at 2:00 p.m. house speaker nancy pelosi speaks to reporters about the legislative agenda when congress returns next week. on c-span two at 10:00 a.m. eastern, day nine of the trial of former minneapolis police officer derek chauvin, who is charged in the death of george floyd. coming up in a few minutes, gallup senior editor jeffrey jones on gallup's latest survey that shows more americans identifying as democrats then republicans by a margin that hasn't been seen in a decade. 7:20 a.m., anita kumar previews the expected announcement thursday of a package of executive actions to curb gun violence. at 8:00 a.m. syndicated radio host arnie arnesen on her

podcast. at 9:15, ken cuccinelli, current chair of the election transparency initiative on the debate over voting rights. ♪ host: good morning this is "washington journal," for april 8. a new poll by gallup shows for the first time since 2012 more people are identifying as a democrat or leaning that way in the united states. factors such as the election of president biden being a driving force but also passing bills and the democratically controlled congress and also the federal coronavirus response. we invite you regardless of your political affiliation to comment on this new trend and here's how you could let us know, if you are a republican, (202) 748-8001 , if you're a democrat, (202)

748-8000 and if you are independent, (202) 748-8002. if you want to comment via text, (202) 748-8003. you can also reach out on our twitter feed and also post on our facebook page. usa today running with a story of this gallup poll that just came out and several other publications as well. that first live reading, more americans identifying that they are democrats by a margin that hasn't been seen in a decade. that is according to a poll released by gallup on wednesday. joining us via zoom to talk about the result of the report is jeffrey jones, good morning. guest: thanks for having me. host: what prompted you to ask this question? guest: this is something gallup has been tracking for a long time. party identification is a major predictor of how people vote and

how they think about issues. gallup has been measuring party id since 1944. starting in 1991, we began to ask independents where they lean. in u.s. politics it is basically a choice of two options. and you push independents to lean you get a better sense of how elections might turn out. host: let's talk about that topline making headlines with more people saying they are democrats this year. talk about how that came about. guest: 49% of americans lean democratic. 19% are independents who lean democratic. that is compared to 40%

republicans and 15% leaning. we have a nine point gap now, the largest we have measured since the fourth quarter of 2012. host: historically how has this gap shifted over the years? guest: this is pretty consistent throughout the trump administration, democrats have a slight lead. it has been between 4-6 points over the last four or five years. when he gets to double digits are close to double digits, that is pretty rare. we saw double digit democratic advantages from 2006-2000 nine. that is when george w. bush was president. his approval ratings were very low. also the beginning of the obama administration and he was very popular at that point. we also saw similar gaps -- certainly we reference the

fourth quarter of 2012. also late 1992, early 1993 after clinton was elected. host: if we are seeing more people say they are identifying as a democrat this year, the numbers tell us one thing, what are the driving forces behind that? guest: it is probably less of a shift to the democratic party and more of a shift away from the republican party. if you compare the first quarter of 2021 with the last quarter of 2020, republican identification and leaning has dropped three points where democratic identification and leaning has stayed the same. fewer americans identifying as republicans, 25 percent identify outright as republicans. not the lowest we have measured. the low was 22% or that was around the time the government shutdown over obamacare. host: would you say that drop

amongst republicans and going towards democrats is the result of the trump administration over all over the time they had an office? guest: i think it is more recent than that. definitely the postelection period after the approval rating went down he left office with 34% approval rating, the lowest of his presidency. the riots played into that. in addition to his approval rating going down and republican identification leaning going down. the image of the republican party is 37%. that is pretty low. one of the lowest we have measured for them. host: the write up in usa today says a couple of figures to consider, the covid-19 relief package in march. the push for mass vaccinations, all contributing to that, could you expand on that? guest: the rescue package is

pretty popular. the approval package in the high 60's. coronavirus is a major factor. we have seen it come down a lot over the past few months. we have done getting credit for that. what we reference before at some of these high points. things are going well for a party or poorly for a different party, we tend to see things shift away from the party not doing well. host: you talk about those independents that is more about identifying. your impact on all this. guest: 44% of americans identify as independent.

we have definitely seen an increase in independents in the last decade. the 44% we measured is not the highest, 46% is the highest. we have been consistently over 40% independents for the past decade. definitely more americans moving away from the parties. we see that in how people evaluate the party. especially the early 90's and part of the 2000's. now it is rare that americans have the opinion of either party. even at this point, their favorable opinion is that 48%. not even the majority favorable right now. host: what is the potential that trend moves upward as we go forward? guest: it is probably going to

be tied to the extent biden gets credit or blame for that. a lot of it is driven by the popularity of the presidency. look ahead to the midterm election. it is a long time to go and things have certainly shifted in a much shorter time period until the next election. kind of how we are now. a lot could happen. that will end up determining how the elections go. host: jeff jones is a senior editor with gallup. you could see the work he and his colleagues, particularly this survey they put out with how people are identifying politically. mr. jones, thanks for your time. guest: my pleasure. host: for the rest of the hour you could comment on this trend mr. jones talked about. particularly among democrats

themselves. regardless of your political party you could comment too. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 four democrats, (202) 748-8002 independents is how you could do that. if you want to text us (202) 748-8003. you can always post on twitter and our facebook page as well. on our democrats line we start off with linda in akron, ohio talking about these trends. what do you think? caller: to me, i don't consider it a trend. i'm 71 years old, i have been a democrat all my life. what i see is the democratic voters united against trump.

especially on your program, too, we are sick and tired of being left communist. we aren't communists. we are good people. when you have people in the government like mcconnell, lindsey graham, they are poor representation of any kind of humanity. i'm a proud democrat. host: why do you not see it as a trend or something that is consistent in this administration going forward. caller: obviously depending on the future, this will stand. i think biden is doing a pretty good job. i think people are just so happy

not to have trump as president that we are under a lot less -- a lot of stress nowadays. i think this will continue. at least i hope so. unless something really terrible happens, there is probably going to be more democrats in the future. host: annapolis, maryland up next, also on our line for democrats you're up next, good morning. caller: good morning. i think what is happening with the republicans is in an earlier part of my life i was a republican. they don't stand for anything. they have no platform, no program other than just negative stuff on the pandemic. that is why the prior president lost.

his handling of the pandemic. you look at all of the issues. health care, health care -- health care, the border, education. issues americans care a great deal about. people are figuring that out. they have no program. they make sure the money continues flowing to the top. host: mode you identify as the democratic program? caller: for 40 years the democrats ran the country into the pretty good job. what he did with civil rights, the strongest economy in the world. we may not be the strongest economy in the world. the chinese if they haven't caught up, they will catch up soon.

the concern for the people in the bottom third of the economic class are going down. the standard of living is going down. all of the money is flowing upward. especially in the large coastal areas. the people in those areas, the 20%, the 1% is moving up. host: we will hear from a republican on this trend, this is joanne, hello. caller: we go with the independents, they always caucus with the democrats. a big percentage of them are just disgruntled democrats that have gone to the independent party thinking they are so independent. they need to be more thoughtful about what they are doing on some of the programs they are

doing. you will be paying some high taxes on all of this. host: how could republicans better reach out if you think they are trending the other way. -- trending the other way? caller: republicans don't put -- there are ones that are against regulations and small government. when obama expanded, it covered medicare. the 20% gap in their medical coverage. that swayed a lot of people. older people that are retired don't want to come up with that, can't come up with extra money to pay that 20%.

that pushed more onto the democratic party. i don't want to pay more taxes. i pay 10% now. host: let's hear from an independent in new york, bill, hello. caller: i'm a member of the green party. i can. i leaned democrat. if they are endorsed by the working families party then i know they are a liberal democrat. i would never vote for a conservative or corporate democrat. certainly not a republican. host: how did you treat this election, the jew vote for president biden? caller: i did not. i voted green, chloe hawkins. i would've voted for bernie if

you would've gotten the nomination. host: you said you would vote for a liberal democrat, what defines that in your mind? caller: not taking corporate funds, donations. not voting for the corporations. not letting the corporation lobbyists write the law for you and then vote for it. that is the democrat i don't vote for. i'm looking for a bernie sanders kind of democrat that will except small donations from a lot of people. host: bill there giving us the perspective of who he would vote for. you heard our guest talk about people identifying as a democrat versus republicans and asking about that trend. what you think about it regardless of communications. democrats for liberty is the tag

of this facebook viewer that says when it comes to that trend it was the former president trump that into effect. encouraging insurrection will likely push some of the republicans with integrity away from the party of lincoln. conspiracy theories are not leadership, the democrats put work in. that is why we have the affordable care act, social security. republicans yell communist even though we must work with red china, russia, north korea, cuba every day. democrats power comes from tendency that started with lbj's new deal when they figured out they could buy votes with taxpayer money. adding that with friends, democrats are creating this lock to retain power forever. this text is from -- this is

kay in anderson, texas. caller: i just wanted to call in , i'm in a nest of republicans. they will not change. you cannot even tell them you are a democrat and they start fighting with you. it is that bad out here. they love their guns. host: why do you think people are moving from what i guess we spoke about, people moving to identify more as the democrats these days. caller: it is compassionate and for the people. i have always been a democrat and i will tell you why, i have type 1 diabetes, i believe being

compassionate has a long way to go plus every citizen deserves health care. we should not have to worry about health care. that is how i feel about it. host: we will go next to paul in florida, republican line. caller: good morning, i heard your previous caller using phrases like the money is going to the top. i am a member of the party that knows how to do arithmetic and understands the economics that every dollar spent instantly becomes of someone else's revenue. it circulates over 50 times in one year.

we use our free choice to choose how to spend money. it matters that all 300 million of us have a paddle to participate in the ocean of money. host: more people identifying were saying they are democrat, how does that relate to everything you have said? caller: when a party does not have a solution it causes a lot of friction between both parties. the democrats participate in that problem of not being able to do arithmetic. it changes, we have spent $4 trillion so far. there are over 300 million people in the united states. about three per family. there's about 100 million bank accounts.

most democrats and republicans cannot survive the $4 trillion they have spent. even the 100 million family bank accounts. host: we will leave it there. as far as people's opinions on this topic, we invite you to continue on and keep calling to let us know what you think about this trend that is happening. gallup is highlighting more americans here, identifying as a democrat. versus a republican. you could call on the lines and post on social media. we will pause for just a second. anita kumar, of politico joins us, she is their political correspondent. guest: thanks for having me. president biden will take six actions today on firearms. several will be through the

department of justice. he's also going to nominate his director of atf. that has been vacant. he will nominate david shipman. someone who worked at the atf for a long time but has been working at a gun control group. that might be kind of tough to get through the senate. he will also talk about money he wants to spending communities of color to combat violence. he wants to designate $5 billion over eight years. host: one of the topics expected to be addressed was the topic of ghost gun's, what is that and why it is it is important to the president? guest: it has become more popular. ghost gun's is a nickname for these type of guns that are homemade, makeshift. they are not regulated as firearms. if you buy one of these you have

to go through a background check but you don't right now. it will factor in who should not have a gun. in the last couple months, even the transition, he talks about certain things on the campaign trail. host: we have talked about assault style weapons as described by some, does that fall into consideration? guest: he wants congress to act. he still thinks that congress needs to act. we are likely to hear him talk about that again, including the assault rifles. he will act on something that is an assault type rifle. it was used in the boulder, colorado. it is not regulated as a rifle.

they also have to go through background checks and other mechanisms on one of those. host: do any of the actions directly hamper someone's ability to buy a gun? guest: a couple that we just talked about will allow people to go through a background check. if they don't meet the federal background check guidelines they can't buy these specific types of guns. it is not huge numbers here. for that, congress still needs to act. host: if someone is convicted of a domestic violence situation, they may be hampered. does that fall under what the president is doing today? guest: he didn't do that. what is important to know about today what the white house is telling us is this is just the first step. you might call it pretty modest,

they really wanted president biden to say something, they have been waiting for him to do something. this is not everything he's doing. it is just the first step. there are a lot of other suggestions he could do down the road. host: you reference david shipman, his confirmation may be difficult or interesting, explain why? guest: even though he worked at the atf for a long time, he has been working at giffords. one of the very prominent gun control groups. there might be some republicans in the senate, it is 50-50. he wants to do too many things with firearms and we were not sure. that is a possibility. yesterday after his name was announced you heard people talking about that and

speculating. even a couple of democrats, joe manchin of west virginia being one of them, how they feel about him. the president has already nominated someone for another job that did not get through. it is likely he did this so he won't have someone he needs to withdraw again. host: anita kumar covers the white house for politico. thanks for your time and walking us through what we are expecting to hear today. stay close to c-span for this announcement and go to our website for more information. back to the topic of more people saying they are democrat or identifying as a democrat in 2021. mary lou on our independent line, thanks for waiting. go ahead. caller: i reregistered as an independent when trump was nominated. i left the republican party

after 44 years. i cannot be a part of a party who could elect someone who is a serial adulterer, lawyer -- liar, draft dodger, etc.. republicans don't know how to govern. they want power but they don't know how to govern. i voted for joe biden. i am a true independent. i like joe biden. i think he is doing a really good job. a lot of my friends ask me, why do you think jim jordan will not run? i said because he is not popular. he is only popular in his gerrymandered district. that is why. host: when it comes to the choice for aligning with president biden, was that an

easy choice? what is the determining factor? caller: i watched joe biden for years. i used to watch him when i could , with the judiciary in etc. i think he is an honest man who has been through what a lot of us have been through. even becoming stronger. i really believe he is a decent man who will do what is right for the country. i don't think he has all of these motives like trump to line his pockets, his children lining their pockets. i don't see that. host: that is mary lou and cleveland let hear from george. caller: when you listen to right-wing media, oann, newsmax,

breitbart, everything out of their mouth is far-left, far-left. i am a political liberal. you hate success, you want to punish success. the producer class are the tens of millions of people who work in the nonunion factories and corporate retail outlets. they struggle on meager means. people who struggle on meager means who are productive people are told we don't take personal responsibility. it is the u.s. chamber of commerce, the association who have all the power. host: why do you identify as a democrat? caller: historically since fdr

and don they have always taken the side -- there has been some disingenuous along the way. they have pretty much always taken the side of david over goliath. the gop and the conservatives have always favored goliath as the hero, the people on top usurp power. you feel like you listen to the gop rant and rave, us versus them mentality, it is almost like and are the offspring of ayn rand and joe mccarthy. host: let's go to our next caller. republican line. caller: i am a conservative because i have conservative beliefs and values. i just hear -- what is the

word i'm looking for. callers vilifying trump and praising biden. i'm just looking at the trajectory of this country and where we are going. our borders are completely inundated with a legal -- illegals, the two they caught from yemen. host: what do you think about these trends of more people identifying as democrats these days? caller: i think the reason they are identifying with the democrat party is because they just have this animosity toward trump. i think that is the bottom line, that they have this animosity toward trump. he was a game changer. they all got their feelings hurt. that is what i believe. host: karen in washington state.

let's hear from charles, bristol, tennessee. independent line. caller: do people not understand that the majority of the people of the united states at this moment that they favor the wonderful things that joe biden is going to do right now? what i don't understand, the people in west virginia, manchin is neither democrat or republican. he is trying to gain the favor of the people there. i was raised in west virginia there. i have learned in the 1990's, these nonunion companies came in and grew people out of the house is, they tore the houses down, i'm talking thousands of people. do the people or the state of west virginia. remember 1921?

a republican administration sent airplanes out to bomb those people. host: you say you identify as an independent. do you vote for republicans most of the time? caller: no. i have in the past, but no way. from 1932, let's think about it. from 1932 to 1952, everything was nice. no, i never want anything to do with the republicans. host: that is charles in tennessee. larry on the republican line. caller: the republicans have become the party of lies and deceit. they blame black lives matter and and tebow for the insurrection. -- antifa for the insurrection.

and then they continue to tell the big lie about the voting. host: why do you identify as a democrat? caller: i believe in democratic values, that is why. they continue to tell the big lie about the voting. they are keeping minorities from voting. host: back to the question that we are dealing with, why do you identify as a democrat, what are those values as far as you are concerned? caller: joe believes in the middle class, taking care of the poor people. the republicans only care about big business and the rich people. caller: that -- host: that is larry in mississippi. on the local level, some trends happening as well. click orlando, in florida, more than 36,000 voters previously

registered as republicans have left the gop. three times as many republicans changed their party affiliation as democrats. however, it's a small fraction of the 14.5 million registered voters. baton rouge, louisiana, data revealed 7100 louisiana voters left the party since the attack on january 6. a report from the new york times found more than 100 million republicans left the party in the weeks after the capitol riot. kalb.com is where you can find that. and a recent story featuring the mayor of north las vegas, john lee, saying this past tuesday that he is planning to change his party affiliation, leaving

the democratic party and becoming a republican. he did an interview on fox news as some of the reasons for the change. >> you say the democratic party is now being run by admitted socialists, and that is why you had to get out. >> i would say card-carrying socialists. the democratic party in nevada, they had an election and four members were card-carrying members of the socialist party. it is not the party i grew up in 25 years ago. >> the democratic party you grew up with was the party of the working class, but you don't see that anymore. >> the working men and women of this country and the small business owners are not a part of the conversation anymore. it all has to do with the elitists and socialists. that is not the agenda i have in mind for this country and the future. >> what do people out there in the las vegas area think about

how joe biden is remaking the federal government into a gigantic, much bigger jobs program? >> we have had issues in the west here with covid, tourism, hospitality, and gaming industry, but we are not for expanding the government even more in our lives. that is not what we want out west. we will not accept it anymore. host: let's get an opinion from jennifer in belmar, new jersey. republican line. caller: good morning, pedro. how are you? i wanted to call in today, as everyone was offering their opinions of how they switched sides. i wanted to give a different opinion of how i grew up democrat and switched to the republican side. was thinking about going independent after this, but when trump was running, i thought it we be good to have a different person in politics that was not

a politician, born, bred homegrown politician. like him or hate him, he did a lot of good for this country. people need to be doing their own research. that is where the heart of it is. if they don't do their own research and just listen to the media, they cannot be a freethinker. people should be free thinking. host: what catch you from holding on as an independent? caller: i don't know. the parties are switching, like the biggest mare you just play the clip from. years ago, the democrats were for the working people, now they are not. if you research you can tell. big pharma, corporations are in there. host: as far as the trends we are talking about, more people identifying with democrats, does that worry you, do you think it will change over time? caller: it does worry me a

little bit because i don't think they have done their due diligence and research, to be honest. the whole thing with moving the mlb games out of georgia, if people sat down and read the bill, i know it's a lot of pages, but it would probably behoove them to do that. host: that is jennifer in new jersey. she is calling on the republican line. you can call on the independent or democrat line as well. we have jeremy on the phone. caller: thank you for c-span. i would like to bring up numerous points, but i don't have time. i am just wondering, what is wrong with being taxed to keep something, to conserve something, to develop an infrastructure, so that we as human beings on earth can learn to live? i don't understand the issue.

host: you identify as an independent. do you trend to support democrats or republicans? caller: i don't vote. in 2016, i tried to vote. i did not have a police contact, but it got close. not my issue. host: thank you. tyrone on the democrat line. caller: hello. i think this country has the most wonderful experiment by trying to move forward and not getting stuck in the past. the fact that seven out of the eight last presidential elections, the democratic party has won the popular vote seven times out of the eight presidential elections. that just shows you that we have

always been going toward democratic rule, but the republicans know how to rig the game so they win elections. that is why they are coming up with all of these laws in different states. republicans need to realize we are not going to stand still and this country is not going to move backwards. we are not going to make this country great again. we are going to make this country greater, to be more responsive for all the people in this country, not just for the people that don't care about other people. we want to bring everyone along. that is what the democratic party seems to me. it is not democrats or republicans, it is who is willing to move the country forward for all of us. host: tyrone in new york giving us a call.

you can do so for the 20 minutes or so remaining in this segment. a facebook posting, not surprising when it comes to the republican opposition to the relief package and infrastructure bill. randy in michigan saying i've been a democrat my whole life, 63 years on earth. i was raised to try to fix what was wrong, not run and hide. shirley from maine. free, free, free. america has become lazy and they want democrat daddy to take care of them. they cannot think for themselves. also adding that our ancestors are turning in their graves. texts available at (202) 748-8003. catherine is up next, independent line, conway, new hampshire. caller: good morning.

there are many political parties in the country and they are trying to deal with the issues we are confronting today. i think we should imagine what we would like 100 years in the future. this example is far out, but today, 3d printers can make meat products. may be also in the future there will be no farms, no ranchers, orchards, people will not go hungry and starve, people will not be needed to plant and harvest crops. people will not be working in processing plants and transporting fruits like oranges from florida to the north. people will program their 3d printers and grow their own breakfast, lunch, and dinner. host: all that said, we are talking about people identifying as democrats.

how does that relate? caller: if we think about the future, all of these separate parties which deal with problems today, but if we think about the future, it will be a different party for our country. people 100 years ago did not envision plastic and computers, doing outerspace research. we need to evolve. host: ann in jamaica, new york. you are next. caller: good morning, pedro. i am a democrat, sometimes i vote independent. i just think the republican party lost their total mind, first of all, for electing donald trump. i'm a new yorker, so i knew he was a crook from the beginning.

it is just sad that republicans in the way they are at, they will not go along with anything biden is trying to do to bring this country forward. they are lying. i have read the bill from georgia. they are only trying to stop brown people that look like me and other people from trying to vote. i work for the polls in new york city. i know that this is absolutely crazy what the republicans are doing. host: why do you identify as a democrat? caller: because i value the democrats, some of the things, not everything they stand for, and i value very little right now that the republicans stand for. host: as far as the democratic party, what do you value most? caller: they are trying to move this country forward. we need america to go forward.

they want to take us back to when my grandfather could not vote in the carolinas, that is where they want to take us back. host: we will hear from an independent from newfield, new jersey. this is bill. caller: good morning. i'm listening to these people talking about moving forward. i don't understand what they are talking about. it seems to me we are moving in the wrong direction, not forward. we are moving more toward the devil, i would say. the republican party is not good. the democratic party is not good, but the democratic party is the worse of the two evils. the people that move toward democrats are mostly the reason i think it is increasing is because of the colleges. and they indoctrinate people to the left way of thinking.

people teaching in college. do you think they are going to teach them anything that you supported 20 years ago? host: you sound like an independent that trends to republican. why is that? caller: i am 78 years old. i have seen in this country good times and bad times. the best times this country has ever had was right after world war ii right after the 1960's. then a lot of it has to do with the vietnam war, sure, but people were going completely crazy. they have gotten worse from that point until now. host: and what does that mean as long as the party you support, i'm sensing republican, but why specifically? caller: one of the biggest reasons is abortions.

the democrats are for abortions. i don't believe in killing babies. host: i have to leave you there. we will go on to blacksburg, south carolina. republican line, this is betty. caller: the woman that was on from new jersey, she was right on the button. host: how so? caller: i hope that you do not hang me up. i would think the democrats, -- if people do not see, they are blind. there is the border, there are the pipelines, the guns, it is on and on. how are you going to defend yourself if somebody comes in your house and you cannot defend yourself? you are going to be dead people. you look at 2019, did you see

all of this stuff going on? i didn't. host: as far as more people identifying as democrats these days, what do you think of that trend? caller: he come in and he start changing everything. look at the border, all of them people and children. i am 76 years old, so i don't work. high taxes. gas. you name it. these people don't realize. i hope they love a democrat president, because i'm telling you now, republicans, donald trump was the best president we ever had. host: that is betty in blacksburg, south carolina. 10 minutes left on your thoughts on this trend that gallup is

seeing when it comes to people saying they are democrat, more people identifying as a democrat in 2021. other pieces of news, an op-ed from west virginia, senator joe manchin, i will not vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster. he says every time the senate has voted to weaken the filibuster in the past decade, political dysfunction and gridlock have grown more severe. this only fuels the hateful rhetoric and violence we see across the country right now. the truth is, my democratic friends do not have all the answers and my republican friends do not either. adding, i do not believe budget reconciliation should replace regular order in the senate. how is that good for the future of this nation? republicans have a responsibility however to stop saying no and participate in finding real compromise with democrats.

that is in the washington times. the latest concerning florida's representative matt gaetz, with former president trump responding, saying the former president said, refuted reports that representative gaetz had asked his office for a preemptive pardon. congressman gates never asked me for a pardon. it must also be remembered that he denied the accusations against him. the statement was the first time the former president weighed in on the story that has engulfed the lord republican. if you want to read more of that story, that is the washington times. in the washington post this morning, a story featuring one of the supreme court justices, stephen breyer, making a speech about what is known as court-packing. one of the courts three liberals defended independents by

boarding a decision to prevent president trump, seeking to overcome the election defeat. in a speech at harvard law school on tuesday, he said the court's authority depends on a trust that the court is guided on legal principle, not politics, adding the perception of political influence can only feed that latter perception, further eroding the trust. you can read more of those comments on the washington post. chicago, illinois, this is bill on the independent line. caller: hello, pedro. this is bill from chicago. i wish everyone were independent voters, or independent thinkers, let's put it like that. we were warned, when they created this country, by those who created the declaration of independence, those that created the bills and laws thereafter,

that party affiliation would not be in the best interest of this country. here we are 200-plus years later and what are we doing? many of us vote based on party affiliation. that is like blind boating. it should not be that way. we should be voting on policy, regardless of what party is promoting that particular policy. i am a black man living in chicago 67 years. blacks are obviously leaning more democrat because of the kennedy-nixon election cycle. president kennedy assisted dr. king during those times in the civil rights, they put civil rights laws and acts. nixon came along and got the civil rights --

host: i appreciate the history, but in the interest of time, who do you support, democrat or republican? caller: i vote based on policy. if the democrat promote a correct policy, i will vote for it. if a republican promotes a particular policy that is an interest of everybody, i will vote for that individual. host: did you vote for republicans and democrats in the past? caller: yes, and that is only recent. i have learned about the democratic party. the democrats run every major city in this country. blacks are at the bottom of everything except for high incarceration and high unemployment, so why am i supporting a party that really doesn't support me as a black individual in essence? they do a little bit better than republicans, but again, democrats run all of these major cities.

if you think your schools are poor, your health care, housing and so forth are terrible, you have to put it at the feet of the democratic party. host: that is bill in chicago. tampa, florida. sharon, hello. -- karen, hello. caller: my opinion is the trend is primarily based on demographics. the older generation, and i'm a part of it, the boomers and the generation before the boomers believed in i guess what would be considered social conservative ideas. i think racism was part of that. i think that is very clear when you see what happened with president obama's administration, the backlash against him, how some people say

that he was the worst president ever based on nothing, except that he was a black man. how people say trump was the best president ever based on policies unknown, but basically because he spoke racisms. host: if this is a generational thing, do you think the trends we are seeing now will continue? caller: i am myself a progressive, so i hope so. i think there is a backlash, i think we saw that with the insurrection on january 6. the question, i guess, would be dependent now on how successful the current administration and congress is in stopping some of the country's problems.

host: that is karen in florida. lancaster, dominic, independent line. caller: yes, sir. my name is dominique. i was calling because everyone is calling thinking donald trump did not do anything for us. number one, nobody realizes that is why the filibuster is there, so we can negotiate on things. the democrats do not want to negotiate. number two, the founding fathers, they were not considered christians by the bible as far as what morals we would have. host: what do you think about these trends we have been talking about then?

caller: well, my personal view is, people are not looking ahead at what is going to happen. there was something that came out, agenda 21. they ought to read what it is. this has been going on for them to do this for 40-something years. host: one more call. michael in scottsboro, alabama. go ahead. caller: yes, i vote democrat. i think the country is going democrat because they have seen what the republicans stand for due to the insurrection, due to their love of donald trump. the democrats stand for the common people, the ordinary man. the republicans stand for the wealthiest. it has always been the party of the wealthy. host: when you say they stand for the ordinary man, give me

specifics. what do you see as far as this administration is concerned? caller: this administration intends to raise taxes on the wealthy, those making $400,000 or more. under trump, they wanted to end taxes on the wealthy and raise taxes on the poor and common man. that is what i see is the difference. there are three kinds of republicans that i have come to realize. there are millionaires, billionaires, and suckers. host: michael in scottsboro, alabama finishing up this hour, talking about the trends at gallup. you can go to gallup.com for more on that survey. in q4 participating. we have been featuring political podcasters this week. coming up, we will hear from arnie arneson, host of the

attitude with arnie arneson. later on in the program, former trump administration official ken cuccinelli served as chair of immigrations and custom enforcement. we will talk about issues of voting, particularly what is happening in the senate and elsewhere. those conversations coming up on "washington journal." ♪ >> american history tv on c-span3. explore the people and events that tell the american story, every weekend, saturday at 2:00 eastern on oral history. leon ellis talks about his time serving in the vietnam war and as a prisoner of war for five years. saturday at 6:00 eastern on the civil war, a look at confederate boat burners on the mississippi during the last years of the mississippi war. saturday at 8:00 eastern on lectures and history, american university history professor the

moment and the public opinion to the vietnam war. sunday at 2:00 eastern on oral history. u.s. army veteran david flex on his time serving as a clerk during the vietnam war. sunday at 8:00 eastern on the presidency, a look at newly elected president first addresses to a joint session of congress with george w. bush in 2001 and president barack obama in 2009. explore the american story. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> coming up today, a discussion on proposals to change the federal court structure with the american constitution society for law and policy. live coverage begins at 4:00 eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, or listen live with the free c-span radio app. >> washington journal continues.

host: all week we have been featuring political podcasters. joining us today is arnie arneson, the host of the attitude with arnie arneson, syndicated talk show host in new hampshire. thanks for giving us your time. guest: it's a pleasure. it is a gorgeous morning, lovely to talk to you. host: the podcast, talk about it, and why you chose to entitle it the attitude. guest: anyone that knows me knows that i have one, so i guess that is the reason why. in 2011, we started a radio show and a small community radio station and started podcasting. why did i do that? my husband was dying of stage iv cancer. i needed an audience to talk to that was flexible, so if we have to go to the hospital because do whatever. it turned out it was matching my life, which was so challenging at the time, but still let me

talk to the world about the issues we are facing. in 2011, i thought things were bad, but 2021, i have a headache. it's been an important opportunity for me to talk to people in texas, michigan, north carolina. while i am based in new hampshire, they teach me about their lives and challenges. i think that makes me a better broadcaster. host: how often do you produce a podcast, where can people find it, what do you put in it? guest: the podcast is every single damn day, five days a week since 2011. they can download the podcast there. we begin the show every day -- we have our own version of calvin trillin. he writes a bit of political poetry, so i will give you an example of how we begin our show every day with a bit of political verse. i saw a political sign, trump

2024, in a diehard's yard who wants to restore a time of lies and deceit, constant hate and defeat, of a demagogue leader rotten to the core. obviously we are a progressive podcast. every day we have a different one, if it is about matt gaetz, infrastructure, maybe baseball. we begin that way, but then the topics range -- i will give you an example of this week. this week we had the great tetrick smith, worked for frontline, wrote a book called "who stole the american dream," and he focuses on voting access and civics. he was a phenomenal interview. we had colonel wilkerson on who work for secretary of state powell, talking about why we need to move away from the voluntary military. we had john nichols of the

nation magazine talking about hr one, and the fact that iowa and new hampshire may lose their first in the nation status when it comes to the caucus and primary. we talked to robert from cornell law school, who talked about the illusion of inflation and why it makes no sense. that is just part of our week. we have this random conversation about all of these topics. i have to tell you, i am a nut about things like batteries and climate change. i believe in the democratization of energy and i want everyone to have solar panels in their roof, a battery in their basement, and then we will all feel secure no matter what the weather is like. host: if you want to call in with questions for our guests, (202) 748-8001 four republicans, (202) 748-8002 four democrats, (202) 748-8003 for independence.

how do you view the first few months of the bottom presidency? guest: i am blown away. in the primaries, where did he place, fifth, seventh? we didn't see a pulse, we were not sure that he could make it to the next primary state. yet, what happened in south carolina was remarkable. it was based on a very different experience than he would have gotten in iowa or new hampshire. south carolina is a much more diverse state, they had a different experience with him, maybe different expectations, a different experience with him, maybe different expectations. relief bill was remarkable what is exciting about joe biden, he wants to remake capitalism. he wants a capitalism that actually reflects the needs and wants of labor, of workers, not just wall street or finance but workers. everything he is doing is looking at people and zoning

legislation that not only sees them, sees the challenges of their lives, but wants to improve their lives. what is an economy for? it is not for the 1%, it is the 99%. everything, he is doing says i understand your life i see your challenges. let's figure out what we can do with the child credit. let's figure out what we can do by bringing manufacturing home. let's improve infrastructure so you can get to work. childcare is infrastructure. if i don't have childcare, guess what i cannot do? i cannot go to work. employers need me to be flexible. if i need to be flexible, i need support for childcare so i can accommodate your work. that is part of infrastructure, not just investing in the mother and father with the kids. it is investing in the community. that brings about security and success. host: when you see headlines

like we are seeing in the past couple days about the president open to negotiating on the corporate tax hike, is that a good move for him as far as you as a progressive is concerned? guest: we went from 35% to 21 percent? i think he should have said 31% that he wanted to raise it to, and then joe manchin would agree to 28. i think he is willing to negotiate, but let's be honest. in the 1940's, 1950's, corporate taxes represented 40% of the revenue we raised. by 2017, it was down to 7%. 7%. 55 corporations in this country, including fedex, paid zippo and corporate taxes. who pays nothing in corporate income taxes? corporations have been doing swimmingly well.

they only pay taxes on their profits. not one corporation in this country should not pay anything in taxes. by bringing it up to 28%, it is a win-win for them. they were shocked when donald trump brought it down to 21. 28 is reasonable and they have been earning a helluva lot. host: you may have seen the op-ed that senator manchin has about the filibuster, saying that he is not voting along those lines, kyrsten sinema also . what is your reaction to democrats saying these sort of things? guest: let's hold hands and talk, let's see how long the republican keep saying no to everything. they have become a party of no. no taxes, no government, no release bill. manchin needs to look at his state, one of the poorest in the nation. if he will say no to things that benefit his constituents, improve infrastructure, figure

out what happens when the coal mines shut down. they need a job, need a life, education, if he says no to them, then the people of west virginia need to say i'm a you are not serving us, you are serving the gop who has said no to everything. they have not worked to negotiate. that is not a party anymore. if you don't have a party to negotiate with, either get rid of the filibuster or look at reconciliation. but people pass things that will make a difference for his west virginia residents. host: first call comes from john in new salem, oregon. caller: good morning, america, from the great northwest. good morning, pedro, arnie. i just want to say real quick, i think this is a really good opportunity for democrats.

i am a recovered republican myself. right now, the republican party seems to stand for insurrection, the big lie, and restricting people's ability to vote. democrats are looking at the future, charging stations for cars, we want to go to electric cars, planes, trains, automobiles. we want to face the future. we want to get our country -- and ,arnie, one of the things that you didn't mention was the proposal to increase the pay for workers that take care of our invalid parents, people that need homecare. that is great. these people are aerobic, two things that -- he wrote it, do things that nobody else wants to do, and they need to be paid for it.

guest: part of the infrastructure bill goes to that, $400 billion. we have an aging demographic. we don't have a lot of long term health insurance policies. the only way you get covered, if you get ill and become invalid, where do you go? you have to get rid of all of your assets and go on medicaid in order to stay in a nursing home setting or home setting. that means the vast majority of people will end up spending every dime they have two take care of their aging parents or someone with disabilities. that is not only bad for them, not only do they lose assets, but it removes them from the workforce. if we are going to recognize our aging demographics, we need to prepare for that and have a care system in place that allows people to be cared for with dignity, affordability, so that their children and grandchildren can actually go to work. host: arnie arneson is our guest

today. we are featuring political podcasters. you can ask a question, i know that some had mentioned that michael moore was supposed to be on today but he had to back out. guest: i will take over for michael any day. [laughter] host: as far as politics, particularly what you expect from the house and senate going forward, what are you looking at on these bills, infrastructure, what is the best hand for speaker pelosi and the majority leader schumer at this point? guest: my biggest concern right now -- and in part, georgia is on our mind. hr one, the we the people bill, will be critical on so many levels. none of these big decisions, whether it is infrastructure or health care or childcare, they will not have any meaning if we cannot protect the franchise. what is so scary for me, the brennan center has been following all of these voter suppression bills.

i don't even call them voter suppression bills. they are called legalized cheating. it is not voter suppression, they want to cheat in order to win. they want to make sure that people waiting in line for eight hours cannot get water or food, despite being in the hot sun. a good samaritan would have to give you a glass of water and they break the law? they are looking at restricting the number of hours you can vote, restricting the number of drop boxes. the republicans support donald trump's big lie that somehow he didn't lose the election, but now they want to ensure that the big lie becomes the big cheat. 47 states introducing 360 bills to make it more difficult to vote, you have to ask what that is about. that is being antidemocratic. this country starting in 1776 only allowed white male protestants with land to vote.

with each passing decade. we kept on expanding the franchise. the republican party to go back to 1776. they only want white male protestant landowners to vote. welcome to america, we are a different place. pass hr one, protect us across the board, then allow the voters to decide. i come from a republican family. start talking about things that affect people's lives. saying no to your voters does not help them. saying no to investment doesn't help them. what will you say yes to to make a better state and country? that is when elections should be about. host: you have heard from republicans, and you have heard that georgia's bill is being misrepresented. is that a fair assessment? guest: it is not just georgia. georgia is the poster child for

voter suppression and voter cheating. my state of new hampshire, we have almost identical legislation being introduced. texas, arkansas. 47 states. if they have republican legislatures and a republican governor, it's a slamdunk. the voters will have greater difficulty exercising their franchise in the future. i understand georgia, but what do you start doing, not showing up for any baseball game in any part of the country? you saw what happened in texas, governor abbott refusing to throw out the first ball at the rangers game because they moved the game from georgia to colorado. we have to address this. the best way to address this is to create a level playing field with hr one, so that no matter what state you are in, you know you will have your vote protected. then let the politicians and the republican party and the democrat party speak to the voters, and people should exercise their choice.

that is what democracy is about, information, boating, and a choice. host: high point, carolina -- north carolina. kenneth, go ahead. guest: what is she blown away by, the open borders allowing tens of thousands of people to come into this country without a covid test? and we have a vice president who refuses to see what the hell is going on in our country. is she blown away by the cancel culture and the censorship of big tech? if you go by the 11,000 jobs that joe biden slashed in america and canada, it produces our infrastructure. issue blown away by the deficits and runaway debt that we have that her generation will not be responsible for? is she away by the transgender agenda that is dismantling the genitalia of our babies? issue blown away by the introductory nation in our schools? issue blown away by hr one?

issue blown away. -- the supreme court should not have refused the case from pennsylvania. what exactly is she blown away? the destruction of our country? host: you have the gop talking points down perfectly. now let's talk about it. suddenly you notice deficits? how come you didn't notice deficits in 2017 when donald trump gave huge tax cuts to the rich? one of the arguments in the corporate tax rate going from 38 to 21, don't worry, they will invest in their workers. they will make capital investments and improve their capital structure. what did they do? they bought their stock back. they didn't make the r&d investments, they didn't investment labor. we have huge deficits from donald trump and no investment. what you are seeing right now with joe biden is he understands that he will be spending money, but here is the difference

between what he will do with the deficit versus donald trump. the deficit he creates is called an investment. it is an investment that grows taxes, gross income, grows the economy, brings back manufacturing jobs, and those 11,000 jobs that he got rid of because of the pipeline, he will create millions of jobs. do the cost benefit analysis. here is how you evaluate joe biden. do the damn math. you can afford your childcare, access to health care, you have got a good job, they raise the minimum wage, and your country and community and your schools are better. you are healthier and you have a job and you have less debt for your kids for college. if that makes a difference in your life, then joe biden is a wild success in the republicans were a failure. host: let me bring up something he brought up, immigration.

how is the immigration handling this at the border and are they to blame? guest: first of all, we have not. with immigration for decades. it is the third rail of politics. let's talk about undocumented immigrants. in the community of houston, there are 600,000 undocumented immigrants. if you want to know what is going on in places like california and iowa, the reason you have food on your table, the reason you have meat on your plates, your hospitals are clean, so many are undocumented immigrants. those that are coming across the border, they are not given a go free pass. they will have to go to court and prove their point. if they cannot prove that they deserve the status they want, they are sent back. once they come in, they are not here permanently. they have a court date and that decide what happens to them. it happens all the time. it is the spring, it happens all the time. it is not about joe biden.

the world is changing and migration is a part of the future. host: we are speaking to arnie arneson, appearing as part of our podcasting series. the attitude with arnie arneson is where you can find her. david is on from michigan, democrat line. caller: thank you for taking my call. let's be real, too, the 11 million undocumented people in america right now, at least obama tried to get them out of the woodwork. but they all came in from 2004 until 2006, on the, so let's clear that up. let's also call it for what it is, the voter suppression laws in effect might now as we speak. it is good old-fashioned republican cheating. if republican do not cheat, they cannot win. it is an honor to talk with you. i could go on and on, the

success of democrats always creating jobs, balancing budgets. my god, bill clinton left a surplus. what did george w do with it? gave it to the rich. let's be real, everyone. a republican caller that had the republican talking points, he is just reading from a sheet of fox news. guest: let me just say, i have not always been very proud of the democratic party. i ran for governor in the 1990's. let me tell you what was happening what i ran for congress. i was running against bill clinton, the crime bill, the welfare reform bill. after i lost, remember, this is bill clinton who deregulated derivatives, got rid of

glass-steagall. my party has not been the most enlightened. but what is so exciting looking at joe biden versus bill clinton, he was the big tech guy. he protected corporations, unfortunately. now we see joe biden say an economy is for the workers, and 90%. if we don't invest in labor, we are not investing in ourselves. corporations are able to do a lot of things very successfully. according to mitch mcconnell, they are people, except they should not have a soul or a heart or a position on voting, but they should definitely have a wallet, so they know how to contribute to campaigns. we are seeing an enlightened democratic party. it has not always made the right choices. joe biden being around, he saw some of the mistakes, he made some of them. but the beauty of joe biden is that he leads from behind and it becomes the moment. what is fascinating is what is

ahead of joe biden are people who have been talking to him about the yawning investment we need, about the inequality, the investments in health care infrastructure, not only bringing jobs back but using the infrastructure dollars to make sure that the steel they are making will be used in the bridges that we need. joe biden reflect what we need at this moment. we have so many things to face with the pandemic, climate change, inequality, a changing global environment because of places like china. you have to be grateful that at least we are a party that involves. the republican party has devolved. they are not a party anymore, they are a mob. the only were they know in their lexicon is no. host: so what should republicans do to reach out to president biden to work on things? guest: it is almost a form of political theater because we

want the feeling that we can be bipartisan. i want a strong and effective republican party. i come from a republican household. the man that asked me to run in 1984, believe it or not, was the republican majority leader. he watched me in action and asked me what i was doing in the fall. i said i don't know how to break this to you, but i'm a democrat, in fact, i think i'm a liberal democrat. this is what joe biden and america hopes for. what the republican majority said to me in 1984, 75% of what we do the new hampshire legislature is what is good for new hampshire. 25% of it is very partisan. i think you need to be there for the 75%. that statement cannot be made today in 2021. it cannot be made in the u.s. congress and it cannot be made in any legislative body in america. that is what has happened to the republican party. they don't want to work, they

don't want to do policy. they don't want to understand compromise they are a party of no, and that is not a governing party. host: was there a single moment where you realize you were a liberal democrat, or a series of moments? guest: my father bred me the wall street journal as a child. i came from a very conservative family. but there was one interesting thing my father taught me. he used to say to me, always question authority. then at about age 12 or 13, i looked at my dad, and i said, you know that means questioning you, papa? i started to do that. my family was a little shocked at what i became. when i ran for congress, my father had three bumper stickers on the back of his car. one was anything but the liberal media, don't believe clinton, and arnie for congress. i looked at dad and said one of

those things has to go. he took me off. [laughter] but i'm glad i came from a conservative family. they taught me to listen to a different voice, understand a different perspective. i did commercial talk radio for a number of years, in fact, replace rush limbaugh in five stations in our state. i am grateful for that because nobody has cornered the market on virtue. we can learn from each other. the question is can we dialogue with each other and can we figure out how to trust each other? right now i'm so afraid because the gop does not want to dialogue. therefore, how do you create the trust you need to move forward? i miss that gop. i learned from them, always am indebted to them, would not have entered electoral politics because of them, but now i mourn for them. host: let's hear from a republican in woodridge, illinois.

terry, you are our guest. caller: good morning. i wish your guest when talk so long so that callers cannot get in. i have some comments and then have a question. host: go ahead. you are on. caller: the people that you say you care more about, the blacks, in georgia, over 50% of the business owners did that. yes, they are moving things to colorado, but it is only 9% black, so how are you helping black people? you are saying voter id is racist. are you saying the black population is so stupid they cannot go and get the free id they are offering? the white house, he is the one with other lawmakers that created the problem which put our country on their hands and knees. president trump was a great

president. one question i want you to answer is, in arizona, if the election was so fair, and the court ordered them to turn over all of the voting ballots and the machines for a full audit, and they are fighting so hard over 100 days to not release it, what are you democrats trying to hide? guest: let's start with georgia, all right? i want to remind everyone, stacey abrams begged mlb not to move from georgia to colorado. she begged them. this is a woman who is the most outspoken on voter rights. because of her experience in georgia really has taught us about voter suppression. she understood the boycott did not make sense and the boycott would hurt georgia.

you are right, it would hurt georgia business people. it would hurt the black community. that was not a solution. but what did i say? 47 states have introduced voter suppression states have republican governors and legislatures. the problem is not the fact of what is happening in georgia, the fact is we have to protect franchise in all 50 states so we do not depend on corporations to join the boycott or do not remove a baseball game because that does not fix the problem it absolutely does not. there are good things in the georgia bill, there are some petty and retaliatory things, not everything was bad, but the whole reason was to support something they did not believe in which was a big lie. that is why you are seeing -- that is the 47 states introducing the voter suppression bills. it is not that they believe that people should not vote. they have to support donald

trump who said that it was a big lie i won, and if you do not change the voting patterns that i may not be able to win in 2020 four, and the gop is genuflecting to the lie and donald trump and that is what is happening. if we had hr one we have a level playing field and democracy is protected. host: illinois, independent line. tony. good morning. caller: thank you. you have been talking about the points where the gop goes too far, could you enumerate the points where the left goes too far, please? guest: let me think, does it go too far because it once medicare for all, i do not think so. does it go too far because it believes that student debt is the anti-dowry and we need to take it off of students, i do not think so. when it -- doesn't go too far to protect the right of choice for women and lgbtq transgender

issues. when the left -- the question i have is left of what? what do you see about the left that you are concerned about. i know as a progressive what i believe in and what i believe in is that i believe in workers, protecting the environment, and making investments. i want families to be protected and the cops to be able to do their jobs because society has done its job, it has done the mental health work and the investment in education it needs to do. part of the problem is that we have -- we as a society are actually setting up our police to fail because we have not made investments in communities. we have made it so disruptive because we have not allowed people to succeed that then we end up saying to the schools you feed them and give them health care and you do after school care, not educate kids, do all the things society has not done.

i am trying to figure out what the left believes and that will actually hurt us. host: he is still on the line, follow up on that, do you want to clarify something? caller: i mean, you are not answering the question. a lot of people on the left cannot answer this question and will not answer it. guest: what i'm trying to figure out is i do not know where you are going. left is very expansive and i am telling you from my position where i see the left going, if you want to look at bernie sanders and stacey abrams and aoc ic investment in our country and the ability to survive and be secure. those are things i believe in. i am not sure what you are talking about and i will not talk about communism because i am not a communist or socialism because i'm not a socialism. i am not saying that capitalism should not survive. i am saying capitalism should be survive -- should survive but

the focus should be our workers. host: mary from las vegas. let us start with the mayor from nevada talking about the democrats are socialists. you know what? we are not communists, and if you do not like fire departments, social security, medicare, then you do not like social programs. if you want to still keep feeding the coffers to the people who are able to take advantage, the corporate elite, there is your socialism. now, donald trump was not the greatest president ever. the guy gave us death and destruction, and slogans. him and his administration, let us talk about them. we had the bankruptcy king running the treasury department. powell, he was pumping billions

of dollars into the banks. he talked about his health care plan, he was going to be the best and the most beautiful thing and it never came to fruition like a lot of other things. all we got was a bunch of bs because he wanted money, the wall. they crowd sourced money, ok, for the wall. bannon took the money and was out on some chinese billionaire's yacht when he got picked up for pocketing the money. trump pardons him. host: is there a specific you want to engage with before we move on, go ahead. caller: well, william barr, he put so much stuff under the rug, he has buried it. host: we will let up there. guest: i think -- i do not want to get into semantics i want to get into investment. remember years ago some guy was

defending the republican party and shaking his finger at the democrats and say whatever you do do not take away my medicare and he saw the democratic party as challenging medicare not realizing that medicare was kind of a socialism project. that investing in universal for health care over -- for everyone over the age of 65. we should not get stuck on words, we should get stuck on policy. show me the benefits and investments, show me the results. i do not care what you call it, i want to look at how it impacts my life and community. if i see a positive benefit. if you want to talk about socialism we have had corporate socialism. corporate welfare. when you have 50 five major corporations in the united states that pay zero in income taxes tell me what that is about. that is corporate welfare, corporate socialism. you pay zero dollars in income taxes? i doubt it unless you are making

under 18 or $20,000 a year and then you are on food stamps and section eight housing and you cannot afford to put food on the table. understand the difference between multibillionaire companies that pay nothing in taxes and you who are struggling. i think what is so exciting about what is going on with amazon with the union drive is it is not about amazon, it is about recognizing the value of work. that is what i want to do. i want a labor capitalism, a worker capitalism. if we have that we all win, and so do corporations. i do not lose much because they are making a lot, and now we all succeed and not just them. host: this is arnie arnesen, the host of the part -- the podcast "the attitude with arnie arnesen" and also is a syndicated talk show. can you find it online? guest: go to their website, we stream every day, it airs at

12:00 noon and then at 7:00. you go to the same location and you find podcasts and we are heard in new mexico, texas, and pennsylvania, and around the country. i have been lucky to cover residential politics because i watched joe biden one -- run three times. host: republican line from georgia. this is chuck. caller: you are talking about how despicable trump was, but here is biden, he is calling everybody in the south that they are following jim crow laws. so he is accusing us of lynching, accusing us of being racist, because the people in texas -- he calls the people in texas neanderthals and will not say a word about the chinese killing and enslaving people and will not say a word about the border where children are dying. you need to get off of it.

joe biden is a crook. guest: ok. i think what job would -- when joe biden is referring to jim crow is talking about what is happening to the votes. i think he is absolutely accurate. when you are trying to reduce the franchise and creating laws around the country that really allow politicians to pick their voters and not voters to pick their politicians he has a reason to call it out and he must call it out. you are so worried about the fact that he has not talked about china, how did you not mention russia? putin and the guy that they have in jail who is now on a hunger strike because the russians want him dead. what do we know about putin who has made himself president for life. i think he can become president until 2034. how come you mention china but do not mention russia. joe biden is talking about china. china is the big economic

juggernaut, china has its problems and he is talking about it. the difference is that he wants to return to the world stage and bring the world together and address the world's pandemic and make sure that we get shots in the arms in the united states but around the world and understands that he needs to work with people he disagrees with, even if that means the russians, and putin, china and xi. he has a very different character. donald trump ignore the problems with china until he needed an enemy so china became the convenient enemy which is why we see the rise in asian hate. that is all he produced. no infrastructure, he made the wealthy are wealthy and we have asian hate. thank you donald trump, what a great contribution. host: huntsville, alabama. on the republican line, this is greg. caller: i have a question for you. do you agree with voter id, yes or no? guest: yes. caller: voter id is a great thing.

i think it is a fantastic thing. but an id and other -- in everyone's hands and i will be happy. as far as russia we broke that gas station. donald trump did a great job breaking the gas station and brought china to the table for. he did a good job. as far as biden, the point that he made in the border has blown up, we have enough money going out for a while we are not getting. i heard you talk about health care and social programs. did you like the affordable care act, yes or no? guest: i think it did not go far enough. caller: let me tell you this. 2013 200 64 million americans had health care inform -- had health care insurance. we paid an average of $705 and we pay 140 percent more and collect 180,600,000,000 monthly over $1 trillion that we are putting out monthly. you cannot say that it is the

pharmaceuticals because they have never collected over $600 billion. if we had 264 million people buying a policy and a half and we only got net 25 more, where is the money. guest: it is called the insurance industry. the problem with the affordable care act is that it made a deal with pharmaceutical and insurance companies. if you want to know why your money is being pistol way it is going into the pockets of insurance and pharmaceutical executives. it is not going into your health care, hospitals, nurses and your doctors. that is what we need to do. if you want to create an opportunity expand the public option and move towards expanding medicare and then those dollars will go into your health and not to the insurance company's profits. that is the problem with the affordable care act. not only did not go far enough it propped up the failure of health care, the insurance industry. they are not in the health care business they are in the profit

business and they are using health care as their excuse to gain profit. that is our problem. change the system, expand medicare for all and you will ultimately have not greater -- not only greater access but much cheaper and then you can spend money on your house, rent, and kids instead of writing a bill to an insurance company that is not there to protect you. host: do you think the biden administration will go that far? guest: look, my suggestion is expand the public option, expand the public option and lower medicare down to 55, 60, 50, or whatever. and put all of the federal workers into the public option, make them part of the program and i think all of a sudden people will do the math and if they do the math it will become more realistic to join the public option than to continue with private health insurance, just by the math, people will be driven to something that looks

more like medicare for all. i do not care if it is called that, i want people to get access to health care that is affordable to them and the problem is that it is not. host: the podcast is called "the attitude with arnie arnesen." you confirmed -- you can find it online along with her radio show. thank you for your time with us. guest: it is always a pleasure, call me again. host: for the next half-hour we will get your thoughts on this plan announcement by the biden administration, several executive actions when it comes to the topics of guns and gun violence. we will go through them and get your thinking as far as what you support or oppose it. if you support it, 202-748-8000. if you oppose it, 202-748-8001. and we will take up that when " washington journal" continues. before that though, he will go to a previous interview that we did -- we will go to a previous interview we did talking about

the parameters of what is expected from the biden administration. [video clip] >> president biden will take six actions on firearms, several will be through the department of justice. he is also going to nominate his director of atf, that has been vacant and he has not nominated anyone yet. he will nominate someone who worked at the atf for a long time but has been working at a gun control group, which should be interesting getting through the senate, that might be tough. he will talk about money that he wants to spend in communities of color to combat violence. he wants to designate $5 billion over eight years. host: one of the topics expected to be addressed was the topic of ghost gun's, can you explain what it is and why it is important? guest: that has become more popular. ghost guns is a nickname for the guns that are handmade, makeshift guns that you can buy kits for that they are not

regulated as firearms and do not have serial numbers. if they do not have serial numbers that does not mean -- that means that you are not regulated. if you buy one of these you have to go through a background check, you do not have to right now. it is important because it will factor in who should not have a gun, and that is something that he has been pushed to do by a lot of advocates in the last couple of months, even during the translation and he has talked about certain things on the campaign trail. host: one of the topics we hear about is assault style weapons as it has been described. does that fall into consideration when it comes to the president's actions? guest: not for today and he wants congress to act. he still thinks that congress needs to act. there are several bills that he supports and we are likely to hear him talk about that including the assault rifle. he will act on something that is an assault type rifle, that was used in the boulder, colorado

shooting just recently, something that falls through the cracks and is not regulated as a rifle, and what he wants to do is direct the department of justice to regulate those so they also have to go through background checks and other mechanisms before someone can own one of those. host: do any of the actions hamper someone's ability to buy a gun? guest: those couple that we talked about will allow people to go to a -- through a background check. if they do not meet the background check guidelines they cannot buy these specific types of guns. these are a couple of different things, it is not huge numbers here for that. congress still needs to act. host: if someone is convicted of a domestic violence situation they might be hampered buying a gun, does that fall into what the president will be doing today? guest: there was an executive action that advocates pushed him to do, and he did not do that.

what is important about today is that this is just the first step. you might call it modest, and you will see advocates cheering because they wanted president biden to do something and they had been waiting for him to do something, that it is the first step so this is not everything he is doing. there are a lot of other suggestions and other things he can do down the road. host: you referenced david chipman, the choice to head the atf. you said that his confirmation might be difficult, but interesting, explain why. guest: he actually, even though he worked at the atf for a long time, he has been working at gifford's, one of the very prominent gun control groups, and there might be some republicans in the senate. the senate is split 50-50, so it is tight. some of them might not like that and say that he wants to do to many things with firearms and we are not sure that we want him

there. we do not know what that will look like, but that is a possibility. yesterday after his name was announced you heard people talking about that and speculating and wondering how the senate republicans and even a couple of democrats, joe manchin being one of them, how they would feel about him. the president has nominated someone for another job that did not get through and it is likely he has vetted this person through many senators so he will not have someone that he needs to withdraw again. host: she covers the white house for political and you can -- politico and you can find her work on their website. thank you for walking us through what we are expecting to hear today. [end video clip] host: you can watch, and through c-span. -- through c-span.org with the plan when it comes to the series of executive actions and for about half an hour or so we will take your calls on it again. if you support the measures

which you heard your guest elaborate, 202-748-8000. if you oppose it, 202-748-8001. you can post on our social media sites and text us at 202-748-8003. the "washington post" highlights that when it comes to the actions on ghost gun's saying " it was in lieu of legislative action that several lawmakers urge the president to issue those executive orders. four democratic senators wrote the president last month asking the administration to regulate ghost gun's like other firearms." jen psaki sending out a treat -- tweet with when what to expect today, "gun violence is an epidemic and so far it has been a partisan administration for a long sense fighter for commonsense gun safety and it is a step forward to making our kids and community safer." from eastpointe michigan, a

supporter of the plan. go ahead and tell us why. she dropped. so, let us go to bob in fayetteville, pennsylvania, who opposes this. go ahead. caller: i am just glad that it did not go as far as he was saying that he wanted to go when he was running for president. if you remember he was going to get rid of the awesome -- the automatics with a stroke of a pen, which i assume is what he is doing today. and, basically what he is doing is stuff around the edges, and i think he has a pretty smart man. he realized that if you went ahead with what he was threatening to do we would have another civil war in this country. people are not going to allow the government to kick their door down and confiscate their weapons, that is not going to happen. at least not without a bloodbath.

so, this is proof that he -- host: that is bob in pennsylvania. patricia in ohio, a supporter. hello. caller: hello, i definitely support it. the second amendment is a misinterpreted, it calls for a militia that is -- what is the technical term? but, in ohio just past the stand your ground -- just passed the stand your ground bill in ohio and it is proven that there are more deaths by guns and states that have stand your ground bill. that is insanity. so, anything that joe biden, president biden can do to stem the violence in this country from guns he showed to do. i totally support it -- support

it and thank god we have a president that is willing to do that. host: patricia in ohio. "the washington post" highlights the legislative effort. "the white house has yet to release a legislative plan, instead the first of a pair of bills passed by the democratically controlled house on the liability legislation. the president said in a news conference that he plans to do all of the above, but that was a matter of timing suggesting other goals are more urgent. the house measures were asked -- would expand background checks to unlicensed individuals while closing what advocates of stricter gun laws have called the charleston loophole, which allows the gun sale to go through if the background check is not finished after three days. chuck schumer has promised to put those pillows on the summit -- senate floor for a vote but it is unclear if they can win a simple majority much less the support of 60 senators needed to pass much less -- most legislation in the senate."

everett opposes this effort. go ahead. caller: hello. i am opposed to it. basically this gives the people the right to keep and bear arms. most people opposed to the assault style weapons do not understand that the military definition of an assault white -- rifle is that it has a selector switch where it can go into automatic and they have been outlawed for years. if you call in and try to find out how me laws are in this country, the nra says around 9000, and it goes to whatever you can find and up to 20,000. host: what did you think specifically about the actions today and the things that he outlined? caller: i think that the ghost

style rifles and weapons of some kind that do not have social security numbers -- not social security numbers, identification numbers i think that they need to have that. i think that people need to make sure that they are in a good mental state when they buy a weapon or use a weapon. if they don't they should not have a weapon. that is where i come from. host: let us hear from carol in ohio on the support line. caller: hello. i am in support of these gun regulations. ohio is working to pass stand your ground, or it is taking effect and i am horrified. i grew up in the country, and on a farm. my dad had a shotgun, which was used only for predators with four legs, not those with two legs. i cannot imagine what the great

fear is of not having guns, or having them regulated. look what we do to a person driving a car. you know, there are rules and regulations, and we need those rules and regulations in the whole area of gun control. host: do you think the president should have gone further? caller: well, sure. but, this whole mindset of saying no to everything biden wants to do will just go out of control on something like guns. he will get such a horrible reaction, and so he has to take it step-by-step that makes sense, and that people can work -- look at that and realize that

he is not trying to put us in cages. host: carol in ohio. she mentioned the stand your ground laws. a fox affiliate in columbus, ohio says that ohio is joining three dozen states tuesday with a stand your ground law meaning that there is "no duty to retreat for an attack in which one is lawfully pleasant -- present. a legal gun owner can use deadly force if they reasonably believe that it is in the defense of life." this is from kenneth on our opposed line. hello. caller: good morning. i oppose this for a simple reason. i purchased my guns and went through a background check like everybody does when you go to a gun store. and, i am not going to give them up because i bought them to protect myself from a tyrannical government and that is what we have right now, a taranto government. i do not agree with anything

this president does. host: liz is in new jersey, a supporter. good morning. caller: i live in a state that has fairly strict gun regulation, and we also have an assault weapons ban in this state. so, obviously what the president is trying to do is very timid. april -- it probably will not save many lives, frankly, but it is a step in the right direction, and his state of delaware, which borders my state has more of a wild west policy towards guns. so, i am not surprised that his first step is pretty timid. host: liz in new jersey giving

her thoughts on this announcement, expected today by the president. when it comes to executive actions on the issue of guns again, stay close to c-span and/or website for that announcement and you can follow along at the website. if you want to listen you can do that on our free radio app. we will hear from fraser, michigan, who opposes this effort, go ahead. caller: here in fraser we have a small community. it has a fine police department which answers the homeowner's calls adequately and i do not complain about that. my point is this. i am sure that everybody who owns a handgun, i am 86 years old. i own a handgun and i know that there are times when i am

probably not going to use it my whole life, that is just like a security pillow that you hold onto when things get rough. this thing that started with these weapons, these these autoc ar 15's. you have to go back to where it all started and it started when obama was president and holder got a whole bunch of weapons that went into mexico to see who was buying these things. i am wondering how the ended up in the united states. i would like to know the serial number they were trying to trace and the weapons actually got sold from wherever. host: that is arger in michigan. we will do this, getting your thoughts on these expected executive actions. (202) 748-8000 if you support

what the president is going to support this afternoon. (202) 748-8001. a couple of bits of other news. we have financial reporting that another 744,000 americans filed new jobless claims last week. also the hill reporting that the republican resented if is running to become new york's governor. patrick, you are next. supports this effort. caller: thank you so much for taking my call. a couple of things. one is american people should not be more armed than the police department that protect us. when it comes down to actual safety, gun control will help protect the police. people are not thinking about that. also, when it comes to people

being, a background check is only going to make sure that people that mentally do not need it, do not get it. my last point is when it comes down to ghost gun's, let me tell you what ghost gun's is all about. this is not a kit. this is actually something that people can do to get automatic weapons and bypass background checks because what you do is you buy one section of the gun and that way, it is not considered a gun. then you buy another aspect of the gun in order for the gun to work and that is not considered buying a weapon. and then you can buy a kit in order to do the exact drill holes in order for the guns to work. the only reason i know about

this is because i was really flabbergasted when someone told me that you could actually do that and actually bypass all of the regulations. to do something where people try to go around it and try to get that regulated, it is only for the safety of the people of the united states. host: that is patrick in maryland. what is a ghost gun? , "are self assembled and therefore cannot be traced. those can be acquired by people who would not normally pass background checks. as part of the gun control plan, the justice department will issue a proposed rule to start the regulation of these ghost gun. a statement released by the white house says we are experiencing growing problem. criminals are containing all of the opponents -- components

within as little as 30 minutes and using these firearms to commit crimes." if you want to seek more that, newsweek is where you can find the story. we will hear from al in watertown, tennessee who opposes this effort. caller: what we have already heard is a lot of ignorance of the technology that is involved, a lot of the emotional argumentation. i'm going to talk about two facts. the first fact is prior to the gun control control act of 1959, serial numbers were not required ongoing that all. there are probably right now millions, at least millions of guns in this country with no serial numbers at all. also, there was no background check at all at one time. i have a magazine in front of me that said in july 1963, you could order a semi automatic nine mill miller handgun and they will send it directly to your door with no background check at all. what has happened in this

country with a crime has nothing to do with guns. you can google back before these laws, 1964 gun control act, you had no mass shootings, you had no levels of criminal acts like in chicago. let me summarize. we have open borders, we have people that are defunding the police and now they want to take our guns. there will be no compliance with these laws. none, zero, zip. host: that is out from watertown, tennessee. 11:45 is when we are expecting for president biden to announce these executive actions. when that happens, c-span is where you can monitor it. you can also go to c-span.org and follow along on our radio app. this is a reporter saying,, "a prominent emergency room doctors to grandchildren were involved in a shooting wednesday afternoon. the sears office says the

suspect has been accounted for, but no further details have been detailed. as for the motive for the suspects was shook with the victims. it is unclear if the suspect is in custody." needed in orlando, florida. a supporter of this effort. -- edith in orlando, florida. a supporter of this effort. caller: i am calling to say that any man or woman that thinks that they need guns, particularly the ar 15's, that is the mental health problem. the war that america fought in other countries, they are bringing it to their own country. thank you. host: from randy in michigan saying, "my state has background checks. i agree with that. we do need some reasonable gun control." steve in arkansas, "if you want

to stop gun violence, how about enforcing the laws already in place and not taking away guns from law-abiding citizens and leaving them helpless." dolly in kentucky, "we do not sell guns without kentucky -- without serial numbers. " cindy in colorado, "more people die from knives than guns. a movie communism has never worked in the way." texting is available, if you wish. (202) 748-8003 is how you do that. in florida, this is bill who opposes the effort. go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. we have enough laws on the books. the american association. these people that kill, we all know how they do it, 30 day trial and then they are fried. we put them in prison for 30 years and feed them. no matter what we do to change

our gun laws, we do not act. lawyers are a big business so it is the lawyers that are killing our people because of the slow laws. when the guns are gone, guess what they use overseas? bombs, so we will have more killings. get the lawyers. let's control the lawyers fees and have a due process of law. host: that is built in florida. we will go to maryland, a supporter of this effort. caller: good morning. i am not a gun owner and i am not against gun ownership. if gun owners want to be responsible citizens and law-abiding citizens, they should not have any objection to a gun check. host: as far as other news, the hill reporting that when it comes to proposals by the biden administration when it comes to corporate taxation, one million jobs in the first two years will

be lost if the corporate tax rate is increased to 28%. that is according to a study by the national association of manufacturers conducted by university economists. it cap collated the impact of increasing the corporate tax rate to 28%, increasing the top marginal tax rate, repealing the reduction, then needing certain provisions. this comes as the infrastructure package would increase the corporate tax rate to 28% and establish a minimum global tax, lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. next, we will hear from steve in columbia, south carolina opposes this effort. caller: i have a little fact for you. those gun kits, yes you can buy part of it without a background check. the lower receiver cannot be purchased without a federal firearms background check.

you cannot. all of those people, patricia, and people that say that you can buy these things and they are not registered, is a lie. it is a lie. you have to register the lower receiver of that kit period. host: terri is next in kentucky. a supporter. caller: i do support this effort, however, i think it needs to address some other issues. when we look at these public places, the schools, neighborhoods that are being shot up, somewhere we need to hold folks accountable who know where these guns are. some of them are stored in parent's homes. ammunitions are being sold. companies are profiting like crazy from the sale of guns. they cannot even keep up with ammunition enough to satisfy

those who have guns. we need to look at other areas in that bill. i support it. it is a start. but parents should know what is going on in their home. their wives and spouses who should know what is going on in their home. someone in those areas has to be accountable. the companies making money, paying off lobbyists, are just getting rich. thank you so much. host: test terri in kentucky. the washington times has a story talking about the head of the nra saying, "after school shootings that left thousands dead in recent years, he said the resulting outrage put him in danger, that he sought shelter on board a yacht during a deposition. the head of the gun rights group acknowledged sailing in the bahamas with his family as a security retreat in the summers following a 2012 school shooting in connecticut, a 2018 massacre in florida. i was under

presidential threat in terms of the number of threats i was getting according to a transcript of the deposition filed in over the weekend. this was the one place i hoped i could feel safe. thank god i am safe, knowing can get me here. the story as that the testimony in the trial over whether the nra should be allowed to incorporate in texas instead of new york where a lawsuit is trying to put it out of business. he is scheduled to take the witness stand in the case which is being conducted virtually before a court in dallas. cameron next from washington state in ocean shore who opposes this effort. caller: good morning. thanks, c-span, for having this topic because it is very important. i have some statistics i would like to give. i will be brief. first of all, it astounds me to hear americans think that we actually have a first amendment without a second amendment. the second amendment protects our first amendment.

i went to a site called everytownresearch.org. it says, the democrats think it is a health crisis. in 2009, 22 murders, 12,010 -- 2010, 10,000 murders. 2014, 15. 2016, 18. 2017, 18. 20, 19. the total mass shootings for that period where 173. the days during that period, 3650 days. the number of ar's owned as of 2019 are 7.70 4 million. understand, this is starting in 2009. think of how many were purchased before that. host:? ? what is the point? -- what is the point? caller: it astounds me to see

that people do not see through the democratic party with respect to our firearms. the last statistic, 422 million 900,000 firearms in the country that includes handguns. divided by 3650 equals 115,863 which is to wanda on a given day the odds of anything happening are 115,008 hundred 53 to one. host: ray is next who also opposes this effort. go ahead. caller: the reason that these suggestions by the president, or so-called president, are being made is because it will not pass in most of our states. he has to use executive order. i would be willing as a conservative to agree to gun

control law on a one for one basis. if a gun control law passes here in my state, they must pass at the same time a law that restricts the first amendment. i would agree to that. host: one more call, larry, hollywood, florida who opposes this effort. caller: if you take away our guns, it is worse than taking away the guns from the police. how are we going to defend ourselves if the crazies come after us? if they know we don't have guns, they will come after us. you take moscow. 98% do not have guns because it is a calm his country and that is what the democrats are heading -- it is a communist country and that is what the democrats are heading for. it is a beautiful country and we are throwing it away. this biden fellow is senile.

host: what is the issue there? caller: he cannot get it through normally through the congress, so he has to go through executive action. who do you think is running the country now? it is barack obama, not biden. that is what barack obama liked to do. he liked to go by executive action so he did not have any competition. this country is going down the drain. host: that is larry, hollywood, florida finishing off this round of calls. if you want to see for yourself what president biden is supporting -- is proposing, let him 45 time is how you do that. watch for it on c-span, c-span.org and are free radio app. we will take a break and then we will be joined by ken cuccinelli , the former head of immigrations and custom enforcement and the chair of the elections transparency.

that conversation coming up on washington journal. >> book tv on c-span2 as top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. saturday at 8:00 p.m., columbia university law professor jamaal green looks at america's approach to individual rights in his book. saturday at 9:00 p.m., bowling green state university philosophy professor talks about free speech and the free exchange of ideas in her book. sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern in her new book, tammy duckworth talks about her life and career in the military and in the senate. she is interviewed by a congressional editor. watch book tv this weekend. tune in to in depth sunday, may

2 at noon on book tv on c-span2. >> c-span's long-running series is back as a podcast. hear compelling interviews with authors and their stories. new episodes every tuesday. this week on the inaugural episode, find out which u.s. presidents were caught in sex scandals. and the author joins us to share those stories from her book. a new weekly podcast from c-span. subscriber ever you get podcasts and get information about all of the podcasts at c-span.org/podcasts. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us now is ken cuccinelli, the chair at the

election transparency initiative and also serves as a former acting director of immigration services from 2019 to 2021. thanks for giving us your time today. guest: my pleasure. host: could you tell us about this initiative, what does it do, and who supports it? guest: the election transparency initiative that i lead is a joint effort between two groups, the american principles project, which is a profamily social conservative organization and the susan b. anthony lived -- list which is the largest organization supporting pro-life women and they have heard from their members two things. one, why should i bother anymore if these elections are so unreliable. that is on the negative. in the affirmative they have heard a demand by their membership that these organizations weigh in to boost confidence in what they would

view as accuracy and reliability of elections. marjorie, who leads the susan b. anthony list had an op-ed where she made a really interesting point. some people watching will disagree. the biggest abortion gains are those who support abortion have been made in the courts, which is not the democratic institution of our three branch system. whereas the pro-life movement has done very well pointing out the truth of life from the moment of conception to the public and moving the culture and laws in that direction over a number of decades. fair elections and confidence that they are fair elections, something that i hoped would matter to everybody, is viewed as a cornerstone from those organizations standpoints. what we are after, easy to vote, hard to cheat. we want to see elections that

are not only fair, but that all parties can see are run fairly and honestly and accurately and produce an accurate result, the accurate result being what legal voters in that election voted for. georgia has been in the news lately. i would remind people that it was democrats that were complaining about issues in georgia. in 2020, use all republican complaints spearheaded by president trump. in 20, 26% of americans did not think we would be swearing in the right president next. in 2020, that was 31%. we have had in the last 3, 4, 5 years on both sides of the aisle, major concerns and what i find encouraging in all of this is we have proven we can fix things. when i say we, i mean americans.

we can do it effectively. look at florida from bush v gore in 2000, they were a joke. they were not even running their election badly the same way in different parts of the state. they said about over the course of years on a bipartisan basis to clean up those elections and come 2020 when there were complaints, there are no complaint in florida. they counted quickly, smoothly, both sides perceive it to have been accurate. we can do this better and the states as laboratories of democracy have proven they can do a good job when they put their mind to it. host: is there a plan or template as far as changing the way voting is done, particularly at the national level considering this is being considered in congress as well? guest: so there is a two level approach. one for all 230 years plus since

the constitution was put in place, states have run elections. the constitution references this in article one, but it also gives congress the authority to play a role as well. congress has never done that on a broad scope. they have done things like pass the 14th and 15th amendment, change the voting age, so there have been single targets by congress. at the federal level, it is the hr one, s one that i hope we will talk about today that is the focus of our effort on the federal level. it is a terrible bill. it puts a lot of bad practices into place for the whole country and we can talk about that in more detail. we focus on that and educating americans about it. as they learn more, they like it less. at the state level, working with basic principles in mind, things like voters should have to

demonstrate they are citizens, that people should be cleaned off the roles, people should provide voter identification, something supported across-the-board, regardless of your race or party or gender, people supported across-the-board. working with those e-cig principles, we work with -- working with those basic principles, we work with allies in a dozen states to improve their systems. they are all different, so we do not have some prescription that we walk into every state with. we work with partners to improve on a common sense basis the security and transparency elements and preserve accessibility in each state in a way consistent with their tradition, law and history. host: our guest with us until 10:00. (202) 748-8001 republicans.

(202) 748-8002 for democrats. you said there was a list of concerns. what is the chief among them? guest: it is an 800 page bill. there is lots of room for concerns. much of the focus has been on the election parts of the bill. i will focus my comments on that. i want people to know that it also creates a public financing for campaigns. it gives a 6-1 donor match from taxpayer dollars. those dollars could be used for candidates personal expenses. it would change the fec to be a partisan majority instead of a bipartisan body policing, including prosecuting perceived

offenses. that is really a radical change. there is also free speech elements and criminal elements that are so bad that even the aclu finds them unconstitutional and has expressed concern. on the election part of it is the main focus of my concerns, they do things, first of all, like wipeout allstate election law by a large -- wipe out all state election law by and large. it includes things like forbidding voter id, which i noted a moment ago is popular across-the-board as a common sense security measure. studies show it does not suppress voting, despite some of the rhetoric out there about it. americans seem to know this because they support it across-the-board. it requires -- it bans states from requiring anything more than cynical -- signature

verification. the problem with that is, if you don't have to match it up to a voter database, you don't actually know if the person in front of you is anything other than a person who can write a particular name. it mandates, it orders every state to implement same-day voter registration. some states actually have this, but they have systems set up to do it and they typically have it with a requirement for voter identification and with a way to filter for those who are not legally allowed to vote, like noncitizens. it mandates the use of ballot dropbox is, which really were not a thing until covid in 2020. if you go back 6-8 months, states were trying to figure out how are we going to run this election in a covid environment. what this bill does is take all

of those things that were at the time supposedly one-time changes to accommodate the pandemic, including some very loose practices and makes them permanent, it forces the states to do this. another thing it forces the states to do is that for every adult eligible individual, they do not say citizen, the bill says individual, in their state databases, they must register them to vote. that includes state they give drivers licenses to illegal aliens, your public health department may give vaccines to noncitizens, one would expect that. those names go in the database. they must be sent over to their state voter rolls and enrolled. the other side -- host: is it a mandate to voting from these agencies involved? guest: it is a voter

registration mandate. the voting is the next step. the bill does not change the law from requiring that only citizens may vote, but it sets up a system that i just described where all of these names get dumped into the voter role and it as a -- ads -- it adds a criminal felony and it is very vaguely worded federal felony that says any impairment or impediment of folks registering to vote or undertaking voting will be prosecuted as a federal felony with significant penalties. if you are a state official in the department of motor vehicles and someone presents to you for the first time, they are not in your databases, they are an adult and part of the transaction will result in them

registering to vote, if there is a felony hanging out there to challenge you if you are perceived to impair their voter registration, are you going to even bother saying are you a citizen, are you going to ask questions like that? the purpose of the criminal provision is to deter that. the combination of those things will result in millions of people who are not citizens, including people here illegally not being registered to vote. it does not mean it is legal for them to vote, but if you cannot require voter id, if you cannot undertake basic security provisions for mail-in voting, they will be nothing to stop those folks from voting. having been a state attorney general, i can tell you that you can't pull ballots out of the ballot box very easily if there is a problem because you don't

know which ballot was the problem. elections are unique in that we have to perform our security on the front side because we don't get an opportunity to cure on the backside, particularly under the time constraints we work under. host: we have some calls lined up for you. you are on with ken. caller: the first thing you talked about was abortion. i just want to make three quick points. many women have miscarriages and that is really a spontaneous abortion. if you believe in god and faith and all that, god is really the biggest abortionist around. second point i want to make -- never happens, maybe once in a billion.

people were not considered people until there was a live birth and sometimes even the week after because so many infants died. third point, if you look at the bible, in genesis 2:7, it says you do not get a soul until you make your first breath. according to the bible, you are not a person until you make your first breath. host: our topic is elections and their integrity. caller: the screener said ok. host: you can respond, but being our topic -- guest: i would not be working for a pro-life organization if i did not agree and support those principles. i think even in just the recent decades since i have been born, science has demonstrated that a human being with all 46 chromosomes, when things happen healthily, is there at the moment of conception. follow the science. as you pointed out, we are

supposed to be talking about voter integrity. i work for a pro-life organization that believes the ability to make its case fairly and publicly in clean, fair, transparent elections is what it needs to succeed. i'm not here specifically to advance the cause for life. i'm here to work to make sure there is a level, fair playing field for everyone to make their case on whatever issue it is, whether it is abortion or guns or taxes or paving the road in the neighborhood in clean, fair elections. i think every american can at least agree on that. how we make that happen is something that if we talk about in terms of nuts and bolts instead of in terms of republicans and democrats, i think we would find massive agreement across the american public. polling shows that and it is something i am very encouraged by the opportunity to do. host: let's hear from robert.

caller: i have a couple of points i would like to make. if they wanted to make elections for everybody across the board fair, why not make elections a holiday and also, if the law in georgia was not changed during the trump administration years, they say it was changed for elections. why would they want to change it? and also, we need a national holiday that congress needs because when the states get it, states pick and choose who they want to win, whereas if you have a national election, that means it is going to be across the board fairly from every state.

guest: i agree with you about making election day a holiday. i think that would improve accessibility. virginia, for many years, you had to have a reason to vote absentee. one of the reasons -- we have 13 hours to vote. one of the reasons -- and you are in virginia as well i noted. one of the reasons was that you are going to be gone from work for 11 hours. if that was not the case for as many people and even on a holiday, many people have to work, police officers, firefighters, health care. people have to work, but most would be off if it were a holiday. i agree with you in terms of accessibility. i also think one of the areas where there is a level of this agreement across the board, nothing partisan about it,

should we have no excuse early voting? which really means, we have many election days. should we have one election day where campaigns work up to, or should we have a week or 17 days like they have in georgia? we had a caller from new jersey. they just started early voting. they added nine days of early voting. georgia has more early voting then new jersey. i think those are legitimate questions. i think a better route is to make the national election day a holiday like you suggest. i agree with you, to improve accessibility. also, having been a candidate, i believe there are a few issues you want to cover and deliver messages constructively. if the finish line is a moving target because you don't know when everyone is going to vote, it makes it more difficult.

one of the things we discussed particularly for the second, which didn't happen, and third presidential debate, was that those debates were taking place after people have started voting. that is one of the things -- every state gets to decide that, but there are factors that really matter in terms of how do you want your election to run. i don't think there is an absolute right answer, but i agree with you. i think election day should be a holiday to make it more accessible to everybody. i think that would be ideal and it would not surprise me if out of all of this rigmarole, where there is a lot of disagreement, that that becomes a point of agreement. host: mark new york. caller: good morning. i would like to mention the fact that the georgia laws will enable someone like trump to find extra votes per se. do you feel like he should be prosecuted or prosecuted for harassing the people to try to

change it for the election? guest: i certainly don't think you should be prosecuted for harassing, to use your word, the folks to update the voter laws. in georgia, as i noted in 2018, had concerns. i also pointed out at a national level, there were concerns about whether the outcomes of the election were appropriate, and whether the process was followed and so forth. georgia had problems. they have had problems. they are taking steps to fix that. i will use the simple one that does not draw a particular conclusion, but raises questions. my understanding is there are about 18,000 people whose names were used to vote in georgia in the last election who were either dead or registered to vote at a vacant lot or

registered to vote at a commercial address. that 18,000 votes was a relatively small fraction of the total, but the margin was around 12,000. it does not mean it changed the outcome but it does raise the question, did we get the right outcome? we don't even have to go into an argument as to whether the answer is yes or no if all we want to do is fix it and make sure we don't have this problem in the future. there were problems we saw in different parts of the country. no question that covid and judges responding to covid really complicated things in 2020. i would also note in virginia, we have elections every year. there is always some problems. what has not typically happened is enough critical mass of people saying, we need to turn and face this and deal with it. justice thomas, not too long

ago, in a dissent when the supreme court decided not to hear a case, and i don't even or member what case, he said look, we get these election cases all the time. we say the election is over and it is moot and we never give these people any guidance. that is the court version of what often happens in legislatures. they just say, can't we just move onto the next thing? here, the florida example i gave earlier, they clearly were motivated to act. i think a lot of other states are motivated to act now and we should make the most of getting ourselves the most modern, up-to-date, clean, fair and obviously -- system we can get state-by-state. host: you said your partners had described elections as unreliable. going back to the last president election, did they refer to the and they go as saying it was stolen and is that your contention as well? guest: i'm not prepared to make that contention.

i certainly think that when you have a situation like i described in georgia, just in terms of numbers. i was an engineer before i went into law school, so i am a numbers guy, that raises very serious questions. i don't think either side can say definitively how that changed the outcome because we don't know which 18,000 ballots that was. for either side to say it absolutely did not change the outcome or it absolutely did is an unprovable statement. it clearly, mathematically, brought into question whether without those 18,000 ballots that were not properly registered, the outcome would have been different. our goal is a forward-looking goal. michael is to eliminate as many opportunities for those kinds of doubts regardless of who wins whether it is georgia or connecticut or the whole united states. i think we have the opportunity

to do that by putting in some basic common sense laws. we are seeing that happen in some states around the country. really, the arguments against them so far have been largely rhetorical. they have not engaged so much on the substance. obviously, i am a conservative, right of center, but even the washington post is giving joe biden four pinocchio's for some of his comments in the georgia law and the suggestion that it suppresses the voting hours when it expands them and other things like that. we are just seeing this war of words. when we asked fellow americans talk about the elements of an election, we have really brought agreement. robert and i was one example. there is a lot of agreement. does not mean we will have universal agreement, but the

differences don't have to nor do they normally break down on party lines. even chuck schumer said, 18 months ago, election security is absolutely necessary and there is nothing partisan about that. if we can keep it out of the partisan round, i think we can be very constructive. host: claudia in wisconsin. caller: one of the things about voter id is that it has been a contentious issue even long before covid. liberals often think of having an id is voter suppression. at the same time, many conservatives don't want to recognize that having to go to the dmv to get an identification means for some people, very long lines there. some dmv's are in more remote areas outside of the inner city.

for whatever reason, they are going to be taking people driving or whatever it is. why must a regular id be associated with the dmv? many people need an id for employment, to apply for government benefits and it has nothing at all to do with driving a car. i long thought that identification really should be located somewhere other than the dmv to make it more accessible such as the workforce development office. many people are going to go there seeking employment. other services for which they also need identification. if you want a drivers license, go to the dmv. if you need id, go somewhere separate. that takes away the obstacle to

getting identification. host: we will leave it there. thank you. guest: i think a lot of states, there is a misnomer that it is only a drivers license. i don't know of any state that requires voter identification, that limits that did drivers license. that list is getting longer and longer. setting aside all of the potential for jokes about dmv's that seem to play well in every state, in georgia, since it has been in the news, 97% of their voters have either drivers licenses or dmv ids or free state identification. that is not all that is allowed. military id works. passports work. the list of what goes on -- the caller mentioned employment. those ids, in many states, are acceptable typically in

combination with the recent utility bill that shows you are still at your registered address, those kinds of things there is also its of combinations states use. i have not seen anything except a sensitivity to making sure that is straightforward. it is -- it has never been easier to register to vote, ever. most states that require voter id have government accessibility features to their law. i don't know of a single state that does not have that. when you look at what the american people think about this , numbers vary from pole to pole, but every category of people, however you divide it up, today, we are calling in on democrat, republican and independent lines. polls show they all support voter id because it is a basic

common sense protection. we have to balance how we run our election with the security of the election. polling consistently shows americans value that security very highly. when you get to the backside of an election, all of those elements give us lots more confidence in the outcome of those elections. given they are the cornerstone of our governmental system, that does not seem like too much to ask. one other quick point. this has been an issue for quite a while. studies have now shown that the question about whether it affects voting turnout is that it does not. there is a fairly extensive academic regime of studies now that this has been used for a number of years and been a point of focus that support that. it is not just policy people. host: stephanie in brooklyn, new

york. caller: good morning. everybody is talking about voter id. we know we have to show voter id, but the problem is with what the gop is doing is the integrity because they are giving control of the gop to control the election in atlanta.

guest: i can speak for myself and everybody i know, i welcome more voter participation, especially within the party starting at the earlier points in the political process. that is something i and many others have encouraged over the years. i think one of the things that was surprising to some folks in the last election is how well donald trump, as rough edged as he is, did with the black and hispanic voters. part of that may be the performance he achieved economically of the list lack and hispanic unemployment ever. we spent more time under 8% unemployment for black americans and his presidency than the rest of my life combined.

what i would complain about with respect to the caller's comments is that it just assumes it. she did not give any evidence of it, she is just accusing people of being racist, frankly. that is not consistent with the evidence. let's talk about facts, let's talk about evidence. you're talking to someone who has never had those inclinations . my own hiring and career demonstrate that. you are tossing those allegations out the wrong person. if that is all you have got to try to argue against substantive changes and improvements to the voting system, high school logic says if all you have is an at home and on argument, you don't

have much of an argument. why don't we talk about what works, what doesn't work well and recognize we are going to have areas of disagreement, but it is exactly the kind of rhetoric that last caller through in -- threw that keeps getting repeated. that does make things more difficult. again, that is why i separate out the partisan discussion from just talking about the nuts and bolts of how an election should work. we started talking about the federal law. it wipes out a lot of this stuff which is why we have so many problems with the proposed federal law. host: we have a you are saying, based on your claim regarding same-day registration, if there was a problem with thousands of millions of illegal citizens voting, how come there have never been mass arrests of these individuals? guest: mass arrest doesn't happen.

having been in law enforcement, you find a person, however that happens, who broke the law in the case is about that person. one of the challenges, as i noted earlier with elections is if there is a large-scale problem, there simply are not the personnel or time to deal with all of that after an election, before certification, before it is finalized. our courts are not set up that way, law enforcement is not set up that way. part of the challenge of this debate is that we are dealing with proving or disproving a negative, which is a theoretical impossibility. what are the things that have not been caught? that is why when i use the georgia example of the 18,000 in registered voters voting in the 12,000 vote margin, i don't declare how it would have affected the outcome or whether it affected the outcome, only that it is a problem but i think

anybody objectively would say needs to be fixed. if we were talking about 2018 and stacey abrams lost a close race, the she would be on the other foot. why don't we get rid of these shoes by fixing the problem? host: charles says you are misrepresenting the divisions of hr one specifically being the it does not allow undocumented immigrants to vote. guest: i think i said that. the bill does not legalize voting by noncitizens, but it sets up a system that holds up very personal, like to the individual penalties. fennel ceepo -- penalties if you are perceived by a prosecutor in an arena that is getting much more political. political prosecutions. questioning whether someone is appropriate to register to vote. they are not going to raise the fact themselves that they are not a citizen, particularly if

they are here illegally. they are still going to get swept in on the roles because the states are ordered to really put any adult in their databases, any database. over to their secretary of state or their equivalent in the state to register them to vote. the caller or texture is technically correct, but the practical result as had to be known by the drafters of this, would be that hundreds of thousands and ultimately, millions of people who are not supposed to be registered to vote, are going to be swept onto the voter rolls because of the terms of hr one. i personally think that is intentional on the part of the drafters. i do not think someone saying what is a good, clean way to run a system would put a provision like this in. it does not make any sense. i would note that lots of

democratic election officials oppose this law. recently, probably the most famous secretary of state of all is new hampshire because of its first in the nation primary status. he is elected by their legislature and has been reelected since the 1970's by democrat and republican legislatures because they have all perceived him to have done a good job. he has a democrat and he was very critical of the new hampshire congressional delegation, which i think is all democrats. i know the senators are, for supporting s1 because it fixes a nonproblem from his perspective is that you actually make a good system much worse. he says, and i don't see a lot of people saying otherwise, that new hampshire has not had widespread problems. imposing this one-size-fits-all rewrite of their laws is not

only inappropriate, but does harm. there are other democratic elected officials have said several similar things. we have not even addressed the actual impossibility of doing some of what s1 mandate states to do. be that as it may, we have got to deal with the law as it is. in an 800 page law, there is only some any provisions we can talk about. host: sean in florida, independent line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i have listen to you and it seems to me so that you simply cannot comprehend the fact that you have placed a jar of jelly beans on the table in front of the voter. if you were to address any voting fraud other than by republicans in the last election. i might add that just phoning in

your vote really is more than enough. the object is to get the people involved. if the vote is not sacred, it is not really worth having. thank you. guest: if something is sacred, you protect it. americans, again, just like voter id, overwhelmingly prioritized the security of our elections only focus also where i work on transparency so everybody can see the security. all sides in an election. i'm not quite sure what the jellybeans he is referring to are, but i have not mischaracterized this law. it is very large. he questions whether there has been voter fraud by anybody but republicans. i will quote the u.s. supreme court in crawford versus marion county. "flagrant examples of voter fraud that have been documented throughout this nation's history

by respected historians and journalists demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election. that was 2008. the problem continues to exist. i gave a mathematical example in georgia. we don't know whether the outcome would have been changed or not. i would also point out having been an attorney general for estate, the practical impossibility of policing voter fraud close enough to an election to actually catch all the fraud is certified. frankly, simple things like having to prove you are a citizen to register to vote to show a voter id, whether you are doing mail-in voting, send a copy of it as i believe the georgia law provides or show it in person, are just not burden

some undertakings and we continue to see better and better voter turnout. as i noted earlier, it has never been easier to register to vote than it is today. that is something i think we can be proud of. though it is different in every state. as long as sr one does not pass, the different states will be able to learn from one another. one of the elements of having the states run elections is in addition to just being responsible, they are also a laboratory of democracy for the other states to view what works and what does not in each of their sister states. i would note the election security responsibility we had at homeland security was not internal, it was facing foreign threats. one of the things that was an advantage in avoiding their ability to manipulate their voting system on a large scale

was the fact that we did have 50 different states in the district of columbia with their own voting systems. that decentralization is actually supportive of security and we ought to support the states role in these elections and help them improve at an opportunity when we are all paying attention to the issue. host: this is ken cuccinelli. we appreciate your time with us today. guest: my pleasure, great to be with you. host: that is it for the program today. another addition comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow morning. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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>> former and current homeland security department officials talks about the agency's cybersecurity official and goes. -- goals. this is one hour. >> the senior advisor and i lead the democratic institutions project here at csis. i was formerly the undersecretary for what was then called the national protection and programs director and is now the infrastructure security agency. we are very excited to be able to have this conversation this afternoon about the cybersecurity mission with a wonderful group of people who -- folks who are really my friends and colleagues. it is a