicans, (202) 748-8001, all others is (202) 748-8002. if you have a question and want to send a text, (202) 748-8003. just tell us your name and where you are texting from. let's go to the current issues. you mentioned the defense budget 1 but the area of contentious seems to be ndaa. explain the difference between

the authorization and why there are some potentially troubling issues in the ndaa that could cause president trump to veto it. difference,e basic the ndaa is an author a shane -- is an authorization bill that says policy for the department of defense, and other agency have their other -- agencies have their other authorization as well. on -- rulesmoney on how money can be spent, transferred between accounts, reporting requirements before money can be spent. the appropriations bill is the bill that gives you funding. at the end of the day, we talk about the budget, it is the appropriations bill that sets the budget. the ndaa says the policies and rules that go around that. ideally, you would need both. at a minimum, you need appropriations.

the authorization can come whenever they come. the authorization bill, for the most part, tends to be a nonpartisan bill. it is setting things like pay raises for the troops, it is setting policy issues, a lot of mundane things about reports that have to be delivered to congress before a weapon system can proceed in development past a certain point. it can set reorganization within the pentagon. in --ample, last year, and last year's national defense act, it created the space force in the ndaa where that took place. so there are a lot of little things in there. this year, there are issues that could potentially draw a veto or stall the bill in congress. a lot of that stems around the fallout from president trump's decision over the last several

years to transfer funding from the department of defense military account in order to use our construction -- used for construction of the border wall. that angered many democrats and republicans as well. not because they opposed the wall but they did not want defense dollars redirected for the initiatives. there has been followed for that, and congress has been looking at ways, plugging the loopholes, if you well, to make it more difficult for a future president to do that. host: there's policy language in the current authorization bill for a panelld call to review the names of military installations, largely army bases named after confederate generals, correct? this is an area president trump said he would veto the bill. guest: that is something that the military itself has come out and said yeah, they are in favor

of doing that, they would like to get rid of these confederate names. so yes, but it has become a hot button issue, not necessarily along partisan lines but really what president trump himself has opposed renaming these confederate bases. it's not even the bases, it is street names on the bases, building names, things like that , that honor these generals that fall on the confederate side of the civil war. so that could definitely be a sticking point. that is one of the issues also, they want to find a compromise to get it through. you can pull that out of the bill, pass the ndaa, make it a standalone piece of legislation, and get that past. host: as you pointed out, it is not essential that the authorization bill passes. the military will keep going. it is not essential it be passed before the end of the trump administration?

guest: correct. the ndaa, if you look back over the years, there are many years that they have not been -- that the ndaa has not been passed until january or february. they could delay the whole bill until there is a new president in the white house. if there are pacific -- specific provisions that president trump objects to. host: president trump made it a goal to draw down troops from afghanistan. is there money in the current budget for that, and how much has he done to draw down the troops there? guest: it's hard to tell how much they have drawn down because -- there is not a lot of transparency in terms of reporting over time how many troops have been stationed in afghanistan. it is hard to tell how many are coming out. is left.d what it appears the president is making moves to try to follow through in his campaign promise

to bring down the troop numbers by the end of the year. i would note president biden -- president-elect biden is saying similar things, not exactly the same, but similar things about bringing troop numbers down in afghanistan. there's money in the 2021 budget request. fyn they requested money for 2021, that was in february of this year. that was before the dramatic talked on of forces. they did request money for afghanistan that would support a higher troop level. higher than currently planned. that is one of the things congress can deal with. congress can appropriate the money for a higher troop level in afghanistan. if the troops are drawn down, the money will not be spent. it could be redirected for other things. that is an issue of contention. that's the choice of the president.

he does not need congressional approval to draw down forces from a combat zone. that's an inheritance -- inherent authority for the commander-in-chief. with usdd harrison is and we are talking about the defense budget changes at the pentagon this week after the election and what may be i had with a pentagon under a biden administration. let's go to crosby, texas, democrats line, michael. good morning. caller: let me turned on my tv. can you hear me? host: yes we can. go ahead. caller: i have two questions. the nuke codes that trump still got the echo are we making sure he won't start no trump still got? are we making sure he won't start no trouble?

[inaudible] that way, congress can't come in and say [inaudible] i want to know who controls the nuclear thing. trump can do a lot of things with that box if he wants to. host: michael in texas. todd harrison, two issues there and i think he was getting at national security and some issues raised with the biden administration not getting the daily security briefings, etc. guest: yeah, so the first part of the question, the answer is clear. we only have one president at a time. president trump is still commander-in-chief and still controls the use of nuclear weapons and military. it's not an authority he exercises by himself. there's a command authority, and that goes from the president of the united states to secretary of defense, and in the case of nuclear weapons, the commander

of u.s. strategic command. that's the chain of authority. if you want to use nuclear weapons, all three of those people involved are going to have to agree to do it. president trump is still commander-in-chief, until noon on january 20. at that split second, it switches over to a new president , and that will shift the national command authority again. that's an important point, why we need all of these positions filled, even in this time of transition. you never know what kind of a crisis situation can arise. what was the second part of the question? host: second part was on the biden administration not getting , the security briefings pdf i guess they are called. guest: yeah, that is potentially a problem. the reason you want to have the

president-elect, and really his is going, whoever he to select as his chief of staff, national security advisor, you want those people to start getting those briefings as soon as possible to ensure a smooth transition to make sure they are watching and paying attention to, and are aware of all of the key intelligence issues the nation is concerned about right now, senior intelligence officials are watching. you want those new people to be brought in and get up to speed on that. so they're ready to go on january 20. the you don't have presidential daily brief go into the transition team, if that continues all the way into january, there could be surprises when they do get their first brief. they may not realize ongoing situation that are classified that they did not have access to. if a crisis arises, they may not

have a lot of time to prepare for it. this even goes back to one of the recommendations after the 9/11 commission was to make sure that we have that smooth transition, and terms of intelligence briefings, so we don't get surprised by things like 9/11. host: the persons elected after the firing of mark esper to serve as the acting secretary is christopher military. what can you tell us about him? guest: i haven't met him personally, but he has had a long career in the military and intel world. and special operations. he is someone who understands the military, understands the department of defense. my understanding is that he was not a surprise as we all were. that he was picked to be accurate -- acting secretary of defense. normally when you have a vacancy

to the secretary, it would fall to the deputy secretary. that is deputy secretary norquist. expectedrmally what is but it is the president's prerogative to pick another senate confirmed person to put into that position on an acting basis. he's knocking to be on the job for very long, but it's an important role to fill. host: more calls for todd harrison. we go to arlington, virginia. caller: good morning. as far as surprises go, i always look at 1993 world trade center bombing and the fact that the bomb thated the detonated. as far as what the future does, what people need to realize is saudi arabia and iran. this is the trigger that the

president, whoever it is, needs to be paying attention to. that's the only thing they need to pay attention to, and everybody knows it and the senior field. the reality is, you have uncertain amount of want for a crisis in order to achieve an end goal. things like 1993, the world trade center bombing, and weapon, --ing the fbi providing a weapon, i see a pattern and see it's matching with the timing of iran trumpets being on the -- feast of trumpets no less, a significant date. i see who benefits from events that happen. like the first world trade center bombing, or like a crisis event, and i hear the same suspects saying don't let a crisis go to waste.

and they have an agenda, and the agenda fits in with a protocol that happens to be global. host: todd harrison, any comments? conspiracy, a lot of theories mixed in there, so i would just say the vast majority of people who serve in our government are really doing it theyoble reasons, that want to serve their country. we can disagree on policies, disagree on methods and solutions, but i think we should orcareful to challenge calling the suspect -- call into suspect the integrity of a lot of these people. for the vast majority of them, they are good public servants trying to do their best. sometimes they fall short and sometimes they do great things that benefit the country. and we don't always hear about them.

let's go to joe in buffalo, new york. caller: good morning, guys. i want to know about numbers. billion onis $700 the defense budget. how much would it cost for health care for me and my family? i suffer from different things. know it's not new your business but please, speak to it. you seem to be one to talk a lot parrot to whato the budget is. host: numbers on the budget. todd harrison, how big is the defense budget? guest: depending on what you include and what you don't include, it is over $700 billion per year now. if you put that in perspective,

adjusting for inflation, that's one of the highest levels of sincese spending world war ii. it's higher than at the peak of defense spending in the reagan administration. it was slightly higher in the early years of the obama administration because of the larger deployments we had going on in iraq and afghanistan before the conflicts were brought down. by historical standards, adjusting for inflation, we are at a high level of defense spending. as a share of our debt economy -- our economy, it has been lower than it has been throughout our history since the end of world war ii. if you look at the 1950's and were spending a percent, 9%, 10% of gdp on defense. 3%.y we are about another thing to look at as the

caller was alluding to, it's overall defense spending budget. that has been declining because of the parts of the federal budget have been growing faster than defense. the 1950's back in and 60's, we were spending 40, 50 -- 40%, 50% or more on the budget of defense but that was before programs like medicare and medicaid had gotten going. the federaloking at budget, the really big drivers of the budget, not only in defense but things like social security, medicare, medicaid, and veterans benefits and services. that is one thing folks often don't realize, our veterans benefits and services, like the department of veterans affairs, that is not part of the defense budget. the eva budget is one of the fastest-growing budgets in the overall federal budget, topping $200 billion per year now. that is projected to

continue to grow for the foreseeable future. there are a lot of things going on in the overall federal budget. i think it's fair to say we are spending a lot of money on defense now. were spending a lot of money on a lot of things right now. this was even before the pandemic was happening. that is something, as a nation, it is a political issue we have to ask ourselves, what are our priority and how do we want to allocate resources? host: in a given fiscal year, the defense department program does not spend all of its money. does that roll over into the next fiscal year? guest: it depends on the type of money and rules congress puts around the money when they it.opriated -- appropriate there are certain parts of the defense budget like operation and maintenance funding that is only available for one year. the department has to obligate that money, commit the money under a contract or whatever the case may be within the year it

is appropriated, or else the money is no longer available and reverts back to the treasury as unused money. for things like procurement money, to procure weapon systems or research and development part of your budget, funding the development of new technologies, that is available for longer. the r&d money is available for two years before it has to be allocated. procurement money for three years, military construction funding, looking at rehabbing our building new facilities on a military base, that money is available for five years for obligations. it really depends on the type of money you are talking about. ultimately, when the money expires, if it's not used, it reverts back to the treasury. however, that is rare and congress gets pretty upset if money remains unspent and is allowed to expire, because what

-- when congress appropriates the money, they want the money to be spent for that purpose. expect the department to do everything they can to make sure the money is spent for the purpose intended and not wasted. host: next up is on the republican line. caller: how are you doing? i'm calling on what appears to the- the media appears that national defense is falling apart. we knew we had change of commanders coming up and we did if wenic and wait and see start at ground zero. our military will continue on. it's just portraying that the defense of our nation will fall apart until this transition takes place in january. why is that? guest: i don't think it would be fair to characterize it as our national defense is falling apart.

it is not. our systems are resilient and military is resilient and full of professionals all throughout the ranks. i think the concern is really, and should be, on how smooth the transition to a new leadership is, to make sure those people are prepared and able to hit the ground running and don't face any surprises that could have been avoided when they take charge on january 20. i think it is a concern on trying to avoid surprises and sharing -- and ensuring a smooth transition. alarmed the not be military or national security is suddenly going to fall apart. that is not the case. i don't think that is at risk. abouti want to ask you biden administration potential priorities for the pentagon, some suggestions this morning in the wall street journal. a piece by the brookings institution. the headline, joe biden's can

build on foreign trumps foreign-policy, broker art deals with a ron, russia, and continue to broker trade agreements. under secretary mattis, and under mark esper, he writes, readiness levels have improved significantly. a typical aircraft squadron or wing might have 80% of its plain fully operational rather than 60%. more investments are made in stealthy, long-range aircrafts, on demand systems in the air, or hypersonic missiles under the seas, small sidelights, and artificial intelligence. he says as important, moscow and beijing has heard loud and clear that the u.s. is determined to challenge their aggressive ways. your thoughts on what might be ahead, todd harrison. guest: i always question readiness statistics when they are thrown out. the mission capable rate, that is just one measure of the readiness of our forces. if you dig into that one, the

way they have gotten those mission capable rates of aircrafts up is by taking out of service some of the aircrafts that tend to stay broken more often. so it is a smaller number of aircraft, but they have a higher mission capable rate. that does not necessarily make you stronger in the end. it makes you smaller. you have to wonder about some of those metrics, but i think it is fair to say the trump administration, in some cases not because of trump himself but because of the professionals who were put in charge of the military, they made smart investments in new technologies. they certainly -- one of my areas of research is state security, and i have to credit the trump team. they did a wonderful job overall when it came to advancing space policy and space security. standing up the space force, i

don't think that would have happened without the president pushing forward. even though it was a bipartisan effort in congress before the president ever mentioned the space force. but still, he got it across the finish line. a lot of space policy directives that came out of the trump administration were spot on in terms of updating rules and regulations about commercial spacecraft. one of the laziest ones -- latest ones, policy five, came up with security standards that space companies have to follow for satellite operations. i think there are a lot of good things to build on. in terms of foreign policy, the biden administration would disagree a lot with what the trump administration did. a lot of the disagreement is on style and tone and language. when it comes to the substance of getting tougher on china, pushing our allies and partners

to contribute more for their own defense, i think there will be more continuity than people expect. i think it is the style and tone that will change dramatically under a biden administration. host: we hear next from bill in erie, pennsylvania. emma crestline. caller: can you hear me, ok -- can you hear me ok? host: we can. caller: was he in the military himself your guest? guest: i was. i was in the air force reserves. caller: that's a great outfit. my question is, i heard yesterday that the harris be promotingn will some high-ranking transgender's to the independent -- to the pentagon. i wondered, who is the highest ranking transgender in the military right now? where is that person that, and , wasn't question was

president trump -- did president blacks toote several height? i know -- i think the secretary of the air force is a black gentleman. wasn't this racist guy who everyone says he was a racist, didn't he promote a lot of blacks to high positions in the pentagon? guest: i think with the caller was aerencing is there movement at the end of the biden administration -- trump administration to allow trends -- under the obama administration to allow transgendered people to serve. that got reversed under the trump administration. the biden administration is supposed to allow transgendered service again. if someone is in the military and change their gender identity, they will be allowed to continue to serve in the

military. so yeah, i think that policy is likely to change under a biden administration. in terms of the promotion of more diverse people to higher ranks in the military, that is something that has been kind of a long-standing issue in the department. if you look at the breakdown by race and gender, when you get to , ithigher officer ranks does not reflect the demographics of those in the lower ranks. but it does take many years to work your way up to the higher ranks. we are starting to see more women and more people of color cap promoted to higher ranks. i think the caller was referencing -- get promoted to the higher ranks. i think the caller was mr. brown getting that position as chief of the air force.

there is continued progress being made in terms of making sure diversity in the military is reflected in the senior ranks. that is something i would expect to continue to evolve over time, regardless of the administration. host: as we have our discussion this morning about the pentagon and budget issues, americans continue to serve and died overseas for the u.s.. in a copter crest. one service member is injured. the president-elect is extending his condolences to the loved ones of the peacekeepers, including six american service who died on tehran island. i join all americans on honoring their service as they keep their loved ones in my prayers. todd harrison, from mike in sioux falls about the spending at the pentagon. he says, has there ever been encumbrance of audit of the defense department and expenditures? if so, what was the result? if not, why not?

guest: the audit is a work in progress. that is something the pentagon has been working on for well over a decade. i will say that they have made significant progress over the past four years. the's one of the things trump administration senior leaders came in and said they would double down on trying to get the pentagon audit ready. so it can actually pass an audit. it is not cheap. they have spent close to $1 billion a year on audit readiness. the reason it is so expensive is because these financial systems, many of them are very old, and they were not built to pass a modern-day audit. they have been having to go in and identify these old systems and update them, and update all of the processes, and try to find all data and fill it in. it has been a painstaking process, but they really have

focused on this over the past four years. they have made progress. they have conducted an audit but not past the audit. the audit. they had disclaimers to go along with the audit saying we could not reconcile everything, so you need to try again. this will be a process. it will take many years. the pentagon is working on it. i would caution folks, just because the pentagon has not been able to pass an audit does beingan the money is wasted or abused, or there is fraud involved. passing an audit is really about having that trail where you can show when money comes in how it flows through the system and how it goes out the other door, to have receipts and records for all parts of the process. if your financial systems were not set up in a way that keeps

those records and receipts at the granular level of detail the audit requires, it means you're not get a pass until you get those systems upgraded. it does not mean there is fraud. once the pentagon eventually does pass a clean on it, it does not mean we will uncover billions of dollars of hidden money. there won't be billions of dollars of savings. an audit will call says billions of dollars, but parsed -- cost us billions of dollars, but i think it is a good thing to do for transparency and building trust with the american public, other agencies in the federal public.nt -- other agencies have been able to pass a budget and i think these should be able to. i think there's a lot of good that could come from modernizations other than just passing an audit. this is a work in progress. host: let's get one more caller, washington, don, good morning. caller: good morning, this is

john. mr. harrison, my question is, if biden does not win, i've heard the term president-elect but i also know all of the votes have not been verified. if you should lose, and the left should rise in coup, because it seems to me they already have a group of terrorists on the streets ready to go that is part of very much the influence of the left. the pentagon always seems to have a democratic favorable tone to it, in my opinion. can you respond to that on how the military is going to react to what i see as a potential to? -- coup? guest: when you join the military, you take an oath thehe laws enacted under

constitution and the constitution says the president is elected by the electoral college. the electoral college will meet on december 14 and that will select our president. there are provisions where if there is a tie or if no one gets the majority in the electoral college, there is a provision on how it gets decided at this point. this has been evident in our history before. military, itse allegiances to the constitution and will follow the constitution and laws of this nation. the military does not have allegiance to any political party or any particular individual. i'm fully confident the military will follow whoever the lawfully elected commander-in-chief is. host: todd harrison, defense budget analysis director at the center or strategic and international studies, thanks for your studies and thanks for being with us this morning. guest: thank you. glad i could do it. host: next up, we will be joined by william and mary lesko professor rebecca green to talk

allegedsues of the disputes on the election results and what issues that could pose for those who cast their electoral college votes. that is ahead. ♪ ♪ >> american history tv on c-span3, exploring the people and events that tells the american story, every weekend. this weekend, saturday at 2:00 eastern, best-selling author and history professors kathleen rumi and -- talk about historical research for their nonfiction and fiction work. at 6:00 p.m. eastern, scott hardwick, a former historian, discusses his research on the battle of antietam. :00ectures and history, it p.m., patrick allen discusses richard nixon, and henry kissinger and their key foreign

policy initiatives. sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern, former u.s. senator sam nunn reflects on the cold war 75 years later. this american history tv, weekend, on c-span3. use your mobile devices, laptop or phone, and go to c-span.org/election for easy access to election 2020 results, the balance of power in congress, our latest video live and on-demand of the transition of power. go to c-span.org/election. "washington journal" continues. host: rebecca green is election law codirector at william -- william & mary ann professor of law from william & mary. good morning to you. guest: how are you? host: you're here to talk about

the trump campaign challenges of the 2020 20 presidential election vote. every presidential election has a timetable, but there are 50 different states, obviously, and 50 different ways to count and certify the votes, and that is the phase we are in now with eagle challenges mounted -- legal challenges mounted in several states. professor greene, how did all of these different 50 states come together? what is the end results here in december on december 14? now -- happening guest: so it's happening now is they are in the process of canvassing their votes. each state has a different deadline ranging from november 10 and december 11. on december 14, the electoral college will meet in each state and the electors will cast their

ballots required by state law to be the popular vote winner in each state. those electoral ballots will be transmitted to washington. the new congress will be sworn in january 3, and on january 6, congress will count the electoral votes. that is how the process unfolds and how you get to inauguration day january 20. host: what is december the eighth, the safe harbor deadline. -- deadline? define that. guest: it comes from something called the electoral count act. that's a deadline that's all it does is say if a state has certified its results and appointed its electors by the deadline, congress is required, by federal law, to accept the slate of electors dictated by that certification, and it cannot sort of -- that is the play that gets counted for the

state. host: i don't have the exact number of legal challenges in front of me from the trump campaign, but how likely are any of those to slow the certification dates or push back the certification dates in those states affected, michigan, pencil for -- pennsylvania for example. you know georgia with the recount going on there. guest: so far, we have not seen any evidence there are widespread problems with this election. we have actually seen the opposite, officials from the state level up have all sort of exclaimed with some surprise how well everything went, given the election was run in pandemic. so evidence of a problem, it does not seem these lawsuits will be successful in changing the march towards certification. host: there has been some talk legislator -- legislatures in states can possibly change the intention on

what the electors are supposed to vote for. is that possible? that: so the idea is article two of the constitution allows state legislatures to appoint electors, so the theory is that maybe they can disregard the popular vote and just decide on their own who they think the electors should be -- which electors should be appointed, and that would be extraordinary. if they just decided that, you know, our votes no longer matter and they will cast them aside and do their own thing. i don't think that will be tenable or legal. circumstancesare where you can imagine state legislature having to take such an extraordinary measure. for example, if for some reason the popular vote in state could not be measured, like there is say some huge weather event or some reason why, months after

november 3, you couldn't have a vote for some reason, there was something catastrophic that happened. there is nothing catastrophic that happened. we had an orderly election that followed the law, states are counting the votes carefully and methodically, and it does not seem there is any obstruction that prevents the popular vote from being recognized. host: we are talking about legal challenges to the 2020 election, the presidential election, and the road ahead. about it with rebecca green, the codirector of the election law program at william & mary. questions.your (202) 748-8000 if you are supporter of biden and kamala for trump02) 748-8001 and mike pence, and every other, use (202) 748-8002. who is responsible in a state recertifying an election? guest: it is varied by state

law. again, it is hard to generalize when it comes to election laws, because it is a process in the sense that each state has its own rules. usually the top election official or secretary of state or some statewide official that is required by law to certify the results. host: the november 20 issue of the atlantic, one representative rights atlantic trumps state and national legal teams are laying the groundwork for postelection maneuvers that would circumvent the results of the votes count in battleground states. ambiguities in the constitution bombs in the electoral college count act make it possible to extend the dispute to inauguration day. that would bring the nation to the precipice. the 20th amendment is clear the president's term in office

shall end on new and on january 20, but two men could just show up to be sworn in. is that at all i likelihood, professor greene? guest: i think under catastrophic circumstances you can imagine that unfolding, potentially, and certainly lots of people have gamed that out and tried to figure out how federal law would respond. again, there doesn't seem to be anything catastrophic underfoot. we have not seen any evidence of widespread issues of this election. the lawsuits filed, there doesn't seem to be anything there. so again, if you can catastrophize -- certainly federal law is airtight when it comes to how disputes in the electoral college would be resolved, but it does not appear we are in that environment. host: the supreme court ruled

to themmer in regards faithless electors act. what was the case there and what did the justices decide? guest: that was the case about whether or not a state can bind its electors to the popular -- to cast their votes for the winner of the popular vote in their state. there were some electors, a handful in 2016, that opted to vote for someone besides the popular vote winner in their state. a bunch for hillary clinton declined to tap their ballots for hillary clinton. the question was, could states sanction those electors? could they remove and replace them? how much independent, content driven discussions do electors have? the supreme court sort of decided for clarity's sake and to save us from what could be a

splintered electoral college vote, the supreme court last summer held that states could bind electors and remove and replace them if they failed to follow the popular will in their state. host: so i want to go back to the timelines of things here. assuming the states wrap up their certifications by december 14, those electors meet in their state on december 14, the deadline for delivery of the electoral votes to the designated officers on december 20 third. the earliest we will officially hear the results of the electoral college votes will be january the sixth, correct? guest: these electoral college meetings happen on december 14 in public. it is not as if it is tried it in secrecy. if there are any issues that sure c-span will be there too, if there are any issues or controversies arose. it's not like we wouldn't know

that until january 6. but that is the process that unfolds. host: we are seeing some of the video, and i believe this is pennsylvania that the legislature in pennsylvania counting the votes in 2016. let's get our callers. christopher is in north highlands, california on our trump line. good morning, christopher. caller: good morning. rebecca, withk the variations from state to state that we currently have, can we expect realignment on some federal voting level to set federal laws to mandate new set oned procedures to standard in voting, to a -- to avoid the dilemma we are currently in? guest: the constitution does authorize congress to pass federal law that would standardize more aspects of our elections process.

there has been resistance in the states. they sort of guard jealously their ability to set the time, place, and manner of their elections as the constitution authorizes them to. it partially depends on whether there is political will in congress to address some of these issues. lot ofly, there is a interest in doing so because of some of the problems we have seen unfolding. i do expect there will be discussions. i don't know whether there will be a consensus. we shall see. what's interesting, often, people are very set by how elections are run. they think they could be run better. as soon as the election is over, people think about different policy issues and move on quickly. so often times, election reform gets swept under the rug. host: here is barbara on our biden line. caller: good morning.

i'm calling to suggest a way of helping to heal the terrible divide we are in. it has to do with the use of technology to move humanity forward. have this very amazing situation we are in, the most precise technologically-driven election result process, from the computer technology, and similarly, the incredible preparation of the vaccine in unprecedented times. meme for that would be awesomeising. awfulising that with which is another wonderful word. so we have the awfulness of the pandemic and splits politically, and we have the also my xing -- awesomeising i'm getting to this

incredible result verified by dhs last night. getting -- this horrible split has given us this amazing educational opportunity, run and headed up by "washington journal" and c-span. washington journal down to ourto see toenails how this whole process works. and we have this awesome result of 100 -- how many is it? over 150 million people voting. and the covid brought us the mail-in ballots, becoming a mega breakthrough. host: barbara, we will let you go there. some thoughts for you, rebecca green. the sides of the vote, were you surprised by that at all? guest: i think it was extraordinary. i think a lot of us were concerned that the pandemic conditions would prevent people from accessing the polls, and we

saw states take extraordinary measures, some more than others, to expand options for voters. we definitely learned a national lesson, which is the more options available, the better in terms of addressing whatever contingencies might arise, which can be multilayered. i think it is quite extraordinary that we had such a high turnout election, and one of the perennial complaints about you elections -- about elections in the united states is that not enough people show up. i think it is great that we had such good participation this year. host: from butler, indiana, walter on our trump supporter line. caller: thank you for taking my call and good morning, rebecca, how are you doing today? reason i called, i am not a trump line -- on a trump line or this, i am an american, and i came up with one conclusion. when you have an option to make

something simple and you deliberately make it convoluted with smoke and mirrors -- we have all these ridiculous rules where would you can -- where you can mail in matching signatures, on and on, it opens the door for trouble. if you can put the man on the moon, you have to go on an airplane, you have to show identification. if you go to the pharmacy to get thatine, you have to get show identification. how crazy is it in this world that people can mail-in ballots without proof of who they are? you have dead people voting on and on and it is crazy. election day hasn't changed. it is the same day every four years. if you don't get your vote in by election day, it doesn't count. it should be across-the-board in each state, the same rules for everybody. all this is is opening it up for corruption. host: rebecca green, do you

think mail-in ballots are here to stay? guest: mail-in ballots are not only here to stay, but it has been the direction, even before this pandemic, that the country has been moving in. if you look at a graph of mail-in voting over dozens of years, you see it is increasing, even before the pandemic happened. that is why five states in this country vote exclusively by mail. reliable form of voting and states have different ways of ensuring that the vote is accurate and people are who they say they are when they vote by mail. a direction we have been heading in and so far, there is no reason to think there is any widespread problem. host: from our biden supporters new jersey.

caller: good morning. first, i have two questions. who goes to the electoral college? who points them to go? guest: i can jump in there. state law governs how electors are appointed, and every state has decided, every state legislature has decided that the winner of the popular vote in the state determines which slate of electors goes to the electoral college on december 14, usually in the state capital, to cast their vote. the process is driven by the popular vote in that state. host: did that answer your question? did you have another question you wanted to ask? caller: yeah, i have another question. i can't understand how all the problems seems to be with the in states that trump

won, but not in any of the states that he lost. that just doesn't make sense. not quite sure i understand the question, but essentially the way our system takesis, when an election place, if it candidate believes there has been a problem, there has been official misconduct or some irregularity, the candidate can try to forward those claims to the state processes and otherwise -- in the court and otherwise. it is really up to the candidates and whether or not they want to try to prove there was a problem. host: there is some news this morning on the legal efforts in pennsylvania by the trump campaign. a law firm stops representing the trump campaign in the pennsylvania suit. leading the charge a rep. lee: -- abruptly

withdrew, "plaintiff sent porter right have reached a mutual agreement that plaintiffs will be best served if porter right withdraws. withdraws." go to gym in highland, texas on our trump supporters line. jim, you are on with rebecca green. go ahead. jim, you are on the air. caller: oh, i am out of midland texas. i have a question -- is your democrat or republican? it seems like the voting discrepancy is a little downplayed. with the software problems they are finding, it seems like there

could be millions of votes, and she's saying that it's a small problem -- i don't really think it is. that's all i had. thanks. host: rebecca green, professor answeryou don't have to your political party, but the cybersecurity agency, a firm say they have certified the election or said the election was one of the most secure in election history? right.that's there are a couple of different ways of looking at it. if there was widespread fraud, ballots that should have been included that word or a computer glitch, you would expect to see big voted.es in how people those anomalies just aren't to be and that just seems

that we have no evidence brought in the claims so far that we have a widespread problem. that theextraordinary elections unfold and millions of votes are cast and counted, it seems like there could be openings for problems. election officials spent quite a bit of time making sure the process is as airtight as possible, working out contingencies, running audits to make sure machines are working, and doing everything possible to make sure large-scale problems don't arise. effort,is is a joint joint statement from the government coordinating council and the election infrastructure sector correlating executive committees. they're write in their statement, the november 3 election was the most secure in american history. election officials are reviewing

and double checking the entire election process to finalize the result. "when states have most elections, most will have close ballots. we all have paper records of each mode, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. this is an added benefit for security and resilience. this allows for the identification and correction of ."y mistakes or errors we go to easton, pennsylvania to hear from mary on our biden supporters line. caller: yes, hi. fed morning. my question is this. when our forefathers formulated the electoral college, they did it because we were severely undereducated nation. there was no type of mass media, no telegraphs or anything else like that, and they did not feel we were educated enough to just

allow the popular vote. with allst century, the media that we have, being that all of our people are basically literate, we can read, we can write, we do have the news, isn't it time to eliminate the electoral college? haven't we outgrown it yet as a nation? i think you are singing a song that a lot of people sing these days. it does seem antiquated, it seems odd that you would stick with this process that was put in place in a very different information environment. i think there really is growing consensus that the electoral college doesn't work, although i will say that it does have some benefits, like making sure that people don't just campaign in population centers.

a raginghink it is debate, and i do wonder if there will be a greater public appetite for adjusting it either through the constitutional amendments or otherwise. host: i was going to ask you that. the electoral college has not been static since it was written into the constitution. it has been changed over the years, correct? guest: well, yes. it was changed very early on, the 12th amendment addressed some shortfalls, but it hasn't really been updated for the modern day. ande are moves afoot to try either, through the national popular vote compact or through the idea of having a constitutional amendment, to try and sort of rectify some of the parts of it that are antiquated. wasn't that on the ballot

in one state this year? guest: i haven't actually kept up with that. i am not sure. the idea would be that you get 270 electoral college votes worth of states that agree to assign their elector to the winner of the national popular vote, as opposed to the winner of the election in their state. to get thatoal, is number above 270, but i am skeptical that if push came to shove, particularly in the dictated,n the state it would be pretty incredible for the state to disregard the winner of its popular vote. i think the voters in that state might not be so happy. i think it certainly would be litigated and i wonder if it would actually work. host: professor rebecca green with us from william and mary law school. we are talking about the

electoral college and the challenges to the 2020 election. for those of you who support joe biden and kamala harris. (202) 748-8001 if you support donald trump and mike pence. all others, (202) 748-8002. let's go to kathy in gainesville, new york, a trump supporter. caller: thank you for taking my call. i hear there was a lot about, there was no widespread fraud during the election, but how about individual fraud? like one person changing their vote disenfranchises my vote. you don't hear about all the dead people voting, who voted for them -- does anyone go about , trying to find them and prosecute? speeding, you can get away with it under 10 miles an hour and they give you a ticket, but cheating hurts too. the more people who get away

with it, the more people will do it. is there an organization somewhere that tries to catch this? guest: absolutely. i talked to state election directors all the time who talk about what they do to prosecute voter fraud. it's expensive. states will exchange data, there is a national program which is a thatprinting organization helps states determine whether their voting lists are accurate. the social security administration records, the death records, all kinds of records to ensure states have accurate data about who is eligible to vote and who has moved, and all this data that is put together. what happens after every election, states hold their list and look at who voted versus who should have voted. if there is a problem, like if they discover someone

has voted in two states or if they discover someone who is into live, has been dead for many years -- is not alive, has been dead for many years, has cast a vote, they go look into it. people are prosecuted when that kind of been based occasion unfolds it starts out in the bigger number, in the dozens, and dwindles down as you figure out what is really going on. host: let's hear from anna rose arizona,, abide in supporter. of they earlier trump supporters called in and casually throughout the accusation that mail-in ballots are accepted without any signature verification. where does that happen? how does that happen? how can a mail-in ballot be

accepted without signature verification? and is there any states that do not have a paper trail, just a computer touchscreen? different states have different rules for how to verify mail-in ballots. there was some interesting controversy over signature matching, because signature matching is a really sophisticated science, and for voting by mail, they have very sophisticated signature matching and for other states that in traditionally have high , their of mail voting signature verification procedures came under fire because what was happening, essentially, is that younger voters, minority voters, lower , their ballots were getting tossed at a higher rate because the signature

matching wasn't done very well. it has been a bit of a controversial issue. is that states thehave means of verifying absentee ballots, whether it is barcodes or witness requirements or whatever, whatever the state elected to do to ensure that the ballot was being submitted by the correct person. all in placees are and being verified as we speak. your second question, i'm forgetting what you asked -- host: i know she asked about the mail-in ballots -- guest: that's another interesting aspect of this election, i think. having an increased volume of absentee ballots or mail-in ballots, it's a paper trail, right? verify,ch easier to

write, when you have a piece of paper in front of you. we had a problem in this country where people were voting on machines that lacked a paper trail, and that created a lot of concern. every state started to steer itself away from that, but with absentee ballots, you have as youto verify go back through the count. host: there is a paper trail, but not only some states had a paper trail, but the motor him or herself could track the paper trail, track that ballot by a barcode or code that was sent to the voter's email, and get assurances that the ballot had been cast. been: ballot tracking has a big innovation. more states than ever before have enabled voters to check the status of their ballot, whether it has been received, counted and so forth. that is a technology that i think is providing a lot of confidence in the mail balloting process. abouti want to ask you

the georgia recount, but can you recall outside of bush v gore, the last time a state did a recount in a presidential election? guest: the last time that happened was in wisconsin. i think there was a recount of .otes prompted by jill stein the result of that changed the vote, as i recall, something like 500 votes or fewer. host: the new york times this morning writing about the recount with a little bit of detail on how they are going to do it. first, the headline says audit confusion in georgia, the day after georgia secretary of state describe the process as a hand recount, his subordinates said thursday it was technically an audit, not a recount, although it would have the same effect. counties are told to audit every vote cast and have a new result

to certify the results. the times writes but after that, the trump campaign can still request an official recount if the result is within half a percentage went. president trump could effectively get three shots in georgia. but with the margin in the first tally giving joe biden on edge, more than 14,000 votes, election officials do not believe any number of counts will alter the outcome. counties will begin their audits friday morning and are required to finish by november 18. auditors will sit and count the ballots. most of what will be reviewed will be straightforward, printed copies of in person votes cast on electronic machines. county officials will also review absentee ballots marked by hand. if they find ambiguities, they will be referred to a three-person adjudication panel in each county made up of a democratic representative, anpublic representative, and a county official. does that sound similar to processes across the country?

guest: i think it sound similar, but the times is correct. it is a sort of hybrid. under audit provisions, you count a sample group of ballots, but here he is essentially ordering an audit of the whole election, all of the ballots. to don see why he elected that, right? publics a lot of lack of confidence, unfortunately, in the results, and this is one way and election administrator can satisfy members of the public that the count is accurate. it is going to be quite an undertaking, but hopefully it will serve the purpose of helping people feel confident in their results in georgia. host: let's hear from craig next, calling from tulsa, oklahoma on the trump line. caller: good morning, excellent show. i think we are missing the point of why the electoral college was put into existence by the

founders. the founders were very, very wise, in the sense that it is not based on the technological advances of their time or our time, it is based on human nature. that is why they put checks and balances in, because human nature is not as pure as the driven snow. sometimes people cheat, and they know that. sometimes there are tyrants who might come in and convince the masses they are very pro-american, but then information may come to light, may be a they are going to sell the country out to a foreign power -- maybe they are going to sell the country out to a foreign power. in electoral college was put place, the electors of final safeguard. now, that would make us angry. by popular vote says this and the electors of my state went the other way. why would they do that to me? were i find out oh, they in friend -- in

possession of high-level information from the state. they put it in as a final safeguard against tyrrany. the other thing is, these elections, basically, we have proof now of dead people voting. what they called a computer glitch, or 6000 votes could change or not put in, and i'm glad there is privacy and voting, because my name, nobody needs to know how i voted, so my name is not on my ballot. but there are not unique identifier numbers on ballots. they can't stop duplicates, which needs to be done, by the way. you can run a stack of -- the person who i voted for, i could collect 20 of those and run them multiple times through the machines and up the tally from my person. to youraig, i will get

comments in a moment. the glitch was proved false. isy say, we rate this claim false because it is not supported by our research. there was no glitch in the election system, nothing that will move votes over to trump's column. guest: i wanted to make a point about the electoral college. you are quite right, the founders were wise and they did insert this protection against, for example, foreign interference or corruption of some kind. the problem is that as it has evolved, electors do not have superior knowledge and have access to information that the rest of us don't have. as it has evolved, electors are peopleose -- just who the political parties a point. they are people like you and me who don't have any better sense of anything than the normal,

average joe. the idea that they would somehow protect us from something we didn't know, it doesn't quite hold the same way as it did during the founding era, when the founders where this class of enlightened and educated citizens who would have a better sense than the popular vote of thehow in terms country. it has evolved in a way that makes that layer of protection a little less salient, as things exist today. host: a couple more calls here. we will go to renee, calling from louisiana on our biden line. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question for ms. rebecca. earlier, she talked about a slate of electors, and the legislatures pick those slates. it is one slate democrat and one slate republican?

i have a second question -- guest: that's exactly how it works. political parties nominate electors, and once the popular vote comes in, the electors that were appointed from the political party that won, those are the electors that go to the electoral college in the state capital. caller: ok, i have a follow-up question? host: go ahead. caller: how do you deal with less electors from opposite parties when the penalties for not voting in line with the popular vote are so minimal in some states that electors just ignore that and basically say, screw the people, i am going to vote this way. theys that a democracy, if are not voting in line with the popular vote? the first answer, it is extraordinarily rare that

electors do defect, and they vote for someone that they were not supposed to elect. the parties usually choose people who are loyal to their party and have demonstrated political action, so that does not tend to happen with -- sorry i think we -- renee, are you still there? green, you are back. guest: i'm back, sorry. host: go ahead and finish up. guest: this was resolved largely last summer, in that states can take out and replace faithless electors, the supreme court gave states that power last summer. to the extent that we were worried about faithless electors , the supreme court did a lot to bind them to the popular vote in states. it surprise you, as a

political and law professor at the university there, does it continue to surprise you every four years that we continue to find out about these nuances of the electoral college? guest: it's amazing to me that some of these questions weren't resolved long ago, like ken states bind electors or not? that issue wasn't resolved until 2020. it is a perpetual issue with our election system, you don't know what is going to come up and a lot of times, our lot is not anticipate those contingencies. ohio,next up is emma in on our trump line. hi there. caller: hi. host: you're on the air, emma, go ahead. caller: i was just going to back president trump. i think he is a wonderful, wonderful president. i don't know how they got over

the top of him, i was sitting there watching when they were voting and he was way ahead, i don't understand how they are going to steal that from him. host: rebecca green, as you saw election night take place and the votes come in, is this something you anticipated where we would be ahead of the election? yeah, this is something people talked about for months and months prior to the election, which was the election nights total, as it appeared, was going to change markedly. what was extraordinary about this election is in the past, male voters, absentee voters, have tended to skew older and skew further to the right. this election, one of the amazing things about it, was the political divide between people who were told, don't use mail ballots, and those who were told, vote by mail and vote

early. what that created was the election nights total, which derives mostly from election day voting, people who went to the polls on election day, and it takes a little bit longer to count the votes that come in by mail, especially because in a couple of states, like pennsylvania and michigan, you can start counting our processing those ballots until shortly before election day. total changed as those votes were counted, and there is nothing strange, nefarious, or even surprising about that. there was a big divide in how people chose to votes this year. rebecca green, thanks so much for being with us this morning. guest: you're welcome. host: ahead, more of your phone calls. we are going to talk about this story that came out overnight last night. theirs axios, and

headline, department of homeland security calls the election most secure in american history. what are your thoughts and experiences as you watch the votes? (202) 748-8000 free democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. all others, (202) 748-8002. ♪ >> book tv on c-span two has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. saturday at 1:00 p.m. eastern from the recent virtual southern festival of books, authors sarah burton, andas others reflect on life in appalachia, and then at 7:45 biden: theook "joe life, the run, and what matters now." and journalist matthew van meter

talks about his book, deep delta justice, about a civil rights case that helped reaffirm the right to a trial by jury in most criminal cases. and author stephanie gordon and offer their thoughts on an author's role in a democracy. afterwards, law professor john fabian witt talks about his book , american contagions, from smallpox to covid-19. tv, this weekend on c-span two. washington journal continues. host: in this last half-hour, we will talk about the security of the 2020 election and the federal state panel calling it the most secure in american history, axios reporting saying

a group made up from the election security agency and its partners refuted president trump's claims of widespread voter fraud and irregularities, calling the election the most secure in american history. we will review some of that statement that was released he yesterday.d late election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process, prior to finalizing the results. all of the states with close results in the presidential race have paper records of each vote , allowing them to go back and count each ballot if necessary. for is an added benefit security and resilience. this process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. there is no evidence that any's system deleted or

lost votes. top cybersecurity official richard christopher krebs, who worked on protecting the election from hap -- from hackers but drew the ire of the trump white house has told associates that he expects to be fired, according to sources familiar with the matter. he heads the department of homeland security cybersecurity and infrastructure agency did not return messages seeking comment. separately, the assistant director for cybersecurity confirmed to reuters that he had handed in his resignation on thursday. he did not provide details, but a u.s. official familiar with the matter said the white house asked for his resignation earlier this week. your thoughts? steve in

iowa on the independent line. ballots,hen viewing does every state have a democrat or republican, or does that match in all states? host: our guest has left, so i don't have an answer for you. we will go to connor in littleton, colorado, democrat line. go ahead. caller: i think with this year being hard to prove that there is any voter fraud, does it seem like since the postelection, this is the most political involvement out of our country that is focusing on voter fraud, that doesn't seem to have any evidence behind it, is sort of averting the attention of the american people from other issues that could be more pertinent to their lives right now? to sarah, leesburg, florida on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: fine, thank you. caller: i want to give you my

opinion. it has been crooked from day one since they started voting because they had my brother dead last year and he's still alive. in there, weget won't know our country four years from now. i'm old and i want to be in florida the rest of my life, but i don't think nobody is going to enjoy nothing. there, thiss in time next year china will be on in us. host: did you vote in the 2020 election? caller: i sure did. host: did you vote for donald trump? caller: i sure did. i think we ought to get him back in there. host: this is the washington post earlier this morning, china finally count -- congratulates joe biden and kamala harris.

salutations in just over 24 hours after biden said he had held phone calls with japan, and south korea. on the independent line, we hear from douglas in laramie, wyoming. caller: good morning. wise to beis inquisitive of how a statement no evidencehere is of something. on page 47 of his book, historians fallacies, david hackett fisher says the fallacy of the negative proof is an attempt to sustain a factual proposition marred by negative evidence. it occurs whenever someone declares that there is no affirms that then

it is not the case. there is no evidence of x means -- there what it says is no evidence. the correct and empirical procedure is to find affirmative x.dence of not many scholars would prefer to not know some things exist, but not knowing that a thing exists is different from knowing that it does not exist. host: we talked about this in our last segment, the recount going on in georgia, the presidential recount. greg bluesky, who has been a guest on this program, tweeting about that. but in georgia, an effort to validate the avenue to -- validate the accuracy of an election that showed biden with

a 14,000 vote lead over trump. to joe was more critical andn in georgia than cobb gwinnett counties, where turnout increases of 20% helped him carry both former gop strongholds. biden was also buoyed by independence, women, and voters in the heart of atlanta. on ourgo to carl democrats line. good morning. caller: i would like to say one thing. why the gop still backing trump? they don't recognize president-elect joe biden and vp kamala harris. is it a secret agenda or they just don't want to admit that trump lost? that's my comment. thank you, sir. host: carol is a republican,

calling from walk away, new jersey -- rockaway, new jersey. caller: i have a few things to say this morning, and i hope i get a chance to finish them. there is a man by the name of dennis l montgomery, he is the ciat cia agent -- an ex- agent and he introduced into the situation computer programs called scorecard and hammer. they were used by the cia and many different countries over the years to manipulate elections and toss their leaders out of office. in the guise of overthrowing governments. mcinerney said

his opinion on the prior upcoming election, saying they were going to use these two programs, these computer programs. to changethe ability the vote in transit. virtually. i do hope -- host: carol, do you think that has happened? caller: oh, it has been proven that it's happened, ok? they have closed voting booths in georgia in the middle of the night and sent the counters out, to go home early, and in the middle of the night there were millions of ballots dumped. host: where? caller: in the voting precinct. host: are you talking about millions in georgia? millions, millions, millions of ballots, ok?

host: there is 14,000 votes that separate joe biden and donald trump in georgia. we mentioned the recount to moments ago. these are some of the vote states,ons in key arizona, that number may have changed because maricopa county reported results late last night that added to joe biden's lead there. 635,f noon yesterday, 11, 36,000 in the vatican, pennsylvania, 54 thousand, 0,000 inand 2 wisconsin. in california, noah. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. you know, i think it is really important in this situation to

trust our local election officials, as the axios article said. there are extreme precautions being taken in this election and we knew it was going to take a long time to make sure everything was counted, so frankly, i think there are more important things that we could be focusing on. the covid-19 pandemic is still going on. of thebig supporter organization called the oregon project, and we have been working towards making sure the international aid budget is fully funded, because in this time of the pandemic, decades of anti-poverty work around the country could be erased with the economic fallout. so instead of being caught up in who won this election while the votes are still being counted, i think it's important to focus our attention on things like that. host: in addition to the pandemic worldwide, measles is againproblem

worldwide. measles deaths worldwide swelled to their highest level in 23 years last year. astunning rise for preventable disease and one for experts fear could grow if the pandemic continues to interrupt vaccination and detection efforts. it was 50% higher than three years earlier, according to the analysis by the world health organization and the centers for disease control and prevention. no measles deaths were reported in the united states, but measles cases in the country hidden annual high across 31 states, the most since 1992. u.s.cently as 2012, the case number was 55. public health case experts have yearshis is the result of

of insufficient vaccination coverage. they worry the pandemic will exacerbate the spread of measles, a disease more contagious than covid-19. ouralifornia, john on republican line. go ahead. caller: good morning. go -- how are you? the law professor said there is no anomaly in the election, the thing indicate wrongdoing. are anls themselves anomaly. 17 points down in wisconsin and dead even a week into the election. heghtly down in florida, ends up winning florida. texas, even money, ends up orning texas by five or 6, 4 five, whatever it was. that's not an anomaly, that's voter suppression. theare always quoting from washington post. washington post/abc news did that pole, which showed -- that

showed 17 points down for trump the week of the election. i know a little bit about statistics. it is impossible for a legitimate bowl to make that kind of an error. a 17 point error and have it end up basically dead even? your point is well taken, and it is actually the front page story -- a field is forced to rethink its way of gauging opinion. imes.com.t out at nyt the statement came from the joint infrastructure government correlating council and the election infrastructure sector ordaining executive committees. lots of words, but it is an effort by the homeland security department and state officials, and they say -- i will quote rackley from their statements --

november 3 election was the most secure in american history. they are also saying there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised. .gov.an read that at cisa on theis in new jersey, independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning. please don't cut me off. i really appreciate your patience. i don't understand the mindset of people who understand that you have one ballot when you go into the voting booth and you vote. for president and then down ballots. ok? then there is a case where people under vote, where they don't vote down ballots, but they are strongly feeling one way or another about the president. you have republicans in this country who really can't process the fact that the senate, as

most people thought would be ed, mitch mcconnell is still in charge. why do you accept the down ballot results but don't accept the president? it is the same ballot? you only get one ballot. it is just ludicrous. it is basic as that. all the conspiracy theories, the dark web, the disinformation campaign, all because president trump can't accept the fact that the american people rejected hate. one third of this country supports him. when people say the republican party is strongly behind him, only a third of americans identify as republicans. that leaves two thirds of americans rejecting hate and racism. now, he got more of the popular vote this time because of the pandemic and covid and the economy and people voting with and their owns

interests. they became part of that one third. but there are still more americans who rejected hate. the popular vote. people did not vote for him. he is an un-american president. has undermined the pillars of our democracy, freedom of the press, the institutions like the fbi, cia, civil service. the only thing protecting this democracy right now, or this democratic republic right now, is our military. civil servants into instructor the military to do anything against the citizens of this country, because the military does not report to the hierarchy that he is putting in, these trump loyalists. they are the only one saving this democracy. stop waiting for the republican party, waiting for suburban white women to save our republic . they are afraid, and until this runoff happens january 5 and they determine who is in charge

of the senate, they are not going to go against him. is takingelect biden the right strategy. he is going forward and doing what he has to do. the vice president-elect kamala harris is doing the same thing, and we are letting him hunker down in the white house and pretty soon, we might have to turn off the lights and unplug the electricity to get him out of there. host: let's get to steve, republican line, in vista, arizona. ander: hello, america, hello, c-span. you are doing a great job. you thinks c-span is on the side of the democrats. they are totally neutral. i have been watching the the peoplears, and are on one side or the other. they were trying to elect the judge for the supreme court of arizona, wonderful woman named

sandy russell, she was an independent and she was going to bring honor back to the supreme court of arizona, cochise county. she entered the election, spent a fortune, and they blackballed her, ruined her life, made a mockery of everything and she is so upset right now because of the way politics are played. listen, america. they have been after donald trump since the first day he took office. why wouldn't you think there is some hanky-panky going on with the voting thing? me and thousands of my republican friends all agree that they have been filling out dead man ballots since june. what about the video of that man who had his hatchback of his vehicle open and there was 10,000 or 20,000 ballots in the back of this citizen's car? that guy should be put in jail. a guy is walking around and we have it on video. here's one more thing i'm going to leave you with, america. when you look at the videotape,

when joe biden admitted that, i tried to get the prosecutor who is looking into my son over and burisma-- over with to back off, and he said that right on tape, and i'll be they fired him. no one who runs for politics is squeaky clean or pure or innocent. you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. i want people to know that you can trust c-span to bring you unfiltered coverage of everything, and i wish you guys would bring back washington journal primetime. that concludes my call. host: we will take that under consideration, we appreciate that. live coverage coming up in about 10 minutes or so, a news conference with nasa administrator jim bridenstine, a preview of the dragon capsule expected to launch saturday, tomorrow evening.

traveling to the international space station with a crew of three nasa and one japanese astronaut. a.m.s live at 10:00 eastern on c-span. please listena, up here, ok. you said there was no cyber attacks, no fraud in our election. now that guy thinks he is going to get fired. trump thinks, he is not loyal to to so i am going fire you. he purposely delayed the u.s. postal mail. there are still millions of ballots for biden. hello, people. he is a cheater. trump, goodbye. you're fired. then harvey, arkansas. to dave in in --

harvey, arkansas. fromr: i used to be illinois, back in part of the machine, where obama's from. this has been happening for 30 or 40 years. king --wo, lb dix got martin luther king's niece in georgia witnessed voter fraud, but of course, because she is a republican, she is not lack enoughfor -- not black for anyone to listen to. i am 64 years old. i am done with these violent elections. e elections. they are out of control. i think the republicans have done it and the democrats have done it. do you want tech? if we can get to mars, we can get elections that are good and honest. that's basically all i got to say. thank you. host: russell springs, kentucky.

bernie on the democrats line. go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. i really think that biden is one of the finest presidents we will ever have. i have been in the democrat women's club for years, and trump has talked about the down so ifnd put us any democrat voted for him and he don't know there are thousands of democrats out there, it is the way he has put everybody down, he is a dictator, not a president. that's all i've got to say. thank you. host: an update on the senate side of things. a couple of tweets here -- craig kaplan says georgia republican senators both running in george's runoff elections on january 5 introduced legislation in the senate yesterday to establish a bipartisan advisory committee to analyze the integrity and the administration

of the 2020 general election for federal office. the bipartisan committee, in securing america's future elections, with the safe boats rules, policies, practices and activities regarding mail-in ballots, absentee ballots, and vote by mail procedures. the washington post this morning, sonny's -- senate readies confirmation judy expected to confirm sheldon to a seat on the central bank's board of governors, giving the president another chance to shape the long-term direction of one of the government's most powerful entities. in virginia beach, on our republican line, next is laura. go right ahead. hi, i have caller: to comment about the election.

president donald trump was supposed to win. host: all right. joan -- excuse me, mark in fort lauderdale, florida. go ahead. caller: good morning. thanks for c-span. i would like to thank you for publicizing this particular article. it is unbelievable that you have all these guys, all these idiotic republicans denying what the how department -- what the department of homeland security has to say about the election, but that shows the direction of our country, and hopefully it will turn around. one caller said, now that this information is out, trump is going to start firing people. you might be able to have your producers find it, he has yesterday fired two people involved in that particular report. administration, crybaby, sore losers who won't accept the

results. they're reporting here from the washington post on that -- two dhs officials forced out, the white house has forced out to homeland security officials . valerie boyd was asked for a resignation. we mentioned this earlier too, as well as brian ware, senior policy aide at the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency. hear from joan in rochester, minnesota. good morning. caller: good morning. i was going to response to that one lady who had accused somebody of fixing the elections, the military man or something? it has been a while, but the matter is, if that person was so

instrumental in helping biden, why didn't that person help when trump got in or when george w. in? shot -- got there is a lot of vindictiveness going on with people who needs to grow up and accept and join in and make our country great but i like donald said, think we are just on the wrong track and we can't get our mind back on the straight and narrow path to a good future for all of us. we've got people dying from covid and we've got a lot of bad things that are going on that we could join together in helping countryof and get our back on the good straight. you guys do a great job. i watch you every day and i congratulate you on your fairness. host: glad you're here, joan.

thanks for calling in. mount sterling, kentucky. is susan, republican line. caller: it's been told, i'm not sure if it's true, it can be check, that at the presidential rallies, where many were in attendance, don jr. was conducting polls to see if all attendees were republicans. it was determined approximately 20% democrats were showing up to the rallies. and if we actually do the math on the number of rallies and attendees, it would be determined 20% of the democrats that showed up are presently not biden efforts to disclaim trump's wins. win, i think't aydin should