and williamon kristol reflect on the bush v gore supreme court case. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. host: good morning. it is saturday, december 12, 2020, 20 years to the date the supreme court handed down a decision in bush v gore, ending the five week legal battle in the election. we are asking for your view on the legacy, having the discussion after the supreme court rejected a long shot made by president trump in the state of texas to overturn the 2020 election results in four states won by joe biden. here is how we split the phone lines this morning, republicans, (202)-748-8001.

democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. you can also send a text, that number, (202)-748-8003. if you do, please include your name and where you are from. otherwise, catch up with us on social media. on twitter --@cspanwj. on facebook, facebook.com/c-span. good saturday morning. go ahead and start calling in as we show you front page banner headlines of "the new york times" today on the supreme court's actions yesterday. justices denied bids in texas. in a brief, unsigned order, they said texas lacked standing to pursue the case, saying it is not demonstrated judiciary interest. the order coupled with another on tuesday turned away a similar request from pennsylvania republicans, signaled that a

conservative court with three justices appointed by president trump refused to be drawn into the effort i the president and prominent members of his party -- effort by the president and prominent members of his party. the lead from today's "new york times" story, it was bloomberg who pointed out the parallels to the bush v. gore case and the contrast, as well. in bloomberg yesterday, they wrote, that parent -- the court's apparent unanimity had a that sealed george w. bush's election and stopped recounts that may have swung florida to al gore, the democratic nominee in 2000. also in contrast, president trump sent al gore's reaction to the two supreme court decisions 20 years apart. this is what president trump wrote yesterday evening after the supreme court rejection of that case yesterday. the president saying the supreme court really let us down, no

wisdom, no courage. and this from 20 years ago tomorrow was vice president al gore's concession speech after the wish v. gore decision was handed down -- after the bush v. gore decision was handed down. [video clip] >> i say to george bush, may god bless his stewardship to this country. neither he nor i anticipated this long and difficult road, certainly neither of us wanted it to happen. yet, it came, and now it has ended. resolved as it must be resolved through the honored institutions of our democracy. of one of ourry great law schools is inscribed the motto, not undermanned but undergrad and law. that is the ruling principle of american freedom, the source of our democratic liberties. i have tried to make it my guide through the contest as it has guided americans deliberations of all the complex issues of the past five weeks.

the u.s. supreme court has spoken. while ie be no doubt, strongly disagree with the court's decision, i accept it. thisept the finality of outcome, which will be ratified next monday in the electoral college. tonight, for the sake of our unity of the people and strength of our democracy, i offer my concession. this is america. just as we fight hard when the stakes are high, we close ranks and come together when the contest is done. and while there will be time enough to debate our continuing differences, now is the time to recognize that that which unites us is greater than that which divides us. while rillettes hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs, there is a higher duty than the to political parties. this is america, and we put country before party. we will stand together behind

our new president. gore's concession speech from december 13, 2000, 20 years ago tomorrow. it was 20 years ago today that the bush v. gore decision was handed down. let us know what you think of the legacy of the decision was. republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. joan this cupric for cnn, a columnist, also making the connections back to the 2000 case and bush v. gore after yesterday's decision by the supreme court, writing at the end of your column today that texas and its supporters had to vote in the bush v. gore, where the court effectively declared then governor george bush the winner of florida's decisive election over vice president al

gore. that arose from a tight case and they certified in the state 537 vote margin for bush, worked its way through the courts and offered grounds that differ dramatically from the texas effort. , texas warned that the 2020 electoral in a regular -- irregularities exceed the hanging + the of the 2000 election. sides expressed regret that they were dragged into it for the current supreme court, considering whether to join the trump turmoil, it was not close. that was joan in her column today at cnn, and we are taking your phone calls to talk about the legacy of the bush v. gore case 20 years ago today. it was handed down. we showed you vice president al gore's concession speech from 20 years ago.

13, 2000,december george w. bush also with his victory speech, coming hours after the al gore concession speech. that happening also on december 13, yesterday. we will show you a bit about that but first, we will hear from paul in kentucky, republican party were up first. the legacy of the bush v. gore supreme court decision. caller: that was the proper way for the decision to be settled, but it was a different decision then then what we have now. i'm glad it was settled that way, but now we have a different decision. this president will never be my president. i honor the office, but i will never honor this president because of the corruption. host: what did you think back in 2000 when democrats said after did notgore that they

consider george w. bush their president after bush v. gore? well, everybody has got an opinion, but we have laws today, and if they are not followed, there was no use to having them. and the law has definitely not been followed in this decision. definitely not. host: that was paul in kentucky. this is herbert, georgia, democrat. caller: good morning, john. is a real show of a decent american human being. he put country before party. i cannot hear you, john, you are talking. host: i am listening to you, herbert. just turned on your television. keep talking. caller: that is a decent human being. he will not let ego get in the way.

and everybody in their right know that every nationality -- i'm a black man -- have fought constitutional laws that white america has wrote. and the white republican party cannot honor the constitution that white america wrote and every other nationality follow the constitution and other nationalities. what is that saying to america? what is that saying to the people who are coming up in america? what is that saying to all nationalities who want to come to america when we see this type of attitude? it is being translated. it has gone bigger than that, john. is have got to realize it bigger than what it is, and we cannot let a man be like -- that

is why we got rid of saddam hussein. host: that was herbert in georgia. we should you al gore's concession speech to here is a little bit from george w. bush's victory speech after the bush v. gore decision came down. [video clip] >> our country has been through a long and trying period, with the outcome of the presidential election not finalized for longer than any of us could ever imagine. vice president gore and i put our hearts and hopes into our campaigns. we both gave it our all. , so ired similar emotions understand how difficult this moment must be for vice president gore and his family. i was not elected to serve one .arty, but to serve one nation the president of the united states is the president of every single american of every race and every background, whether you voted for me or not, i will

do my best to serve your interests, and i will work to earn your respect. i will be guided by president jefferson's sense of purpose to stand for principle, to be reasonable in manner, and above all, to do great good for the cause of freedom and harmony. the presidency is more than honor. it is more than an office. it is a charge to keep, and i will give it my all. host: that was then president-elect george w. bush 20 years ago tomorrow. it was 20 years ago today when that bush v. gore came down. we are asking for your thoughts on the legacy of that case, especially in light of today's atmosphere. this is john in bristol, connecticut, an independent. good morning. caller: good morning. with gore and bush, the pillars of democracy stood up. and the republican

parties, they try to blow down the pillars of democracy, but they stood up, like they should be standing up, you know? it is time for trump to put on his big boy's pants and move on. host: deborah, south bend, indiana, republican, you are next. caller: ok, yeah, i agree with the last caller. i am not happy about this, ok? [coughing] -- the reason why i agree with the supreme bush andcording to the , look, enough is enough. since this last four years,

everyone has been running around like ants. whatrying to find coulterville. we need to and that -- what hole to fill. we need to end that. what has happened is regardless of how it turns out, we have a new administration. the only thing that we need is informed as keep us to what is going on, so in the next election come up, we will be prepared. host: that was deborah in indiana. this is george, conroe, texas. independent good morning. caller: good morning, how are you today? host: doing well. what do you think the legacy of that case was, especially the latest action i the supreme court yesterday?

caller: i have learned two things from the court case and the results through the election. that is, whichever party cheats the most wins, and that the officials that are involved in our government at these critical levels basically are in the pocket of the chinese communist party. that is what i have learned, and at this point, i think all bets are off. host: george, you are from texas, did you think george w. bush cheated the most in florida in 2000? , iler: at this stage honestly believe that, yes, everybody has been cheating. i think that is part of the reason that some of the republicans have not stepped up to the bar to do what they should have done. they are probably as guilty as those on the democrat side. host: what should they have done? caller: follow the law. law.w the

in this case, i think the supreme court individuals are more concerned with not inflaming the political situation in the united states than making the decision that would follow the law. host: that was stored in texas. more than 120 congressional republicans signed on in support of the texas case this week before the supreme court rejected that decision yesterday evening. one of those republicans, matt gaetz, the republican of florida, and this is what he an erosion ofs the power of state legislators to make election law. there are still evidence that needs to be considered," he wrote, "the house may be the last forum for us to be able to present our arguments," perhaps hinting at action on the house floor during the certification process in early january. a couple of other tweets about

the supreme court ruling from a couple of other members of congress. we will get to them in a second, including nancy pelosi, saying the u.s. supreme court has rightly dismissed out of hand the sham gop lawsuit to overturn the will of millions of american voters. in mcgovern, democrat massachusetts on the program recently saying, the supreme court, including all three justices trump appointed, just unanimously told him to take a hike. a 9-0 decision, he literally cannot lose more if he tried. the jig is up, it is time to stop denying democracy and end this ridiculous charade. one more from senator ben sasse, the republican senator from nebraska, part of the statement he issued yesterday saying, "every american who cares about the rule of law should take comfort at the supreme court, including all three of president trump's picks, closed the book on the nonsense." taking your phone calls this morning, in light of that decision yesterday, and the fact that it is 20 years to the day that bush v. gore came down,

asking for your thoughts on the legacy of bush v. gore. anthony, maryland, democrat. good morning, your next. caller: yes, good morning, c-span. maturityrence i see is and, of course, people were civil, you know? we did not hear the democrats talking about seceding from the union. we did not hear that when hillary lost the race. nobody said to secede from the union, but now these republicans yesterday, allen west was talking about seceding from the union, which makes no sense. these republicans also do not realize, they keep saying it was the democrats, the democrats, but it was that third party vote, republican lincoln project voters, who voted for their down , people, the senators, congressmen, and they voted

against donald trump. soody wanted donald trump, it was not democrats that voted against donald trump and made him lose. , that those republicans third party, romney lincoln project republicans, that may donald trump lose. he ought toow, and go into the southern district of new york and face the music. host: that's anthony in maryland. wayne out of junction, texas. republican. good morning. wayne, you with us? caller: yes, sir. host: go ahead, you are on the air. caller: yes, sir. host: are you going to make a comment, way? -- wayne? caller: yeah, i think the political climate back then was a lot easier than it is today, and the nation was not quite as divided as they were back then. that is waynein junction,

texas. this is mitchell out in new jersey, democrat, go ahead. caller: good morning. good morning. you know, we are looking at a comparison between the two events, bush v. gore and the to the stateses with the close votes. i don't see any comparison really. bush v. gore was simply a fight to get votes counted in a very, result,se electoral where you have really a few hundred votes separating the candidates for the white house. with trump, you either have one of two things going on, one, coupwant the states to

and disenfranchise millions of voters, or two, they know this is nonsense, and they are using moneyynically to raise and drum up the race for the president. either one of those things is really awful. it is really a perversion of what our election process should we get pastpe that this as a nation. back, we weres talking about the comments by allen west, former house member, the republican member of the house, now in texas. this statement yesterday is what he put out from the republican party of texas that chairman allen west saying that the supreme court tossing the texas lawsuit joined by 17 states, 106 u.s. congressman, has decreed state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law, resulting in damaging effects on other states

that abide by the law, while guilty states suffer no consequences. this decision establishes a precedent that states can violate the u.s. constitution and not be held accountable. this decision will have far-reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic, perhaps law-abiding station form a union of states that will abide by the constitution. allen west, his statement regarding that decision yesterday. we are talking about the legacy of the bush v. gore case, the supreme court, and your thoughts, especially in the wake of yesterday's decision. this is carl out of carrollton, georgia, republican. go ahead. caller: yes, big difference between bush and gore and biden and trump. basically, bush and gore were part of this same establishment movement that has been going on least former of ministry show.

my best guess -- former administrations. my best guess with the supreme court, the supreme court is afraid of our political establishment, and the extreme left. that is basically it i think. except i think donald trump this beginning of a two-party system on the national level. i am 80 years old, he is the first nationalist president we have had in my lifetime. thorley nationalist. roughly nationalist. big difference. to have the beginning of a two-party system with president trump. i, for one, do not want to lose it. fraud in georgia

, affidavits from people all over the country. that is evidence. host: carl, who do you think will win those two key senate races in georgia, the runoffs happening? if you cannot distinctly identify voters, you have system with many more election observers and things like that. my guess is the republicans win at least one of those races. i think mr. perdue will definitely win. about senator opponents, it is pretty much a tossup i say.

host: that is carl in georgia. in a joe biden administration, if the democrats pick up those runoff elections in georgia, democrats would have control of the senate. it would be vice president harris who would have the tie-breaking vote in a 50-50 split senate. asking about the legacy of the wish v. gore supreme --bush v. gore supreme court decision, 20 years since that was handed down . american history tv, and our friends with a tweet this week asking for viewers to weigh in on this question, did the supreme court make the correct decision in stopping the floor to recount in 2000? some 4000 responded online, almost 59% same, no. 41% same, yes, -- 59% saying no. 41% saying yes. i did want to note some of the timeline and give you a

refresher on the bush v. gore case. here's how it played out over those five weeks at the end of 2000. it was november 7, 2000 that election day happened. november 27, the florida election canvassing commission certified the results of the election with george w. bush leading by 537 votes. that was contested by the gore campaign. the photo supreme court steps in on december 8 to back the gore appeal. oral arguments were held on december 11 in the supreme court. december 12, supreme court reverses the ruling, and that was the bush v. gore decision handed down. it was december 13 that al gore ended his campaign. december 18, the electoral college meets and votes for bush with 271 electoral votes and gore with 266 electoral votes. that was certified by congress on january 6 of 2001. the president of the senate

overseeing that certification that day on the floor of the house of representatives, and that, course, was al gore who oversaw that. we will be talking more about the history of bush v. gore and get into the case itself. we will be joined in about one hour at 8:30 a.m. eastern by ej william kristol. the two commentators will join us together to take your calls, questions and dive into the arguments and history. that is coming up in about one hour. back to your phone calls, joe of patterson, new jersey. an independent. what do you think the legacy of bush v. gore was? caller: i think bush won and i think gore lost. can you hear me? host: yes, sir. what are your thoughts on yesterday's action? caller: yesterday i think is a different story. yesterday i think there was a lot of fraud going on.

i think there's a lot of cheating going on, and i think joe should go to jail, and so should hunter, and so should jim biden. merry christmas, joe, because that is where you belong. host: joe in new jersey. this is andrea out of walla walla, washington, democrat. caller: good morning. i cannot believe i have gone -- gotten through. i want to share that i am so disappointed. , am impressed by bush and gore but i'm disappointed in the people that put trump in office and have kept him in office. i just want to see him in an orange jumpsuit. thank you. host: patty out of connecticut, you are next. caller: i see no difference. a big difference i mean.

this has nothing to do with gore and bush. trump,ey did to donald hiding about hunter biden, the press, the media, the democrats, everything was a cover-up. this is premeditated what happened. i think he should take this to the supreme court now and use hunter biden -- this came out before. a lot of people would not have voted for biden. this cover-up, this hiding, this cheating. the democratic party is disgusted. host: patty, and the 2000 election, there were republicans who said democrats need to get over the election 2000, except george w. bush was president of the united states -- except george w. bush was president of the united states. do you think you will get over 2020? caller: no because this is much different. this is premeditated, all the stuff happening.

and you are worried about georgia? i will tell you now that stacey abrams is cheating away again. no one is looking out. no one is watching, and this is going to be -- everybody is going to say, we are going to look at this. no we are not. it is going to continue because no one is doing a damn thing. we have a congress who does nothing, nothing. we have media that lies, and all they do is rip trump. it is really disgusting. host: that is padding connecticut. it is just about -- that is patty in connecticut. it is just about 7:30 on the east coast. i want to keep you updated on stories we've been tracking around the country. the other lead story in most of the major papers, the fda approving the pfizer vaccine. the administration giving that emergency use authorization yesterday, "the washington post" 336ng the historic decision

days after the genetic imprint of the coronavirus was shared online by chinese scientists, and now 2.9 million doses ready for just the coming week here in the united states. plenty of stories about that. we will be talking more about that and the vaccine distribution efforts throughout the coming week. yesterday, a bipartisan policy exceeded the two thirds majority to override any vetoes. it is the national defense authorization act that sets pay rates for troops, authorizes funds for military construction projects, aircraft, ships, -- the story noting that mr. trump said he would veto unless congress eliminates language to rename military institutions and monuments and paraphernalia

honoring confederate commanders. he has insisted on including language to terminate section 230 of the decency act which grants social media companies immunity for the content they publish from users on their sites. bill,nal cost on that $740 billion. back to your phone calls this morning about the legacy of the bush v gore supreme court decision. this is lisette out of alabama. out of tallahassee, alabama. good morning. our uss? -- are you with us? caller: i am saying praise the democrat and i want the republicans to come on board for joe biden because he is a

good man. he is an honest man. we don't have to listen to know more lies from the white house lies from the white house. dumped to ditch mitch and trump. host: can you remember back to how you felt about bush v gore? caller: thank you for showing a very important historical lesson. thank you, c-span. host: that was louisville, kentucky this morning. we are taking your phone calls about the bush v gore case. we mentioned that al gore in the presided over congressional certification of the electoral college vote -- that coming just a few weeks

after the bush v gore decision. here is that moment from the floor of the house back in 2001. [video clip] these -- >> the state of the vote is as follows -- the number of the electors appointed to vote for the president is 538 of which a majority is 270. george w. bush of texas has received for president of united states 271 votes. al gore of tennessee has received 266 votes. the state of the vote for vice president of the united states as delivered to the senate is as follows -- the number of electors to vote for vice president of the united states is 538 of which a majority is 270. dick cheney of wyoming has received for vice president 271

votes. joe lieberman of connecticut has received 266 votes. this announcement of the state of the vote by the president of the senate shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons elected president and vice president of the united states each for the term beginning on the 20th day of january, 2001 and shall be entered with a list of the votes on the journals of the senate and the house of representatives. may god bless our new president and our new vice president and may god bless the united states of america. [applause] host: january 6, 2000 months on the floor of the house. -- january 6, 2001.

asking for your thoughts on the legacy of that moment. jess injust in ohio -- ohio. my fellowppointed in americans who continue to oppose the view. " a --nk it was bakersfield california, in regard to bush v gore, bush won florida by 500 votes. george w. bush won the election. what happened yesterday is an apples to oranges comparison. 2000 was a dispute in one state where the win was razor thin. joe biden be donald trump resoundingly. those are facts. your comments this morning. .ext us at (202) 748-8003 weighing on twitter and

facebook.com/c-span. this is rich out of hickory hill, illinois on the independent line. good morning, sir. caller: thank you for taking my call. bush-gore decision was something -- to me was a different case entirely than what was presented by the trump administration. the state of florida's procedures was in question and it was a matter of the electoral votes that were at stake. to me, that was a big difference. one comment i would like to make -- i did not trust trump and i do not believe in trump because he reminds me of adolf hitlers

trying to take over the democratic united states. the support of the republican party -- you hear the target of -- talk of succession, to me it -- theyin-hand how bush would like to have that type of -- governedody body. host: this is steve out of topeka, kansas. democrat. good morning. caller: how are you this morning? host: doing well. go ahead. caller: i set the timer for 60 seconds. i think if everybody cannot say what they think in 60 seconds, that is ok. the timer has started. comparison is

interesting. well.mber it it was a no-brainer. i'm embarrassed that our withney general went in the gang of 100 and i was ashamed that he did because we have a great democratic governor in the state. i have a saying on this and it says, if you are always looking back and you are trying to move forward, you're going to walk into the wall. ahead,are trying to move you are going to walk into the wall. host: what do you think about ben sasse, your republican senator out there? ander: we are in kansas there is my timing. if you want to give me more time, that is fine.

host: he said, every american who cares about the rule of law should take comfort that the supreme part including all three of is in trump's picks close the book on the nonsense. caller: i thought you said he was our senator. host: ben sasse, yes. caller: he is not our senator. this is kansas. host: you are right. caller: my time is up. if everybody else set a timer, you would not have to interrupt him. --t: eggs for the copyright thanks for the call. tony, republican. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i appreciate the open forum. i'm really disgusted that there was not the continuation of gore -plus being able to be counted to be sure that bush won that

election in 2000. i was a republican at that time. i still felt that you've got to continue making sure that the votes are all counted instead of stopping the process. as far as our current situation with trump, i never respected him as our president because of all of the corruption of his past and back room dealings. i have never felt so embarrassed to be a republican as i was this makingn and i never felt a vote could feel like that. i actually am so glad that we promise forandslide votesden with millions of

and i feel that trump has ignored the democratic process and is acting like a child because he does not want to lose. i think i'm going back to being a democrat. anday, i stand for pro-life there are a lot of things important to me. i definitely want people to know that you've got to do what's right and you've got to point out when things are wrong. cheating, and certainly that needs to be looked at -- then that needs to be looked at. if there was no cheating, then it is done. whole my hands of this drama. i am proud of our democracy and let's move forward.

thank you. host: this is tony in south carolina who sent in this, "you all keep harping on the 20 election. al gore could not even win tennessee. florida would not have mattered. that your home state rejects you is telling." pj, "once any election reaches the course, the states in that election are already lost." one more from illinois, "in the popular and uninformed mind, bush v gore means supreme court has the power to appoint president which sitting judges work for the bush campaign." plenty didl in life in salem, massachusetts. -- lennie.nty did caller: the comment from jim

mcgovern was spot on. audio in the bush camp in florida that they were cheating. that is why the delay in the vote count. they managed to wedge it over 200-something votes. look at what would have happened. it would not have been a ,raining, rumsfeld, -- cheney rumsfeld president z. we would not be in the mess we're in now. cheat -- why -- steal, cheat.e, it would have been a good 8 years of gore.

obama.ike president republicans, mitch mcconnell and the rest of them, we would be in a good spot. we really would. that's all i have to say. host: 10 out of garden city, new york. democrat, good morning. caller: i want to say it is hard to believe it was 20 years ago, bush v gore. the difference is back then al gore did a concession speech. he accepted it. the democrats accepted it. nowadays some people are texas -- in texas are talking about seceding from the union. a difference between here and now. host: linda, republican. good morning. what do think about the legacy of bush v gore? caller: i thought that gore won the election and bush v gore and

i think he was cheated out of it. host: you say that as a republican voter? caller: yeah. i thought that he probably did win and there was something going on there. in this election i believe that the supreme court should have taken it and that would have ended all doubt for everyone. so many things have come out. china.concern is country infiltrated the and the schools and there is so much information about the laptop, that the fbi had it. swalwellso much about and feinstein. i look at the things that trump has accomplished and i do not

personally like him. but we are not having rockets from north korea every day. we are not having war type activities going on. when there is a problem, he deals with it. he is not getting any kickbacks from china that have come out. he seems to have charge of the situation. look at what has happened in the middle east. it has been at war for every. now you have these talks going on. that, ifhange and all you are having a war, that affects climate change. he is a tough guy and people around the world respect and are afraid of him. he has done a lot of things worldwide to straighten the situation out your host: linda you say the supreme court should

have taken up the texas case. notinge new york times that texas could not file its lawsuit at all. texas motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing. the court's order said, "it was justice alito joined by justice thomas who issued a statement on a technical point about taking up the case. justice alito wrote that the court would not free immediately to shut down lawsuits filed. " haveote, "we would not discretion to file a bill in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction but that was as far as he and justice thomas would go." " i would grant the motion to file the plaintiff would not grant other relief and i express no view on any of the other issues." that from the court yesterday

evening, their rejection of the lawsuit. john in alabama. independent. you're next. caller: good morning. in my opinion, most of the people don't understand what is going on. in my view, the take away from the bush gore case was that governors and officials don't have the right to change the laws laid down by a legislature which is a right given to the legislators granted by the constitution. that is exactly what has happened. i don't believe it was a fair 2000 because he has the best democracy money can buy . they would have black people and use names from texas as if they

were criminals in florida where they had no reason to think that most of these people were criminals. trumpre saying that with that the officials did not have the right to change the rules of the legislators and they have open boxes where anybody could drop a ballot in and they would not know where it came from instead of having to be postmarked from the home of a registered voter or the return address. i did not have the right to quit counting or quit checking and verifying ids and signatures. that was not due to covid. there was another reason why they wanted to quit verifying signatures and checking ids. host: that was john in alabama.

10 minutes left in this segment. we will return to the bush v gore 20th anniversary for the last half of our program starting at 8:30. we will be joined by e.j. dionne and william kristol, authors of : theook, "bush v gore commentary." i wanted to note other programming on the networks at noon today. we will be airing the rally supporting president trump sponsoredce in d.c. by the women for america first. you can watch that at c-span and listen to it on the free radio at. we mentioned the fda approval of the pfizer vaccine that came yesterday. on thursday of next week, the fda is meeting to consider it an emergency use authorization for the moderna vaccine. 9:00an watch that live

a.m. eastern on c-span3, c-span.org and the free c-span radio app. back to your phone calls as we talk about the legacy of bush v gore during a very foggy morning on capitol hill. this is chris out of virginia, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. there is no fraud. florida, there is no comparison with the 2020 election. , theyhough bush won stopped 10,000 votes from being counted because one state, not four states, with hundreds of thousands of votes voted for binding. -- voted for biden. it was suppression of votes. they took boxes out, they went out for people to go and vote. there is no comparison.

we accepted bush and he was a decent president. this guy, even , when theyyal disagreed with him, he wanted them out. he only cares about himself. he does not care about the china -- he does not care about the country. talking about china -- who manufactures his close? s? his clothe biden. talking about he has nothing to do with his son. if they're going to find something on him, find something on him. but do not deflect and distract. there is no fraud. host: to deborah out of west chester, ohio. republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i remember that election so well 20 years ago. on the night of the election,

the news media announced that gore had won early in the inaccurate then they also announced that the polls were closed. but the panhandle is on central time. are from those cases, there were thousands of people who did not have the opportunity to vote. then later, they announced that it was too close to call. there was a wonderful book that was written after that called bias. all that book does is go into each state and show when the news media announced the results and how they announced the results. host: more complicated than that, they announced that gore was going to win florida and then pulled that back later in the night. then announced that bush was going to win florida and then pulled back and said it was too close to call. there were two points in the night that various news media announced the wrong results and had to pull it back. caller: that's right.

what this book does, bias, it goes into the numbers so you can take all of the emotion, opinions, you can put that on the side and look at the actual numbers and ask yourself the question, this would be a great question for the audience. did the news media try to influence the election by how they announced information caller: and that is what -- by how they announced the election? and that is what this book does. what you find is when they should have said it is too close to call, sometimes they tipped it or gore. i am not saying they purposely did that, that is what i observed that night and it was complicated. if you remember, they went back and the news media had to go to theington in a hearing and whole purpose of that hearing was to say, the news media cannot announce until anything

until the last polls were closed. host: how do you think the news media does these days on election night? caller: terrible. the news media is terrible today because they are not -- everyone is voting on personality, not policy. we don't talk enough about policy. people are in their emotional corners and it is difficult to talk about that. i believe the news media makes money by keeping us in chaos and politicians keep us divided. muchews media has influence over how we vote. host: that is deborah out of ohio. this is michael in oregon saying, the greatest legacy may be to have made the correct court reluctant to intervene this cycle. the 2000 decision was wrongly

decided, a preponderance of scholars concluded and brought the court into disrepute. it is interesting to see ted olson and david boys, two lawyers who argued that case in 2000 finding themselves in agreement on other issues of the day, a cheerful reminder of the human capacity for growth and community. that was michael in oregon. this is michael in connecticut. an independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i cannot believe trump knew it was going to be rigged and he did nothing about it but he predicted he would lose. and then there was the russian hoax but now he's got his chinese hoax he is try to pull over. -- he is trying to pull over. why would anybody want trump back? he got us into the pandemic. michael, do you trust the

supreme court? caller: yes, i do. especially after he put three people in there and they all said, this is bogus. how about connecticut -- host: did you trust the supreme court after bush v gore? caller: i really did not like bush then. you gotta do what you gotta do and hope for the best and that is what i did with trump, hope for the best, but we got the worst. with this lawsuit -- texas is the second-largest largest a here connecticut is the second smallest. they say you have to run your elections like this. they want to change elections, that is the most preposterous thing i've ever heard, the most un-american thing you could possibly do. these people back in, you're all fascist -- host: that was michael. this is reagan out of michigan, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning.

john, i cannot remember who won the bush and gore election. bush wasrge w. certified the winner of that election. you are talking about the popular vote? in florida bush was certified the winner by 537 votes. al gore winning the popular vote across the country. caller: ok. now i have something else. biden.ack to hunter hunterorking with -- biden is working with the irs. i can't reduce my taxes, but this idiot can reduce his. four years audit?

i don't think so. , the same forple the united states, go to russia. thank you. host: that was raymond in michigan. our last caller in this first hour of washington journal. we will return to the bush v gore decision later. coming up next, a discussion on the state of rural hospitals with sarah jane trimble of kaiser health news, having that conversation. the fda getting emergency use authorization to the first covid vaccine. here is what president trump has to say in a video on twitter about that development at the fda. [video clip] pres. trump: i have really good news. today our nation has achieved a medical miracle. we have delivered a safe and effective vaccine in nine months. this is one of the greatest

scientific accomplishments in history. it will save millions of lives and soon end the pandemic once and for all. i am thrilled to report that the fda has authorized the pfizer vaccine. we have given pfizer and other companies a great deal of money hoping this would be the outcome and it was. on behalf of the american people, i would like to thank all of the brilliant scientists, doctors and workers who made this possible. pfizer and derrida have announced their vaccine is approximately 95% effective -- pfizer and moderna. these vaccines are also very safe. american citizens participated in clinical trials that were larger than normal and had no serious side effects. the dedicated and independent experts at the fda meticulously studied the results of the trials and it has now passed the gold standard of safety. through operation warp speed my

administration provided $14 billion to accelerate vaccine development and manufacture all of the top candidates in advanced. this included a $2 billion investment in pfizer to produce 100 million doses with an option to produce 500 million additional doses. i am proud to say we have made sure that this vaccine will be free for all americans. >> washington journal continues. host: amid the pandemic we are taking time this morning to focus on the state of an future of rural hospitals. our guest is sarah jane trimble , host of the podcast, where it hurts. explain what you set out to explore in where it hurts. guest: there is an epidemic of

rural hospital closures. when we heard that fort scott kansas hospital is closing, we decided to see what happened to the community after it closed. we went for our first visit -- i went for the first visit in december 2018 before the hospital closed. i went back throughout the year of 2019 until the end of december 2019. how many times did you visit and what did you find about the effects on that community is a rural hospital closes. i went at least 8 times in the spring and then in the summer and in december. as the year went on, we saw people's lives. on anhapter focuses individual or family who tells the story of different health disparities in the community as the year unfolds so we have conversations with folks on the

lower income spectrum and we had a conversation with somebody who lost her husband after the hospital closed because of a fall they took when there was no emergency room. we talk with cancer patients and so forth. where it hurts is the name of the podcast. mercy hospital in fort scott kansas, that hospital just one of the hospitals that have closed. closing facilities across the u.s. since 2010 of the more than 1800 rural hospitals, 2019 being the single worst year for hospital closures. some 19 hospitals closing. how have 2020 -- how has 2020 been for this idea of closing rural hospitals? are we seeing it as much? guest: this could not have come at a worse time. going into the pandemic, rural

hospitals were suffering from low cash flow. when the pandemic hit, some of the biggest ways of making money were taken away from them. elected surgeries were gone and we heard about that across the u.s. where they could not schedule elective surgeries. people did not come to the hospital as much for more routine care. much of their revenue fell. the cares act was passed. that helped your any of them sought out loans and grants -- that helps. many of them sought out loans and grants. as the pandemic continues, that is also a problem because they got staffing issues just like urban hospitals. they have to buy the equipment. many of them wanted to add negative pressure rooms and other facilities that would help deal with the pandemic, too. so we've got these colliding issues where they are already entering with tough finances and

then you have increased costs for services, staffing issues, and lower revenue coming in. host: our conversation with sarah jane trimble of kaiser news. here's how we split up the phone lines this morning if you want to join us. if you live in rural areas, (202) 748-8000, we want to hear about the hospital facilities in your area. all others, (202) 748-8001. you can start calling in. sarah jane trimble, what generally works best at a rural hospital compared to the urban hospitals that get so much of the attention, especially amid the pandemic, getting a lot of the news focus? guest: if you talk to any administrator, they will tell you they are doing the best job they can on all levels. what people in rural committees really love, what we found was

they felt a connection to the hospital. it had been there for more than 130 years and it was part of their community. they counted on it. they expected it to be there. you saw mercy hospital on the football field, use all the cars and ambulances in towns that provided the health services. mercy was everywhere in the community of about 7800 people. it was a shock when advantaged. when you asked what they do best, sometimes a rural hospital, what they do best is they provide a sense of security and when you walk in those doors or you call the hospital, you may know the person on the other end of the line or at least they are familiar and you trust those nurses. host: what do the people do for their hospital needs now? guest: there is a hospital about 30 miles down the road in pittsburg, kansas. when mercy hospital closed, the ceo who grew up on the south

side of town on a farm, she was from the area. she had raised her kids there, her grandkids. she did not want to be left without services. she was active with the kansas hospital association and had been to capitol hill to lobby lawmakers on medicare and medicaid financing. she knew the ropes and what was required to make a community keep operating. she did a plan. she called in an emergency services department to take over hers from that hospital 30 miles down the road as an ancillary service. that was a hail mary move for her. she had to ask for months to get them there. she did get them there eventually. the emergency department close for couple of weeks during the transition. she worked with the county and city to transfer ambulances over. she brought in a qualified

healthcare center which is a clinic that gets extra financing for lower income populations -- they can apply for grants. that sq hc took over all the primary care services -- that fqhc took over the care services. host: does every rural humidity need a hospital? theser is too far between facilities in rural areas? guest: you can't put all areas into one. you cannot say 30 miles is too far for one and not the other. on hospitals closing, we had one close and i'm not sure it has opened back up. it was one of the corporations bought it and closed it down. i have a mother who is 81 years old and she has not been to the

doctor since this coven has started. covid has started. she's got stomach problems. i am the only one who goes to the town. we live in a rural area because of covid. it is difficult to get into the university to see anybody all thethey have shut services down other than coven problems. problems. guest: i'm sorry to hear about your mother. he really highlights something that is a concern in rural america and that is access to care. when a rubbing hospital closes, the people in that immediate area -- when a rural hospital closes, the people in that immediate area are more likely to die. there are emergency access problems. he will take longer to get to

the hospital. get tole take longer to the hospital. when board, rural america has a lot of sick people. host: you talk about access to care in the wake of the news of the approval of the pfizer vaccine. what about rural hospitals getting equal access to the vaccine? emergencyalked to the manager in kansas last week and there talking with state health officials. i am sure we will see it the country. they are going to work with whatever resources they have in that community to facilitate those drugs. if you have a pfizer vaccine and moderna vaccine, both require two steps and cooling agents. pfizer have to be very cold up until the point of delivery. there is a lot of talk in the community about dry ice at some of the health centers to help people access that vaccine.

they are working with the facilities. they have the nurses in those communities to get those vaccines. host: getting people to take the vaccines is another question. can you talk about the compliance issue. is it different in rural hospitals than urban hospitals? what thewill tell you emergency management director told me. he said he was concerned. many of these rural communities, mass mandates have been difficult to pass. voted forica president trump who has been less than clear on the mass mandate. -- mass mandate. when it comes time to take the van -- vaccine, there will be members of the community who have not chosen to wear masks. hopes 70% ofme he

the committee will get vaccinated eventually and he has high doubts about people being able to reach that goal in bergen county. host: the phone lines, if you live in a rural area, (202) 748-8000. all others, (202) 748-8001. jessica on the former from california. caller: i live in california, the extreme northern county. we are a current population, the last census was 164 people. we used to have a hospital which is 35 miles away but that was closed three years ago. now to access care, we have to go to ukiah. it is a 70 miles. ukiah is considered a rural hospital. i think icu beds -- i don't know how they have converted because of covid but it used to be only six beds in the hospital. to access any type of more

intense care, cardiac care, it is a hospital trip to sonoma county which is over 120 miles away. the hospital care -- we have one small rural hospital in fort bragg and there is a hospital in ukiah. they are all small hospitals and hospital ce we have very few mes in the area. .here is 120 miles away and it is down to ukiah for any type of care. we are concerned about the availability of the vaccine. also, general healthcare. it is not specific areas in the country. there are rural areas in all of the states. guest: i agree. there are will bring areas in

all of the states and there is concern about access. i want to emphasize something you mentioned, that is general care. across the u.s. experts are trying to figure out how to increase the use of care services in rural areas that suffer from higher rates of things like smoking and copd and other chronic issues like diabetes. what we have seen this, particularly fort scott was a good example, if you can access services on a regular basis and get the medications, you are more likely to stay healthy. that is thewhat bill talked abog diet, i am no medical professional but i do know that in fort scott they put forth a dietitian, hospitals have those fears she was rehired by the health clinic. we sat with her while she worked with a patient about their diet.

diet does affect all aspects of your healthcare. they thought it was a primary concern to make sure that people who needed access to dietitians to talk about the best way their diet can help their health. just because you are in rural america, does not mean people are not trying to provide those services and get them to those citizens. it may be a matter of accessing and finding them. it could be a matter of using telehealth to access those experts. i would say reach out to your primary care doctor and see if you can reach out to a dietitian. host: jane in west point, mississippi. you are next. caller: good morning. tom respond to what effect rural hospitals in the southeast have in regard the failure to accept expanded medicare.

aworked for about 20 years in tennessee town. they lost a hospital in that town and a larger one about 40 not onlyy also closed limiting medical services, but it also caused many jobs to be lost in the medical community. movingndering if hospitals would not be in better shape had they taken the expanded medicare and if you could comment on that, i will hang up and listen. thank you. hospitalnds down, administrators say medicaid expansion would've helped them stay afloat in rural committees. that said, there are other factors at play. the trump administration passed an index change that helps the rural hospitals in alabama and other states in the southeast.

there are functions of how medicare pays rural hospitals. they have different criteria for or -- i amcess forgetting the name of it now. there are different titles and categories for how rural hospitals are paid and that has been shifted over the years and there have been calls to shift it again. yes, medi-cal -- and your expansion, hospitals believed it would've helped -- medicare expansion. changes to payments could also help those hospitals. host: joanne is in maine. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. barr harbor and i drive. i'm 82. i have cancer in remission. i have survived it before.

i have resolved to get to new york city for four days where it would take me in the months to see a surgeon in portland, maine. , i'mral hospital wondering, i was born in 1938. i don't even know how many icu beds we have there. 1938, congratulations to making it through 2020. lostr: i will tell you, i three houses after 2008. one in utah and two in maine. i am now in congregant housing where they do not believe in masks. but i'm driving. i am like a clown, not me over, i get up again. guest: congratulations. you bring up a very valid point and concerned about cancer. people who have cancer in rural

america are more likely to die. also something you mentioned, access to care. butel like a broken record it takes longer to drive places when you live in rural america and particularly cancer centers. i will refer back to the podcast. i have firsthand knowledge of calling a cancer patient. karen was getting care in fort scott which is 15 minutes from her home. and gote down her road groceries on her way to get her chemotherapy treatment and then drove home. she is in her 60's. when the hospital closed, a couple of months later, the cancer center closed, i should say a few weeks later. that was unexpected. it was affiliated with the hospital, it was not owned by the hospital. it was an independent company. they decided to close the campus

was the hospital closed and that meant karen and others were driving one hour each way on a narrow two-lane road to get to their cancer care. i think it is something that people do not consider when they think about rural america is the state of the roads. there are some great roads. but for caring, it meant these very uneven and often the roads lines so if aany truck came down, the car would shake. with cancering that going to your chemotherapy treatments. it is a challenging situation. that situation makes it more difficult and less likely for people to seek care in rural america. host: a couple of minutes left with sarah jane trimble of kaiser health news. for folks who want to listen to the podcast, where can they find it? at ourwe can find it

website and the public radio website. host: khn.org is the website. says, "i via text who spend a lot of time in delmar county, california and sutter health uses the hospital closing to refuse fulfilling their community benefits agreement and to deflect criticism of their practices. how did they get away with this behavior?' " something you can comment on? guest: the community benefits ordinance is one at this point, lawmakers across the country have tackled hospitals including mayo,inton clinic, others have questioned them about their benefits. they don't take property taxes.

that is millions of dollars out of local and local folks want that money. they questioned how much humidity benefits the hospital staff. the deal is with the irs if you provide a certain amount of community benefit, you don't have to take property taxes. there is no law on how much humidity benefit they are supposed to provide. they are supposed to provide community benefits, not a certain amount. host: in the last minute, one comment from lisa. future,th, that is the is what lisa says. the importance of telehealth in rural hospitals. guest: lisa is right. there is a push for telehealth in the communities across the u.s.. the only thing i would say is you have to meet access for telehealth -- need access. there is a lot of places across

the country where access to in it -- internet is spotty. that is a challenge in really -- many rural areas. host: where are you heading next? guest: i cannot divulge but the focus is each season will focus on a community where there are gaps in care and we will hear from people and hear about their lives and help translate policy through the lives of people that you might want to spend time with. host: how many seasons do you see yourself doing? guest: i am moving on to covering pharmaceuticals. we have a new person coming in for season two and we are very excited about that. host: sarah jane trimble is with kaiser health news, the senior correspondent and the host of the first season of "where it hurts," you can find it at kaiserhealthnews.org. we appreciate your time this morning. guest:

election, governor bush defeated al gore, but the outcome was not decided until five weeks after voters went to the polls. on c-span3'sand american history tv, we look back at the decision with e.j. dionne and william kristol. gore and, here is al george w. bush in their first comments to the american public after the decision was handed down. [video clip] gore: i say to president-elect bush that rancor must be put aside and may god bless his stewardship of this country. neither he nor i anticipated this long and difficult road.

certainly, neither of us wanted it to happen. yet it came, and now it has ended. resolved, as it must be resolved, through the audit institutions of our democracy. over the library of one of our great law schools is inscribed the motto, " not undermanned, but under god and law." i have tried to make it my guide throughout this contest as it has guided america's deliberations of all the complex issues of the past five weeks. now, the u.s. supreme court has spoken. let there be no doubt. while i strongly disagree with the court's decision, i accept it. i accept the finality of the outcome which will be ratified next monday in the electoral college. and tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, i offer my concession.

this is america. just as we fight hard when the stakes are high, we close ranks and come together when the contest is done. and while there will be time enough to debate our continuing differences, now is the time to recognize that which unites us is greater than that which divides us. while we yet hold and do not yield our opposing belief, there is a higher duty than the one we owe two political parties. this is america, and we put country before party. we will stand together behind our new president. george bush: our country has been through a long and trying period with the outcome of the election not finalized for longer than any of us could ever imagine. vice president gore and i put our hearts and hopes into our campaigns. we both gave it our all. so iared similar emotions,

understand how difficult this moment must be for vice president gore and his family. i was not elected to serve one party but to serve one nation. the president of the united states is the president of every single american, of every race and every background. whether you voted for me or not, i will do my best to serve your interests and i will work to earn your respect. i will be guided by president jefferson's sense of purpose to stand for principle, to be reasonable and manner, and above all, to do great good for the cause of freedom and harmony. the presidency is more than honor. it is more than an office. it is a charge to keep, and i will give it my all. now on c-span's "washington journal" and c-span3

's american history tv, we are pleased to be joined by e.j. dionne and william kristol. 20 years since the bush v. gore decision was handed down, since the concession speech by al gore any victory speech by george w. bush. do you think today that the correct person won election 2000? guest: i think so. obviously, it was incredibly close. i think most studies afterwards did show that bush if they kept counting would have won. by as such a narrow margin few hundred votes. vice president gore was gracious and responsible conceding. and we went on and got beyond that quickly in a funny way.

bush did compromise with ted kennedy on legislation a few months into his term and then there was 9/11. such a different world from our politics today. host: e.j. dionne, same question. did the correct person when election 2000 -- win election 2000? not.: i think everything showed al gore winning by more than 100 votes in the end. there were all kinds of problems i am sure we will get into. the butterfly ballot, with thousands of votes were cast for pat buchanan but intended route gore because the structure of the ballot was bad. retrospect% clear in ,s the u.s. supreme court conservative majority, discredited itself was a

decision that said we are going to take the decision about who is president out of the hands of the 4-2 voters -- florida voters and stop the recount abruptly. ruth bader ginsburg had a magnificent dissent and so did david souter who said there is no justification for denying florida the opportunity to count all the disputed ballots now. i think he was right then, he is right now. i think bush v. gore encouraged donald trump to pursue this strategy. this is something bill and i agree on 20 years later, that what trump has done is both insane and antidemocratic. i think bush v. gore encouraged trump to pursue this strategy. i will go to my grave thinking bush v. gore was a catastrophic jurisprudence and democracy. host: here is how we split up

the phone lines this morning. we want to hear from you, our viewers. democrats,, independents. special line this morning for florida voters from the 2000 election. if you were a florida voter, we want to hear your story. you can go ahead and start calling and. william kristol, it all began on election day 2000. what do you remember from election night? when did this go from being a close vote in a key state to becoming the florida moment that captured the nation's attention for five weeks? set all thaton night. one of the problems of being on set is you learn things later than everyone else with people talking through your earpiece.

there was the internet but this was pre-iphones, twitter, and everything else. not so easy to get instant information. i remember florida being called and then uncalled and gore canceling his planned concession speech. it became obvious everything hinged on florida and the margin was going to be in the hundreds, not in the thousands. it is hard to overstate how extraordinary that is. look at this year's elections which were close in key states. it was biden by 7 million votes. if he had lost arizona and wisconsin, trump would have gotten to 269. he won bydays, biden -- 20000 and 21,000.

this was 10,000. this was not 1000. we have improved our election systems since then so the butterfly ballot stuff, we did not have much of that this year. that was unintended. it was just the way the ballot was structured for some reason. people thought they were voting for gore probably and some voted for buchanan. you cannot do anything about it after the votes are cast. remember we left the set 3:30 or 4:00 a.m. it was the first time an election had not been called.

it was not the closest, i guess 1960. even that was resolved by 2:00 a.m. or so. i don't think before 2000 in modern times where you did not know who was going to win the next day. host: e.j. dionne, same question, what do you remember about that night? what drew you to join william kristol in this book? guest: i would say about the book, the reason the book is i wanted tois memorialize the argument because i thought it would be important going forward. at the time, we had been friends a long time and disagreed on a lot of things. less so now. i said i will take all the right minded cases and commentary and you will pick the wrongheaded stuff. we did this project and debated

bush v. gore for a while. for me, i think there were two beginnings of the florida moment. i was working at npr that night and on and off the air. moment tim russell wrote on the blackboard the words, "florida, florida, florida." one thing that was clear early in the night was florida was likely that citing state in the election. it turned out the vote was close in other states, notably in new hampshire. he was right. it was florida, florida, florida. i remember eli on the gore side when florida was called for gore . pulled backit was and bill described the rest of the evening accurately. [no audio]

for me, it began the next morning and underscored how the folkson was penetrated to in the country. remember my daughter said gore got the most votes, why isn't he president? that question about the electoral college we have been debating a long time but with particular ferocity and urgency since bush v. gore. host: i want to run through the timeline of the five weeks of the florida moment. that is what we are focusing on in the last half of this program. election day november 7 2000. the resultsber 27 were certified in florida with bush leading by 537 votes. on november 27, the gore

campaign contests the certification. december 8, the florida supreme court. december 11, oral arguments held at the supreme court. december 12 they issued the ruling reversing the florida supreme court. day, december 13, al gore ends his campaign. december 18, the electoral college votes. early in 2001, january 6, of 2001, that al gore presided over the certification in congress of that electoral college result. we want to hear your views on it and what you remember. we are going to start with a florida caller. this is linda. you are on with e.j. dionne and william kristol. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. number watching -- i

remember watching every minute of it on the news at night and during the day at times. is thet thing i remember was so sure the supreme court would never take the case. that stuck in my mind for years. he was so sure. hen they did take the case, was like i know what is going to happen now. but that is what i remember. host: william kristol? guest: that is interesting. i have not gone back and reviewed all. so you a florida voter remember some of the zigs and zags. i remember the powerful dissent by the chief of the lord is supreme court, but i don't remember he thought the u.s. supreme court would stay out of it.

count would the have gone on and florida would not have certified on safe harbor day. one point on e.j.'s last comment that struck me. i remember gore winning the popular vote. we were all struck by that. we had the electoral college. there was not a huge crisis about it. it is hard to change that without a constitutional amendment. it had not happened in more than a century. the political world e.j. and i grew up in, if you won the popular vote, you won the electoral college votes. it was not problematic particularly from a democratic point of view. that kind of astonishing we have had two elections in 2000 and 2016 where the winner of the popular vote lost.

votes.on by 7 million we seem to have a system where republicans had a built-in advantage for a while in the electoral college. i don't know that we want to have a national popular vote aream, but that is another where bush v. gore turned out to be not just a one off but a precursor of things to come. host: on the case itself, remind viewers what the supreme court decided in bush v. gore. there were actually two decisions. basically, the decision was, was there an equal protection problem in the way the votes were being recounted? in one polling place, different standard might be used on counting.

we learned all kinds of crazy terms like that -- back then someonepled chads when was trying to punch a hole next to one name or the other. and how these disputes were resolved. there was a 7-2 vote saying there should be some kind of standard. five-four where five conservative republican justices said this is unfair. there is no way to resolve it read stop the count. which was an arbitrary decision to cease the count where it was. it was the way in which five justices made george bush president period. that will forever be a problem. the four dissenters basically said wait a minute, even if there is an equal protection issue, and none of the five conservatives ever were sympathetic to equal protection

arguments until they were useful at a moment that would make george w. bush president, but they said give florida a chance to remedy this so we can decide the election by counting the votes, not by having the supreme court decide the case. if i can quote justice john paul stevens, he said although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. it is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. i think ever since then, confidence in particularly conservative george's -- judges general,urt, in confidence has gone down because that sure looked like a form of judicial activism. host: the caller from florida argueded david boyce who

for the bush campaign. ted olson led the arguments in the supreme court. the supreme court does not allow cameras, but they do record the audio. this case was the first time they released the audio immediately after the case was argued. i should note it was based on c-span and other news organizations joining in the request. a tasteo give viewers of what the arguments were like in the supreme court. this is david boyce first followed by ted olson. [video clip] floridaupport -- voter'scourt has held a dissent is supposed to be counted. told to fill it in with a number two pencil. it machine would not read

read it was voter error. the supreme court in 1998 said you have got to count those votes. >> powerpoint is that there are different standards for evaluating those ballots from county to county and it is a documented history in this case that there have been different 7 andrds between november the present on how those punchcards have been evaluated. palm springs started with a clear role which had been oflained to the voters as 1990. they got in to the process of evaluating these ballots and changed the standard from moment to moment during the first day and evolved from the standard that it had to be punched through to the so-called dimpled standard.

it is a reason that was done. they were not producing enough additional votes so there was pressure to change the standards. you want to listen to those arguments in their entirety, you can do so this page ofon the home american history tv. you can listen to it in several other key news events from bush v. gore on the 20th anniversary of the supreme court handing down that decision. we are taking your calls. we are joined by e.j. dionne and william kristol. next, abeverly democrat, out of beaumont, texas. caller: thank you. i have several points. considering the hanging chads, dan rather had a report after the election that the printing printed the ballots

paper that the employees would not sign off on because it was a new paper that they knew would shrink in florida's humidity. the employees did not sign off on it. it did not line up exactly correctly. manyather then also said of the chad trays that catch the chad were not emptied so that it was impossible to punch through. texas had a standard , dimples were allowing voters' intent to be known whereas in florida that was not helping his case so he switched. wanting them not to count.

many voters lost their votes deliberately. considering catherine harris' purge of 90,000 voters, most of whom were legitimate, and most of whom are democratic, that very technique is used to this challenged inen georgia. 200,000 legalmost voters have been purged. the types of mistakes made intentionally to scrub democrats off the voter rolls has got to come to an end. host: that is beverly in texas. william kristol, do you want to respond? guest: i think there has been a certain amount of voter suppression in some states. tradition thatg

when the state board of results, certifies the ast is pretty well taken demonstrable fraud or purposeful this counting of ballots or some massive ever. there was not that in florida. just the way michigan certified week or two ago and other states like georgia. the media covered that in 2020. you can go back and say maybe the rules should have been stricter on mail-in voting and maybe they should not have waived the requirement for signatures on absentee ballots, whatever. , hewhen the votes are cast should have difference. that is why many thought the florida supreme court was behaving as an imperial judiciary selecting certain

types of recounts that would help gore. the u.s. supreme court did not just stop the counting at some moment. they restored the actual, certified results by the florida election board, just the way we have seen the results by the georgia born after the recount, and michigan, and so forth. i think we did improve things after 2000 to some degree. i don't quarrel that in georgia some republicans had an prunesive attempt to voters who may or may not have been alive and legitimate off the ballots. i saw that it was more widespread among republicans in some states then i realized. that is a bad thing. to the credit of stacey abrams and many people in georgia, they fought hard in 2020 to get all

those people registered. and they were registered. there was a massive turnout. susan on the republican line, go ahead. caller: i'm kind of upset because i was told what i could not talk about when i talked with you. comparatively speaking, these two elections are different. i do remember the 2000 election. all i did was pray that george bush would win. also, this election is completely different. what we are talking about is how corrupt this last election was. we are not just talking about a few votes. but 75 million people believe the election was corrupt. on chrisen you

williams and disagree with everything you say. host: susan in california. ej, do you want to start? guest: thanks to both callers. i would note that the caller who was just on made a claim that the election was corrupt but i did not hear any particular facts connected to the claim, which unfortunately is pretty much what the truck claim has -- trump claim has been in this election. with respect to the caller, i respectfully disagree. to stay on our topic, if i could caller,to the earlier two points she made are very important. i remember all the details about the paper, the chads, and the trays. bush v. gore underscored how important basic decisions of election administration are paid i don't think we have still paid enough attention.

there were some improvements after 2000. it is one of the easy things to cut and local budgets because people will holler a lot more about the schools, parks, libraries, or other things. i am glad she pointed out those basics. secondly, disenfranchisement is an enormous problem. we see them to this day. they are a habit in republican states. that is just a factual matter. we have unfortunately reached a point, and i think today bill would agree with me, that republicans seem to be at the point where they would rather cut turnout then try to make a case to a broader electorate in a large turnout elections. that thet is important trump voters are focusing on alleged corruption that exists

and not looking that the rules have made it easier for people to vote. the president got 11 million more votes than he did four years ago. both sides in politics took advantage of rules that made it easier for people to vote. i think that is a good thing for democracy. host: about an hour left with e.j. dionne and william kristol, co-editors of the book, "bush v. gore." taking your calls throughout this morning. phone lines for republicans, democrats, independents, and florida voters. florida voters from the 2000 election, i should say, we want to hear your memories from that day here on "washington journal" on c-span and american history tv's c-span3. i want to come back to the comment you made about the moment the counting was stopped.

before the supreme court argument when they decided to take up the case, the injunction came down to halt the recounts happening in florida as the case was being argued. it was the longtime supreme court reporter david savage that argued gore lost the election then and there, lost the recount effort then and there. "q&a" to play clip from and come back and get your thoughts. [video clip] >> it had to be done by december 12. this was saturday afternoon. when the supreme court stopped the vote, you would only issue if as action like that just as you have your mind made up. five of them had their mind made up. they would not allow the weekly to continue -- allow the vote count to continue.

just to clarify, the outcome of the argument? >> i remember telling my editors , some newsoon accounts said this was a temporary measure, temporary order to keep things on hold until tuesday. i said that is one way to put it. but the truth is this is the end, this is the main decision. you would not stop the vote counting for the full weekend until early next week unless you have decided the vote count was going to end. i think from sunday and monday on, it was only a question that the court conservatives had to think of a reason for deciding what they had already decided. "q&a"david savage on our program.

do you agree? do you think the justices have their minds made up before they heard the arguments? guest: they may have had their minds made up in that they had considered the legal case. it was not exactly news it was coming to the supreme court. and decided they would uphold the original decision of the florida board. if you are inclined to do that already, you are more likely to give an injunction. it is a mistake to say there's something illegitimate about that. that is the way courts often work. injunction if you think there is a likelihood of veiling. i agree it very much indicated what was to come. i do not think it proves anything that one side's reasoning was better than the others. a lot of people have to be

involved in this conspiracy to be flipping voting machines and --ing massive myths counting ting ofnting -- miscoun mail-in ballots. quitetate courts are conservative, and they have not found any systematic fraud on any scale. saw, if an election had been stolen, you would see evidence where it looks like a state has unusual results out of kilter with what is happening down ballot or in similar states or four years ago. if you begin with a national result which is consistent with all the trolling where trump --

did betterere trump than he did in polling, and then states, youthe key ended up with perfectly reasonable results. if you end up with georgia with biden winning by eight points and losing florida by three, you could say that is unlikely and needs to be looked at. there is no evidence of anything going wrong. areona and georgia republican states with republican governors and republican down the line. they carefully recounted everything and ended up where they are. wisconsin and michigan have majority republican, quite conservative state supreme court's that upheld the decision in those states. there is no evidence of fraud.

gorby bush you can argue about because we have heard about the butterfly ballots in county recounts. there is nothing like that in this year. there is no evidence of fraud. biden won by 7 million state -- votes and three states. it is amazing trump has been his fans ofince conspiracy theories. i am sorry people are convinced by it. i blame the condensers more -- convincers more than the convinced. i hope the supreme court decision yesterday convinces majorityt is republican, that all of these claims are not correct.

i just want to say that about this question of 2020. host: e.j. dionne, i want to get your thoughts on whether the arguments in 2000 mattered or whether you thought the supreme court had their mind made up. and what should viewers know about the william rehnquist court that heard the arguments? guest: let me just say that bill and i argued passionately in 2000 about bush v. gore. i agree very much with what he just said about the election we just had. it is profoundly troubling that people are trying to set aside the results of a free election. i agree with david savage entirely. what matters more is not what i think what the justices thought at the time when they dissented from that stay. they made a very strong argument

that there was no reason to stop the recount because it would cause irreparable harm to bush, which was the claim, and they were right about this. if anything, there was a danger that a stay may cause irreparable harm to the respondents in more importantly the public at large because it would be tantamount to a decision on the merits in favor of the applicants. they were quoting from a 1977 decision. nervywas something very about the rehnquist court. when you look at the five, you asked about the nature of the appointed five were by republican presidents. all five were seen as conservative, although justice , whoa day o'connor

expressed some regret about her decision in this case, was the more moderate of them. it was a very nervy thing they did because they stayed the recount which lost three critical days. then they said later, we have to stop this altogether because there is no time to repair the problem. created the stay, they the difficulty in repairing the problem. david is absolutely right. when they shut down the recount on the saturday, the cake was baked. it was clear the same people who wanted to keep the recount going dissented in the same people who put ther bush pushed -- stay into place. i think history validates david. host: plenty of colors for you on the 20th anniversary of the

supreme court handing down the bush v. gore decision. lucille in california, independent, go ahead. caller: i have something else to add about sandra day o'connor. she was going to resign. her husband was very ill. they convinced her to stay. that decision was made early before the vote. the governorr was of florida. we had a crazy thing happened where the senate changed control. two changed from their parties and gate control of the senate back to the democrats to stop the craziness the republicans were doing when they could not

remove clinton. anyway, that is my comment. host: william kristol? guest: a lot happened in 2001. party in the summer. the senate switched majority control to the democrats. the main thing that happened was 9/11. e.j. and i have talked about this before. the book was e.j.'s brainchild and produced very well by brookings where e.j. is a senior fellow. collaboratoro be a and selected the pieces on the right side of the argument to make sure they were read by the liberals. it feels like another era. in the senseds up that a lot of it is beyond the details. a lot of it is on the details of the cases in voting.

but a lot of it is more democratic theory of elections and the courts. the pieces stand up to sophisticated debate. happy to edit the book. i remember doing a panel that e.j. and i did lose a couple of professor types -- i did with a couple of professor types who assigned the book in their classes. this would be a huge topic for the next months going forward. it is always on labor day weekend the beginning of september. week later, it was 911. bush v. gore was overtaken quickly. republicans worked together reasonably well on a lot of issues. the bitterness may have lingered

beneath the surface, but it did not burst out as much as people expect. i think vice president gore deserves credit for his concession and statesmanship he showed on december 13. voter,nother florida miami, this is mark. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, mark. caller: a couple of things struck me from this conversation. back in bush v. gore, the democrats were looking to gain votes by looking at dimpled chads and hanging chads. to now, they are looking pull apart these ballots and take the signatures away so they cannot be verified or stop verifying altogether. they are trying to jump on both sides of the ball where they want to count everything on both times.

back then, they did not have any mail-in ballots like they did. in florida, you had to request a ballot, not just get it mailed out to you. some criticism has come against the republicans for printing the voter rolls and things like this. this just smacks of fraud. it undermines our democracy and a huge weight. it undermines the ability to vote. dissatisfied with how many states are dealing with this, especially pennsylvania. when you look at florida, thank goodness our governor, rick scott, came in and removed the counties andn two we have had little problem with the election. thank goodness.

i remember being a laughingstock at the time. host: e.j. dionne? guest: a couple of things. thanks to the caller. basically, florida was not controversial because trump carried it by a sizable margin of 300,000 or 400,000 votes. a reasonable margin covers up other issues. then't understand inconsistency he is talking about. .his is a strange argument i know you came in on the democratic line but that sounds like the argument trump is making about signatures. in terms of making ballots widely available, letting more people vote in a pandemic, it strikes me as a very strange argument that people would say there something terribly

wrong with mail-in ballot when president has voted by mail in election after election. the notion you would make it easier to get an absentee ballot or mail ballot in the time of a pandemic when you do not want crowded polling places, that does not strike me as anything political. that strikes me as a very intelligent public health measure trying to protect voters. that is what happened in the selection. democratss true that seemed to be more likely to take advantage of mail-in voting when president trump attacked mail-in voting, a lot of voters for president trump also chose to vote by mail because they did not want to go to a crowded polling place. i deeply disagree without caller. i cannot think there is inconsistency.

democrats in 2000 wanted to recount all of florida's ballots. the bottom line to me about what went wrong in florida is if it had been a race for attorney general and it were a 500-vote margin, you would simply recount the votes in the whole state. that is what we would do. in georgia, the normal democratic thing, the normal recount response would be biden is ahead, biden will object to the recount. biden did not object to the recount. georgia did a whole recount in the biden lead -- and the biden lead held up. virgi georgia vote was relativy close. they recounted the votes. the lead held up. i don't get what the caller was

trying to get at but i respect him for having strong views on the election. that is what happens in a democracy. host: in this election in florida, donald trump won the state by 371,000 votes. that is in comparison to the year 2000 when george w. bush was certified the winner by 537 votes. jim is next out of silver spring, maryland, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. e.j. and william, it is a privilege to speak with you guys. i have met each of you several times on the streets of d.c. quick background. grew up in a democratic household in conservative philadelphia. this is a difficult time for me and my family. my uncle was the late great roland evans, wonderful journalist, great career.

he had just been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. it was such a difficult time. i was on staff at the national trust for historic preservation. i was commuting to work that day. i will never forget this. it was such an amazing expense for me. i thought i would stop by the steps of the supreme court and voice my opinion. it was remarkable. there were several ragtag groups of citizens milling about. there was a very conservative group. a gentleman was a bullhorn was more."got i have a loud voice and started shouting, " count the votes in florida." all of these groups started rallying around me. suddenly, there was a standoff and debate that took place on

the spot on the plaza of the supreme court. i had a wonderful time talking to a gentleman who came up from bob jones university and drove through the night to be there that morning for the decision. my argument was that state law about lessdictated than .5% would automatically have to be recounted. i am sticking to that. that was my point. count the votes in florida. i ended up leaving the scene after being interviewed by the press and so on. the next day, i was just amazed. i was on "the washington times" arguing the case. i later found out i was on all the websites. i had relatives from around the world calling me, what are you doing? get to work. it was an amazing experience and a very sad one because i loved

al gore. i thought he would have been a great president. he had the greatest background and experience for the job. and then we went into such a difficult time. it is quite a day today. about theppy selection. -- this election. as a southern philadelphian, it is a tremendous, exciting day. no one from that area of the country has ever gotten this far in our political history. i am just overwhelmed with joy. i am very optimistic. it is an incredibly difficult time for us right now. host: thank you for the call. thank you for sharing your memories. i should note roland evans appears in the c-span video library seven times, the first video going back to 1988, if you want to revisit some of those events he is on this network.

william kristol on the story? guest: wonderful story. roland evans, i did not know him that well. he was one generation ahead of me at least. impressive man, long career, writing a column. i grew up reading evans and novak. i got interested in politics at a young age and would read the column they wrote. it is great to hear from the caller. host: mr. dionne on that story? guest: the same. is one ofld tribune" the greatest papers that passed away. in the 1960's, they started their column. it appeared in "the washington post" for many years. i think he hit on two points that are central. first of all, thanks for the personal recollection.

vote" wasount every the slogan. i still have a poster from the afl-cio at the time that said, "this is america, count every vote." that was the one and only principal. i appreciate his underlining the idea that in any other race, we would have just counted all the ballots. why not in florida in 2000? i wrote aboutumn, this through the controversy about florida. the last column ran under the headline, "so much for states rights." it was astounding to me and still is that a conservative majority on the supreme court would step in and say we are going to override the ability of the florida supreme court to make a ruling on how a state election should be carried out, how and election in a state should be carried out under state law. the decision of

the florida court. their argument is they have the right to intervene because it is a federal election, except that is not an argument that conservatives typically made so they contradicted their court position. i think that is underscored by what the caller said. thanks for that great call. host: "so much for states 2000,," washington post, reprinted in the book, "bush v. gore." the coeditors of that book joining us for the next 40 yearss as we look back 20 on the bush v. gore case. in ohio, republican, basil, good morning. caller: good morning.

we have gone into the legal system that runs the country now . all sorts of criminality has gone on. attorneys have stepped into sue and bring charges. the supreme court refuses to recognize it, all attorneys of course. the american population is no longer run by farmers and factory workers as it was originally intended to be in this country. we are so overwrought with laws that people throw at us. wearing masks, mandating what we must do as the american public. who do you people think you are kidding? we are americans. we are no longer free as we were as americans. we have laws hindering us in our growth and love for each other. host: william kristol, do you want to respond? guest: in fact, the lawyers and judges whether at the local, state, or federal level, have almost uniformly said we will

not resolve the selection. we will not pretend we can sit here and do some detailed investigation of every vote. to trust the local election officials. those people who work for and mostly volunteer to run elections. they are not mostly lawyers. they are not interested in persecuting fellow americans. more people voted in this election than ever before. lawyers have less influence on the outcome than ever before. they ratified the popular outcome. they did not change the popular outcome. i could not disagree more. the earlier caller about mail-in voting, that is a legitimate debate. in a pandemic, i think it is important to have that option. some states are more friendly to it. other states had gone all the way to mail-in voting. it is states rights.

in that respect, the system remains state focused. that is decided by the legislatures of each state and by the governor and the people the governor appoints. that is not a conspiracy of lawyers. i disagree on that. florida as a much higher percentage of mail-in ballots than a lot of the states that biden won. it has always been a heavy mail and state and this year was even more so as you would expect. it is true that trump voters , mostlyo vote in person because trump was so hostile to mail-in voting even though he does it himself. there is no correlation. utah and it is entirely a male and state. more people voted this time with

less evidence of fraud or systematic ever than ever before. the notion that voting on the same day in election booths is so wonderful and fraud free, which is another weird trump really, tell the people in chicago there is no fraud. both of the famous cases of fraud have to do with same-day voting, not mail-in voting. final point on this. i voted in virginia by mail. i ended up bringing it in because i did not trust the post office. you request the ballot. in some states -- you are often mailed a chance to request the ballot. you request the ballot. you get it. you sign the envelope. you don't sign the ballot because we have secret elections, secret voting in the u.s.

you sign the envelope. you see that it has arrived. it is taken out and counted separately because you do not want people knowing how bill kristol voted for john smith or whatever. the whole system seems to have worked without a hitch. biden won the state by what he was predicted to win it by. if people want to have a more theoretical debate, i am interested in that. you do not want too much early voting. people do not get the benefit of anything they might learn in the last two or three weeks. the system was set up in different states by the elected officials of those states. in a few cases, the courts made a couple of weeks and made it tweaks and made it easier to vote by mail.

we had a big turnout. the notion the lawyers are running america and we cannot do free and fair elections? this was a free and fair election with huge turnout. host: about half an hour left with e.j. dionne and william kristol. on the line for democrats, good morning. caller: i voted by mail. i called the courthouse and they sent me the proper information. i would like to know what katherine harris' role was in the florida election. i have not heard her name mentioned. another thing. trump's favorability rating is about 45%. i don't understand why people think he should have won the election. he certainly did not have the popularity. even though he drew big crowds,

they just seemed to be the same people over and over again. i don't think that had anything to do it. i think he was not a very popular president. the voting for biden proved it. thank you. host: mr. dionne on katherine harris and bring it back to bush v. gore. guest: thanks for that call. i too voted by mail and requested a ballot. . dropped it in the box it was a good system and a good way to make it easier for people to vote. i just want to underscore what the caller and bill said about that. thousands and thousands of people all over the country. my sister is watching today, head of the board of canvassers in rhode island. the folks who worked hard to make it easier to vote in a very

difficult time. katherine harris was the secretary of state in florida. she was appointed by jeb bush who happened to be the brother of the presidential candidate, and obviously there has been controversy to this day about how decisions were made. all decisionssay the came to catherine harris were made in favor of bush, not in favor of gore. there were a lot of arguments about those decisions and it should be said, nonetheless, under state law in florida, there is leeway given to local officials to count votes. where recounts happened there were, you know, they were very open recounts with republican judges and democratic -- not court judges. just people sitting in the polling places watching them be

recounted. republicans could challenge a decision made or democrats could challenge a decision made. a recount is a very small democratic thing to do. process and,parent to this day, i wish we could have just recounted all those votes. the one area where i will agree gore should've started with the demand for a statewide recount. there is a reason he did not do it. all kinds of people were beating up on al gore for just not accepting the results on election night when the margin was this close. the gore people were saying, we are only asking for recounts in these three counties. in the long run, they would have been better off to make the basic argument, let's recount the votes in the state and however that works, we will have

a result. host: i want to show viewers where it ended for al gore. january 6, moment 2001 presiding as president of the senate over the certification of the electoral college vote. here is two minutes from that day. [video clip] >> the vote for president of the united states is as follows. 538 ofle number voted is which the majority is 270. george w. bush of the state of texas received 271 votes. al gore of the state of tennessee has received 266 votes. the state of the vote for vice president, as delivered to the president of the senate, is as

follows. the whole number appointed to vote for vice president is 538 of which the majority is 270. dick cheney of the state of wyoming received, for vice president, 271 votes. joe lieberman of connecticut received 266 votes. this announcement of the state of the vote by the president of the senate shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons elected president and vice president of the united states, each for the term beginning on the 20th day of january 2001 and shall be entered, together with the list of votes, on the journals of the senate and house of representatives. may god bless our new president and our new vice president. may god bless the united states of america. [applause] al gore on january 6,

2001. crystal, your thoughts on the significant of that moment. guest: it is such a democratic moment. this is something very stately. we have an unusually long transition, two and a half months between election day inauguration. chiefthe vice president's of staff and i remember dan quayle presiding in 1983 and defeated ticket. gore presided over his own defeat. dick cheney did the same thing in 2009, announcing the victory of barack obama and joe biden. and joe biden in 2017 announced to the victory of donald trump and mike pence. important, i think --

well, very important as a symbolic matter of how proud we andthat we have a peaceful orderly transfer of power in this country. one legitimate administration to the next. i very much hope the vice president pence to do the same. there might be troublemaking attempts among republican house members and senators. they have the right to object. i think it is very important that vice president pence, whatever donald trump does, behaves in a respectful way. host: mr. dionne. guest: bill already underscored how gracious gore was. i think that is important to thought tocause he get the votes recounted in florida, he had a right to do that. it was a very divisive time.

as we can see from the conversation today, it still divides americans. once it was resolved it was extraordinary how much grace he brought to this vote when he finally conceded after the supreme court decision he disagreed with. presided over the counting of these ballots, if you believe in democracy -- and in 2020ave our election which was not close. it was close in a number of states, but in all of them, the closeness went in favor of joe biden. four years ago we had even closer votes and some of the same states that went to donald trump. hillary clinton did not object. hillary clinton did not say, there is fraud or pretend things happened that did not happen. we should take a lesson from gore, the one you just showed

and the other examples that bill cited earlier, if you believe in democracy, you have to accept defeat as well as victory. host: back to the phone lines on the 20th anniversary of the supreme court handing down the bush v. gore decision. caller: i would like you to explain the electoral college. there should be one system, no ins.il host: william kristol, would you like to talk about the electoral college? caller: it was supposed to be a group of electors that would select the president.

more of a sense that the presidency cannot have some referendum among the people who would not know who the candidates are, especially in a different day and age. that ended pretty quickly. we had a party system. the electoral college became somewhat similar to what it has remained which is basically the way in which the votes get collected state-by-state and ratified. other things were changed. 1877, after the 1876 federal law did regulate electors counting the vote and then congress acting on january 6. what we have been talking about is mostly driven by that

legislation. federalways was legislation as well as constitutional provisions that govern presidential elections in particular. we do not have a national system. other countries do. we could. if we went to a national system, it would be a popular vote system i think. it would not be a state-by-state vote system. those who do not like the electoral college, they will end up with a national system. that would've helped biden more. i do not think republicans have electe rallied to the electoral college. i'm not sure there's much point debating it. there are ways to tweak it to make it more responsive to the popular vote. i do not think it will fundamentally change. aroundns are organized fighting for key states.

if we are starting over again, we would end up with a different system. it has worked pretty well most of the time. i am worried if we will end up with election after election with a popular vote and national vote are different, we might have a difference in legitimacy. trump is done so much damage. people are throwing around charges that it is rate, ho ax. votesonsistent pattern of so it is not as if you look up in philadelphia, which is usually democratic, is suddenly voting republican or rural areas are voting democratic after they are trending republican for 20 or 30 years. there was a swing away from pointsy a few percentage that was consistent with polling. we had a successful election in a pandemic. trump outperformed the polls but

was rejected by voters. some percentage of the voters were willing to say, no second term for trump, but i prefer a republican congress or state legislator. totally consistent, reasonable. citizens across the and responsibly handled in almost every case by the governors, the election commissioners, the secretaries of state, and by the state courts. the supreme court just kind of ratified that. they did not change anything yesterday. it was a success and it is terrible the president is convincing some percentage of his voters, not all, but a big percentage that we have a rigged, undemocratic election system. host: 15 minutes left this

morning. plenty of calls for you two gentlemen. we had to florida. this is walter in west palm beach. caller: good morning. the 2000to comment on election. one of the things i remember is that when we received our ballot in the mail it was the sample ballot. i commented to my wife that the ballot looked strange because it was difficult to be able to tell exactly who to were voting for. when that happened one of the with wasat we resulted the butterfly ballot. there were some people who thought they were voting for gore and ended up voting for buchanan.

that was one of the things that was really strange and it is my story that i always remember. the other thing i want to comment on is if the guests would address the article in the atlantic in which the whole question was raised about whether or not there are some people who are contesting the current election and saying there was a lot of fraud. really they do not believe the people who voted for biden are real americans. that in fact the people who supported trump are the real americans. when they say there is fraud and legitimacyere is no to all of those votes out of large cities in the north or atlanta, in fact they are saying, these people are not real americans.

we are the real americans because we support trump. these people are immigrants, people of color, and therefore they have no legitimacy. host: we got your point, walter. he brings up several issues. where do you want to start? guest: bless you for the call. thank you so much. boy, are you write about the butterfly ballot. some democratic officials early on looked at the ballot, gone back to the board of elections and said, my god, look how confusing this ballot is. highern's vote was way in that jurisdiction and in a place that was very, very democratic. there was no way he should have gotten that vote. most of those votes were intended for gore. there was no easy way to fix that. by the way, there was a law

passed earlier and nobody knew how it would affect the election. it made it easier for third-party candidate to get on the ballot which helped create these complicated ballots in the election. it is the ultimate in unintended consequences. on his second point, he is so right to cite the idea that what often is called "fraud" on the selection's objection to who is casting ballots. that supreme court lawsuit throughout last night. lawsuitageous, comical trying to set aside the selection. it was comical but also kind of scary in the way it went. i made a count of how often democratic cities with large black populations were mentioned and if i remember right, wayne county which is where detroit is, was mentioned 11 times, the

lucky seven times, philadelphia six times. they noted that wayne county was by and large double the statewide margin as if it was a crime -- they did not say it -- as if there was something terrible about the fact wayne county helped decide the state of michigan. yes, there is something deeply disconcerting about the way in which, not all of them, but i like the residents, supporters in all his propaganda are talking about fraud. i think the caller and the atlantic piece make very good points. host: columbia, south carolina this is charles on the line for republicans. caller: good morning. i think the people voted for biden are real americans, people who voted for trump are real americans. i do not think: propaganda is helpful.

i am a reasonable person. all i want to know is is the person that cast the ballot eligible to vote? are they not dead? are they not one of the m.i.t. estimates 22 illegal aliens? we do not want movers to vote and there are so many loose voter rolls handed by the democratic machines in metropolitan areas like detroit or chicago. it was done so loosely. you are throwing balance out the door and you do not verify whether the signatures match with the person who voted. i think reasonable people like me -- another thing from the 16 vote, you had social media blocking any conservative voice or comments on twitter and facebook. then you had the hunter biden story come out where the media

that is normally curious about russian hoax totally ignored the story. all reasonable people want is a , and want to know the people who are voting are eligible. we want to verify who is voting. host: that was charleston south carolina. william kristol, to that comment, how much with these concerns about potentially illegal people voting evident in 2000 or was this more about under votes and over votes and whether people accurately filled out there ballot back in 2000? guest: 2000 is fundamentally different because it was a precise dispute about how to count ballots and recount certain ballots and even whether to recount certain ballots. everyone understood the swing was going to be hundreds or a

thousand. that 22,000iming illegal people are here. guest: 22 million i think he said. guest: 22 million, i misspoke. but wisconsin famously, under governor walker, tightened voting registration and all kinds of ways. georgia purged 20,000 from the rolls. trump lost an election very closely that he got in 2016 and suddenly there is fraud. really? maybe there is massive fraud in south carolina. how do we know? milwaukee is a place of fraud more than rural area south carolina? the election had to be done in 2018 in rural north carolina had to be redone.

that was genuine election fraud. so much so that they did redo the election. congress and the republican won. it was the same result so he it fairly,ly -- won but the democrats did not scream and yell. most local officials were mostly republican. notion -- thise has been happening for a while -- but trump has convinced people that there is systemic fraud. the republican governor of and they care about winning. each state had its own system with a mix of different hours

votes, vote, mail in signature fai verification. beyond fingers on one hand of people voting who should not have voted, people have not been able to show mass illegal voting. again, i really think it is unfortunate people have bought this. they tend to think it is the other side doing the dirty stuff and people who are not like them. that is unfortunate. whereou get to a position they are not treated as fellow a americans. say that only to --tain parts of the country

and again without evidence and with republican governors in arizona and georgia going over it and recounting it twice by hand and saying, that was the vote. what is the claim? host: mr. dionne before we get, close to the end, i wanted to ask about when it came to bush v. gore, the legacy of the justices involved in that case. on "at to april of 2008 60 minutes" interview of scalia saying get over it. it is nonsense to say this decision was politically motivated. inconnor,ndra day 2013, she said "it took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue.

maybe the court should have said, we are not going to take it. goodbye." your view on how the justices viewed that case in the years afterward. guest: boy, i wish justice o'connor, got arrestor so, made that decision back in 2000. we would have been saved a lot of controversy. we could have had a recount. given how close it was while the best showed gore winning by 100 votes, by the time litigation was over it would have been for bush by a similar margin. we would have really known who won. i had the great opportunity at an event -- complete different subject -- the university of chicago to ask justice scalia, whom i agree disagreed with, and i have not gotten over it and , and what really

struck me in my conversation with him -- and since he is not here and cannot refute me i do not want to quote him -- but i was as unpersuaded at the end. he was a brilliant man. i expected maybe there was something i missed, but as far as i could tell there was nothing i missed. the decision was as partisan as it looked at the time. they used in equal protection doctrine many of them usually rejected. state andvened in a these were justices who normally had a high bar of protection for states' rights. theys pointed out earlier stopped the recount and said, there is no time to resolve this. that seemed like cooking the books a bit. i know the bill and i disagree that. i think the effectiveness of this has been, after years and

years of talking liberal judicial activists, we have moved to an era -- and there are a number of conservatives that will acknowledge this -- that we moved to an era of conservative judicial activism. view ingore altered my some ways of what conservative judges actually did. i was always aware we were tilting toward conservative activism, but i think we are seeing a lot of it now. i have to underline the notable exception the supreme court yesterday saying they were not going to let this extraordinarily partisan case brought by texas on behalf of president trump -- i'm grateful in this case they said no. this makes no sense. host: william kristol, the last two columns in the book that you

gentlemen worked on together, the headline is "what we remember in 2050 about bush v.." columns from the time. what do you think today about that question? what will we remember in 2050 about bush v. gore? guest: what is the joke about the chinese revolution? and weck in 1000 years will tell you what the meaning of it was? i sort of feel we are in the middle of a huge debate in the country about elections. we have seen that on the show today. about the courts, the nature of the republican party, democratic party, and we will not know if this was a harbinger of something, was a one-off, is it a better world where we are having precise disputes about one election and not pulling the

system into question? we are certainly not calling it successful or legitimate. i guess i do not know. being to think of it as an earlier era and a different kind of fight. maybe not. 2050, whationne, will we remember? guest: i will take bill's point here where bush v. gore may be the beginning of an argument about how we should conduct presidential elections. i think the electoral college misfiretinue to relative to the popular vote because of the way we relocated as americans. it only represents overly populated states and the proportion of countries will be to the metro areas at least until the pandemic. that means it will be more and

more out of whack with the popular vote. somehow i think we need to move toward the popular vote. it will also be part of a continuing debate about how we organize our elections. it is interesting we are having this discussion after the pandemic election where we learned there are ways of organizing elections to increase participation. afterwere certain reforms but it encouraged greater participation. ithink we will look back at as a broad trajectory of change in how we conduct elections. are in ae changes direction that involves broader participation and clearer rules so that we can avoid the fights we had run bush v. gore.

host: william kristol and ej dionne, coeditors of the book. i want to thank you both. theion is senior fellow at brookings institution and william kristol editor at large. we really appreciate both of your time. thank you for taking us back 20 years in history. guest: thank you. guest: thank you to the callers. host: if you missed any part of that conversation this morning, or if you want to watch it again, it re-airs tomorrow night on sunday at 6:30 and 10:30 p.m. eastern on american history tv which airs all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. ♪ that will do it for our program today. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern at 4:00 a.m. pacific. have a great saturday. ♪

♪ announcer: saturday afternoon a rally in washington, d.c. in support of president trump's efforts to overturn the election results. organized by women for america first we will have live coverage at noon eastern on c-span. state electors of the

electoral college cast their votes monday for president of the united states. watch c-span's live all day coverage at the results come in. starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern from indianapolis in the meeting of the 11 electors. at 11:30 a.m. eastern, delaware's electors meet in dover. at noon from harrisburg, the meeting of pennsylvania's 20