failures in the south and the push for increased infrastructure spending. also, a reporter gives us an update on the latest developments in texas. and we will take your calls. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." congress is debating the issue of reparations. a house committee is talking about setting up a commission to study the issue. an idea that has gotten support from the white house. but some conservatives are against the idea of even studying reparations, calling it an impractical and nonstarter. what do you think? we want to know how you feel as congress considers studying operations. we are going to open up special

lines this morning. if you are in favor of the idea of studying reparations for slavery, we have a line for you. that line is (202) 748-8000. if you oppose the idea of studying reparations, your line is going to be (202) 748-8001. if you are undecided all you need more information before making up your mind, the line you call is going to be (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always reading on social media, on twitter, and c-span wdi, and facebook.com/c-span. once again, a congressional committee took up the idea of studying reparations earlier this week. usa today has a story on it in their paper, and i'm going to

read you a couple of paragraphs about what they said. "legislation focusing on how the u.s. can apologize for slavery and make reparations to the descendents of slaves is getting renewed attention. sparked by a groundswell of support after last summer's nationwide racial protests. a house committee debated on wednesday that would direct more than a dozen experts to examine how the u.s. government supported slavery from 1619 to 1865 and created laws that discriminated against formally enslaved people and their descendents. the commission could recommend remedies, including compensation and education of the american public on the legacy of slavery. " once again, that is the bill going to congress right now. the bill that would only study reparations, not actually pay out reparations.

we want you to know what the bill says. the bill coming up in front of congress is called the study of reparations committee, and in this bill, which has been introduced in every legislative session since 1989, the bill would identify the role of federal state governments in supporting the institution of slavery. it would then identify forms of discrimination in the public and private sectors against freed slaves, and finally it would identify lingering negative effects of slavery on living african-americans and society. this bill first came to congress by the late john conyers. the current version has 167 cosponsors. this bill is being assessed in committee. it has never received a floor vote in the house of representatives.

but a committee actually had a conversation earlier this week about the bill. and during this conversation freshman democratic representative cori bush talked about her family's experiences with racism and why she sees a need for reparations. here is what she said. rep. bush: my story is a family -- is a story of survival. it is a story of the great migration, the mass migration of 6 million african-americans out of the south. when white farmers traveled to the west in search of land, a were granted 160 acres of free land through the homestead act. my family was denied the promise -- denied the promise of 40 acres and a mule in the aftermath of the civil war. my story is the story of a great-grandfather who served this country in world war i, and

a grandfather who served this country in world war ii, only to be discarded as they suffered through the wounds of war. when white soldiers came back from fighting, they were giving housing preferences and education subsidies. my grandfathers were denied those benefits. my story is the story of men and women who fled violence, who were stripped of their rights and protections, who were left out of g.i. pills and new deal subsidies. the bile -- the violence my family felt was not isolated. it was systemic, structural, political, backed by legislation backed by this very body to deny descendents of enslaved people economic and social opportunities. underlining the generational trauma is a government that abandon its role to protect its own citizens, a government that refused to evening knowledge humanity of my ancestors. a government that, to this day, refuses to acknowledge or tone

for the wrongdoings of white supremacist violence. the federal government must account for its ongoing role in perpetuating, supporting, and upholding white supremacy. host: there are some people out there who don't think reparations should even be studied or paid. during his opening statement, former nfl player herschel walker spoke about the challenges and issues that would come up with slavery reparations. here is what herschel walker had to say. >> reparations, where would the money come from? does it come from all of the other races? who is black? what percentage of black must you be to receive reparations? do you go to 23 to -- go to 23 and me to determine the percentage of blackness? some american ancestors just came to this country 80 years ago.

some black element -- like immigrants were not here. some states do not have slavery. we as black americans have always wanted what the constitution stated -- all men, black, white, etc., should be guaranteed rights of life, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. years later, after slavery ended, dr. king's i have a dream speech said the signing of the emancipation proclamation was a great beacon of light, but hundreds of years later we are still not free. because of segregation and discrimination. today i call that reparation. i asked my mom, who is in her mid-80's, her thoughts on reparations. her words, i do not leave in the

reparation. who is the money going to go to? has anyone thought about paying the families who lost someone in the civil war, who fought for our freedom? your dad and i provided for our family through a good education and hard work. if you give amanda fish, you feed him for a day. teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime. reparation is only feeding you for a day. black americans asking for a hand up, not a handout. host: what do you think about the idea of congress even studying reparations? let's go to the line and see that you have to say? let's start with steve, who was calling from connecticut. good morning. caller: good morning. herschel walker is probably a multimillionaire as a subject in this conversation is ridiculous

on its face. there are a huge number of black people today impoverished. based on the news, they are. furthermore, i wrote a book titled "reparations." i have studied this personally, and i have taken a completely different approach to the issue of slavery. that is, i completely avoid the slavery issue as a reason for reparations. the reason for reparations i use are the murders that have taken place since the trayvon case, and the cops who have never been prosecuted for the murders we have actually seen them commit. that is the number one issue on my mind.

furthermore, i am not advocating a payment, like the japanese were given $20,000 for their few years in some kind of a camp. which i don't condone, but i don't think you can compare a camp to slavery for a lifetime. that is preposterous on its face. the issue i raised is this. i kill two birds with one stone. we really need to deal with the problem of climate change. the only way to deal with it that the congress won't even mention his converting power to hydrogen and eliminating fossil fuel, which includes, by the way, nuclear power. host: let's go to george, who was calling from whitehall, new york. good morning. caller: oh, yes.

interesting discussion. i saw the portion on the channel yesterday. it is really complicated. i've got ancestors that fought in the civil war. are you going to give me money for that? i'm not really interested. it is a really deep issue. as i said, i watched that discussion. they are very good people, very good people discussing it, but i'm not sure it is going to go anywhere. that it's going to benefit anybody. host: george, the bill has come up repeatedly every year since 1989 and has never even gotten beyond committee level. what do you think it is going to take to push the bill forward or to end the conversation about it, one way or the other?

are you still there, george? i think we lost george. let's go to mary, who was calling from fort washington, maryland. good morning. caller: i have this to say. this is the question that should be answered by black people only. people of caller. the question about the reparation. first of all, a reparation to me, there is no amount of money that can answer what has happened to black people from slavery on until now. we still live in a jim crow time. we have jim crow congresspeople. jim jordan, ted cruz. the reparation to me would be have to turn the country over to the native american people, then we black people would say, let us share. that's all it got to say. there is no amount of money that can take the place of the strange fruit tree and scenes

like that. in situations where my uncle had to be removed from the family because the white people -- the good white people on that side of the area where my grandparents lived, they said, your son out of here because he stood up to white people one day. he said no, i'm not going to take that. he had to be taken out of the town for a little while, then the white cousins came and said it was ok. there is no amount of reparation that would pay. just give us the country and give it to the native american people, who should have said shoot on sight when they saw the mayflower. host: let's go to diane, was calling from chelsea, oklahoma. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: hello? host: you are on the air. caller: i'm living in oklahoma, but i am originally from this again. i think we should not do

reparations for anybody until the american indian has been taken care of. let me tell you, who greeted the pilgrims when they arrived here? the blacks? no, the american indians. how about the trail of tears? i am not indian either, i am not american indian. if we are going to be paying reparations, let's begin at the beginning, please. host: congress actually set up a commission for native americans, since the caller brought it up. i'm going to read to you a couple of paragraphs from history.com talks about the indian claims petition. in 1946, congress created the indian claims commission, body designed to hear grievances and compensate tribes. the commission's extensive research ended up awarding about 1.3 alien dollars to 176 tribes and bands. the money was largely given to

groups, which then distributed the money among their members. for some tribes whose members didn't live on a reservation, historians like collider and jake page, the money was distributed per capita. for those who did, the money was often earmarked for tribal projects. however, the funds only averaged out to about $1000 per person of native american ancestry, and most was put into accounts held by the united states government, which has been accused of mismanagement. congress actually did set up a reparation panel for native americans. the question there we are talking about today is congress is considering setting up reparations for descendents of african slavery in the united states. let's go to bernie, who was calling from howard beach, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. first of all, on general principles i ask myself the

question, what would donald trump and the republicans do? therefore, i am definitely for supporting reparations, as opposed to what donald trump would not consider. i would like to make a couple of comments. first of all, i am in total agreement with the lady from maryland and total agreement with herschel walker. i have been very stimulated by his comments and her comments. i support. thank you. host: let's go to mary, who was calling from tampa, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to thank c-span for being such an interesting station. i am opposed to reparations, because i am for little children who were just born into the world to be given equal opportunity, equal education,

and if the concern is that people with less money have less opportunity, then maybe the u.s. government should put some money away for every newborn child, let it accumulate with interest, so that when they get older, they can use that money for opportunity. maybe start a business. our education system is pathetic. there are too many people who are not teachers that are in the system, and that manipulate the system. these teacher unions are not representing teachers, they representing the entire educational establishment. and they donate money to washington, and washington gives them extra money. it doesn't go to the teachers and it doesn't go to the students. host: let's go to cj, who was calling from washington, d.c. good morning. caller: good morning morning,

how are you? as a white man in his 60's, i don't think my opinion should really sway the day. my experience might help some people get over the hump of just how lucky white men -- in my case -- have had at -- had it. you take a life and you see, everybody has their opinion about, what is your experience toward the media, and what is your experience in real life? all i know is this. having went to all-black schools through just a quirk of some weird stuff throughout my life

-- so, i went to college. i saw my peers having a real tough time getting that first job. to me, that first job is so important. i'm talking about the job you get when you are 16, whether it is bagging groceries, being a dj in a club. and i saw how i was treated, which, you know, nobody at age 18 feels like -- they feel like the world is stacked against them. well, if my melanin was a different content, trust me, it was a lot more stacked against all of my buds growing up. there were arguably better djs than me. i got the job. they're groceries quicker or better than me, i don't know. all i do know is, this is an

ongoing struggle. hopefully we can do it with humor and love, and to think that what we have been digesting as a culture in these last four years in the particular as far as being at each other's throats, it just has to stop. host: let's go to canon, who is calling from cincinnati, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. my name is jake kendall anderson. i wrote a book called "economic revolution." in that book i wrote for revolution -- for reparations. tax-exempt status for economic descendents of slaves. this is a labor issue. more than that, this addresses that and what it basically say is that it would be unfair to pay us anything, we could look

at that our forefathers, and my great-grandfather was a slave, their labor is credited toward paying their descendents' taxes. so federal tax-exempt status for african descendents of slaves is a way to say, if you don't give us anything, just stopped taking . so that is my proposal, one of the proposals for reparations, which i am planning on trying to pursue that and get that entered into the congressional record as well. that is one way to do it. host: several local and state organizations are looking at reparations as well. here in the district of columbia, the city council has pushed forward those on paying reparations for descendents of slavery, and other states also have thought about pushing forward bills on reparations.

in fact, california was the first state to adopt legislation to require a study of how the state could provide reparations for black residents and the descendents of slaves. during the reparation hearing in the house, california's secretary of state spoke about her state's efforts to form a commission to study reparations. here is what she said. >> no state should be held back because the feds have not moved forward. this has been a very long journey, 40 years, of trying to get this bill passed through congress. you're much larger institution with tremendously diverse population being represented. in california we have no opposition to forming a reparations commission. we had bipartisan support. we have gotten overwhelming support from organizations and others were eager for us to have a conversation about

reparations, about the history of california, california's role in the enslavement. and begin to talk about addressing the issues we face. we recognize in california that slavery in itself has been so insidious that it has sometimes created issues -- and we mention that with the george floyd issue in california. because of what has happened with the lynchings and burnings, we have to basically recognize that we can actually see harm done, see the devastation, and not respond to it as we do for other groups. i listened to colleagues talk about unemployment and how it has gone down. anything that is large is going to move more than something that is small. we have always had double-digit unemployment of

african-americans in this country. when it moves, it is going to look significant. it is still a double-digit unemployment. an injustice that continues. we plan to move forward. we are moving forward, i should say. we hope that at some point what we do will be informative to the federal government, but it is obviously the federal government decides to do this, we hope to be able to complement it. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about congress considering studying reparations. here is a text that came in. it said, reparations for descendents of slavery should not be a financial punishment for other races. the source of funds can be the sale of federal lands. another text says, i believe reparations should be in the form of educational opportunities.

i believe education is a pathway toward eliminating economic disparities between blacks and whites. my parents were denied the opportunity to attend a certain colleges and living in certain areas just because of the caller of their skin. another text says, there are two separate issues. slavery and racism. you cannot join the two without concrete ties between the two. if they want to study slavery reparations, fine. if you want to study institutional racism, fine. but do not confuse the two. another text. that has to be the dumbest idea from a group of educated citizens has ever had. the pay the great-great-grandchildren of a group of oppressed citizens is totally crazy. and one tweet that says, i support the study of reparations. they also strongly suggest dr. gates set on that committee. if anyone has a grasp on the

role of white americans on black americans, it is professor gates. i have learned more from his show than any history book. we want to know what you think about the idea of congress considering studying reparations to the descendents of slavery in the united states. once again, the u.s. government has paid reparations before. all the way back to the civil war, where president lincoln decided to free the slaves in washington, d.c., the slaveowners were paid reparations. i will read a paragraph to you from this, which you can find on the senate website. on april 16, 1862, the district of columbia compensated emancipation act became law. originally sponsored by senator henry wilson, the act freed slaves in the district of columbia and compensated owners up to $300 for each free person.

in the months following the enactment of the law, commissioners approved more than 930 petitions, granting freedom to 2989 former slaves. however, the compensation did not go to the slaves. it went to the slaveowners in the district of columbia. so, the government has paid reparations before. the question is, should congress consider a panel to study reparations to the descendents of african slavery? let's go to rod, who was calling from florida. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you doing? host: just fine. caller: i would agree with one of your social media followers. i wouldn't go so far as to say it is dumb, but i believe it is a topic and idea that should be put to rest. nobody alive today has been affected by slavery on either side. you are asking people who had

absolutely nothing to do with slavery, had no responsibility. many of us, our ancestry was not even in this country at that time. to punish us by paying reparations to people who have not had any effect from it and don't deserve anything from his asking way too much. we are trying to create unity in this country now, evidently. by bringing up reparations and passing bills and even studying bills considering reparations is very divisive. you are not going to get any equity or unity in this country are continuing to talk about reparations. host: let's go to larry, who was calling from canton, massachusetts. good morning. caller: i would suggest to your listeners, don't need to be studied. william darius has already studied it. herschel walker is not against white people or latinos.

this is a call for the federal government. they allowed slavery, they allowed jim crow, they allowed lynchings, they allowed sharecroppers. this is against the federal government, not any particular group. host: let's go to john, was calling from pennsylvania. morning. caller: i just don't see what this is really going to help the country. i say it just divides the country. i agree with that caller two calls ago. there is money -- there is mainly people here from europe. my ancestors are from norway. we didn't own no slaves. what you are doing is, you are trying to start a race war, is what you are trying to do. blacks had just as much opportunity as latinos, as whites. i do know that racism is alive and well in america, because it

is being used right now. it is being used against white people, especially white males, ok? that is what we are doing now. host: what type of racism do you think is happening against white males? caller: you have college funds for blacks, the naacp. if whites were to do that, they would be considered klansmen. bug people are turning into then new klansmen -- black people are turning into the new klansmen. are you going to make africa pay? they sold their own people into slavery, do they have to pay reparations? how are you going to even know they had ties to slavery? are you going to have other blacks pay blacks or are all

blacks exempt? host: let's talk to gretchen calling from montauk, new york. the morning. -- good morning. it is my birthday. it is ironic you are having this topic because women no matter what color, we are oppressed. we are underpaid, we got the boat after -- the vote after black males. have a great day. host: after the hearing in the house of representatives, freshman congressman republican representative owens pushed back against the idea of reparations. >> let me reiterate that slavery

was an evil whether it be the 83 year history of our nation or the presence around the world today. we purge the stain from america so. -- from america's soul. i am a product of it. my -- he purchased farmland that he paid off in two years. it is unfair and heartless to give american the hope that this is a reality. black american history is not the history of a hapless race oppressed by the white race.

it is the story of black americans achieving the american dream. the story of reparation is nothing new. it has resulted in the misery -- it is called redistribution of wealth or socialism. host: let's go back to our social media followers and see what they think of it idea of congress studying reparations. here is a text that said " some ancestors died wet the north while fighting the south. what greater payment could my family have made?" "no, it goes against the grain of unity. not every white man is a descendent of a sleeve mentor -- slave owner. should southern states be held

accountable?" a tweet that says 'should have been done years ago, but let's put an independent commission together to study it with the majority being nonwhite so there can be some level of inclusion and fairness.' " we must also include native americans. the time has come." "" the best reparations would be to make all schools in each state equal." let's go to john calling from illinois. caller: thank you for taking my call. some of the people calling in, like the guy who was talking about black people making it difficult for white folk -- he is looking at it through white privilege. three of my uncles went off to fight in world war i.

only one came back. the two that came back could not even sit down at a soda fountain and have a soda pop because they were from georgia. a lot of these people do not understand, we were held back because of the color of our skin. great grandfather was brought here from ethiopia. he was jewish and he had his own worship. he built one of the first black schools in georgia for black folks. we have gone as far as we can go on our own. we need to make some type of opportunity or whatever. i am a veteran, a retired news editor, a retired schoolteacher. i have worked my way.

a lot of people did not get that opportunity. at some of the people doing sharecropping in mississippi could not go into the military. they were forced to stay and plant the white folks' crops. host: let's go to michael. goad morning -- good morning. caller: i definitely support reparations, however, i hope to communicate to your listeners that capital investments, just throwing money at it is just one small part. it is probably the least effective way to go about handling reparations. i am very much excited to hear that congress is studying the full spectrum of things that need to happen. education, business, housing.

i heard one caller talking about the native population. the first nation. i think all that stuff should go in there. there you go. i think it is a good idea, and it needs to be done. thank you. host: let's go to john calling from sun city, florida. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. the one thing i would like to say is white people hate white people and white people hate black people not because of the color of their skin. white people hate white people for their actions, for killing. now you have black lives matter. to whom do black lives matter

when black people are killing black people and black lives matter do nothing? white people and black people alike do not have respect for the law. you wonder why police are beating people? they're not beating them. they are chasing them. when a perpetrator runs away from the scene, he runs. when the cop catches him? what happens? it is a fight between two men, not between a cop and the perpetrator. the cop wants to -- host: let's go to james calling from ohio. caller: thank you for taking my call. i oppose it only because it divides us as a race -- i'm getting on the rest, i'm sorry

--all nervous, i'm sorry. i apologize. i had a speech worked out. now i am losing it. we need to pick people up as a whole. everyone who suffers under poverty needs to be picked up. we are all brothers and sisters in this country. we need to start acting like that. host: kathy mess oka, whose organization -- kathy masoka said that reparations can and should be done. >> it supports hr 40. the black community's demand for reparations. it is the right thing to do, it is overdue, and we know it is possible. we won reparations.

the japanese community were not the first to make that demand. the black community has long demanded reparations. they claimed that descendents of enslaved people, -- along with the national coalition of blacks for reparations in america, have called for reparations. hr 40 has a long history. even before the civil war, individual black americans fought for reparations. our community's demand for reparations did not arise by itself, but was inspired by the black community.

their sacrifice into leadership open doors for us and gave us -- and leadership opened doors for us. congressman -- authored a japanese-american redress bill. the black congressional caucus and many others, including maxine waters and jesse jackson. hr 40 is an important first step towards reparations in the black community. host: let's return to our phone lines and talk to patricia calling from california. caller: good morning. thank you for allowing me to speak. i am in support of this and i believe that if we do not finally do this, the nation will

continue to be divided. thank unity comes in when you acknowledge the long -- the wrong that has been done and correct it. thank you. host: let's talk to kenneth calling from albany, kentucky. caller: good morning. what i think about the whole situation is, i think people better start studying the bible more. i will tell you the reason why. if the united states do not get their head together, this united states is going to be doomed. in a way, i think if people do not wise up and start thinking more and more about what is going on in the united states, this world is going to be doomed

by god almighty. host: let's go to lisa calling from greenville, south carolina. caller: good morning. thank you to allow me to speak on behalf of of supporting of what the legislation is offering. i agree on that because nationwide as afro-american, they should teach that in the schools. this should continue going on. i pray for god to that everyone in this country would understand. thank you for allowing me to speak. host: let's go to rick calling from california. , rick, are you there? go ahead, rick. caller: i'm actually from ohio, sir.

i'm undecided. i'm not totally against reparations, honestly, but i'm not sure moneywise it is ever going to make up the difference. i think the commission needs to establish where the inequities actually are. and report that whether it be education, housing, or such. money comes and goes. there was wrong done, no doubt. i'm not sure that money is going to solve the issue. there is always good to be racism. that is just a problem. i am not sure that money is the actual solution. that is all. host: let's go to kirk calling from conway, south carolina. caller: i tend to agree with the previous color.

-- the previous caller. i think what black americans would appreciate more is that stomping out of racism, institutional racism as far as the police go. i am a police supporter generally but there are abuses in that area. i think, you also had a previous color that suggested black americans -- previous caller that suggested black americans be exempted from taxes for several years. i think they would appreciate that more. my ancestors came from germany in the 1920's and had nothing to do with the racism and slavery that went on in this country. i think something that would be more appreciated, would be

something other than monetary handouts. host: during the hearing, larry elder, who testified against reparations argued that systematic racism in the united states is not the main problem. here is what he had to say [video clip] . -- here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> slavery ended in 1865. that is substantially less than 400 years. remember lyndon johnson lost the war on poverty. he talked about the need to address past grievances for blacks. since then we have spent several trillion dollars to fight the war on poverty. mr. cohen mentioned the wonderful story about many minoso.

i would like to give you a story. i was in law school in 1975 and visiting my aunt who lives outside of detroit. the doorbell rang. a man was there. he sat down and we were talking. i was talking about what i intended to do after law school. this 40-year-old black man was crying. he said " i wanted to be a lawyer too. i had the potential to do it. i got caught up into much -- in too much jackassery. " i went to school with a lot of asian kids. there is a reason that japanese americans make more money per capita than do white americans.

they work hard. they do not complain. i would urge all americans to follow that example. host: sean calls from nashville, tennessee. caller: i think he should to find "'s -- defome -- he should define " study." we need to go back to separate but equal. we need our own port where we can get things shipped in. let's start with teaching the kids from first through eighth grade only black teachers should teach flat kids -- black kids. i don't care about money. host: let's go to victor calling

from silver spring, maryland. caller: good morning. i am getting sick and tired of some people who always play the victim card. i'm blind. i have very limited vision. if i wanted to play this game, i would start complaining about everything you cite -- sighted people have done to the blind since the beginning of time. i went to a job interview on andc was asked if i knewe how to use the bathroom. let's talk about sighted privilege. i envy you sometimes, but i. do not complain about it -- i do not complain about it. i wish i could read my own mail. i have to do things a little

differently, so i can do my housework, and to do my cooking, but i don't complain and i'm sick and tired of some of these people acting like the world owes them a living. my father taught me to work in teh si 00 the -- in teh sighted -- in the sighted world. get a backbone. you have got the handicapped people out there, people in wheelchairs, they work. they don't sit on their work -- on their butt. host: let's talk to frank calling from atwater, california. caller: good morning. i heard a lot of people talking. no solutions.

one of the things i did not hear was accurate history. they have to go all the way back. if you read a book called " before the mayflower," that will show you there were people here as indentured servants. summer black -- some were black. some were white. one thing that makes me -- you get over to 1865 where you get the freedom, the 13th amendment, they got to know all this history. that is not whether reparations should be about. -- not what reparations should

be about. you are repairing what was caused by 4 million people being enslaved. what we are talking about " repair" is this. in the 60's we had the movement with carmichael and everybody to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. even the black panthers had a good thing where they were going, teaching kids after school. stuff like that. to help our children, because nobody else was helping them. go back to the 1920's. one of the things in the black laws was institutionalizing incarceration. host: let's go to memphis, tennessee. caller: hi.

i feel like we all should be in support of reparations. us in the black community, we have been denied generational wealth. when they were giving out land and stuff, we were not able to get that land. when they began redlining, we were not able to move out of the neighborhoods. when our school systems were not given the funds other school systems were granted -- i am in favor of reparations. it does not have to be in a dollar amount. invest in our community. help us lift ourselves up. the people out there not doing anything, they can do better than what they are.

host: on wednesday, white house press secretary jen psaki was asked whether president biden would sign the reparation study bill if it was passed by congress. here is her exchange with a reporter. [video clip] >> the president during the campaign supported the study for reparations. does the president support the legislation? >> he has supported the study of reparations, which is what is being discussed, and studying the continued impact of slavery, which is being discussed on hr 40. he continues to demonstrate his commitment to address racism that exists today. he is a part of that, but he egg signed -- he signed an

executive order on his first day to having an all across government approach to addressing racial inequality and making sure an equity is part of his entire -- making sure equity is part of his entire agenda. he wants to make -- take actions with down -- within his own government. >> would he support the bill? >> he would support a study, but we will see what happens to the legislative -- >> why not on this issue create a commission? >> he signed a number of actions on racial equity on his first couple days in office because he felt it was essential to send the message to the american people and the world that having an across government approach, making sure equity is a central part of his policy agenda was

not just a singular issue about something that would be a part of every policy issue he approaches, whether it is economic inequality, a range of issues. that is how he is trying to address the root causes of racism in our country today. >> but he doesn't support reparations? >> it would be up to him. he has executive order authority. he would support a study. host: let's take a couple more calls before the top of the hour. let's start with terry calling from canton, north carolina. caller: good morning, c-span. shout out to the guy from maryland. he is totally right. as for reparations, in my mind reparations have been paid by the last 60 years in

representation in the democratic party. where is -- when is the black community going to take responsibility for itself? i have worked in the inner-city for the last 35 years. i have seen how life goes. children in the inner-city have to get up this morning, get to the school bus, deal with winos, heroin dealers, huggers, -- h ookers, gang bangers. how is reparations going to straighten those people out? host: let's go to jim. caller: i have seen only one plan for paying reparations that i think may be approved. it is on the internet as ned's

plan. it does not call for any additional taxes to raise the money to pay for substantial reparations. rather, it calls upon the government to sell assets to ra ise the funds. anywhere from all to some of the assets that the government owns. it would probably have to lease them. i think it would be one of the biggest stimuluses to the economy ever seen. host: let's go to antoinette calling from pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i am a supporter of reparations. there is no need for a study. let's take the scales of the blind woman of justice.

1968, civil rights? you will never bring that scale to be even. as far as black folks are concerned, reparations speaks for itself. the meaning, the definition, the other persecuted groups have gotten theirs. so every time it comes to black folks, white folks want to jump on us. the so-called black folk saying they overcame. the cause and effect of history still stands. host: let's go to jack calling from murphy, north carolina. caller: thank you for taking my call. i believe that the civil war was fought to get rid of slavery in part. or maybe all of it. i also believe that had the

union army lost the war, the slaves would not have been freed. the cost of 300,000 northern white lives should be paid for as reparations by the descendents of slaves. host: coming up daniel cox will be here to discuss his survey on political violence and conspiracy theories, we will turn our attention to those power grid failures in texas this weekend whether it points to a broader issue with the nation's infrastructure. that discussion will be coming up soon. stick with us. we will be coming back soon. ♪ >> 117th congress includes new

members including first-generation immigrants, state representatives and former professional athletes. watch our conversations with new members of congress. tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, we include those who were former athletes including scott fitzgerald and burgess owens, pat fallon, and bob good. watch interviews with new members of congress tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. sunday on cumin day, -- on q&a,

"the sword and the shield." >> deleverage nonviolent civil disobedience, to transform merrick and democracy. malcolm x called for the same thing. if he wanted a display of civil disobedience that would be muscular enough to end the racial status quo in america. host: sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's queue and day -- q&a. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back with daniel cox. he is here to talk to us about a new study on post election political violence and conspiracy theories.

start by giving us some background. what is the survey center on american life? guest: it is a relatively new venture. it started last fall. the purpose is to understand the lives of everyday americans. so much of our public opinion landscape focuses on national issues that americans do not spend a lot of time thinking about. we wanted to understand how americans are living their lives. host: you are the director and founder of that survey center, tell us about this new aei report. what did it focus on and how did you do this report? guest: it was a national survey of american adults 18 years older -- 18 years and older. the three major areas we focused on were the outcome of the election, what americans thought

about it, what they were thinking moving forward, the existence of conspiracy theories, whether antifa has involvement with the january sex attacks on the -- antifa's involvement with the january 6 attacks. the last thing that has not got as much attention, but we are interested in understanding views on american exceptionalism. do americans still believe america is a shining city on a hill? host: before we get into some of your survey results on conspiracy theories, define exactly what a conspiracy theory is first. what do you consider a conspiracy theory? guest: how we measured it -- and people take different approaches in measuring

conspiracy theories in public opinion research -- we provide a claim. in one instance the claim was explicit. do you think donald trump is secretly fighting a sex trafficking ring composed of hollywood elites? people could rate it as completely accurate or completely inaccurate. we got a measure of what they thought about it. that is how we measure conspiracy theories. there were a variety of ones we measured. this poll focused mainly on political conspiracy theories, but we look at -- looked at andy baxter stuff. host: let's talk about the question you just brought up. one of the questions that y'all asked the people who took the survey was the queue and question you just brought up -- qanon question you just brought

up. donald trump has been fighting sex traffickers. the result of that survey was 15% of the people you asked believe that theory. 42% rejected that theory, but 41% were uncertain whether they believed it or not. tell us about what happened there. guest: for a lot of these things, we did not want to force people to choose whether they did or did not believe. we wanted to allow them to register some uncertainty. conspiracies can sound in some cases possible or believable. if someone has not heard a lot about it or has not heard enough to make a sound judgment, we did not want to force them to make judgment one way or another. without that was the fairest way to get an accurate measure.

one of the things we did different from what other posters have done is we did not even use the word qanon anywhere in the survey. we did not want to try to register or move folks on that question by using that name. people aren't that familiar with qanon. host: what does that say that after that statement even after four years of this being batted around, what does it say that you have %15 who still believe it and 41% who are not sure. more than half of the people you asked either believed it or said they were not sure. what does that say about where we are as a country? guest: there were a number of things in the poll that were

troubling. three in 10 republicans said that was completely or mostly accurate. antifa was involved in promoting the violence or engaging in violence on the january 6 attacks, half of republicans said that was accurate. a significant portion of the public is engaged in a different reality bubble. that is really concerning. one of the things that came through on this poll was somehow -- was how widespread some of these ideas have become. host: is this because of social media? is this because of the fracturing of all of the different media into conservative versus liberal? how did we get to the point where these conspiracy theories

not only flourished but seem to spread so fast? guest: conspiracy theories have been around for a long time. what is happening now different is they are spreading so easily and so rapidly. in part that is because they are incredibly easy to disseminate online. social media, people just have access to this information that would have been more difficult to get a generation ago. a precipitous decline in trust in major institutions -- people's trust in the media, and government, and scientific bodies -- in scientific bodies. we are at a low point in our trust in government.

i may be more inclined to use my social circle, stuff i am finding on the web. the phrase you often hear is " doing my own research." peer to peer information sharing is becoming more common. we get used to this idea of sharing information on technical, complicated issues online through tiktok, youtube, facebook, so becomes more natural to get information this way. host: let me remind our viewers they can take part in this discussion. we are going to open up our regular lines for this conversation. that means republicans, you can call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats, your line is going to be (202) 748-8000. independents, you can call in at (202) 748-8002. you can always text us at (202)

748-8003. we are always reading on social media on twitter @cspanwj. another question you asked in your survey dealt with the attacks on the capital on january 6. it asked about the antifa involvement in the capitol attack. 30% total of the public said the claim that antifa was responsible was mostly or completely accurate. out of that 30%, we see the breakdown of who that 30% was. 50% of that 30% were republicans. 28% were independents. given that the fbi and other law

enforcement officials have said repeatedly that antifa's involvement in the capitol was minimal, if it happened at all, what explains that 30% number to begin with? guest: political leadership particularly on the right, there was kind of this move to in some places downplay what happened, to kind of rationalize, to offer a false equivalent. look at what the alum doing over the summer -- " look at what blm was doing over the summer." " i thought i saw some people wearing antifa garb." this got propagated out there. wyoming republican mentioned the antifa thing in there moved a

censure liz cheney. they mentioned the antifa stuff. it is out there. it is not surprising it starts to trickle down. host: what surprised me most about that political breakdown of that 30% was that 28% of independents and 20% of democrats also believe antifa was involved in the capitol attacks. our people just repeating things they hear and believe? once again, law enforcement officials investigating this have said repeatedly we can see from the people who are being arrested and brought to court that antifa is not involved. guest: i think this goes to the power of conspiracy thinking. if you repeat something long enough, loud enough, it becomes

what people end up hearing and believing. despite the pushback -- " no, we have not seen any evidence that this is true" -- if you trust to the sources of information you are getting, by and large you will believe it. an important point is your social network matters. the people around you, to the extent that you have people who reflect your own political beliefs and your social circle you are much more inclined to believe conspiracy theories. if all your friends and family members are republican, you're more likely to believe conspiracy theories. democrats are more likely to believe in conspiracies to if they are primarily surrounded by people who share their political views as well. host: let's start letting some of our viewers take part in -- the faneuil, good morning --

nathaniel, good morning. caller: i'm looking at the situation of everything being discussed. there recently was a report where the fbi stated they believe black idealism is a threat to the country. we can physically and visually see the threat that all these groups are causing to cause division and start up militia activity. it is just dangerous for everyone to walk around with these ideals, and not think about the children who will be spawned from the activities we are performing today for the future of the country and the people in the country. how do things like that get addressed to where those conspiracies, and idealisms are quelled down so that we can move

forward and everyone can start educating more idealisms. that is all i have to say. host: go ahead and respond, daniel. guest: when i have talked to people about the steady, one of the natural -- the study, one of the natural responses is "? what do we do"? -- " what do we do?" we should not rely on the people in our social circles who believe the same things we do. we should not just use media on the right or the left. when it comes to our political leadership, we need to reinvigorate and really reemphasize the important of institution building. we need to have trust. we need increased trust in our political institutions so people when they have their

issues like this, " i trust the fbi." " i trust the media to provide me all the information i need to make a sound political judgment." so far that has not happened. host: one of the other questions all tackled in this study was about voter fraud. i wanted to show to our audience the voter fraud conspiracy theory. the statement you asked them to react to was " there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election." the result of that question was 14% of the people asked said that that statement was mostly accurate. 15% said it was completely accurate. just about one third of the people still believe that there was widespread voter fraud

during the 2020 election. 52% ejected that and 18% were unsure despite all the things we have heard from state level election officials who said there was not widespread voter fraud you still have just over 30% of the people believing it. is that is because -- is that because it is what they are hearing from their leaders? guest: if trump had conceded, this would not have happened. we would not have this huge partisan divide about whether the election was free and fair. the fact that you have majority republicans saying biden was not legitimately elected and there was extensive voter fraud in 2020 despite that there was no evidence for this -- trump was promoting this idea and a lot of republicans were supporting him

on it. you do not have the kind of pushback you needed to pushback on this on the -- on this false claim. host: is the idea behind these conspiracy theories, a desire to gain political power? monetary gain? what is the advantage of coming up with a conspiracy theory? guest: there are a couple kinds of conspiracies. the ones we focused on are primarily about politics. there is also one in public health. concerns about gmo's -- that is genetically modified organisms. we asked about that yesterday. you have people believing that gmo's are harmful even though there is no evidence for it. you find democrats and republicans believing that. it is a harder -- harder to get a sense of who is gaining in the

promotion of that theory. a theory like birtherism, that is a political conspiracy theory meant to undermine his legitimacy when he was president. the motivation there is pretty clear. it really depends on the theory we are talking about. host: one of our social media followers has a question for you. they want to know the parameters of this study. this social media follower wants to know " did this target the right or include other conspiracies like the u.s. government pumped drugs into the inner cities and create aids?" guest: we conducted this in january. the conspiracy theories we looked at were those enjoying the most widespread attention,

including voter fraud and qanon. if you're interested in other conspiracy theories, i would recommend you look at the pole we did before the election -- poll we did before the election. one was that president of vladimir putin had compromising information on donald trump. host: let's go to cowansville, pennsylvania -on- -- caller: thank you for c-span. a month ago i was watching a pbs series. they had a program on called frontline. it was on conspiracy and radicalization. they had a clip on their of president trump -- on there of

president trump and roger stone meeting with the head of cuban on. it was -- head of qanon. on the day of the insurrection, it brought it all back. it seems like it was the same type of rioting that was going on. people need to research this and have more. thank you. host: go ahead and respond there, daniel. guest: what we are seeing now is there has been a boom in research on these topics. i am a pollster. we look at a variety of different issues. i am not an expert on conspiracy theories. there has been an increasing

number of folks looking into these things and trying to understand how they become so prolific. what is going to happen in the future as technology changes, as our way of communicating changes, as our political landscape changes these are -- landscape changes? these are all important things. getting a sense of where people are and what is driving this -- we are releasing a report next week that accentuates social isolation or community disaffection, essentially when you are separated from things in the community is driving some of this stuff. we hear about people in their basements, people who tend to be more loners are more inclined to believe in this stuff. we do not find that. people who are very sociable, have a lot of close friends and

family members connected to their community are just as likely to believe conspiracies as those who are not. it raises some interesting questions looking forward. host: i know this may not be in your wheelhouse, but i am going to ask you anyway. do you think last year -- the last year of people being isolated because of the pandemic made these conspiracy theories more likely for them to believe? guest: i do not have -- i think it is really interesting. i think people -- hope people look into this. it seems plausible to me. we are spending more time online. we are training -- trying to find social outlets anyway we can. that maybe scrolling through message boards on reddit. that idea seems incredibly

plausible to me as a reason why we may see an increase over that time period. host: let's talk to basil calling from ohio, calling in on the republican line. good morning. caller: i would like to paint a different picture here. the house of barbara -- house of representatives and senate are controlled by democrats. is the wall surrounding the capitol building there to prevent conservatives from attacking or are they more fearful of their own party attacking them? is that are we to believe? they are afraid of republican -- conservative people running down their cities? if we have to have military troops watching our house of representatives, we are in far more serious trouble in this country than we think we are. i do not think it is going to be

religious people and people who believe in the constitution and the bill of rights who will attack the capitol. host: go ahead and respond, daniel. guest: we had a question the degree to which people believe that conservatives thought that the political system was tilted against them. about half the country believed that, including the majority of republicans. the majority of democrats and republicans had little faith in the democratic system to represent the interests of regular americans. they said it mostly represented the interests of the wealthy and the well-off. i think that is an incredible problem. there are a large number of americans who believe the political system is unfair. you can understand why people would maybe engage in acts or

beliefs that would be kind of concerning, like this idea we need to use force to protect the american way of life. if people do not have trust in the political system, i think we go to a scary place very quickly. host: let's talk a little bit about those questions you asked on political violence in the study. we know coming behind what happened on january 6 that really shocked the nation and opened a lot of eyes. in your survey, 36% of the people agreed with the statement that the traditional american way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it. 36% of people agree with that statement.

i am going to show the audience the party breakdown of people who believe -- agree and that -- agree with that statement. 55% of republicans, 35% of independents, and 22% of democrats. does that concern you? guest: this was replicated from a previous academic study conducted in 2020. we found remarkably similar results. as significant number of the american public and a majority of republicans agreed with this statement. if you look at the political rhetoric in 2016 there was an article about the '93 election. the argument was that republicans had to win because if they did not, democrats would

destroy everything and into their way of life -- and end their way of life. that hyper charged, apocalyptic rhetoric is -- if you think the other party is an existential threat to your way of life, you can rationalize a lot of behavior because of that. one of the things we found over the past couple years is that the number of both democrats and republicans that believe the opposing party is at threat has increased substantially. host: let's talk to max calling from caller: good morning. thanks for speed been -- c-span. what happens to the people that

eventually give up conspiracy theories and try to lead a normal life like i am? way back in 2005, i believed in conspiracy theories. i had a psychotic break based on it. i reformed myself. through a lot of hard work. i don't seem to fit in anywhere. host: before daniel answers, tell us what conspiracy theories you used to believe in and how you stopped believing in them. caller: sure. i was following the news blog

what really happened. there were a lot of conspiracy theories about third terms, election machines not working correctly, in the 2004 election. as i descended into those conspiracy theories, everything that he posted seemed to be an allusion to some kind of conspiracy. i kept going because they had information about battles in iraq and afghanistan, which i was against.

i had the psychotic break. i knew something was wrong. i eventually got into an adult day hospital. i was there for 2.5 years. the effect of having that many real people in my life, i just stopped going to the conspiracy sites. host: how do people like that break away from these kinds of conspiracy theories? guest: it can be tough. we didn't address it in our work. there have been another -- number of news reports how they are impacting families and how

it is causing rifts between family members. a report by the huffington post looked at generational divisions. parents were believing in conspiracy theories and it totally destroyed the relationships between the children and their parents. i'm sure there are plenty of other examples in different areas. it's really sad on some levels. this is damaging personal relationships. on one hand, there is the threat that it presents to our democratic system and processes. there is a personal cost to all of this as well. host: we have another question from our social media followers.

are not conspiracy theories akin to the search for agency, the need to have an orderly universe rather than the chaos it really is with tidy explanations for everything? guest: i think there is something to that, if you're not in control, if you don't understand what's happening, the world is incredibly complex. the conspiracy theories are so seductive because they spell out everything in simple terms. you can connect all the dots. the world doesn't work like that for the most part. i think that's why they become so attractive. host: i want to bring up one more question that came from your survey and have you talk about that. you took the question to the people in the survey that said

if elected leaders will not protect america, people must do it themselves, even if it requires taking violent actions. 29% of the people you said this statement to agreed with it. you see the political breakdown on screen. 39% of republicans were in that 29%, 31% independence and 17% democrats. you have almost one third of people saying violent actions may be required if elected leaders will not protect america. does that imply that we are going to have more political violence in the future? guest: it's not good. it's much higher than we suspected it would be. we need to be careful about connecting an attitude question.

having a particular attitude does not mean you're going to run out and do something. it might mean it's more likely under certain conditions. you might be more predisposed to do it, it doesn't mean you're going to attack the capital if you are sympathetic to this idea. the question is pretty explicit. one of the reasons we use the language we did was we wanted to get a sense of if we set it baldly, violence, how many people would still say yes. that question along with the other one, use of force, came to a pretty dire picture. if you look at the other polling out there if people think political violence will continue, a significant number of americans think it is. that's pretty depressing.

let's take some more calls. host: that is calling from ohio on the republican line. caller: good morning. i would say this show about conspiracy theories, i love this country. the media is 99% fake in this country. they are not even journalists no more. they are an extension of the democrat party. i believe in the fbi and they work for the country. i -- it was a coup on the last former president. we know that for a fact. all the people busted for all the stuff went to the judge that signed off. they've all been caught lying.

nothing done to them. you have a speaker of the house weaponizing our own surveillance on americans. from the small thing that it was, they -- you don't see bailout by the vice president right now to the democrat party. how many billions did they bailout. no cash bond. it's on -- look at the media. from the time biden ran from closet -- for president. they asked questions about his dog. i will tell you what it is. do a survey on the media, how bad they are. they are laptops to the democrat party.

guest: this is an example of tribal politics. you are either on one side or the other and there is no possibility of finding common ground or areas to work together. one party is opposed to my values and needs to be opposed in every possible way. that's a lot of how our politics is practiced today. instead of trying to find compromise, we weaponized our rhetoric so it becomes black-and-white, us or them. that's how politics is practiced now. we have huge problems that require bipartisan solutions. everyone has been suffering through covid-19 over the last year. it's not just affecting democrats or republicans. if you are not personally affected, your job may have been

affected, your childcare situation. it's really important for us to get beyond all democrats are bad, all republicans are bad. realize at the problems we face will require us coming together. that is one of the real troubling things about a poll like this. we all have to agree on some baseline level of truth and fact. that has been hard to come by. host: we talked earlier about the idea that 47% of americans were unsure or believe there was voter fraud. a lot of the conspiracy theories we've been talking about have been on the right. back in 2016, in the previous election, where there similar conspiracy theories around that election similar to the ones we saw in 2020? guest: this is something that is

interesting, there is nothing like winning to give you faith in the system. after the 2016 election, we asked this question to get a read on that. before democrats won in 2020, there were a significant number of democrats at that there was fraud in 2016. this is not just a problem on the right, though it is more of a problem there now. it's not that democrats are immune to the stuff either. they are not. host: linda is calling from mississippi on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. i did not vote in this last election. i did not like the democratic candidate. hello? host: go ahead.

caller: yes. there is no way that i believe -- joe biden got more votes than barack obama. i don't know why michelle obama could not have put her name in and ran. thank you. host: go ahead and respond. guest: one of the things that he's become clear is donald trump was a turnout machine. he was really effective at turning out people in his base. he got way more votes in 2020 then he did in 2016. he really fired up people on the left as well. despite the fact that joe biden wasn't anyone's first choice, he got his many votes as he did.

that was partly because donald trump really excited people on both sides. host: let's take another call from donald in virginia on the independent line. it. caller: thanks for c-span. i have three points. you had a question that was something like america is on the run track and needs forced to get back. that's a compound question. that is poorly designed to have a compound question like that. i'm in the middle of the book slanted. she is a highly respected reporter who had a career in the news media, mostly television. she is telling the story that you can't trust the current news media.

they are controlled in a sense by various interest groups. it has nothing to do with democrat or republican. they want to get their narratives out there. it rings true. you don't have anything to believe anymore. the last point, in germany in the 1930's, the jews who thought the conspiracy story about germany and got out of germany were right. that's all i have. host: go on ahead and respond. guest: the call it was responding to a double-barreled question, we have a statement which has two statements in it. actually, the thing he's referring to is set up, do you believe this because of this

idea. i think there are no perfect questions. one of the reasons we wanted to replicate one of the questions that had been asked earlier was so we had a baseline. we wanted to write some new questions as well. host: we would like to thank daniel cox, the director on the center of american public life. thank you for coming here and talking to us about the new report. daniel, thank you so much for taking time with us this morning. after the break, we will turn our attention to those power grid centers in texas and if there is a broader issue with american infrastructure. that will be next. stick with us. we will be right back.

>> this is live coverage tuesday on c-span. the senate confirmation hearing for javier becerra. on c-span two, the confirmation on tom vilsack, agriculture secretary. on c-span3, jerome powell of the federal reserve with a monetary policy report to congress. on c-span.org, the conversation for debra haaland, interior secretary nominee. the joint oversight hearing to look at security failures that led to the u.s. capitol breach. it watch live coverage on tuesday. listen on the c-span radio app.

>> washington journal continues. host: we are going to turn our attention to the texas power grid failures. with us is everett klumpp, a reporter. he is going to tell us what is going on in texas right now. good morning. first of all, tell us the status of the power outages right now. guest: the main power grid in texas yesterday exited emergency conditions and went back to normal conditions. this morning, fewer than 100,000 homes and businesses lack power. there are still people due to -- without power. the main grid is back to normal in many now have it again. host: that was going to be my next question.

you are down to less than 100,000 people. how many people had lost power? guest: earlier this week, it was over 4 million. and that his customers. you can actually affect more people than that. 4 million homes and businesses were out of power. host: your reporting has shown that power officials think what happened was bad it, it could've been a lot worse. tell us what you found out. guest: the ceo spoke with reporters and i talked to him this week as well. he said the grid was minutes away from a catastrophic blackout. that would've been an uncontrolled blackout where things tripped off in the grid crashed. it could've been months before the lights came back on it some people.

in this case, early monday morning it was really cold in texas. a bunch of generators tripped off-line and they had to move quickly. they had to make the decision to ask to cut off power to people. those are called controlled outages. they are supposed to rotate. in some cases, they could not rotate. and people were out of power for days. host: we have heard talk about how texas is on its own power grid. explain to our viewers with that means and how it caused or did not cause the problem we saw this week. guest: that is a question that will be examined going forward. the texas grid is by itself. there are a few small connections to other regions.

it doesn't really come in the purview of public utility. people will be looking to see if we have more connections, could there have been more power. it's not totally clear. that would be something for people to look at. the plants, many of them were not fully winterized and not ready to go, they could not perform when they needed to most this week. host: in addition to having power bone's with power, there are problems with water in texas. what's going on with the water supply? guest: at my house, we have some water. we don't have water that you can drink out of the tap. it needs to be boiled or use bottled water. people either because of the

power loss but also pressure issues. texas is still going through that. some people do not have water that is drinkable. houston gave out one million bottles of water. host: what has been the response from power operators, water utilities, and officials in texas? what is their response? guest: the mayors around the state are upset. they are blaming the state for not having proper preparation. the governor of texas has pushed the blame on ercot itself. they will have to answer questions. the commissioner of texas will have to answer questions. there will be some hearings among lawmakers. lawmakers will look to see about

that themselves. host: those sound like long-term solutions. we are still in the middle of winter. how is this going to work for the next storm? guest: it's dependable. it's true that the grid has been built around being ready for summer. this was a high demand on sunday. in general, the grid is ready to go. at the same time, there is a huge storm. they have to turn to extra measures. no one knows exactly when that will be. does this date need to think more about what that may be and how to prepare for those. host: we would like to thank edward klumpp for coming on with us this morning and tell us about the status of the energy and water in texas right now.

edward, thank you so much for being with us. i hope your water gets back on soon. let's turn to see how the rest of the infrastructure in america is doing and what needs to be done. let's talk with thomas smith, the director of the american society of civil engineers. what's going on in the south and around the nation when it comes to energy and other needs. good morning. guest: good morning, jesse. host: thank you for being with us. let's set the baseline. what is the american society of civil engineers and what is your role on infrastructure policy? guest: the american society of civil engineers is a nonprofit organization. if you go back to 1852, we have 150,000 members. what we do is we educate, we

train, we connect civil engineers across the world. we are planning, designing, maintaining our infrastructure. that includes technical engineers, transportation engineers. we deal with a wide variety of connecting the built environment with the natural environment. host: we use infrastructure a lot as a catchall term that means just about anything and everything summary wants to do. define for us exactly what you are talking about when you say infrastructure. guest: we do a report card on america's infrastructure. we had 16 categories. to give you a sense of how we define infrastructure, these include aviation, bridges, energy, hazardous waste, levies,

sports, rail, roads, schools, wastewater, and now storm water is the one we are adding. all of these things impact our quality of life. the clean drinking water we have that we rely on, that is brought to you by civil engineers. and we flush our toilets, civil engineering the energy we bring, we work with electrical engineers for the distribution networks. all of these things are part of the infrastructure of our country. every country relies on infrastructure for quality-of-life. host: let's talk about what's going on in texas right now. they had massive power failures earlier this week. not just in texas, that also happened in other states that were faced with this huge storm. does this point to a larger

problem in infrastructure? these massive power failures. the lack of clean water in these areas? >> i think it highlights an issue we see recurring. we continue to react to increasingly severe weather issues. we need to be in front of these issues. we need to be more proactive. it's indicative but we do with infrastructure. this is an integrated system. it became apparent when you see what happened in texas. this can impact the water system. it can impact the transportation network. we have a system that is very interdependent. while there are nuances to that, texas has a state based grid. the overall network is connected

and reliant on each other. where we have a weak link in the chain can impact the system. we have to be careful about that. one of the things that has happened over time is we have a lot of infrastructure developed by prior generations 75 to 100 years ago. a lot of it is out of sight, out of mind. we reliant. we never really truly appreciate it until we don't have it. when you don't have clean water or shelter and heat, the number one priority we need in this country is our infrastructure. if we allow it to deteriorate and we don't keep it modernized, we will have a major problem. issues like we see in texas, like we see in reaction to hurricanes and the increasing

storm events, these are getting worse. if you look at the osha -- noah, we had 22 separate billion-dollar disaster events. that includes drought, 13 severe storms, a wildfire, that's a number that continues to crease over time. 20/20 was the sixth consecutive year in which we had 10 or more of these climate disaster events. we have to start thinking differently. we can't just rely on past history. we have to think about what's on the horizon and prepare for it. when we do invest, it brings jobs to our country. it's good for the economy. it reduces our own costs because we have efficiencies in our network.

it allows us to be globally competitive with other countries. host: let me remind our viewers that they can take part in this conversation. we will open up regional lines. regional lines for this conversation about power grid failure and infrastructure policy. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, you can call (202) 748-8000. if you're in the mountain and pacific time zones, your number is (202) 748-8001. keep in mind, you can always text at (202) 748-8003. they're always reading social media on twitter and facebook. tom, you brought it up a second ago. we see more and more extreme weather events. i am sure no one would've told you we were going to have this

much snow and ice in texas this year. on top of the hurricanes we've seen, on top of the tornadoes in the midwest and the south, what is the impact of these events on infrastructure and how much harder does it make it to modernize and replace something when you're worried about having to rebuild it. guest: we'll change the oil in your car, it's going to cost you a lot more in the long run. now we have to be prepared. we know how to winterize. we've got wind turbines in north dakota. i have seen them in very heavy snow conditions. we know how to do this. one of things we do is engineers is manage risk. we have to figure out where to

allocate resources. these costs are costs that we have to pay. all of us use infrastructure. we have to pay for it. it requires significant investment. users have to find it. when we want to make sure we are protected against these risks, there are added costs. we need to recognize that and accept that. host: let's let our viewers take part. star with john calling from cleveland, ohio. caller: good morning. i got on here late. i was trying to call about the other topic. i see some similarity, especially with the analogy about unfinished business around

infrastructure, not taking care of infrastructure. eventually, it will cost more. if the racial situation is unfinished business. i see similarities between not taking care of something and we all suffer. thank you. guest: i can speak to that. that's an important point. we look at that a lot of civil engineers. we want our infrastructure to be sustainable and resilient. we want to recover quickly when we have these extreme winter events. we talk a lot about sustainability. we want to make sure we are doing this in a way that is environmental, social, economic.

we want to look at issues like climate change and make sure we are looking over the horizon. we look at social issues. we have a key role to play. as we design and plan cities, we need to make sure that we are fully engaging the community. we need to make sure we are engaging all citizens in providing opportunities for all citizens. it's only that way that we provide jobs for everybody, make sure public transportation is available, making sure our committees are connected and there are equal opportunities. civil engineering plays a role in that. that's an important role for every one of us. as civil engineers, that is high on our list. we are working on a standard and a social equity piece is part of

that. that's a role we play as we are evaluating and modernizing. host: one of our social media followers as a question about winterizing infrastructure. this social media follower once to know how much money will texas have to spend to winterize its infrastructure. what are the most likely components that fail that need to be improved? guest: that's a very good question. that discussion is being -- taking place right now. this is something we to look at throughout the country. look at the thousands and thousands of water lawn -- water line breaks. that is not unique.

we see that throughout the country. we have a water line break every 2-3 minutes. we had one that happened in washington dc. it was over 60 years old. it flooded the metro and the metro had to shut down. then the road network is congested. it is significant. it's disruptive to replace a lot of these waterlines because we've got to dig them up. it's not the kind of thing where you've got your new ribbon-cutting project. it is stuff that has to be done. we have to make sure we are doing that. i don't refer to it as a cost, it's an investment. if you don't maintain it, if you don't have a computer network and your phone system is working, you won't be competitive. we are still working with rotary

phones, i guess you can do the job but you won't be competitive. winterizing is going to be important. it's a tougher consideration in texas because this is not the norm. now you are realizing with more extreme weather events, we have to think different. we have to develop standards to make sure we are preparing it, we are hardening so that the transmission and distributional of energy, that's where we see 90% of the failure. when utility poles are going down in your neighborhood because of trees, we have figured out how to do that. we have not implemented though standards in many locations. it does require funding. that's a we have neglected to

do. we have to change our culture. we have to prioritize these things and think about how infrastructure is our number one priority. i could not give you an exact cost it would be to do that in texas. that is being analyzed right now. it's an investment that is important. we are learning from experience right now. host: you talked earlier about our infrastructure getting old. it is 60, 70, even older than that. it was designed for a climate that maybe we don't have anymore. in texas, no one would build anything and winterize it 50 years ago. now, we are dealing with these storms you are talking about that we saw this week. the same thing in other parts of the country. do we need to build things with

the idea that we don't know what the climate is going to be 10, 20 years in the future? guest: that's a good point. we are thinking differently about that. we are analyzing the climate impacts on our projects. in texas, hurricane harvey caused devastation throughout the area. after that, they took action. homeowners used to be required to have flood insurance. they need to be one foot above the floodplain. there was a controversial ordinance at the time. you've got to be two feet above the floodplain. that is homes in the 500 year floodplain. when you do things like that, it's not popular. you've got developers and it's

more costly to build homes. it is also going to be in the best interest of safety and welfare. there are things we can do on the policy side. we've got the innovation and technology. we continue to invest in research and innovation so we can stay competitive. we have to implement these things. we have learned a lot and based on what we know today, our projections have changed. they are different than they were 25 years ago. the number of storms that have changed, we have to think differently. host: scott is calling from maine. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling from new york. i am a god-fearing christian.

when our government tries to make a mockery of god and the centers took an oath to do god's job, the first time around we got the coronavirus. the second time around, i wonder what is going to happen. texas is one of the only state that is not on the national power grid. if they were on the national power grid and we could have had them on the power grid today, they would have power now. elections have consequences. when you have people that think the government is bad and we need it out of our lives, that is what is hurting people. that's why covid got out of hand. we need some government in our lives. thank you.

god bless america. let's get back to truth, justice, and the american way. guest: one of the best things about this country is we've got the united states of america and then individual states. they have a little bit of autonomy. we can do things differently. we have a very diverse country. that's one of the things that makes this country great. texas has their own grid. that is a system, for better or worse. sometimes it might be better. right now, you can see where not having the connective grid is a disadvantage -- disadvantage. we are trying to figure out the best way to do things.

this is what engineering is about. we are trying new things. when they don't work, we adjust and modify. that's a we will continue to do. i live in virginia, by the way. host: your group put out a report card on america's infrastructure. the state of the country's infrastructure back in 2017. tell us what your study found out. what grade did it get? where are we now. guest: we do this report card every four years. on march 3, we will be releasing the 2021 report card. the last one was 2017. it was a d+. we thought it was poor and at risk. there are some that are high and some that are low.

rail was in the b range. we had a number down in the d range. we feel like much of our infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life. we just released a new study this year. it's an economic study to find out what it costs when we fail to invest in infrastructure. the bottom line on that, it's about $3300 per family. the reason for that is we have increased costs for every family , whether it's sitting in traffic, adding costs for goods and services because of the inefficiencies in the service. in texas, what is the cost of that? when we have water line break or a power outage, those cost money. that's a hidden tax we all pay.

that's about $3300 per family per year. we talk about investing in infrastructure and paying for transportation requirements, the gas tax hasn't been increased since 1993. we have more high-efficiency vehicles. if we increased the gas tax, we can save ourselves these additional costs we are paying today. by indecision and inaction, we tax americans. that's only going to get worse. i am optimistic the administration is going to come forward with an infrastructure package that will be sustainable and resilient and look at these renewals -- renewables.

it also meets the needs of citizens today. we are not reacting all the time. we are paying this hidden tax that benefits nobody instead of generating our economic productivity. make it is globally competitive, there is every reason the world that we should be advancing an infrastructure bill this year. as we look at what's happening in our failure to act study, if you look at the macro level, over the next couple of decades, this will have an impact of $10 trillion in gross domestic product, $2.4 trillion in exports, $23 trillion in business productivity and 3 million jobs. there is every reason in the

world. that's why we have the a l cio and chamber of commerce advocate for infrastructure. i am optimistic something is going to happen this year. in texas and surrounding areas, it's not just tolerable to keep our infrastructure this way, especially when you watch with happening in other countries. get high-speed rail in europe and asia. we don't have any of that. we have to start doing things differently. host: speaking of the

infrastructure legislation, president biden met with labor leaders to talk about infrastructure spending. this is a portion of what he said. >> i think we have an incredible opportunity to make some and norma's progress, creating good paying jobs, prevailing ways jobs and rebuild infrastructure in this country. i promised -- these people of my friends for a long time. these of the folks that brought me to the dance. i appreciate their friendship. as i said, i wanted to make it clear i am a labor guy. there is no why it's inconsistent with business growing either. we want to talk about the recovery act we have here that we are trying to pass.

we are so far behind the curve. we are 38 in the world. everything from canals to highways to airports to everything we can do. we need to make ourselves competitive. host: biden has put forth the build back better plan. it includes $400 billion for expanding vehicle technology, he has also built -- earmarking $300 billion for investments in 5g and artificial intelligence. is the plan enough to get our infrastructure back on track if it passes congress? guest: it is on the right track. we very much support a bill like that. you need a comprehensive bill with funding.

you need to look at all of the issues you just reference. we are very supportive. that's why you have the business community behind this and why you have labor behind this and the engineering community, the contractors. we have such a large gap. we need $4.5 trillion. there is already funding in place for $2.5 trillion. we will be introducing some new numbers on march 3. we are talking about a $2 trillion need for sure. i think it's very important. we should put the money in place. as you heard the president say, it does bring jobs, good paying jobs and a lot of blue-collar,

white, it runs the gamut. it's also critical for our competitiveness. host: monte is calling from spring, texas. good morning. let me stop you. can you turn the volume up on your phone? we can barely hear you. caller: how is that? host: go ahead. caller: my first point that i have to make would not be necessary. we are the petrol system of the country. we are number one and when produced energy. we make -- i can't member where we are on the biodiesels scale.

there needs to be some kind of mandate to look at the carbon footprint and make sure we are producing domestically the products for this move forward. the carbon footprint of a solar panel, the carbon footprint of a lithium battery. why do -- why do we in put from china? these are critical. we are just going to be -- it's more of an emotional form of virtue signaling. let's pay attention to the facts of the matter. texas is the heart of america. guest: the point about texas, look at the way they have diversified their energy sources.

you've got natural gas, you've got cold, nuclear, solar, wind. they are moving forward. they are doing a lot of things right. they are producing a lot of energy. there are a lot of positives here. as i said, it's important to recognize one of the benefits of our country, where able to do different things. collectively, we work together as the united states of america. there is a lot to celebrate. obviously, there are things to improve. we continue to improve and enhance. these were unexpected storms.

we will figure out how to adjust. that's what engineers do. host: who was responsible for infrastructure? is it the federal government? is it the state government? who is mostly responsible for our infrastructure? guest: that's a complicated question because it is all of the above. there is a lot of funding that comes in on each of those different levels as well as the private sector. when you look at the toolbox for this, it is federal investment, state investment, local investment, and the private sector. you need a national leadership. that's what we are hearing it, that's what i am excited about. we are hearing about it from the president and others in the administration.

the federal government is providing funding, but also financing and policies necessary to incentive i've -- incentivize private investment. it is really all of the above. it starts at the top, just like anything. you really need that high-level national leadership to mobilize the country, just like we talked about going to the moon and putting a rover down on mars. its use that same leadership that says we are going to invest in our infrastructure. we are not going to be satisfied with watching it continue to deteriorate. we will be state-of-the-art. we are going to be leaders. host: one of our social media

followers wants to know if this is the cause of infrastructure? how much of this is due to deregulation? guest: i'm not sure i can answer that. that's another complicated question. there are so many different elements to infrastructure whether it's broadband, energy, transportation. one of the things we think is important is streamlining the permitting process. public policy has an important role with infrastructure. the public relies on it. we want to streamline the process so we can move these along. we want to make sure they are sustainable and looking out for the environment. that's very important as well. host: let's talk to barbara,

calling from michigan. good morning. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: the reason i wanted to talk to you is you had a caller earlier about how to weatherize or winterize. i know how to do that. you take the pvc pipes and you just put insulation around them if they are outside. if they are inside, you don't have to do that. that's for people in texas. that's all you need to do. if that helps the people in texas, it's really easy to do.

it's really cheap. guest: that's great advice. i was talking to someone in texas, we have lots of members in texas. the plumbing was on the outside walls. things had not been thought through because they are not living in the climate like you are. your solution is exactly right. it's a practical one. it's one that i'm sure a lot of listeners will take heed. host: evelyn is calling from chicago. good morning. caller: hello. i am a teacher. i was a teacher, i am retired. is the american association of civil engineers supporting and promoting engineering science and technical education from grades one through high school?

that leads to a pipeline into college. as an early childhood professional, very young children love tilting things. they love experimenting. when they get to elementary school, that is wiped out. what are engineers doing to promote education in the engineering fields? guest: we have 400 student chapters. when you go down to the k-12 level, we have clubs at high schools. we released an imax film called dream big. you can watch it on netflix. it talks about the wonders of engineering. it is somewhat emotional. it's a wonderful film that played in theaters all over the world. it has an educational component.

if you go online and see the website, it has different weather so the that has more details. we have 50 different hands-on activities on stem. it has 12 different lesson plans for schools. we mailed a dvd with the educational materials and the film itself to every school in the country. 100,000 schools, we sent it out. we contributed money to make sure we could get it sent out. we had a lot of big sponsors there were unbelievable. this is a film that really helped push engineering. i agree with you 100%. the goal is to make sure people know how important engineering is. what a great profession it is. how it and what a great profession it is, how it impacts people's lives, creative

problem-solving. we want to make sure we get every element of diversity within the country, geographic, national origin, race, gender, everything. we tried to make sure we focused on the wonders of this profession within this film. you can watch it on netflix with your family. i hope folks will do that. we have other material on our website. we have dissipated in quite a few other coalitions. a lot of organizations focused on engineering, and we want to make sure we are educating folks. host: since we are talking about education, one of our social media followers wants to know this, "is there a shortage of civil engineers and those enrolling in engineering school in the u.s.? " guest: yes, we want to attract more. there is a shortage on diversity as well.

when you look at what is happening with other countries where there are many engineers being educated, so we are always trying to attract more to our profession. absolutely. i don't know how you would necessarily define shortage, but we would like to graduate more engineers and build more engineering programs throughout this country because we think it is so important to our future. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to martin, who is calling from new jersey. good morning. caller: can you talk about the difference of our power grid, national power grid, and the smart power grid, please? guest: i'm not sure i'm necessarily the one who could do that. there is certainly room for improvement. we are going to be -- when we

release our report card on march 3, we are going to have a panel on power. we will have some experts. we will have folks from siemens commit duke energy. we have a number of experts you will be able to hear from on those types of issues. i will invite you back on our website, infrastructurereportcard.org, and hopefully you can join in on that session. there is a lot wrong with the power grid. it is a lot about electrical engineering. mechanical engineering. the grid itself. that is a complicated issue, and we will be touching base more on that later. host: here is a question we have had to ask for the last year, brand-new question for all of us as our lives have changed. how has the covid-19 pandemic

impacted our existing infrastructure system? guest: you know, it has been tough on transit, on our airports. like anything, there is pluses and minuses. we have had some downtime to catch up on some things with some modernization and maintenance on our roads at certain times early on in the pandemic, but it has also had a major impact on revenue streams. you look at our transit systems, when you have fewer people on those systems, and they are so important, a more efficient way of moving people as well as a more environmentally sensitive way of moving people when you look at the impact on the climate through carbon footprint, when you look at the funding mechanism, that has had a major impact. we have had some assistance from the federal government.

the cares act had some money for transit as well as airports, and then the most recent stimulus package in december also had some money for transit and airports. that is very important. getting money to the state and local governments so they can maintain the systems because when ridership is down, funding is down. you still have ongoing maintenance costs as well. that has been a problem. we have learned -- we are constantly trying to figure out how do we move people more efficiently? we also ask the question why are we moving people from point a to point b? now we are teleworking. this saved a trip for me. i met my computer in my office as opposed to driving down to wherever the office studios might be. that is better in terms of a carbon footprint and eases our use of the system as well.

we are also trying to figure out new ways of doing things, more efficient ways of doing things. like anything, it has some positives and negatives in terms of interest or -- in terms of infrastructure. host: here is a question from one of our texas followers on social media who wants to know, "i would like to know if these weather events will impact our streets, highways, bridges, and other infrastructure? what do we need to watch for now that the ice is melting?" guest: absolutely. this freeze-thaw is tough on infrastructure, not only on the water lines, and when those break, that has an impact on the road system. when you have excessive amounts of water flow, that is another issue we have in this country,

this issue called combined sewer overflow. the pipes are designed to handle stormwater going into our streams and rivers. also your sanitary sewer, when you flush the toilet, they are sharing the same pipes. when we have these large storm events, those can overflow. the outflow will often go into our rivers. you have raw sewage sometimes going into our rivers. not in unusual circumstance, but something we should not tolerate. we are trying to move away from that. how do we do that? there are a lot of different situations being invented. we have large reservoirs to store that water. in virginia, we did a project in our parking lot where we added a large file retention facility. we redid our parking lot with

crushed rubberized tire. that increases the lifecycle of our asphalt. we reduced the asphalt. we added interlocking permeable pavement as well as precast modular concrete pavers so water can seep into the ground. and it goes into a bio retention silly. that treats the water using natural processes and then releases it. less water is going off our site, and cleaner water is going off our site that goes from our site to the potomac river to the chesapeake bay which hopefully reduces the nitrogen in the rivers. we should be reducing the pollution that goes into our rivers. it requires everybody, and it requires investment. large storm events have that impact. freeze-thaw has an impact on our

roads. on our bridges, we do inspection on our bridges. corrosion can be issues with the salt that is put down in those types of material. there is concern about how that gets into our water systems. we have to make sure we are maintaining the quality of our water systems. we tolerate the fact that you cannot swim in the river to your city. that seems to me to be intolerable. we should not accept that. there are things we can do about it. host: let's see if we can get one more call in, joe from williamstown, west virginia. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my phone call. my question comes down to how can we get -- does the new administration get us closer to

that as opposed to just investing in status quo power grids, maybe allowing the individual homeowner to become a producer of energy through solar or other means? what are we looking to do with that? guest: that is a great question, this question of centralization versus decentralization. yes, on power, a lot of folks talking about that right now and incentivizing tax incentives and can you increase the tax incentives for solar and wind? i am hoping that soon it becomes commonplace to have solar shingles. there are some advances taking place on that now. you can get some, but it has not become mainstream. there are ways to incentivize that with tax incentives and otherwise. i think a lot of those things are on the table right now.

host: we would like to thank thomas smith, who is the executive director of the american society of civil engineers, for being with us this morning and talking with us about how to rebuild this country's infrastructure and the grid failures in the south. thank you for your time. guest: my pleasure. thank you. host: next, we want to know what your top public policy issue is. you see the numbers on screen. call in and let us know what you think about your top public policy issue. we will be right back. >> president biden's nominee for attorney general, merrick garland, testifies before the senate judiciary committee monday for his confirmation hearing. watch our live coverage at 9:30 a.m. eastern on c-span and c-span.org, or listen live on the c-span radio app.

>> today on the communicators, a discussion on court cutting in the pandemic with a senior research analyst michael nathans on. >> that continues at the constant rate, but the adoption of broadband and the need for more speed is really benefiting the cable industry broadly. that has been our thesis for a while, but the pandemic has really clarified that idea. even when there is court cutting, the shift to streaming has benefited the economics of the cable industry. >> watch the communicators today at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we want to know what your top public policy issue is to

close out the show today. we are going to put up our regular lines. republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. and you can always text us as well. let's start with ben, who is calling from new york, new york, on the democratic line. good morning. caller: my name is ben. i believe the top policy is not discussed very much, inexplicably, is the death penalty. i believe every innocent person on death row is a jew at auschwitz. i believe they execute the innocent, they execute the guilty. prosecutors have gestapo power. they can prosecute someone they know and never be prosecuted for doing that. i believe every country that has the death penalty is nazi germany. thank you. host: let's go to gary, who is

calling from connors ville, indiana, on the democratic line. gary, good morning. caller: good morning to you, mr. holland, and all of c-span. there is two quick points i want to bring up. i want to say thank you for the previous segment on infrastructure. it is something i have been emphasizing for a long time. i know senator bernie sanders, he has been pressing it like there is no tomorrow, and for good reason. when you are the richest country in the history of america, and you get a d+ on your infrastructure, that is lack of leadership, lack of responsibility, plain ignorance. like mr. smith was saying in that last segment, these are things that affect the lives of

everyday american people. when are we going to wake up and see how important it is and why it is important? are we going to wait and then decide maybe it is a good idea to do something? host: let's go to mike, who is calling from somerville, massachusetts, on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i was happy to hear the earlier segment about conspiracy theory and misinformation. i think that is deftly one of the number one issues, and it feels like a pretty big threat right now. my previous top number one issue was things like citizens united, but in the last four years or so, i feel like i have seen the right wing and the gop really go off the deep end, just flat out lying and falsifying basic

information and creating conspiracy theories about what expert consensus around the world thinks on things like basic biology, math. everything is a conspiracy now. that is my number one issue. i think it is a huge threat. i cannot even believe anything i hear the right wing say. if i am being fair, a related issue might be echo chambers. i see that on both sides, the social media echo chamber. host: let's go to frank, who is calling from carrollton, virginia, on the republican line. frank, good morning. caller: good morning. my question is, i don't mind joe biden being our president and everything, but when he shut down the pipeline, my gas in my state went up 50 some cents a gallon. hello?

host: you are on air. go ahead. caller: it went up 50 some cents a gallon. the house bill to heat my house has gone up $50 a month. when donald trump took office, we had a lot of illegal immigrants here in virginia. you can call the newport news police department, and they will tell you that. when donald trump took off, suddenly they were gone. we had more people going to work. we need to build the wall. that is my whole thing. hope you have a great day. host: some of the other public policy issues going on, president biden is still trying to get members of his cabinet through congress, yet one seems to be running into a bit of a problem. i am going to read you a little bit from the washington post talking about president biden starts to lead the white house

budget office. senator joe mentioned announced his opposition to president biden's choice to lead the white house budget office. neera tanden has emerged as a lightning rod for criticism over her attacks against republican lawmakers and senator bernie sanders. if all republicans voted against her nomination, manchin's opposition will prevent tanden from being confirmed through the senate. biden has so far secured approval for seven of his cabinet nominees, and tanden was widely expected to prove among his most controversial choices. what do you think about the top public policy? that's go to john, who is calling from trenton, new

jersey, on the democratic line. good morning. caller: i am not commenting on the comments. i want to comment on the equal justice under the law and what happens to men in congress that are in collusion for this business of this rampant rioting that they had in the house of representatives and the senate. what are they going to do about these confederates that are in the senate that don't want to apply to the law and hold the ex-president responsible for this? i want to know what they are going to do about them that is

confederates that is in office right now that are holding office like mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham and ted cruz and nuñez and jimmy jordan because they are not americans. i am an ex-republican. i had to quit the republican party because i was ashamed to be one. host: let's go to susan, who is calling from massachusetts, on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i agree with all the x republicans. i am an ex-republican. my two big issues are political gerrymandering and the destruction of political progress and action on any important issue impacting the

nation and then infrastructure. i don't think we can make strides on correcting our third world infrastructure. i lived in d.c. for many years. i remember the scandal with the sewer pipes dating back to the civil war in need of wood. in massachusetts, we have many bridges that were built during the new deal period that are literally on the verge of collapse. i think about political corruption and nepotism in both all blue states and already states. it really prevents any progress from being made on any critical issues facing the nation. i think they are very intertwined. i really liked that segment with the civil engineer, and i hope

you bring him back again. host: let's go to greg, who is calling from texas on the democratic line. go ahead. caller: i have three things i want to put across if you don't mind. thank you for your show. one, with reparations, you hear me? host: go ahead, greg. caller: with reparations they are talking about for black people in this country. they don't do us any good if we don't own any land, own any of the buildings. we don't own our community. the handful of people that own the community, we cannot get loan to improve self. we cannot -- if you do not own nothing, why put money back into the community to improve the community when you don't own it? my other thing, they talking about the police. that was good. the police rough you up. until you quit resisting arrest,

putting knees in places of your muscle to react, and then you resisting arrest. this what we talking about on the schedule. the other thing i want to talk about is people always talk about we lazy, we want a handout. that not true. we dun build everything in this country for everybody. we ain't gonna have nothing because every time we have something, they got a benefit off of us in order for them to survive. you gotta have somebody poor in this country. we got everything. we are not going to let the world know we adopted a black kid. host: let's go to john, who is calling from lincoln, nebraska, on the independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. i just want to say the gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

that is obvious. i think what we need to do is we need to invest in education and health care. we need to make education free. i know it is free up to high school, but we need to include college. we also need to make health care free. we need to do it the same way we do it with the public school system, just include it in our taxes. i think that will solve a lot of problems. thank you for taking my call. host: there was some good news about the coronavirus vaccines that came out earlier this week. i want to bring the story to you from the wall street journal. i will read a couple paragraphs. "efforts to vaccinate the world's population after evidence showed that some vaccines produce strong one dose results and they can be stored in normal freezers rather than

ultra-cold ones. the pfizer vaccine produces effective results after windows. the university of oxford and astrazeneca vaccine similarly prevented covid-19 when doses were spaced three months apart. the findings could boost arguments in favor of delaying the second dose of the two shot vaccine as the u.k. has done. they could also have substantial applications on vaccine policy and distribution around the world, simplifying the logistics of distribution. all of this comes as the johns hopkins covid site has confirmed that in the united states we have 28 million people who have been confirmed with covid-19, and we are getting closer and closer to having 500,000 deaths in the u.s. alone from covid-19."

we want to know what your top public policies are. let's talk to hunter, who is calling from new jersey on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning to you and thank you for the program. i think that something we could all rally around is just the truth. do you know that it is not illegal for our politicians to just make comments, whether it was the election was stolen or climate change is not real, and people believe that, and people believe trump and have partners in media like fox that will promulgate that. we have other properties that are on our airwaves, u.s. airwaves, and we need to regulate that, whether it is facebook, or all the news stations need to be held accountable that they cannot lie.

if we have that standard, then we would not have all this craziness. host: let's talk to christina, who is calling from minnesota on the independent line. did i pronounce that correct? caller: it is grand marais. you would have to know french. i'm calling about the reparations. i'm not exactly sure what happened between my call and what is on television here. you have given us two examples of reparations that were just meaningless. one was giving money to the slaveholders, $300 for each person they lost as a slave, and the other one was the 1946 money sent to the native americans. i think we can certainly agree that reparation did not actually

do anything for native americans. it is still a huge issue. i would just like to point out there must be something that can be done because the history in the united states is just horrific with genocide and slavery. as a nation, we need to come to terms with the fact that we are not exceptionally good. we have flaws, and they need to be addressed. host: let's go to miriam, who is calling from far, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i am a teacher from the south, from the south of far, texas. i earn about $57,000 a year, and

it is so weird because the other day we were all in a chat like two days ago when the power outages were out. i had to lend a generator to one of our teachers, so my point is we need to -- the covid-19, we need to allow the $1400 to go to all the texans. you need to have a session where you have a democrat and a republican discussing the pros and cons for the covid bill. the republicans need to know who is against it and why. host: let's talk to carl, who is calling from augusta, georgia, on the democratic line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call.

i just want to make it be known that the politicians in georgia are really going after the black folk. they are putting up all kinds of roadblocks, as many as they can. thank you for taking my call, jesse. host: we would like to thank all of our guests, our callers, and our viewers of "washington journal" this morning. stick with us. tomorrow morning, we will be back with another edition of "washington journal." continue to wash her hands and stay safe. i would like to say hello to my father who should be getting out of the hospital today or tomorrow. everybody else, have a great saturday.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> today on the communicators -- for discussion on cord cutting in the pandemic with the senior research analyst. >> truth be told, cord cutting is not changed much than we first thought your ago pre-pandemic. that continues at a constant rate. but the adoption of broadband and the need for more speed is really benefiting the cable industry broadly. the pandemic has really clarified that idea. even when there is cord cutting, the shift to streaming has benefited the economics of the cable industry. >> watch the communicators today at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. the 117 congress includes over

60 new members in this diverse group includes first-generation immigrants, state representatives, television reporters, and former college and professional athletes. watch our conversations with new members of congress tonight at 8 p.m. eastern. we feature freshman journalists who were journalists or college or professional athletes before entering politics. watch interviews with new members of congress tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at www.c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. runs 1:15.