join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. washington journal is next. >> the yays are 50, the nays are 49. the vote as amended is passed. ♪ host: after more than 24 hours of continuous voting and days of debate, the senate yesterday approved president biden's one point $9 trillion economic aid package. the covid-19 relief bill heads back to the house for a final vote before heading to the president's desk. we will get your reaction to this tremulous money later on in the program. we will begin with our first hour on civic education as a country and whether you think

more of it would heal a political divide. if you believe so dial in at (202) 748-8000 and tell us why. if you disagree, (202) 748-8001. a third line this morning for educators, we want to know your opinion. (202) 748-8002. you can also send us a text with your first name, city, and state at (202) 748-8003 or put our twitter handle in a tweet, @cspanwj. the washington post editorial board had this in their opinion pages "america must and break civic and history instruction for the sake of our democracy. . there has been a steady erosion in the teaching of civics and history over the past 50 years. while the country spends 50 federal dollars per student per year on science and math education, only five cents per year per student is allocated

for civic education. 10 states have no requirement to teach civics, such inattention shows in the numbers of americans who cannot name the three branches of government and don't understand the importance of checks and balances. misunderstanding of government leads to distrust and disengagement and provides for the soil for paralyzing polarization." would more civics education help heal the political divide in the united states? joining us on the phone is danielle

caller: honest about the good without chipping into adulation. you can think of it as some parameters and -- operating inside those parameters and what that looks like depends on the work of our

educators as they experiment their way to finding solutions to that challenge. what we are trying to do is activate and inspire a nationwide community of practice to tackle these hard design challenges. host: what resources are you putting out and where do people find them? danielle: we have a website, educating for american democracy. it has a roadmap with seven scenes and questions we believe all learners k-12 should have a chance to encounter over the course of their education. that's important, this roadmap changes the focus of civic education from a list of stuff you are supposed to know to questions, questions and focusing on inquiry-based education where learners are invited to do the hard thinking to engage in critical reflection and work with primary resources and use evidence to find their way to answers.

you will see on the american revolution a list of things people should know, the boston tea party, shays rebellion, and the three -- on our roadmap you will find questions, history questions for example like "what were the perspectives of the colonists and indigenous americans?" free african-americans, indentured african-americans, and slaves on the british government. you have to learn a lot but the point is we are inviting learners to make their own evaluations and assessments and pay attention to the perspectives develop -- relevant to the development of this country. there are civics questions like how we define fairness and what fairness looks like in our communities and what are the different definitions of fairness and why we have debates over the definition of fairness. in a democracy, disagreement is

a feature, not a bug. the important thing is to agree productively. -- disagree productively. we are inviting people into this and do that productively incurring the costs -- host: you and your colleagues wrote an opinion piece in the washington post calling on more civic education in this country. in that piece you wrote over the past year we have once again watched this polarization consume efforts to renew history and civic learning, with debates over the new york times's 1619 project and the trump 1776 initiative. each approach insisting on achieving a definitive way of -- the question is whether we can learn to disagree productively. what are you trying to say? danielle: polarization is a

fight over finding the one right answer to how to narrate our history and it has undermined our ability to invest in education and history and civics for our young people and students. we have to break through polarization and find our way to a consensus about what and how to teach in the basis of studying civics. achieving success does not mean finding one single answer. what we found consensus on, in an ideological and demographically diverse group, we developed a group of questions all learners should have a chance to investigate and we focused on challenges we think good civic history and learning will provide examples of solutions to those design challenges. how we broke through the polarization, quite literally is for relationship building. every step of the project from

being three people working on it to six people working on it to 22 100 to 300 people. every step of the way we asked ourselves if we were folding in viewpoint diversity and then we built relationships to bring in the full range of diversity. sometimes doing the work involved rest selling and finding disagreements and compromises. one of our first debates, we spent weeks on this, whether or not we should call the country a democracy or a republic. there are two different points of view on that. those who wanted democracy foci -- note focus on public participation, those who say republic focus on structure and order of law. our country is a constitutional democracy, it's about popular sovereignty and it rests on we the people. we do that work through an orderly structure called the constitution. let's put those ideas together

and focus on the constitutional democracy we live in. we identified the places where we thought there were design challenges with strong and valuable points of view on either side, let's designed to find places inside the twos perspectives -- the two perspectives that would achieve success. host: professor allen, that's a good place to leave it. thank you, appreciate it. danielle: thank you, take good care. host: for our viewers who want to learn more about what she was talking about there is a roadmap on the website educatingforamericandemocracy.or g. linda in mississippi, you say more civics education can help heal the political divide. why do you say yes? caller: because some --

thank you for having me. some of the comments that comes through the washington journal, you can see from the comments that it's not understood about civics. when they took civics out of school, the next generations interpret everything in the way they want to instead of the way it is. most people do not know that there are three equal branches and one does not have more power than the other. the president we had he led people to think that he had the power but he didn't. that's why we need cooperation between them, the different branches, in order to get stuff done for the american people.

one does not out ruled the other. they can block the other but it's not doing anything that benefits everyone. host: you think lawmakers should be set an example of healing the divide by having more bipartisanship? caller: yes, ma'am, i think they should. trump said he loved the uneducated and the congress and the senators are instilling misinformation and not giving them true facts about what is going on. host: linda, let me ask you about your own civic education,

what do you remember about what you learned in school? caller: it's been a long time. [laughter] it used to be this little -- it used to be -- i can't remember it now. it used to tell you how a bill was made and different branches of government. it told you so that a child could understand it. it sticks with you. when you quit go to school your teachers would ask you what you learned on tv. sometimes it would make learning fun for children. once you grow up and you see these different things, i don't understand why anyone is confused. you go from the statehouse to the federal house, it basically works about the same. host: we are asking you, what

more civic education help heal the political divide in this country. c-span does a lot of work with teachers in classrooms around the country and we have a website that a gated to how washington works. you can find a lot of material there if you are interested. we also do an annual student documentary contest called studentcam and on wednesday at 8:00 a.m. eastern time on the washington journal on c-span we are going to announce the 2021 winners. tony in palm beach gardens, florida, what do you think should happen with civics education? caller: good morning. if we have to get civics education back in schools. one of the things we have to reverse was the 80's influence in the reagan administration where it made it sound like government was bad. there is fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption, but

fundamentally government is good in a constitutional democracy like ours and we have to get people thinking government can be good and do good for the citizens. there has been a 40 year erosion. reagan first said the nine worst words in the english language are "i'm from the government and i'm here to help." you have a 40 year life span of every american of all walks of life thinking that government is bad and it's because of the lack of civics education. i remember in school learning how a bill became a law and learning how you had different committees that would write the bill and learning how bills were not 1000 pages long but smaller and learning how lobbyists would influence how bills were written . you learned about all of that and you had some disinformation. part of the challenge we have is

too many folks that want to grab alternative facts, they want to grab whatever facts they can find or data they can find, they grab whatever data they can find and try to use that to bolster their position as opposed to that professor you had on earlier who said "have a diversity of thought and bring the same objective facts to the argument, and say based on these facts here's the action we need to take and here's how local, state,. and federal government can help." we cannot heal the divide in the country if 60% of the country is thinking the government is bad and that they are only out to control and this that and the other. that's one of our biggest challenges of why more civic education could help with that. host: how could politicians in washington help with the viewpoint of americans towards government? caller: they have to first ask

what the people need, not the lobbyists. not all lobbyists are bad, but lobbyists represent industry. industry is going to have a point of view that might do things detrimental to the people. if you get elected by the people, not industry, what you have to do is ask what the people need. we just had the covid relief bill and i find it unfortunate that during the cares act just about all democrats voted for that even though it was going to be a win for trump they voted for it because it was going to do something for the people. here we have this relief package which is going to do something for the people, real things for the people yet no republicans will vote for it because it's the red team and they have to stand in stark opposition no matter what. that erodes specific trust and whether these officials are

there to help or not. i have been impacted by covid and i make $40,000 a year and could use the stimulus check. my elected officials because they are on the red team decided to vote no. host: cnbc reporting the senate passes the covid relief bill and house democrats plan final approval on tuesday and from there reporting the democratic held house aims to pass the bill on tuesday and send it to president joe biden before a march 14 deadline to renew unemployment aid programs. the legislation includes direct payments of $1400 to most americans, 300 dollar boost to jobless benefits, and an expansion of the child tax credit for one year. it also puts money into covid-19 vaccine testing, and -- the package also includes $14 billion in payroll support for

u.s. airlines, a third round of federal aid for the airline industry. airline contractors were set aside $1 billion, the gop lambasted the relief package, describing it as a wasteful list of democratic priorities, 350 billion in state local and tribal aid with 170 billion set aside for k-12 schools in higher education. to tony's point about bipartisanship, read the headline in politico. the majority leader chuck schumer leads dems to messy but major win on covid eight instead of searching for bipartisan support and potentially watering down a historic bill, schumer rolls the dice on total party unity. that was the argument made by the minority leader mitch mcconnell. here's what he had to say.

sen. mcconnel: voters picked a president that promised unity and partisanship. their response is to pass the most progressive domestic legislation in a generation on a razor thin majority in both houses. the right path was obvious, we followed it five times last year. -- and 90 votes. the senate wrote the cares act and republicans and democrats were shoulder to shoulder, that was the road to real pandemic relief, but democrats wanted something else. they explained their intent very clearly, to exploit this crisis as a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our

vision. that's how you get this massive bill with 1% for vaccinations, that ignores the science on reopening schools, that is stuffed with non-covid relating spending that top liberal economists say is wrong for the recovery. host: the minority leader arguing it was a partisan bill from democrats pushing through that $1.9 trillion economic aid bill. we are asking all of you if you think civics education will help heal the political divide in the united states. we will go to you in mississippi, ben. you say no. caller: what we need to do, what democrats and independents need to do is, when they have the majority, treated the same way republicans treat their majority. whatever bill you want to pass,

pass it. it's not gonna break any political divide, because republicans are not really republicans. if you have a segment on all republicans, no democrats, of who, what the ancestor, did the ancestor fight against slavery or for slavery? i guarantee you every republican ancestor fought for slavery. that's the problem. they got that mindset. back in the 60's i was reading an article about him yesterday, and that's the same mindset that the republicans have. host: ben, you think that this polarization comes from race?

race relations, race tensions? caller: a lot of it, not all of it, but a lot of it. that is the core. if we can't get that taken care of, we will never be able to work together, republicans and democrats. host: how do you try to resolve that? caller: the only thing that i have come up with is democrats and independents are too soft. they let republicans get away with too much. they go in their districts, they have their townhall meetings and they let these republicans constituents come in and try to influence, just take over.

host: this question was prompted in part by a piece written in the wall street journal by former secretaries of education at the federal level, arne duncan over the obama administration and lamar alexander who just retired from the senate and served as education secretary. they write that the american k-12 education system has always worked to respond to the needs of the nation, the report less the early republic emphasized history, reading, and math and the launch of the soviet satellite sputnik and the dawn of global economic competition drove a turn towards investment in stem education and during the early part of this century our attention has turned to preparing students from marginalized communities to succeed in high school and college. the fragility of our democratic institutions is in plain sight. this is the time to give priority to history and civics

education for american children. that piece in the wall street journal, america needs history and civics education to promote unity. do you agree or disagree, sophia in, good morning. caller: good, greta. -- good morning, greta. before this pandemic, i was worried about you. you ask us, trump supporters, you ask the question, what do you do now, what have you been doing, what is your life? 99% of them have the same answers, but i was worried they would attack you but they didn't. you educated me, my fellow church people, that is when i know who trump supporters were.

i voted for him and 2016 but i did not in 2020. i cried the whole four years. i thank you, c-span, do a good job,. i love you, i love bail, john, steve, i miss him so much. keep your job good. if you ask the question nobody attacks him but if it is steve or john the ugly start calling. thank you for listening. host: thanks for watching and calling in. bob, you say no, civic education would not help. caller: the evidence is blatantly out there. we just had a vote in the senate to impeach the president of the united states. the vote was 54-45.

that is divided. i also have a supreme court that in the last 2025 -- 20 or 25 years most decisions are 5-4. these are supposed to be the most educated people about the constitution and the law. you can educate people all day. if you have nine supreme court justices that vote 5-4 on many decisions who is going to educate and what are they going to teach is open to interpretation. it's not mathematics, it's not one plus one equals two. host: you are worried about who is doing the teaching and their perspective? caller: exactly. with the liberal academia that we have educating our kids in public schools now it's a scary thought. the see what they are going to indoctrinate our kids with next. host: what is the solution to

the political divide? caller: you can't fix it. news media has done an excellent job in dividing us. host: so there is no fix? caller: not in the political divide, no. it is entrenched forever. host: what is the impact of that? what is the fallout of that? if we are entrenched forever? caller: people are going to have different thoughts and if they are taught from different people you are going to have different thoughts it's not mathematics, it's not etched in stone around the world. one plus one equals two, that's around the world. it hasn't changed. host: latest from jonesboro,

georgia you say no as well. caller: good morning. first of all, not to be outdone by sophie, i like you too. [laughter] i agree with some of what tony and ben have said, but i'm not nearly as optimistic. i don't think teaching civics is going to help one bit. we have constitutional's dollars -- constitutional scholars, iv leakers who get in congress and live. they have the information and they know it's not true or valid but they still continue to spout it. we have to stop them from lying to people. i don't know how you do that, but if people would simply tell the truth. people keep saying, donald trump believes he won, that psychotic. i don't know what you do with psychoses and people not willing to be treated -- not willing to be true.

i know that sounds sort of cavalier. and less americans are willing to stand up, republicans claim they are the party of small government and lower taxes but they are not willing to fight for their own party. they are not willing to stand up against senator ted cruz or josh hawley. i had american government, physics, united states history. that was a long time ago. host: do you remember what grade you were taught that? caller: in high school. i was probably in 10th grade and 11th grade when i had those courses. and i love them. host: do you have grandkids, do you know if they were taught the same? caller: no, they were not. everything my 17 grant -- my 17-year-old grandson knows i taught him. i believe that is helpful, there are a lot of people who don't

have the right information, but there are just as many who ignore it. host: let's hear from an educator. greg is joining us from virginia. what do you teach? caller: right now i'm teaching world history. i have taught civics in the past and taught government, ap u.s. government. host: do you think more civics education would help? caller: yes, if it leads to educated voters. when the voters go to the polls, people need to understand that it is we the people and that the ultimate responsibility for our government functions, whether good or bad, and up -- it's the people. if we can get more people to see and take responsibility for their votes, we can change

things if we vote properly and vote informed that we can make a change. civics education would matter. host: can i share these poll results with you. i found the percentage of americans that can name the three branches of government, 51% can name all three, 17% can aim two, 8% could name one, and 23% could not name any branch of government. as a civics and government teacher, what is your reaction to those numbers? caller: it's scary. it is symptomatic of the problems we are having. that people are not going to, they are not informed voters. they are not educated voters and that is part of the dysfunction, a huge part of the dysfunction of our current system.

if we can get back to people understanding the constitution and the different roles of each separate branch and what they are supposed to be doing and what they are limited to do, we are going to be able to come around to a more sensible situation. host: thank you for calling in. zack from harrisburg, pennsylvania. you say yes to more civic education. it's your turn, you are on the air. one more time for zach in pennsylvania. curtis in monroe township. you are a teacher as well, what do you teach? caller: i am. i taught for 35 years, american history and world history. i'm retired now. civics makes a difference, when i was in elementary school it was taught in fifth grade, then

you went to u.s. history. american history, all different things. the other real point i want to make is teachers do not teach liberalism, they don't come into high school classes with an agenda. our charge is to's -- teach students to question and the reason i believe that what went on january 6 is a direct result of individuals not understanding what our constitution is about. that basically is my comment. host: you are saying they didn't understand what our constitution is about because why?

what makes you think that? caller: what makes me think it? our constitution does not abide by insurrections, period. period. host: you think that what happened up there meets that definition? tell us why. caller: of course it did. period. the more that people understand the history of our country. i'm an african-american and i do understand. when i taught my students they would say to me "how can you be so positive? -- so positive?" my answer was always "this is the best country on the face of the earth and i will do anything i can to make it work." what occurred on january 6 where

individuals who are ignoring of our constitution and the laws we abide by. host: what did you tell your students about what you and what they could do to make it work? caller: vote. v-o-t-e. get out and vote. i never told a student to vote for a candidate, i just said, and i meant it, you don't have a right to talk about our country if you are not willing to go out and vote. host: curtis, former teacher in monroe township, new jersey. more of your calls on whether or not civic education help heal the political divide in this country. they senate passed that $1.9 trillion economic aid bill. the president likely to sign it soon. the president announced $1400 payments will begin this month.

president biden saturday announced a $1400 coronavirus stimulus checks would begin being distributed in march. this is the first round of stimulus checks that will be given out hunter biden. former president trump passed to stimulus checks last year, one for 1200 and another for 600. the payments will go to 85% of americans. this is the first major bill democrats were able to push through. senator schumer, the majority leader for democrats in the senate was asked if this was the final relief bill. >> it's a very strong bail, part of it will depend on covid and if there will be a new strain. part of it will depend on the economy having underlying weaknesses that need bolstering. our number one lodestar is going to be helping the american people and if they need more help we will do another bill.

if this bill is sufficient then we won't do another bill. host: the majority leader from new york, chuck schumer on what comes next after they approve that one point $9 trillion economic aid bill. when more civics education help heal the political divide? amelia you say yes in riverdale, georgia. caller: good morning. i definitely agree that civic education -- republicans have said they are not for the people, they are for corporations and for the wealthy. republicans have been doing this ever since obama, when they try

to work the affordable care act they refuse to work with the democrats. none of the things he wanted to past, they did not support him on not one, not one. these are things that help the people and just now with this bill they did not support it. the tax bill that donald trump passed, that helped corporations and it was too trillion dollars. april don't understand that when you cut $2 trillion, it still the same as spending $2 trillion. he cut $2 trillion in taxes then he turned around and told the rich full that he made them richer. host: tie that back to our conversation.

you are saying priorities by the parties on capitol hill hurt or contribute to the political divide? caller: it contributes. for instance, democrats are the ones that passed medicare, social security, and hillary clinton is the one that helped the benefits for veterans. host: understood. in the new york times their front page story this morning on the passage of the one point $9 trillion economic aid bill they note that mr. biden's approach is in stark contrast to president trump whose initial efforts in congress with the tax cut package that largely benefited corporations and wealthier americans.

kathy in carlisle, pennsylvania, you say yes. caller: i agree with the michigan collar. he was on point as far as the information that is going to be disseminated and that we need to know the constitution, the role of the branches and to appreciate the country a little bit more. i think additionally we need to add more black history to help heal the political divide. that's a lot that we are missing in our history, the black history part of it. if you put that in there that will help people that have done a lot to let people know their own history and also the

importance of other people learning black history as well. host: on that note, the hill noting this morning, bloody sunday to be the first commemorated without john lewis. today is the 56th anniversary of the first salvo to montgomery march during the civil-rights movement -- this is the first commemoration of the pivotal civil rights era event known as bloody sunday without the beloved lawmaker and comes days after the house passed legislation aimed at reforming voting rights, and issue lewis fought for during his decades in congress. john and ellicott city, maryland. why not? caller: hello? host: we are listening. caller: i said no because i

don't think anymore civic lessons in the schools or whatever will help. you have in the system, in the general system already you have the most educated people in the supreme court and the legislature and all of that and they are still not coming to a table and deliberating like civilized people. so many positions used -- they take you don't see the logic behind it. it seems like every system becomes -- there comes a time when that system runs its course . i think the system has run its course. it is time to seriously think about tweaking the system. i'm not comparing the system to china, but this -- let's tweak the system because we learn from the soviet union that you need

to put some market practices in place. the soviet union tweaked their system and i think the system of checks and balances needs to be looked into. if you win an election you should be given the opportunity to implement your system, your policies and if it does not work you have another election. somebody comes in and puts the system in. host: listen to president biden yesterday after the senate passed that one point $9 trillion economic aid bill and his reaction to it, what is going to come next, his first major legislative win? pres. biden: this nation has suffered too much for much too long and everything in this package is designed to relieve the suffering and meet the most

urgent needs of the nation and put us in a better position to prevail, starting with beating this virus and vaccinating the country. this plane will be used to speed up manufacturing and distribution of vaccines so we can get every single american vaccinated sooner than later. i believe we will have enough by the middle of may to vaccinate. it will take longer to get an arms, but that's how long -- how much vaccine we will have. host: president biden yesterday. the albany times union, which endorsed governor cuomo three times in his gubernatorial bid are now calling on him to resign "resign mr. cuomo." is what they write. he hid the truth about the deaths of nursing home residents from the public and his administration lied about why and then pretended to come clean and lied about why it lied.

mr. cuomo has squandered the public's trust at a time where it is needed more than ever, it is vital that people can believe that their governor and government are telling them and that the rules they are asked to follow and their sacrifices are in the interest of public health. it is time for him to resign and for those who helped him deceive the public to go as well. they do not say this lightly and they endorsed him three times. he has brought to fruition a host of important progressive goals but between his manipulation of state ethics bodies, multiple allegations of sexual harassment, and the latest revelations on nursing home deaths he has lost the credibility he needs to lead the state in the midst of a public health crisis. april, we will go to you, you say yes to more civics education. how do you think it would help heal the political divide? caller: i'm sorry, i'm a little nervous. i think this is a great

question. i'm trying not to be despondent over the notion that half the folks don't know about three branches of government and it is pretty hard for us to enjoy the benefits of this wonderful gift that we are here to enjoy if we don't even understand it, it's basics. maybe i'm a bit biased because i felt like i had a wonderful civics education growing up. when i was in high school one of my social studies teachers, one would be republican city councilman and the other was the democratic city councilman and we also took an eighth grade trip to washington, d.c.. i have heard a few people talk about thinking about history and

it seems to me that my sixth grade, we have middle schools in ohio rather than junior high schools and six through eight. our sixth grade seemed to be getting the basics and we all had an assignment that is more difficult now or may be easier depending on your point of view to go home and read the newspaper, it was very affordable. obviously people can get their news and information on whole lot ways. the next day in our sixth grade class was to talk about what we had read with the emphasis being on being informed and as a few viewers said how important it was for us to be able to keep ourselves informed so we could vote with voting being an emphasis. in seventh and eighth grade we

had what i will call play trials. there would be a case and the seventh graders would be the jurors and the eighth-graders would put on the trial. some of us assigned to be lawyers and some assigned to be witnesses. the idea was that you participated in the way our justice system worked and as i mentioned, when i was in high school, our social studies teachers were members of two different political parties. the emphasis was always on the structure of our government so that we as citizens who were informing ourselves, that was my sixth grade, my seventh and eighth grade learning how to participated -- in it. how do we adjudicate our disputes? then in my high school looking at how that structure works with the three branches and all of

the wonderful freedoms that we all enjoy. host: how do you think that shape to you as an adult? caller: i started watching c-span in 1979. that may reveal a little bit of my age, but part of the reason i did so was i thought that i wanted to see up close and personal, i thought it was a wonderful idea to see that -- host: to see government? caller: i'm distressed when folks say it's obviously broken, let's just pitch it out the door where there is no hope. i could not disagree more fervently. if you think about as imperfect as it still is, and i have

always viewed it as a work in progress, working to form a more perfect union with each passing year, each passing generation working to form, it's to form, not we have this, it's to form, but we get there and if you want to have civil wars, you want to have no government? those are not situations you want to be in. host: let me jump in because you are echoing a headline by -- it's in the washington post quoting president biden. "we need the government" biden's $1.9 trillion reflects a seismic shift in u.s. politics. is that what you mean? host: i mean that if we act as though we would be better off with an autocrat, i know we

focus on awful lot on economic systems, but if we act as though we want an autocrat as opposed to a democratic republic which is i believe what our particular constitution provides for us, we are fooling ourselves. we have a structure, we have tools to fix it. granted there have been some really really great challenges put upon us and i think that if we continue to fail to educate our young people about the tools that are right there in front of us and we act as though our government can't do anything, let's just throw up our hands and give it to whoever can grab the most power.

the piece that i have gotten as an adult that has been rather set asunder and with statistics like you cited this morning makes me very anxious. the idea that there is no hope, give it up and give it to whoever can be in charge, that is throwing away a gift that all the people that went before us put before us to keep working on, to keep getting better at. host: more statistics for you from that annenberg study. they also found that amid the pandemic and protests, civic surveys find americans no more of the right. among the highlights of the survey americans are much more aware of all five rights protected by the first amendment when asked to name them and nearly three quarters of americans, 73% correctly named freedom of speech as one of the rights guaranteed under the

first amendment. that's up from 48% in 2018. more than half of those surveyed accurately named all three branches of the government. this is up from 39% last year, the prior high point in the survey. it looks like things are improving. john in mechanicsville, new york. you are an educator, what did you teach? caller: seventh grade and eighth grade social studies. host: what did you put an emphasis on in those social studies classes about our government? caller: what i tried to do was to give the kids the facts on both sides, to be open and fair about it, and lead them in a direction where they can draw their own conclusions. i never wanted these kids to be influenced in the way that i see students influenced today. they are directed to, when i was in college, i'm 73, i suspect in

the 60's during vietnam, just about every single professor i had was very liberal, radical. i'm from a small-town, conservative values, very traditional. i could understand what they were saying. i felt i was being pushed in a direction i was not comfortable with. today, civics is so important. the understanding of how government functions is critical. while i agree with a lot of your callers, i'm really disappointed today in academia because i think they have stacked the deck and this has a tendency to filter down into the high school and lower high school. we are not being given a fair assessment of how government works. we are being led in a direction. the event at the capital really

sickened me. it was hard for me to watch. in a way i can understand something. these people felt the rights were being violated and with all the tensions and all the acrimony taking place in our country today they felt they had no other choice and these divisions now are reflecting one of your early callers, they are not just deeply divided, we are not just deeply divided, these divisions are permeating and becoming more so. education is so important. they have to become educated and become organized and active. it's less likely any demagogue would have the ability to influence people and it bothers me to see people identify with hollywood and big tech which i

think is extremely dangerous, whether you are on one side or the other because it could reverse itself and the forces in our society that seek to influence people and take away their ability to make decisions for themselves. i hope in the future people listening to this will see the seriousness of all this and act in a appropriate manner and become educated and less likely to be influenced emotionally. host: we have three educators in a row. jerry in somerset, kentucky, do you still teach? caller: no ma'am. history was my specialty. what i like more now, civics is important, starting with the boston tea party, equals rights, civil-rights, voters rights, you name it. the one time we saw any major changes in this country is when people went out and marched.

a good example was the women celebrating their right to vote. they did not get that right to vote because they did not have the right to. they got it by marching on city hall and on the capital and in 1913 they marched on washington. in 2020 they finally got it right. thank you, once again, greta. have a great day. host: tomorrow is international women's day. jim in evansville, -- evans berg, pennsylvania. do you still teach? caller: i am retired but i taught recent american history for the last 10 to 15 years of my career there. it was discouraging because when the mass testing started to become so prominent out there the elementary schools in our

system, they switched over from teaching history to focusing more on writing and that sort of thing. when the kids got to me they had really no background, it was like starting over again and that was really dispiriting and with everything that has been going on with the recent history here, with donald trump telling lies and people believing it. when you have 70% of the republicans out here still thinking that the election was stolen, but leaving all the election fraud, that sort of thing out there, it's dispiriting. i think it could help if we went back to the beginning and emphasized more how racism has always been a part of our

history. you saw full out there complaining that they aren't racist but we have been since the beginning. -- we did not like the irish when they came over here. immigrants have always been picked on. by the time the immigrants were over here second generation, they were americanized. you could not tell where they were from. they were white and it was ok. if you have colored skin of whatever shade, you could not change that. you could always pick those people out, you could always demagogue and blame those people for everything and that is what we have continuously done. i think it could help teaching history in such a way, learning that our founding fathers really did not like democracy, that

when they thought of democracy, they thought of riots and chaos, built into the constitution that the voice of the people would be contained and the rich folks would be able to run things. host: we have to leave it there. that does it for conversation. we will turn our attention to one part of government, that is voting. we will speak with aei resident scholar john fortier to talk about efforts to change voting laws in congress and various state legislators. later, brooking institution's michael o'hanlon will talk about short-term and long-term by demonstration foreign policy challenges. we will be right back. ♪ >> today on in-depth, a live

conversation with an author, a staff writer for the new yorker. her most recent book is under a white sky, the nature of the future. her other books include fieldnotes from a catastrophe. joint and the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets for elizabeth. today at noon eastern on c-span2 . before the program, be sure to visit c-spanshop.org to get your copy of her books. >> tonight on q&a, a discussion about social and economic disruption caused by the covid 19 pandemic and the government's response with a senior fellow with george mason university.

>> any time we are going to change the way we live and change the way the economy produces, there will be things that get left by the wayside. there will always be some degree of destruction associated with whatever is created. we are changing the way resources are used. this pandemic is kind of forcing us to engage in the creative process. there is some optimism that we can find in that, in particular with the issue of working women. it has been known for a while that flexibility in work is one of the most useful ways to enable women to balance a profession and motherhood, and now we are all very familiar with zoom and using online technologies and working from home. there are some good things long-term that might come out of it. in the short term, there are some pretty serious -- i think it would be fair to say trauma

-- to be dealt with. >> tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. you can also listen to q&a as a podcast where you get your podcasts. >> listen to c-span's podcast, the weekly. this week, a freelance journalist describes his two years in captivity in syria, plus, a look at the future of syria. >> it was a long, hard road. i hope and believe one day that the outside world, particularly western nations, will say, on behalf of the people of syria, we need to come to an accommodation of the syrian government that we allow students to form universities, -- they have a huge brain drain going on there.

the near-term future is grim. >> find the weekly, you get your podcasts. >> this is c-span's new online store at c-spanshop.org. with a 117th congress in session, we are taking preorders for the congressional directory. every purchase helps support c-span's nonprofit operations. ♪ host: joining us this morning from the american enterprise institute is john fortier, he is a resident scholar. talking about potentially changing federal and state voter lies. let's start with hr1, one of the house democratss' initiative,

automatic voter registration, strengthens early and absentee voting, protects against fraud, creates non-taxpayer finances, calls for constitutional amendments. prohibits coordination between super pacs. enhances resources to prevent. guest: it is a long list. you listed many things. going back to the history of this, the last congress, when democrats took the majority in the house, they introduced a similar bill, also hr1 with their priorities for democracy. i think the bill before and now will be a hard task to get done. it is generally a set of

democratic priorities for reforming democratic process. it is also a big federal bill. our elections, while partly governed by federal law, are in most cases governed by state law and local practice. moving the federal government into some of these areas will be contentious. it will be difficult for democrats to get this through the senate. even if they did not have the filibuster, getting the 50 votes on their side, partly because some issues, there might be agreement with republicans on the state level, but it would be hard to bring it up as a federal issue. sometimes you might find administrators being worried. i think it is a heavy lift. there is also a big divide in the country on issues broadly related to voting. democrats being much more focused on knocking down barriers to voting, making it

easier to vote in many ways. republicans focusing on integrity issues. we see that in states going in different directions for it will be difficult to do that. this is an election that was historic in many ways, a very high turnout and very high usage of voting by mail. we have seen lots more voting by mail historically over time, but we saw a big jump, over 45% of voters voting by mail. it has become polarized, with republicans becoming more suspicious. these issues are likely to break down along state lines, mandates and restrictions will be difficult. host: left get your reaction to the democratic congresswoman from california, she is a member

of the judiciary committee, she had this to say about the voting rights provisions in the bill. [video clip] >> last election conducted during a once in a generation pandemic saw changes that made it easier for many americans to vote. reforms like absentee voting and early voting, also put into focus what many of us already knew. deep inequities persist in our democratic system. now comes the backlash to the increase in voter participation. that record turnout, with no credible instance of election irregularity, stimulated hundreds of bills in state legislators to make it hard for americans to vote in the future. we should protect our system, not restricted. hr1 gives voters choices about how they want to cast their ballot. the bill has a minimum of 15

days of early voting, minimum standards for the number and locations of ballot drop boxes at a national standard for no excuse absentee voting. it improves access for voters with this about his, addresses challenges faced by native american voters living on tribal lands and improves access for uniformed and overseas voters. hr1 ends the practice of disenfranchising americans with a prior felony convictions were no longer incarcerated. it unrigs the drawing of congressional lines, removing politics in the process and creating fair maps. host: john fortier, your take on what the congresswoman outlined. guest: we should start by saying it was quite an achievement for us to run an election under all of the constraints of a pandemic

and difficulties we had, and see at the same time the higher voter turnout in modern history. it is a credit to a lot of people out there, election administrators being one of the first on the list. the question of whether voting by mail really brought all of this turnout to bear, i think it is likely not the primary factor. we have all sorts of evidence with our midterm election 2018, that it was the highest midterm election in modern history, also a huge jump. we did not have all of this new focus on voting by mail, although we had a long trend toward it. there are some recent studies, we will have to look at it more, it shows voter enthusiasm and intensity and the partisan conversations that both sides cared about, it was always a stronger factor than the access to voting by mail. again, we see great disagreement

about some of this trick have seen states that have gone to -- disagreement about some of this. we have seen states that have gone to voting by mail and others that were more traditional. there will be disagreement among the states. it is a reasonable point for a state to stay we are not looking to be a heavy voting by mail state. we will emphasize early voting by person, we will not see a lot of states with just election day voting. i do think there will be different paradigms. one of the criticisms of the bill is it does force states into this model of no excuse absentee voting, or much more voting by mail, they might want to use their voting system in a different way, have other options, have early voting.

host: let's get our viewers' take on this -- do you agree with democrats about setting the standard on a federal level, or do you agree with our guest, john fortier, that states will push back on the federal government and want to set their own guidelines for voting? here are the lines. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. linda, democratic caller. caller: good morning. thank you for your time. i have to be a little bit offended by your use of the word integrity, republicans are more interested in the integrity of the vote. i am a democrat, but believe me,

i voted in person until seven years ago, when i became handicapped. i have to go through hoops, i have to request a mail-in vote, i have to feel that outcome and then they mail me the actual vote, i have to fill that out and signed it in two places. it is no less of a vote with integrity than i used to go vote in person. you are conveniently forgetting the fact we had a pandemic. the mail-in voting allowed people to vote and still be healthy. the fact that it turned out to be a very convenient for voters to do it this way, and maybe we should institute it to have more votes heard, is to me a happy discovery, because prior to me

becoming handicapped, i was a working mother of four children. i used to get up at 5:30 to vote. i would have loved to have been able to mail-in my vote. i voted split ticket. there is no less integrity in mail-in voting. host: let's get a response. john fortier. guest: what we have already seen before this election, a lot of states had moved to essentially all voting by mail or were open to voting by mail and large numbers of people voted that way. i think there are different systems that would work. i know that every state in the country has a process for people to vote by mail. sometimes it requires a reason. i think the hoops you are

describing are likely unnecessary. hoops for the sake of putting barriers in place to not make sense. there is a good voting process by having extensive early voting in person, and that would be a preferred way of voting. allow voting by mail for people who need it. i would hope you would qualify for any absentee ballot in any state. the debate about voting by mail certainly moved in a direction, people are voting with their feet, states are moving in the direction of adopting more. there are other alternatives. there will be debates less had at the state level, what is best for that state, and sometimes large numbers of days of voting early or a type of voting by

mail that is without restriction would fit some states. host: dolores in tennessee, democratic caller. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i believe we should have the federal government involved. back in the 1960's, it took the federal government in order for us to get children to go to white schools. we need the federal government to have all states let people vote, mail-in voting, absentee voting. even in our state, tennessee, every time voting comes around, our machines break down. like in georgia, they are trying to stop this, my granddaughters stay in georgia. they don't want to give you a bottle of water if you are standing in the hot sun to vote.

the republicans are doing everything they can to stop people from voting. people got out there of all races in the united states to let you know they were tired of trump. host: dolores, i want john fortier to talk about what is happening in georgia. the atlanta journal-constitution headline is on your screen. this is a gop backed bill according to the savannah morning news. john fortier, what is happening in georgia? guest: on the bigger point, to the caller's point, there are things that have been done on the federal level. i don't think we should rule out that we can do some things on the federal level, voter rights, voter registration, the help america vote act, those things were debated, they were republican and democratic

priorities, it still leaves a lot to the state. there can be a federal role. i think this is moving in the big way to some federal decisions that some might be left out at the state level. as for the georgia bill, and others around the country, many republican legislatures are looking to pass legislation that is aimed at voter integrity. i do not necessarily agree with every aspect of the georgia bill, and there are different laws in different states. my personal opinion, a robust period of early voting in person is a good thing. more weekend voting, longer hours, could we emphasize a better polling locations and longer times for those to be there. i don't necessarily believe that

3, 4, 5, 6 weeks of early voting is better than a couple of weeks of concentrated early voting. that will be the kind of debate we will have in states. i do think republicans, to the extent they are opposing voting by mail, would do well to emphasize the other aspects that they are trying to beef up, like early voting, improving voting machines or improving access and other ways because it is part of a system you put in place, rather than saying we allow everyone to vote by mail. i think states can think about what they want and make those decisions. we will see those debates across the country and we will see polarized debates with democratic states moving in one direction and republican states moving in another. host: we encourage our viewers to call in this morning about what is happening in your state. what would your voting -- what was your voting experience like

in this last election? the atlanta journal-constitution reports a republican backed bill in the house legislature aims to restrict ballot drop boxes, require more id for absentee voting and limit weekend early voting days. it passed the georgia house amidst protest it would make it harder for voters to participate in democracy. it voted along party lines. kelly in ohio, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. i do believe that restrictions need to be made at the federal level. i also believe that the state level should have some controls. however, what is going on right now, i do see that -- and i take issue with what the guest said about the republicans and what they are pushing is for

integrity. if you look at the bills they are putting forth, the majority of the bills are not for integrity issues. yes, if you need motor i.t. about integrity, i would agree. -- voter id being about integrity, i would agree. restricting locations, that has nothing to do with integrity. the majority of the bills are not about integrity. when we push the mantra that republicans are about integrity, i totally have issues with that. you are pushing the republican narrative. host: john fortier. guest: as i said before, i think the georgia bill, for example, could emphasize early voting in a better way. that is something i would be in favor of. it is a mix of types of practices you want to put in place.

again, i think a robust period of early voting of 10 days, two weeks where you have significant numbers of sites, longer hours in a concentrated period, that is a way i think the voting system could work quite well. there is a lot of room for variation in states out there. a lot of these other questions are tricky questions. the question of, for example, how you identify yourself as a vote by mail person? can we rely on signature match on the back of the envelope? something that does not work very well. that would be one extreme. others think you should have more stringent ways of identifying who the voter is, such as providing a photocopy of your id when you send in the vote by mail ballots. there is an absolute answer to that, but it is not crazy to think we need a way to think

about how we have those ballots come in and voters identified themselves. even at the polls, voters identified themselves. we do have a way to prove a voter is who they say they are. these are debates that i think probably will go on better at the state level. i am not saying we could and have a federal debate on these issues, but this is a big bill that probably needs to be debated much more at the federal level, if you want to put in -- it will probably need input from both parties. some aspects of openness in a way we have gotten some of these reform bills done at the federal level before. host: let me add politico's reporting on the supreme court, justice is seek middle ground in the voting rights fight.

several members of the conservative majority seem to search for middle ground on march 2 in the most significant voting rights act case justices have taken up since a court struck down part of the critical landmark law eight years ago. politico reports the cases argued involved challenges to a 2016 arizona law banning what critics dubbed ballot harvesting. a long-standing policy to disregard ballots cast by voters who show up at the wrong precinct. a lawyer arguing on behalf of the arizona republican party contended arizona rules amount to a time, place and manner limits who do not prevent anyone from voting. the voter rights act should only apply if someone can prove the laws were -- susan, republican. what is your take on this? caller: i am a little nervous. number one, i like as far as

federal and state the way it is right now. i do not want more federal government. also, these people say before -- this one lady said she had to fill out all of this stuff to vote by mail. this time, we got unsolicited mail-in ballots. i got a lot of mail-in ballots at my house. also, what they call voter suppression are really voter security laws. i do not believe we should have a month, or two weeks to vote. give us a day off where everyone can vote. give us more locations. i do not believe in all of these drop-off boxes, because that can lead to voter harvesting. host: john fortier, your

reaction? guest: focusing on what people sometimes referred to as voter harvesting. drop boxes became an issue. i think drop boxes can generally be a good idea. states that have used vote by mail, washington, oregon, colorado, have used them extensively. people can bring their ballot to the dropbox rather than send it in the mail. it is part of a larger system for states that want to emphasize voting by mail. looking to do 90% or more voting by mail, it makes sense to have drop boxes. states looking to have absentee ballot for those who need it, maybe it does not make sense to emphasize the need to have somebody drop boxes, or it might be a good idea that there should not be a federal mandate. the other question that the

caller addressed about ballot harvesting, it is a term that has certain connotations. the question really is, how should the state regulate how ballots are handled? on the one hand, some people worry about third parties, people who help you vote, bring your ballot in for you, how accountable they are. will they bring the ballot in? will they be selective about who they talk to? should we say a person can only help five other people, rather than potentially people all being helped by the same group or people. those are debates we have been having for quite a while. i don't think we should have a case or hsa there is no -- have a case where we say there is no regulation on people with absentee ballots.

having a federal standard that makes it very, very easy for people to help. looking at the states to craft some reasonable restrictions on how voters can vote by mail and help people if they need to be regularly, that is a reasonable thing for states to look at. host: marietta, georgia, independent. good morning. caller: what i wanted to say, i have been living in georgia for some years. i have been voting absentee for the last couple of voting cycles. this cycle was totally different, because the way the absentee voting here works, you don't have to have a reason to be able to vote absentee. it is very easy.

you can go on the mise voter page, you can fill out -- you can go to the my voter page and fill out the application. i printed it off and then scanned it back into my computer and scented by email to the registrar. the last time, we had applications from different people. i said i am not doing that. i went on the my voter page and i was able to verify that they received it. this time, because of the many applications, you can be very confused. my mother and i vote absentee. when i got my envelope, it asked me to list my date of birth,

address and my signature. for my mother, the only asked her to put her signature. why did it asked me for my birthday and address? something was not right. this voting cycle is easier to vote by mail. host: john fortier. guest: i think there are a lot of good practices they should adopt. being able to not only easily apply for voting by mail -- some states might not even require an application -- but easy to check on the status of your voting, where your ballot is, whether that request has been accepted, many states have moved online, and i think that is a helpful process.

i think, perhaps, we could at the federal level think of some ways where we could have some standards for that. much of this will be done at the state level, partly by state lawmakers and good practice. the ability to see your ballot, track your ballot is much more possible now with technology. states have done some very good things. i think those who vote by mail should be able to apply and track their ballots online in a way that would be helpful. host: let's go back to the house debate over hr1 and listen to a republican congressman from georgia. he was on the house floor tuesday speaking out against what he called the federalize and of local elections. [video clip] >> not only an opposition to this bill, but a strong opposition.

especially to the attempt to nationalize our federal elections and the notion that people like joseph kirk in georgia, the superintendent, who has done a phenomenal job administering our elections, is not as qualified as people here in this room about how to run an election -- and more importantly, bureaucrats in washington, d.c. can administer an election in georgia better than our election supervisor can and has is a notion beyond compare. in fact, this flies in the face of our founders, especially those of the constitutional convention. there were arguments against article 1, section 4, because of the fear stated was that those in power could use that power to manipulate elections to keep them in power. that one day, someone would use

this authority to manipulate elections so they can maintain power. madam speaker, i believe we have arrived at that. alexander hamilton argued it is important institutions of government be able to preserve themselves. this was a backup that the states had the priority to run their own elections. he said it should only be used when extraordinary circumstances might render interposition necessary to safety. we are not in that extraordinary circumstances, in fact the extraordinary circumstance that will be stated over and over again is how we ran the election in 20 under covid. many provisions in this legislation, including universal mail-in ballots, a band on voter id laws were changes by states illegally in 2020 that caused a lot of the problems we saw. host: from the house debate, hr1

bill for the people act, joining us this morning is john fortier, he is what the american enterprise institute, a scholar talking about federal and state voting laws. john fortier was a scholar with the bipartisan policy center previously, working on elections issues and the author of two books. john fortier, as you listen to the congressman, what rethinking? -- what were you thinking? guest: the congressman emphasized some aspects of our voting system that has been run by states. i think the constitution does give -- voting laws to the states.

it clearly allows the federal government to preempt them. if the federal government wants to step in and say there is a national standard on x, y or z, it allows them to do that. all sorts of things where the federal government has laws. even hr1, which is quite ambitious and looks to do a lot at the federal level, we do not have an institution in washington that runs the election. it will still be run by states and local officials. it would significantly involve federal courts in many decisions. the question is, what is the balance? extraordinary measures, i don't know what that standard is. i think we should be careful

about what we moved to at the federal level. successful debates about reform, usually balanced democratic and republican concerns to some extent. it is a bill that is heavily on democratic priorities that don't think we'll see any republican votes in the house, i'm not sure we will see any in the senate. a mix of integrity and access in elections, a mix of republican and democratic priorities at the federal level on certain key aspects. one area where we might find agreement is related to election technology, testing, the security of those machines. i think we have some areas where there might be agreement. at the state level, there could be a lot of interesting debates that could bring us some compromise on some key issues. i think this bill is probably

too much to expect to get done and leaning much more on the democratic side. host: let's go down to florida and listen to glenn in tallahassee, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i have been listening and watching c-span since 1980, i am in a state of despair for the country because i think we are heading for an authoritarian government that is going to dictate -- i guess they call it an oligarchy, the democrats. i think i am going to quit watching c-span because you are biased.

leaning toward the left. it is so obvious to me. 13%, i believe it is, of the population, probably 25% or 30% of your callers. you always start with democratic callers. there are so many things i can show you, examining your call patterns and so forth in the last 20 years. host: we take the calls as they

come in. we open up the lines for republicans, democrats, independents. we put republicans first one month and democrats first but a month. caller: thank you very much. thank you for your guest. i would like to say that if you strip away all the noise, all the details, the bottom line is one party wants people to have access to voting, and one party does not want more people to vote. the message is that eez of -- ease of voting does not translate into fraud. your guest just said democrats are for access and republicans are for integrity. i have to say that integrity and access together -- they go

together. for the people who voted by mail actually reflected the will of the people in georgia this time and i think that is what shocked the legislators there. they were not allowed to do things at the polls that would restrict voting. changing polling places at the last minute, or moving polling places two people could not get to or putting machines in places that did not work. they were not able to obstruct the vote when more people voted by mail. the republican party -- has used it as a red herring for decades to distract people. i see it as one party the does not want people to vote because

they know there are not enough people who would vote for their policies. host: ok, matilda, i am going to have john fortier give us his response. guest: i agree that availability and integrity can go together. some states have been nearly one hunter percent voting by mail for quite some time. that might not be my preference, but they do professional things. they do very significant check of signatures. they are very good about contacting voters about their absentee ballots and mail-in ballots and potentially getting fixes to problems that came up. i think there are a number of different ways to run elections. i, personally, might not favor the nearly universal vote by mail, but states can do that.

i think in many cases, the states are going to have to find the balance they want and have that debate. my point about the federal level is you can have processes that have access and integrity but we will have to have a debate about that, but probably at a smaller level, rather than one big deal about all of these things. we could find some areas where we have common agreement at the federal level. i do think many things could be left better at the state level. host: north carolina, independent. caller: good morning. listening to these people call in and tell you you are not fair. never mind. mr. fortier, i am listening to you say not particularly about

voting. i am 61 years old, ever since i started voting, i was so happy when i was able to vote for the first time. i am trying to figure out, one person would not vote, why don't we have it just like that. all of this other stuff you are talking about, integrity, one person, one vote, that is what counts. why is it in all republican districts, they want to redline and make new districts, cut out districts, and make it so people of color -- not just black people but people of color -- the last lady from kentucky hit it on the head. the reason you are so upset now is because you could not get out there and messed up everything.

the military has been doing it for years. you have to mail in your ballots. there was no big complaining about the military doing that. i am a prior military person. your expression shows on your face when something hits you -- we are watching you on tv -- it shows on your face. there is no reason to try to stop people from voting. that is what it is about. host: we are running short on time. john fortier, your final thoughts. guest: this issue of how much mail voting we do will be a big one. i do think that even states that are not doing a very significant amount of mail voting need to think about making that system work better, too. whether it will be for people who really need it, they should work to improve the system.

the ability to check your ballot online, those are good questions to ask. the question is, do we want to at the federal level push forward a system where all states are moving significantly to a vote by mail system, primarily, or whether we want to allow the states to have some variety. i am more in favor of having that debate at the state level. but having the states think seriously about having the systems work well. host: john fortier, thank you for having a debate with us and our viewers. guest: thank you. host: when we come back, we will turn our attention to the foreign policy challenges facing the biden demonstration. we will talk to michael o'hanlon of the brookings institution. ♪ >> book tv on c-span2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. today at noon eastern, live

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to monopolize. any merger that might substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly is illegal. meanwhile, we have watched while hundreds of these mergers that would be illegal under that standard have been approved. >> there is this argument that underlines a lot of criticism of today's antitrust, a feeling that big is bad, large companies are abusing consumers. i do not think that is true. most antitrust enforcers do not believe that is true. large companies are large because they are efficient and bringing great services, popular services to consumers print. >> monday night at 8:00 eastern on the communicators on c-span2. ♪ >> american history tv on

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c-span was created by america's cable television companies in 1979. today, we are brought to you by these television companies who provide c-span2 viewers as a public service. >> washington journal continues. host: michael o'hanlon is back with us to talk about foreign policy changes facing the new president. he is the program director for brookings institute, and an author. michael o'hanlon, let's begin with president biden's decision to execute those airstrikes in syria. what was the goal of them in your reaction to that decision? guest: i think president biden wanted to show, he would not tolerate attacks on american

forces in iraq and he needed some way to show they would not be a labored process that got tied up in american bureaucracy or american-iraqi disagreement about how to respond and that is why he found a target in syria, where they did not need to ask permission of the iraqi government. when president trump authorized the attack against some soleimani -- he retaliated for attacks by striking within iraq. he did so without the permission of the iraqi government, without any advance warning, and that led to a crisis in u.s.-iraq relations. president biden found a way to avoid that what made it clear he would respond. it does not solve a fundamental problem, but it could signal that biden is not to be messed with and he is not a president that can be taken advantage of.

host: what is the situation in syria? guest: the situation in syria is that president assad has largely won the war. the expected downfall of his regime that was forecasted a decade ago when the so-called arab spring has not occurred. he has received help from has below, iran and russia and to defeat a divided opposition that was mostly sunni. most of the opposition forces were sunni. assad is part of a minority group in syria. he had the support of christians that were probably afraid of the sunnis themselves. he is largely consolidated control of the country, but it

is a shell of its former self. there is ongoing conflict in the northwest, terrorist groups associated with the opposition. turkey has moved into help secure part of the northwest. turkey is upset with the united states for still having 1000 troops in the northeast working with kurdish groups. we have been working with the kurds to try to defeat isis. when isis was pushed out in the caliphate was destroyed, we stayed to try to consolidate that situation in the northeast and help the kurds protect themselves. isis is gone, assad is in control, but the united states and turkey still have some military presence, as does russia and iran and it is a simmering conflict not yet

resolved. the good news -- if there is good news -- killing is much less. the bad news is it was probably the worst civil war in the world this century, and about 500,000 people were killed and a lot of people live in a destitute state as the country has not been repaired and there is a very weak system of providing food and release. a lot of admirable ngos, organizations that have trying to help mitigate the damage, but the company is only partially functioning. host: where is isis now and what threats are they pose? guest: isis does not control any territory. they still have affiliates in parts of nigeria and some affiliates in afghanistan, pakistan. a lot of people who still associate, swear loyalty, but the momentum isis had a

half-dozen years ago is completely gone. the notion they are somehow on the ascent and will establish a caliphate in the broader islamic world that they govern, that idea is gone. their appeal, charisma for a lot of would-be supporters around the world has declined. tragically, if you look at statistics on the rate of terrorist attacks from al qaeda or isis, twisted, perverted view of jihad within some sunni communities, that movement is still pretty strong in terms of number of violent attacks and number of acknowledged membership. it is probably half as strong as it was at the peak of 2014, it is considerably stronger than it was at the time of the 9/11 attacks.

for americans, we are lucky most of the violence is happening many miles away. it is muslims against muslims, tragically, but it is not happening in the united states. isis does not control territory in a meaningful sense anywhere in the world. it has the ability to have followers carry out acts of violence that is concerning. host: as we approach the 20th anniversary of the september 11, two thousand one attacks, what challenges does the president face in afghanistan? guest: the president has a decision to make. there was a peace deal a year ago the trump administration announced with the taliban. the afghan government was not involved in that february 29, 2020 deal.

it said they would not affiliate with al qaeda, we would think about leaving by may of 2021. that deal also required the taliban to enter into serious peace talks with the afghan government. i would argue that has not happened. the united states government and the u.n. has not really broken ties with -- the deal is not in effect. therefore, i think it is inevitable and would be correct for president biden not to pull out by may 1. his administration is looking for a way to reduce america's commitment to these conflicts in the middle east. we have reduced our forces by 97% compared to their peak. down to about 2500 troops, probably too few.

if we were back around 4500, which is the level u.s. central command and the pentagon determines at the end of 2020 would probably be a good number, that would still be a 95% reduction from peak, when mr. biden was vice president under barack obama. that is a sustainable level and we should be willing to keep that level until there is some real progress with peace talks, which i think could take years, not months. president biden appears to be looking for a third way of avoiding this tough choice -- do we stay or do we go? do we comply with the february between knife deal or not? -- february between ninth -- february 29 deal or not? some kind of a major meeting of many officials from the

government, the taliban and the rest of society and see if they cannot form an interim government and have that be the basis for then governing the country until there is a real powershare. i'm not sure what problem that solves. if you can envision how to do an interim government of power-sharing between the taliban and others in afghanistan, including the elected government, then you probably also have a formula that could be a long-term power-sharing arrangement. either way, the task is daunting. if you have an interim government, who will control the army? who will make decisions on the future of the country? i am not really sure this will be such a breakthrough. i think the biden team will have to accept reality that if they do not want to see afghanistan dissent into complete civil war and the taliban takeover, they will have to keep a few thousand

u.s. troops there for some years to come. host: a lot more to talk about for the biden demonstration, the challenges that they face. -- "the new york times" notes that the secretary of state gave his first major speech this past week. the headline is that he proposes foreign policy not disconnected from our daily lives. listen to what he had to say. [video clip] >> all our priorities go to the core sources of national strength that we defined broadly because a truly strong country is strong in many ways at once. real strength isn't luster or bullying and is not based in military power alone. real strength is that and more. making sure that our most valuable commodity as a nation, our human resources, can meet there for -- their full potential.

it's the ability to bring countries together because they trust us to lead and no one can unite others like we can. it's having our diplomats walk into buildings around the world and be respected because they have the confidence and trust of the american people. host: we want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation. michael, what did you make of what the secretary of state had to say? guest: i'm a big fan of secretary blinken, he's an excellent choice. very experienced and cautious in some ways, creative and others. seasoned, experienced, also just a very good human being, a smart guy and a humble guy. he will be a good person to bring together many other countries because he is well-liked, well-respected, and respectable. having said all that, i don't think that his speech gets us too far except to return us to the way that we usually do

business in republican and democratic presidencies, except for mr. trump, who was a disruptive leader in didn't have a lot of use for alliances or trying to make a strong partisan statement here. trump himself would agree that he wanted to shake things up and he didn't necessarily think that being popular internationally or having these alliances proved that the u.s. was benefiting in some way and i disagree with mr. trump, but he still faced some questions, even if his own style could be challenged. even if they get their way, we will sort of return back to where we were at the end of 2016, but all the problems are still there. a speech that emphasizes multilateralism and cooperation may be repairs some of the trump years, but doesn't actually chart a path forward. i thought it was fine for an early days kind of speech, just

to try to recapture the bipartisan tradition of professionalism and respectful diplomacy that i think americans have typically seen in their democratic and republican presidents and administrations, but i don't think that it really advanced the ball very far on any big issue i could think of. host: let's get to calls with glenda in georgia. caller: high. -- hi, i think you guys do a great job with your socratic method and if someone is asked about how they came to their opinion, you know, it affects people that don't even think about how they get their opinions. anyways, back to the middle east, when cheney and bush went into afghanistan and a rack, they were so naive. discovering that the arab culture is so complicated and that the she had don't vote each

other in and out, they use power , reality, and bullets metaphorically. anyway, when i see everybody going against assad, going into a rack to destabilize their borders, that of course affected every neighbor country. when we want a sawed out, i was thinking what if we destabilize that country completely with no government. please tell me what you think will be the result for israel or anybody? host: michael o'hanlon? guest: very good points. many people regret how we handled syria. most of us say that frankly having left him in power without encouraging opposition would have been better than what we did for the simple reason of course that assad is still there anyway and half of a million people are dead.

also that assad himself, while a brutal dictator, proving himself to be a much worse human being than we knew he would be before, him under assad until 2011 was still probably one of the more tolerable places to live in the middle east. i'm not trying to sing the praises of him, but it is true that when john kerry, hillary clinton and others were dealing with the middle east in 2010, they were still hopeful he could be brought towards reform and just the opposite happened. the only point i would add to the viewers is that it's true that president bush didn't have any success and had a fair amount of naivete in the middle east, but we have done much better since and those of us who are specialists in the field got some things right that bush and obama didn't listen to, but we got quite a few things wrong,

to. the region is just so difficult for any outside power to try to shape. that's the number one point of agreement i would have with you from the get-go. syria going forward, we should not i don't believe, try to upbraid assad at this point. we can create conditions for peaceful power down the road for everyone to see it rebuilt with international aid, they should have a more inclusive kind of government but that probably won't convince him to step down. we should probably persuade him to have a more representative kind of cabinet with international monitoring of the agencies and that's probably the best we can do. host: ron, california, republican. caller: greta, good morning. mr. o'hanlon, great to have you on the show.

housekeeping business, you know, when people call into your show, you should ask them if they know who their congressperson is. most of these people call in and they are just repeating things that other people have said before. if they don't even know who their congressperson is, they probably don't have much to say. back to the issue at hand, this is a big, heavy lifting job for the biden administration, no doubt. we are talking about the china problem, we are talking about the middle east and especially, you know, the key block here is afghanistan. we need to stay there. we stayed in south korea and germany for how many years? we should probably stay with some semblance of force in afghanistan for some years. the taliban, all the people will tell you, they are all laughing at us saying that now we have

beaten the united states after we beat the russians. if necessary, do you believe that it could be possible, thinking out-of-the-box, that it would be possible to separate afghanistan into four states and therefore give them one state that we could watch carefully and another for the al qaeda and the rest for the true afghani ends -- afghanians? i don't understand that part of the world that much, but whatever your thoughts are. host: it's an inch -- guest: it's an intriguing concept. whether we favor it or not, we may wind up with that partition if the united states and nato pull out of their military positions. i would anticipate the country descending into all-out civil war. the only problem with your concept, i think, though it may wind up being the place we get

to, the main problem is the taliban isn't popular even among passionate people from whom the fighters are recruited. afghanistan has four major ethnic groups. the passion are the largest -- pashtun are the largest. the movement has no support among the larger that's the other three ethnic groups. but if you force them to live under the taliban, it may be the kind of state that we can watch from a surrounding territory to try to do some counterterrorism strikes when necessary and it may wind up achieving the minimal american goal of a counterterrorism, but the death and devastation that would happen along the way to get to that point, the ethnic cleansing that could happen would be a

humanitarian travesty and the taliban can still control about half the country of current afghanistan, which if we have no access to that territory is a pretty big space where bad things can still happen and i'm not sure long-range counterterrorism would be that successful. we may wind up where you are talking about if all else fails, but i would consider it a mitigation of disaster as opposed to desirable option. guest: elena, that -- host: elaina, democratic caller. caller: good morning. i was just recalling a high school civics class lesson that i had, titled internationalists at war or isolationists at peace. that might be a good guide to follow for foreign policy. and in history i think it should be mentioned that we are all foreigners or immigrants unless

you are native american. that's all i wanted to say. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. guest: thank you for the comment in the observation. there's an interesting paradox here. in broad historical terms, the world hasn't been much more stable than the united states has been engaged and when we had alliances, we haven't had a world war iii and the main reason is the united states stayed engaged after world war ii and built up an alliance system to keep the peace in northeast asia and europe. and when i say peace i don't mean a perfect peace. there have been small to midsized wars along the way but another -- not another world war. to your point it's also fair to observe that even during that time the u.s. has struggled with the conflicts that it has fought .

korea, vietnam, iraq, afghanistan, smaller ones as well. sometimes we have at least kept a lid on the problem, but we haven't really had resounding successes. we have prison -- prevented world war, but we haven't well prevented small to midsized wars, with terrible tragedies often for the our people in uniform. i accept the challenge that the caller is laying down for those of us who caller cells internationalists to try to do better. we've got to keep the structure of alliances and the basic foundations of this overall global piece that has vented world war iii that is no mean feat, but we have got to get better at avoiding the big wars, like korea, vietnam, iraq, afghanistan that are not world wars but have been incredibly costly and tragic. that would be my philosophical comment in response to this debate on internationalism

versus isolationism. i think internationalists have to up their game and thinking about how the united states can stay engaged. we have to stay resolute in the alliances and look to be more restrained in the uses of force that typically haven't gone so well. host: a text from patrick in nashville, who writes -- regarding the international challenges ahead, what worries me the most is how trump ignored the russian concentration in the middle east and their unknown influence. russia failed for many years in the middle east but trump gave them an open door to create future chaos. your thoughts? guest: here's the thing, i'm a democrat but i have to say the russian presence in the middle east really picked up during the obama administration. i'm not really trying to blame

president obama, syria was such a mess. and i don't think it was worth trying to fight russia and pushing them out wasn't worth risking world war iii or conflict between the u.s. and russia over the syrian civil war, which is again the main thing that russia has done differently in the last decade and that broader region. it's a bipartisan tragedy in the united states. i'm not just going to blame president trump. trump did not have a particularly good legacy to lead in russia, leaving aside the election issue of 2016. giving him credit for one thing, at least accident -- at least instinctively he recognized it was dangerous for the u.s. and russia to have a horrible relationship that they did. he never translated his desire for a better relationship into a meaningful policy agenda. he brought about even fewer republicans and how he thought about it, he didn't leave us

with a path forward but with the instinct of trying to

preventable by any president in the abstract. we can ask people to patch up software and protect certain government infrastructure more effectively. we could change the way that the government interacts with the private sector on things like big utilities, electricity grids , water and power and financial infrastructure to make sure that those kinds of crucial national assets are up to snuff on the latest internet protection. but even if you do that you will still have vulnerabilities coming up whenever software is rewritten and for the vast number of us we will still be vulnerable unless we come up to

full speed on our internet protections and most americans are not going to want the government to mandate that. the short answer is that to some extent this is the brave new world we are in and the good news is that most of us on a daily basis don't scuff -- don't suffer catastrophically from internet attacks. there are resources that you can bring even if you are the victim but i would expect that this kind of cyber competition and even cyber attacks, certainly cyber espionage will continue and we can do certain things to reduce vulnerability and fallout when bad things happen. host: pam, burlington, north carolina, democrat joining us this morning. caller: i had two concerns. one, the israeli pakistan relationship. i won't go into detail, it would take too long. in general i'm concerned about

the pakistanis. second, i've been really concerned about the huge amount of trust that we must have lost when we left the kurds in syria. i was just wondering if you could respond to that concern as well. host: on the kurds in syria, we haven't deserted them completely. we reduced the size of our presence after isys was defeated and president trump seemed to want to get out completely, but he was talked into staying partly because it was a way to prevent iran from getting more influence in that part of syria and partly because it was a way to keep some control working with the kurds over the oil assets in syria that could limit his own power and ability to consolidate victory. for those reasons trump decided to keep a u.s. presence in the

kurdish region of northeastern syria and we are still there. now, we are not doing that much, we don't have that much capability, but with a few other americans on the ground, you have airpower being presented by the big efforts of the enemies of the kurds or isys, let's say, to try to do something nefarious. at the moment we have not and the turks are angry over that because they want us to desert the kurds, punish the kurds for as they see it prevent them for -- from pursuing more autonomy in syria then the kurds in turkey could pursue greater autonomy or independence. we are in this position where no matter what we do we have got at least one of our friends unhappy with us. but we may have found sort of the least bad option for the moment to try to keep influence and leverage with the kurds in northeast syria and over time

maybe get some ability to mitigate turkish concerns by working with them to make sure that they don't have any weapons flowing into turkey. we are in again the least bad position we could be in. it's not a stable long-term plan , but in terms of working internationally to work to figure out how the assad government will be dealt with in the future, i don't think that having's syria, a collection that is pieces of its former self is a good long-term policy but at the moment what we are doing might be the least bad. host: james, scottsboro, you are on the air with michael hanner and. --michael o'hanlon. caller: going back to all three parts of your discussion this morning, you can teach civics. you can listen to these guys get up and talk.

[indiscernible] host: host: james, i apologize, you are breaking up. hard to hear you. what did you say? [indiscernible] deal today on civics -- what did you say? caller: [indiscernible] deal today and civics. let's look at what's what. we tried just like teaching civics, you've got to have some kind of common sense. otherwise it does you no good. host: james, we will move on to kevin, democratic color. kevin? caller: colonel mcgregor was the

senior advisor to the secretary of defense, anti-interventionist who really speaks the truth. i wonder if you have had any contact with him in terms of getting out of useless wars, talking about health care and stuff like that. he's been talking about misinformation and if he has been in contact with either of those people. the other thing is an attempt to get out of the middle east, afghanistan, and a rack with that kind of thwarted by congress, saying they needed permission to pull out but they didn't need a permission to start it. the trump administration, they

were trying to get on the -- out of afghanistan, iraq, and syria. especially colonel mcgregor. host: ok, kevin. michael o'hanlon? guest: i know colonel mcgregor, i helped him write a book 20 years ago on army reform. getting to the people that mcgregor and others were advising, i have been in good contact professionally with secretary mattis and secretary esper, donald trump's two secretaries of defense and we did an event two weeks ago interviewing him. in many cases these are people i'm collegial with, work with well, some of them are my friends and there are areas of bipartisan cooperation in washington, even with a trump residency and of the kind of partisanship that existed at the top levels of our political

classes. i guess that is a partial common. but you say congress forced trump to stay. i think congress recognized that in south korea and germany it was important to have a degree of stability and the alliances have helped to keep the peace over the years and shouldn't be discarded lightly and by the way, congress did have a role in the iraq and afghanistan wars that were essentially approved by congress. let's not forget that. they did not declare war and you get into constitutional debates about the authorization of military force being adequate, but congress voted in favor of both of those words 20 years ago and at that point it was seen as a relatively bipartisan agenda. the iraqi war was more controversial but even there you had democrat supporting the initial idea, so we are at a point now where going back to the point of the previous caller about the plea for pragmatism,

we have to recognize across party lines that the middle east is just a hard place to operate, as in earlier caller noted and we need some new ideas. the good news is that in both iraqi and afghanistan we only have 2500 to 3000 troops in place and it's a huge reduction, more than 95% relative to the peak in either place. starting from a platform in a position that is much more sustainable than we have been at before. therefore i don't think we need to be in a hurry to say we are done forever with the region or end of the forever wars. the forever wars are not nearly what they were. they are primarily being fought by the militaries of those countries, as they should be. america's role is more minimal and advisory with intelligence and airpower support. again i think we are in the least bad place we could be around these conflicts at the moment. host: michael o'hanlon, one last

call for you from david, republican line, virginia. guest: good morning, c-span. thank you for taking my call. i agree with the last caller and the comments of mr. o'hanlon and what he said about those. but these intervention wars that we have gone into, 2011, with sycamore timber, cia covert operations, how did that work out our influence in libya taken out that leader, the support of the arab spring and the muslim brotherhood and the 19 year war in afghanistan. the almost illegal war in iraq and our support in yemen of saudi arabia.

if we had energy independence from the middle east, our chances for peace i think throughout that region would allow us to withdraw if not all troops, most troops. i would like your comments regarding our position in the middle east is regarding energy independence in the united states. guest: very good question. we certainly have much more autonomy in the u.s. then we had in my adult lifetime but we still had interests as the global economy depended on middle eastern oil and even if we are technically not importing a lot from that region right now, our allies are, are economic partners are. the price of gas and oil goes way up. for us, too, if in fact supplies were cut off. i don't think that energy independence for the united states itself is the be-all

end-all, but i like the fact that we have a little less vulnerability than we did before, it gives us more room to maneuver and in fact that's part of i we have reduced capability throughout the region so dramatically. 95% in afghanistan and a, substantial presence in a number of countries that are essentially peaceful countries. bahrain, kuwait, qatar, the united arab emirates with the smaller presences in a number of places like turkey and djibouti. sending them into the broader waterways of the region. you are right, we have a substantial military footprint with some of that being needed, as you seem to agree, but secretary austin at the pentagon used to be the general in charge of central command in this very region and is also right to embark on a global posture review and there is a decent chance that he will be able to

whittle away by another 10% to 25% the military footprint in the broader region and again i'm thinking about kuwait, bahrain, countries like that. not necessarily places where troops are in great risk today, but stairwell perhaps we could reduce the costs to the taxpayer and reduce exposure a little bit further. certainly going along with the spirit of your question, even though i don't think there is a basis for dramatic additional downsizing. host: michael o'hanlon is the author of the book "the art of war" in the age of peace, resolute restraint and u.s. grand strategy and is a program director at the brookings institution and you can learn more about foreign policy chain -- challenges around the world if you go to his website. guest: thank you very much for having me. host: we'll take a break and when we come back, we will turn our attention to the senate passing that $1.9 trillion

covid-19 stimulus bill. your reaction to it, phone lines are on your screen. we'll be right back. ♪ >> tonight on book tv on c-span2 , sarah horowitz, author of the book "mutualism, offering her thoughts on how to build economic institutions to solve the social problems of the future, interviewed by or in cast. >> we have to start to build the -- building institutions that undergird our democracy and interestingly enough they always start with a mutual strategy because that's how democracy works. people come together with a concern and a need to communicate the concern and what it is. on a basic level as a human being you will find that these

are the institutions that have your interests at heart. they really are devoted to their membership and they are not there to make a quick profit. they are there to solve that social problem but because they have their own money, they can be there from generation to generation. flex you can also listen to every "afterward -- >> you can also listen to every " afterwards" program as a podcast. find it where you get your product -- your podcasts. >> listen to "the weekly," this week our freelance journalists describe their captivity and syria plus a look at the future for syria. >> it's a long, hard road and i hope and believe that one day the outside world, particularly western nations like the g7, you

know, will say that on behalf of the people of syria, we need to come to an accommodation with the syrian government and resume diplomatic relations and allow foreign universities to go back there with brainpower. they have this huge brain drain going on there. but the new foreign future is grim. >> find "the weekly," where you get your podcasts. >> with the biden administration now leading the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, follow the latest at c-span.org/coronavirus and search c-span coverage of news conferences as well as remarks from members of congress, use the interactive gallery to follow the cases in the u.s. and worldwide. go to c-span.org/coronavirus. >> "washington journal" continues.

host: after days of debate and 24 hours of continuous voting and debate and negotiations behind the scenes the senate today passed the one point $9 trillion covid-19 stimulus bill passed on a vote of 50 to 49. the pivotal vote coming from joe mansion, democrat of west virginia. he reportedly brought the chamber to a standstill for much of friday when he walked at a democratic proposal to extend federal jobless benefits into october 4 and after hours of negotiations democrat struck a new deal to extend the current weekly benefits through to cumber sixth and make a portion of the 2020 benefits nontaxable for some households. the final changes highlighted the centrist democrat's powerful influence in the chamber where a single democratic defection would have derailed the bill. democrats lowered the weekly payments to $300 from the $400

level in the house bill, phasing out the direct payments more quickly for some households, stripping out a minimum wage increase that had passed the house last weekend. senator joe mansion was on "state of the union this morning and this is what he had to say -- union" this morning and here's what he had to say. [video clip] >> right now we are getting $300 to the people targeted who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and we are doing that seamlessly if you look at the families and the children with child tax credits there is so much more that we are doing, giving more help to individuals than ever before. seamless, continuing on to the end of august as needed, that is what we tried to do. when we put it up, we never gave it. this is the first time we have ever allowed for tax deduction for your unemployment benefits. and to be fair for the people

out there working all the time, paying their share of taxes, we were concerned about that also, we limited it and capped it, people over that could not use the offset and anybody struggling and working more than the middle class is able to do that, that was a fair compromise and we work through it. host: that was joe mansion from this morning on "state of the union." "senate approves sweeping coronavirus measures in a partisan vote, 50 to 49. one republican senator was unable to be there in washington because of a death in the family and did not vote. getting your reaction to the passage of the bill, it goes lig

the arguments made by republicans. here's mitt romney on the floor. [video clip] >> i actually believe that we make better legislation if we have two parties work together on something. in this case we have crafted legislation our party has had no involvement in whatsoever.

the president was great -- graceful and welcoming but did not accept our proposals and so before us today we have a piece of legislation that has the benefit of only one party. there are some errors in that and things that i think we really have to look at to try to fix. with regards to states and lsda don't need will be asking the american people to allow us to borrow money from china and others, pass that onto to our kids and grandkids so that we can send money to states like california, mine, and others that don't need the money. host: along party lines votes the president and democrats have pushed through the economic aid to bill. your chance to tell washington what you think. eddie, democratic caller, good morning. caller: i think, i think it's a wonderful thing that biden and the democrats can get out there and fight for us. republicans is only about the rich people, you know? i'm so happy they got it done and got it done and we can show them that we can't be bullied into going with what they suggest all the time. they did that when they push that to trillion dollars for the rich, you know? so i'm just happy they did it.

host: eddie, they are. lisa is a republican in old orchard beach, maine. is that right? caller: i disagree with the unemployment benefits. it's not going to want people to go back to work. in maine, we have so many job openings. i work for a hospital and we cannot get people to work. host:host: it's crazy? why not? because they are collecting unemployment or they have other options? ok. kevin, independent line. what do you think? caller: to the first caller, i will say that the bill that had to be read out it took over 10 hours because it had so much pork in it, everybody in this whole country, it would have made our tax, we already made a $20 trillion deficit at that

point. we just did that. the stuff they took out was for democratic spending in certain districts. either way, it doesn't benefit the country because money is money and when you get, people seem to forget what happened in their history. it's going to repeat itself again, always does. host: the senate took up the legislation this past weekend as the caller talked about, the republican from wisconsin, senator ron johnson, forced the clerks to read the entire bill, taking 10 hours of reading. the senate passes the bill, house democrats planning a final approval on tuesday. they have to go back to the house because the senate made some changes to the legislation. as we heard senator manchin talking about. here's what chuck schumer had to say about the prospects of it in the house.

[video clip] >> spoke to a number of people in the house over the last few days, including the stevie -- including the speaker. it's not going to be everything everyone wants. no bill is. especially a massive bill like this. the beauty within the caucus between democrats in the house and senate is that we all realize we've got to pull together to accomplish something that is far more important of our differences. it's true of my caucus and it's true of the house and senate democrats. >> you think the president will sign it before the expiration? >> no doubt about that, none. it's everything we said we would do. we said we would put together a strong, bold bill with things that do the things the american people wanted and that no matter what happens, we wouldn't stop and we would power through him we would get it done and by god, we did. what is bad? nothing. host: chuck schumer, majority

leader, democratic senator from new york. georgia, democratic caller. what do you think about the senate passing the bill? caller: i'm entirely keyed up here, i've been wanting to call on about every topic. there is no power in this world to thank c-span enough or giving people the opportunity to hear each other. i'm losing it. i had to give up the floor for someone to take of the airtime by asking how you are doing today. you'll never let me call again, i'm such a blithering idiot. host: you are doing fine, at. what's your thought on the legislation? caller: what senator schumer just said about how important it is that we come together, that's what the country is all about.

we think this situation is going to work unless we have a little bit of kindness. my theory is from the first woman that you had on their talking about civic classes and anything and how that woman sobbed to see a million -- a woman of color. people who say she doesn't know anything because she is mixed race, that's what's wrong with the world, tribalism and people having intolerance for each other. people need to aim a little higher, please. thank you. host: all right, ed. this text from wisconsin, would have been better if it considered rescinding the tax cut for individual incomes over $500,000. john, republican line, this legislation heading to the president's task? caller: -- desks? -- desk?

caller: they should give us more money in $1600 for a one-time deal is going to help anybody. host: the $1400 stimulus check? caller: yeah and i didn't even receive my first one. i don't know if i have to reapply for? i think they are giving all that money away to other countries and everything. all this other stuff. they need to give us more money and let us get on with our lives. covid is a real thing and i believe in it, but they are shutting everybody down and they are sitting at home. host: by did not sing yesterday that the first round of checks will be given out and march under president biden and orner president trump passed two similar ships -- stimulus checks

host: the republicans were on the floor criticizing these $1400 checks, talking about the impact of those. [video clip] >> this prevents $1400 stimulus checks from going to inmates. you heard that right, this bill sends stimulus checks to people incarcerated for heinous rhymes. having there all their medical expenses paid for by the tax player -- taxpayer. in other words, inmates are not economically impacted by covid and cannot stimulate the economy. under this bill they are getting prisoners up there for heinous

crimes with a $1400 stimulus check. if we eliminate these we save $1.9 billion. i know my colleagues on going to agree, but this spending should be on real needs. if not targeted it's not appropriate and a total waste of money. host: this text, dylan roof will be getting money as part of the relief bill. republican, scott, welcome to the conversation. >> i'm so glad you paid the -- play the cassidy thing. it's one of my major issues with the bill. it's so fat and so huge, we are

giving money to just about everything that has nothing to do with covid. bailing out the states? i don't care of they are blue or red, i don't think the money should go to the states, it has nothing to do with covid. again, prisoners, why are they given money? they are in prison. we already pay for everything. we are giving money to the illegal immigrants coming in, 5000 people per day right now. how much more taxpayer dollars is it going to take for people to actually read the bills actually being passed in this country? it's money that we all have to pay. we are all going to pay it. at some point it's going to raise our taxes and everybody is to have to pay for this. it is a waste of money in this country and nobody seems to know what's going on and it's just a partyline vote.

everybody votes partyline, that's it. nobody cares if it hurts the country or not. host: ok, scott. carla, iowa, we will turn to you next. carla, iowa, independent, your thoughts on the stimulus bill? caller: i think it's great that they pass the bill, but last year i received my first check and the second check, they told me to quit writing checks and i could claim it on my taxes online june 40, online 30. host: ok. gerald, michigan, independent, good morning to you. caller: how are you? host: i'm doing well. what did you think of this legislation as it moved through the house and senate and headed towards the dusk of the president? caller: to be honest with you, i

think congress isn't representing the people of this country very well because a covid relief bill should address just covid. they shouldn't be putting a bunch of extra pork in there that helps their particular districts or other options. the money should be and would be well spent if it was helping the people of the country. people that have had income problems because of the covid, haven't been able to work, those types of issues are where the money should be going and they are spending exorbitant amounts of money like it's free. they cannot credit fast enough. host: "the huffington post come cope progressives should be celebrating the relief bills and the big story isn't what they gave away, it's what they got

and of the boost it provides to future efforts. listen to one of the leaders and progressives of bernie sanders on the floor, praising the bill. [video clip] >> $1.9 trillion reconciliation budget turning out to be the most significant piece of legislation for working people that has passed in decades. finally congress is doing its job. my friends on the other side have used delaying tactics after delaying tactics of obstruction, obstruction, obstruction. the american people want action and they want it now and i urge my colleagues to oppose this motion. host: cnbc writing reports that the democratic held house aims to pass the bill on tuesday and send it to the president for his

signature before march 14, the deadline to renew the program with legislation including direct payments host: it's your turn to tell washington what you thought of

this bill. democratic caller, washington, good morning. caller: the biggest thing is that the money should go to the people. we are the ones suffering. every year they come up with a bug or something. our country is in bad shape. i'm a vietnam veteran. we have more veterans now today than they had in vietnam. they just happened to be in the military. i'm really frustrated but we have one solution, the lawyer cannot sue the government because they take it over. you can soothe the government yourself. i've done it. host: roger, i'm going to go to bill in chicago. bill? caller: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

in other words, it's not a perfect deal, but it's a good deal. we have had 23 million americans out of work over the last year and the government cut a check for $3200 maximum over 52 weeks, less than $100 per week for those who really need the money. democratic states, illinois, chicago at one point with chicago needing the money, the state of illinois needing the money. they may be running a surplus and they eventually may need the money as well. one more thing, you've got millionaire republican suggesting that people don't need the money? what are you work for free and then you tell me or i tell you

that you don't need your senate checks. host: steve, iowa, independent. good morning. caller: i think the bill represents exactly what's wrong with the country. giving money to people who are fully employed, who have not suffered at all during the pandemic? i live in a state that is at 3% unemployment and companies cannot find workers. yet we are paying overtime, higher wages, giving increases, giving bonuses and on top of that here comes stimulus checks. stimulus checks for employees who are fully employed with insurance. this is being repeated around the country. i haven't heard any politician answer the question of why we are giving money to people who are fully employed. have you heard an answer to that question, greta? host: no.

why do you think it's important to ask? caller: it's important to ask because it's wasteful. like what kennedy has said in the bill, giving money to people who don't need it, don't deserve it? then all the other organizations that represent the pork in the bill, looking at the u.s. debt clock every 20 seconds that goes by we add another million dollars of interest to the debt. host: i'm going to leave it there so i can get in ken as well, south dakota. republican. caller: yes, i think that what president biden and also schumer keep saying is that 68% of americans were in favor of a covid relief bill and what they don't say is that this bill includes much more than covid relief and i don't think that was even mentioned in the polls.

the people who wanted a covid relief bill did not want a bill that included a lot of extra pork. also people really ought to be upset about $1400 per week going to government employees in the bill. host: let me go to robert, lynchburg, hello. caller: greta, how are you doing? host: morning. caller: all these people complaining about $1400. what about the people that don't work but a couple months a year getting $174,000 a year? figure out how much they are getting per hour and add to that the $1400 means nothing to them, but when they get their paycheck , do they hear the people complaining about when they give tax cuts to the rich people? they don't have no problem with that. host: mary, democratic caller,

you happy the democrats push this through? caller: i am happy that the bill passed because the state and local governments need money. there's no tax revenue coming in, it's been gutted. the pandemic was poorly managed, ok? enough vaccines were not offered early on and also, i agree with the last caller. the gop passed almost $2 trillion in tax cuts for billionaires and there was a sunset clause and that that expired for the working class. taxes are going to start going up over the next 10 years. so, they gave it to you with one hand and took it away in another . billionaires don't need more money, they've already made $1.3 trillion just during the

pandemic. ok? the government needs some money because they are having to cut back on police, fire, and services that people need. and people need the money. host: steve, mount vernon, democratic caller. caller: i'm glad that they passed the bill. a lot of people talk about the pork, yes, but there's a lot of pork on both sides people are saying democrats and republicans, they both have wings and they are wings of the same bird. there's a lot of things going on on both sides that people may or may not agree with, but the money needed is going to help. these services are not available for a lot of people. making contributions, that money is going around and i just wanted to say that. host: thank you all for calling in today, that does it for today

. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. eastern time. enjoy the rest of your sunday. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] ♪ >> you're watching c-span. your unfiltered view of government. c-span was created by america's cable television companies in 1979. today we are brought to you by these television companies who provide c-span to viewers as a public service.

>> book tv on c-span2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. today at noon eastern live on and in-depth pulitzer prize winning author elizabeth culbert talks about environmental issues, global warming and the human impact on nature. she's the author of several books. her most recent book is under a white sky. former fed chair sarah horwitz offers her thoughts on how to build economic sustainability for workers in the future. she's interviewed by oren cass. watch book tv on c-span2 today. >> two senate committees held a meeting on the january 6 attack on the capital. hearing from the leader of the washington, d.c. national guard and intelligence officials from the fbi and homeland security department. this portion of the hearing is