tv Washington Journal 02152021 CSPAN February 15, 2021 7:00am-9:31am EST
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weingarten on her union's position about the debate about reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal is next. ♪ host: the households a brief pro forma session this morning. congress is mainly out of washington this week on the president's day break. president biden returns to the white house today from camp david with the week ahead focused on his key agenda items. good morning. it is presidents' day, monday, february 15. with a new president in the white house and a former president acquitted in his second impeachment trial, we are asking about the best and worst presidents come based on a new poll.
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your choice for the best and worst u.s. presidents in history. our lines are (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats, it is (202) 748-8000. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. for sending a text, that line is (202) 748-8003. please include your name and where you are texting from. we will look for your comments as well on our facebook page. happy presidents' day to you. the pole we are talking about came from the organization u god and the economist -- ugov and the economist. here is where their top numbers are in terms of top presidents. 18% voting for barack obama. neighbor him lincoln with 17%. -- abraham lincoln with 17%.
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ronald reagan with 10%. george washington, 9%. john f. kennedy, 6%. bill clinton, 2% in that category. thomas jefferson, 2% as well. the pool done last week -- poll done last week, yougov and the economist. according to the people, donald trump with 46% of those polled. barack obama, 24% said he was the worst president. richard nixon with 5%. george w. bush, 4%. jimmy carter, 3%. woodrow wilson, george h. w. bush with 2%. james buchanan, 1%. sample size, about 1500 adults.
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that was done recently. the poll finds obama named the best u.s. president and trump the worst. that is our question for you on this president's day. this is a different take on that. it is from usa today. kennedy leaves the field in modern presidents. how americans ranked presidents from 1960's will be viewed by history. they looked at recent presidents going back to kennedy. kennedy is at the top. the blue shade means outstanding. the red is below average or poor. kennedy with the most outstanding, least amount of poor ratings. a lot of outstanding, above average ratings. barack obama, a lot in the
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outstanding. a little worse than ronald reagan in the area of poor. that was a gallup poll done january 14, just before the inauguration. your choice for the best and worst u.s. presidents, broken by party. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats. others, (202) 748-8002. we will look at other news as well and some of the aftermath of the acquittal of the impeachment. this is the headline this morning and usa today. america after acquittal, damaged, not defeated. trump survives. she writes that, since election day, former president trump has been defeated for reelection, presided over his party's loss of the senate, and gained the distinction of facing the constitution's most serious
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rebuke for a second time. though he has been damaged, in a year in which she can be disregarded by the political world from fellow republicans to the new democratic president, has not yet arrived. she says as the senate vote was concluding he issued a written statement that signaled he had no plans to leave the public scene. our historic and beautiful movement to make america great again has only just begun, he said. he'd announced -- he denounced the trial is another phase in the greatest which can't -- witchhunt in the history of our country. in that yougov poll, rated the worst president. second to him, barack obama, who in that same poll was rated as the best president. let's hear from william, who is in baltimore. democratic line. caller: my choice for the best president would be barack obama
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because i think he had to walk a straight line. he handled it well. i have an interesting list for worst president. i have a tie between george walker bush and ronald reagan. reagan for putting crack on the streets of black communities and voting not to sanction south african apartheid. and george walker bush for sending us over to iraq and sending the best young women, black women and young americans, the best of our young americans over to iraq in an unjust war and killing innocent iraqis. donald trump would be right behind them.
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they seem to ignore the fact of what george walker bush and ronald reagan did. it was far worse than donald trump ever. host: earl is next on the republican line. caller: i am a trump supporter and i have been kind of depressed with everything going on. it is an interesting time to take a poll on the best president, especially after all the videos. are you putting a hat on? that scared me for a minute. i wanted to say a couple things. as far as obama goes, i am a bald x vietnam vet. let me say this about president obama. i appreciate the last caller and what he had to say about our gis sent to these foreign wars. that is one of the reasons i
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love president trump. he is trying to get us out of those wars. as far as obama goes, i raised -- i am in a redneck area. over $55,000 i have raised for president obama's first term and i am as white as i can be. i took a lot of abuse. somebody firebombed my computer and everything else. my neighbors were taking signs off of telephone poles. host: this was in 2012, 2008? caller: 2008. i wanted you to know the reason i did not do the second term, i did not raise a dime and they were begging me to get back involved, is because he did not do a thing he promised. he did not accomplish a thing. the change he promised he never delivered on. president trump on the other hand made promises and delivered on the promises.
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he is the best president of my lifetime. i have never seen a guy work so hard or accomplish so much. host: did you wind up raising money for donald trump? caller: i helped raise money. i helped a lawyer on the internet. i gave him caution, monthly payments of support. can i say one more thing? in regards to this election, there are over 500 cases working through the court system of the united states right now. there have been 30 arrests for voter fraud in georgia alone. do not tell me there is no evidence of voter fraud. host: i checked the poll. it was done between february 6 and nine, just done last week.
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thanks for your call. we will go to paul in new albany, indiana. caller: i think our best president was barack obama and frank d roosevelt because the economic changes and progressions that had to be made were made, like health coverage. millions and millions of people today have health coverage that they could not get. pre-existing conditions have been outlawed. yearly caps on coverage have been eliminated. i think it would be a mistake to go back to those days and i think our worst president was don trump because he appealed to uneducated demagogues.
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host: paul indiana. i'm going to show you our 2017 survey. this is the c-span ranking, our survey of historians on the top presidents. this is obviously free 2020 election. this is 2017. the top five, abraham lincoln. you can find that survey on our website. we are looking at the pool by yougov -- poll by yougov and the economist. let's go to steve in michigan, independent line. caller: i think trump was the best president there ever was and the worst will be obama. good enough? host: larry is in rockwell,
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north carolina. caller: i just turned 65. this was the first time i voted. i had to vote for biden. trump, he is like a skunk that has been run over in the world -- road. he is gone but the stink is still there. host: make sure you mute your set when we -- when you call in. we hear from devon on the republican line. caller: good morning, america. the best president was president trump. i switched parties from democrat party to republican party to support president trump. and i did like president carter. he was ok because he was for the people. host: why did you switch parties? caller: i looked at trump's
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vision for the country and his background. he went to the city of new york when it was very low and depressed and he bought it up with other developers and then he took his message to the american people and ran. i appreciate that. let me say one thing. to get the congress and country going again, they need to bring back congressional earmarks. congresspeople need to work together and get our country back on track. host: given the divisiveness of the impeachment, do you think that is possible? caller: i do. over 30,000 businesses, if you follow reports from the government office in d.c., had to close after congress had
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stopped congressional earmarks. a lot of the small organizations depended on those funds. a lot of them closed because of covid-19. a lot more have closed. host: on the democrats line is mark. your best and worst president? caller: i will make this short and sweet. best president, barack obama. just think of this pandemic without obamacare and medicaid expansion under obamacare. thing of all those people in west virginia, ohio, indiana, all those people flush with money. trump voters, trump supporters $10 behind. the reason why these people have health care is because of barack obama.
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the worst president in american history clearly is the foregone donald j. trump. and the first president in american history to attempt to stop the peaceful transition from one administration to another since george washington was our first president. that is an easy call. host: appreciate your call. continue to take your calls and comments. a new paul ranks obama as best all-time u.s. president. trump ranked as worse. -- worst. we continue to take your calls and comments this first hour. democrats, (202) 748-8000. for independents and others, (202) 748-8002. this is the hill with the headline. graham was on fox news sunday yesterday and said the president
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-- former president's daughter-in-law will benefit from his second acquittal. the biggest winner in this will impeachment trial is laura trump. my dear friend richard burr, who i like, just made her the most certain nominee to the senate seat if she runs. i certainly will be behind her because she represents the future of the republican party. the senator from south carolina was also asked by chris wallace to respond to comments he made criticizing the president after the january 6 attack. >> -- [video clip] >>'s actions allow the riots to happen. it sounds like you are saying he violated his oath of office. >> know, what he did his he encouraged supporters throughout the country to fight like hell to take back an election he thought was stolen. a lot of politicians have said that. the guy was impeached within 48
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hours. he did not have a lawyer met no evidence gathered. the speech of january 6 is politically protected speech in my view, did not cause the riot. it does not represent the people who supported him. this will be part of his historical record but democrats, because they hate his guts, wanted to impeach him before they ever met him, have now started a process that you can impeach somebody in the house without a lawyer, without a witness, without cross-examining those against you, and have a trial record based upon articles from the media. this is turning into a nightmare for the presidency. i rejected the article of impeachment. i did not think president trump was guilty, and you have now opened pandora's box. senator mcconnell is a friend, but he is going to be center stage in 2022 efforts to take back the senate.
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i have been asked by a lot of people, calm president trump down. get him to calm down. sometimes he does and sometimes he does not. to my republican colleagues, this is a two way street. 90% of the republican party thought this impeachment was a partisan exercise. that is what i thought. he is out of office. to the republican party, if you want to win and stop a socialist agenda, we need to work with president trump. we cannot do it without him. tu, president trump, you need to build a republican party stronger. i am into winning. if you want to get something off your chest, fine, but i am into winning. the best and worst u.s. president, the topic. they also talk about the recent election. here's one of the questions. would you say that president joe biden legitimately won the election or not? six 64%, did.
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do you think president trump should be allowed to run for president again? 37% said yes. 53 percent said no. not sure, 10%. the survey was done between february 6 and nine and they surveyed 1500 adults. president biden cannot returning from camp david later today. a tweet here from his granddaughter. we bought him some swag since it is president's day weekend and since he is literally president. the back of his hat says pop. next is columbus, north carolina,. on our independent line. your choices are best and worst resident? -- president? caller: my choice for best president would be trump. worst president is obama because
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obama did not have to go into his term fighting the press. i cannot even imagine obama going in for four years to fight the press. he even had oprah winfrey. i do not believe obama would have been president if it were not for oprah winfrey and her backing. host: your best is president trump. your worst, his predecessor, barack obama. does that surprise you at all, that they are back to back like that? caller: i have never known as a president -- i have never known as a president that spied on his constituents. that is what obama did. you can ask maxine waters. she bragged about how he spied. how can you have a president spying on another president?
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that is just how it is. host: next is will in nashville, tennessee. democrats line. caller: i am 33 years old and i have really only lived through six presidents, four of which i was politically aware. i would have to say i am a democrat but barack obama was the worst president. there was a brief stint where i think everybody was high on his health care plans and everything. a lot of people got left behind. i had to go on disability because at the time my disability was not -- i was not able to because mine was not listed. it was very difficult and had a lot of red tape. host: to ron in michigan, go
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ahead. caller: the best presidents were abraham lincoln and franklin delano roosevelt. as far as the worst president, it has to go to andrew johnson. because of his policies, we have everything going wrong today. if he had punished the south as it should have been -- as a traitor nation -- robert e. lee should have been hung. jefferson davis should have been hung. nathan bedford ford should have been hung for war crimes and treason. the south should have been watched over as far as the reconstruction and the south should never have been allowed to rise again, something they are doing again. host: i think you are the first so far that reaches back in
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history for fdr, for abraham lincoln, for andrew johnson. do you think that before one can bestow that title or check that box of best were worst presidents you do have to have a number of years or decades go by? caller: absolutely right. for the here and now, what we are seeing here and now, trump is the first president to get the confederate flag in our capitol. jefferson davis tried to get in. but he is the first and his followers. if they want civil war, we have plenty of -- but -- host: they are doing the same topic 50 years from now. where does donald trump rate in the best and worst? you had andrew johnson as your worst. caller: i would put nixon as far as the worst for his treason and
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war crimes and trump would go as number two. host: thanks for playing along with us a little. he mentioned abraham lincoln as his favorite president. our next segment, we will be joined by author david reynolds. his new book is "abe: abraham lincoln in his times." that is coming up near the top of the hour. we will go to been in west virginia, republican line. -- ben in west virginia, republican line. caller: i would like to cast my vote for the first president, george washington, because of his respect for his contemporaries and the sacrifices they made, a nation of liberty to be ruled by law. he could have made himself king and there was plenty of backing but he understood. wood always got me about george washington is he really just wanted to retire.
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my second pick would be -- i am 35. in my lifetime, the only president that really has ever stood up and never apologized for this country and being an american in our history is donald trump. thank you. host: kyle mentioned george washington. the house and senate are off for presidents' day break, but the traditional reading of the george washington farewell address will be a week from today. i do not have the time off the bat. maybe we can find out. it is senator portman this year. it will be on c-span two next monday morning, february 22. this is the front page about the current president. biden eager to move on fast is
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there headline. president joe biden kept his head down during the impeachment trial of his predecessor, which ended saturday afternoon. now he cannot move on fast enough. biden is traveling to wisconsin and michigan as he presses ahead on challenges that will make or break his own presidency, defeating the pandemic and reviving the battered economy, changing not just the topic of conversation but also the tone could be just as difficult as tackling coronavirus. it was also a central promise of his campaign. part of his schedule, the president returning from camp david today. you will hold a cnn town hall meeting in milwaukee tuesday. thursday, he will tour one of the pfizer vaccine plants in michigan. a g-7 virtual meeting to discuss the covid-19 pandemic worldwide is coming up friday. best and worst presidents is our
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topic this first hour. we will go to marty in new york. welcome. you are on air. caller: good morning. my vote is for abraham lincoln for best president easily. i would have to say donald trump. people are saying he kept his promises. i do not see mexico paying for a wall. i do not see any of his pandemic stuff working. i was a republican and had enough with this party. i have become an independent as of this week. i tore up my card. i cannot be aligned with these people. host: did you vote for donald trump in 2020? caller: i did. i voted against hillary. i did not really vote for him.
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i am from new york. i have been here my whole life. he is a new york city businessman. he dupes people for a living. he lies first personal agenda. host: so you did not vote for trump and 2016. -- in 2016. caller: i did my vote was actually against the democrat. host: next, blacksburg, south carolina, republican line. caller: i think donald trump was the best president we have had. the worst is biden. donald trump did try to do for the country. host: do you think is fair yet judge administration -- an administration that is three weeks old? caller: i do hope your look what he has done. everything tromped on like the
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wall, the pipeline, people out of jobs -- think about how if he was running for president and you had been done like trump has been done ever since he has been in office. i do not see why -- if that was me, they would throw me in jail. nancy, she is the one who should be impeached and show -- social the rest. host: in philadelphia, democrats line. caller: good morning. i pick president obama as the best and i also want to put this caveat. before he was even sworn in, the republicans swore they would not
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work with him. answer that question. why wouldn't they work with him? before he even was sworn in, mitch mcconnell and all the republicans -- i even heard they had a meeting with newt gingrich and ryan and all of them. they got together and said, whatever he puts up, they would not work with him. host: your argument is similar to what we hear from president trump supporters, who say the democrats would not work with him when he came in in 2017. caller: what wouldn't they work with him about? trump came in and he did not want to bring the country together. he always just cared about his base people.
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he never cracked 50%. he never said, i want to bring the whole country together. host: some comments on social media and via text. you can send us a text at (202) 748-8003. this says eisenhower was a great president, rarely gets credit for the national achievements he led. my favorite president was john adams, a man ahead of his time. lee says the best presidents were those who were truly unitive. best, jimmy carter. worst, all the partisan and presidents owned by the rich and big business. andrew jackson, best for his insight into the link between the concentration of wealth and state corruption. worst, george w. bush, middle east policies. this one says, i was not around but franklin delano roosevelt was the best president.
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the worst was donald john trump, impeached twice. and it is hard to say because each president has faced different challenges. whether a president was good comes to how well he handled the challenges he confronted. in alabama, we will hear from louis. go ahead. caller: the worst president had to be donald trump. they told him about the masks. he knew the masks was simple and cost thousands of people their lives. for the best president, it had to be between abe lincoln and lbj.
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lincoln freed the slaves and gave the civil rights voting act and laws. the worst was donald trump. alabama and most of the people in the south. caller: thank you for letting me get this one in. i think the best president was jimmy carter, who does not even get the respective of being the bicentennial president. the worst president would be andrew jackson because of what he did to native americans. host: on our republican line in florida. what are your thoughts? your favorite or your best and worst presidents?
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caller: my worst is donald trump and not specifically because of the failure of any particular policy cannot more because of the state he has left us in. families are fighting. friends are fighting. it is the most hostile environment i can possibly imagine in the united states of america. i'm going to give ronald reagan my vote for best president. host: what do you think the enduring legacy of ronald reagan is? caller: you know, the cold war but the civility of the country. democrats and republicans are truly -- truly liked him. and respected him.
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host: do you feel that is of a different era even the advent of social media and the ability of people to comment in every form possible? the civility of ronald reagan, is that available anymore in politics? caller: you know, we still had it during both of the bushes. i do think it is still possible. you cannot crucify someone because they are disabled the way donald trump did or talk about the women you can grab because you are celebrity and still expect respect in the media. host: are you concerned somebody
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could run as president based on the model of how donald trump ran for president and ran his white house and administration? caller: absolutely. i am even more concerned in addition to a president thinking that is the way to go now i hope he has not taught young people to bully because he is clearly a bully. i hope he has not taught my grandchildren, other young people to just bully your way through. if someone does not please you, degrade them, get them to fear you. do not stand up because i will really humiliate you that is what he has taught. host: this is a headline from politico this morning. senators and impeachment managers. the trial is over here and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle want more facts about the january 6 insurrection.
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the lead manager was on meet the press yesterday and defended the managers' efforts in the senate. [video clip] >> i think it was a dramatic success in historical terms, the largest impeachment conviction vote in u.s. history. it was by far the most bipartisan majority ever assembled in the senate to convict a president, which has traditionally been a kind of partisan thing in american history. we got seven republicans. if you look at the 10 republicans in the house who joined us, it was by far the most bipartisan decision and a complete repudiation of the president's conduct. it did not reach the majority in the senate. we are explaining to foreign journalists who cannot understand why he was not convicted with a 14 vote margin. you need two thirds.
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i think we successfully prosecuted him and convicted him in the court of public opinion and history. he is obviously a major political problem for the republican party. as long as he is out there attempting to wage war on american constitutional democracy, he is a problem for all of us. host: happy presidents' day here on washington journal. asking you your best and worst presidents. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. for independents and others, (202) 748-8002. according to a survey of 1500 done last week, after the inauguration, the best presidents in their paul, barack obama with 18%, abraham lincoln, 17%. donald trump, 13%. ronald reagan, 12%.
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john f. kennedy, 6%. the owner roosevelt, -- theodore roosevelt. the worst president in history from that sample, leading the pack, donald trump with 46% of those polled. barack obama come up 24% said he was the worst. george w. bush and bill clinton at 4%. jimmy carter was 3%. woodrow wilson and george h. w. bush at 2%. all other presidents, 9%. in the yougov and economist p oll. a lot of reaction on social media. you can text us as well. this one says ulysses s grant deserves a position near the top. he was a military strategist who sought to reform the south. unfortunately, his
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administration was riddled with corruption. james on facebook, the best is andrew jackson for killing the central bank. the worst would be woodrow wilson for creating the federal reserve currency backed by debt with the american taxpayer pledged as collateral. on twitter, tied for best, obama and clinton. if not for his impeachment, clinton would be best. he could have gotten more done if not for his messing around. a text from georgia, my pick for best is john f. kennedy and the worst by far is donald trump. i believe history will reflect the same. in phoenix, this is brian on the independent line. caller: i think john kennedy would have been the best president before he got assassinated. donald trump, i actually voted for this guy in 2016, did not in
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2020. what a disaster that man is. host: democrats line, dave, go ahead. caller: the best president was lincoln because he understood the civil war was about preserving the democratic experiment of the u.s.. at that time, the u.s. was one of the few democracies in the world that was a functioning democracy. the worst president is trump. he did not exercise the peaceful transfer of power and he is authoritarian. at every turn, he attempted to enhance his own power at the expense of all other institutions in society. it is tragic. host: diana in florida on the republican line. caller: good morning.
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best president come up. now and forever. worst president, jimmy carter and obama. i think people calling in our twisted. i think your poll was skewed from last week. i do not know how many republicans or independents you pulled, but it is not possible. it is not possible. host: it is not our poll. it is from yougov and the economist puppy -- economist publication not a c-span survey but one we are talking about this morning. go ahead. caller: how about the pick -- peaceful transition of power? they never got off him. peaceful transition of power? that is crazy. trump did a peaceful transition
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of power you cannot blame him for january 6. people need to pray about how they are thinking about trump because they are twisted. that is my comment. i hope you have a nice day. host: marianne in new jersey, republican line. caller: first of all, i am for trump 100%. i'm 83 years old. i have 19 grandkids and great grandkids and i cannot stand biden because he is turning this country into a communist country. the worst one was obama, but biden is going to bypass him. obama was affiliated with the underground bomber. nobody wants to talk about that. what about reverend wright? host: we are going to go to louise on our democrats line.
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caller: i think lincoln was the best and trump is the very worst because he is a liar. i wish these republicans that follow him would straighten up and come to their senses. i do not know what kind of spell he has on them. he is a liar, bully. he was cruel to biden over his deceased sun because he served time in the military, died with cancer. he was cruel to him about his son. he said the military was stupid and losers. say that about your own military? there is something that is wrong there.
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host: with the impeachment trial over and a break planned, jeff mason writing about what is ahead for congress. the headline of their peace, with trump impeachment trial over, washington seeks to move forward here in former president donald trump's acquittal left democrats and republicans divided sunday even as washington seeks to move on with joe biden's political agenda. the senate trial concluded with a 57-43 vote in favor of convicting the former president come out falling short of the majority needed to do so. seven republicans joined in favor of conviction. they write the trial has left lawmakers and the country in a continued state of political discord. the capitol building and white house remain barricaded to the public. biden appealed for unity, saying
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each american had a duty and responsibility to defend the truth. they write that the end of the trial could make room for momentum on biden's priorities. the democrat is eager to pass a pandemic relief bill and get remaining nominees for his cabinet confirmed by the senate, but lawmakers' disagreements are likely to linger. next is dan in delaware on the independent line. caller: donald j. trump is the best president we have had in my lifetime. he did win this recent election as far as i'm concerned. and the voters are concerned. without a doubt obama is the worst. biden, i can't wait now that we can impeach presidents like we do a change in tires. i cannot wait until he is impeached. i cannot wait until they are all
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impeached going back to john kennedy. host: this is the republican line. caller: i have several quick things i would like to say. it is easy to point fingers and judge people. i guess you might say i am doing that a little bit, but first, donald trump as far as i'm concerned was our best president on several things. one is he stood for america first. he did stand for christians. none of the rest of them have or will. second, jamie raskin used his time to ridicule and browbeat donald trump. therefore, on all the networks, the f word was allowed to be
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used out loud, no beeping out the word. this lady that called in and was talking to her grandkids, i wonder if her grandkids saw how many times the democrats used the f word on national tv. it was not one or two stations. it was all of them. second, someone brought up donald trump and how -- all he has done. how many of us need to look back on our lives and see what we have done that can be judged? second, no one has brought up biden. he wants to smell women's hair. give me a break. i am not going to judge my but i am going to say this. the democrats that voted biden, when it all comes down to the end, i do not want to hear any complaining. you stick by him.
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you have a great day and god bless america. host: nobody has mentioned harry truman, but the has. he is the subject of their lead editorial. 88 years ago, another president defeated for reelection refused to ease the transition of his successor. herbert hoover, renowned for his work combating hunger during world war i, had been brought low in the election by a worldwide depression and lacked respect for the men who had defeated him, frank than roosevelt. 12 years later, there was a new president in office and needed help. one of the people he called was hoover. as truman remembered, hoover was flabbergasted. he said, mr. president, i do not know what to say. after greeting hoover in the oval office, truman recalls, i said, there are a lot of hungry people in the world. if there's anybody who knows about hungry people, it is you.
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there's plenty of food, but it is not in the right places. he was sitting there and i saw tears running down his cheeks. i knew what was the matter with him. it was the first time in 13 years anybody had paid attention to him. they write that president truman was an accidental president, elevated by fdr? death -- fdr's death. he liked a college degree but he read a lot. these days america's recently departed president is still labeled a populist but in truth truman was our last president to deserve that adjective in its most and rubble sense. he sought to continue what he saw as the best of the new deal while respecting institutions of government and preaching accountability. that is from the washington post on harry truman. to bill in mississippi, independent line. caller: i would like to say that
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after americans -- african-americans need to be independence. we are the key to a third party. biden is the most powerful men in the world because we built the most powerful nation. we need equality in this nation. when you start talking about equality, we are tired of getting killed in the streets. slavery is not over when one man does not get paid as much as another. how could there be? as far as presidents, all the democrats are killing black babies and bring in millions of immigrants to our neighborhoods. they do not go to white neighborhoods. they knock us further down the list to get in schools, to get housing.
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do not tell the world to come here with your huddled masses and poor and have your foot on my neck for 400 years. come on, america. we are the most loyal people. i'm a veteran. i lost friends. i almost lost my life for this country and i would do it again. as far as bad presidents, i have to mention ronald reagan, bringing drugs into my community. as far as good presidents, i would say roosevelt, barack obama. believe it or not, i would have to say donald trump because he knows how downtrodden we have been. he knows. he asks us black people.
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$500 billion for us, the closest we will get to reparations. biden has not offered a thing because the whole thing depends on black people to prop up this american economy and we do not save none of it. host: we're going to go to jesse in florida, republican line. caller: i have been a republican ever since i voted. i have never voted one time for a democrat. as for my worst president, it has to be donald trump. from what i saw, i voted for him. i wanted him to be the president. but what he did and urging those rioters, and he did, and he did
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try to prevent a peaceful transfer of power. to me, that is not american. he has to be the worst president we have ever had. as for the best president, and i did not vote for this guy, the one who affected my life the most was lyndon johnson. i cannot go back to the days before i was voting because i do not think i have the knowledge of what those guys really did. since i have been voting, donald trump has to be the worst. as for me being a republican, i do not know how long that is going to last. i am just ashamed of my party. host: appreciate your comments this morning. john and missouri says ronald reagan was the worst because of trickle-down economics and iran contra. the best is barack obama because
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he dug us out of an economic mess. the best was my great, great uncle, ulysses s grant. steve says best democrat in the modern era, jfk. worst democrats, lbj and carter. best republican come up trump. by leaps and bounds come up trump be remembered as the worst president. the best president is just starting his term, says sam in california. on facebook, jennifer says the best is a difficult pick. biden is the worst president and he has only been in that position a few weeks. this is from usa today, a lengthy article. historians say, and there are a couple quoted, despite acquittal, trump's legacy to be tarnished. the quote an author of a book on
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another impeached president, saying the senate trial demonstrates trump was willing to pressure officials into breaking the law and permit violence to stay in office, and abuse of executive power. she says he knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it. she is the author of the impeach or's, the trial of andrew johnson and dream of a just nation. trump moved from demagoguery to tyranny, she said. you are on the air, beverly. caller: good morning. and the republicans just need to find a good team. they are not all bad. trump used them. the best president was obama.
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he is a very decent man and biden, he just needed a good team. he also needs republicans to realize there are good ones in there. single out the bad ones and they will have a good team both ways. we all need to get together and healthy nation. some of the white folks are singled out in some categories and they are fighting against each other. it should not be like that. i want to help the white folks as much as -- i do not want to be used. i want to help them get the same benefits and same stuff that poor folks get. when they need help, people should help them come out to, even though they have cars and this craziness about how you
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have to have five dollars under the limit to be poor and then these people that are rich need help -- they do not get help. they hate us because of it, the poor people, because of it. host: let's hear from tom, independent line. caller: i think the best president would be lincoln. my favorite in my lifetime, donald trump. worst president would be jimmy carter. host: why jimmy carter is the worst? -- as the worst? caller: the iranian hostages. the arab oil embargo, as well as him pulling us out of the olympics. when gas prices were running
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rampant, jimmy carter has a national fireside chat where he is in a sweater and he said our problem is not rising inflation, rising gas prices. our nation is in a malaise. he is a nice person. i get that. he had no clue on how to run this country. unfortunately with what has happened with the democrats, they want to fundamentally change and transform america as we know it. i am sorry. there are too many americans like me who are not going to take that. the $64 question that should have been asked to hussein obama is, to fundamentally change and transform america as we know it, into want, mr. obama? i do not want to be the old soviet union. white people communism in eastern europe 30 years ago. host: president biden's nominees are working with -- working their way through congress.
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the interior secretary nominee is on a collision course with the oil industry. deb haaland is poised to be the first native american cabinet secretary and has joint pipeline protests and opposed fracking. i am sure -- unsure when her confirmation hearing will be held. next up, we are going to be joined by historian david reynolds. he has a brand-new book out, a biography of abraham lincoln. we will talk about that next. later, we will be joined by randy white garden, to talk about the push to reopen the nation's public schools. >> tonight on the communicators, longtime amazon executives collin breyer and doug talk about their book, working backwards, insights, stories and secrets from inside amazon. >> how the commerce company is going to be a hollywood producer
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of movies and tv shows. by doing so, this is how we created -- the amazon music and prime video businesses are so globally popular today because there are sweet devices amazon has developed to enable people to watch or read. in fact, it is award-winning content as well. >> we are excited to talk about what we think will be an enduring legacy of amazon on how to build and operate customer focus, long-term thinking and inventive organizations that take a pride in our operational excellence. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two. >> the 117th congress includes
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more than 60 new members and this diverse group includes first generation immigrants. state represented avenues, television reporters and former college and professional athletes. watch our conversations with new members of congress, this week at 8:00 p.m. eastern, presidents' day, tonight, we feature freshman house democrats and senate republican members, including teresa leger fernandez, deborah ross, frank mervyn, carolyn bourdeaux, bill hagerty and roger marshall. watch interviews with new members of congress at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. >> visit c-span's new online store at c-span shop.org. with the 117th congress in session, we are taking preorders the congressional directory, every c-span shop purchase helps
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support c-span's nonprofit operations. shop today at c-span shop.org. >> washington journal continues. host: we will continue with our conversation with you on this president's day on best and worst presidents. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for the request. for others, (202) 748-8002. waiting for our guest david reynolds on his new book, his new biography of abraham lincoln . we had some technical difficulties. we hope to have that -- professional -- professor reynolds on shortly with us on the washington journal. in transition to the new administration, he had a piece published in the washington post, an editorial piece, the headline of which says channeling lincoln's ideological balancing act will lead bite into success. the most important election -- lead biden to success.
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the most important election since 1860. both sides tried to channel a man who won the historic election, abraham lincoln. president trump said he has done more for black americans than any president since lincoln. the republican convention even featured videos of lincoln's indiana home and the lincoln memorial, as well as several speakers who mentioned the present. on the other side, in his victory speech, joe biden pointed to lincoln in 1860 coming to save the union as a peak moment in history. quoting from lincoln's first inaugural, biden declared it was time for our better angels to prevail. professor reynolds writes that it was joe biden who best channeled lincoln, pointing to a strategy that led to comparisons between lincoln and the most famous tightrope walker, in 1819 -- 1859 tightrope acrobatic.
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the most famous of which were repeated at niagara falls, on a rope 200 feet above the falls without a net. for political journalists and cartoonists, he was a politician who kept to the center, carefully avoiding extremes in his party. he won the republican nomination in 1860 because he was known as a moderate who showed the capacity for stabilizing the nation at a time when it was deeply riven over safely -- slavery. the worst thing he could do, he knew, was to inflame extremists. we will hear from professor reynolds in just a bit on his book on a per can. we will continue the conversation with you, here your opinions on the best and worst presidents. -- in the polls view, the best
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president being barack obama and the worst being donald trump. many in between. it's talk to david in longview, texas. david on the independent line, good morning. caller: yes. i feel that nixon was most underrated, because he did not start the war in vietnam. he did the same thing obama did, he spied on political opponents. he just used wiretapping while obama used electronic surveillance. he used a different means. as far as the worst, it would be abraham lincoln. they sent peace commissioners to meet with lincoln and he refused to see them. host: you're the first one to tell us that -- he was the first to tell us that in his view, abraham lincoln was the worst. in delaware, we hear from tony on the democrats line. hi there. caller: hi. for the best president, it was john f. kennedy.
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he stood up to the russians when they tried to invade cuba and he told them to get back because they were trying to attack america. for his short time, they did not even give him a chance to finish his election. as far as the worst, it is trump. he is not a politician. he was a businessman. he betrayed the country. he could not stand up to russia and i was watching 60 minutes last night, where they were attacking the united states for the longest time. he never did anything for this country except badmouth all of his workers, he fired 100 people in his office during his whole service. and then, he just attacked the
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capitol and you are supposed to protect your home. he thought he was going to be a dictator like putin. i think him and putin have something going on. you notice, putin, when he was in office, prudent -- putin meeting in russia and nobody else. come on, man. host: joe biden returning to the white house for a full agenda ahead. writing about that was michael sure in the new york times -- michael scheer. biden sets the agenda in motion, president biden's allies say that with the distraction of the impeachment trial of his predecessor now over, he will go for passage of his $1.9 trillion relief plan before moving onto to a bigger land in congress that includes infrastructure,
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immigration, promote justice reform, climate change and health care. herby, democrats line. hi there. caller: good morning. i think trump was the best president. he told us about the media being crooked. he was being honest read he did not take us to war. i think the worst president was bush. following him was obama. i think that is where we got off track at. host: george w. bush, followed by barack obama yucca caller: excuse me -- host: george w. bush, followed by barack obama? caller: excuse me? yes. obama did not do anything to him when he went into office.
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i don't understand why he is going after trump like this. that was a destroyed economy. i think obama did worse things for the mortgage companies and car company. he could have taken the money and [indiscernible] host: we are continuing our conversation on the best and worst president on this president's day, we are having technical issues trying to connect with our intended guest this morning, david reynolds, the author of a new biography on abraham lincoln. we are working on that, trying to restore the and have that conversation. we will continue to talking --
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continue talking to you. bill is in virginia beach on the republican line. caller: it is hard to say who is best and who is worst. many presidents have, in their own way, done good things for the country. when it comes to the west, there are probably a a a president who have not done anything. the start for joe biden has not been very good. i have to put him at the bottom. especially if you were one of the people on the keystone pipeline. gas is going to go up. taxes are going to go up and things will be dim for the next few years. host: i said this to an earlier carla -- collar and i will ask you, if this were happening in
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president trump's administration or barack obama's administration, is it fair to judge an administration that is three or four weeks old? i am hearing what you are saying, but in terms of the overall best and worst and the record of an administration? caller: it depends on what he has done. we have a lot of people coming into the country that will not be vaccinated to the virus. there are going to be and if it's will get for free that the taxpayers will have to pay for. they have no income at all right now. they don't have a job for whatever new type of energy the president was thinking about. i guess it was electric. the president, if i had to pick a president in my lifetime that i thought was the best, it was
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ronald reagan. the reason why was because interest rates were so high. people could barely afford a car or a house. jimmy carter didn't do anything to fix that. the reason why i voted for trump is because, at the end of obama's second term, a lot of people were having a hard time getting health insurance, because it was so expensive from obamacare. host: president joe biden will participate in his first g7 summit meeting. it will be a virtual meeting. they will talk about covid response. an article in politico talks about the british prime minister's reaction to some of what he has heard on that front from the united states. boris johnson, the u.k. and u.s. thinking has come together in recent weeks. the prime minister said he has seen the priorities of the u.s. and his nation come together in recent weeks. he was on face the nation and he said president joe biden and he
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had had two productive conversations since the latter assumed -- since joe biden assumed office last month. particularly on issues like climate change, nato and iran. above all, our ways the u.s. and u.k. will work together to deal with the environmental challenge that faces our planet. that, according to boris johnson , yesterday. silver spring, maryland, joan on our democrats line, go ahead. caller: good morning, c-span. what i would like to see is people who call in sometimes, they complain about i think immigrants coming into big countries. at the same time, what they are doing is they look at the cheap workers, they are the same ones who employ them. host: you are breaking up a
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little bit. sorry about that. chris wallace is guest, -- chris wallace's guest, one of his guests was lindsey graham. chris wallace asked graham about some of his comments made after the attack on january 6. here is what he said. >>'s actions were the problem, allowed the riot to happen, it sounds like you are saying he violated his oath of office. senator graham: no, i think what he did is he encouraged supporters throughout the country to fight like hell to take back an election that he thought was stolen, a lot of politicians have said that. on january 7, he was not impeached. the guy was impeached within 48 hours, he did not have a lawyer and no evidence gathered. the speech on january 6 is politically protected speech in my view and it did not cause the riot. it does not represent the 74 million people who supported him. this will be part of his historical record of the trump
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presidency. democrats, because they hate his guts, wanted to impeach him before they met him and they have now started to process that you can impeach somebody in the house within 48 hours without a lawyer or witness. and you can have a trial record based upon articles from the media. this thing is turning into a nightmare for the presidency. i rejected the articles of impeachment. i did not think president trump was guilty and you have now opened up 10 doors box. -- opened up pandora's box. for senator mint, -- for senator mcconnell, he is a friend but he will be on center stage in the 2022 effort to take back the senate. i have said talk to him, get him to calm down. sometimes he does and sometimes he does not. to my republican colleagues, this is a two way street. 90% of the recall can stop this impeachment was a part of an
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exercise. if you want to win and stop a socialist agenda, we need to work with president trump. we cannot do it without him. to you, president trump, you need to build the republican party stronger. i am into winning. if you want to get something off your chest, fine. but i am into winning. host: we mentioned president joe biden's g-7 meeting on friday, at busy week ahead for the president, returning from camp david today, heading to milwaukee on tuesday for a scene in town hall meeting there. on thursday, he is in kalamazoo, michigan, touring one of the pfizer vaccine plants and talking about the pandemic at the g-7 in a virtual meeting on friday. the headline here from the hill about the pole, the economist pole and their headline poll finds obama was named the best president and trump the worse. they say obama barely beat abraham lincoln as the best president with 18%. trump was at 13% with people naming him the best president.
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among the worst, trump got the highest percentage, 46% while obama got the highest at 24%. we will continue talking to you about this and taking your thoughts on this. we have david reynolds and his book on abraham lincoln. having some audio issues. if we can, we will have that later for you in the program this morning. meanwhile, we will forge ahead with your calls and comments to william in jefferson township, pennsylvania. republican line. caller: am i on? host: you are. i got a book on the president's -- your book on the presidents and they do a good job. i am not a historian or a scholar. my opinion today about the presidents is the best presidents were the ones that were leaders. the ones that took us through wars, washington, lincoln, you
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know, today's presidents are not leaders. they are followers. they are interested in being reelected. they are politicians. host: you said the best presidents are ones who took us to wars, took us to wars and came back victorious. what about presidents like lyndon johnson or richard nixon, who followed lyndon johnson? where do they rank? caller: the ones that are multiplying social problems in the bureaucracy, all they are interested in is growing the government. the government does not give you anything. the stimulus checks, giving you money, they are not giving you money that they have not taken from you to begin with.
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come on, people, wake up. host: st. petersburg, florida is next up, go ahead, this is a lan. caller: thank you for taking my call. trump has to be the roast president -- worst president whoever existed because of the insurrection. and the incitement and he actually got away with it. as far as the best president, it would be between obama and president clinton. host: ok. thanks. our caller before this mentioned he is reading the c-span book the presidents which came out a couple of years ago. it is available on c-span shop.org. the presidents noted historians rank americans best to worst chief executives. we will take a look at the survey from 2017. one of our regular surveys with
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historians on best to worst presidents. we will go to seminole florida -- seminole, florida. this is sarah on the republican line. caller: yes. the vaccine that people are hailing as a great thing would not exist were it not for president trump reeling back the regulations, shredding the regulations that prevented things like that. i believe trump, as far as i know right now, is the best president for this country. he stripped all of the regulations away. as for the worst, i think it is between clinton and obama in my lifetime. obama weaponized the irs. he weaponized them to go against normal, regular citizens, not politicians his enemies who disagreed with him who were regular citizens. that has to put him in the worst category. host: thanks for that, sarah.
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this is the survey from 2017, our most recent presidential historian's survey from 2017, c-span with several historians, noted historians on presidents in particular, the top view in terms of top presidents, abraham lincoln, george washington, teddy roosevelt, dwight eisenhower, harry truman, thomas jefferson, john f. kennedy and ronald reagan in the top 10. from north carolina, on our demo cuts line, hello. caller: i think president obama was the mr. president. some people forgot about when he came in, the country was going through the deepest recession since the great depression. when he came in, the month he came in, there were 800,000 jobs that were lost.
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he turned the economy around. every night, the media would read off the number of people who have lost their homes. the automobile industry had failed. the banking industry had failed, housing and he was able to turn all of that around. he left office, unemployment was something like 4.5%. when trump, before this pandemic, the unemployment was something like 3.5%. he got it down 1% in four years and everyone wants to say he did such a great job with the economy. it was president obama who turned the economy around from the deepest recession since the great depression. and trump is the worst president, ever. thank you. host: this is george's common --
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comment in the washington post. his headline, now begins the project to shrink trump's influence. he writes that mitch mcconnell's grip on the republican base is disproportionately important in candidate selection in primaries and remains unshaken but not unshakable. trump might soon have a bruising rendezvous with the prosecutors in the southern district of new york while explaining his opposition to the senates convicting trump. mcconnell noted that impeachment was never meant to be the final form for american justice -- forum for american justice. he said we have a criminal system and civil litigation for potential legal and financial problems that might shrink his stature in the eyes of his still mesmerized supporters. mcconnell knows the heavy lifting in shrinking trump's influence must be done by politics. he continues that in republican
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senate primaries that are open in ohio, alabama and per helps -- and perhaps elsewhere, and in a challenge to represent it of liz cheney, who voted to impeach trump, trump probably will endorse those who mimic his self rhetoric. if nominated, many will lose in november paid a mcconnell vote to convict trump would have made it easier for the ex-president's minions to cast the coming 2022 intraparty contest as a binary trump versus mcconnell choice. no one's detestation of trump matches the breadth and depth of mcconnell's, which includes a professional disdain. trump enthusiasts are as hostile to mcconnell as progressives are. he is equally impervious to the disapproval of both factions. we will go to gwynn in
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birmingham, alabama. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning to you. first of all, i don't want to be biased talking about the best and worst of the presidents, we have had several presidents that have done good things. bush did very well. lyndon johnson with civil rights. president obama with the recession and obamacare. we have presidents that did very good things and we have some that are awful. i am going to make sure that donald trump leads the list. he is, in my lifetime, i am speaking about my lifetime, i was living during obama and
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bush, but trump is the worst because of his incitement of insurrection, the scandals, he is the worst person america has ever had. the racism, the division in this country, i have never seen division so bad in america since the civil rights era. it has come home to roost. this is real. it is real in america under donald trump's watch. host: they asked other questions as well on the pole, including this one. would you say joe biden lujan madeley won the election prayed 64% say he legitimately one the election. 36% know he did not. they asked should former president trump be allowed to run again. 37% said yes and 53% said no with 10% not sure. the night before his
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inauguration, joe biden attended an event at the lincoln memorial and mentioned the words of abraham lincoln. pres. biden: sacred words, humbling out of respect to president and the office we share and humbling because of you, the american people. as i said earlier today, we have learned that democracy is precious because -- precious. because of you, democracy has failed. that is why jill and i, kamala and doug, want to make sure the inauguration is not about us but about you, the american people. this is a great nation. we are a good people. overcome the challenges -- overcoming the challenges in front of us requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy, unity. it requires us to come together, the common laws that define us as americans, opportunity,
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liberty, and respect. and to unite against common foes, hate, violence, disease, hopelessness. america's story depends not on any one of us, some of us but all of us. on week, the people. the only way we will get through the dark that surrounds us. there are moments in our history when more is asked of us as americans. we saw that in the civil war. we saw that with dr. king dreaming from these steps across the mall. we are in one of those moments now, the pandemic, economic crisis, racial injustice, the climate crisis and threats to our very democracy. and the question is are we up to it? will we meet the moment like our forbearers have? i believe we must and i believe we will.
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host: joe biden on the night he was inaugurated there at the lincoln memorial, continuing with your calls and comments. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. for all others, (202) 748-8002. we are asking you your best and worst presidents on the poll by the economist. we are working to get our guest david reynolds, we are having some technical difficulties, hopefully we will resolve that but if not, we certainly will reschedule a conversation with professor reynolds. let's go to joseph in pittsburgh. hi there. independent line. caller: good morning, how are you today? host: fine, thanks. caller: good. the best president in my mind are some of the first presidents. washington, jefferson, adams. because they had to fight so
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hard for what we have today during a difficult period in u.s. history when we were building the country and then again during lincoln's era with the war, it was a difficult period. i think presidents that hold together during the difficult periods are some of the best presidents. also john quincy adams was very intelligent. he should be noted as higher on the list, but not a lot of people know about him. some of the worst presidents, in my mind, clinton because he did a lot of things behind the scenes that people don't know about and he wasn't honest. with biden i think that we will find out. it is not what he says because he is a politician, it is what he does that will dictate how he is rated as a president in my mind. so that is what i have to say. i do have one question. i was watching the impeachment and i noticed that there is like a 15 second delay between c-span and the other channels.
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i thought c-span was live and uncensored. is there a reason they have such a long delay between what is shown on the other channels? host: were we ahead of them are behind the? caller: you were behind them. i could go to cvs and watch it and then flip over to c-span and see the same thing. host: the signals get digitally delayed. as to the other networks, they are all straight from the senate floor. those cameras are controlled by the senate. in terms of a delay, we don't add any delay on to it, simply that there is a matter of the signal being processed and being transmitted to the cable systems across the country, sometimes that is the reason why it is just on the processing of each of the different networks. i'm not an engineer, so i don't have a better explanation for you other than that. make any sense? caller: thank you very much.
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host: glad you watched. this is a tweet from brian murphy of the news observer in north carolina. he tweeted this last night. senator richard burr, one of the seven publicans voted for impeachment, for conviction, rather, senator burke likely to be censured at an emergency meeting of the north carolina republican party central committee on monday night tonight. in st. joseph, michigan, republican line. welcome. caller: good morning. i have never seen politicians so bad as we have today. i don't remember before ever really questioning a political party or questioning a president
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. myself, i think it started with the bushes and of course, the clinton's. and of course, obama. and it has just gotten worse and worse. and when president trump got in, and he promised us that he would clean up everything and drain the swamp, i really thought wow, finally, someone is going to be in here that is going to do something. and he was so ridiculed. he had to always be on guard. he had to always watch his back. i just can't get over the politicians that we have today, that we can't really even trust them. it is not america anymore. i don't even recognize who we are anymore. thank you. host: harold is up next in
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florida. caller: the worst president by far, obama. he might have done some individually good things for certain segments of the population, but in general, he ruined the economy and is reflected by who his family got. i mean, there's a huge book written about him. you need to look into this. what did obama do what he got in? the head of the cia was a communist when he was young. the head of the cia says he was a communist and we wonder why they keep doing things? this is just insane obama did. the irs weaponized, our own people surveilling us? and i guess i am white, i am part of the big threat to
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america. i mean, this is insane. host: chicago, suzanne, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm calling and because of the way the list is put together. i don't think washington should ever be included in the list. he was the first president and the archetype against which everyone else should be measured. therefore, he is outside the list, he is something very special. host: interesting. so he is a model on which -- so you can't really rank him with the rest because he made the mold? caller: exactly. he designed the presidency. host: thanks for that perspective, appreciate that. rudy is next up in douglas, georgia, independent line. rudy, mute your volume and go ahead with your comment after that. rudy in georgia, go ahead.
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one more time, georgia, you are on the line. chula vista, california, this is janice on the republican line. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: by far, obama was the worst president we have ever had. he is the reason for the so-called beginning of all of this garbage. trump is the best president and i am 58 years old and he is by far the best president we have ever had. host: on social media, here is a comment on facebook from carl who says that the best is teddy or fdr. hard to decide between breaking up monopolies or all the work done during the depression. the worst is either pierce or buchanan. hard to defend anyone who toed
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the line when we were on the brink of civil war. linking with the best president, he ended the enslavement of other humans and brought the nation together. the worst was andrew jackson who committed genocide, trump who committed sedition and insurrection is a close second next to jackson. on twitter, interesting how many people are citing andrew johnson as best after what he did to the natives and blacks. also interesting how trump love sin, and i think he may be referring to andrew jackson. free democrats, i would choose obama as the best, worst goes to andrew jackson. for gop, it is a tossup between eisenhower and roosevelt. the worst just got booted out of office much to the relief of the world. and one more, in my lifetime, reagan was the best president. tax cuts helped restore strong economic growth after the devastating 1982 recession. the ussr raising the white flag without the u.s. having to fire a shot.
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in huntington, west virginia, we hear from pst next on the democrat line. -- pat. caller: good morning. i have mulled this over many times, without a doubt, washington has to be number one. lincoln is number two for keeping the union together and freeing the slaves. jefferson is number three for overseeing the largest expansion of our country to date. fdr is number four, he served parts of four terms in his progressive politics and leading us through the second world war. teddy is next up. he was the first progressive president and he expanded us internationally and he was a
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friend of labor and he busted up the antitrust. ike for leading us through the second world war, leading us through the largest expansion, financial expansion in history, and putting the united states firmly as the number one country on the entire planet. for expanding us through texas, california, new mexico, arizona and colorado during the mexican war. james monroe and james madison are the next two, numbers nine and 10. or eight and nine for their statesmanship. monroe for the era of good feeling and for the monroe doctrine which we still follow today of overseeing south america and central america, and madison for his work as a statesman and for the bill of rights and lastly, john adams, for his statesmanship both
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internationally and here at home. he was sent to britain, he was sent to france. him and ben franklin helped to save our nation along with washington with diplomacy with the french. and barack obama gets a special mention because he served over seven years of financial expansion during his administration after a disastrous george bush administration. host: that is a great list, really interesting perspective. how long did it take you to put that list together? review just listening this morning and tikcing that way or have you been working on this a while? caller: i've talked about this for years with other people. i have a degree in american history and government, and i have mulled it over, i have move
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people from place to place. i think i've got them right about where they ought to be. you've got to give people credit when they expand the country the way james polk did, and he only served one term, he just wanted to serve one term, but through the mexican war, he gave us the second largest expansion in our country's history, after thomas jefferson, who made louisiana's purchase and made us a nation from coast to coast. anyway, go ahead. host: you finish up. caller: well, that is just it. i think that the reasons i gave are pretty self-evident. now you can move those guys around anywhere you want, but they are the top 10 without a doubt and like i say, obama's close and there simply because he was thwarted at every turn by a republican legislature, and
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yet he still was able to continue that economic expansion after that terrible disaster in 2008 and seven years of expansion. host: it sounds like you're still reading a lot of presidential biographies and history to keep this list pretty fresh in your head. caller: sir, i had a 37 year career working converter huntington, west virginia, and i spent many hours thinking about things with nothing to do but to drive around in the beautiful country in the beautiful mountains and after i retired, i became a schoolteacher. i've been a schoolteacher for the last six years, and i have taught everything from high school algebra and i love it. but my first love is politics and history, and frankly, right now, i am a city councilman.
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anyway, yes, history has been one of those things that i have always read about. host: it sounds like that list is the making of a book there, pat. caller: well. host: i don't need to put pressure on you, but that is a good list. i can agree with a number of those, that is a really good list, very thoughtful. caller: little league baseball is getting ready to start and i coach a team of six-year-olds and eight-year-olds in the minor leagues and i'm also on the board there. host: i'm going to hang up on you because you are putting the rest of us to shame this morning. caller: thank you, sir. host: thank you. pat in west virginia. ruth is next in illinois, go ahead. caller: good morning. i like that guy.
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the best president in my voting time has been to stand up for us low-wage workers is donald trump. the worst one, and i'm sorry, i voted for jimmy carter because i thought he was going to stand up for israel, and he failed me on that. now we've got joe biden that has come into office, and i'm basically native american. i could have never voted for biden. i watched when george wallace ran for president, i stood up and praised him. and i just have not liked joe
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biden since then. barack obama, he stood up for islam and the islam nation, and i know he said he was a christian, and you need jesus christ -- host: was he wrong to stand up for people who are muslims? caller: huh? host: was he wrong to stand up for people who are muslims? caller: against americans. our troops could not even take the bible with them when they went overseas to fight. is that standing up for americans? no. that is the point. i'm sorry, but as being like dr.
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king, trump, the speech that he gave to march to the white house , go back and look at dr. king's march to selma speech. host: saint stephens, south carolina, republican line. caller: lesson, i speak for the american people. i speak for the voters who voted the last 20 years. we've seen what every president has done. this one threat that we have, almost everything he said he was going to do and more. he cared about the american people, he cared about america. he wanted to put america first. let me ask you, we live in america.
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what is wrong with americans wanting to put america first? we do enough to help all third world countries out. we just came off of obama's apology tour. we're so sorry for being bad, mean americans. you know what, this country was founded on blood, soldiers dying. people need to understand what america is all about. and i'm so sick of hearing these liberals talk about how they want to twist and change things. you know what? there has never been a president like president donald trump. host: michigan, david, democrat line. caller: thank you for taking my call. your last caller, wow, he needs some serious help. this is a pretty simple question. you let these people just rant on and on and on. we got a history lesson from this one guy about every president under the sun. i know it is somebody's opinion,
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but this guy telling the whole history of every president, it is a simple question. best, worst. the only decent republican ever was abraham lincoln, and of course, the most outstanding president ever was frank eleanor roosevelt and fat donnie is the worst president ever. he's a criminal, a liar, and a thief. his legacy will be the crushing of the capital and 500,000 people dead from coated. he is an absolute criminal and a psychopath, no doubt about it. thank you, have a good day. >> thank you for the service you provide to us all, it is phenomenal. i would like to say that former president donald trump is a birth that we've ever had. i believe that we as republicans need to reconcile the election loss. i don't believe it was stolen, i
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think the former president is totally responsible for the loss and no one is willing to step up and say that. i don't have a twitter account, but i would love somebody to start the great republican challenge of 2021, to read the party resemblance day. they don't represent me anymore. it is a travesty what has happened here. the voices of the trump part of the party are so loud that the rest of us are drowned out. i am a part of the silent majority. we can always return the party, but the only way that they be accomplished is by us leaving the party, whether temporarily or permanently, and i plan to do that today. so thank you. host: morehead on washington journal. up next, we will be going by the
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president of the american federation of teachers. talking about the efforts to reopen american schools. that is ahead here on washington journal. ♪ announcer: on thursday, the house financial services committee hearing on the recent volatility in the stock price of gamestop and decisions by some companies to restrict trading of the stock. witnesses include robin hood's ceo, citadel ceo, reddit ceo, and financial analyst keith gil. watch live or listen on the c-span radio app. listen to c-span podcast. this week, and look at u.s.
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foreign policy and nato. our guest is the senior policy analyst in european affairs with heritage foundation margaret thatcher center for freedom. he talked about nato's role today and the idea of a peace dividend. >> there is still this idea that at the end of the cold war, countries in europe and the united states, it was the end of history, this with the mindset. there really was no existential threat anymore from russia. what is the role of nato? does the u.s. still need to make these trips? one the u.s. maintained that, the number of troops were brought down significantly. announcer: the 100 17 congress
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includes more than 60 new members in this diverse group includes first-generation immigrants, state representatives, television reporters, and former professional athletes. watch our conversations with new members of congress this week at 8:00 p.m. eastern, president's day. tonight, we feature freshman house democrats and senate republican members including teresa leger fernandez. deborah ross, carolyn bourdeaux, bill hagerty, and roger marshall. watch interviews with new members of congress at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. online at c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. >> you are watching c-span, draw unfiltered view of government. c-span was created by america's cable television company in 1979. today, we are brought to you by these television companies who
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provide c-span2 viewers as a public service. washington journal continues. host: we are joined by randy white garden, the president of the american federation of teachers. he has with us this morning to talk about the efforts to reopen schools across the country during the pandemic. welcome to washington journal. guest: thank you. my kids communist weingarten host: how many members do you have, what types of educators do you represent? guest: we have about 1.7 million members, and over 200,000 of them are working in health care facilities as respiratory therapists and hospitalers. about one million of them work in pre-k through 12, public
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schools. florida, that is pre-k-12. and the remainder are in public services including correction officers. the people who watch our water, to lawyers. and we are the largest higher education union from adjuncts to full-time tenured professors. host: as you alluded to, you come as a former teacher. during the pandemic, what has been the most common complaint issue that you from your members, your member teachers, your teacher members across the country? guest: teachers are used to doing it all, and frankly we represent a lot of rural and urban systems. people in those systems from lh chicago to new york city, i taught in brooklyn for the health professions, which was a
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career tech at school. so people are used to doing it all, they are used to working in schools that don't have soap, that don't have windows that open, that have textbooks that are 50 years old. but this is a pandemic. and what happened in this pandemic is teachers have tried to figure out virtually everything, from turning on a dime to remote education, which they would have told you, pre-pandemic, was not the best way to engage kids, to now, after 10 months of fighting for resources, reading for guidance, fighting for data, and then being blamed when we don't get any of those things, they would express and utter frustration about how the powers that be have dealt with them. particularly the former trump
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administration and several governors and various things. what they don't expect frustration about is the connection that they've had with students and the appreciation that parents have had for them, because parents are now up close and personal and have watched through the screen teachers connecting with kids and trying to really lift up kids emotions and find that way to learning in a very, very anxiety-filled time with lots of inequity, lots of fear, lots of death. host: want to make sure that those parents, teachers, and kids can join that conversation here on c-span's washington journal. the phone lines are set aside for educators. for parents and students, i
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should say, (202) 748-8001. for all others, (202) 748-8002. obviously having you on this morning in the aftermath of the cdc releasing guidelines on friday, you put out a statement that said the cdc has met fear of the pandemic with facts and evidence and some of the guidelines that came out from the cdc, encase folks don't know, include making physical distancing and hygiene mandatory, lower income students and students with disabilities will be prioritized for in-person instruction, students, teachers, and staff who are at high risk of severe illness cannot out of in russian, teachers should be prioritized for vaccination, but not mandatory for reopening, and in person learning prioritized over sports and other extracurriculars. with all these guidelines in place, what do you think the most difficult thing will be
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about coming back into school, physically for students and teachers? guest: first off, let's go with the positive for a minute, which is that for the first time in 10 months, we actually have a set of guidance that is based not on politics or on public health. there has been some studies both in europe as well as in america about what has and has not worked. so for us, it should have happened last april or may. we put out guide last april about not whether to reopen schools, but how. we want to explore the myth that teachers don't want to be in person in school. they understand how important it is for children, but we need to make it safe for families, for educators of our kids.
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so what you have here is you have a set of science-based, fairly detailed mitigation strategies for how to reopen schooling in person. for that is the good news. the bad news is that we need to have the resources that are attached to it. we've been fighting for those resources since last april and may. nancy pelosi's heroes act in the congress was a very good way of approaching it. it is unfortunate that it got passed in december. joe biden's $1.9 trillion rescue act, very important because it focuses on both what we need in schools and the cities, estate
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-- states, and localities as well as struggling individuals with the moratorium on evictions, on student loans, on increasing employment. the bad news is that this is now on a really bad political situation where people see the wearing of masks as political instead of as a public health requirement. and so i already saw over the weekend questions about whether this is doable. if we care about her students having in-person education, this has to be doable. and this has to be something that becomes the norm all across america. the other piece that is concerning is that things like bars and gyms and other things will not take front street
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because we've seen that those are the things that are big transmitters. there's probably going to be lots of questions in different places about whether the politics takeover, or whether the public health takes over. host: kind of interesting to look at a survey that cnn has of how education has been happening over the pandemic. it is not quite one third, but basically virtual, only 35%. hybrid models, 25%. across the country in person, 40%. the next big phase of the thing is the rollout of vaccines. are you involved in all getting teachers vaccinated? guest: we've been trying to. i want to just go back to what you said before, because in the fall, you basically had 13,000 districts due 13,000 things. and there were a lot of places
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where you had tremendous austerity, where you had real lack of investment. you could see in terms of what was closed, what was remote and what was open based upon a disinvestment line. the disinvestment in buildings. like when you could not open a window, when there was no money for soap. in places like philadelphia. los angeles. such that millions, los angeles spent millions on fixing their ventilation systems. that was kind of in terms of remote versus others. we saw in places where there was space and in suburbs, and rural areas where you could actually have more space for kids being outside instead of inside.
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and then in november, december, when you saw this surge, you saw a lot go back to remote. new york city has the gold standard in terms of the way in which we opened and the biggest local in our union, the biggest school system, they have explored the myth that unions don't want to reopen schools. we know how important it is to be safe. so you had basically a very, very clear checklist for what constitutes safety, and that is very much in line with what the cdc just did right now. you could have a situation because of community transmission in new york city where there were 800 elementary schools starting in december that were open, where 200 or 300
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to close for a few days and a quarantine period because there was transmission of the virus in that school. it is not normal until we deal with the virus. host: you mentioned chicago a little bit ago. i just want to get an update on where things stand between the teachers union and the mayor, lori lightfoot. guest: it is soft. it was really nasty and negative and i just saw that lori lightfoot did interview in the new york times where she said that she learned a lot about the fear that she got herself involved in the middle of negotiations.
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they have a very good set of protocols now in chicago for pre-k, for elementary, and for middle. in the pre-k students started again last thursday. but what had happened, and this gets to the vaccine issue and the accommodation issue, is that we are still in the middle of this pandemic. and we push very hard. again, remember, we represented both health care as well as educators. obviously for health care, to me, that is the number one priority. not that it was required for a nurse to work in a covid-ward, of course it is not required. but what happened is that it
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provides another protection to these front-line workers. the same in terms of grocery workers and in terms of emts and teachers and bus drivers and other educators. what the vaccine does is it basically gives you protection against being really sick. it is these mitigation strategies the cdc just did that stop transmission. god forbid you have a virus, you're going to get less sick if you have the vaccine. that is why any front-line workers should be given the front of the line in terms of the vaccine. the cdc in december said educators as well as other front-line workers should be in this category, and some places have done it and some places have not.
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today and saturday in washington, d.c., every educator that wants their second shot, they've already gotten there first, every educator that once their second shot will have their second shot today and saturday. they worked out with the governor, andrew cuomo, that they could stand up their own vaccination programs, which they did for emblem health and nyu. they are all heroes to me. in new york city, 15,000 educators have already gotten there vaccine. that was part of the fight in chicago, that we said that if people are going to be in school, they should have first priority to these vaccines, and we also had to make sure, and the cdc has now done that as
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well, that those who are at risk , as educators, or who are taking care of somebody at risk, they should have an accommodation. so if you are taking care of her 90-year-old mother, or if you are taking care of a kid in your family who is immunocompromised, you don't want to decide this with educators over time. they are fearful that they are going to walk into home with it and transmitted to a family member. that is what they are fearful about. with these kinds of protections of reasonable accommodations for those who are at risk, or vaccines, you can actually make sure that you don't get them sick. these things become really important if you are trying to reopen schools for our kids in the country. it's not either/or, it is both and. teachers can't do it all right now. host: our phone line for educators is (202) 748-8000. and we have several waiting
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period germantown, maryland, go ahead. caller: i teach for a tutoring company and i teach math and english to kids. but we are not working since the coronavirus. i am a chronic asthmatic, i have been all my life, and i believe in getting vaccines for anything and it has helped me avoid going to the hospital and being on intensive care like i was back in 1993 on a respirator, so it is really important for people with problems like i have that are respiratory, not to be exposed to kids who have the coronavirus or anybody else, for that matter. i think it is better to let educators get vaccinated. whether they are professional teachers or part staff like myself, because that way when we go to our workplaces, whether they are elementary or adult, they are going to pass it on and
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bring it back to their families. sending us those who are not vaccinated, they could bring it to us and pass it on to us while we are working. that's why i feel like it is very important for everybody who is an educator to be vaccinated ahead of time as well as other people that are front-line workers. host: randi weingarten? guest: thank you for sharing. my sister is in intensive care doc and i grew up asthmatic. that moment when you cannot breathe is one of the most scary moments in life. so that is one of the at risk categories for respiratory disease, and i was very pleased that cdc said in their guidance that people who are at risk for taking care of people who are at
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risk need to have reasonable accommodations. that is number one, meaning that they can't be on leave without pay. they have to have a teleworker or they have to have a family leave agreement that is part of joe biden's $1.9 trillion rescue plan, and as part of one of the things that is agreed on in terms of the chicago settlement. in terms of the vaccines, as i understand it, vaccines help prevent serious illness. that is part of the reason why educators and other front-line workers are prioritized. the limit is that joe biden inherited a very flawed process, so he is trying to get out as many vaccinations as possible
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all throughout the country, and ultimately, some governors are working with us to do that, and some are not. pennsylvania is a terrible situation where people in pittsburgh, educators were supposed to get vaccinated at the beginning of february, and then for reasons i don't understand, governor wolf move that away. and i'm not saying that other people aren't important, of course they are, but for our schools to a, we need to align vaccinations with in school learning. host: elk grove village, illinois, good morning. caller: morning. i really think that the poor kids are the ones who are the real losers in all this. they are having very few problems, the suburban schools are open, they have commonwealth
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basketball. no mask, the coaches did not have masks. but high schools can have sports because of the virus. there is a cdc study that says transmission is the lowest in schools and among schoolchildren but i just hear no plan, absolutely no plan for opening. i hear we need the rescue plan, we know the teachers unions get more money to joe biden. i suspect some of that goes to the schools ample wind up back in his pockets. we just don't have a plan. what i see is just for children who can afford not to be in school, we are holding them hostage. guest: that is completely wrong, and there is a plan.
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frankly, what we've seen, and i'm sorry that you have not seen it up close, we have over 400,000 people who have died of covid, and we have millions of people who have been infected by it. and maybe you have not seen people in your own family who have died or been infected, but our plan is about both making sure that we can reopen schools, reopen and safely, so that kids can have a shot at life. the places that are most skeptical, i would give you an example in terms of chicago. when the chicago school system did a survey about who wanted in school learning, 60% of white parents opted for in school learning. 30% of black and brown parents opted for in school learning. what happened with this disease, it has had disproportionate effects on black and brown and indigenous communities.
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so we have to get this right. and what we are seeing right now is that in the last few weeks, new york city has reopened since december, you have had boston reopened any gradual way. you have chicago reopening any gradual way. you have miami-dade reopened. the major school districts with the exception of philadelphia and l.a. are now reopening with these kind of resources. but, sir? i taught in a high school where i had to scavenge for chalk. so let's make sure these kids get the resources that they need. let's not talk the talk about it, let's get them the resources and joe biden plan gets them resources. it gets every family resources. it gets people the check that they need. this is the kind of stuff that we need to do for all of our families. host: the educators line,
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kentucky, charlie, go ahead. caller: yes, good morning this is weingarten. -- misses weingarten. i'm a prime candidate to get this. let me tell you something. we went back to school a week before the governor of kentucky said we should. we close down public and private. my thinking that was unlawful. but what did we do? we took the limited resources that we had, much more limited than the public schools, might i add, because in kentucky, we get no money from the state. what we did is went to the local hospital, and said what do you guys do? they told us, we bought the equipment. we also enforce rules and with our rules, there are consequences. if you go down the hallway in the wrong direction, if you don't have a mask on, guess what?you go to detention
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. consequences. we have 535 students, all boys. we have seven young men get it and recover quite quickly. we had as many as 43 in quarantine. we are down to 18 now. we have had one, note the number one, one faculty member that is contacted -- contracted the disease and recovered within two weeks. i don't know what the public schools are doing, but they are not doing much. cincinnati public, your governor says you get the shot if you go back to school. they refused to go back to school. they went to court. the court says you must go back to school. they still are saying we are not going back to school. i think you had better twisted up the ladder and little because it don't look prime to me. guest: i would say that if the cincinnati public schools -- first of all, sir, i am so glad
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that you have been in education for this long and that you are able to do this. at the union, we also at the beginning of the virus, when you could not get masks, we spent millions of dollars to get our members face shields and masks so that they did not have to rewash. frankly, i don't think i've ever bought anything in china, but we had to go to china to buy surgical masks. the kind of innovation and ingenuity that you showed, we are seeing that, and this is part of the reason why the cdc studies have seen that you can reopen elementary schools safely, because there were a lot of kids to actually did follow the rules. and it was not like what we saw in georgia with that huge hallway with nobody wearing
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masks and things like that. we are also seeing that lots of private schools have been able to open. also having the kind of testing that they were able to do. but your process that you did in your school's frankly the kind of process that we are looking for in those public schools, and that is what we are able to do it new york city and frankly, that is what cincinnati is trying to do. they are open, they are trying to actually have the kind of safeguards that you were able to do the old-fashioned way, to try to make sure that those things actually are in every single school. host: you mentioned those crowded hallways. what does a school look like in terms of the crowds in a hallway , the kids in class, how many, however they separated? in your planning, what do you think is the best scenario for in classroom teaching?
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guest: so, if you think about physical distancing, the two most important litigation strategies are the appropriate use of masks, and now the cdc is talking about double masking, but the appropriate use of masks and having at least six feet physical distancing. that essentially means that you are down to about half the people in a school that you would normally have and dependent upon how small or large classrooms are, you could be talking about one third or one half in terms of a classroom. so places that had lots of space and suburban schools, particularly newer ones have lots and lots of space, you might be able to figure out with plexiglas and other things like in the auditorium or in the cafeteria what to do in terms of
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classes. in places like a new york city school, like an elementary school that has much more limited space or a chicago elementary school or a philly elementary school, you may really be talking about one third in a classroom instead of one half. host: headline in usa today, cbc withdraws roadmap to reopening schools. our guest is the president of the american federation of teachers, randi weingarten. about 10 more minutes, a little bit less than that. we will get as many of your comments as we can until then. wisconsin, jim, go ahead. caller: ok, i would like to thank you. i've tried to talk on washington journal for so long and i feel that i can weigh in a lot. i am a retired employee of the city of racine, and it was the
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american federation of state, county, and municipal employees. i also started out as a garbageman in 1975 and after retirement, i was elected as a racine city alderman for five terms, so i would say i have gone the gambit. i attended private schools, but i guess my biggest problem is i've always viewed the union as the attorney for me if i did something wrong or if i was accused of something wrong. i would be represented. i never realized that the union, as in the teachers union, could be used as a stumbling block to returning children to education.
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my wife found gloves, masks, and paper masks made in the united states and we use them. i would not buy masks from china, who started the biological attack on us. we are suffering. i was in the military, i know what biological and chemical warfare is. host: you've mentioned that. guest: nobody wanted to buy masks from china, the last president would not invoke the defense production act and ended up complaining that nurses and doctors started pretending that nurses and doctors were stealing masks instead of what they needed at the beginning of this pandemic. frankly, sir, what we are trying to do is every schoolteacher i
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know would rather be in person with their kids. we know what kids are missing right now. everyone has a right to have safety. frankly, what i would blame right now, and there's lots of people who blame donald trump, but donald trump and betsy devos use to the guidance that we needed in any public health pandemic. you need guidance, they refused to do it. they refused to do the resources. you got resources from mypillow, other people got resources from other places. teachers in new york city needed resources. teachers all across the city need to make sure the systems work in schools. we need to make sure that you can open windows. you need to make sure that places are cleaned. ultimately, this is what we are asking for. now, with this administration,
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they want to do it. so ultimately, and they want to do it regardless of whether somebody is a blue state or a red state or a purple state. and that is really good news for the american people. i just wish we had it 10 months ago. host: beyond the pandemic, what is your prediction on where hybrid learning, virtual learning will fit in the whole specter of teaching, particularly k-12? guest: i think that some aspects of virtual learning are going to be here to stay. some aspects i think have been helpful, but you have to also make sure that the 16 million kids that still don't have high-speed internet get it, and that they still don't have appropriate equipment.
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the kind of group work that has happened in some schools, the reinforcement that has happened, i think that would be here to stay. but i think the biggest lesson is in school learning. all, people now realize and recognize how important school learning is. the resilience that gets billed. the connective tissue that happens is really important. what you can see in school, what you can see face to face is really different. what i also worry about is how much time this pandemic has really hurt in terms of loneliness and isolation. which is one of the reasons why so many schools have said this. but look at how the nfl did
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sports. look at the difference in terms of the testing all the time. they made sure that the disease was not transmitted. they saw through testing what you can't see in a disease that spreads silently. we need to really get to the issue of how we help our kids post-covid, particularly because of this isolation and just being by themselves and not being with other people. that is what i worry about most. host: we haven't really talked about the testing in schools in terms of cdc guidance. how are all these tools going to do regular testing? how will the nation's public schools do that? >> part of the biden rescue plan is meant $23 million for testing. i am a big believer in testing. i've watched how it works.
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testing does not stop transmission, but testing does let you see transmission. you can at least see what is unseen. with all the new kind of rapid tests that are now getting to the market, which are cheaper and cheaper, what chicago is doing, for example, is there testing every single employee once a week and half of the kids once a week. in new york, they testing kids and teachers. 20% of kids and teachers are tested every week. that is how you are seeing how community transmission has decreased the potential of transmission in schools. host: i'm going to have to cut you short, the house is coming in for a short session. really appreciate you joining at
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