ultimately, as somebody with a disability, we want to see ourselves represented, because ultimately we are not seeing ourselves -- we are seeing ourselves represented, but it will destigmatize disability. representation gets society used to everybody. it makes the world and more inclusive place. >> an actor found the easter seals disability film challenge in response to seeing disabilities underrepresented in front of and behind a camera. sunday night on q&a, he will talk about this year's entries and winning films. 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a.

♪ good morning and welcome to "washington journal." the pandemic has taken hundreds of thousands of american lives but has also affected the united states and otherwise. the numbers of drug overdoses has skyrocketed with the largest number of americans ever dying of overdoses during this time. cities and states are trying to keep up while fighting the pandemic at the same time, but it is becoming harder and harder. our topic this morning, what do you think about drug overdoses hitting record numbers during the pandemic? linesn up our regional for this conversation. that means if you are in the eastern or central time zones we want to hear from you at (202)-748-8000.

if you are in mountain or pacific, we want to hear from you at (202)-748-8001. we are going to open up our lines for text. text your opinion at always48-8003 and we are reading on social media on cspanwj and facebook. we are talking about drug overdoses during the pandemic, but we first want to bring you up-to-date in nashville. we are on top of that this morning. i want to bring to you with the nashville, tennessee has written about the explosion in nashville. nashville authorities believe an explosion that occurred in downtown nashville christmas acting was an intentional

sparked by a vehicle. police came across a suspicious rv parked outside a building your 2nd avenue and commerce while initially responding to calls of shots fired in the area. the rv was playing a recording indicating it contained an explosive device and telling people to evacuate the area. police confirmed three people were hospitalized with injuries. area areakers in the also tweeting out concerns about the pandemic and i want to bring you some of those. first comes from senator marsha blackburn who writes, thank you for the police in nashville for your life-saving actions. these officers are true professionals that put their lives on the line to save innocent civilians. this comes from representative

burket, i am praying for everyone. thank you to all first responders and law enforcement officers for working at the scene. i'm going to bring you one more coming from jim cooper who says, praying for all residents of downtown nashville on this christmas day. as we go through the show we will keep our eyes on what is going on in nashville. if something breaks, we will let you know. we are going to start with our conversation about the drug overdoses going on in the united states. the centers for disease control and prevention put out this press release friday talking about the overdose deaths. i'm going to read a paragraph or two. deaths,000 drug overdose occurred in the united states in the 12 months ending may 2020, the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12

month period. according to provisional data from the centers of disease control and prevention, while overdose deaths were already increasing proceeding the coronavirus disease the latest numbers suggest an acceleration of overdose deaths during the pandemic. we want to know what you think about the cdc saying drug overdoses are hitting a record high. let's go to our phone lines and talk to a couple of people. we will start with darrell from fredericksburg, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. , pedro.rick, maryland host: my name is actually jesse. go ahead. caller: i am sorry, jesse. i am not surprised. what do you expect? overdoses have been off the

chart and with this pandemic, not wearing masks and social distancing, most drug addicts hang with each other. it is not surprising it has taken off. it has never really slowed down. it is just that this pandemic has made it three times worse. that is my comment. host: we talked to david calling from atlanta, georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. agree but do not agree. what bothered me is that before the pandemic, the biggest concern we had in our country was addiction and it was the overdose problem, that is what we pushed so hard. i think we left those individuals behind, active addicts, once the pandemic got down.

they were talking about testing and doing everything but they never added the addicts into the equation until recently. there was an individual on your program i think the week before last talking about legalizing marijuana and i think with the opioid epidemic in india there is serious chemical addiction that cannabis would help. we are stuck right now with not trying to legalize it. a lot of states cannot help the addicts. before i go, the scary thing is, in colorado, they just legalized now it will be legal for them to have small amounts of methamphetamines, heroin, and other serious drugs that scared me. i hope we do not go that way in our country like they do in europe.

i really think that will make the addiction situation a lot worse. andpe we look more at them work them into our pandemic schedule. thank you. host: talk to diana calling from preston, idaho. good morning. pandemic ande the during the pandemic people that use drugs are self-medicating. a lot are self-medicating and they have mind disorder sent depression and bipolar and anxiety and ptsd and all kinds of mind disorders. a lot have not been diagnosed and that is their only way to cope. worse gotten extremely since the pandemic. senator rob portman talked

about the pandemic when he gave comments on the relief legislation. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> we have a pandemic within a pandemic within a pandemic. we wereid side of this, finally making progress, and now we are going to have the worst year ever in terms of the number of people who have died from an overdose. it will be the worst year ever. after we finally made progress. 20 years of this and we were turning the corner. 22% reduction in ohio a couple of years ago and now we are back. it is the isolation, the despair, the joblessness. , not beingrs, too able to meet with your recovery coach and we know about the suicide rates. i appreciate working on that and would provide some help. host: let's go back to the phone

lines and talk to jim calling from clarksburg, west virginia. good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. it's not about addiction, it is about depression. people are starved and in congress they are playing games. trump is playing games with people's lives. he is golfing while people are dying. you have got to sit back and look at this. what is wrong with this country? it is really sad. thanks. host: let's go back and see a little bit more about what the cdc is saying is the primary driver of this drug overdose epidemic. according to the cdc, synthetic manufactured,rily of your to be the driver of the increases in deaths. -- 38.4% inhe 8.4%

the 12 month period leading up to june 2019 compared with the 12 month period leading up to may 2020. jurisdictions.s. with available synthetic opioid data reported increases. 18 reported increases greater than 50%. 10 western states reported over a 98% increase in synthetic opioid involved deaths. deaths involving cocaine also increased 26.5%. they are probably linked to illicitly manufactured heroin or fentanyl. areant to here what you seeing in your communities.

dan: from to cleveland, ohio -- calling from cleveland, ohio. caller: good morning. happy holidays and hopefully a nice day yesterday. i just wanted to make a couple of comments. it seems to me that years ago, and i am old. ofemember the commercials this is your brain on drugs and, i don't know, it seems like a democratic thing. giving people places to shoot up. they're promoting this stuff. they want to keep people stupid. you do not take any responsibility for your own life. some of these addicts know that if something happens there are

going to be police. it is a different country now. i remember years ago when things used to be illegal and now they are promoting it. i am not just talking about marijuana. i'm talking about shooting up heroin and all this other stuff. it seems like this country has no values. why would you be promoting this stuff, trying to make it legal? it is not good for you. host: let's talk to don calling from washington. caller: good morning. say most of the fetanyl comes not from the united states, it comes from china. we need to address that problem and the things we heard over the "walld about c-span and

street journal" in the dark money from china is true? host: i actually have no idea what don is talking about, so we go to joe calling from new hartford, iowa. joe, are you there? caller: good morning. host: go ahead. i've never really sat around a tv or had a tv to watch, so i have not really seen c-span before. i stumbled upon it in the hotel room. i have been a participant in a lot of what has been the distribution of a lot of things that have been fed to our communities. i will not get too far into that, but i have had a

firsthand, personal experience on my own of realizing how bad it gets when the quarantine has happened and we are subjected to our own mental states of acceptance or denial of the things going on and how we are able to run from them. i feel it makes total sense things have spiked in terms of deaths related to substance abuse. it is remarkably beautiful to see this is being talked about. ddict myself since nine when i started cigarettes, it's good to come to a point now to know that -- calling fromo elle new york. caller: i am heartsick this morning. but theyrned you on

are talking -- like that young man who said he started when he was 9 -- they are the most promoters of death, cigarettes and alcohol. i lived with it all my life. i'm going to be 90 and my husband suffered the 50 years we were married and i lost 15 members of my family to smoking. what i'm really concerned about, i have been fighting the mergers of the unborn for over 30 years trying to get people to realize, you cannot vote on murder. we have our wonderful governor cuomo who says, when i put my head down at night, i know i saved lives. that man put a bill through this year in albany that a woman could go up to six months. hitler. is worse than --t: johnson is calling from

jonathan is calling from minneapolis, minnesota. caller: good morning, merry christmas and happy new year, and all that stuff we are supposed to be doing. i have been sober 27 years this month and let me explain to people that are out there in tv addict andyou are an doing this by yourself or the holidays because you are a kind person staying home and isolated from your family, and especially if you do not live in the same city, it is very hard and emotionally draining for the alcoholic or recovering person. if you need help, and you really need help, feel free to tweet me 2. uncle jonathan_ i will talk to you all night long if you need help. reach out and say, hey, i am struggling. people do not want to hear your

problems, but you have to pick and choose who you talk to about how you are feeling with the overdosing. people in this country are sad, emotionally drained, and hard to talk to people. host: let me interrupt real quick. as a former addict yourself, where would you suggest someone who thinks they have a problem with drugs, we you suggest they go? do you go to a hospital? who do you call? what do you do? caller: for me, and i have had a sponsor 27 years, without my friend michael i would not be alive. i would be dead. if i know this. if you need help, call the trevor hotline which is a line for people who are thinking about suicide, and they will connect you to people who will get you through sober. minneapolis, the hennepin medical,dical -- not

i'm forgetting the word -- but where they give you your disability, they can help you find a way to get into treatment. call your local offices and talk to people online and say, i am struggling. i had a horrible light last night because my grandfather passed away years ago on christmas. i called and said, hey, i'm struggling and 18 people said there were services that have therapists that will help you. he may have to pay $20 but i would rather have people talk to someone instead of jumping off the bridge. host: let me ask you another thing. beingll of the hospitals filled with coronavirus patients, are those services even available? are there enough medical personnel to deal with both covid-19 and people who need help because of drugs?

caller: honestly, i do not know because i have not had to use that service. go onlinebeing said, and search for a therapist situation and that is what i have been using to make my mental state ok. if you need help with depression or your anxiety, i had to get on antianxiety medication because of the craziness of the world. in minneapolis, it is twice as bad so now we have the cold and we are going to be stuck inside. it just keeps getting worse. if people cannot understand you need to talk with him for more than 10 minutes, they are not your friends. be patient with yourself. if you are out there and need help, reach out to a 1-800 number. i will send you the link to the

trevor project and whatever you need. twitter, tweet out the number for the suicide prevention, alcoholics anonymous, and the other one that i cannot think of right now. tweet out the numbers for people to have helped. if you tweet one thing, that could help sunday stay alive. you have done your job this morning. callingt's talk to joni from louisiana. good morning. caller: hi. how are you? it amazes me because i spent 10 years in aa and there's only one solution i ever saw for a drug problem and it is a spiritual solution. that is with the 12 steps are about. it is so ironic because we live in a society where nobody can speak about god so everybody has

to keep it politically correct. -- the onlytion now solution now is a spiritual solution. clean gotten 100 people and sober myself, but because it is so politically correct nobody can speak about it. since i have been reading the bible since i was six i could speak about it in a way that i'm unable to offend anybody. i was able to help hundreds of people. i always wondered why is it a spiritual solution? they have a 5% success rate. we are spending billions of dollars with a 5% success rate and that is insane. if they would just say what it really is, they want is a higher power and this, but it came from the bible. if you read the whole bible, you would do the 12 steps on a daily basis. host: let's see what some social media followers are saying about

the number of drug overdoses hitting a record high during the pandemic. here's a post from facebook that says, you people just realizing this? it has been horrible since bush. president trump warned us. it is illegal drugs, not prescriptions. discriminate and neither does the guile corner. congress has nobody to blame but themselves and the two radical governors. reopen american now. says, a basic human need is to be with other people. we are social souls. deprived of that it drives people mad. drugs are used to ease the panic of isolation. circumstances, people feel alone in society and now it is beyond unbearable for many. whost on facebook says, can sit home as hope wanes and there's nothing to do? unfortunately, drug abuse is a coping mechanism and some people

do not make it. , who didost says, geez not know that would happen? think of how so many kids are suffering. one last post from facebook that says, drug overdoses and domestic violence are on the upswing. clearly the increases are due to the shutdown. before we go back to our calls we wanted you to see senator tom carpenter speaking about the ope opioid epidemic and cutting on fnl coming into united states -- fentanyl coming down on the note states. [video clip] diedre than 71,000 people of drug overdoses in 2019. we will surpass that total in 2020. communities in delaware and ohio be among the hardest hit in the country, with states reporting higher risk of overdose deaths than almost any other.

those are men and women, young people, old people who have children, parents, spouses, who are dead. when i joined senator portman in leading this subcommittee in january 2017 we started almost four years ago. we looked into how americans were getting the drugs that were getting them in record numbers. -- eating them and killing them in record numbers -- our staff communicated with drug dealers based in china who offered to ship them fentanyl and other drugs. private shippers were an option, but the international mail system was preferred. since we published a report and held a hearing on findings in january 2018, almost two years

ago, significant progress has been made in addressing some challenges that made the u.s. postal service and foreign post around the world vulnerable to drug smuggling. host: let's go back to the phone lines and talk to catherine who is calling from new york. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for having me on. overdose and use of drugs is due to our medical profession and the attitudes we have in america that say, just take the drug. do not find another way out of your problems. just take a drug. i was given a prescription for antidepressants. turns out i am not depressed i hav. so, for 30 years i was fighting with therapists and doctors, telling them, this does nothing

for me. it takes away all emotions. well, i finally got convinced to go on some and took them for about 10 years. then it turns out that the world health organization has declared that these antidepressants cause a dependency. my book that means you got addicted. and i was addicted. no doctors helped me get off those drugs. i had to do it myself by gradually cutting down. it took me three years. the doctors laughed at me. the only help i found was on the internet, from fellow sufferers who were themselves trying to get off this drug. we are taught in america, do not deal with your problem. take a prescription drug. make money for the drug companies. we all know that doctors were making tremendous money by prescribing all these opioids.

i feel they are doing the same thing with a lot of these other drugs. i now can take amphetamines because i qualify, because of my add proved by my brain scans. in otherd out that countries it is so hard to get these medications that we are handing out to children in school. so i do not take anything anymore. i just try to deal with it on my own through exercise, taking walks, doing anything else i can find except taking these prescription drugs, which no other country hands out like candy. host: let's go to pam calling from pittsburgh, california. pam, good morning. caller: i was calling because,

you know, the drug problem is -- i think it does sometimes start with the doctors. they give them these really powerful drugs, and like the lady said before me, they do not help fix them. host: let's go to eugene calling from fort wayne, indiana. eugene, morning. caller: good morning. i was calling because they mention, where could you call if you had a drug problem, or where could you go? one place i did not hear mentioned, which i have personal is salvationh, army. they are everyplace in united states and in the world. so, that is a place i would recommend. it is a christian-based organization. there are restrictions. to be in a

christian-based program. it gets you back into working. there are classes, they go to court for you. it is a terrific place. they turned down hardly anyone, and if they turn you down, the recommend where you can go. host: i know a lot of places like salvation army have been overwhelmed with requests for help specifically because of the coronavirus. i don't know if you have any personal knowledge, but how are those organizations holding up having to deal with the coronavirus problems and this surge in drug overdoses? caller: i will not comment , because i don't know, and i have not been there. i am retired and i worked there. i did an internship there, and they hired me. i can only speak of what i know. what is going on now and how they're handling it i do not know, but i do know when they have room, they turn down hardly

anyone. their program is, i say, second to none. host: we have about 30 minutes left on this topic and i would love to hear from some of our medical professionals and those who work at places like salvation army so we can see what you are seeing with this record high of drug overdoses. if you are out there, you are a medical professional, or you work in counseling, would love to know what you see as well as we finish up this topic for the next 30 minutes. before we go any further, i wanted to point something out in the hill newspaper. i'm going to read a couple of paragraphs are they are directly linking the covid-19 pandemic to some of what we are seeing in those drug overdose records. this is, once again, from the hill newspaper. exacerbated addiction and substance abuse issues.

key factors in driving overdoses. logistical results of the pandemic, such as needing to isolate oneself and limited access to shared spaces that help people with substance abuse disorders, also contribute to a rise in overdose deaths. recently the american medical association documented a similar spike in drug overdose deaths. to is imperative we continue talk about other health issues that are impacting our nation. " we are appropriately focused on covid. it is top of mind. it is understandable we can lose focus on other issues. we have to make sure we are focused on the overdose epidemic we continue to experience. we are talking about drug overdoses hitting a record high during the pandemic. let us know what you are seeing out there.

let's again, it is regional lines. if you are in the eastern and central time zone, it is (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain and pacific time zone, it is (202) 748-8001. let's go back to our phone lines and talk to patrick, who was calling from charlotte, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. i am a senior policy advisor for a pretty large municipality. one of the issues i see as i look at the possibilities of the quarter billion dollars from the stimulus package that will be used towards drug and mental health is, i believe we have to have more on the ground outreach . we have a system that so it says, come to us. i think we're going to have to do better at some outreach mechanisms, such as, friend of friend types of referrals,

really getting back out to the streets, and we don't do that as much as we used to. i believe that is a systemic issue we are going to have to address. host: patrick, did you see this lack of face-to-face going on the street before the pandemic, or is this something you notice because of the pandemic? of course, we are discouraging face-to-face contact because of the pandemic right now. caller: i think that's right. i think it has increased, that i think it was still an issue before. i think a lot of our mental health systems have just been overwhelmed, even before this, and so part of that problem is go to whaten try to is more convenient. this is just not a convenient issue. host: let's talk to rick from cargo grand lake, new york. good morning. areer: good morning, how

you doing this morning? this pandemic is getting outrageous and the only reason i want to say this is my son is a paramedic. the ambulance company he works for, they basically have had to put on two extra ambulances each day to handle these cases of overdoses. also, my friend is a social worker and says people are just breaking down. part of the pandemic and not having the funds. sense, haveng, in a kind of put them against a wall, and their only way to see out of the stuff is by using drugs now. host: you say your son is a paramedic? when you say you are seeing -- they are doing extra work, were they doing that same work before the pandemic started? or did you see an increase specifically because of the pandemic? caller: i believe it's because of the pandemic.

strictly a 12 hour shift. now his shifts have gone to 24 hours. he will get home and by the time he is home, they are calling and saying they are overwhelmed. a lot of it too, is transporting covid patients from one hospital to the other. he says a lot of it is the drug . the used to only carry one or pence -- narcan pens. now they get almost a tackle box full of them. host: let's go to gwen calling from cincinnati, ohio. caller: good morning. seasons greetings my fellow americans. i just wanted to call. i listen every day to c-span and thank you for the show and what you do. i just wanted to say to the lady from new york, right on. we are just drugged out because the industry wants us to take drugs.

-- the industry seems hell-bent on having us take them. people may want to consider finding useful things to do. put yourself outside of yourself and you won't need all the drugs. i go in the drugstore to get a pain reliever. there is so much stuff in the drugstore, it is outrageous. anasin,have aspirin and those were our choices. now there is so much you don't know what to buy. doctors overprescribing. i have neighbors who take 18 pills per day and that's ridiculous. i appreciate the call from the lady in new york and i want you to know, right on. thank you. host: at a house oversight hearing on the opioid epidemic earlier this month, chairwoman carolyn maloney discussed the central role that oxycontin and purdue pharma played in the crisis over the decades. here's what she had to say. [video clip] >> since 1999 nearly half a million lives have been cut

short by opioid overdoses in the united states alone. these lives were taken from us too soon. they were taken unnecessarily and they were taken unfairly. for each life lost, there have been many other family members -- parents, siblings, and loved ones -- left to pick up the pieces. right there in the middle of all this suffering was purdue pharma. the manufacturer of the highly addictive painkiller oxycontin. this company played a central role in fueling one of america's most devastating public health crises. purdue has generated more than 35 billion dollars in revenue since bringing oxycontin to market. purdue has been owned by the sackler family since 1952. the sackler family has profited enormously from the oxycontin business. since bringing this painkiller to market, the family has withdrawn more than $10 billion

from the company. purdue has now admitted that after it got caught in 2007, after it pled guilty and paid a fine, it continued to commit crimes for another decade like nothing happened. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to carolyn from dayton, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. hi, how are you? host: fine, go ahead. caller: i just wanted to say that one of the options to help with the drug overdoses is aa and na. it is a great tool to use. it's available everywhere and it's free. and from personal experience, it has helped me stay clean and sober and my son clean and sober for over 10 years now. host: do you still attend meetings, carolyn? caller: yes, sir. host: has it changed since the coronavirus pandemic began?

caller: yeah, it changed a little while. it went to zoom, where you could do online meetings. there is always the phone you can pick up. and once you have a great support system -- i have lots of women that support me. menfor the men, they have to support. it's a great free option. host: are you all meeting in person again at this point? caller: yes. host: are people still taking their precautions with masks and social distancing during these meetings? caller: masks are worn and the clubs are cleaned after every meeting. masks are available at the meetings, along with hand sanitizer. the meetings i go to. host: let's talk to barbara calling from winter, florida. -- winterhaven, florida. good morning.

caller: i take very much an exception when they say all the doctors from the pharmaceutical companies. my son is a doctor and hired another doctor. he found out that when he was taken to this expensive restaurant that she was giving this very costly drug to his patients. he fired her immediately. and also, my son was taking drugs when he was 16 and he is a schizophrenic now. he was 115 pounds through high school, 5'6" inches. he now weighs close to 300 pounds because of all the steroids. my grandson said, there is no way he could ever lose weight. and i wonder to this day how he stays alive. host: let's go to sharon from laguna beach, california. sharon, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, sharon. caller: i think we are a pill

-oriented society. you just go to the drugstore and you look at the expanded choice of nonprescription drugs that there are to take, let alone the various kinds of antidepressants and sleeping pills that you can get from a doctor when you go for a prescription. myself, i am going through chemotherapy. i am 74 and i have to seriously explain to my doctor every month why i need painkillers. so, i don't know how easy it is to get legal drugs. i do know that the illegal drugs are extremely easy to get and i often wonder that what is considered a suicide might be accidental, depending on what that illegal drug was cut with. let's go to mark, who was calling from new orleans, louisiana. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you all doing? host: go ahead, mark.

caller: i'm calling from new orleans. i am in an outpatient program. it works for me. i go at 6:00 and we stay there two hours. i have not been on drugs since 2008 and i am going good now. thank you. host: let's talk to lelah, who was calling from fayetteville, georgia. good morning. caller: hi, i am an rn and i've seen as a nurse for 43 years that people want pills for everything. they don't want to have any nervous energy, they don't want to have any pain. as you get older, you have a certain amount of pain, a certain amount of nervous energy is normal. and a certain amount of being fat every now and then is normal. but people want to be medicated out of having their own

feelings. host: now, did you say you are currently an rn or you used to be? i am currently an rn. i have worked for 43 years in nursing. host: are you seeing a rise in drug overdose cases through the system right now? is it about normal? caller: there is because people don't want to feel anything. they don't want any kind of anxiety about anything in life and a certain amount of anxiety is normal. you know? a certain amount of nervousness is normal behavior but they want to be medicated out of feeling anything. and because of that, they take more and more and more and more. host: there is a big conversation online about, are the doctors and nurses responsible for filling these people's demands for these drugs

survivey possibly can without them? caller: i think it's the mentality of the whole system. the doctors want to do something to help, and the patients demanded. -- demand it. they are readily available and for the longest time, it was considered ok. we have a pill we can take care of this with and we have a pill we can take care of that with , but you cannot medicate yourself out of life. you have to experience your life. you can't just numb yourself with medication or alcohol. host: lelah, you said you have been a nurse for 43 years? caller: correct. host: so, are you seeing this problem hitting worse or has it been this way the entire time? caller: it has gotten worse over the period of time, because we live in a society that we think we can control everything with some outside force, with a pill

for this, or we think we can take care of this, so we think -- even, like, climate change. climate,t change climate has been changing for years and we have very little effect on it. therefore, instead of accepting things that you have to feel your own emotions, you have to , you know, take responsibility for your own life, and we want somebody else to make us feel better. we want to feel better all the time, we want to be happy all the time. that's not realistic. host: let's go to tom, who was calling from zinnia, and ohio. good morning. caller: oh my gosh, hello. host: go ahead. caller: i can't believe it. well, i know there is a huge drug problem where i am. huge, huge, huge. i have seen people overdose

outside of where i live. as for me personally, i have always made the decision not to do drugs. but there are certain doctors , you know, want to prescribe you things. -- they cancertain talk you into needing certain things. i have incredible pain and i wish that i could have something for pain, but i don't know what i will do. also, you had said something about, where do people go? people need to check with their family services for whatever issues they might have. and there is also always the mental health resources that are free and also sliding scale so people don't have to pay if you don't have money. i just want to put that out there. host: representative matt gaetz earlier this month called for loosening federal rules on

medical marijuana, in part to help curb the reliance on opioid painkillers that can lead to addiction. here's what he said on the house floor. [video clip] >> we are in a time when many people in our country are suffering. they are in pain, and it is documented that cannabis, that states with medical cannabis programs see a reduction in the prescribing of opioids and the number of opioid abuses and deaths. we have held hearings on the house judiciary committee were people in our government must confess that this is in fact true. that the more we give people access to the medical cannabis programs, the more we see a blunting of this horrible scourge of opioid addiction and opioid abuse. we talk all the time on the right about the need to empower people and empower states. right now, the federal policy on cannabis constrains our people, it limits our states, and i would only hope that in the 117th congress, after this bill invariably dies in the senate,

that we will actually come back and pass the states act. because the states act actually acknowledges that we have screwed this up in the federal government. and while we have screwed it up, the states have taken action and design programs in the way that our great federal system promises. if we were to pass the states act, and best practices would emerge, states that developed applicable programs for their people would be replicable, and we would see better policy. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about the drug overdoses hitting record highs during the pandemic. here is one tweet that came in that says, drug advertising should be banned from television. liquor ads have been banned for years. a huge proportion of ads are now drug-related. here's a tweet that says, regarding addiction, overburdened health care resources already facing attack from covid and opponents of aca.

here is another tweet that says, clearly caused by the due lockdowns. they need to end. thisebook post that says, is 100% the fault of governors like tom wolf, make people stay home and took away the d and livelihood for millions of people. so many struggling people have been cut off from the connections that help them. shame on politicians. our final facebook post that says, not to be judgmental, bad choices, bad consequences. you know the consequences of illicit drug use. we have all been tempted. i don't understand why someone would turn to something guaranteed to make their life even worse. let's see if we can get in a couple of more telephone calls. let's start with the list calling from fresno, california. who was calling

from fresno, california. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like you guys to do a program on the suicide rate going on. besides the drugs, the suicide rate is way up. i watched a hearing from reno, nevada the other day. did you just hang up on me? host: no, go ahead. caller: oh, ok. fori watched a hearing reno, nevada where a lady actually said her child committed suicide. you guys need to put on the screen a rolling thing, if you could, to help out everybody. this is going on and i think one thing that -- they all want to save everybody, where is all of the social workers in this? in congress? where are they calling and saying, what are we creating? what is going to happen? what you were going to see is a lot of people taken because they

have no hope, no life, no family, no nothing. there is a lot of singles out , you know,just don't you have no way of connecting with folks. i mean, zoom doesn't help. this is ridiculous what is happening. i pray for everybody. you know? i'm sorry, and very christmas, but talk about the suicide rate in the kids that are not going to school and the adults that can't support their families. host: let's go to john, who was calling from frankfurt, delaware. good morning. caller: good morning, can you hear me? host: we can hear you, john. caller: great. i want to talk a little about the need for opioids. for some people. years ago, i suffered from

horrendous migraines. that is about the most horrific pain you can imagine. unfortunately in 2008, i came down with lyme disease on the east coast. and i have suffered for 12 years with lyme disease. -- i'mfound medication not going to name it, that it anda slight opioid in it, it helps me. for that reason, turning the page a little bit, back in the when i grew up, there was 1970's marijuana everywhere. if you weren't smoking marijuana, you were not cool. and we never had no problem with it. really, marijuana should be legalized, it is that simple. if anything, debbie should be over the age of 18 to smoke it. as far as anything harder than that, i can't comment, because i never did anything harder than that. i think, as far as using

opioids, they are helpful for people with chronic pain. like i said, i do have chronic pain, and thank god i do not abuse it. i take it as the doctor prescribes and for me, it's very helpful. you know, people have to be smart. you can't overdo something, you know? host: let's go to gym, who was calling from thomaston, connecticut. morning. caller: good morning from thomaston, connecticut to you guys. i'm going to pipe in with, i guess it was the lady from ohio. i've been in sobriety now for 34.5 years, i guess. recently i had a fall, and i do have some pain pills in the kitchen which i haven't touched. i have been taking some ibuprofen and stuff like that. i fell off a ladder and busted myself up well a couple of weeks ago. life does happen to you. you can be clean and sober and all that stuff and you might

have a spill or something is going to happen. and you have to manage the pain. i have been lucky. i don't know whether i have been blessed or whatever, but i have been lucky that i have been able to do that with a little pain medicine and a lot of that 12 that girl washat talking to. i am an aa guy and at one time has -- na and it has worked well for me for the last 35 years. it's nice to see people that get out of that revolving door of substance abuse and get on the aa thing called join the tribe and it has worked out for a lot of us guys in america. host: has it been harder to stay on the path during the coronavirus pandemic?

caller: i'm not really a zoom guy, my wife has lung cancer. she has been struggling too. we have been struggling together right now, you know? i still have a host of friends that i talked to on a regular basis. and it helps me a lot. it has worked out very well. yeah, it probably is. i haven't been to an aa meeting of sorts since probably march or april, because i don't want to get my wife sick. i don't like being around people with no masks. that is where i lean that way, because, yes, you are thinking about going to breakfast and my wife and i were saying, let's not go to a restaurant for breakfast, let's just stay home. and that's what we've got to do for a little while, otherwise the whole world is going to be sick and i don't want to be part of it. i'm going to try to be a part of it. i wish everybody well, i really do.

host: let's talk to walter , who is calling from butler, indiana. good morning. caller: good morning and thanks for taking my call. i am confused and i don't mean to be snarky, but so what? they die. people die all the time. people die from everything and you have a lot of weak minded people that got softer and softer through the years. we got off with boats, we fought off indians, we built a nation, he went to war. what is you do when you are stressed out? you had a cigarette or a drink and you went to sleep and got up the next day. so what? you die. we are going to blame everybody for everybody's actions? because of a little pain? everything comes down to your own personal actions and reactions to life. in the end, we all die anyway so what does it matter which way you go? so just shut up and live life the best you can. we are all snowflakes. i mean, everybody -- i don't have the internet, i don't have a cell phone. if i get a little bummed out, i go outside and feed the ducks. so what?

life is tough, suck it up. and we live in the easiest country in the world and have become so soft. we complain about the coronavirus. do you have a roof over your head? do you have a couple of pieces of baloney and some sandwich meat and a place to sleep? do what you can when you get up in the morning. we are just a soft, weak nation. china is laughing at us. and you go to third world countries and the problems we have, i am depressed and other people are eating cats and dogs to survive. i think america has to suck it up, buttercups, and nothing is promise to you. and when you want to die, just drop dead. host: let's go to greg, who is calling from colorado. good morning. caller: good morning, thanks for taking my call. i just wanted to say yes, i live in colorado where marijuana is legal now. i have been smoking since i was 18 years old. you know, i tried to quit smoking for a year or two,

thinking that would help my mental state and my overall physical being. and i got very depressed and i had to go on antidepressants and they were terrible. i was on them for over a year. i will never touch them again , and i am very glad to see that a republican, one of our senators, believe it or not, a republican, is actually behind legalizing marijuana in this country. i totally agree with that. a lot of people say oh yeah, that leads to everything else. well, in colorado it has been proven that the rates of children using pot are down. there are no deaths from marijuana in this state, period. and i would like to say thank you for your show and it's great. host: we would like to thank all of our callers for calling in for this segment this morning. coming up next, "washington

journal's post quote author week continues with an author of a book called "tower of lies --"tower of lies: what my eighteen years of working with donald trump reveals about him." we will talk to the politics editor at the washington examiner to talk about donald trump's legacy and the future of the republican party. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ use your mobile devices and go to c-span.org for the latest video, live on demand, to follow the transition of power. president trump, president-elect biden, news conferences, and event coverage at c-span.org. ♪ >> american history tv on c-span3, exploring the people and events that tell the

american story, every weekend. coming up sunday at 4 p.m. america,n reel jacqueline kennedy's weeklong goodwill trip to asia in 1962 , which documents the former first lady's tour of india and pakistan. then at 8 p.m. on the presidency, take a virtual tour of that dwight d. eisenhower presidential library and museum located in abilene, kansas , showcasing the legacy of the nation's 34th president. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. ♪ >> stay with c-span for our continuing coverage of the transition of power as president-elect joe biden moves closer to the presidency. with the electoral college votes cast from states across the country, join us on january 6 , live at 1:00 p.m. eastern for the joint session of congress to count the votes and declare the winner for president and vice president.

and finally, at noon on january 20, the inauguration of the 46th president of the united states. our live coverage begins at 7:00 a.m. eastern from the statehouse , to congress, to the white house, watch it all live on c-span, on the go at c-span.org, or listen using the free c-span radio app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back and we are here with former trump organization executive five s, who is robert re bookto talk about her "tower of lies: what my eighteen years of working with donald trump reveals about him. "o barbara, good morning. guest: good morning. host: the opening line in your book says "i have never been

afraid of donald because i know who and what he is." so who is president donald trump and what is he? guest: he has changed over the years. i met him in 1978 and when he hired me in 1980, i had already had two years of exposure to him and i did at the time know exactly who he was and what he was. butas somewhat conceited, not knowledgeable about construction. he was very upfront and a little bit pushy. not interested in learning about the business so much as dictating what had to be done. and i watched him learn over that time, and he evolved. from the moment i met him from who he was at the time to a time when i started working with them a couple of years later, he learned that he didn't know everything about construction. he didn't know anything. but he started listening to people, listening to the architects, listening to the contractors, listening to his

own people, which he did not do when he was working on the hyatt. i got to see what he was like , how to get through to him, how to not to let him get to you. i could see that he zeroed in immediately on weakness and i never showed that. i was not week. i was not afraid of him. i saw people cower in his presence but that wasn't me. i understood him and i understood not to worry about what he put on. he would walk away and come back two minutes later like nothing happened. i observed all of that, so i did understand him. over time i watched him change and i understood everything about his changes so i continue to know him until i left and in 1998. and have observed him now for 20 years. you can see that everything about him was there when i met him in 1978.

host: like you said, you oversaw construction of trump tower and you supervised the renovation of the plaza hotel. what made you decide to go work for donald trump at that point? guest: i was on the hyatt , working on the grand hyatt with the general contractor. donald got to know me on that project, and although he had his own people working there, he had some talent coming up, so he hired me to be in charge of talent. it was incredibly prestigious. he was a big move up for me. -- it was a big move up for me. host: you write in your book about president trump's penchant for hiring the best people but also hiring yes men and women to be around him. when does he want the best

people around versus when does he want the yes-men, yes women around? guest: now, he always wants the yes men and women. he must be told yes, he must be built up, must be buffeted and supported. otherwise, he will do away with the person. the latest victim is william barr. that guy practically walked through flaming calls for him. but it didn't matter. at the last minute he didn't do it he was supposed to do. years ago it used to be about hiring the best people. andy had the best people. i watched that evolve. i left him and came back, and i saw that there were people there that were not the kind of people i was used to seeing. they were in top positions. over time, the more he believed he knew more than anyone else, the more he needed to be re-told that and reinforced. until he got to the point where

he is at. there are cases when you say you want the best people. look at who he is hiring. you are the best people? who has he got? jared kushner? rudy giuliani? they're not good people. host: i want to remind our callers that they can take part in this conversation. we are going to open up our regular lines for this hour. that means that republicans, your line is going to be (202) 748-8001. kratz, your line is going to be (202) 748-8000 -- democrats, your line is going to be (202) 748-8000. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading on social media, on twitter and on .acebook barbara, i'm going to read you a paragraph in your book and i want you to go into more detail with us about what you mean

about this. "the presidency didn't change him, he changed it. he didn't rise to the office, he brought it down to his level with the ignorance of the constitution and how the government works, along with his arrogant disdain for institutions, he has tried to turn himself into a king." that comes from your book "tower of lies." tell us what you mean by that. guest: most people haven't experienced a time where they may be in a certain position and be forced to take another position by virtue of the power that they have or the authority. i myself was a school board member for many years. when i became president, i had to represent all sides. i rose to the occasion, so to speak and i expected that of donald. that was foolish of me. i should have known better. actually, i think i did know better and it was just wishful

thinking. trump does not know and has this, that he does not know much about the government. a classic example is the government shutdown. trump was in shock that he had to deal with anybody else and not dictate what was going on. he has no concept of the equality of the branches. he really believed he was king, and that is what he did. .e had these executive orders all of a sudden he has to answer, and it was up to her whether or not he came to the state of the union or not? he was really taken aback by that. what happened with him was, he was so fierce. i cannot say, i can only speculate as to why people went along with him.

republicans who were known for their integrity and are not known for that anymore. why did they go along with him? were they afraid of him? did he have something on them? whatever it was, he managed to get just about everybody to go along with this to a point where he actually did have king-like powers. the fact that he had the majority in the senate only reinforce that. it only made it possible that no legislation, no democratic legislation not only got through, but it did not get to the floor. in concert with mcconnell, trump did act absolutely like a king. host: let's let our viewers take part in this conversation. we will start with leo, was calling from franklin, new hampshire on the independent line good morning. caller: good morning. i worked for a brilliant m.i.t. graduate during the late 80's

-- late 1980's, early 1990's who worked all over the world and -- on major construction jobs. he told me frankly, he could not work in new york city because the mob was so influential in every aspect of it. the construction industry. especially concrete work. cost him $100 per truck extra to get a truckload in. at the time, the only building one with concrete was donald trump. would you comment on something to this nature? guest: that's not correct. major building was made of concrete and steel, but even when you had steel, the floors were concrete. the mafia or whatever it is did have an influence in the construction industry, especially with concrete. that was just a fact of life. you dealt with that, and the general contractors, basically that all the dirty work for you. they performed, they did good jobs.

we had good concrete on trump tower, for instance. they were fabulous and they did a two-day cycle, just something only new yorkers can do. where they pour a floor, they trim it and then they pour other floors. it wasn't that they were inferior. it seems that they were controlled by the mob. host: let's go to philip, who was calling from glendale, arizona. good morning. caller: hi, barbara. it's nice to see you on tv. i'm just wondering why everybody that's an author these days , they think they have to write a book against the president of the united states when it so popular to do. you say that you were an observer of what he was like, yet, you worked there and you became successful working underneath him. so, why is he such a bad guy? guest: you have to ask at this point? i am surprised.

maybe talk to the people whose loved ones died from covid. i have to say that, i have watched him evolve. he treated me pretty well. as he got worse, i decided to leave. he had attributes that were unsavory to me, but i left in the world where many people were watching. maybe he was worse, and he ended up devolving into some character that i couldn't recognize. i would never work for him now , but he did have good projects. he gave me a lot of authority and he respected me. host: now, barbara, you did an interview on cnn earlier where -- how want to read your quote to you and see if you still think this is true. he said that after president trump's presidency ends, there

are charges hanging over his head. the minute he becomes a citizen, i think he may leave the country . i think he may leave the country before the end of his presidency. do you still believe that? guest: i do, to an extent. i am a lawyer, but i am not an expert in this area. notquestion of whether or there are legitimate charges against him and whether he will , in fact, the indicted is something that must be going on. i'm sure he is getting a lot of advice and it would serve him well to take it on whether or not he stands a chance of going to jail. and if he does, he believes is going to go to jail, yes, he will leave the country, absolutely. that's my feeling.

now, there are so many different nuances and so many things to in theolved in, like timing, but who knows? i know that trump could not abide going to jail. could not abide. host: let's talk to larry calling from newport, kentucky on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i would like to ask your guest, what it was like for the children to be raised by donald trump? and i would like to make a comment that donald trump likes to use the word disgrace, corrupt when he describes someone who disagrees with him. and i think that is just about as ironic as one can be. but anyway, could you answer my question about what it was like for the children being raised by donald trump in that family? guest: you know, they had a lot of nannies. i think each child had his own, or maybe shared one with another. i worked in atlantic city when

they were very young. i don't know that he was home as much as he would like to be. he worked 20 47. -- 24/7. trump did not seem to have that kind of interest you see in most people. he never spoke about his children. he never bragged about them. my kids got all a's. it was never like that. the kids were very young in the beginning. the kids would show up in the office and trump would be upset. he did not want the kids in the office. i read once that he said he was playing lego in the office while he had a meeting and i never heard of anything more preposterous in my life, absolutely not. and when the divorce happened, it was very ugly.

uglier than it needed to be, because it was trump who planted these disgusting comments in newspapers saying it was the best sex she ever had. after that embarrassment and disgrace, the oldest child, donald junior, did not speak to his father for a long time. a year or longer. i don't think they had the kind of childhood that would be normal, because trump was a special, wealthy, and important man. host: barbara, i will tell you that several people on our social media who are followers are wondering about your intentions and the reasons behind writing this book. i'm going to read you one of them and i want you to respond to it. this is from a tweet that says, "i would say working 18 years from trump must not be that bad

if she stayed there that long. now selling her book is like that song money changes everything." are you just a disgruntled ex-employee of the president? what are your motivations behind writing this book? guest: for one thing, i am not disgruntled because i have no reason to be disgruntled. i left voluntarily and after i left, trump gave me a wonderful , sterling recommendation for when i entered law school and when i entered the bar. an even when i became american arbitration association arbitrator. we were certainly on very good terms. i left him, and i left him intentionally. i could have been annoying and sarcastic and i didn't do any of that. i just said, you know, donald, it is time for me to go. until that time, it wasn't time for me to go. he did treat me relatively well. i was paid not what a man would

have been paid, but i was paid well, for sure. he respected me and i got to work on fantastic projects. so i enjoyed it. i had wonderful people working for me and i enjoyed all of them . i love construction and development, and i enjoyed that. i didn't like certain things about trump, but people say, why did you stay with them if he was racist? you go back to 1980, find me an employer that was very different from trump in terms of that, and find me a union that would have accepted people that were not white men. so, in that concept, i did my best to make sure that none of that, what he did, went through me and onto the people in the field. and i can't say that another person would have done that. i can't say that another person in my position would not be as

racist as trump, or as sexist, or as xenophobic. so i think i made a contribution to that end, and i stayed with him until he got so into himself and so out of control that he actually blamed me for something he did. an aside, it is time. and i just left. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to larry, who is calling from elkhart, indiana on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. my thoughts are, this lady here that wrote the book, if i was family and friend of hers, i would be real careful what i said. because she would just take it out and try to make money off of it. like the other people said, if she worked for 18 years for the president, why in the world would she write a book about it now? because she knows a lot of things that the president did and she probably is part of a lot of things he did do. so i would be very careful of this lady. thank you.

guest: i will not consider that a threat, although it sounds a little bit like it. i don't think you listened to my answer to the last question , because if you had you would not have repeated it. i didn't write the book to make money. i wrote the book about my ago.areer years it was a very good book, but it was not to make money. it was to encourage women who are afraid to go into construction because it was so male-dominated. over the years i saw trump become something i could not imagine he or any other human being could turn into. when it came for him running for reelection, i said to myself, i have things that i know that i can share that may help prevent this from happening. so, that is primarily why i wrote the book. a contribution to the united states by not allowing this man to get reelected. host: let's talk to beverly

, who is calling from brooklyn, new york on the democratic line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning, hello. what i would like to say is i am a democrat. and i know that a lot of the republican people think that we xe to grindhis a with trump. a lot of us are familiar with trump before he tried to run for president, before he was the apprentice, we know him from the 1980's and the 1990's, and we saw very questionable behaviors from him back then. so that is why we remain leery about him. it is not about the last five years. so when people are saying, we are just having something he's against them because he's the president, that's not really accurate for a lot of us. what i also find is that it's important to get your information from multiple sources.

i listen to all the news channels and i gather all the information. if i hear conflicting information, i go to a source. for example, the housing discrimination case. trump lost it. he was found to be guilty. he says he won. if i want to know the result, i pull up the case myself and i read the actual law case to get a real answer to what happened. obviously you should not take one source, no matter what it is, but you should consider your source you do that. because sometimes people just present out and out lies, and it is hard to be able to discern. you have to consider your see how the world treats it. is it a newspaper of record or is it a rag?

you go to every one of them , but just keep that in consideration. by the way, that case. trump did not lose it. they made a settlement. the whole idea was not to admit that he was wrong. that came from cohen. that is something you see in everything trump does. he is never wrong. he blames someone else or just treat it like it didn't happen. stay with that. do that for every politician, every american should do that. don't just take my word or word, and context you can see that my word is air. host: let's go back to another thing you wrote in your book and want you to talk a little bit more about it. if donald saw you as a killer, that was like being anointed. he often used the term to put

someone down saying, they are not killers. that was one of the many things he got from his father. tell us a little more about that, barbara. guest: it is funny. he hired me, he said you are a killer. at the time i did not understand exactly what that meant. that meant everything to him. seeing weakness is something that he would just pounce on. he would embarrass -- i hate the word emasculate, that i have to use it -- he would emasculate people in front of everybody else because they were weak. he would make a sport of it. even when he hired [indiscernible]

it comes from a threat. never let anyone get anything over on you, never let anyone get the best of you. if there is someone you can kill, even if you don't need to, go ahead and do it. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to vivian from athens, tennessee on the line.ndents good morning. caller: yes, first of all, this woman is lying. she doesn't know what she's talking about. she is making money off of donald trump. i come from new york city. when you could not even walk up the street because of the poop on the sidewalks. and mayor koch and giuliani and the attorney general and donald trump started building in new york city.

there was a recession in 1972. we had to shut down our showroom. the whole city was in a recession. in, giulianime came in, then donald trump came into new york city. the whole city became the golden years of new york city. they've turned the city into a wonderful place to live. now it is a ghetto again. i'm sorry. but i worked with the ivanka trump on the hotel. donald trump was great. points.nts and bad write a book about it, it's a disgrace. [indiscernible] city.amped the whole

he transformed times square from the ghetto into what it is today. today. host: go in -- go and respond to vivian there. it's not a good connection but i didn't know what she was saying that giuliani should have been attorney general or something, i didn't understand that at all. i wroteioned ivanka and an open letter to ivanka. i told her what she could do and what positive she could bring in a positiveat she was influence on her father. she did nothing. she says she knows what women need.

she says she knows what it's like to have a job and make ends meet. she turned out to be a tremendous disappointment. i really don't know what else she wanted me to comment on. host: she was saying she doesn't appreciate the fact that you wrote a book focusing on president trump's bad qualities. focusing on the whole quality. she says everyone has good and bad qualities. you have talked about that's a talk about that. she failed to mention the good qualities. there was a time when trump had so much publicity that it reflected well in the city and i think she was touching upon that. said, you have to see some things about trump. we had a very strong relationship. it was enormous.

we were close on trump tower and the things he would've done could no longer be possible for him. writing a book, i think i explained to the other caller, i did it because i thought it would be useful to help determine where the country is and i still believe that. maybe some people write a book to make money. you need a lot of passion to do something like that. host: do you remember when president trump first started talking about running for president? know, i remember --i went back to 1987. i think he had been doing some calculus.

he might have mentioned it. 1980's,ater [indiscernible] the people in the office would say, oh, my god, trump is going to be president. oes what i have seen him do in the past which is higher good people and listen to them -- he has a tremendous amount of charm. senseght it would make for him maybe to become president. that was a minute in time. he knows nothing about it. he knows nothing about government. it he has a terrible attitude. any kind of aspiration -- you

trump will not accept it or acknowledge it. he does not pay attention. he will go out and talk about it he knows nothing about and say something completely absurd like you can swallow bleach for something to cure covid. he's not a good person for the presidency and i knew that when he was grappling with it, but certainly when he ran, i thought it was a joke. i thought it was not a joke, but may be a publicity stunt because it had been one before in the 1980's. i did not think you would ever get the nomination. i don't think he thought he was either. i don't think that was his intention. when he finally did get the nod, i don't think he wanted the job.

but the forces sort of came together. a little russia, maybe a little sanders. he hated the job when he first got it. that was very obvious. he thought,a sudden i don't have to do it they tell me. guy. became the tv he got the republicans to agree with him and single-handedly started tearing apart our democracy. he had lost, without a doubt, the election to joe biden and there are people in this country that believe the united states process of election is corrupt. god help them.

let's go back to our phone lines and talk to joan colin from hollywood, california on the democratic line. >> yes, good morning. i enjoyed your book. it's very interesting and informative. in one section you are trump tower and you said "working for the project." what did you mean by that? thanks for quoting. i would never allow that project --be heard, and that project when i saw trump doing something -- i would try to stop it. was tomy responsibility

make this the best project it could possibly be. when you see people who are out -- they had an equitable loss. they -- when trump tried to do the school contract, i would never allow it. i had to think that equitable would not work with that reputation. reputation. kind of

represent the interests of the ones who hired you. you respect the interest of what you are supposed to be doing. i could work for what was bless -- what was best for the project. host: when our social media followers points out that threatenedrump has to sue people and they want to know if president trump has threatened to sue you? guest: i think trump in his wisdom knows that the book only makes you more popular. it's not about that. i'll think trump considers me to

be on his radar. he wants to go after them. from let's talk to brian rate and 10, california on the republican line. caller: good morning. as far as sitting down and riding a book about donald trump, that would have been fine, but to garner your living off someone for 18 years and call your book "tower of lies," anyone can do that. but where you summed it up the rest was when you? went on to be a lawyer, ok i am -- where you where -- where you went on to be a lawyer, ok? i'm around a lot of construction lawyers. i am sure if we went back in your history and i'm sure i can

find a lot of people, i am sure you would not be the most reputable and greatest individual. you did not have to call it "tower of lies: what my eighteen years of working with donald trump reveals about him." wrong,i think you are sir. i will not allow you to impugn my integrity. i am very well-respected in the construction industry. book because i thought i should write the book. because ior trump project. the i thought i was making a the remarks and , i think people

know what it has been. host: let's talk to sharon from minnesota. note the name of your town for me. bedmmi, way up north. truthm to forget that the always hurts. isn't that right? his supporters are having a really hard time listening to the truth. i guess i'm hoping that you could put to bed the question -- is donald trump a racist? you have been with him a long time. that is a question that a lot of

people claim he is a racist and i remember years ago when trump tower was first built there were stories that came out that black to be were not allowed seen in the tower when trump and ivana came in the tower. i would like you to answer that and i would like people to remember his sister and his niece have also come forward and i think that whether you believe them or not, they are family and they have stories to tell. is if you could hisibly touch on relationship with his daughter of anke. -- ivanka. comment about not

wanting black people working in trump tower, it was not in the tower. it was the casinos. i believe that was in jack o'donnell's book. it wasin my afternoon working hours. trump called me and a couple other all. -- couple other people. and i thought the comment was -- he said it one time, the first thing he said was what is the man doing up there.

it was just ridiculous. unfortunately this was one that they were able to get into in 1980 because the stores were completely closed. they were working at trump tower. it was not like that at that time. i think i answered your questions, but yes, i think he is racist. it is something, he came from brooklyn, and clearly, there was

a lawsuit and they did not admit to it, but they asked for the punishment for keeping black people out of the building. , i tried tosay that put it in context. i went back and forth. it to this day i still go back and forth on that. sense.not good in that it was something i heard a lot. i did my best china to fight .hat it was not necessarily --

anke, i don't know what that relationship was like. strange, but looks i will tell you, trump had a fascination with strong women. liked women -- i think given a choice between male and female he would take female if .hey were equal it's very logical, when you think about it. and he said this to me. men are better than women. statement, beginning, and. but a went on to say, good woman is better than 10

good men. and i think he thought that. because we have to work harder. we have to prove ourselves. why did he want me? toknew i would break my back look people. he liked having his top person be a woman because there were never be a question of whether or not that person was better than donald. has that for answers? -- how is that for answers? host: the main read another paragraph from your book. "i will always have mixed amount -- emotions about donald. even at his worst merely days, he was human and even sometimes humane. that version has been so thoroughly subsumed by his yes-men, his experience -- his

ignorance and arrogance, his focus on appearances, his lies and sheeting, his disdain for the working people of this country, his denigration of anyone who isn't a white christian male, and his incessant need to attack." any ofossible to glimpse the attributes of the earlier donald? were a couple occasions were he did things that were nice. he bought me a coat wants because i said i wanted it. get it, i will pay for it. that kind of thing. he was what he is. trump.'t come donald power corrupts. there's no question about it. if anyone has that, he certainly has that.

i don't think you see that anymore. there's a lot of comments about it. let's go back to our phone lines and talk to jane. jane, good morning. morning.ood i cannot believe you allowed this woman who was on prior to me to make that sick comment about trump and his daughter. i find you an absolute disgrace. you went on and on about trump and yet, pedro, you allow to old wantlk as long as they against trump and they are democrats. how dare you interrupt a young man that was speaking that was trying to tell you something in

favor of trump? he is going to come down as the greatest president who ever lived for the united states of america. i find you a disgrace, ma'am. guest: i think you are a bit of a disgrace myself. we are even on that score. anyone who thinks donald trump a good president needs to rethink and be honest and look at the damage he has caused. disgrace, -- i'm not a disgrace, and neither are you, ma'am. good morning to you. wife told me that i need to write a book. donald trump did not start this raises him. i never got a bad appraisal until 1980 when reagan came up, and we have a standard -- when

, mymiss four times immediate supervisor told me the area man was trying to get me fired you read what happened was , it has been there the whole time. whohave millions of people voted for trump. i'm going to tell you all something. you just have something that ,appened in nashville tennessee. 1991.ired me in this is the day, the twice six of december is when they fired me. my mother was terminally ill. the contract you could go take care of your parents. she was on the ventilator. the supervisor, a white supervisor told me, i don't care if your mother is dying, i have a business to run.

she was the area manager for at&t, but they fired me on this day, the twice at of december. this is what they gave me. at my supervisor came to me and said, they are trying to fire you, but i told this lady that i can't do that to you. you are the best man i got in my production work was above. seems to be having a trouble with his firing today, but barbara, let me ask you this question. what made you decide to leave the trump organization? have you had any contact with president trump since he left the trump organization? guest: i left trump's employment three-time. i did trump tower and i finished it and he did not have a thing in the pipeline.

he was a temp boss. so i left. and when i building said,nished with that, i .et me come and talk to you i went into the office and i said, i will come back. the conversation took about a minute and he said, come back. and i did find him to be different. but we had such a good relationship on trump tower. he treated other people terribly.

he treated me ok, but he was very bad to other people. they accrue, the hired man, he wept them out, and from other people. wiped them out, in front of other people. him.w how to work for i was on a project on the west side. it turned out that trump had and along with this motion i decided, you know, this is a good time. we're working on a project in .alifornia and he had partners what happened was, i ended up staying with him as a

consultant. at the end of that job, something really bad happened. wrong and itething cost people money. there was a devastating effect on the project. andtrump had a big meeting and was very in disrespectful. meeting, that was it.

i did not say you should not have done this. it was not for you, either. and i am going to leave. but he was very nice about it. we stayed in contract -- contact. it was very, very close. when i needed , he gave meons stellar reviews and was helpful to me. is like arned on me dog.

we have heard a lot about his relationships with women. we have also heard him talking about sexism. did you ever experience sexism , or didrking for him you witness it with other women who worked for him. guest: he was the least sexist treating me came to like a man. he did not treat me like a woman. forceful.

i was not a woman to him. i was an employee. and he became more and more .exist he talked about women in very bad ways. this is an evolution on his word. i never in my life i did not think trump would be that bad.

there was a combination. it was the more he needs to get away. when he started the presidency .e was not an overt racism i saw him open women and speaking disparately about women. by theiro judge men wives. and if you are ted cruz, very cruelly. he had a falling out with -- hedy and decided thinks of women as trophies or

awards. of anna was. -- ivana was. let's see if we can get one more caller in. that will be holland from perrysburg, ohio. good morning. go ahead. thank you for taking my call. barbara, shame on you. sitting there in all of your opulence. i am on social security. $200 a month. to, iok to be pretty old thought that we were taught respect. respect your boss, especially the president, because he worked hard to get where he is going.

i would like you to say three bad things he did for america. guest: ok. for one thing, he allowed people who were in the shadows to come -- he gave them the opportunity to be like anyone else. he said, i am the president of the united states. that in itself was something he did that was very that. undo everyd to single thing president obama has done, press obama is one of our best presidents. he has undercut government

-- that was because it was all about business. and that tax he gave businesses was a sin. it was wrong, what he did. god knows what he got in return for it. your caller should try not to judge people by their apartment. there's some good stuff out there. host: we would like to thank barbara res, the author of "tower of lies: what my eighteen years of working with donald ," andreveals about him former executive vice president of the trump organization for dealing us.

barbara, we appreciate you taking time to be with us today. guest: thank you. maybe some people might have learned some things. maybe i learned some things, tijuana. host: coming up next, we will speak to james antle from the "washington examiner" about president donald trump' is >> you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government. cable was created by television companies in 1979. today, we are brought to you by these television companies who provide c-span to viewers as a public service. ♪ c-span2y on book tv on at 9:00 p.m. eastern, environmental progress founder michael shellenberger on his

book, "apocalypse never." -- interviewed by injured by andrew redkin. to 400wables require 300 times more land than natural gas plants and nuclear plants. on the question of -- my views have been badly misrepresented by people that know better. they said michael, you are insisting it is all nuclear. i defendlypse never," the right of indonesia to burn coal because it's better than burning wood. i defend fracking because natural gas is better than coal. michael, are you pro-natural gas or anti-natural gas? i'm in favor of replacing coal. i'm against it when it replaces nuclear. >> sunday night at 9:00 eastern on book tv on c-span2.

>> with covid-19 relief legislation approved by congress and coronavirus vaccines being administered, use our website, topan.org/coronavirus, follow federal response to the operate. for such maps. c-span.org all --c-span.or-- all at c-span.org/coronavirus. host: we are back with jim antle here to talk to us about the republican party and the incoming biden administration. good morning. guest: good morning. host: let's talk about what's going on in the news. president trump has threatened

to veto the covid stimulus bill and the defense authorization bill. where are we with those of those bills right now? he has vetoed the defense authorization bill. to veto the covid stimulus bill, but he has indicated he's not happy with it. he would like the payment for toividuals to be increased 2000 dollars. this will set up some votes next week in congress because, number one, government funding in general, which is part of the covid bill expires on monday. so we are up against deadline for government shutdown there arey and definitely going to be votes on whether to override president defense authorization bill. the bill passed by margins sufficient to override a presidential veto, but you never

know. the republicans who voted for mightll on final passage not want to vote to override president trump's veto. there is some suspense there. this is generally a must ask. known when hell passed it. he did not know -- he did not like the renaming of the bases. he did not like restrictions on his ability to pull troops out of afghanistan. he wanted there to be something addressing what he considers to be discrimination against conservatives on social media before repealing section 230.

so, it was fairly predictable. it.as not going to sign the covid bill was more of a last-minute intervention. congressional democrats thought they had an agreement with treasury secretary steven thehin who is spearheading negotiation for the trump administration. they thought they had a deal. president trump came in late and said he did not like how low the $600 payments to individuals -- which i think is a very popular position. president trump is probably , but he did not make that very clear while they were negotiating the deal. seenill remains to be whether he actually does the moment, both of

these pieces of legislation are up in the air. has beensident trump tweeting about these bills. i want to read what he was tweeting this morning. stand by andl not watch this travesty of a bill happen without reining in big tech. and section 230 now before it is too late. covideted about the payments as well. he said, i want to get our great people $2000 rather than the thely 600 dollars that's in bill. so, for our audience, explain what's going on with these section 230 provision. there was a major piece

of communications legislation paste in the 1990's on how to regulate -- fast in the 1990's and how to regulate the new platforms and how do you deal with the fact that a lot of websites will have commenters and were the websites going to be liable for the things their commenters were saying? a lot of people alive with president trump believed that major social media platforms , if twitter and facebook they are going to get into content moderation, if they are going to be flagging things like presidential tweet as misleading , if they are going to be restricting the flow of things like the new york post story about hunter biden they are no longer providing an open forum,

that they are acting as a publisher, like the publication and therefore they should face a different liability standard. a lot of people say if you do that it will make it more difficult for people to express themselves freely and they would become more strict does on content goes they would be potentially liable for what say, but president trump and many of his supporters take the view that this would force platforms like twitter to be more evenhanded, not discriminate, as conservatives.t there are are others who believe that this would result in the breaking up of these companies and potentially competitors who are conservative friendly could emerge. howt now, it's hard to see

something could come along and compete with facebook on even terms. host: you recently wrote an article in the "washington says republicans understand that finishing with trump is not the end of trumpism. explain what you mean by that. there's a question about whether we are finishing with trump because the president has not conceded the election, and for 2024, butrun again, if he does not get what he wants on the elect are in -- election challenge, it appears to be pretty unlikely at this point. there are redefinitions of the republican party that seem

unlikely to outlast trump even if trump is no longer the republican candidate and a loss of the republicans aspiring to run for president in 2024 are either modeling themselves after this ideology which some have trumpism or they are skeptical of large scale ofigration and are skeptical .ore free treated -- free-trade there are other republicans who are more inclined to imitate president trump's personality. his willingness to not be a good

loser as maybe some republicans they should have been's -- passed nominees, they are able to get down on their own terms and a lot feel that appealing about president trump and future gop leaders want to follow that path as well. then there's the matter of the electoral map. even with the results being what presidentor 2020, trump is still competitive in pennsylvania, michigan, and wheresin, states republican presidential candidates have not really competed since the 1980's. there has been falls hope in the not-too-distant past about

pennsylvania. reagan was the last republican presidential candidate to carry wisconsin before president trump did. now he may have done that at some cost with college educated suburban white voters, which helped make arizona and georgia tufts states or republicans in this presidential race and also in the senate races, but it is certainly the case that trump expanded the map in any future nominee is going to want to try to hold onto those gains and see if they can recover some of the voters that trump lost. do you think the efforts by president trump and his to challenge or

overturn the election results is going to be helpful for the republican party or does that hurt the republican party as they move forward? -- guest: i think it would have been a nonissue if it stopped at the supreme court ruling and the electoral college vote. the supreme court did not take up the texas lawsuit, which was probably the best chance of a federal hearing of prison trump's election claims. it gets dicier if there's a big aboutfight on january 6 certifying the electoral college results. it's difficult to see what president trump's path forward is on this and ultimately time marches on. the closest thing for a

the floridas really reach out situation in 2000. stated, that was a single . it was potentially more realistic to see a change in the outcome. but you still have a major party presidential candidate contesting the results, taking them to the supreme court, saying that he felt the decision was wrong, but he decided, having exhausted his legal options he was going to respect the process. president trump has taken it at least one set beyond that. not unprecedented for there to be challenges to the electoral college results, but usually it is consigned to prospect ventures. 2017.pened with trump in

it happened to george w. bush. it's usually pretty quickly overruled. it's not as clear that it will .e quickly overruled this time mitch mcconnell is certainly making sure that that happens. the big question will be -- the immediate question is, does this demoralized republican voters heading into the january effect georgia senate runoffs? mobilizeible it will people more. you have to wonder if there is a confidence. does it make some republicans angry with down ballot candidates? risks goingrtain forward for a party that seems to otherwise be pretty well-positioned heading into the

administration and 2022 midterm elections when they would not have to take up too many seats to be in the majority of both houses. we are going to open up our regular lines. republicans, your number is going to be 202-748-8001. democrats, your line will be 202-748-8000. beependents, your line will 202-748-8002. you can always textus act 202-748-8003. before we move into what is future of thethe revolt can party, what do you see president trump doing for inauguration day for president-elect joe biden.

do you see him showing up? do you see him inviting the bidens to the white house? guest: i imagine this will be the most contentious transition in recent history. that heit is unlikely a cordial face. i think it is certain that he rivalo some kind of event. maybe he announces he will run in 2024, something designed to away from joe biden.

they were probably less in need of such an invitation. but i think a lot of people would consider it a nice thing to do. i think that there's a possibility that happens. who would be most doely to urge him to do that not seem to be the people he is listening to right now. i do not think he is going to say he lost reelection appeared. once he has no more options, he will be willing to say there are no more options. the 1960ght be like presidential election where jfk became president.

felt himself, whatever he privately, did not do a whole lot to encourage that publicly. i think president trump will encourage a lot of that publicly. he already is. it's an open question whether he will do some traditional things, but i think he absolutely will not let the inauguration day be totally about joe biden he's going to make sure he is in the headlines as well. most former president stay out of the public limelight after they leave the white house. do you expect president trump to give up the limelight? and normally the president is considered the leader of his .olitical party

will ex-president trump still be the leader of the republican party once he leaves the white house? i don't think he will surrender the limelight very easily. he has a large platform on twitter, even if twitter is starting to flag many of his tweet. he still has a huge twitter following and that is really what got him to the point where he is right now. that is where he first started commenting regularly on political issues. i don't expect that to stop. i think he will be willing to criticize joe biden on january 21 if an issue comes up where that is appropriate and especially if he either plans on running again or plans on having his next business venture with some political component to it. there's always talking about .rump tv

certainly there are things he can do to monetizes large role following. is his brand it that has gone from something that 90% of the country liked, this lifestyles of the rich and famous type thing, where only -- half of the country is into it, but they like him a great deal more than anyone had. will you be the leader of the republican party? i think he definitely will be the only influential person -- the most influential person for a while. i think elected officials will try to find their voice. maybe some will try to succeed him as leader. he will cast a very large shadow.

let's start with rick from spokane, washington on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. guestd like to hear your comment on the republican party going into a modern-day apartheid government. approach this,em an openld trump is racist. i think that is the uniting factor that drives the trump told. in emboldened something into a cultlike jonestown. go ahead and respond, jim. held: that is a widely

liberal view. there are certainly events from charlottesville to children in cages at the border to support that account. factor the complicating ,s a purely electoral phenomena theever you think about president's rhetoric or his policies, the biggest political change is the loss of suburban white voters. , inroads maderess with hispanic voters and not really just in texas. it was particularly in places like florida. so i do understand the critique. i understand it is a deeply held

the view and there are things that the president may have to anson for -- answer for. how he has behaved on certain issues. if you look at which people in america have voted and the number of obama-trump voters , it existed in 2016 and 2020 think we're looking at a more complicated electoral form -- electoral map than that. let's go to ronald in new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. ourt you think our -- expanded?a little too the russians are spending a fraction of what we spend and

they have a faster missile than what we do that goes seven times seempeed of sound and they to be able to break into our cyberspace. we have not won a major war since world war ii. it seems there's a lot of corruption in the defense industry. they're definitely have been calls to audit the pentagon. there's a lot of can turn about the content of the defense .udget there questions raised about the procurement process, questions whether the spending really goes for military means as opposed to payments for things that are programmingsocial in defense of people who are may be retired, retaining benefit as

personnel. that's not even talking about whether some of the overseas military interventions are very good ideas. , people to time consider defense the number one priority of the federal government, which is certainly true from a constitutional perspective. people are very reluctant to do anything that is not seen as providing adequate resources for the troops. there's a lot of high partisan support for keeping the military well-funded. president trump, one of his toor talking points was deliver $700 billion in funding for national defense, that he was good for money for the troops. i think a lot of people cared very deeply about making sure

that the minute women in the armed forces have what they need and are paid what they need. you have the entire the of that and they are holding the bill because of concerns about specific thing. appear tos objections be unrelated other than the potential restrictions on troop withdrawal. we have been talking about how the republican party will deal with president trump after he leaves. even as we are talking this morning, president trump is tweeting and there are republicans tweeting back at him . it seems like some republicans seem more willing to criticize president trump. this is what he tweeted.

the justice department has done nothing about the voter fraud. this is from president trump. republican representative adam kinzinger tweeted this out a few minutes ago. place, trying to burn the down on the way out because uganda losing. no evidence, nothing but your temper tantrum and crazy conspiracies. embarrassing. we would all be surprised if we saw that tweet three months ago. but it seems like some republicans are saying, hey, far.is going to far -- too guest: certainly that is being be --tical as you can

mitt romney is probably the only person who has gone much further. i think this opens up the republicans to speak this way and it has opened up the door for republicans who feel this way to become more aggressive in their criticism. they may not say, i wish the president would not talk like that. .hey may make fun of him .hey may criticize him the fact is you have more strength as a winner than as a loser, which i think president trump himself understands, which is why -- one of the reasons he is so vociferously challenging -- there is going to be a lot more willingness of republicans to criticize from. for republicans who do not agree

with the president on that trio of issues, there will be a lot of willingness to see if they can move the party back in their own direction. they will be trying to challenge trump and move past trump wherever possible. host: let's talk to richard, who is calling from maryland on the democratic line. caller: good morning. where theon as to republican party will go after trump, i think it will not go anywhere higher than where it has been. a party that runs for power. jobs.0, the rent on -- they ran on jobs. it never came about. they ran on the same thing in 2014 -- jobs, jobs,

infrastructure, never a bill introduced. when you go back to when obama was elected in 2008, newt leaderh, the minority republican from california, he -- against the president. after thed himself people killing our sons and daughters. it will never be anything other than gimmicks. reagan and bush started us on this downfall. i firmly believe republicans do not have the executive ability or honesty to handle the executive branch, as exhibited by reagan, bush and the second bush. each time it was a democrat that pulled our country back onto the right path against all kinds of opposition. where republicans go, it should

be identified as a group of individuals who go there only for their own benefit. they are the swamp. host: go ahead and respond. guest: it is an interesting point. there are some people who are opposition to the republican party under trump. likediked reagan, they they became but dismayed by the leadership of the party under trump. campaignsple in the for john mccain admit romney ercome involved in "nev trump." they endorsed joe biden for president in a way that was unusual. whohave a lot of people were sort of chagrined at the direction of the party,

beginning with reagan, or in some cases george w. bush. in some cases it is a continuation of the party being more conservative is a problem for them, and certainly many democratic voters might feel that way. hogan, thely, larry governor of maryland, potentially looking at running for president in 2024, he seems to be that sort of blue state republican in the mold the did not like reagan or the bushes, but he has tried to cast himself as a reaganite and move the party from trump back toward reagan. some people who share his inclinations, and certainly maryland republicans at that time, feel differently about reagan, although at least reagan did carry maryland at least once

in 1984. who iset's talk to john calling from pennsylvania on the republican line. caller: good morning and merry christmas, america. jim, i want to kind of go back over the past 20 years and get your comments on our country's situation and support for the military with 9/11 and whatnot. had,l problems we have under the obama administration, we had embassies being bombed throughout the middle east. talk -- your comments about president trump's ofracter -- the differences

what he brings to the office as a businessman as opposed to a politician, as a businessman you have deadlines, goals, consideration of a profit at the end of the day. when you're making decisions about a contract or to get something done, how would that differ with the characteristics or the personality of a possible partition? thank you. guest: that is a big part of president trump's appeal, he would look more at the bottom line. he would conduct things through more of a cost-benefit analysis, that he would be looking for advantage,he u.s.'s and not necessarily things that would create favor with other countries or follow the bureaucratic status quo. the overall trajectory of

federal spending under president trump has been upward and congressional republicans have been less inclined to resist that than they would be under president barack obama and likely under president bill clinton. whereare some areas president trump been different. i think trump is much more likely than even recent republican presidents to question whether the united states benefits from certain foreign military interventions. i think president trump has sharingdata on burden with allies, so the united states is assuming less of the cost -- or at least sharing the cost -- of allies' defense. i think trump would argue there are rich allies of the united states who are not really fully

bearing the burden of their own national defense, which is the case of a lot of western european countries. it is helped fund social where first date they have that are more generous than ours in the united states. there have been some areas were trump has certainly been different. i also think there has been a lot of continuity. when you look at the numbers in the defense authorization bills up until this when he is vetoing, it has been mostly the same path. a lot of his objections to this bill are for reasons other than the nature of the spending. host: jim, there has been some conversation, especially online, about possibly a split in the republican party, president trump starting his own party or taking over another political party and turning it into a

trump political party. do you see the republican party staying united after president trump leaves the white house or a possible third-party splitting off from the gop? guest: if you are going to have a semi-successful or successful third-party, having it led by someone like trump would be a prerequisite for doing that. i think it is hard to do and it is certainly hard to do after the main personality involved eventually passes from the political scene. president trump is 74 years old, granted a spring chicken compared to joe biden, but that is an advanced age to be starting a new political party. we saw what happened with ross perot. the party look promising but was short-lived. with did not get along another major elected leader,

jesse ventura, former professional wrestler who served a term as governor of minnesota. it is tough with ballot access laws. what trump has shown is it is better to run as a third-party candidate within a major party and take over that party. trump might not feel, based on how things are going with the election challenges, that he has taken over the republican party. if you look at what he has done, he has had more success than he would've had if he had run is a third-party candidate. perot got one out of every five votes in his first campaign in 1992, but did not win a single electoral vote. i think the two major parties are pretty durable. if the democratic party could receive the civil war in the republican party could survive the great depression, i imagine the republican party could survive president trump. collins,rles from fort

colorado on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. historicalkind of look at things. bankrupt at trump towers, then he goes over to deutsche bank, and then move into a special department. and then goes to second district of new york. he tries to put in a golfing buddy of his. oathchael: testified under , devaluing his properties for the irs and inflating the value of his properties for banks. as you know, that is fraud. you can go to prison. sullivan is now interviewing

people from deutsche bank. second district has no love for trump. host: you have to hurry up because we are running out of time. caller: after he gets out of office, will there be litigation in the second district? thank you. guest: that is the hope of a lot of democrats, that there will be, they would like to see some kind of reckoning for trump. they look at his business dealings as the most promising avenue for that. things these types of are more rumored about than reality. even if there is just litigation, even if there is some just legal wrangling that happens, it could influence how involved he wants to stay in politics past 2021, or if he will otherwise be occupied for a bit. host: we would like to thank james antle for being on with us

and talking about donald trump's legacy and the future of the republican party. thank you so much for your time. guest: thank you for having me. host: coming up, we will talk about your top public policy issues. you can see the numbers on the screen. the same lines we used earlier in the segment. stick with us and we will be right back. ♪ andse your mobile devices go to c-span.org for video, live and on-demand, to follow the transition of power. president trump, president-elect biden, news conferences and event coverage on c-span.org. 5, theuesday, january balance of power in the senate will be decided by the winners of the two georgia runoffs. the gop is defending their seats

and the chamber. follow the results and hear from the candidates in these final races of campaign 2020. live coverage on c-span, c-span at org and the free c-span radio app. c-span, yourtching unfiltered view of government. c-span was created by america's cable companies in 1979. today, we are brought to you by these television companies who provide c-span to viewers as a public service. ♪ >> washington journal continues. host: once again, we are now opening up our phone lines for our top public policy issues. republicans, your line will be (202) 748-8001. democrats, your line is (202) 748-8000. independents, you call (202) 748-8002.

you can also text us at (202) 748-8003. let's go straight to the phone lines and talk to william, who is calling from florida on the democratic line. william, good morning. caller: good morning, sir. my public policy going on with the opioids. for the last six months, i have been advocating for medical marijuana. i am disabled and only have one leg, it is amputated, and i have a broken hip on the same side. i did not want to get back on opioids, but i cannot afford the medical marijuana. if they pass it legally, will it make it where you can't -- the federal government will be able to get on the insurance so i can use the insurance that i used to by the opioids, for medical

marijuana. i can't advance my situation. that is what i would like to see happen. pile oft would help a people. host: let's go to miami beach, florida, democratic line. good morning. caller: hello. good morning. host: go ahead, esmeralda. caller: good morning. the very concerned because in november.ad i only saw something like this. if these people are getting

, [indiscernible] i am very concerned. host: let's go to gary, who is calling from indiana on the democratic line. good morning. voice of thethe common man, out here to take a stand. almost one year ago, i talked to you in january. i was really upset about the low voter turnout. said you people need to wake up. come november, lo and behold,

the great awakening at the ballot box, go figure. much the vote pays off. roadstructure, we see our and bridges crumbling before our eyes, and we put it off and put it off and put it off. we need to finally wake up and realize this is a major issue and needs to be addressed. it is a major concern for the public safety of everybody. host: let's talk to frank, who is calling from south carolina on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i was calling to express my opinion about the release package that is being proposed and signed by congress. with pork is stuffed belly, or pork money going to release packages overseas rather

than to the american people. pages for one bill to give relief to the american taxpayer. i think the thought of $2000 is ok, but take some of the money that is going other places, like studies of ridiculous things and give it back to the taxpayer. host: let's talk to gilbert, who is calling from birmingham, alabama, on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning to c-span and seasons greetings to everybody. thank you for your professionalism. my main issue is the economy and the american workforce. without that, the foundation that made this country and industrialized country, we will not succeed much.

made light of the infrastructure. we have allowed our human capital -- the business world has decided they are more concerned about 2 billion or 3 billion people in china than they are about the people in america. we fail to succeed at anything unless we address the lack of an industrial base in this country in the economy will never come back. host: let's talk to robert, who is calling from friendship, tennessee, on the independent line. good morning. caller: yes, sir. i would like to know why the 50 -- withs of 50 states

biden. host: go ahead. caller: i would like to know you do not let the 50 governors of the united states decide that election?rump won the host: there is no law or provision in the presidential election for governors to make that decision, robert. caller: wouldn't be a lot easier than fighting about it? host: perhaps, but you would have to change laws in 50 states to allow that to happen. ok, that is, sir, my opinion. thank you. host: let's take another look at what is going on in nashville, tennessee. one of the things that happened on christmas day was there was a big explosion that happened in

nashville, tennessee. let's go back and see what happened in nashville yesterday. this is coming from the nashville newspaper, the tennessean. national authorities believed an explosion that occurred in downtown nashville early christmas morning was an intentional act and sparked by a vehicle. police came across a suspicious rv park near at&t building before 6:00 a.m. while initially responding to calls of shots fired in the area. rv was playing a recording indicating it was an explosive device and telling people to evacuate the area. three people were hospitalized with injuries. several people were taken down to the precinct for questioning. authorities declined to give more detail friday morning. on what isp our eye

happening in nashville as we go through the end of the show. before go back to the phone lines, let's talk about what is coming up next week in congress. congress returns next week to vote on overturning president trump's veto of the defense authorization bill. congressional leaders are still working on a 2021 federal spending bill before the government shuts down monday night. house democrats will try to increase covid-19 stimulus checks congress has approved $600 per individual. forident trump has called $2000 after the bill passed. congress returns next week. you can see all of this monday, you can watch live here on c-span, with live house coverage on c-span, and senate coverage on c-span2.

join us on monday as congress works out all of these issues. let's go to howard, who is calling from alabama on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. do i talk now? host: go ahead. caller: i was just wondering, a lot of the videotape they have, do they not take this to court? i was just wondering. in georgia, they said they have a water main break but they did not and they showed it on video, they were pulling boxes out. why are they not going to court over this? it seems like everybody would want to know the truth about this. host: let's talk to carl, who is calling from omaha, nebraska, on the independent line. good morning. .aller: it is actually carlie

it is refreshing to hear republicans actually listen to some democrats. i am disabled, i spend most of my days turning from newsmax, to fox, to cnn, i want to hear them all and see what everyone is putting out there. dodgingpent four years family members and thought it would be over now, but i believe -- they believe it is all stolen and i don't know how it will get better. i thought i could finally sit down with family members and we would not be torn apart by this -- some of them love trump, some of them don't -- will it ever end? it is really sad to me. celeste, whoalk to is calling from colorado springs, colorado, on the republicans line. good morning. caller: good morning.

i agree with president trump on one thing -- i don't understand why we are building all of these walls for all of these countries. what will happen? i don't understand. let's go to some of our social media followers and see what they are thinking about this morning. here is one tweet that says opioids, used properly, are useful for treating pain, acute or chronic. the problems come when they are misused. the government has overreacted and even pain management clinics will not prescribe pills. another tweet says, the biggest problem that needs fixing is the money in politics and the corruption. fix that and everything else will follow. says,s another tweet that my top public policy issue is policing in america. it needs reforming right now.

are talking about your top public policy issues as we close out the show. keep in mind, tomorrow -- not tomorrow -- on monday, congress will be coming back and they will be talking about president trump's veto of the defense authorization bill, and talking about some of the coronavirus release packages that are sitting in front of congress. congress has agreed to $600. president trump has tweeted out he wants $2000. they will be coming back to resolve that on monday. you can always watch the house here on c-span. you can watch live action in the senate on c-span2. that's talked to tim, who is calling from lakeview, arkansas, on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you?

merry christmas. host: thank you. go ahead. caller: my biggest issue is the many liesre are so that get perpetrated for the person who does not understand what happened in georgia. pushing thept narrative that trump was crooked, trump did this, trump did that, why wouldn't day cheat? why wouldn't they? it is obvious they have. there is overwhelming evidence in so-called swing states, or battleground states, if you will. there is no way statistically that biden beat obama's record, but only in six states. haveact is, if you do not chain of custody for those

millions and millions and millions of blank ballots that were sent out, you can check which one are frauds. states violated the u.s. constitution, changing laws in the middle of an election year. the courts remedy -- can't handle this kind of an issue. there is no time to individually build up cases against these individuals. that is for the states to do. the states have to prosecute people who cheated. host: let's talk to michael, who is calling from florida. good morning. caller: good morning. the service you do is incalculable. the voices of the people are getting squashed at the local level. we have a big issue here with our governor and covid. like what you just did a minute

ago, projecting what will happen in the future, we need more of that. we need people to call in who are in the sciences to speak to how covid is being dealt with with the cdc. here in florida, we have a wonderful woman named rebekah jones, who is a whistleblower and has come out and revealed all kinds of information. it is pretty incredible. years, weedia and 50 were just talking about what will happen with the republican party, this is a genocide where we have come out and actually said we are in favor of natural heard immunity. this is key -- it is not it just matter of republicans and democrats, everybody is missing the ball here. host: unfortunately, we are running out of time for the show. we would like to think our and viewers.r

this is the last washington journal of 2020. i will see you all again in 2021 for another washington journal. make sure to wash her hands and have a great day. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> c-span's "washington journal," where every day we take your calls live on the air on the news of the day and discussed policy issues that impact you. this week, we feature our annual altars week series, one hour segments each day with a new author. sunday morning, heritage senior fellow mike gonzalez talks about his book, the plot to change america, how identity politics are dividing the land of the free. thom hartmann on the role of media in u.s. politics today.

watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern at sunday monday -- sunday morning, and during the discussion with your facebook phone calls, texts, and tweets. sunday, on book tv, on c-span two at nine -- 9:00 eastern, environmental progress founder michael shellenberger on his book apocalypse never, why environmental alarmism hurts us all. he is interviewed by a representative from columbia institute -- universities institute. >> renewables require three to 4 -- 300 times to 400 times more power than a nuclear plan. my views have been badly misrepresented by some people who i think actually know better , people who have said michael, you are insist old -- just insisting all nuclear. in apocalypse never, i defend the right of indonesia to bowl

-- burn coal because it is better than burning wood. i defend fracking for natural gas because it is better than cold. people say are you pro-or anti-national gas? from question, i am in favor of natural gas when it replaces call and against it when it replaces nuclear. two -- c-span2, book tv. 61 million americans have some form of disability, yet we are in less than 3% of film and tv shows, and the majority of the roles are portrayed by nondisabled actors. ultimately, as somebody with a to seeity, we want ourselves represented, because ultimately are we not seeing ourselves represented, it will help destigmatize disability. getesentation in general society used to everybody, and

ultimately it makes the world a more inclusive place. >> nick no vicki founder the easter seal disability challenge and response to seeing disabilities underrepresented in front of and behind a camera. on q&a on sunday, he talk -- talks about this year's entries. that is on c-span's q&a. congress returns next week to vote on overturning president trump's veto of the defense authorization bill, sending military pay, programs, and policy for the next year. president trump objected to a provision to remove confederate names from military installations and wanted to eliminate social media company protections added to the bell. congressional leaders are working on 2021 federal spending before the government shuts down monday night. house democrats will try to increase covid-19 stimulus checks. congress approved $600 per individual. president trump called for $2000

after the bill passed and democrats try to make that happen with new legislation when congress returns next week. white house coverage here on c-span, watching the senate live on c-span2. >> next, a political discussion on women's leadership and civic engagement, part of their women rural series. joining the discussion is black lives matter co-founder alicia , representative linda sanchez, representative elect laosh -- bice, latosha brown, and sonia ant olec. >> i would like to start with you. while a number of women have been named to high-level roles, none of them are latina candidates right now. we know