at 8:45 a.m., young america's foundation president and former wisconsin governor scott walker on his organizations efforts to promote free speech on college campuses. ♪ host: good morning, everyone. it is friday, april 2. with the u.s. facing a surge of thousands of migrants at the southern border, we want all of you to let the president know how you think he is doing on this issue. if you approve of president biden's immigration policies, (202) 748-8000. if you disapprove, (202) 748-8001. you can also text us with your first name, city, and state and your thoughts on this question at (202) 748-8003.

or send us a tweet. take a look at the latest polls done, npr found this, on immigration, biden faces more critics as respondents expressed disapproval for his handling on the issue, including almost a quarter of democrats. 89% of republicans and a majority of independence said they disagree with biden's management of immigration. a harvard poll, immigration is the president's biggest vulnerability according to the poll. 48% of the respondents agree with his handling of the issue. immigration is the only issue on which biden's approval stands below 50%. listen to what the president's

chief of staff had to say about the president's stance on immigration. [video clip] >> one lesson we learned was putting the vice president in charge of working with these countries can be effective. that is one reason why he asked vice president harris to lead this effort to focus on trying to do with the root causes of migration. as the president said, parents don't send their minor children on a thousand mile hazardous journey as a frolic. they do it because conditions where they are living are so desperate, because of natural disasters, economic collapse, crime, and violence. they feel like they have no choice. our best way to attack this migration issue is to help these countries rebuild their economies and make life in guatemala, el salvador, honduras more commodious for the people

who live there. let people live their lives where they want to, in their home countries. that is what vice president harris is going to work on. host: listen to what senator lindsey graham, republican of south carolina, who visited the border, had to say who is responsible for the situation. [video clip] >> if the trump administration has been told something and they did the opposite, and it blew up in their face, everybody would be asking the trump administration what did you know and when did you know it? i'm going to help you with your reporting. mr. hastings, a two star border patrol leader, told us he briefed transition leaders of the biden admin trish

and if they do away with the immigration policy. everything they said would happen happened. if you don't do it, i'm going to do it. i'm going to find out who he talked to and hold them accountable because they knew. when they say this is trump problems, they are lying. this is a problem of their own making. host: lindsey graham. let's turn to you. do you approve, disapprove? mark from maine, what do you think? caller: i don't know. i have been watching the news and everything and stuff like that. i don't know. i was often wondering, should they be punished? host: what do you mean?

who is they? caller: they -- the people that is crossing our border? host: what do you think about the president's viewpoint on immigration? do you agree? caller: kind of. yes. host: sandy, arizona. you disagree. it is your turn. caller: i completely disagree with what is going on at the border. this is ridiculous. this is nothing but politics. this is nothing but the socialism side of the government at this stage telling biden what to do. this is just awful. it is hurting our country. it is also hurting the people trying to get across the board. look what is happening to these children. this is a disgrace for our country, what biden is allowing

to happen at this point. it is a disgrace to our country. host: what do you think he should do? caller: he needs to close the border down. he needs to go back to the way trump had it and protect our country and also protect the immigrants from what is happening to them. this is ridiculous. host: do you think that will stop them from trying to make the journey? would it just mean that they remain in mexico? caller: i think the plan that trump had for remaining in mexico and i think mexico and united states should decide what is going to happen. we cannot allow this to continue. it is not fair to our country. it is not fair to the immigration either, to what is happening to the children. it is a disgrace. host: what have you thought when you have seen the videos of the children coming over?

caller: it is terrible. i cannot believe this country is allowing this to happen. i cannot believe biden is allowing this to happen. it is also politics. host: let me just describe what is happening on your screen. this is from the cbs evening news. they got this footage, two guys dropping toddlers over the border fence onto the u.s., picking them up, dropping them over. as the video continues, i don't know if you have seen this one. you see the guys jump back on the others of the border and runoff. caller: i have seen that. host: what did you make of it? caller: it is a disgrace to this country. it is so bad. there is no good words for it to even justify anything that is happening to these children.

host: ronnie, pennsylvania. you approve. caller: yes. i am very concerned that someone in the news did bring up the fact that corporations and companies are not being -- they are hiring illegals to do their dirty work for them and paying them cheap labor prices. that is my concern. it is coming from inside this country that these migrants are coming in. they are looking for help. they are looking for jobs. what we should do is go down into where they are coming from and help those people where they live. that is where our tax dollars should go. not into trying to house these people. there are too many of them. we are overrun.

the companies love this because they see an army of cheap labor, not $15 an hour labor, but way more than that. they are doing this. it is coming from companies that want cheap labor. host: let me show you what congresswoman nora torres put out yesterday on twitter. she sent a tweet directly to the el salvador and president saying , i will make it clear. this is the result of narcissistic dictators like you interested in being cool while people flee by the thousands and died by the hundreds. send me a pair of glasses so i may see the suffering of your people through your eyes. she sent out another tweet about the honduran government. they are spending big on

lobbyists to defend their narco trafficking. caller: i agree. i agree. i think the government there -- it needs -- we need to do something to the government down there to stop it. they are never going to stop. they want these drugs in this country. they are sending their people. they are getting rid of their problems. they are handing them off to us. it amounts to cheap labor. host: do you blame president biden for any of this? do you hold him responsible? caller: no, i don't hold him responsible for this. he wants to resolve this problem. if you have a flood of people coming in, and you cannot house

them or take care of them, that is not what is going on here. he has been given this problem. if you remember back in 1980, reagan, he gave them all a free pass. he said come on in. those were future voters for the republican party. biden is trying to work the problem out. there is a flood coming in. we are drowning at the border. people are looking for help. i don't blame them. they want to save themselves. that is all i can say. they want to save themselves. this is the only way they know how to do it. that is what is going on, and that -- we have to go down into el salvador and deal with those people there. host: heard your point.

let me show you video from earlier this week with public radio in el paso, texas. they spoke to families that come to the border to claim asylum during the pandemic. [video clip] >> most of them are turned around and sent to mexico. the biden administration is acknowledging that. they have a health order that was implement it the pandemic started. it basically allows border patrol to quickly remove people from the country and send them back to mexico. they are sent back to mexico. there are some that are allowed to stay. the vast majority are not. often when they are returned to mexico, they seem confused and distraught because people have the idea that if they came through and asked for asylum, they would be allowed to stay. mexico is struggling to find shelter space.

many of the shelters where i am across the border are filled to capacity. host: that was angela on the "washington journal" earlier. an associated press story yesterday, overwhelmed and underprepared, u.s. authorities releasing migrant families on the mexican border without notices to appear in immigration court or without any paperwork at all. they say the rapid release eases pressure on border patrol and its badly overcrowded holding facilities but shifts work to the immigration and customs enforcement agency. families are released with poking records. only parents are photographed and printed. the border patrol begin this process last week in texas, which has seen a large increase

in migrant families and unaccompanied minors crossing the border. some got no documents at all, including dozens at our lady of guadalupe catholic church, where about 100 migrants have been arriving each night to sleep in classrooms at a shuttered elementary school. they spoke with one of those migrants. carlos waited at the shelter for a week without documents along with his five-year-old daughter, hoping to join a friend in tennessee. his wife is still in guatemala with their two-year-old twin daughters and a three-month-old. he was asking the catholic charities of the rio grande valley for help. tony from connecticut. your thoughts on the biden administration's immigration policies. caller: good morning. president biden, as the mexican

president said, is the immigration president. where is aoc and her people when a couple of years ago when they said people are in cages? where is she now? show the scenes where there are 4000 children in a 250 count facility. show them on the floor. tell the people how the kids are being released into the country with covid, with covid. now you are going to hear the president say you did not follow the covid rules, but you let these people out untested into our country. finish the wall. biden in his day as a senator approved of the wall. now it is not. you have pelosi has a wall

around her place. you put a wall around the government. it is inhumane to the people. there is drugs coming in. they shouted on the tv. they are putting the kids over on one side where the guards come and get them. down the road, they are letting the drugs in. they showed all the drugs coming in. this is inhumane to those children. they are getting abused. these are drug cartel people bringing them in. we are funding the drug cartels in mexico. where is the insanity of this? this is insane. this is cruel. host: on the border wall, we hear from a public radio reporter saying to us earlier this week on "washington journal" that the border patrol will tell you that is just one tool. they need more than just the wall. would you agree with that and

that the wall does not always stop them from coming over? even the new wall former president donald trump build, she reported they just used a taller ladder. caller: let me tell you, san diego did not have the wall. they put the wall up. it stopped 98%. walls are a deterrent. we want people to come into this country. we want them to come in legally. we want to help these people. we want them to come in legally. this is inhumane. where is aoc and the squad? they decried all the problems that were going on. where are they? this is hypocrisy. hypocrisy. it is inhumane. it is a sin. host: host: got it. donald in louisiana.

you approve of the president's policies on immigration. go ahead. caller: good morning, greta. i approve, but it is not about him or barack obama or donald trump. it is congress' problem, and we , republicans, democrats, you, c-span, all the tv talking heads, we need to say, congress, fix this problem. the administration can only do executive orders. it does not fix the problem. it is a problem no matter who is president. congress, it is their problem that they need to fix. we need to start pointing the finger at them and blaming them. our tv showing why aren't you doing this? look at these people. we need to be blaming congress.

that is what i called to say. host: so congress -- you put the accountability, the responsibility with them, their inability to pass immigration reform? caller: greta, they are the only people that can fix the problem. that is just the facts. host: joseph in maine, disapproves. your turn. caller: how are you? host: good morning. caller: i would like to say joe biden in the democrats are a disgrace to the united states. i am a veteran. i don't think the democrats have any game or anything. they are not showing anything for this country. they should just get out of office. that is what i have to say. host: peter in pennsylvania. you approve. caller: i approve slightly.

let's get to the exact nature. they hear the fox news crowd and stephen miller talk about cruelty. the exact nature of these people, blonde hair and blue eyes, most of the people we are hearing from would not care. it is unfortunate that people live in such poverty and destitution that they come here to do jobs that personally i am not doing. all these people that are whining, when they are eating their chicken wings and salads, who do you think is doing those jobs? i am not going to be working at those chicken factories. i am not doing that. people working in those nursing homes, who do you think is working in these nursing homes taking care of their parents? they need to be honest.

talk about cruelty. after four years of the worst inhumane president of my lifetime -- i will be 62 next month. i served in the navy. i never thought i would see the inhumanity. if they had blonde hair and blue eyes, 90% of these people would not care. host: peter in pennsylvania. an earlier caller mentioned congresswoman alexandria -- i'm blanking -- ocasio-cortez. thank you. aoc and ted cruz went back and forth on twitter over immigration. ted cruz ascending, @aoc explains the real democratic position, abolish eyes. last year, we had the lowest

illegal immigration in 45 years. she responded, this is rich coming from someone who flooded their own home and responsibilities during an environmental crisis to cross the board and seek refuge in mexico. you funded cages, expanded cages, and yet you are complaining about cages. you have no policy, just puff. senator ted cruz was in donna, texas, recently. this is what he had to say. [video clip] >> as we stand by the banks of the rio grande, we have an army of tv cameras. it is striking that not a single one of these cameras is allowed in the donna facility. we requested that media company us in the facility. the biden administration said no. the trump administration allowed mediate inside facilities like that. the obama administration allowed

media inside facilities like that. the biden administration wants to hide what is going on. a number of us took pictures and videos because the american people have a right to know what is happening here. the biden administration send out political handlers to try to keep silent. the donna facility is a giant tent city built with a capacity of 250. it has nearly 4000 people in it. host: senator ted cruz of texas recently at the border. harry, you disapprove. go ahead. caller: that last guy tony hit the nail on the head. he brought up the reporters sank the wall was not stopping them. they cut a hole in the wall because of bidens policy.

13 illegals got killed in a truck. the texas rangers saved a girl. they are throwing kids over the fences. they are blaming this on trump? he stopped all of this. even the mexican president says biden is doing the wrong thing. he is tired of it. biden is making a fool out of them. to say that wall does not stop anybody is asinine. when they were patrolling, they were going to start using drones. the other guy called after him saying blonde hair and blue eyes, he is a racist. what kind of talk is that? i don't have blue eyes and blond hair. i am part greek. i am part black. this is getting ridiculous. host: a democrat who represents the laredo, texas, area along the border send this tweet.

"it is critical that dhs develops a strategy to adequately manage large migration flows at our border." he has a bill that would allow the federal government to enable a whole of government approach to shift resources and take action. the congressman shared some recent photos he took with axios inside a crowded border patrol tent in donna, texas. we listen to harold in california. caller: good morning, greta. first time talking with you. host: good morning. caller: i agree. i think we are going to need all the young people we can get because this is going to be our new workforce, the way government has been running things. government has stopped our kids

from working by raising the ages they can go to work. bringing drugs over and killing them and stuff. this is government's new workforce. our kids are spoiled. that is why they say these are the jobs they don't want to take. we are going to need all the young people we can get to fill the workforce and keep things going. it is sad, but that is why government has done to our people and continuing to do. stopping the laws that they cannot kill our people with drugs or give police protection away and stuff. it might sound harsh and bitter, but it is a true fact i believe. harold in california. what would jesus do? president trump had these people waiting in mexico. as soon joe was elected,

republican said the border was wide open. when i seen migrant caravans filled with men 20 to 50 years old, all i see are cowards who should be at home fighting for change in their own country. companies in america hiring illegals for cheap labor. drugs from cartels are coming from these countries. our politicians don't have a clue. rhonda in new jersey, you are next. caller: good morning. my beautiful, diverse country. we are all upset about this topic. i can see both sides of this issue. when donald trump separated the children at the border and i saw these people continuously trying to get into the united states, i

got on my knees and prayed. i gave it to god. i asked him, why are they coming here? look what donald trump is doing to these kids. i fell asleep. he gave me a dream where i was in mexico with my adopted granddaughter, and i will not even tell you what it was about. then i came out of the dream, and he said to me they come here because they can walk here. i was like, woah. then i decided to myself to denounce any bias i had against these people because they have nowhere else to go. you think about a mom desperate enough, that video you showed, to give her two babies -- they

could not have been more than five? throw them over a fence. you have to to be desperate. we need to take this fight to mexico. they need to clean up their act. we need to get rid of the cartels there so these people can go home and rebuild their lives. it is dead wrong. that is how i feel about it. i remember what jesus said. jesus said it is better that you take a rope and put a rock on it and throw yourself in the sea before you put your hat on -- your hand on a child. america, they are trying to push the cruel policies we have just got rid of by donald trump

because he is a monster. host: i am going to leave it there. democratic senator joe mansion of west virginia visited the border recently. [video clip] >> the border has to be secure. there are so many ways to do it. a lot of people thought the wall would solve all the problems. the wall does not solve all the problems. it never was intended to. if you don't use the security measures you have and have an element of guards, agents, those are the people that we are basically looking at to control this and do a better job than we are doing right now. i believe joe biden is the one person who can do this and do this right. i believe that. we can do that differently.

we have a genuine crisis coming. it is coming along before the trump administration or the biden administration. what we are seeing today, the people coming, especially the children, it is going to continue until we do something about it. host: steve in michigan. you disapprove. good morning. caller: good morning, greta. a couple of things i would like to say today. isn't the topic today about the biden administration policy, not trump administration policy? who halted construction of the border wall? biden. who reinstated catch and release? joe biden. who ended remain in mexico

program? joe biden. why isn't the mexican government helping out with their southern border and northern border? what is going on? people are paying attention to joe biden. he is the one doing this. it is his fault. host: debra in illinois. what do you have to say? you approve or disapprove? caller: approve. good morning. i want to talk about the hypocrisy of this country. they always want to complain about bringing drugs to america. you have got to have a demand for the drug in order for the supply to keep flowing in. all of our middle class, regardless of color, young adults and adults and teens using drugs that these people

they say are bringing to this country, we are keeping them going. we are keeping them motivated. people need to look in the mirror at their families and start getting something done about our children and young adults using the drugs. if we were able to keep that from being such a demand and not being one of the bigger users of these foreign countries, drugs, that would put a dent into things. we are talking about all of these thousands of children and people coming from the country. we just lost over half a million people to a virus that was mishandled poorly. that many people we did not have to lose.

we have lost over half a million people in this country. we are complaining about thousands coming over. probably half a million. we need these people to help with the workforce because they do work. they are diligent about what they do. we have to have some humanity. joe biden has humanity. we lose the humanity in this country. we are doomed. host: robert in california says biden is doing what he can. this is a white corporation problem with a white ceo greed problem and a white society problem. they will keep coming as long as you do not imprison the stockholders and ceos and put them away. chuck and ohio, you disapprove. good morning. caller: i disapprove.

the question i have is is this administration upholding the laws and constitution of the united states? the answer is no. they should be removed from office. if they are not upholding the laws and constitution of the united states, they should be removed from office. the next point i have is that the covid relief package, 9% used for direct relief. the upcoming for structure plan, 25% -- host: we are going to stick to the topic this morning. this is what congresswoman veronica escobar said. she writes, the trump administration's remain in

mexico problem put an unsustainable burden on that country. the biden administration's challenge is not just the number of children arriving at the border. the previous administration obliterated previous systems and infrastructure, failed to work collaboratively on an orderly transition and created a backlog of people on the others out of our ports of entry. the remain in mexico policy was enacted in january of 2019. it meant asylum-seekers were returned to mexico to wait for the duration of their u.s. immigration proceedings. tim, cedar park, texas. caller: i would like to have coffee one day. i want to show you all something. pay attention to this. i was thinking about ted cruz because he is always the first

on the border with his boats and guns. he is going to be the loudest bully. you know why he is a bully? he is insecure because he is an immigrant, and he is ashamed because he jumped scotch. he played checkers. his father from cuba came to canada and then jumped over to the united states. he winds up in the senate in texas. how did all that happen? just think of that. that happened because other people play by different rules. these migrants have to come here and work for us to grow. the nicer and more humane we are to them, they are going to treat our children and my grandchildren better or worse. the bible we all profess to love, we should treat them.

it is how we react to the immigration problem. we need to fix it. we need to let joe biden fix it. we lost 500,000 souls that just went to heaven or wherever. no one knows. this is what we have to do. i am an immigrant. my dad came from germany under hitler's. i would not even be speaking right now if he did not jump over here. he came by boat. we all come here somehow. it does not stop. we are a voice in a moment of time. we are passing on. a vapor in the wind. we are all brothers and sisters and family. think about that. where are we going when we leave? nobody knows. host: james in san diego, you disapprove. caller: good morning.

i disapprove. the loss on the united nations have created the immigrants and how they get to asylum and so forth. they all say the first part is the country you come into contact with in the beginning is the one in which you claim asylum and so forth. we allow people who want asylum to go to the embassies and sign up and have their cases reviewed at that place. if you want to remedy the problem, quit ringing your hands and work out an agreement between the u.s., guatemala, honduras, so forth. work out an agreement where we can take the military there, support the government in power, and go after the bad guys and make that country feel safe. if you do that, the immigrants.

. they do not -- if you do not do that, the immigrants will not stop. they do not feel safe in their own country. just like they did after chicago in 1920, whatever it was. full-court press, take care of all that issues there. that will stop people coming. host: heard your point. here is tony from texas. he says biden's policy drains thousands of freedom denied hands from troubled nations. we need them home building donations stronger. -- there nations stronger. ricardo, you are next. you have to turn down the television. caller: ok. host: please go ahead. we are listening to you. caller: i think what is

happening is trumps fundraisers and the gop and ted cruz, i believe what they are doing is funding these people, sending these people down here with disease. host: what evidence do you have of that? caller: because i am apache, and i talked to a lot of latinos. i can see that the gop and the trump administration. host: how can you see that? caller: because i can see the way ted cruz, when he went to mexico, that is the reason they went down there. host: rick in virginia. you disapprove. caller: yes, i do. i don't agree with joe biden's policy. this is his problem.

in september when he was campaigning for the presidency, he invited the whole world to come into the united states. the first thing he should do is take care of the citizens of this country. when we get a handle on everything within our own country, then we can help others. help ourselves first. to my democratic colleagues out there who say this is on congress, you have to look at the party and what he is doing along with the other democrats and ask yourself, what are his actions? how are they benefiting american citizens? remember, his first actions were to unemployed people in the keystone pipeline. the border was secured under the

previous administration, president trump. now it is a disaster because of joe biden. host: wendy in new hampshire writes, i feel for the desperation of people fleeing their countries. it is not the responsibility of the united states to provide funding to their countries to keep them there. we need to enforce our laws and welcome those in after proper vetting. my ancestors followed the required process. you have another text from bruce in wisconsin, the u.s. should help people in truly desperate circumstances. we also need to address the sources of their distress. climate change is increasing the number of countries in economic distress from damaging storms and flooding. international cooperation will be key. james in tennessee, good morning. caller: good morning.

good morning. host: what do you say? caller: these people need somewhere to go. what i want to say is this, when you listen to some people calling in, especially on the right, all they want to talk about is god, the bible, and the constitution. the thing about the constitution , you pick and choose about who you want to come here. trump says he only wants the smartest people to come here. you brought lack people here, and a bunch of you all came here, so don't you say you came here and all that because that is a lie.

it is still in the constitution that i am not a real human in this country. you can take that constitution and what you can do with it. thank you. host: joe in new york. caller: greta. host: good morning. caller: it is snowing here in buffalo. host: april 2 snow. caller: i know. i feel real bad about those people. it comes down to numbers for me. there is hardly any people coming over the border compared to 360,000 of us. i heard there was 16,000. that is nothing. that is nothing. we can help those people. we can help them in buffalo, new york. bring them here. that's all i got. host: kathy in tampa, florida. caller: thank you, greta, for

taking my call. first of all, i am a democrat. i am ashamed to be a democrat. joe biden is completely responsible for the disaster at the border, and as far as everyone saying the children, the poor kids. i feel bad for them. the cartels are using the children to get to people's heartstrings and using them as a front to get through the border. we must secure the border. we cannot allow people to come in. we don't know who is coming in. we know there is drugs. we know there is the cartel sending -- it could be terrorists coming in. you cannot take the whole world. we cannot. we have to be responsible for our own people. once we can handle ourselves, then we can take in people. i had ancestors come through ellis island.

they check you for tuberculosis. they checked to see who was going to be responsible for you. nobody is checking these people. they could have people with ebola coming in. we have to secure the border. the only way to stop them from coming, and it sounds cruel, but sometimes you have to be logical. think with the head instead of the heart. you have to send them back. you just have to send them back. that would send the message. they are sending people back. that would stop the word that is out, joe biden is letting us all in. send them back. it is cheaper to send them back then to house them in hotels. as far as the children, anybody that would send their child across the board with a stranger is not a parent i would even want to associate with. you don't know what they are going to do to that child. you don't know who is taking the child.

that is cruel, and it is disastrous. host: how do you respond to those who say it is possibly even worse where they live? caller: you know, we cannot take the whole world. i do not believe poverty is worse than being raped coming in through the desert with some people you don't even know. perverts could be taking these kids. i would never send my child. if i was starving to death in a country, i would rather starve and have my child with me, or i would go with the child. i would never send my child anywhere without me with people i don't know. these people are dangerous. they are charging thousands of dollars. you give me thousands of dollars, and i will help you get to the states. where are you getting all this money? host: james from south carolina. your thoughts this morning. caller: if the republicans would

sit down in the senate with the democrats and come up with a plan to spend the money to hire more judges that they need desperately because i have sit here and listen to these people about what is going on at the border. higher those judges and process people. we don't know who is getting it. houses and anything else they need to house the people until they can get in front of a judge. the democrats and republicans need to get together on this. they don't need to be fighting. lindsey graham is a hypocrite.

he is only happy when something is going his way, or he can make the democrats look bad. they are all upset because they don't have any more power now. that is the only reason they did that stunt on the border. it is ridiculous. it has not solved the problem at all. host: shirley, west virginia. caller: hello. good morning. my heart goes out for the innocent little kids that have to suffer at this time. my idea, i feel everyone who had voted for biden -- i think a child should be placed in these people's homes. that way that will give the kids somehow sink instead of --

somehow sink -- some housing. host: jim in new jersey. your turn. caller: thank you for taking my phone call. i wish everybody a happy easter, those of the protestant and catholic religion, and a happy passover to those who are jewish. i am orthodox myself, greek orthodox. consequently, our easter will fall on the first sunday of may. having said that, concerning the immigration policies of this president, this president is doing all he can to alleviate

and solve the problem that was thrust upon him by the previous president. that is all there is to it. he is doing his humanitarian thing that a president should be doing. he is the leader of the free world. consequently, he will always try to do the right thing whereas the previous president up. host: nonny, texas. you disapprove. caller: the parents that are sending their children because those parents, illegal aliens, send for their children. these people came the same way. they know what those children are going through.

another thing, everybody wants to talk about the triangle countries, el salvador, guatemala, honduras, mexico. i have been keeping track of the countries, cuba, venezuela, nicaragua, haiti, panama, brazil, chile, africa, east africa, nigeria, sri lanka, turkey, yemen, syria, serbia, iran, pakistan, iraq, china, and other asian countries. don't tell me those poor people in the triangle countries in mexico because that is not all that is coming through. ms-13 game members, there are over 800 people in dangerous gangs -- excuse me, i am so angry over this. host: we heard your point.

ben in springfield, massachusetts. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i'm calling because i am sitting here listening to the nasty, dirty expressions that are being thrown at people that people don't even know. if you knew the people, if you knew that individually, you might feel a little bit different. i have not heard -- the population that people have looked at on television and made a determination about the characteristic of the individuals involved and their families. i think the president has done the right thing. i think the united states as the leader of the world has the responsibility for taking care of the week. i think jesus christ would have

done the same thing. for those people who don't have any patience, don't want to help with this population of individuals who are coming to america for the same reasons that the families, the families of the people who are talking this morning, talking against the people coming today, their parents and their grandparents and their great-grandparents came the same way some years ago. they came to a country that the people at that time thought they should not be coming to. host: let me get margaret in illinois. this is her text, "the border problem has nothing to do with president biden or president trump. mexico has stopped cooperating with us due to actions by our intelligence agencies. the situation will improve when

mexico realizes they must work with us for the benefit of both countries." doc in baton rouge, louisiana. what do you have to say about president biden's immigration policy? caller: i tell you what, that immigration policy could be solved tomorrow if they also at the same time passed a law that these immigrants coming over could not vote for at least 20 years, particularly could not vote for a democrat. if that were the case, mr. biden would have tanks and jeeps with mounted machine guns at the border to keep them out because this is nothing but a power grab to try to get more and more democrat votes. host: juanita in cincinnati.

caller: good morning, greta. how are you? host: good morning. caller: i would like to remind everyone, including the lady democrat in florida, of what martin luther king said. except for indigenous people, all of us came in a boat. none of us are native to the united states except native americans. my ancestors came at the point of a gun. my constitution said at first 3/5 of a person. she needs to get rid of that argument. we did send the military to the triangle, or have the republicans forgot oliver north and ronald reagan? we need to go down there and work with those countries like kamala is trying to do and stop the problem there.

one other point, i don't know what kind of information people listen to, but they found a pit full of bodies with their the mexican police that the mexicans themselves are investigating. the immigrants are not welcome in mexico either. white america, come off of it. host: we will go to virginia, john. caller: good morning, greta. i just want to say i saw two guys dropping two young children, five or six years old, i could not believe it the way this guy was dropping children. i am an immigrant myself. we follow some rules. we wait our turn to come to this country. having said that, i am not saying that people when they want to come here, that we

should need to help them. i think the president needs to send messages. immigrants know the rules of this country better than americans. they note that if you bring your child here, you might get a green card or residency. the problem is the whole system needs to be looked into because if we don't do something about it, a lot of children will suffer. you can see how many children they are dropping on the border. where are the parents? this is the whole thing. it is not about you are asking asylum. you come to asylum with your children. you present your case to the children, you present your case to immigration, and if it is acceptable, you will get it. host: i will leave it there so we can get l.b. in, from baltimore, maryland. caller: hi, can you hear me? host: yes, we are.

caller: somewhere, somehow, what happened, these people, wherever they are, where they are coming from, we do not know that. they are coming here. where they are coming from, they failed these people, whoever their parents, their ancestry, whoever, whoever ran their government. and if you look, of course, they all voted leftist, what would be democrats here. and what happens to the place, what happens to all the states here where the democrats run, they run, not walk, out of the place, i.e. new york, california, new jersey, down in delaware -- they are destroying delaware now. and they down in dallas, texas, that is a mess now. i am a truck driver. 80% at least of drivers in this

country. plus, this is done by design. notice, president trump, we cannot take you. like he said, america first. this president is supposed to be the president of we, the people. they are chosen -- their chosen enemy, they chose week, the working class, real american citizens -- what do they call us every day? white supremacists. we are their enemy because we know that they are criminal. that is the democrat, criminal corporation. host: all right, got to leave it there. we will take a break. when we come back, katrina vanden heuvel joins us, the editorial director and publisher of "the nation." she will talk about the president's initiatives and the progressive agenda. later, young america's foundation president and former governor wisconsin scott walker discusses his organization's

effort to promote free speech on college campuses. ♪ >> saturday on "the communicators, tom wheeler, the former chair of the federal communications administration of the obama administration. >> the complaint made during our term of net neutrality is it would stifle innovation and it would stifle investment. but the reality is that, in the period of time when the net rules were in place, the internet service providers spent more on capital investment than they spent after the trump fcc removed those rules. and it was that capital investment that has allowed us to be successful now, during covid, when everybody is on zoom and stressing out the network.

and so the point of the matter is that what we tried to deal with was to continue this concept, this basic american concept of not having gatekeepers for crucial services and encouraging competition among those using those networks . watch "the communicators" saturday at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government, created by america's cable to vision -- television companies. today, we are brought to you by these companies that provide c-span to viewers as a public service. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us this morning from new york is katrina vanden heuvel, who is the editorial director and publisher of "the

nation." let's begin with your recent opinion piece in the "washington post." biden is facing a roosevelt moment. what did you mean? guest: i think the last 40, 50 years, the nation, the country has been defined by reaganomics. a consensus that is what is most critical is to reduce deficit, not to create jobs, and not to rebuild our country, which has a d-from the society of engineers in terms of infrastructure. biden is showing he may not just be a transitional president but a transformer -- transformational president, pushed to reinvest, rebuild, rebuild a country that has been starved of public investment over the last 40 years by a failed conservative -- also

democrats participated in a consensus that we do not need to invest in our country. i do nothing this is a left-right issue. i think this is about rebuilding a nation starved for investment, meaning good jobs. a caricom me, which would help not only women and children but an older generation, and that is part of this investment plan. it is not simply a roosevelt moment but it is a moment when an understanding and an activist government can be a force for good, improving the condition of peoples lives, is back on the agenda. this has to be proved, not simply spoken of, but i think it is possible. it would shift a paradigm -- as i said, in the last 40, 50 years, of fighting reaganomics. suddenly you have the chair of the federal reserve, jerome powell, the treasury secretary janet yellen saying interest rates are so low, we can invest.

so there is an awareness that what may be more important than these weapons of mass deficits is a job creation program that would benefit this country coming out of this pandemic, which has ravaged our economy and so many lives. host: are you saying president clinton and president obama continued reaganomics? guest: you know, it is a little -- i will not say "reaganomics," but i will say a liberal economics that -- clinton certainly did speak about the era of big government is over. and obama was trapped, in a sense, by not going, quote, "big and bold" enough, and come in a way, instigating a people already movement, -- a tea party movement, because people felt the banks have been privileged, not people. so i think in the obama era, yet

people like larry summers -- you had people like larry summers speaking out about inflation. inflation is not a warning of this country, on appointment is. if you could create a great jobs program, like roosevelt did during the great depression, and convince people an activist government had played that role. the problem at the moment is that, for too long, government has been the enemy. i think reagan said what are the most dangerous nine words -- "the government is at your door and wants to help you." the government is not the enemy, it is us. the key is that people understand social security and medicare -- these are called socialist programs by the right when they were first introduced, but now they are part of people's lives. our member the tea party -- but

remember the tea party guy who said government, get your hands off my medicare? people do not fully understand -- it is not their fault -- that government is what has brought social security or medicare into their lives. it is a combination of the cascading crises we have lived through, but also there is a redirection of our politics by those who believe it is time for public investment in an economy starved a public investment in the last decade. host: katrina vanden heuvel here to take your comments and questions. if you are a republican, dial into (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. s, (202) 748-8002 -- independents, (202) 748-8002. we can take your texts as well at (202) 748-8003 with your first name, city, and state. katrina vanden heuvel, our things as dire today as they were in the 1930's -- are things

as dire today as they were in the 1930's? guest: good question. they are different. but the great depression cast millions into unemployment. i think we are living through a great depression. we did not, certainly, confront a pandemic during the great depression. we suffered mass unemployment, homelessness. i think the homelessness problem, the eviction problems begin to parallel today back then. i think you do have, in roosevelt, someone who came to washington -- it is interesting. he came to washington as a deficit busting new york governor. surrounded by a brain trust, for example the labor secretary and others, who were committed to using government to create jobs and to be extreme mental about rebuilding this country -- and

to be experimental about rebuilding this country. we are engaged in different battles at home. roosevelt did not confront -- he certainly did not confront racial justice in ways that we must and are beginning to today and have been part of the great movements of our time. he had a war. i do think one of the problems, if i might, is military keynesianism. world war ii built our military machine, in a sense, and that military keynesianism, silos in many districts, has become an economic development program for this country, which makes it very hard to build down a defense budget that is not needed in these times when the real threats are not missiles but are pandemics and climate crisis. host: their front page of the

"new york times." racial equality lands at center of biden's plan. will this infrastructure plan do enough for economic inequality and underserved immunities? guest: we will not do enough, but it will be a beginning. there is already a debate. the gop, for the most part, which not a single member of the gop signed on to biden's first program, the rescue plan, which is shameful, because it is about rebuilding this country. it is not a partisan issue. but biden is crafting a plan that has racial equity and inclusiveness built into it. is it fully adequate for what needs to be done? no. but it is a beginning. that, i think, was not a part of this first new deal. we will call this the new teal -- whether we will call this the new deal 2.0, 3.0 i don't know,

but i think they care economy piece of this plan is very important. there is a very important organizer that has been working on a care economy for decades, and it is speaking to a country and funding pieces of those that would build the human if the structure of this country. the eisenhower infrastructure plan, in building interstates and things like that, raised african-american communities, -- razed african-american communities, did not pay attention to their needs. and i think transportation is a civil rights issue to many people, black, white, brown, asian americans are left in communities without transportation to get to their jobs. i think biden is creating a

racial inclusive cabinets with racial equity built into the budget program. host: christian, woodbridge, connecticut, democratic caller, you are up first. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to talk about some issues related to funding some of these plans, which sound wonderful. i think everybody can acknowledge that the united states is broke. the federal reserve is currently responsible for monetizing this debt, and i think that has a perverse effect on income inequality, because 9 out of 10 economists now all agree the federal reserve is probably one of the biggest contributors to income inequality since the money it creates flows through wall street. i want to also point out that interest rates are not fixed.

these are ruling interest rates that could change at any time. so when janet yellen comes on -- and janet yellen, make no mistake about it, is an agent of the big banks. she was chairman of the federal reserve 8 years and probably did more to increase income inequality in this country with the policies of the federal reserve than any other entity that we can discuss. these interest rates are not fixed. this is like getting into a variable loan back in 2008. if the market decides, and the federal reserve cannot rig those interest rates anymore, those are rolling interest rates. they are going to go up. if interest rates go up more than 1% or 2%, we are in big trouble. host: we will get a response. guest: inflation -- inflation has not been a problem in this country for four decades.

what is interesting at the moment -- people are supporting this investment program biden has put out, particularly when it shows it will be partly funded by increasing taxes on big corporations. trump lowered the rate -- i believe it was 35% -- to 21%. that benefited shareholders. i'm not dissing shareholders, but it did not and if it the broader economy or people, so i think it is an interesting moment when people are supporting higher taxes, fair taxes on corporations. many of the largest ones do not even pay taxes because of accounting tricks. so i think -- the balance here, the question is, is this a country that prides increasing jobs or increasing the worth of corporations, which are not meeting their civic obligations, in my mind. an unwritten rule is

maximizing profits. i think this country needs a rebalancing and rethinking of its priorities, and we are at that moment. host: ron, monroe township, new jersey, independent. caller: yeah, i agree with the speaker. there is plenty of money from the insurance companies. the insurance companies have enough money to bank the whole country. they are the largest, as a group, profit-making corporations in the country. and there is plenty of money there. and if interest rates go up, the interest rates compound, but they will be able to pay it back. and with the tax increases, there certainly will be more than enough money that they could even probably do more.

guest: i agree. there is something called the humphrey hawkins legislation, from decades ago. hubert humphrey and howard hawkins, i believe. it is really about what is the jobless level we are prepared to live with in this country? i think it is 4%. there is a lot of money in this country. your previous speaker talked about we are broke. but there is available when, you know, there is a weapons system -- we do not need a new $100 billion intercontinental ballistic missile. but when it is for care, human needs, there is often a battle, and i think it is about the priority of the country, and we can do better by meeting the needs of people, all people. elizabeth warren, who i think is

a remarkable figure, she has put forward a wealth tax. ok. but i also believe that -- and this should not be heretical -- that there should be fair taxes along the spectrum, not just taxing the very rich. the very rich should be paying much more. our tax code is not progressive. but we need to get in balance about what we are for as a country. and i think the pandemic has revealed -- what was normal should not have been normal. and i think we want to come back to a new normal, which i think is possible, if there is a bolder way of reimagining our economy, our country's purpose, and its needs. host: explained that a little bit more. what was exposed as not normal,

and what should be the new normal? guest: what was exposed was terrible inequality. we see it in the health disparities, the disparities of those who died from covid, the essential workers. we see the crisis of a country that did not have health needs adequately met. we see it in a country that has gone to war more often than waging peace. we saw it in racial injustice, which, because of what we are seeing play out in minneapolis, because of police brutality intersecting with pandemic, we saw some of the largest protest movements in our country's history around black lives matter, around the killing of african-american men, raising

questions about what is security in many of our communities. and we saw it in the climate crisis, the extreme weather that has afflicted this country intersecting with pandemic. and just to finish, we have just lost, in this country -- i would say due to the trump administration's incompetence and denialism, and also systemic health problems and race problems -- more people than we lost during world war i, world war ii, and vietnam. that is not a normal this country wants to go back to, should go back to. we can do better. biden has limits. i think he is aiming to be a chance formative president, certainly in the domestic sphere -- he is aiming to be eight transformative --

he is aiming to be a transformative president, certainly in the domestic sphere. that is what i mean by not going back to normal. we need to find a new normal that will not leave us mired in the ways i discussed. host: we will go on to homestead, florida, republican. caller: good morning. i am really ashamed not for this country, because i love this country. my father took me out of cuba. and what this lady is proposing is raising the tax on the rich, right? no. it is raising the tax on the poor. progressive socialism is communism. it is plain and simple. it is shameful. she does not even know what she is talking about. she says covid killed more than

will were one, world war ii? tell her to get her facts straight. in world war ii, 600,000 americans died. i do not think she knows what she is talking about. it is really very shameful what these people are proposing. they want to just rip up the constitution, and they want to force people -- and they finger point and they constantly, constantly have this hatemongering. it has got to stop. host: ok, we will get a response. guest: i am not hatemongering. i love my country. and i want it to do better. being an american means many different things. but loving your country means being able to say what you hope it could be. that is part of my work, part of the work of the nation, which was founded --

committed to ending slippery. into your caller, i've been -- talking communism, i've been visiting moscow for 40 years as a journalist. i've seen mikhail gorbachev's great reforms he is a social democrat, and he is someone who speaks about really trying to end war, trying to end the nuclear peril, who was a courageous thinker, a bold thinker about many things. i respect your caller's feelings about his own personal stake in remembering cuba for what he sees it as, but i think we make a great mistake today, for example, in not quickly re-engaging cuba. i think that was one of obama's important moves, its folly that decades later we have this kind of skirmish war with cuba. and i think we need to rebuild a

good neighbor policy. one of the reasons we have an immigration crisis is yes, corruption, drug cartels, military force in these countries, but also u.s. policy over the years has not been helpful in engaging a part of the world which we should be engaged with in different ways, and that includes cuba. host: kevin in texas, democrat. caller: yes, i am here. host: go ahead with your question or comment. caller: i am just wondering. we have been here, what, 5000 years? is it better today than yesterday or 1000 years ago? i just do not understand how humans can think that we are getting anywhere.

the population has increased exponentially. people are coming here to america today. why do you think they are coming here to america today? is it because we are so rich and happy appear -- up here? guest: i cannot answer your question about if we are better off today than 5000 years ago. it is a pretty big question at any hour of the day. i will say one thing that sustains me is the belief that there are no lost causes, only causes waiting to be won. and one is not a simple one stop, it is a struggle. i think about the struggle for freedom. my father, who has been a witness to this country's struggle with its own destiny,

in different ways, whether it is through involvement with the prisons, trying to open them up to oversight, to understanding that prisons are not the best way to orient a society, but also he was involved in prince edward county. schools were shut down to avoid integrating schools, and he spent four years working to reopen the schools in prince edward county. so i think the struggle for freedom is an unending one, and i think it is one you have to have strength to deal with, and people have different strengths at different times. but these are times when strength is demanded. this country has gone through an extraordinary year -- and isaac extraordinary both in pain but also emerging -- and i say extraordinary both in

pain but also emerging post-trump in democracy tested but the ability to see democracy thrive is also available to us. host: we are talking with katrina vanden heuvel, the editorial director and publisher of "the nation" magazine. you can read it at thenation.co m. we go to alan next in maine, independent. caller: thank you. thank you for having katrina on. she is a very well-informed person. and kevin, the previous caller, mentioning that -- the question that has anything changed in 5000 years? i can say, with complete confidence, that nothing has changed in terms of the nature of empire. empire began approximately 5000

years ago. the egyptian empire existed, the roman empire existed. paul kennedy wrote, in the last millennia, the very last portion of the last millennia, of the rise and fall of the great states. the great states were not great states. they were all empires. the spanish empire, the belgian empire, the british empire, the french empire, the german empire, which is often called the nazi empire -- accurately so -- the russian empire, soviet empire, of which ronald reagan said it was an evil empire. and i always, parenthetically, beyond his quote, say aren't they all?

we have a problem. and i use a little jingle to emphasize the problem. there is trouble right here in river city it starts with e and is empire. there is very little understanding that we have become an empire, but a different kind of empire. in the past, empires used celebrate the thought that they were empires, including the british empire, until 1947, or the suez canal in 1956. empires, the very definition of an empire, is together in not just within its metropole but within the territorial area that it could control, gathering the wealth from abroad and bring it

into the metropole of the empire. and that is exactly what the united states has been doing -- host: i will jump in and get a response. guest: thank you for your words. the nation -- if there was a through line through the nation's history, it was -- abroad undermines us at home. i think we are an empire of kind to we have 800 military bases. we have spread widely, often in military ways. i think of nato expansion. there was a letter in the "new york times" just a few days ago. the "new york times" often does not say so, but it was headlined "the nation" magazine on the right side of history. we have viewed military expansion with great skepticism.

and we have a proud history of intervention in vietnam, iraq, most recently iran. there were not as many against the war in iraq, which is one of the great debacles of 20th-century foreign-policy foreign policy still affecting our foreign policy. and what i hope, in terms of empire -- and i think it was alan -- what we do have that is different our nuclear weapons. we did not have those 5000 years ago. and i think we are sleepwalking, as former defense secretary perry has said -- sleepwalking into disaster as we continue to modernize nuclear weapons. why do we have all these nuclear weapons? why are we spending so much money? why don't we begin to build down, as is our treaty obligations? and i think, in this time, we

need to redefine what national security means, reimagine. when you think of how we have come out of the year of pandemic , and what our military weapons good for when confronting a pandemic? so i do see this administration again playing with obsolete ideas. there is a renewal of a cold war not just against russia but china, which is folly. i am not saying they become our friends, but we become partners. why are we criminalizing diplomacy? we should be engaged in dialogue , and engagement, finding areas we can cooperate in, whether it is building down nuclear weapons , whether it is climate crisis, whether it is cyber issues. in my mind, this is about survival. it is not survival of an empire, it is building down and empire

to become more of a partner in the world landscape for the betterment of countries and people. again, i spent 40 years covering moscow. i am an admirer -- you should read gorbachev, the most radical arms reductionist who controlled a major country and continues to speak of the need for human security, not the militarization of security. i helped relaunch a group called american committee for u.s.-russian court. it's usrussiaaccord.org. we are looking to have diplomacy and dialogue even as we have real differences. i've known differences. i have seen what cold wars due to the narrow dissent, and that is dangerous.

host: katrina vanden heuvel, your reaction to the latest job numbers. in march, the unemployed rate was 6%, and there were 916,000 jobs added. guest: the number was 6%? forgive me, i have not looked at it closely. it just came out. but sometimes you have to look at those who dropped out of the job market. but any downward number is better. the plans biden has unveiled in the last days have not really kicked in. i think we need to look at those more closely. host: is this a positive headline or a negative one in your view --biden's stock market are performing predecessors. guest: the stock market, again, talking disconnect. it is extraordinary how the stock market has fared in the

last couple of years. it is a sign of possibly -- probably a sense of stability. it was a good reaction to the plans. the recently unveiled plan and the one a couple weeks ago. i think it gives biden a lot of running room. as the market soars, the disconnect -- people may not feel as concerned about some of the bigger numbers, which again, $1.9 trillion of a few weeks ago, than the $2.2 trillion. these are big numbers. the $1.9 trillion is one time. and the 2.2 trillion dollars -- these are the biggest government programs. they are, sadly, bigger and bolder. i think you begin with this and fight for more, which the progressive wing of the democratic party will be doing. but the stock market doing well gives space to the idea of

taxation for public investment. taxation is always a tough one. but if it is linked to public investment, to creating jobs, to improving the condition of people's lives, i think it has far more chance. host: cnbc headline on the latest job numbers. job growth booms in march, highest level since august. third john mica bloomed in march at the strongest pace as vaccination efforts pushed companies to step up hiring. guest: good. host: let's go to fredericksburg , virginia, republican line. caller: what a big, giant group of words that you speak. the biggest thing we all need to be aware of is that the pandemic was biological warfare against our country and is going to be consistently and regularly updated, so that we have to deal with this forever.

as far as using that we do not need nuclear weapons and things like that, the guy with the biggest stick in the biggest spear -- and the biggest spear will create the greatest amount of comfort for those in trouble. when i was in elementary school and a guy tried to steal my lunch because he was 10 times bigger than me, and my older brother visited him the next day at the playground, and from that day, he was frightened to death to ever approach me, and we later become friends because of it. a lot of things you say are true. most of the things you say are ill-advised to say. pieces of paper with the deceased and notable on it can only stand up because of the value we place on it. money is going nowhere. as far as the stock market, this is what you call a melt up. when it arrives at the station where it is no longer in the best interest of those with the

money to allow this to take place, they are going to pull their money out. bitcoin is the worst thing that has ever happened to our nation, because it will dissolve and damage the monetary value of our nation. host: ok, there is a lot there. guest: it is so interesting. that is a lot of moving parts. let me pick up on the schoolyard piece. someone referred to the evil empire earlier, reagan and the evil empire. you know, reagan ended up -- and there is some evidence -- there is a big piece coming in the "washington post" about nancy reagan's influence -- but he decided he wanted to stop the cold war, and he met with gorbachev in 1985 at the summit in geneva, and they developed a relationship. what they ended up ending the first cold war, and they released a statement which, to

this day, should be quoted every morning. nuclear war cannot be waged and it cannot be won. the two men found a partnership. i think that is important. because reagan was the schoolyard bully for many years. through peace and strength, and people still believe it was reagan's increase of the defense budget, the military budget that led to the soviet union's abolition. no. it wasn't. that is a longer story. but reagan understood the limits of being a schoolyard bully. that is a lesson to take for republicans, independents, democrats, all. host: robert in kansas, democratic caller. caller: good morning. hello, everybody. i have a few comments. first thing, this immigration deal is insane. we have been dealing with this

for 40 years, 50 years. and the problem with our policy is we encourage illegal people coming up here. now i have no problem with people coming here, none at all. the problem i have is let's give them some incentives to come here legally. honduras, venezuela, all those places. we give them billions of dollars or have give them -- given them billions of dollars. and the money goes to who knows where it goes. why don't we try to encourage these countries to take the first step, to teach your children english -- that is the first step.

guest: i think the first step is that people want to stay in their own country, but the conditions and many of these countries are so difficult. we need to think of the root cause of not just what u.s. policy is but the countries' own policies have done to create a climate where people want to leave. a nine-year-old boy should not want to leave his mother to come to this country, despite republican talking points about how biden's immigration policy is a magnet. that is ridiculous. we need to think of the root causes of these problems, often so difficult in our media environment, political environment. that, to me, would be a long-term plan while we deal with a short-term crisis. host: katrina vanden heuvel, what do you want to see the president do next after his push for the infrastructure plan? guest: i think to sell it is not

the right word because it is to transactional -- too transactional. and i would like to see him see it passed. ideally, the filibuster issue is a bigger issue, but it will be very tough to pass some of the important pieces of this, with mitch mcconnell and the republican party essentially announcing yesterday they want no part of it. but i would like to see biden build on these plans and continue to invest in this country in different ways and to think a new -- anew about creation of new jobs, how we deal with two areas, particularly -- this is about dignity for people and listening to people. the communities which feel left behind, coal, fossil fuel

communities, how you speak to those communities and gather trust, to lead them to believe that there will be jobs. there is something about just transition. because you cannot just come into a community and say by the way, these jobs are gone. you have to give them an alternative that would be the case with military jobs, too. there's a saying that and indestructible weapons system are in every district. many legislators have jobs in the defense -- repurchasing them will give people an alternative to their lifestyle be at i think people -- i think biden could do that. i do not like to see biden move on the courts, which he has done as much as he can to i think the courts could unwind a lot of their progress, civilizing advances this country has made.

there is a reason trump moved so quickly to bargain with the right wing of the party and worked hard to feel that court, as he has, but it is important to work on the lower courts, which i fear obama did not pay as much attention to. statehouses, really making sure statehouses have progressive democratic forces. so much is done at the state level. but i think, first and foremost, is to drive these big programs that biden has announced in the last few days to make sure people understand the imports of these programs. host: you can learn more from katrina vanden heuvel if you go to thenation.com, the editorial director and publisher there, also a columnist for the "washington post." we will take a break. when we come back, we will talk

to the former wisconsin governor scott walker, now the head of the young america's foundation. ♪ >> this morning, the white house covid-19 response team holds a briefing to provide the latest updates on the coronavirus response. watch live coverage beginning at 11:00 a.m. on c-span, c-span.org , or listen on the free c-span radio app. >> sunday night on "q&a," the importance of having civil discussions when differences of opinion are involved. frederick hess, director of education policy studies at the american enterprise institute, and pedro noguera, usc's dean of the school of education. >> we have too many kids languishing in too many schools,

and no one is troubled by it that should disturb all of us. we know that if we are going to use education to promote mobility, opportunity, invest poverty -- we have to make sure they get the skills and education they need so they can contribute to their families. >> pedro has eloquently talked about some of the inequities in american education. given that those of us who have the resources to move into communities with good schools or to attend private schools have shattered jesus, school choice is a way to empower those who do not have those resources. >> frederick hess and pedro no guera on c-span's "q&a." you can also listen to it as a podcast where you get your podcasts. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us from milwaukee,

wisconsin is the former governor of that state, republican governor scott walker. he is now the president of the young americas foundation, here to talk about free speech on college campuses. why did you decide to get involved in this group? guest: it was a no-brainer. i have been involved with young america's foundation, my wife in particular, on the board of reagan's ranch which young america's has operated. i just look at the future and said if we are going to have a good debate that involves both conservatives and liberals, we have to have a voice on our college campuses and increasingly our schools, and someone has to help lead that card, fight back to create that kind of balance, and i know a thing or two about fighting back and winning. host: what is the young america's foundation and who financially supports it? guest: the easiest way to ask

lane it is it is the y.a.f. -- explain it is the y.a.f. trained the next generation of freedom fighters. one of the earliest leaders was ronald reagan. that is why as governor and even president, he was a big supporter of y.a.f. over time, it was literally tens of thousands of people across the country, folks to give might be $5 a month to those who give a lot more than that. it is a broad spectrum of supporters. we are a 501(c)(3), so we are not involved in campaigns. talking about individual liberties, protecting free speech, promoting free enterprise, traditional conservative values, and a staunch national defense, the kind of things ronald reagan talked about all throughout his career. we are not limited to reagan.

we are on over 2000 campuses across this country, where we support conservative students fighting for free speech, own and operated the reagan ranch, where we do not just use it as a historical site, we ask we have conferences in santa barbara that teach the very same things. host: what is the current environment like for conservatives on college campuses? guest: in many ways, it is under siege. we see it in poll after poll, see it in the students we work with. some people might say why are you shocked, campuses are liberal, have been liberal for decades? they have. this is something -- you can trace it back to the 1960's. in the late 1980's when i was in college, certainly had a lot of left-wing professors, but i could still have a debate with them, communicate with many of them today who are ideologically not aligned with me, but i could have a good debate, and as long as i brought facts and could

back them up, i did well in many of those classes. isaiah years later -- my kids are 25 and 26. that ship had already started to occur. today we see a move not just towards political correctness but outright cancel culture. when you have -- we do extensive polling of college and high school aged students. we have almost 80% of conservative leaning students say they are afraid to speak up on their college campuses not just because of professors and the worry about what their grades would be like but even increasingly pushback from fellow students. that is troubling. that should be chilling to anyone, whether you are conservative or not. free speech is guaranteed in our constitution, it should be most revered on our college campuses, and that is, in many cases, where it is most at risk. just in a learning environment, i think it is deeply troubling. the place that you have to be challenged should be a college or university, to think

different ideas, challenge those ideas. to have true debate over those ideas not just in politics but in life, religion, and other things. yet many, many of our students, the vast majority as well as those we survey say they are afraid to talk about those ideas on our college campuses today. we see it in particular not only with our students but we work with students to bring in speakers onto campus. time and time again, they are either outright blocked or they put up these ridiculous barriers that are not consistent with what they do for groups on the left side of the political spectrum. so we fight back, part of our long game plan we initiated over the last few weeks is about pushing back, getting more members, starting sooner, not only in college and high school but also junior high and middle school, to get that kind of balance on life, because we believe conservative ideas work. i think i showed it

overwhelmingly in a boost like wisconsin, our reforms are still intact today. we were able to fight back and ultimately will is not just about winning, it was about helping the hard-working people of our state, and we want to do the same for hard-working people across this great country. to do that, we have got to have a platform, and that is what we are fighting for. host: republicans, democrats, independents welcome to call in. we also have a line for college students, what it is like where you are. (202) 748-8003 is your line this morning. that is the same number you can use to text us with your first name, city, and state. what types of viewpoints or thoughts are not allowed on college campuses? give us examples of what you are hearing. guest: we have eight tip line -- yaf.org -- if people want to tap into the long game. we have a tip line, so yaf.org/tips.

every day, we get unbelievable tips that we looked into. good examples of that, we have exposed in the last few months, are professors who say you're not going to get a passing grade if you are pro-life. you are not going to get a passing grade if you say you defend the second amendment. you are not going to get a passing grade if you say you somehow support former president donald trump. to me, those are outright barriers to people. they are not saying -- challenging them on why, they are just flat out saying. we see this over and over again sometimes from professors and teachers. we see pushback from other areas. years ago at the university of california berkeley, we were working with students there to bring in a number of speakers, one of whom was very popular at the time, ben shapiro, and they put up unbelievable areas, saying that you cannot have the event after 3:00 in the afternoon, that students could

not attend, that they charged a fee that was multiple times greater than what they were charging -- i think it was about three times more than they had charged a left-leaning group. so we went to court, they ultimately settled, because the constitution is on our side, which clearly states, if -- you have to have a similar circumstance to provide for free speech. you cannot just say that you are for free speech but then effectively block it by restrictive security barriers and things of that nature. we won. they had to pay for the legal fees. most important, they had to pull back on their research their policy against conservative speakers. that is part of our game plan. not just wait for students to come to us but aggressively seek out students and campuses where they feel like their free speech rights have been infringed. host: we go to scott up first in kansas, democratic caller. you are on the air with the former governor of wisconsin. caller: good morning. i love c-span.

good guests that have different points of view. i think free speech is great, but i also look back at former senator patrick monahan who once said that it is fine to have an opinion, but facts should be shared. and when you look at facebook and you have a counter point of view based on facts, you are called names. and i feel like our country has some problems, like with radio, they webinars -- weaponize words, calling democrats enemies instead of just opponents have different points of view. the fact checkers -- i told one of my republican friends that if you got fact-checked, it is your response ability to prove that that was incorrect or wrong -- y

our responsibility to prove that that was incorrect or wrong. and they couldn't because what they got called on was not true at all. the misinformation we have in our society is so damaging. and i think colleges should be a place where facts are more important than just opinions. i have quite a few thoughts on it, but that is probably enough. thank you. host: all right. guest: two parts. one part i agree with and one part i may challenge. certainly in the larger context, particularly in social media, i agree. one of the most frustrating things -- again, a lot of our students feel this way -- is there is a difference of opinion, and not just students but many conservatives feel like many immediately go to name-calling as opposed to

defending a position. if you raise a concern about blm the organization -- not the concept of black lives matter by the organization, but you have three people who have admitted publicly they are marxist sympathizers and organizers, you raise a question to that instead of the idea, immediately says someone says you are racist, call you a neanderthal, you name it. whereas we try to argue with our young people we are working with, our message should be universal. whether you are talking with someone young or old, rich or poor, black or white, wherever someone comes from, conservatives should be universal. we believe in freedom and opportunity for everyone. we believe the best way to do that is put our faith in the individual and the family. we contrast that with people who put their faith in the government. do not need to radicalize one

group of verses another -- versus another. we do not break it up via identity politics. i am on twitter, but i got to tell you i hate it, because i think it is pithy and obnoxious, at any end of the spectrum, people are just taking shots at each other. but one point scott raised i have a little contention with. lester holt received an award, and he said fairness is overrated. that is a shocking statement to come from someone who is a network news anchor. in his give it was similar that it should be based not just on giving multiple sides consideration but rather on determining what truth actually is. the problem with that is who are the truth tellers, who are the people who get to determine that? nbc news, last year, well before the election, gave a fact-check,

if you will on their twitter feed and on their other social media platforms that said that donald trump's claims that a vaccine would be available by the end of the year were not accurate. they quoted someone saying it would take an absolute miracle. well, in december when the vaccines were coming out, nbc news amazingly had a similar headline about vaccines being available and how import that was to get out. i think it is important, but who was the one who determined it was not factual in october, but then embraced it in december when it actually happened? you can dispute or debate gets credit for that, but that is a prime example of where, if you do not hear multiple sides, you just says that it -- you just say that is not right.

and anyone who says otherwise is not fact-based, we will fact-check them. in this case, the fact-check was actually wrong. check was actually wrong. so that is why i really do think -- and liberals like bill myers and others have spoken out, saying they don't like this cancel culture. they don't like this atmosphere. they think that they are only going to take the -- the opinions of those they think are factual. people have different interpretations. students, we should be teaching them to be critical thinkers. teach people how to look for, validating those facts. i certainly taught my kids that. to look at more than one source before you make a determination. scott brought up a point i agree with. i look forward to hearing from more callers. host: we will go to edward. independent. caller: diversity in the opinion

benefits -- diversity in the opinion benefits us all, including conservatives. i'm not afraid of your ideas being out there, let's put this scenario out there. you say school lunches should cost $1.50. if you are going to say that school lunches should cost four dollars and there should be no lunch for anybody, or you want to push the big lie, i'm going to call you out when you come to my community with -- with that kind of nonsense. please. host: do you want to respond? caller: i hear what -- guest: a hear what you're saying. you teach people in the same way that i would not say every level -- every liberal believes in every radical idea people put out. often what we hear is somebody taking a really extreme position out there and trying to blanket it on everyone.

those are not the views that are being blocked on our campuses. i think people -- again, like in schapiro, michael knowles, alicia krause, art leffler, who was an advisor to ronald reagan, these are the speakers we bring on campus and we routinely see attempts to block or at least attempts to indirectly block by putting up these unreasonable and unrealistic barriers. any talk about diversity. paul after poll shows -- this is not disputed -- that when they survey, particularly in the liberal arts, that campus after campus there are no republican or conservative views on many of these campuses. the odds are clearly stacked against it. this is not about specific issues. this is about people who

identify as being conservative or liberal. our argument is, particularly on a college campus where free speech should be revered and taught and reinforced, that is the place where we see most under risk. host: sam in new york. where do you go to college? caller: i went to binghamton university. i grew up in wisconsin. that was a great experience, but i go to school at binghamton university now. i want to echo some of the points former governor is making. it is not a very open environment for conservatives. there are a lot of instances that happened to me while i was at ingham tim university that shows conservative views are being stamped out. i used to be on the radio there. i tried to get involved in the news department. they would enforce these vague rules such as, like, they would have a rule like, don't be a jerk. if you try to espouse a

conservative viewpoint that would cite you under that rule and kind of press you out. another instance that happened is myself. i was dating a girl from the college democrats at the time and the two of us went to, like, it was a students for bernie sanders college progressives meeting. we were trying to get someone to go on our radio show with us. what we found at this meeting was basically an antifa training session. these people were getting a crash course in, you know, any kind of dissent brought up in this meeting that is a little bit left wing, not left-wing enough, they would get shut out. they had someone like an enforcer, a big type, recognize we were not supposed to be there and they treated us like we were not welcome at the meeting. these sorts of things. there were other sorts of things

that happened to us. they used -- after that they would sort of use the school newspaper to write hit pieces about myself and her, sort of the way they learn from their heroes in journalism. host: ok. governor walker? guest: it is a story we hear all the time. my 26-year-old and he was in college was involved in college republicans. he brought a speaker in. he was in the student senate and he and the college democrat chair got along real well. they did a profile on them in the milwaukee paper. even in the last two years that sort of thing has changed. they really weaponized. it is increasingly becoming a very militant approach to anyone who disagrees. i think that is dangerous in a

civil and free society. it is also one where why we are initiating this plan is because not everyone is aware of that. not just in terms of people who are in college, but 538, not a conservative publication. we did a story on a pole that was recently taken of young people from 18 to 44. they found when they distinguished between republican leaning younger people and democrat leaning people that about one out of every four republican-identified said that cancel culture was a top issue of theirs. probably would've been higher if you did under 25. less than 1% of that same category amongst democrats identified young people said it was an issue.

i said, well, it is simple. the republican-leaning folks, particularly those at the young and are still in college are experiencing every single day. they see the counterculture -- the cancel culture, they feel it in the neighborhood, particularly when they are in college. when they are on social media, when they are at work there is very much a weaponized approach that sam talked about, where it is not enough to make your case and respectfully disagree. anyone who disagrees even a little bit with your position -- goodness, look at this in chicago. barack obama's name was being put up to be put on some of the schools they are, and even there some people thought there were things to be opposed because he was not oak -- woke enough. host: we will go to rick, savannah, georgia. republican there. caller: good morning. thank you.

greta, you are like sunshine today. thank you. mr. walker, thank you for what you are trying to do. i feel like the last 30 to 40 years the donations from china has infiltrated our colleges. i think they are more or less letting america destroy itself from within, starting with children. i have two kids in college. free speech, there is no such thing anymore. maybe we should stop our tax dollars from funding these colleges that are spewing hatred for america, for free speech. there is no such thing. i was wondering what you think about, you know, our tax dollars going to fund these colleges. can we stop it? the fairness doctrine in the media should be right back. let's be fair. without that you have nothing. let me get your thoughts. thank you. guest: interesting points.

first on the point of china, the iaf has raised concerns about the inroads they have made on college campuses across the country. there is a pushback on a larger issue beyond free speech. china has become the new version of the evil empire, taking that away from the old soviet union in terms of what they are trying to do and the genocide occurring in that nation with religious minorities. we have got to be very cautious of that, particularly when it infiltrates our colleges and university campuses. to the larger issue of free speech, when i was governor we worked with our board of regents. some of the best examples of policies of free speech come not from conservative campuses are what you might view as conservative, but even the university of chicago, princeton, purdue, all not only

make statements in support of free speech but actually have some teeth behind that. that is one of the things we talked about with our regents at the university of wisconsin system. it is not enough to say you are for free speech. if you say you allow people to come -- protest is one thing. i have given many speeches long before being the president of young america's foundation. i completely expect that i'm going to have protesters. there is nothing wrong with that. again, a free society you can do that. there is a distinction between someone protesting holding up signs and actually stopping people from speaking. that is what we have seen not only with yaf speakers, but with other right wing speakers on campus, where they literally -- we call it ddos by protest. you shout, he put up barriers.

we had another school in california that literally told people -- the administration said they could not bring a speaker in, that somehow it would be disruptive because it might upset some of the folks. a very mainstream, traditional conservative speaker. the students said they were going to do it anyway. administrators literally surrounded the auditorium all and created a human chain to try and block them from coming in. this was not david duke or something we would denounce, this was mainstream conservative thought. we've got to push back against that, we've got to say that's not right, that's not just, that is a clear violation of the first amendment. when you put up physical barriers or financial barriers, like charging someone three times the security fees to bring in ben shapiro versus a supreme court justice that was brought in by a left-leaning group, where they brought in the a fraction of the security costs even though it was someone on

the u.s. supreme court, or you would think there would be just as much or greater security concerns, that is blocking free speech, and that is where one of our 12 tenants is about aggressively going out and fighting. when we go to court or threaten to go to court, time and time again we win. we should be in a world where we don't have to. as i said before, free speech should not only be upheld, it should be revered on campuses. host: the caller mentioned legislation. i am wondering about florida, intellectual freedom bill. with this prevent negation? it requires an annual assessment of the viewpoint diversity at some institutions, allows students to record classroom lectures, and prohibits universities from banning controversial speakers. guest: just to be clear, we do

not lobby, we do not get involved in political activities. i think the concept ultimately that people are talking about in florida -- which, by the way, i think governor desantis is among governors by far the best at different levels, but this is one of those where he understands the importance of fighting for free speech. living in a free society, i think one of the wake-up calls for many people and part of our tip line has come from all across the country with so many courses being on zoom and other digital formats, we have been able to more accurately take charge of showing people what some of these professors, some of these universities are doing to block students from being engaged in free thought. as i talked about before, literally telling students if you are pro-life, don't bother. you're going to fail this class. if you have a certain conservative you point, don't bother. that is fundamentally wrong.

i think it is perfectly right for there to be all sorts of viewpoints -- and again, as much as i may disagree with someone who considers themselves a progressive or liberal, they have every right to be heard. i have every right to be heard in return, and i think in the end if we have mostly close to a level playing field, i believe our ideas work. it is the example i give students. there is a reason why people risk their lives over the years to flow across sharp-infested waters florida, because in the united states there is freedom available to everybody and anyone, no matter they come from or what they look like. they know firsthand, it is what they are playing, the oppression they are fleeing, where they promise power to the people but the people end up in poverty. the elite accumulate the power and oppress the rest. you don't see it the other way around. you don't see people floating on rafts from florida down to cuba.

there is a reason for that. i'm more than willing to have that debate between those of us who believe in freedom and those who believe in socialism. host: jeff in roebuck, south carolina. independent. caller: thank for taking my call. hopefully you all are doing well. just listening to a few of the democratic callers, it is interesting because the points being made, oh, if you want to talk about ideas you need to come with facts and abate them. but then you, obviously we no one conservatives try that they get shut down and called a racist, called a homophobe, called whatever the term of the day is. it is interesting how democratic callers say we want to engage in the battle of ideas, and at the same time they shut you down. how do you even do that? my last point. what about the whole trump conspiracy? that has been proven false.

why is that not being brought up? if you want to talk about facts, why not talk about the facts that that was all just fake at the end of the day? totally agree that counsel culture is getting out of hand. guest: the larger issue you mentioned in terms of debates, again, that is a really important fact. i have said that not only is america -- not only as young america's foundation president, but when i served in office to me it is frustrating and people don't address the facts but trying -- but start trying to label people. you are for this or for that. often times jumping to a conclusion and then later coming back and having a correction or flipping without paying attention to it. the example i gave was with the vaccines, when people said there is no way it's going to happen by the end of the year. then lo and behold, we had a

vaccine. now, i don't entirely give all of the credit to the trump administration with operation warp speed. that was a part of it. a phenomenal effort by the private sector, a phenomenal effort by scientists around the world. that is a prime example where they call people names. most recently what we are experiencing now, what frustrates me is -- and we see it. college students are sick and tired of people being divisive. that is something we see in our surveys. often times many on the left and even in the media will try to say that conservatives are divisive. maybe there are some, but i would say by and large our arguments, our viewpoints we express our for our ideas. more often than not at its core is putting our faith in the individual and the family, saying the role of the government should be limited to

things like protecting our health and safety, and for everything else get out of the way. those on the left traditionally have a much more expansive view and think they should run a bigger part of your lives. when i talked to students i'm like, do you like people telling you what to do and how to do it? if you do you are probably a liberal. if you think, given the facts and information, as long as you are protected locally with fire and police, federally in terms of our national defense, and protected from others violating your health and safety, than the rest should be up to you, with some exceptions for people in down times. there is poverty and things of that nature. what do you faith -- but if you put your faith in the government, let's have that discussion. i keep arguing that as conservatives we should be the happy warriors reagan talked about, making the case for freedom and opportunity for everyone. these days there has been a distinction where if you saw

what happened to george floyd -- and i think across the board -- certainly i was one of the first to talk about it -- it doesn't matter whether you are liberal or conservative, overwhelmingly people were outraged, and rightfully so. that is outrageous. the people involved with that should be held accountable. but at the same breath, that doesn't mean that immediately those of us who are outraged by that jump to this conclusion that we should defund all of the police. i can defend the vast majority of good and decent men and women all across this country who every single day put their lives on the line to keep us and our families safe in law enforcement, who overwhelmingly are out reached by what happened in annapolis. sadly society today the viewpoint is if you are outraged with one thing, you have to react by saying defund the police or attacked the police. the two don't have to be one or

the other. you can actually be outraged and still think we should defend the vast majority of people in law enforcement. that is part of the problem with what happens when you say people either have to be 100% with you or not. we lose that sense of community and good discussion. that is what we are fighting for. that is the one of -- that is one of the things we are pushing for. host: indiana, democratic caller. caller: good morning greater -- good morning, greta, and good morning, mr. walker. on the one hand, let's talk about fake news. the national enquirer, they are free to tell lies about people and get away with it. there is a story i heard about a young man wore a washington redskins shirt to school and they made him go home and change it. come on. how does that even work?

in a perfect world it doesn't. you want to talk free speech on college campuses? are they going to make the seminoles change their name? the florida football team? i have an idea for the redskins name -- the groundhogs. that is all. guest: that one sounded more like a statement of opinion. to me, i'm not even going to get into the details of that particular point, other than to say the things we are talking about by and large mainstream conservative speakers on campus are people talking about the benefits of having individuals and families make decisions about where to spend their money. not even in terms of government. i tell people all the time as a conservative, i believe if you take a dollar out of your wallet, you look at it and say

where would i rather spend that? what i rather spend that to washington and my local community its pennies on the dollar or what i rather spend that in this local community? what i rather spend it in washington or fix my roads here locally? what i rather spend it to washington or what i rather keep it here in my community to take care of elders? i think the founders had when they clearly spelled out in our constitution that if it is not defined in the constitution itself it is inherently the right of the states, and more importantly of the people. those of the sorts of arguments we want to make. it is increasingly difficult for our students to do that not just in college, even in high school and younger ages. we see the indoctrination happening sooner and sooner in

our kids' time in school. it is why another wall -- another one of our points is to create a network of support for not just conservative educators, professors, teachers, but also for people who are -- who just want to be objective. i can tell you how many teachers have come to me and said, i just want to teach the facts. i want to teach american history. i want to teach government. i want to teach economics, but i don't want to get sucked into one way or the other. i want to present the facts and teach our children how to think critically. all too often they are marginalized themselves or they are given curriculum or textbooks that are flat-out wrong. that include more opinion and bias and they do facts. i think that as well is a disservice. host: james is a republican in connecticut. caller: thank you very much.

first of all, governor walker, i was impressed with what you did in your state. i think you were an excellent leader. sorry that things change. my question in terms of the wokeness, is we see this council culture all over our universities. we know that journalists, given a test, 85% say they are democrat or liberal democrat was wondering, can your organization give a rating for each college as well? we say we are data-driven. what percentage of the tenured faculty at universities and schools have a defined political and that would show up as a graph so that someone as an educated parent could make a decision on whether or not i want my child to go to hillsdale or the university of north carolina at chapel hill? i really mean that we are getting to a point where i feel

that conservative christian values are the minority, and maybe we should be applying for legal status as a really- government-recognized minority deserving affirmative action. host: we are running out of time. i will have governor walker jump in. guest: there are groups that do that. there is no doubt about it, i think people would be interested. too many peoples's surprise there is not just a liberal bias or bias against conservatives having -- it is not even left or right, but i would take it a step further. it is not enough to know whether it is conservative or liberal, but what is the free speech backer? if voices can be heard they can counter what some of the others might be hearing. it is not just on government-run institutions. increasingly we see it in private and religious or

faith-based and -- faith-based organizations. where that wokeness is sucked in to those places. it is important and it is why you talked about the media. i mentioned lester holt before. on our college campuses many of the services i have seen, for all of the talk of diversity, increasingly the only diversity that is not celebrated as ideological. host: you mentioned that you fought back when you were governor. one of those fights was the recall effort against you in 2012. as california looks like they are heading toward a recall effort of their governor, governor newsom, what is your advice for governor newsom? guest: in his case he is in trouble, because the difference between wisconsin law and california law, is in wisconsin it forces a new election. i ended up literally running against the same person, the

mayor of milwaukee. we ended up winning with a larger percentage of the vote and more actual votes. by that time people could see that our common sense conservative reforms worked. newsom lee is in trouble. a lot there is an up or down retention. if you don't want to retain the incumbent, then you decide the replacement. it goes beyond republican or conservative voters who are upset, to a much larger piece of the population who really feel frustrated with not just the way he has handled the economy and lockdown and the pandemic, but in many cases the hypocrisy of telling people they could not do something and then, famously they saw the images of the french laundry, having dinner without a mask on most amazingly, with lobbyists from the health care industry.

those of the sorts of things that i think you're right, regardless of what party you are, hypocrisy is one of the most potent attacks in politics, because i could respect you even if i disagree with you, but if i see someone who contradicts the very things they are telling the people they serve to do, that is really, really dangerous. i think he's got a real problem. the one saving grace he might have is if on the right there is more than one candidate, that will disperse the boat. that might be his path toward success. if the upper down vote is first, i think he is going to be in trouble. since -- host: he says, since generally sex i have viewed the republican party as the big lie. can you explain why this is an unfair caricature of the gop in 2021?

guest: look at what we are talking about. but the facts. look at what we are proposing and opposing. we are opposing more big government. we are opposing massive takeover of our industries and tremendous increases in taxes. we are hoping to recover from the global pandemic. instead conservatives are countering with ideas about putting more money and power in the hands of the american people. i think this is one of those where i think that is the big lie, if you will, coming from the left. to try and -- just as i talked about on college campuses, to marginalize people by narrowly focusing on a handful of people and what they did on one particular day versus a larger movement and larger discussion. i think the big issue we have seen in this last year is the difference in america between blue-collar and white-collar jobs. this is not universal, but i

think there is a lot of truth to it. any people who worked white-collar jobs were working on zoom, did not disturb their lives, certainly did not disturb their income levels, their kids often were able to go to school virtually, may be in another room in their home, on another computer. their life has not changed dramatically. any of those people were very comfortable with the government telling them they had to stay in longer. contrast that with many people like my brother and sister-in-law, who, after the first 15 days, were in the jobs on the front lines where they did not have a choice. if they did not go to work each week they did not get paid. if they didn't get paid, they don't make their rent payments. i think there is a lot of blue-collar folks, particularly with kids who are school age, who did not know where their kids were going to go while they were working because schools were not open and many of those

communities their parents or grandparents were not physically in a position because of their concerns of the pandemic. they look at all of this and say, why are things not open? why after it was shown you could reasonably and safely reopen, particularly our schools? we heard a couple of months ago from the cdc director that schools and students and staff could safely go back to school, yet in many of our large, urban areas they are still closed, and part because of the teachers union bosses -- not the teachers . there are teachers who were sickened tired of zoom. who want to see them learn and give them support. that is where we are at right now. i think some of those points raised are really a distraction from the larger issue that affects the vast majority of us. that is, when and how are we going to safely reopen our schools and economy and start to get back something close -- we will never be completely, but

when we would to get back? we are back in florida, we are back in texas, but if you live in new york or california you are still throwing your hands up. host: the former governor, scott walker, is now the head of the young america's foundation. you can go to their website yaf.org to learn more. thank you for the conversation. guest: thank you. tanks to the callers as well. host: absolutely. we come back, returned to our conversation from earlier this morning. you approve or disapprove? of president biden's immigration policies? we will be right back. ♪ >> the trial of derek chauvin, the former minneapolis police officer charged in the death of

george floyd continues today at 10:00 a.m. eastern. watch coverage on c-span, online, or listen live on the c-span radio app. if you missed any of our coverage, watch at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2 and at c-span.org. >> sunday on "in-depth," a conversation with harriet washington. her book is "carte blanche." >> when companies use profits to measure their success in the medical arena, the problem is that we can't expect the companies to care about us. we cannot expect the companies to sublimate and make less money because they care about our health. their behavior has already shown this. they do not care. in our government, our people that we pay and should expect to care about our health and should

defend us. our government should be raining in these companies. our government should be forcing them to do things that will fit the public needs. >> join the conversation. sunday at noon eastern on c-span2. before the program be sure to visit c-spanshop.org. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are turning our attention to immigration in our last half-hour. in your opinion about the president's stance on immigration at the southern border, with a surge of migrants there. we want to know if you approve or disapprove of what the president is doing. according to an npr poll on immigration, president biden faces more critics as 54 percent

of respondents expressed disapproval for his handling of the issue. a large majority of republicans, as well as a slight majority of independents say they disagree with biden's management of immigration. a harvard poll, immigration is the president's biggest vulnerability. an eight point decrease since february. immigration is the only issue on which biden's approval is below the 50% mark. the president's chief of staff talked about immigration with politico this week. >> i think one lesson he learned is putting the vice president in charge, working with these countries can be very effective. that is one reason why he asked vice president harris to lead this effort. the focus on trying to deal with the root causes of this migration. as the president said, parents don't send their children on a

volatile-thousand -- multi thousand mile journey as a frolic. they do it because conditions where they are living are so desperate because of natural disasters, because of economic collapse, because of crime and violence, conditions are so desperate they feel like they have no choice. our best way to attack this issue is to help these countries rebuild their economies and make life in guatemala, in honduras more commodious for people who lived there. let people live their lives where they want to live their lives. in their home countries. that is what president biden worked on, that is now what vice president harris is going to work on. host: lindsey graham, the senator of south carolina was at the border recently. here is what he had to say about the situation there. >> they knew.

if the trump administration had been told something and they did the opposite and it blew up in their face, everybody would be asking the trump administration, what did you know and when did you know it? i'm going to help you with your reporting. mr. hastings, who is a two-star border patrol leader told us that he briefed transition members, the biden administration, as to what would happen if you do away with the remain in the mexico policy. he told the biden administration what would happen if you changed the title 42 law to allow unaccompanied children to come here. everything they said would happen happened. if you don't do it, i'm going to do it. i'm going to find out who he talked to and hold them accountable, because they knew and when they say this is trump problem, they are lying. this is a problem of their own

making. host: senator lindsey graham. now it is your turn to tell the president and washington what you think about the situation on the southern border. mike in west springfield, massachusetts. you approve, mike? caller: fairly much so. i think what we should do, no matter what our politics, i think it should be -- we should be unified on the fact that if we can throw away as a nation 40 million tons of food away, we can share some of the food with the children, and even find a way to send food and medicine to mexico. we have to remember, we are taught, many of us are taught everything we do comes back to us. so, we have to remember mexico, over half of that area was once california, texas, many of the states. somewhere around the civil war -- i think polk was his name, he

was president. annexed a big part of mexico. i question is, are they coming back for the land that was once fair? we have to look at our track record and see our past mistakes. i think it is very patriotic for americans to bring up our past mistakes like slavery, the slaughter of the american indian, and the annexation of mexico. i think we took over 50%, but i'm not sure. host: i will leave it there and go to chris, who is in bonita springs, florida. your opinion? caller: good morning. my opinion is that you need to go back to president trump's policy that got a grip on this problem. as much as i empathize and sympathize with the poor and desperate in other countries, it

is not the american taxpayer's job to solve the problems of these countries. we can try to give them advice. many of them are run by very corrupt leaders that are embedded in the government, and the cartels. anybody who is pro-biden's administration policies, i tell them to take these migrants into their own homes. how many people have done that? they like to talk the talk, but they don't want to walk the walk. host: listen to what veronica escobar, the congresswoman of texas had to say. she writes, the trump administration's remaining mexico policy put an unsustainable burden on mexico and pushing people back into that country fueled even more of the criminal activities that are already liking it.

the biden administration's challenge is not just the number of children arriving at the border it is that the previous administration effectively literate existing systems and infrastructure, failed to work collaboratively on an orderly transition, and created a backlog of vulnerable people on the others if our ports of entry. matthew in new york. what do you have to say on this? caller: i don't know. you know, the last to treat these people as inhumanely as possible, so to deter them. so, they didn't really want to do the heavy lifting or deal with the problem as it were. this is not a new problem. by any means. this is been going on for -- i'm an old man, so as long as i can remember, you know? i'm not really sure what the

biden administration, what their policy truly is. i know that they want to behave in a more, you know, a more humanely way, but other than that i'm not really hip as to what their policy is on this. host: according to the associated press, a week ago a new policy was put into place. migrants freed without court notice and sometimes no paperwork. they write that overwhelmed and unprepared u.s. authorities are releasing migrant families without notice to appear in the immigration court or sometimes without any paperwork at all. time-saving moves that have left some vagrants confused. the rapid release eased pressure on the border patrol, and its badly overcrowded holding facilities, shift work to

customs enforcement. families are released with working records. only parents are photographed and fingerprinted. the associated press reporting that yesterday. matthew, what is your reaction to that? caller: i would like to think that there was more to it than just that reporting. i find it hard to believe that they are just being introduced into the country with no information or any appearances to any kind of immigration court whatsoever. host: they are supposed to. they are fingerprinted and given documents that they are supposed to appear within an ice office within 60 days. caller: wellton, all right, i approve of that. it is still way better than what the last guy was doing. that is my point. host: ok. allen in ohio. you disapprove? caller: for sure. it is so obvious. when trump aide it, there was a little bit of money for the

wall. the way biden is running at we get people in the misery. don't hang up on me that quick. host: we are listening to you, alan. caller: i've got my volume off. i didn't hear you. the way biden is going is, people living in squalor, cross the border, there is just chaos. compared to the way it was before. this is going to cost us four times as much money as what the wall cost. kamala harris, the vice president, is going down to south america. she is going to give them a whole bunch of money. how else is she going to stop them from coming down? look at how much money it cost us on infrastructure with covid. he costs more than what trump costs. i'm not going to get into the cost of living out. i'm in trouble. host: congresswoman torres put

the accountability with those countries' leaders. she sent a tweet to the al silva -- el salvador in president saying, i will make it clearer. this is the result of narcissistic tatars like you. interested in being cool while people flee by the thousands and die by the hundreds. send me a pair of glasses so i may see the suffering of your people through your eyes. then to the hunt during government they say, threats for people who are starving and fleeing by the thousands, but they are spending big on lobbyists to defend their narco -trafficking. earlier this week on the washington journal we spoke with a texas reporter about what is happening on the border. she described how much these migrants have to pay and how they pay for it, to these cartels, so-called guides to get them close to and into the united dates. >> it ranges depending on how

far you have to travel and which country, but, for example, the woman i talked to from el salvador, it can range as high as $8,000 right now. how can someone who is fleeing poverty for that? often what little property they have or whatever they have of value is used as collateral and a down payment is made. right now it is about $2000. sometimes people borrow from family. some are able to take out loans with the understanding they will make installment payments once they are able to reach the u.s. and likely get work. the other problem that happens along the way is, sometimes the fee goes up and they end up paying more money. they are being charged more money. there is this idea, like we saw with other migrants in our history, people become indebted

to these guides, these smugglers. that is basically organized crime. there are real risks to them not just money-wise, taking their property, but sometimes safety risks. host: do you approve or disapprove of the biden administration's immigration policies? that is our question for you this morning. dana from los angeles texts us. i have lived in southern california. both parties have failed on immigration. california is no longer part of america because of it. frank in florence, oregon. hi, frank. caller: hi. i have worked against the prize but prison industry for the last -- the private prison industry for the last 25 years or so. the administration had hired a woman who was very much in debt -- literally -- to the private prison industry. she retired shortly after obama took office, and obama took her

back and put her in charge of the u.s. marshals service, which she did even more. host: frank, what does this have to do with immigration? caller: the problem as it has turned into a cash cow for the private prison industry. sally yates with the obama administration tried to stop that, they have become billionaires because they have been able to lock up people in charnel houses, in really dangerous institutions, exploiting them horribly, not attending to them medically. we've got to have some understanding of that to understand the situation we are in. host: michael, chester, virginia. michael, good morning. it is your turn. caller: yes, good morning. i am calling from virginia. i'm calling in to disapprove. for a couple of different reasons. not only is the child thing terrible anybody whether you are

republican or democrat, we all have a soft heart for children. the thing that is not being reported is the single adult numbers are through the roof as much as 300%. what we are doing is, we are overflowing our country. everyone is saying there are 11 million undocumented. there is studies saying as much as 23 million. we are in a pandemic. you have children and some of these places that are only have to -- supposed to have 225 because of covid. you have adults testing positive for covid, and put on a bus, ship to chicago, new york, some here in the progenitor. to me it seems like we want to keep covid going and going. how can you say that is not the situation when you are having a 14% positivity rate? some of these children are only supposed to be there 782 hours. some of them have been there 15 days.

it was reported when they finally let the news in. something has to be done. neither party is willing or able to give on this issue. they have tried and tried ever since reagan did the first amnesty. nothing has ever worked. until we actually can get the two parties to agree upon something, we are never going to have this under control. one other thing. i don't want to take up too much time. not only showed title 42 have been left in place until they came up with a better plan, a lot of people don't understand, yes, there were 20,000 mexican soldiers on the border, there were also soldiers for the people coming directly out of the three countries -- ecuador, el salvador, and i can't think of the other 1 -- to stop the migrant flow. just a few points and i will hang up and go from there. host: ok, michael.

angela, our guest on the washington journal this week who has been covering the border, she also talked about title 42. listen to what she had to say. >> most of them are turned right back around and sent back to mexico. the biden administration is acknowledging that. right now we have a health order that dates back to the 40's called title 42. it was implemented when the pandemic started. it allows the border patrol to quickly remove people from the country and send them back. they are sent back to mexico, there are some that are allowed in, but the vast majority are not. often when they are returned to mexico they seem very confused and distraught, because people had the idea that if they came through and asked for asylum, they would be allowed to stay. in mexico, mexico is struggling to find shelter space. many of the shelters where i am are filled to capacity.

host: that was our interview earlier this week. many of the headlines say that title 42 continues. we also learned from the associated press that there is -- that the u.s. authorities are letting some of these migrant families go with fingerprinting and court orders to return to an ice facility within 60 days. read that story if you are interested, as well. nancy, jacksonville, florida. good morning to you. go ahead. caller: good morning. sadly the new york times, washington post -- i don't know, the associated press -- mentioned that mid-december 19 asked the trump administration what they were planning to do about the thousands already

walking from south america to the usa. that was mid-december and it was reported. dan, the next sentence is, the trump team responded a few days before the inauguration. she may be correct that the trump administration did connect with them, but when is a big factor. when? a few days before the inauguration, that meant biden had to scramble to find beds. it is just in the sausage-making stage now. it is not like it will be, we have already seen places with kids in school, activities. that is all i would like to find out. when? host: all right. frank in coconut creek, florida texted us to say, this is the worst time to allow even legal immigration.

we need to get our house in order first. the problem is that financial health does little and ends up in the this swiss bank accounts of the country's corrupt leaders. terry in south carolina. caller: morning. yes, how are you today? host: i am well. so, approve, disapprove? caller: oh, disapprove. this is unconscionable. president trump, he had it worked out. it was manageable. but now they are just trying to use the immigrants for later voting. host: ok. go ahead, finish your thought. caller: we need to stop this,

even if it is bipartisan. we have got to stop this influx before it is too late, because, you know, the covid. we just have it under control and now we are going to have them sending immigrants all over the country. host: ok, terry. listen to what joe mansion had to say. he also visited the border in the laredo, texas recently. >> there is so many different ways to do it. a lot of people thought the wall would solve all of the problems. the wall doesn't solve the problems and never was intended to. if you don't lose your security measures, your technology and basically the human element of the guards we have, our agents, order agents, those of the people we are basically looking at to control this and do a better job than we are doing right now. but, to blame the biden

administration, i certainly believe joe biden has the compassion to doing this and doing it right. i believe that. and not have that type of an attitude that someone else's responsibility and someone else's fault. we can do that differently than how we have done it before, but we do have a human crisis coming. the crisis has been coming quite a period of time. long before the trump administration or the biden administration. it seems to continually go in cycles. what we are seeing today and the mass of people coming, especially the children, it is something that is going to continue until we do something about it. host: the senator from west virginia. tammy, cleveland, tennessee. approve or disapprove of president biden's immigration policy? caller: i have a couple of comments on it.

the trump administration, i mean, back when the pandemic started going on, i got hhs mask that was made in vietnam and trump promised to keep the american jobs over here, we cannot even get masks made here without things made on it. at least joe biden has a heart for these children. i mean, the caller from -- i forget where they were calling from. there is enough american families willing to take in these children, give them a home, and the government has got to be making money on them. i mean, come on. host: let's take a look at the texas newspaper the standard times with their headline this morning. "welcoming to all," is that headline. officials report a rise in the immigrant arrests. you also have in texas, the

daily news out of galveston, and their headline "biden's talk of books for bridges and barriers." the arizona daily star, their headline " some migrant families being like go without court notices." gym in the mulberry, tennessee. you approve? caller: i approve anything to keep from taking babies away from their mothers, but i also think we need to go back, this immigration problem has been going on for 50 years. like to remind everybody of reagan's secret war with central america, where we went to el salvador and killed 81,000 people. we went to honduras and killed 48,000. one of moloch, 46,000 --

guatemala, 46,000. reagan's secret war. host: a text from linda. instead of grandstanding for the media, the senators like lindsey graham should be in washington, d.c. doing his job, writing immigration laws. congress rights laws, presidents sign them. that does it for our conversation this morning. thank you for watching. he will be back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. enjoy the rest of your weekend. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> 916,000 jobs were created in march with the unemployment rate

down to 6%. this marks the most jobs created in one month since august. president biden will be speaking about those numbers at 11:00 a.m. eastern. we will have that live. at 12:30 eastern press secretary jen sake will have a press conference for reporters also live on c-span. on the communicators the former chair of the federal communications commission during the obama administration. >> the complaint that was made during our term about net neutrality's it would stifle innovation and stifle investment. the reality is that in the time when the net rules were in place the united service providers spent more on capital investment then they spent after the trump fcc removed those rules. it was that capital investment

that allowed us to be successful now during covid when everyone is on zoom and stressing out the network. the point of the matter is that what we tried to deal with was continue this concept, this basic american concept, of not having gatekeepers for crucial services and encouraging competition among those using those networks. >> watch the communicators saturday at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> sunday night on q and a conversation about education policy and the importance of having civil discussions when different opinions are involved. our guest co-authored the book the search for common ground. and the usc dean of communication.

>> we have too many educated languishing into many schools who are not challenged and no one is troubled by it. that should disturb all of us. we know if we are going to use education to promote mobility, promote opportunity, address poverty and inequality, we are going to have to empower kids as learners. make sure they get the skills and education they need so they can contribute to their family and community. >> pedro i think has eloquently talked about inequities in education. given those of us who have the resources to move into communities with good schools or attend private schools have strategies to make sure our kids get something, school choice is a way to empower those who don't have those resources. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q and a. you can also listen as a podcast

where you get your podcasts. >> house armed service committee chair adam smith discussed national security and priorities at an event hosted by the meridian international center. this is about an hour. >> i am the vice president of the center for diplomatic engagement. thank you so much for joining us for this insight meridian program with the chairman of the house armed services committee, adam smith. this is a program within the center for diplomatic engagement. as many of you know, meridian is a nonpartisan, nonprofit diplomacy center that strengthens and develops leaders through exchange, culture, and collaboration in an effort to better solve global challenges. the center for diplomatic engagement is an educational and networking hub for the diplomatic corps that provides a neutral and welcoming environment for sharing of perspectives