view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including a kite broadband. -- including buckeye broadband. ♪ ♪ >> buckeye broadband support c-span is a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> coming up this morning, former u.s. representative barbara comstock joins us to discuss the future of the gop and the possibility of forming a new national party. after that, american federation of teachers president randi weingarten on her push to have schools fully reopen in the fall. and later, pbs frontline

correspondent laura sullivan talks to us about frontline's latest documentary on health care in equities in the u.s. that were exposed by covid-19. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning, it's "washington journal" for may 18. this coming fall the supreme court will hear a case concerning the mississippi ban on most abortions over 15 weeks of pregnancy with the court agreeing to oral arguments on this case. both sides of the abortion debate are looking to see it has larger applications to the future of the 1973 roe v. wade decision. democrats this morning, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001.

s independent, -- independents, (202) 748-8002. if you want to text us your thoughts on this, (202) 748-8003 is the number. a couple of ways you can reach out as well with your opinion, if you want to post on twitter, you can do so @cspanwj. facebook available to you, too, facebook.com/c-span. reuters wrote this up, talking about the decision by the court. saying the court on monday agreed to consider the roe v. wade ruling picking up the mississippi rule to ban the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy by hearing a case in the next term that starts in october and ends june of 2022. they will look at whether to overturn a central part of the ruling, along stated goal of religious conservatives, adding

that in the roe v. wade decision reaffirmed in 1992 the court said that they couldn't ban abortion before the viability of the fetus outside the womb, generally viewed by doctors as between 24 and 28 weeks. a mississippi law would ban abortion much earlier than that. lawrence hurley adding that the ruling recognizes the constitutional rights of personal privacy and protects a woman's ability to get an abortion. that's lawrence hurley's for reuters, joining us now by zoom to talk more about the implications of the case. thanks for joining us. why now? why is the court picking this up now? guest: that's a question we don't know. they held onto this case for weeks and weeks before they decided to hear it and no one is sure what's going on behind the scenes there. obviously the big, broader issue

would be the appointment of amy coney barrett last year to replace ruth bader ginsburg, making the conservative wing of the court stronger on this issue. host: for the case itself in mississippi, can you elaborate on what you wrote about the case in the larger implications it might have for roe v. wade overall? guest: it opens the door to unraveling the central aspects of the decisions that came afterwards, that the state has no real interest in regulation of abortion pre-viability and in this case it opens the door to that by saying perhaps they do

after 15 weeks and if they can do that, if the court says that states can do that, obviously that would open the door perhaps to other regulations coming in earlier than 15 weeks. abortion rights activists are concerned that that would keep on going back further and further to what came earlier in the pregnancy until there is no right at all. host: when it comes to the mississippi case, what question is the court being asked to consider? guest: it's basically is it constitutional for the state to do that, for state laws to regulate or restrict abortion pre-viability of the fetus. it's a central question.

this isn't one of those cases where there is some technical or legal question that doesn't get to the central issue. this is the central issue in the case. that's why everyone recognizes that it's a huge case. host: what was the lower court opinion on the question? guest: because of roe v. wade in the case that came after it, they declare the law unconstitutional. supreme court, normally when they pick new cases, they pick up cases where the lower courts on this issue have divided to where there is no real clear answer. this was a direct challenge to the roe v. wade precedent. there is no lit in the circuit on this in the lower courts. this is a new case the court's hearing. they have turned away other cases like this over the years. as i said before, it's one of the reasons why anyone following

this nose that it's a big deal. host: it will be a while before the cases heard, but when it is, what are the options for the court making a decision on it? guest: if the court upholds this mississippi law, it will be impossible to do so without taking a chunk out of roe v. wade. of course, we don't know what the court is going to do. they could wind up doing something different, saying that the law is unconstitutional. if the court took up the case to say what other courts said already. host: how many justices does it take to pick up a case in do we know how many voted to take on the case? guest: the court doesn't say, but four out of nine have to vote to hear it. there are now six conservative

justices out of the nine. the chief justice, john roberts, up until the appointment of amy coney barrett, kept a close eye on the course -- cases the court was going to take. so, we don't know who voted what. basically, his vote doesn't count anymore so much. it may be that some of the conservative justices were the ones pushing for this. host: one of the things that you wrote about in the follow-up to this decision that you can find online, when it comes to this decision and other cases the court has taken on, the headline says that the court jumps into culture wars with these decisions. can you elaborate? guest: people always say that the next supreme court term is the biggest one, but with the new conservative justice on the court, this is really shaping up to be a huge one, taking on this

abortion case. a few weeks ago they took up a major gun rights case. and before the end of the current term they could agree to hear a challenge to the use of consideration of race and college admissions, which would also be a huge case. this time next year we could be talking about rulings on these big cultural issues of race, abortions, and gun rights around the midterm election season. the court really is putting itself right in the middle of all that. host: lawrence hurley covers the supreme court for reuters, talking about the mississippi case the justices will hear this fall and into their next session. thank you for your time this morning. again, you can comment on the decision from the court as they make this choice and here's how you can let us know. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. and (202) 748-8002 for

independents. you can text us your thoughts as well at (202) 748-8003. and if you want to post on twitter, you can do so @cspanwj and on facebook, facebook.com/c-span. at the white house yesterday at the daily press briefing the white house press secretary was asked about the decision by the supreme court to take up this case. here is the exchange with the reporter. [video clip] >> today the supreme court agreed to hear the mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. does the administration believe that law is constitutional and if the court upheld the law, what with the administration be prepared to do? >> i don't have a comment specific to the court taking the case, but generally speaking as it being a state law, over the last four years critical rights like the right to health care in the right to choose have been under withering and extreme attack, inc. including draconian

state laws and the president and vice president are trying to make sure that every american has access to health care including reproductive health care regardless of their income, zip code, race, immigration, or health care status. host: some of you responding off of the social media sites. john tweets us this morning saying that conservative justices do not consider themselves to factor legislators. if the shoe were on the other foot, liberal -- liberal justices see themselves as justice warriors and all cases are over before they start. terry miller saying that in order to overturn they have to prove that fetus rights supersede the rights of women and they don't realize the pain that people went through prior to roe v. wade. kevin added your body, your

choice. clinton added that roe v. wade would never pass under today's standards and liberals know it. the case was built on false science and lies. stephanie hilton saying we saw this coming, it was the point of the barrett nomination. ricardo off the facebook page said that they should compromise. respect women's life and bodies. reach out on social media, text us if you want as well at (202) 748-8003 and you can call on the lines. democratic line, new york, gretchen starts us off. what do you think about this decision from the court? caller: it isn't a decision. well, to take the case, but it's just another thing for males to try to control women get why don't we have any birth control for males? they cause the dilemma and they take no responsibility. how do you even know if you are pregnant at 15 weeks? host: going back to your

original thought as far as taking control of women's bodies, can you elaborate why you think that? caller: because that is what they are trying to do. they are trying to keep women back. they are not letting me control my own body. only i know if i can afford another child financially or whatever because most children are raised by women. host: that is gretchen in new york. next we will hear from sue in michigan. independent line. sue, go ahead. caller: i think it's ironic that mississippi is the one that presented it to the supreme court when they have one of the highest child poverty rates in the country. they want to force women to have the kids, but they don't want to support them. that's my comment. host: what does that mean for the larger implications of the

court taking up the case? caller: obviously they don't care about that. if you get a poor country, i mean a poor state, like mississippi, they want to force it. i don't think the court will even look at that. host: ok. that was sue in michigan giving us her thoughts. a couple of the statements coming out, the court decision to take oral arguments, this from pro-choice america writing that yesterday's decision to review this ban is an ominous sign and an alarming reminder that the threat to the legal rights of abortion are imminent and real end of roe v. wade fell as a result, states

host: another group posting online this morning, you can find their thoughts, the anthony list when it comes to the court decision, saying this -- host: brad is next to brad, marilyn, go ahead. caller: good morning. i want to use the same argument the left uses for the second amendment. no one is trying to take away abortions or stop abortions altogether. we just want to have common

sense abortion legislation and common sense legislation is if there's a heartbeat or if the baby has feelings within the nerves, that's now a human being and no longer a clump of cells and that baby needs to be protected. the other caller said about men having birth control and it's them doing it, it takes two to tango, baby. women are just as responsible as the men for the pregnancies. host: you don't think that by taking up a state case it goes for larger implications of roe v. wade? caller: i hope it does, i think it should. someone else mentioned that roe v. wade was based on blood science. even if you watch the movie with the original woman, she, she ultimately turned around and, when the case was over, she ultimately turned around and is now pro-life.

so i think it needs to be looked at again and this is a good thing that the supreme court is getting ready to review. host: when you say flawed science, why do you say that? caller: um -- because -- it was based on -- kind of like the bias that was going into it. based on going in with the conclusion already in mind before they even began. you can't do science like that. science has to start from the unknown and then you go into the known by, you know, investigating and so forth. host: brad in north beach, maryland, giving us his thoughts on the line for independence. a couple of you tweeting your thoughts this morning. this is dell from florida saying that the problem with the argument with women controlling their bodies is that there's

another being in there. legally allowing the killing of babies is as wicked as it gets and posterity will one day look back in horror. arkansas, from kevin johnson, saying the people of mississippi will not rest until abortion is illegal and every woman is back in the kitchen. you can reach out to us with thoughts on this issue in the decision around this case, looking at abortion laws. you can give your thoughts on the court taking up the specific case and what the larger implications are for roe v. wade, if you wish. (202) 748-8000 free democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans, and independents, (202) 748-8002 . anita, high. caller: i do not think that there should be any more laws about women's bodies until there are laws about men's bodies.

including making amana you nick. and d set -- making a man a you eunich. and d sexualizing him altogether. host: what do you think about them taking this decision? caller: i think it was wrong. i don't believe roe v. wade should be overturned. i think it's basic. host: basic as to how? caller: impugning giving women the right to choose what they do with their bodies. if tucker carlsen on fox news can say it's his body his choice over taking a vaccination, surely women should be allowed to have choice. host: that is anita in missouri. keith is in new york on the independent line. high. caller: my issue with abortion

in this case, what a lot of people don't seem to realize is that when you are involved in a medical procedure where you won't come to term with a baby, you are in a position where you need to be able to have a safe extrication. it's not something that's comfortable, it's something that people need medically and the case that they are making for the heart beat interferes across the board with that issue. host: how so? caller: you, in my experience personally, we are at a point, where if the baby wasn't going to come to term for a medical procedure, if it hadn't issue with its kidneys, we were reaching a point in new york state where if we waited another week to decide to not go to term , we would lose the baby at the end of that. we would have to go to indiana, travel to indiana to have the

procedure, right, because that state had a law based on the acquirements of each state medically and that's what a lot of people don't seem to realize, it's important to individuals who have to experience that. that's all i have to say. host: do you think the court will gain your personal perspective or things similar to that as they make their decision? caller: i'm not sure and that's part of the issue. a blanket everything. it's very cut and dry. heartbeat, no heartbeat. the political concept of it as right versus wrong is a big gray area. host: keith in new york giving us his thoughts this morning. tony on twitter says that my body my choice people force others to where masks and be vaccinated. twitter, the state of mississippi should not be setting any precedents. twitter is one way you can reach

us, if you wish and you can always post on our facebook page. facebook.com/c-span. eric is in california, democratic line. go ahead, you are next up. caller: good morning, america. the love of god is real. it's not a place called israel. the things people are talking about with abortion, being regulated by the killer hearts of men, men willing to kill over political and religious differences and not be remorseful about it and kill their own brothers, kill their own brothers -- host: because we are talking about the supreme court role in this, what do you think about them taking up the case we have been talking about? caller: a lot of people are taking the position because of their religion. i hear a lot of people trying to argue about abortion and killing of kids, unborn children.

but they have a killer heart and are willing to kill over political differences and not be remorseful about it. host: a couple of questions, then, did the supreme court do the right thing by taking up this question? caller: yes, we always need to be questioning the decisions we are making. do it righteously. when people are making decisions, people do it out of the concern to be right. in the position of medical, not because of religious or political differences. host: ok, you have made that point several times. mina, stafford, virginia. caller: thank you for take my call. briefly, my comments are i do believe this room court made the right decision by taking up this case, for the simple fact that i think they record -- they recognize that this issue needs to be revisited. i base my answer on my views on

two facts. first is that roe v. wade is very old and needs to be revisited in general, so the application of taking this estate case and the implication on the bigger issue is clear. the supreme court absolutely needs to revisit this. second, i believe the states should be allowed to make their own rules regarding roe v. wade. if we speak about the science, roe v. wade is based on old science. i understand this is a hot topic are many people for many different reasons, but when life begins is not really per se a scientific question in my personal opinion. this is a religious decision and a religious question. second fact i base my views on is that there is no consensus. whether the science is right or wrong and if religion should be brought into the question or not, there's no consensus.

this is clearly a topic that we are far from finding unity on in this country. host: does the court have to make this decision based on science other than religion? caller: it does need to be based on science and we do need to revisit the science to understand whether we are making the right decision or not. my personal view is that if the far-left is so concerned about the destiny and life of convicted rapists and child molesters, how could they disregard the life of a new human being so easily? this is very mind baffling for me, personally. host: ok. republican line, colorado springs. you are next. caller: just two quick points. one lady prior mentioned tucker carlsen and my body my choice.

you can't use that argument just for one thing. you know? if you use it for abortion you can use it for vaccination just as easy. number two, i find it crazy that people want to compare us to europe all the dam time concerning the health care systems in every thing else -- host: our question today has to do with the supreme court decision to take the case. what do you think of that? caller: the supreme court should take it up and then it gets down to states rights. in arkansas if you want to get a late-term abortion, go to california, go to new york. you know? but if arkansas or mississippi or anywhere else says look, we are going to limit it to 20 weeks, 14 weeks, it's up to the state. it's not up to the rest of the united states. it's up to that particular state. host: shelley is up next, also on the republican line from

wisconsin. feighner. good morning. you are on, go ahead. caller: i do believe it's a woman's choice. it has nothing to do with religion or political views. it's always been a woman's choice and it's up to her. i have four grandchildren, three girls and one grandson. host: so the supreme court taking this decision or agreeing to hear this case, what do you think of that specifically? caller: i think it's gone too far. host: what do you mean by that? caller: mississippi should stay out of that. we should not be following mississippi's guidelines at all. host: another caller said that ultimately it should be a state decision. is that what you think? caller: no, i think it should be a woman's choice.

host: from judith in kentucky. joining us there. you are on the independent mind. go ahead. caller: yes, i think it should be a woman's choice in the supreme court decided way back when. i'm always surprised how people without a uterus want to tell you what to do with yours. mississippi is the poorest state in the united states. host: what do you think about them taking up the issue of viability? caller: are they taking care of the kid? mississippi is the poorest state. all the states that want to do something about abortion wouldn't care after the kid is born if it starved to death. i'm always curious as to why people want to impose their opinion on their uterus does your uterus when they don't have

one. i realize that some of the supreme court justices are females, but why do they speak for us when we don't get a choice in when you let that happen, your insurance company, if you are wealthy enough in the united states, you can get done what you want to get done. often they call it therapeutic dnc. it's kind of sad when you think that you are a ping-pong ball between everybody's opinion except your own. host: that is judith in kentucky giving her thoughts. a couple of other thoughts from "the washington post," today. two women writing this. laura lippmann and melissa murray, writing in a piece, make no mistake, the supreme court is coming for row and they make the argument saying that even in cases where the court has not overruled past decisions, it has gone to herculean lengths to not explicitly under rule the

doctrine and it might be what lies ahead for abortion. rather than host: again, if you want to read that, that's in "the washington post" this morning, ed whelan writes this concerning the decision by the court, saying that the case provides an excellent vehicle for overruling roe and that it may be a more appropriate or opportune moment

considering that amy coney barrett has replaced ruth bader ginsburg, the court has special opportunity to overruled by super majority and that the court promises to be durable given the ages of the justices that would presumably be a part of the ruling and there is reason to expect this anti-road majority to persist and it would afford the maximum amount of time for the democratic processes of the states to address and resolve the policy before the next presidential elections. he writes more on the pages of the national review if you want to read those arguments as well. you can make your own arguments and comments for the next half-hour if you wish. (202) 748-8000 for democrats, republicans (202) 748-8001, and independents, (202) 748-8002. many of you tweeting and posting on our twitter feeds, too.

mary ellen, dewitt, virginia, democratic line. caller: hi, i'm a first-time caller and i'm so happy to get through. my opinion is like so many of the other woman -- women that called in already. this is a woman's issue and it is one of your most basic fundamental rights, you're right to reproduce or not. i'm amazed that the number of men calling in that want to have a say over a woman's body. if the supreme court needs to take this up, let's wait until we have a more balanced, equal supreme court. host: mentions of the supreme court came up from across the scope yesterday. tate reeves sent out this tweet saying that the sanctity of life, the future of children, mississippi is at the forefront of protecting both and that is was -- what is at stake in the case that we were praying the

supreme court would decide to hear and he added that thanks to millions of voters in 2016, donald trump appointed new justices but make no mistake the cases being heard not because the court has changed but because science has changed. that's the governor of mississippi roger wicker sending out a tweet about the decision saying that the new conservative majority court will hear the abortion case and it could set a major precedent for states to protect life. other people commenting yesterday, opposing the decision or at least the decision by the court, not so much the court that the overall issue, this is patty murray, the senator from washington state saying that this is the republican nonstop effort to fill the system with antichoice judges has led to. we will fight this at every step of the way. congressman bowman from new york , saying that the court must reaffirm the right to abortion by striking down the laws and as

congress we must reform and expand the supreme court to restore balance. he said reaffirm the right to abortion and that tweet. sorry about that. richard blumenthal, democratic senator, saying that the women's health protection act will put an end to actions from states like mississippi to deny access to safe and legal abortions. protecting against this exact reprehensible decision. that act didn't pass the last congress but when it comes to the act itself on the blumenthal website it says that the legislation would prohibit laws that have burdensome requirements on reproductive health services like requiring doctors to perform tests and procedures doctors have deemed unnecessary or preventing them from dispensing medication deemed medically appropriate and other examples of laws that make it more difficult include restriction on medical training for future abortion providers,

host: you can find more of that on the senator's website. rebecca, california, independent line, go ahead. caller: i mainly want to state an opinion. i'm really disappointed in the supreme court. i feel like they don't have enough to do and then -- they need a homework assignment. i would like them to rewrite the constitution. abortion needs to go away on the back burner. our constitution is at stake. host: as far as abortion, why do you think it's a back burner -- back burner issue? caller: we have got bigger fish to fry right now. matt -- men have not been getting sex? they will really not get it now. host: what do you mean by bigger fish to fry? caller: i believe that climate change is bigger, covid is bigger, how we treat each other

is bigger. there are a lot of other issues that we need to address. why is this coming up now? is it another distraction? it creates more confusion. but it will be interesting, pedro, to see what judge a people do. i'm looking forward to seeing that, if this is how it's going to proceed. the supreme court, i'm very disappointed. all i see is them sitting around a big table and then they wear black robes. i really don't know what they do. thank you. host: by the way, rebecca mentioned the newest addition to the supreme court, amy coney barrett. at her confirmation hearing she was asked many times about the topic of abortion. if you want to revisit that and what other justices set about that topic during their confirmation hearings, we invite you to go to our website, c-span.org, go to our video library, type in the search words there and you can find

specifically if you are interested more on the confirmation hearings on several of the latest justices to see where they stand on the issue. seattle, washington, democratic line, high, you are on. -- hi, you are on. caller: how many men have had abortions or suffer the pain of birth? in my opinion they shouldn't even have an opinion. i have had more than one. they are not that difficult, but it's up to the woman and the woman only. she is stuck with all the responsibility, all the afterwards of years of raising a child. i knew the minute that amy coney barrett was confirmed what would happen. she's a woman and we know how she leans and it's not fair at all. host: ok. charlie, roslyn heights, hello. caller: i met with progressive

but when it comes to abortion, i don't know where life starts so i have to play it safe and say i'm against abortion. i have to point out this gives a lot of fuel to the conservatives in the country. like marjorie greene, who came up to new york and started banging on the door of aoc. i wish she would come to my door and let me debate her. i can't even get through to her office. host: back to the court decision, what do you think about that regarding your personal position? caller: i'm giving you my personal opinion. i don't know where life starts. i have to play it safe. i'm a progressive by the way. this gives fuel to the conservatives. host: you said that. should the court take up the case? caller: i don't care what they do. host: you called enough to cap -- cared enough to call in. do you think this -- the court should take up the case? caller: yeah, sure. host: ok.

major papers have covered this topic or at least the court decision. papers across the united states as well and as we take the next call, we will show you a sample of some of those front pages from papers across the united states about this decision to take up the mississippi case. we will do that over the next call from joel. mountain home, arkansas, republican line. caller: good morning, sir. host: good morning, you are on. caller: i'm trying to get my thoughts together. abortion should not be government paid to. taxpayers are paying for abortion. are we there? host: you are on. what do you think of the decision by the court? caller: i think it should be taken up again because abortion was passed with one vote only in the jimmy carter era i think.

not sure about that, but it was passed with one vote only and i might be incorrect. i think the people should be allowed to vote on abortion. now the women are saying it's their right to have an abortion. ok, i will go back to this, pay for your own abortion. you put yourself in this position to get pregnant, so pay for your own abortion. i believe i heard a lady say that she has had two abortions that's government-funded. host: what makes you assume that it's government-funded? caller: it is government-funded. host: what makes you say that, though? caller: we know it is. host: how do you know? caller: well, it's like all the government things they lied to us about. host: ok. joel, arkansas, calling on the republican line. we will hear from newman in san

antonio, texas, democrats line. caller: my answer to the supreme court, no, they shouldn't take it up. that last gentleman that you just talked to? that man just made me so angry. spewing stuff, you know, has no understanding about anything. host: let's start with your thinking on why the court shouldn't take it up. why is that? caller: why they shouldn't? so many factors involved. i don't trust the supreme court come up with the right decision. there's a lot of factors involved in this decision. we expect the supreme court too, what are they say in mississippi? 15 weeks? i ask everybody when i hear this conversation, if i was to rape

your daughter, would you want her to carry that child? you know what most tell me, hell no. what about pro-life? she my daughter. i'm still talking to you. host: why do you think the supreme court won't make the right decision in this case? caller: i just don't trust them. most of them up there are men trying to make a decision on what this woman should or should not do with her body and i don't think that's right. newman in texas giving thoughts on that, politico reporting breaking news as we would frame it when it comes to other things rather than's supreme court, val demings is planning to run against marco rubio. you will find more on that on the pages of politico about government funds concerning

abortions. this is from the group mocker institute about the state funding of abortion under medicaid, specifically saying it was first implemented in 1977, the hyde amendment forbids the use of funds for abortion describing it under a joint federal state medicaid program and at a minimum states must cover the program that meets federal exceptions. one state is in violation of federal medicaid law because it pays for abortions only in cases of life in danger in and some states use their own funds to pay for most medically necessary abortions, though do so as a result of a specific court order. got mocker.org if you want to read more about that. this is from linda in geneva, new york. go ahead. caller: yeah, the supreme court once to take up this abortion issue.

i would like them to, any woman that has an abortion then has to have her uterus removed or be killed. host: why do you think the caller should take it up specifically? caller: because it will finally be settled, you know? it's been 40 years of this crappy and killing -- crap and killing babies. host: ok, let's hear from stephanie in columbus, ohio. caller: i think the supreme court should take up this case, it's the ultimate constitutional question and nothing is more constitutional than the right to choose to do what's right for oneself. i personally don't support abortion but i do believe that it is a woman's right to choose and i think that if people are so hell-bent on choosing to arm themselves to protect

themselves, a woman should have a right to choose to do what's right for her body. this may be too much information, but i have endometriosis, i don't get my. regularly. i give -- get it every four months. in ohio, should i get pregnant, occasionally i have a drink or another, if i get pregnant i won't know it because my. doesn't come regularly and if something were to happen, i would not want to bring a child into this world unless it was safe. i would not have an abortion unless it was endangering my life for a child's life, but that doesn't mean my situation is the same for everybody else. host: when the court took up the mississippi case, one of the issues dealt with viability of the fetus. what you think of that issue in light of what you said? caller: as far as fetal viability, i feel like based on science -- hello?

host: you are still on. caller: no i'm asking are we talking about science? host: if you want to, go ahead. caller: i think based on science you can take it up based on that, but also you have to look at it as what is going to be the active life of that child when it's born, you know what i mean? it could just go into the system and get mistreated. it's a never ending cycle where yes it will be alive and breathing, but it might suffer in other ways where it would be kinder to i don't want to say have an abortion, but if you're going to have a child in a home where the husband is abusive and will beat the life out of the mother and the child, isn't that cruel by itself? host: ok. a couple of things to share here on the court decision. the washington post saying that the first part of the child benefit dividend from the

federal government is set to hit bank accounts starting july 15, saying that the internal revenue service will start delivering a monthly payment of $300 per child under six and $250 per child six and older who qualify and the monthly benefits will be deposited directly in most families bank accounts on the 15th of every month and if the 15th falls on a holiday or weekend for the rest of the year without any action were wired. an eligible family with two children ages five and 13 will receive 500 and $50 from the irs directly close to the 15th of every month in july. this came as a result of the passage of the american families plan or, sorry, that was the american rescue plan. that was a part of their decision. you can read more about it at "the washington post here: when it comes to the decision on sharing covid back -- covid-19

vaccine, the announcement by the administration marks the first time the united states has said that it will share vaccine doses authorized for domestic use, including doses for johnson & johnson, pfizer, biontech. we want to lead the world with our values in this demonstration of our fundamental decency of the american people, the president said, monday afternoon, in a speech in the east room of the white house. you can go to our website, c-span.org, if you want to find out more about that. when it comes to federal aid and how it benefited people dealing with the pandemic specifically, they wrote about it in "the new york times," the fed online survey that traces the experience of u.s. adults over the age of 18, they said that they were worse off compared to a year earlier financially as job losses swept the nation and one in seven adults reportedly

experienced a layoff at some point in 2020 and a large share of household took advantage of government relief in 2020 as congress enhanced the generosity of benefits for those experiencing job loss. 14% of adults said they had received unemployment income in 2019. floyd is next. jonesville, virginia. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. abortion is premeditated murder, i think. but i have seen women on tv talking that have been born from rape and they are real pleased their mother didn't have them aborted because they love their life and went on to have their own children, their own families. it's wrong to commit abortion. host: what do you think about the supreme court taking up this case? caller: it's wonderful.

host: why? caller: because they might be able to put it back up. eve had a baby by satan and a lot of people thought he should be awarded, kane. he lived and his offspring is still here today. host: ok. this is jack, el paso, hello. caller: i've got a kind of independent idea on this. i'm not sure if the supreme court at all, the people should exercise their vote on this. what the people in the bible belt think about abortion, i'm sure that people, let's say, in new york or that part of the country would agree with.

an asian in san francisco might have a completely different idea on it. host: don't you think a national policy or decision is necessary considering the patchwork that talk about? caller: no, i do not. i think each particular state and region should be willing to vote for itself and have the law implemented in those particular states. the supreme court ruled recently , when 18 states came together and asked to have an opinion on the last election, the supreme court said we don't have jurisdiction to do that. but all of a sudden now they have jurisdiction? to rule over the rights of a

woman, women in every section of the country every state? that's out of balance. host: that is jack in texas. the washington times highlights information from the president's tax returns that have been released by the white house, showing a $600,000 income in 2020, paying federal income tax for an effective rate of 25.9%. the bidens donated $30,000, 5% of their total income, to charity. the donation included $10,000 to go to an anti-child-abuse group named for his late son and the president and first lady page 28,700 in delaware income tax and misses biden paid virginia income tax. the first lady teaches that a northern virginia community college. dennis, pennsylvania, go ahead.

caller: hello, thanks for take my call. no, i don't think the supreme court should be taking this up. roe v. wade was decided by a seven-to vote. it wasn't one vote, it was a near unanimous vote by supreme court justices that never had any inkling that they would be taking an abortion case. this court is rigged by the republicans cook -- republicans, which i don't even call them republicans anymore. host: some callers have said that some of the science should be reconsidered and taking up the new case. what do you think of that? caller: i don't think so. it's a constitutional right. by the way, abortion was legal in this country, when this country was founded. people better study it up and find out that that's an absolute fact. host: ok, let's hear from janet

in dayton, ohio. independent mind. caller:6 thank you for taking my call, i appreciate it. i do not think they should be taking this up. how many times do they want to beat this dead horse? it's such a war against women because at the point of a life sentence, you may want to think about abortion. but they want to make it a higher penalty than what they would give a man to rape a woman. it's absolutely ridiculous. america is about choice and this is all about a choice between between a woman, her faith, and her doctor and nobody else should be involved. it should not be anything in the law. it shouldn't have anything to do with the government and until you infringe on a males reproductive system, you need to leave the women alone. host: jerry and maine, you are

next up. hello. caller: why can you get caught charged with double murder if you kill a pregnant woman but they can have an abortion into the ninth month and it's not considered it? host: how does that, what does that mean as far as the supreme court taking up this case this fall, this mississippi case? caller: they ought to take it up and consider that. how can it be murder if you kill a pregnant woman, you can get charged with double murder, but they can't get charged for anything with a nine-month abortion? host: how does that relate to the decision by the court to take up the case? caller: i think they ought to consider that when they take it up. host: ok, that is jerry in maine. the biden administration saying they are approving the sale of 735 million dollars of precision guided weapons to israel,

raising red flags for house democrats who are a part of the debate of the u.s. government support for the israeli government and the prime minister there, benjamin netanyahu, saying that it forced various reaction from democrats on capitol hill, including the foreign and fairs committee chair, who called a virtual emergency meeting with house democrats on the committee to discuss the sale and the conflict more broadly, according to a person familiar with the meeting, telling lawmakers that he was caught unaware of this weapons sale to israel according to the person interviewed on that for the post this morning. james, new york, democrats line, go ahead. caller: yes, hello. i'm totally, totally against it. the republicans are all about withholding the rights of human beings. they don't want lack people, people of color to vote, they don't want people to be in charge of their own bodies. the other thing is why should

religion have anything to do with this. and men trying to tell women what to do? host: as far as the court decision is concerned, what do you think about them taking it in the first place? caller: they should not do this. this is how the republican tilted supreme court is beginning to dismantle the roe v. wade. host: what leads you to that conclusion? caller: amy coney barrett? i mean what donald trump said in the beginning is that he's picking people to dismantle roe v. wade. he said that they would assign it to separate states. that was what he did, that's what the heritage foundation has . people leaning to the extreme right. now if we do believe in judges to follow the constitution, we will see what happens, but then again you got to be careful.

john roberts gutted the voting rights thing into thousand 13 and the republicans are systematically beginning to do this. i want to address all women, women that voted for trump and the republicans, they are systematically doing it in a very, very simplistic, clandestine way to take your rights. host: ok, speaking of the former president, former president trump is set to host a dinner at the republican state convention according to party officials on the website, adding that the speech in north carolina, adding republicans to the group, will be closed to the media. if you go to usa today, in the life section they say that the social media app, parler,

removed in the wake of the january 6 attack is now back on the apple app store. they announced monday that it was relaunched, adding a separate search conducted today confirming that the app is now available for download and as a part of their deal to return, the ios app will exclude some content normally allowed on the social media company platform. very, mount kisco, new york, democratic line. host: i have two points. first, the history of evangelical objection to abortion started after they lost segregation court -- cases in the 70's. jerry falwell needed a, you know, something to have political power. he needed a, you know, something

to rally. host: how does that relate to the decision to take it up currently? caller: that's my second point. evangelical's have been misled and manipulated and i'm sorry for them. the implications of the supreme court taking up the case now of roe v. wade, they should realize, evangelicals, that if there is a ruling by this current supreme court, which is stacked in their favor, if they do get any kind of favorable ruling that allows the restriction of abortion rights, they are almost guaranteeing a landslide victory for democrats and the midterms, said first of all. second of all, the democrats will for sure do away with the filibuster. host: john, bradenton, florida, independent line. hello. caller: high, you are on --

hello. i think people should follow the science. the science is so much further now than it was when roe v. wade was law. caller: 15 weeks is almost four months, a baby can be taken out of the womb and be put into embryonic fluid and be brought to birth. this baby, the heart is beating at 15 weeks. and so, if the mothers do not want to do this because i do not want the child out there with my dna, they can change the dna so it does not match anymore. host: as far as the court taking up the case, why do you think that was an appropriate move? caller: signs can save these babies. someone does not want a baby, take it out and out as a ward of the state. host: that is john, from florida. the last call on the topic. we appreciate all of you who

called in. coming up, a couple of perspectives. we will be joined by barbara comstock of virginia who is discussing her participation in something called a call for american renewal, one of those things, an effort to repudiate the former president's postelection rhetoric. and later, the american federation of teachers president, annie wrote -- randi weingarten, will talk about her speech caused -- calling for the reopening of schools. those conversations coming up. ♪ >> listen to c-span's podcast, book notes plus, this week with wall street journal editorial board member and columnists. newegg -- new episodes are available every tuesday morning. subscriber you get your podcasts

and there is more on c-span.org /podcasts. ♪ >> c-span shot.org is the online store with a collection of c-span products and every purchase help supports our nonprofit operations. go to order the copy of the congressional directory with contact information for members of congress and the biden administration cabinet. browse our newest products at c-spanshop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our first guest is barbara comstock who served in the house of representatives as a republican. she served from 20 16 to 2019 -- 2016 to 2019. you are part of an effort called

a call for american renewal. what is that? guest: it is a center-right group, a group of republicans, former republicans, and independents who do not want to be democrats but restore the center-right party. some of the people might want to start a third party, i am thoroughly in the camp of wanting to restore the republican party really under the grip of the former president, and, in light of all of the january 6 actions, which really precipitated a lot of this, because that became a break. it was not a partisan issue at all, the liz cheney situation. as she personally pointed out, it is a break with constitution principles, the rule of law, and we have to restore that and not make the republican party a cult of personality, but get back to the principles.

also, very much forward-looking in terms of the many challenges we have in the domestic and foreign policy front, international competition, post-pandemic how are we going to deal with a lot of these issues that we are left with post-pandemic. so, it is an efforts to have a forward-looking republican party that is not stock in the past with the former president and his grievances, and certainly his unconstitutional actions culminating in january 6. host: how much sway do you think the former president has over the former -- has over the republican party? guest: i appreciate that he has a lot of supporters, but i think that is dissipating. you look at the fact that this is a president who twice did not get the popular vote. the second time only got 46.9. he was twice impeached. we lost the house, we lost the

senate, and we lost the white house under him. this is not somebody who has been able to grow the party to get to a majority, i certainly appreciate that there are parts of the party where he has increased and change the dynamics between the two parties, but you have to add and multiply if you are a party at 46.9. what the former president proved that he can do is first he very much divided the country, that was obvious in both of his elections, but now he is very much dividing the party. that is particularly what we think is dangerous because it is based on the big lies, and i think you have seen that most recently just this week with what is going on in arizona. republican officials in maricopa county which has for out of their five supervisors being republican are pointing out that there election had been audited

twice with the same results, and that now the former president is still making very provably false claims that are inciting again, threatening to incite violence, i think and in my opinion because all of these big lies that we are told throughout november and december leading up to january 6 certainly led to what happened on january 6. i know that morning i called my family and former staff and begged them do not go down there today, i am very worried about what will happen because of what this has been leading up to. i know representative adam kinzinger told his staff to work at home because of his concerns. and, you had georgia republican officials very pointedly making public statements saying to the former president, this is going to end and dangerous things. and, we have seen increased

death threats against members of congress of both parties, in my understanding. and now we see election officials in arizona who fear for their lives. this is all, i think very much in my opinion, originating with the president -- former president continuing to tell this big lie and being a sore loser, in effect, and not accepting the results of an election. i was also part of a bipartisan election integrity group that started last summer, and our purpose was to say, make sure that we have processes in place to make the election safe and accepted, and we were prepared, democrats and republicans, to uphold that this election was legal, regardless of who won. we could have been in the opposite situation where it was very close and the former president won and you would have people on the left upset about it.

i do not know what they might had done, but if they had done similar things we would be in the same place. it really is about restoring our constitutional government, faith in democracy, and one of my big concerns now is a republican and as a citizen, is these continual lies are going to suppress the vote of republicans. you have republicans losing faith in elections, and you saw no better example of that than in georgia where the president -- the former president, ended up suppressing the republican vote, not as many people came out in that january 5 election for the two senators because donald trump had gone around for two months saying that this was rigged and stolen, and he continues, even this week and this new blog that he has from

mar-a-lago or wherever he is saying this was a rigged and stolen election. something that i would point out, fewer and fewer republicans are publicly saying, and even the president's favorite networks even on the far right are not saying. they know, i think which is my understanding, it is because of legal issues in making those claims when they have turned out to be provably false again and again. host: our guest is with us until 8:45. if you want to ask questions about this group she is part of an issue she brought up. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8002 for independents, and you can text us at 202-748-8003. i believe that you served both with representative cheney and the new republican conference chair. what does that story that you saw say about the current republican party the removal of liz cheney and the bringing in

of elise stefanik? caller: i -- guest: i have known liz cheney for years and i am proud to serve with her. i think that her statements when she supported impeachment were ones of conscience, and it was a vote of one. at that time republican leadership in the house and senate said that these -- this is a vote of conscience and i do not believe they whipped the vote. so, now, i am very proud of her actions. recently, in making the statements of this is between the truth and the constitution or supporting donald trump's live, and the former president, who is only at 32% approval. you asked what it -- what is his impact? nationally he is at 32% approval. regardless of where he is at inside the party. all he has proven that he can do

is divide. so, if you are at 46.9% and you divide that by any number, even take 10 or 20% off, you cannot win in an election and you are not a vibrant party. that is why i am very proud of what liz cheney did. and i think -- i said i thought it was very cynical for the house republican caucus to say we will bring another woman in and make it a woman who will recite the talking points that make the former president happy. and, i certainly was not happy to see that her whole campaign was really based on the former president supported her when she made her acceptance speech after she used his name over and over again, making it clear that that was the litmus test for house leadership, which is very much in contrast to senate leadership.

i think the senate has taken a different approach here. none of the senate leadership voted against certifying the election on january 6. i have talked to senators who are very conservative, who took that vote to certify the election, and they clearly understood that there were republicans who were upset about this, but the idea that on january 6 that you would have people roaming the halls saying hang mike pence and are capitol police -- i worked with the capitol police and i was on the committee that oversaw the capitol police. it breaks my heart that you still have what happen on january 6 ignored. i am very proud of the senate leadership that is going in a different direction. they do not have this subservience to a former president who is just a sore

loser who could not accept the fact that the voters spoke, and the voters said no to donald trump, but they did not say no to republican principles because we gain seats in the house, a lot of those seats were people who outran donald trump, many women or minority candidates. i worked to get those women elected, so i am proud of those women getting in there, notably we did not support marjorie greene and we are proud that we are did not support her -- that we did not support her. i think this is a very challenging time, but to me, and is as easy as it was for liz cheney to say, january 6 was a dividing line. once that happened and you saw the violence, the flame that was lit by donald trump at that rally today, and those two months before that, all of the lies and telling people to march

to the capital, ashley capitol and they did exactly that. some of them were running down to the capitol. he saw that. i think liz is a woman of courage, and i think she is a woman for all seasons. she is not a air whether and to the content -- fairweather friends the constitution, even under very difficult circumstances giving that she comes from a republican state. i think history will be kind to her and history will not be kind to those who were supporting the big lie, because it is so easily disproven. host: we have calls lined up. from pennsylvania, mark starts us off. republican line, you are on. caller: good morning. when you keep repeating democrat talking parts you are destroying the republican party. we have a problem that there is factual evidence that the swing

states violated the constitutional law in their states and state laws. i would like to know how you can explain that joe biden got 450 electoral votes and barack obama got 960 and he got 12 million more votes than barack obama. the court cases that donald trump brought to court ended up in split decisions. one in wisconsin should have been won. the supreme court should have been heard. all this stuff is not a figment of donald trump's imagination. the end result is that the 75 million people -- 74 million people who voted for him supported his policies and what this country became under his leadership. you on the other hand think you are the majority and you are not. i would like to know how you cannot see that laws were broken but we should still follow the constitution and allow someone to broke laws to become president. host: go ahead. guest: this is what is so sad, to hear somebody who is

essentially reciting the president's talking points. i'm not even familiar with some of the mishmash. first of all, the president got 74 million point whatever votes, but joe biden got 81 million. that is a talking point that is repeated, but when the other side gets more, that is called losing. that is something that donald trump has not been able to accept. let us go back to all of these judges. certainly you hear many conservatives say that they supported donald trump in 16 and 20 because of judges, and i sympathize with those people who supported him because of that because i work extensively at the justice department and on public affairs and worked on seven -- senate confirmations on the bush and supported all of the republican judges that are there. 60 court cases, many of them

written by federalist consultant -- society conservative judges shot down the theory time after time. i would like to point out that the president had a crackpot in my opinion legal team that was also ridiculed by conservative serious lawyers. and then, you have the supreme court. six of the justices were appointed by republican presidents. three of them by donald trump, and they rejected the case. to say -- it is just the law, it is not anything about democrat talking points. i am a conservative. i supported the previous judges on the bench because i trusted that they would support the law. one of the things that i say to my democrat friends is that i point out many of them attack these justices and judges.

many of them said that they would be trumped drudges doing -- trump judges and donald trump said these were trump judges. what it turned out were these judges were conservative who adhered to the law and i am proud of that because these judges and justices were getting smeared by the left often and at a very difficult time. they stood up for the constitution, and for the rule of law. again, these talking points that donald trump puts out, and then are just repeated by people have again and again been proven false by republican officials in arizona, republican officials in georgia, and you now have legal cases -- you have seen, i believe it is and i might be mistaken, but some of the conservative tv shows have gone on and read statements from their lawyers saying we just

want to make clear that some of the people -- something to the effect that people on the show who are saying things that might be similar to the gentleman who was just on, we have no evidence to prove any of that, and we are not making that claim. because things like the dominion lawsuits, again all of these things that have easily and proven false, and 60 court case is that said they were inaccurate, court cases that were often written by those conservative judges that so many republicans wanted to put into place. now you have people left like the former president or the mypillow guy who claims that he has evidence, but there has been unproven proven in a court of law. host: tim, atlanta georgia. independent line. caller: yes, earlier you said you do not believe that there should be a third party. the republican party as of

today, even as you say those individuals who have just heard are a minority, they are a representative of that party. there is no way in my opinion and most of the independents i have talked to in my circle that we can go back and vote for a party that has basically committed treason, has set here and fabricated and believes in a lie with no proof. in my opinion, you have to have, and we want a third party of republicans like you, who actually in my opinion have proper sense. why do you not believe that you guys need to branch off and have a third party? host: i will also add that you talked about your decision about a third party earlier. as far as the call for american renewal is to reimagine the current party that you are currently. how does that work and what

would you propose as part of that? guest: well, we vote for individuals. they do have a party label and in different states you have different parties like an independent party or conservative party might endorse one candidate or another. so, i think we do need a strong two party system, and we need to have one where the republican party should not be based on conspiracy theories propagated largely by the former president that is infecting the body politic. i am supporting those republicans who very strongly are trying to turn the page and have a post trump, post-pandemic party that focuses on the issues and concerns of the american people and constituents. i am supporting people like adam , a fighter pilot who is -- who has been very courageously going

into this battle, and fighting for the constitution. he is conservative, he was somebody like liz when when he stood up in the caucus and talked about foreign policy issues and military issues, we listens to him because he had been in the field and had a very commonsense approach to these issues. i think republicans like that need our support. people like jamie herrera butler who vote for impeachment who is in washington state, one of the leaders of issues for women and children, and helping minority women get better health care when they are pregnant. she has worked on special needs children's issues. she herself has a special needs child, and one of the first women in congress to have three children while she is in the house. cathy mcmorris rodgers is another one who says that. these are women who i am very

happy to stand with, because i feel they continue to espouse the conservative principles i support. i support tax cuts. i voted for tax reform. i do not want to see the current administration reverse that. i will work with conservatives and independents and people who will fight for those principles, but there has to be a respect for the constitution and not this slavish devotion and cold of personality dealing with the former president -- cult of personality dealing with the former president that is destructive to the party. if you look around the country, you see state house representatives, republicans, and governors who have moved on and who will be good candidates. we have governor hogan in maryland. governor baker in massachusetts. two republicans who are among the most popular governors in the country.

governor chris sununu in new hampshire outdid donald trump's numbers by double digits and he is the most popular official in new hampshire, and he may run for president. he is somebody that i can get behind. i am not going to support marjorie greene. if there is someone who will stand for the constitution, i would be happy to support them. i hope to see many of these sort of fringe candidates go by the wayside because they are very ineffective in representing their districts and getting anything done that is helpful for the districts because they are divisive people who i can tell you right now from everything i've ever seen in congress, you will not see marjorie greene pass a bill, in my opinion. i do not expect you will ever see a bill sponsored by her past, yet she will send out

fundraising letters talking about things she has introduced, yet she will be one of the most ineffective members of congress. host: we have a viewer from california who texted us asking you this saying, "since the non-trump supporters represent 9% of the voting public, why not join with the democrats long enough to put a vampire spike through the heart of trumpism and then around liz cheney? guest: i think it is more than 9%, because the reason that donald trump got 46.9 is because he already lost republicans like me, and many others in the suburbs. he hemorrhaged votes from the some herbs -- suburbs, professionals. he did gain some working-class votes, and, more racially diverse. he lost the suburbs. i think we need to find candidates, say like a tim scott, senator tim scott, who

gave a very good speech in response to president biden's state of the union laying out what he wanted to do going forward, and he is the type of person who could turn the page and, he did vote to certify the election on january 6. there are many others, voices and faces, new people who have come in who did better than donald trump, so we need to be hearing from them. and i do not think either party's future is going to be with 70 something-year-old white man. we have a very diverse country, and each party has a lot of different voices and talents, and we need to, and particularly when you are not in control of the house, senate, or white house, which the republicans are not, and you had a standardbearer who lost the popular vote twice, you need to

turn the page. as a republican, there are candidates that i can support on the state level, governors, people who i think will do the right policies in my state or area or as i look across the country. i think you vote for individuals. i am hoping that those individuals are able to be leaders, the positive, and get us back on track. that is where i am putting my hope over the next few years, and we do see evidence that donald trump's influence is waning, not increasing. if he is going down from that 46.9, and he certainly is, the gentleman who pointed out the 74 million, donald trump does not still have the support of the 74 million. many of those who have said ok, i did not want joe biden but i do not want to trump in the

future, so they have moved on. even some of them who like tim realized, if he cannot win, let us try something else because at the end of the day, if you want your policies to be enacted into law you have to support somebody who gets elected. host: tony from washington, d.c.. democrats line. caller: thank you for taking my call. you just mentioned getting your policy enacted. i am wondering what policy differences do you have with the trump wing of the republican party? thank you. guest: well, largely the slavish devotion to the former president. but also, i think the way -- i did support -- and at one point the former president said he supported having immigration reform, so i think that is something that both parties have used as an election issue instead of getting a solution.

i do support having immigration reform. i voted to do that at the time when the former president said he would support the bill that we had. democrats did not want to support it at that time and people from the freedom caucus opposed that effort. and i think the freedom caucus and how -- they were very destructive to the whole republican agenda in general. and, certainly the sort of isolationist policies that the former president had, i do not support. we have seen stories talking about how he was trying to immediately withdraw troops in many places across the world. that kind of action sounds very frightening to me, but i am a conservative. i supported conservative judges. in a house we did not vote on them, but in general idea.

i support conservative economic policies, lower taxes, less regulation, but i also support working together. i have past sexual harassment legislation that the former president signed. i worked on opioid legislation, something that people worked bipartisan on. in the former president signed that. there were a lot of good things that were done, so i understand why republicans who support a lot of these conservative policies wanted to have those policies continue. i just think that donald trump was a very poor vessel because he does not have a fundamental respect for the rule of law, and constitutional government. even when you had different republicans trying to keep control of him, that is not the type of person that you ever want to have in the white house. and, i did not vote for him in 16 or 20, that i still do

support conservative policies. host: who did you vote for in 20? guest: i wrote in. host: care to share? guest: in 16 i wrote in marco rubio, who i had chaired for his campaign for president in 16. in 2020, i wrote in abigail adams because i was very -- one of the things i also did not like about one of the former president -- about the former president is that he was quick to attack a lot of women, democrat and republican, people like my friend susan collins who -- who he was very nasty about. but also, the way he talked about many women was certainly very distressing. so, he lost virginia by over 10 points. i was confident that that would be the case in virginia. host: from maryland, republican line. this is jerry for barbara

comstock, a representative in congress that served from 2015 through through tout -- three 2019. caller: i think my question has been answered. representative, i was going to ask if she could point to any of the trump policies that she disagrees with. i do not think she does, so then it becomes a personality issue. and maybe that is just what this is. guest: well, it is a very destructive personality, having a leader that does not support the rule of law or constitution and is willing to -- willing to lie to the american people about basic facts, whether the election was won or not. as i mentioned there are a number of foreign policy issues and how he looked at the military, certainly when you talk about my military or my generals, these are people again who take an oath to the

constitution to protect the country, not -- obviously they take orders from the commander-in-chief, but they are not his generals. so, just his whole approach to governance was always troubling. but, certainly while he was in office, you had many republican leaders, whether they were leaders on tax policy or foreign policy who tried to rein in his worst instincts are a bad policy. so often times the worst things that he talked about doing where reined in, so those who wanted to pass an opioid policy or pass budgets that increased spending for the military were able to do so, and then the president signed those bills. that is why you see whether it is a lens cheney or adam kinzinger, they voted for bills that the president signed, but if you look at a lot of the

things that i voted for. i mean, i voted to keep the government open. the president -- one of the things that i opposed that he was always talking about and i did it once at a meeting in the white house when the president talked about shutting down the government, i pointed out politely and strongly that shutting down the government was a really bad idea. and i continue to think that. but he did shut down the government. i do not remember how me times, but that is always counterproductive and it wastes government money and it is a dumb thing to do. democrats also voted to shutdown the government. i was the only one in this region who while i was in never voted to shut down the government. his approach to government, his isolationism and population is him.

i worked a lot with the tech world, while i was in government. and his approach to businesses and wants to attack his misses and wants to shake them down, that is what he is doing to do what he wants them to do and i am a free market conservative who wants to allow businesses and private enterprises to do what they want i do not want to do anything at all with breaking up tech companies and attacking china when it is their strongest competition. they have nine tech companies and the u.s. has 11 and trump was attacking what is 24 century -- 21st century businesses and those policies that he had very much -- i very much disagree with. host: william, kenosha,

wisconsin. independent line. caller: hello, more of a comment. i consider myself to have been a moderate publican and i am a moderate independent now. when you look at the republican party today, it seems like they are trying to remake yourselves -- themselves on the sideshow and what were his main ideas until he went back on the middle class and gave the corporations a bigger tax cut then the middle class. being a moderate we will not agree on a lot of things, like i think reagan era tax cuts where where we needed to be. let me ask you this. i hear it from a lot of republicans today. they are talking about how businesses create jobs, but really from my point of view of republicanism, businesses go into business to make profit.

in order to make profit they need workers, so there is a synergy. should the government be pro-business, shouldn't they be just be pro-open market? whatever your thoughts are on that, i would love to hear them. guest: obviously the most valuable thing we had for workers is their talent. we also had a lot of bipartisan support was workforce development. and i think post-pandemic, that is an area that you would see a lot of people working together, and that is because we know to stay competitive in the world, we need to constantly upscale the workforce, whether it is through workforce training, i often when i was in congress would visit a lot of different businesses and see how they were training their employees. and we think it is good for government to be helping

businesses through tax incentives or independent support for businesses to do that. i also served five years in the statehouse and we were very focused on that, trying to get people skilled into the jobs of the future. cybersecurity, we have seen all sorts of cybersecurity threats. in virginia we have thousands of cybersecurity jobs open. training people and that training can oftentimes be shorter than a college degree. you can get certificates to be in cybersecurity, and then when you are working for some of those companies in very good paying jobs with benefits and opportunities to get higher level education, you can move up the economic ladder. i think that is an area -- i do not think that area is red or blue, it is about what are the jobs of the future. those are the issues that i hope people will be working on in the

future. host: mike in michigan, republican line. good morning. caller: my question is if another republican that you do not like that's nomination are you going to vote for biden-harris? guest: i am doing everything now to work to get a republican party that is more vibrant and will have a future oriented leader, and i think when you see things like -- i very much support the january 6 commission that has been introduced by a republican and democrat, who is a very good legislator on the homeland security committee and is part of that. when a lot of the information comes out of that commission, maybe more republicans will realize why they have to turn the page and what happens here. i am going to still sort of be the glass is half-full and focus on how we can get more

republicans to turn the page. i do not want to answer hypotheticals of what i am actively going to work against happening. i certainly do not want to see somebody like the former president or somebody in that vein who supported the be -- the big lie to be on a presidential ticket and i would prefer them not to be on republican ticket. host: one of the reasons that leader mccarthy in the house decided to bring on representatives to phonic was to retake the house. as it currently stands, what do you think about that possibility? guest: because we were able unexpectedly in some parts to gain seats in the last election despite the former president, because we had candidates who had run. i think there is an opportunity to gain the majority, and i think most pundits looking at it

who really get into the reason also think that that is possible. and i also think it is important who those people are who gain the majority and i know in those swings seeds, the former president -- swing seats the former president's numbers are worse. the kind of people that you need to have in those states will be the republicans that i expect to support, and that would certainly be my focus, to get more of those republicans to be part of the caucus. like i said, in very red districts that have some of these deniers on what happened on january 6, i would hope to see primary challenges, and i would be supportive of that also. i think it is very possible in both the house and the senate that the republicans can regain the majority, but i certainly wanted to be people who are

turning the page to focus on rule of law and conservative principles. host: what is a possibility you will run again? guest: i am in the john boehner camp i cannot remember what he said, i would rather set myself on fire? i am happy to help others, and i am on two groups that help women republicans get elected, and i also work with state legislators, so, here in virginia, harold pion, who is a cree-american candidate, she is the kind of keratin -- candidate that i would like to see get into office in virginia. nick clemente who is running in northern virginia and has been knocking on doors. he is somebody who understands that we need to turn the page and focus on the kitchen table issues, so when i see candidates

like that and there are also some women candidates that i am now already working with in congress, so, that is the type. and i am happy to help them. it was a privilege to serve, i served for about a decade in the state and congress and worked in congress for years. but i think there are other ways to serve the community, and i continue to serve on charitable boards and work on issues that i am passionate about with businesses that i care about that i think are the future of the 21st century economy. i am happy to continue to continue -- to help elect the type of people who will be good leaders for the country, not just the party. host: joanne, kingsport, tennessee. the republican line. caller: i think you are all wrong about the big lie. it is not a lie, we all saw the

proof in the fraud in our elections and url there promoting yourself and nobody else but you. you are bragging about everything you have done. frankly, i think you are part of the swamp. you are with mitt romney and you will stay with mitt romney no matter what. it is people like you that has ruined the republican party. that is all i have to say. host: representative comstock? guest: i think, again this is the cult of personality that the former president has engendered. i think it is unfortunate because one of the things that is also part of what the former president is doing is that he is raising money off of the big lie. and notably, you have not heard anybody site a legal case -- cite a legal case upheld with any of these claims that the former president has made.

yes, because he makes them it continues to have this grievance politics that he has part of. and that is part of why i think he is dangerous, and why the january 6 commission is so important. like liz cheney, i am fearful that something like that could happen again because of what the former president is doing and what he is inciting with his continuation of misinformation. and, if you have heard stories that recorded that there have been more threats about members of congress, threats against election officials, but i also fear that, for good republicans that he is going to continue to suppress the vote. i think he has this attitude that if the former president's attitude is if he does not when he does not want anyone to win.

it is my party, and if you do not take me, i will break it up and take my people home. we never had a former president like this, and that is why i am pleased that the support is dissipating. it is 14% according to recent polls, 32% public, but that support that he has is loud. i would point out that it was might get -- matt gaetz and marjorie greene that started the attack on liz cheney, and look at the clown car that those two are. and the legal problems that matt gaetz may have according to recent reports. these are not people that you want to see as the future of the party, yet they go out on their tour and get people and do this fundraising, and they do this to propagate not any particular legislation but their own sort

of self-importance. and that is not what it is about. none of this is individually important, it is about the principles, the country and the people. it is not about us and that is not -- that is what donald trump never understood. he had his own supporters and people around him saying -- i think there was a quote to the effect of what impact does it have on me? as a public service -- servant the impact should always be on -- it should always be what is the impact on my constituents? host: our guest served the commonwealth of virginia from 2015 to 2019. barbara comstock joining us for this conversation. we thank you for this time. coming up, we will hear from the president of the american federation of teachers, and in a recent speech he called for the full reopening of schools in the fall. we will talk about her position

and what it will take to make that happen. that conversation coming up. ♪ >> coming up today, the houses back at 10:00 a.m. eastern for general speeches followed by legislative business at noon. members are considering several bills including one to address

the rise in hate crimes against asian americans and pacific islanders. on c-span2, the senate returns for work on legislation to improve technology research to help the u.s. remain competitive with china. at 10:00 a.m. on c-span three, officials from the state department testify on the biden administration's strategy in afghanistan before the house foreign affairs committee. at 3:00 p.m., a subcommittee examines how international travel to the u.s. has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. here's a look at what is live on c-span.org. former homeland officials are talking about possible intelligence failures leading up to the january 6 attack. the senate health committee examines paid leave options for working families, and the house oversight committee continues its view of prescription drug pricing.

those hearings get underway at 10:00 a.m. eastern. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now is randi weingarten, the president of the american federation of teachers. good morning to you. a lot has been written about that recent speech calling for the full reopening of schools. what led you to make that speech. guest: you know, the truth is that i have been trying, and many in my union have been trying to reopen schools for in-person instruction very fulsome lien for months and months. april 2020, we were the first people who put out a report about how to do that. we understand how important it is, and frankly my members understood how important it was to have in person instruction for kids. the real issue became safety

that became the vehicle, or how to do this. that is not an obstacle, it is a vehicle. and unfortunately the trump administration refused to understand it or wanted to understand it, and they decided to politicize it, as did the republicans in congress. what has happened is that the biden administration did what we had back to the trump administration to do, which is to collect data to understand what was working and what was not working, and, most importantly, have broad-based, safety based protocols that we could build off of so that people would trust that they and their families, and kids would be safe. and then, have the resources to do it. i have written this over and over again from last april to this may, and the real change

became the vaccine. the layered mitigation, where it was, really worked. the testing, where it was like the nfl and where it was and when it worked helped for staff outbreaks. but the vaccines have become the game changer for adults and will be the game changer for children. once we saw that throughout the country, whether there was high covid spread or low spread, that between layered mitigation and the good testing or contact tracing, and the vaccine, we knew that we had the conditions to safely reopen everywhere, and that is why we made that speech. the last thing i will say is this. it is not just reopening, it is having the conditions to recover and reimagine education. so, we suggested let us align

this three foot rule in classrooms with class size so we can lower class size, and if they need to have space, school districts had a lot of money from the american rescue plan, let school districts find stay -- space now for the fall. let us make sure we can higher guidance counselors and nurses now for the summer and fall. let us make sure that we have these grow your own programs so that we can hire substitutes and have people available as well as have the training for teachers and trauma based construction. let us wrap services around like we have in community schools, and more importantly, let us reimagine education so that we are sparking passion and meeting the needs of the whole child. guest: can -- host: can schools reasonably do that by the fall? guest: schools can reasonably do

the reopening and having a level of services around them in terms of the fall. if -- and frankly, what we called for is for mcgill cardona to do a fast -- task force on changing accountability. in every single child from the curriculum that really works for kids, and for my conservative friends who are listening, before they start challenging this, i am a big believer in career tech education. i taught at a vocational education school. what we learned is that kids who do project-based instruction and who are involved it seeing something at the end of the road that is monetize a bowl, they graduate at a higher rate and they like school more. why cant we use that same concept of project-based

instruction in science, art, and music so we have the the kinds of things that kids love, why can we have restorative justice programs. you cannot do everything for the fall, but you can see everything in the way -- you can see things the way that the harlem and renaissance seated things. my union is all in. we are putting $5 million on top of what we would normally spend in terms of what we would spend for back-to-school to see if we can work with parents and communities to create open houses, can we do walk-throughs of schools. can we have vaccine pop-ups in communities so that parents get their questions answered, just like teachers had their questions answered. we are all in with a ground-up organizing campaign. host: our guest is joining us

until 9:30. if you want to ask her questions, for parents and students, 202-748-8000. educator, 202-748-8001. all others, 202-748-8002. the wall street journal editorial side talk and editorial to the change of heart that you expressed, and they wrote in part this. "our teachers can get vaccinated so can teenagers who are more likely to spread the virus and younger children will be able to, it was making it harder for children -- for unions to press their shutdowns. it would require hiring more teachers. they go on to say that the pandemic has been a catastrophe for millions of children but has turned out well for her and her

union." how would you respond. guest: i am going to call bullshit where i see it. "the wall street journal" our into the misinformation campaign so picking and choosing what they want to pick and choose to try and make a case that is wrong. anyone who knows educators in america know that we want to be in school in february, 88% of our members took a said that if we could have the vaccine, the testing, and the levels of mitigation, people wanted to be in schools. they understood that the alchemy with students. the wall street journal will never cover what we put out last april. it would have been a game changer if the wall street journal and we worked together.

we have to reduce mistrust and misinformation in terms of helping and deal with the obstacles in terms of what families face. what we are seeing is that in a place like l.a., chicago, new york, two thirds of black and brown parents are not sending their kids back to public schools. we have to figure out a way to meet them where they are. throwing out the distrust and misinformation is just wrong. i wish they would be different but they are who they are and all they care about is the betsy devos wall street journal, it's the type of work she tried to do at the head of the education department. i always found this fascinating that when it came to school shootings and fortifying

buildings they would run to do all the kind of things that they thought was necessary to keep kids safe in that regard but when it came to covid they did absolutely nothing other than disinformation. i'm grateful this new administration is trying to do the work and you see the results all throughout the country. host: for the goal of restarting school five days a week and the things you want to see change, where do mandatory masking and vaccines fall into that? randi: i did not know that the cdc would say thursday afternoon , i had no idea they were going to make the announcement they made about masking. we are in the midst of trying to figure out what this means pragmatically and we are going to put our questions together to have official, public meetings

with the cdc and the education department in terms of how this applies. this basically is saying and reiterating that vaccines work. they really work for adults and from everything we've seen in terms of pfizer they work for kids from 12 to 15. for kids for whom the vaccine is not available yet that is going to mean that masking will continue. for everyone else i think they will have to wrestle with not wanting to put teachers in a position of being masking police. what is the process that's going to happen in the fall and the summer for high schools and junior high schools? we can't get into a situation where we are shaming anyone. if someone still wants to wear a

mask because it makes them comfortable they should. i worry a little bit about whether this is going to push for mandatory vaccinations and i think right now given the polarization in this country and i'm a big believer in vaccines, but given the polarization in this country right now we have to convince people about vaccines being important and i don't think right now in schooling there should be a mandate about it. host: let's start with sandy in indianapolis. good morning, go ahead. caller: good morning, thank you for the show. i would like to ask you why you think a pandemic is a reason to reimagine our education? basics would be nice. the public schools have failed these children on an education basis. let alone all this social reeducation. how about we stick to math that

has failed our children and i don't know why it has to be reimagined because of the pandemic. randi: please call me randi, only my high school students call me mrs. wingarden. for the very reasons you just said we need to spark kids passions. we need to make sure kids have a holistic education and we need to really prepare kids for not just a career in college but for life and participation. the reason that we have public schools in the first place, i'm a social studies teacher, the reason we have public schools was because of civics and civic participation. this is a really great time to do science and physics and for kids to be able to discern fact from fiction and to do it

dispassionately and wouldn't it be great for right now after this pandemic for kids to have more science-based instruction, wouldn't it be great given what is happening -- this is a real game changer for me and maybe you haven't seen it , but what we have seen in terms of [indiscernible] his revolutionary. i taught at clara barton high school and i taught civics and ap government and things like that in that school. when i taught in this school -- what we saw there as so many other career tech schools is that when we have a career in front of you, when kids see this

and engage in project-based learning like robotics, they are excited. 95% of kids graduate from career tech add schools and they have lots of choices about going to college or not and they like it more. when i say reimagine education, let's do more projects as opposed to testing. let spark kids interests and make sure every school is a welcoming and safe environment and make sure that every child has the kind of thing -- reimagining to make sure we spark kids interest. caller: i'm from syracuse, new york and over the last few years we've had a 40% graduation rate and a high immigration of not english-speaking students. we have fired quite a few

speakers to hire translators. how does that benefit the american children, 38% graduation rate is pretty pathetic. the refugees and the non-english-speaking children should be at the immigration center which is not in syracuse. it has to stop. deep jurors cannot be fired so a translator can come in. how about the community comes in and volunteers their time and to translate for the students. we separate religion and state so we will not accept prior rugs in our schools. -- prayer rugs in our schools. randi: this is a really good argument for why we need both. isaiah granddaughter of grandparents that escaped from the ukraine we are a nation of immigrants and most of us are going to be able to track and

use ancestry.com and talked our grandparents and great-grandparents. most of us come from somewhere else. i really believe we cannot prevent the ladder of opportunity for others. there are ways to do esl work, english as a second language, but it needs to be a resource. am going to be up in syracuse this week because there have been real issues and you are absolutely right, we cannot have one against the other, we need both. the way to do this and i saw this in a school in syracuse before covid started, you can wrap services around schools or community and meet people's needs, but refugees i believe, it's on the statue of liberty. give us your poor and that is

how this country has thrived. we need to do both and we need to recognize our history and we need to own it and celebrate that -- that is part of what we need to do that will make us better when we lift everyone up. host: this is from an educator in north carolina, this is larry. caller: good morning. out of respect, i call you mrs w eingarten. he started off by throwing the last administration under the bus. that was one thing that happened. the part that i don't understand is how , the parochial schools and private schools could navigate their way through the scenario but the public schools did not be able to manage that.

randi: this is part of the reason why we asked the last administration to collect data on all of these things. there were many things that had been opened and a hybrid manner or a full-time manner since december and there had been many private schools and many parochial schools that were not open. we don't have the data. we have the anecdotal data. 15%, a piece of data i just got a couple of weeks ago. 15% of parochial and private schools have closed fully during this time. many of the private schools that i know, when i started asking them questions about how they were doing this, because we had to learn from each other, they said they got a ppp loan that was in one of the first covid packages so they could do the testing i just talked about and

do the layered mitigation. they had parents in private schools that shelled out a lot more money to do that. in the parochial schools you saw some extra states that got used in those ways and frankly some of us also said that every one of the schools had to get additional funding. i got criticized for saying that. we have to learn from each other. if you have a ventilation system that does not work, if you don't have -- if you don't have soap and water in your school and you need to wash your hands or have sanitizing stations, all of those things are things that were really important. host: the cdc put out school reopening guidelines earlier this month and the new york post had a story saying your

organization at least for those in communication with the cdc for a couple of those principles being suggested by the organization, can you explain what the story is about? randi: the cdc was doing its job and we were doing our job. essentially what happened is the cdc in february and march asked all sorts of different organizations to sit down with them and give them comments about what they thought was important. they talked to parent organizations and to parent organizations into two unions. one of the things that we did not see in the cdc draft and they explained what their draft was is that there were variants that were right around the corner in great britain, there is this variant and india that i'm very concerned about that some epidemiologist is concerned about because this is the first

variant that we see really affecting young children and in india you don't see a lot of vaccines yet unfortunately. i'm glad the biden administration and others are starting to promote the astrazeneca vaccine in other countries. this is a global pandemic. if you see these variants, could you actually look at them and see if there is something you need to do to rethink the guidelines? frankly they rethought them in a different way, they rethought them to say that physical distancing should be three feet and not six feet which we were initially concerned about. the second one was that we are really concerned about intergenerational councils and people being concerned about bringing people home. we see that in terms of

education and in terms of grocery workers. the accommodations that should happen -- if you are taking care of a sick child and that you are afraid of the vaccines, you are going to bring -- 45% of covid spreads a symptomatically. this is normal rulemaking. this is what every administration used to do. the problem with the last -- host: you call it normal, the write up in the post saying those two suggestions that your organization offered made it nearly verbatim in the final draft. you call that normal as far as the ability to do that? randi: they asked us for language and we gave them language when they asked for it. if you look at the public record

i was saying these things publicly. there is nothing nefarious about doing this kind of work and frankly they have said to the cdc that everyone has had -- should be communicating with parents and educators. they have to communicate with those who are impacted by their policies. the science tells you where the pandemic is going. the impact and the logistics are something that one has to do. everything that we said publicly we have been saying publicly and ultimately the fact that there are variants, the fact that there needed to be accommodations, this is part of what creates the trust that we can reopen schools fully in the fall. safety is the way in which you reopen. only people who think that our

members are not the people who are impacted like students, like parents would raise these issues. host: randui weingarten -- kelly from washington state, you are up next. caller: randi, thanks for being with us. randi: thank you. caller: i invite change, i think it's a good idea towards the future and everything. i think the trade needs to be focused on in our schools today's and we need to quit telling every kid that if you go to college you can do it. the truth is they can't. the focus is good on trade. these kids these days they don't go to college and get some degree.

if we focus on the trade it will be a good way to get through the future. right now be honest, a lot of these public school systems can't get any worse. i invite change. randi: we just did a public poll with the naacp and other parent and civil rights-based groups. we saw parents at least in this polling had a different view or impression about what their schools tried to do this year. teachers turned on a dime to help kids. they navigated i.t. platforms, they did this work called simultaneous instruction which is some of the worst pedagogical work, you are essentially doing

two jobs at the same time teaching in school learning and teaching kids online. it's unsustainable but teachers have done it and parents have seen just comparing the compassion and the work that teachers have done. we are seeing a sense at least on the ground throughout the country and i've been to six to eight schools in the last couple of weeks and i'm going to several this week, some in providence and syracuse there is some joy to being back and there is a joy to trying to create a normalcy and creating a trust and a community. having said that i totally agree with you about career tech add as an option. at the same time i taught ap

government and all of my kids were basically from the immigrant communities, i taught at a high school, and they placed and one competitions on the bill of rights on the constitution debated after school and did incredibly well and were poised and understood what they needed to do and fought those fierce debate fights. i have on believe that every child can thrive for children and american families and this culture and what has just happened, it has dealt with people differently. there are communities that are hugely hurt by this. there are communities that did not feel it at all. we have to do what joe biden is doing which is how we lift

everyone up and how you make sure that we have the opportunities for everyone. >> heart research did some research saying 73% of those polled said they were comfortable with full in person learning by the fall of this year and only 10% of those saying they are not comfortable and those parents that were unsure, 17%. from west virginia, this is bill. randi: pedro, it was not just that. i have the pole in front of me. it says that parents were satisfied with the jobs schools have done during the pandemic. 76 percent had said that september 20 20, 80 5% had said april 2021. what we also saw was a real difference between black and brown parents and white parents in terms of confidence in going back to in school learning. if you have the safety

mitigation factors and jumped to 94% from 59% of black parents saying they were comfortable going back to school to about 87% of black parents saying they were comfortable sending their kids back to school. we have to be all in for everyone and if we see a difference between black parents and white parents or latino parents and white parents we have to meet those needs. host: let's hear from bill in west virginia. caller: good morning, nice to meet you. i mean no disrespect to you, but this union thing, one time in our country a union was a wonderful thing. now the union creates lazy, and effective people and it also creates children that have no education. i look at my grandchildren, it's pathetic how the teachers union

and the government has failed our children. i don't see how you can sit up there and defend that. randi: we are working in west virginia and we see a real connection between educators and children and communities. i'm not saying there aren't things we should do that are better, but -- how we should do things that are better and how should we should meet the needs and we see aspirations for all kids. what we have seen, frankly the research is where there are unions there are better wages. where there are unions there are better kinds of solutions. we have seen that in west virginia, the coal miners, and we were very close friends and allies.

that's who teachers are, we fight for what kids need. >> the previous comment you made about the reopening in the fall, can schools by and large make all those changes that you are calling for with the current staff they have? randi: i think we have a big problem in terms of staffing which is one of the things we have raised last thursday. a lot of people, for a lot of the comments that you just heard a lot of teachers are very dispirited and stressed out. teachers like nurses and others have done herculean work this year to try to meet the needs of kids. there is a lot of exhaustion and i suspect we are going to see a lot of retirements this year and there is going to need to be some hiring and i'm worried about that. that's part of the reason why

they have to start planning now, this is may, we have to plan for this coming school year and we have to plan for it being fully reopened in person and to do the things we need to do so that kids thrive and teachers feel and have ace vence of respect and dignity and the conditions they need. host: carol in new jersey on our line for others. caller: good morning. i have a couple comments. first of all there was a period in time where they had a course over a period where you could have a bachelors degree in teaching schools. these people that were teaching had no idea about child development or any of those things. when i grew up my teacher and my principal, my fireman and my policeman lived down the street from me. we don't know them now. in the inner-city it's even

worse. the second point i would like to make his that during the earlier years and the 70's we had a lot of specific programs that businesses would not accept. people got the money and the certificates were not accepted as businesses. the third thing is about apprenticeships. all of these are good programs and they need to be looked at. that's my comment. randi: you are absolutely right, we had a whole bunch of grow your own programs and the local which i taught in and led, new york city, we had a professional to teacher program where under the contract we negotiated so that the city of new york would pay for the college credits so that people who were assistant teachers could become teachers

and have the power in new york city who were in that program. we have other grow your own programs. there is a new one that just started in new mexico in 2017. there is one that the vice president of the chicago union lauded about a couple of days ago on twitter and facebook. i think these programs are really important and they are important because people live in the neighborhoods and they are from the neighborhoods. part of the problem is we want to be more and more part of community again and we need to have affordable housing and make sure people can live close to where they teach and i said the same thing for police officers and others. we need to bring back the sense of community which is part of the reason we are pushing for 25,000 community schools where

you do the kind of things we are now doing in ellis county, west virginia. host: as far as further discussions as far as the track you want to see as far as schools reopening how are you going to track that personally? randi: we represent about 3000 of the school districts. we represent educators in 3000 school districts in america. in terms of where we are we are going to track our own progress and track every single one of those districts. what i hope happens is that we are so engaged on the ground this summer and doing so much all across the country that our members come back and asked to find more than $5 million to do

more and more engagement because the -- every single public school should be a place where parents can send their kids and/or educators and support staff want to work and where kids thrive. that to me is how we can see progress in america. where there is a sense of hope and opportunity through the lens of justice. host: the website for the american federation of teachers is aft.org. coming up we will hear from pbs frontline journalist laura sullivan “the healthcare divid”" about her new documentary “the healthcare divide” -- about her new documentary “the healthcare divide”, and examines how safety net hospitals are doing on providing health care resources compared to their for-profit counterparts. ♪

>> in los angeles county 10 people are getting sick with covid every single minute. >> earlier this year l.a. county was the epicenter of the winter covid surge. >> hospitals in this area say they are preparing to ration care. >> in east l.a., the l.a. county medical center was regularly seeing more covid patients than any other hospital in the region. >> i'm sorry to meet you this way. >> nobody deserves to die alone. >> we allow family members to see relatives before they pass. that's the truth of covid. there are some that are going to win and some that are going to lose. >> covid exposed long-standing inequities in america. >> we are getting a look at data

that reveals racial disparities in medical outcomes. >> turning a spotlight on the hospitals that serve low income working-class communities. >> a huge problem not just in the latino community but in the black community. >> this is a story about those largely government-funded whose primary mission is to care for the poor and uninsured. they are called safety net hospitals. >> why are safety nets hit the hardest? because our patients are vulnerable. we serve a community of working poor. we serve people working essential jobs. homeless patients, patients with mental illness, substance abuse, addiction disorder. we are expected to care for the patients the other hospitals won't care for. >> more than 70 million americans rely on medicaid and roughly 30 million have no insurance at all. at a time when safety nets have never been more needed they are in crisis and it turns out have

been for years. [no audio] host: now joining us is laura sullivan, pbs frontline health care divide correspondent also a correspondent for national public radio. what prompted you to look at this issue? laura: initially we were trying to understand the effect of covid and doing what a lot of news organizations were doing and following a lot of covid stories and where the money was going. that led us into trying to understand how the hospital systems and how hospitals were responding to covid. a lot of hospitals did a remarkable job. what we saw when we started on peeling that onion was that some hospitals were doing well and some hospitals were struggling and that is when we started to understand why some hospitals

were having a hard time when others weren't. >> you focus in the documentary on safety net hospitals, how would you describe that? laura: there are more than 300 safety net hospitals in this country and these are the hospitals that take all the patients other hospitals don't want. these are the patients that don't have insurance or depend fully on medicaid or medicare. they are not as valuable as patients who have private insurance. hospitals that are able to pick and choose to make a lot of money off of patients with private insurance, safety net hospitals through their mandate or mission or government rules they operate by have to take every patient -- if you go into an emergency room and you are having an emergency every hospital in this country has to treat you for that emergency. after that they can pass you off

to the safety net hospitals. safety net hospitals will take you from the moment you are in the emergency room and they will treat you for as long as the health situation persists. safety net hospitals at the end of the day lose money the more patients they take if these patients don't have private insurance. host: what's the primary source of funding for a safety net hospital? laura: they are funded by taxpayers. there is a lot of thinking in this country and we came across this in the story where people think somebody is walking into the emergency room then they have this problem that will cost $100,000 to solve this health issue and that somebody will pay that bill but that's not true. tax [indiscernible] no matter if it comes -- it's taxpayers.

we are all paying the bills for people who don't have insurance or are funded through medicaid and medicare. that is the way that system has worked. the government is not funding those patients the same way private insurance is paying for the same services for those patients. taxpayers we went for a long time in tennessee and l.a., and l.a. county taxpayers are paying for that and state of california taxpayers are paying for that and federal taxpayers are paying for these patients. if you look at the stats over time you see that from 15 years ago when the patient walked in the door that was funded through medicare, the federal government would negotiate and say they would pay you this dollar for these services, private insurance walks in and they will

pay a dollar 50 -- $1.50 for the same service. if you fast forward 15 years you can see that private insurance is paying 200 $50 -- $2.50 for every dollar medicaid is paying. but cap in hospitals is between what private insurance will pay and what government will pay is growing. what we found in our story is that the gap in the hospital is growing. you have very wealthy hospitals that serve a wealthy privately insured clientele and you have safety net hospitals who are absolutely struggling and just got blindsided with the full force of covid. host: laura sullivan joining us until 10:00. for those of you in the eastern and central time zones (202) 748-8001. in the mountain and pacific time zones -- we will play you a portion of

the documentary. you talk about the federal money that goes to safety net hospitals. >> we tried to take a look at how the money was flowing to hospitals in chattanooga and across tennessee. we analyzed hospitals and receive supplemental payment information. that data cover 2015 to 2019. following the methodology used by medicaid experts we found over six hospitals designated a safety net, the uncomplicated cost of caring for medicaid and uninsured patients increased by 31%. the supplemental payments only increased by 5%. we also saw that some for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals received much greater increases in supplemental payment.

host: to this idea of supplemental payments, can you explain what those are? laura: over the past few decades the federal government has tried to step in and close the gap, it doesn't work very well. they have tried to say we will save you extra money, safety net hospitals, because you guys are falling further behind. they will send these pools of supplemental money through the medicaid program to shore up a lot of the safety net hospitals. what we found in tennessee was that money was not matching the need. he saw a number of the safety net hospitals doing more and more of the burden of caring for poor people, working people, people without insurance. we are not getting an increasing amount of supplementals that match that a now. we saw increases going to for-profit and well-funded nonprofit hospitals.

the state of tennessee said this was a formula that was designed by the state and approved by the federal government and that it does not take into account out-of-state patients and that the hospitals that were wealthier hospitals were doing more charity care. the wealthier hospitals are doing a lot of charity care. at the same time the safety net burden has not changed. the supplemental payment, we had a couple experts called the supplemental program a black box and said that this multibillion-dollar program, there was no way to know how the supplemental money was being used and where it was going and whether it reached the hospital of where it was needed. a classic program with the federal government in that it

was a terrific attempt to solve some of this crisis. it had not been able to fill the cath where it's needed most. host: how would you clarify through the inequities in funding that you speak of that the quality of care for the safety net hospitals versus their for-profit counterparts? laura: we saw a lot of issues that especially arose when safety net hospitals can be under threat of closure. in some cases private equity investors or private investors will come in and try to turn them into for-profit moneymakers. we talked about a number of nurses unions in the northeast were very unhappy and said that the quality care had been affected for them and the patients they were treating. people who work at safety nets are absolutely doing everything they can.

they've met so many doctors and nurses that were giving at their absolute all. they are at a disadvantage because they do not have the financial resources to do the things they want to do and have the technology they want and be able to stay on the cutting edge the way the other hospitals can. host: with the level of those types of hospitals closing during or due to covid. laura: most of the safety knots were shored up by further down rungs of covid really funding. there were a lot of administrators at safety net hospitals worried about what will happen next year. there are 178 billion dollars that went to hospitals across the board. the first round of funding went to hospitals based on how much revenue they were losing which had the effect of sending lots of federal money to hospitals with lots of revenue which were wealthy hospitals.

by the end of the year if the government made an effort to close that -- a lot of hospital administrators are worried about next year and what it will look like. their expenses went way up and they'd had to complete -- compete with wealthy hospitals. the for-profit hospitals spent 10 times as much on a mask and that meant safety net hospitals had to spend two times as much. we had so many people describing incredible fights over staffing so that you could get the nurses and your board and get the covid ward open that 59 hospitals could compete with those kinds of salaries. their revenues went way down. safety net hospitals don't make a lot of money as it is. they do depend on some elective procedures to help fill their budget gaps and all of those

were closed for a long time. interestingly, what we saw with the wealthy hospitals is that covid did not seem to affect them much at all. the nation's largest for house ash for-profit hospital maker came out with a $3.8 billion profit, higher than in 2019 in the middle of the pandemic. host: our guest, laura sullivan of pbs frontline. that documentary airs tonight at pbs and you can find it online. al is from pennsylvania, you are on with our guest. caller: good morning. my question is to mr. sullivan, i remember seeing the report -- host: go ahead and keep talking, you are listening to yourself on the radio or television. caller: good morning again, i remember seeing a report, i believe it was on frontline or

cbs -- host: color you're going to have to keep going and ignore whatever you are hearing. caller: what happens is there was a big penalty going to united health, overbilling to the medicare and with the billions of billions of dollars and after that the government finds out about it -- what happened to the rest of the billion dollar rush. it seems there was a thriving entity doing that. there was money from whatever institution was doing that. i will leave it at that. host: i don't know specifically about which case you might be referring to. i can tell you that some of the

-- some of it it was not just one hospital system that was making a billion dollar profit. we saw a number of very profitable systems that came out of the pandemic with hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. some of this is what the caller is referring to and some of this money did come from the cares act money. some of these for-profit institutions returned cares act money because they made so much money they did not need it anymore. the safety nets on the other hand would never have been able to get out of this year had it not been for the federal money. host: this question goes back to when it comes to oversight of money are you saying there's not a lot of oversight being done when the money gets distributed to safety net hospitals? laura: absolutely.

the amount of oversight for a lot of these programs has been not robust. the states have really been able to do whatever they want with the money. they have parameters they need to follow and the federal government and hhs tries to come in and oversee it. there is no real reporting or data of where every dollar is going. where did you send this $150 million cost? to what hospital and what did they do with it? that level of reporting does not exist in many of these programs. this is a product of the way these programs were built. medicare was created in the 1960's. it was generally created for wealthy white americans, older americans.

medicaid was almost an afterthought. about 20 pages in a 300 page bill and it was really a program that would help poor mothers with children. at this time the legislation was trying to address african-american mothers with children. it was given to the state and said you guys do however you want to do this program. medicare will be run federally but medicaid will be run by the state. a number of experts said this was the racism that was baked into this program where you sold one small subset of people, the state would not have signed on to this if it had been a federal program that forced them to spend a certain amount of money the mate -- the way medicare would do. as long as they handed it to the state and said do whatever you want than the states were like fine, we will join this program.

they had no idea that medicaid was going to grow into a $70 billion per year program that was going to overtake medicare and be one of the largest benefit programs in american history. the states have a lot of leeway with what they are doing with their medicaid money and how they are spending it. host: of you are on twitter asks how safety net hospitals are distributed geographically across the country, are they only prostrate in urban areas or rural areas? laura: they are very spread out. you have 19 safety net hospitals and the largest 25 urban counties and then you have smaller ones throughout the country. sometimes you see very rural counties running their own safety net hospital and its much smaller.

then you see the l.a. county usc hospital in l.a. that is 650 beds and one of four and one of the largest safetynet systems in the country. host: gilbert from texas, you are on with our guest. caller: i have a question for the guest, for the lady on tv there. i would like to know if you go to a [indiscernible] how come if you wear a border patrol green [indiscernible] host: you're going to have to repeat that question, i don't know if we heard it correctly. caller: how many people could wear border patrol green? host: i'm not sure of the question. laura sullivan if you want to take a stab at it. laura: i couldn't really hear

them, was he asking about the color green? host: i think it was connected to the border patrol and i wonder if he is talking about if safety net hospitals are dealing with those migrants in the country or things like that. i wonder if that's what he was correlating it to. laura: undocumented immigrants are part of the safety net system and that has been very controversial. a number of experts in the field will say what do you want hospitals to do when they come in in an emergency. if they are not here and are undocumented do you let people die, is that what we are doing? that is an element of this and treating people who were here without being documented is

absolutely part of what safety net hospitals do. they don't turn anybody away. you also see a lot of mental health issues in safety net hospitals. host: they cover the gamut of health care, not just physical conditions. laura: a lot of them are the working poor that cannot afford private insurance under the affordable care act but are making a little bit of money and don't qualify for medicaid. you have this giant gap in americans that don't have insurance who are working but they can't afford insurance. something terrible happens or they get in a car accident or their health deteriorates. host: a caller from california. caller: you were saying people had really good insurance, the hospitals accept them faster and everything else. should you be concerned if you

have good insurance that you may get an operation that won't -- that you don't need that is unnecessary sometimes? because they know you have the money for what you are doing and stuff like that? should it be a concern? laura: yes, absolutely. there is a lot of criticism in the health care marketplace that because hospitals make so much money off of patients with private insurance, that it is true that the more things they do to you the more money they are going to make. hospitals will say that's not how we run or what we do, we care about patients. everybody has a story about their on to, their mom, their uncle, or someone that had 14 tests done for one thing.

maybe they were warranted, maybe they was not. you are putting your finger on a criticism that is out there that is baked into this system that is very much the more customers you get into the door the more money you are going to make. ironically on your side are your private insurance companies that are actually the customer here, the patient is not the one that can push back. how are you going to say i don't need that stethoscope -- stethoscope situation, because you have no idea. the insurance companies are often the ones that will push back and say they are not going to pay for that and they are not agreeing to that service. we saw a number of years where the doctors would say we can't have insurance companies dictate our care. there is some feeling that they come to us balance between the two of them. this idea that the patient is locked -- lost in this

discussion is out there and probably needs to be looked into more. host: how does the affordable care act impact those who go to these hospitals and the affordable care act itself laura: laura:? the affordable -- laura: the affordable care act is good at getting more americans than ever insured. that has been a huge benefit to safety net hospitals. that being said it didn't go all the way that left 30 million americans behind, 12 states have also decided not to expand medicaid. they are leaving a lot of the people in their state vulnerable should something happen and does happen every single day. this is a very difficult issue politically. if you a broad view of this, you look at clinton, he tried to do

health care and get more people insured in this country. obama stepped in with the affordable care act and he lost control of congress. trump has tried to amend it and add some things and do some things differently. it is very difficult to take on in america. it's interesting because for some reason over the past 30 years the idea of health care has become very political and it is very difficult for any politician to touch this and not get hurt by it. probably because there is so much money at stake and people care about their health care. politically, this is a hard one. this is why there are so many caps to this day. that's why medicare and medicaid

are not funded at the same rate and they don't pay the same prices private insurance is paying. host: let's hear from kathy in kansas. caller: i worked in the health-care industry for many years, they have not been -- i have been retired for seven or eight years. this whole conch -- convoluted reimbursement systems that have been built up, we are paying so bunch money for how all of this paperwork, we need to go to a one paper system that combines medicare and medicaid and elements of the health care system that obama began and we need to get insurance companies totally out of health care. they can make money selling life insurance, homeowners insurance,

automobile insurance. they have their finger in this big pot and they are making so much money. the politicians don't want to stand up to them and take them out of the health-care industry. why should we have insurance companies making all of this money hand over foot. we need to go to a single-payer system that includes mental health, drugs, paying doctors, paying hospitals, we just need to get a single system and we need to look at other systems from other countries that have a single-payer system. host: let's put it out there for our guest, laura sullivan. laura: the caller is right. the cost of administering all of this reimbursement and payment is upwards of 40% of a hospital budget.

it's a ridiculous amount of money being spent to do the paperwork, submit it, and file it. it's a very confusing, bureaucratic system of what it costs and how much we are paying. this patient walked in the door and had this insurance and we had to run it through this separate thing and this parent -- it takes an inordinate amount of time for people in the health care field to sort through all of that. whether or not the prophets in the health-care industry are vast and impressive and that comes with a lot of political power. we saw the rise of for-profit health care starting in the 1950's, 70's, and 80's and it boomed 20 years ago. the amount of profits that some

of the for-profit companies and even nonprofit companies, the profit they are baking is the largest this industry has ever seen at this point. it's beyond what anybody ever expected would happen when for-profit health care started 30 or 40 years ago. now at this point it's a force unto itself. these are some of the most wealthy companies in america. they would also say that they are providing tremendous care to americans and that those profits allow them to have the best, cutting edge care they could give anybody and they put it back in. nonprofit institutions say we turn all that revenue back into the system. because some of the nonprofit institutions are making so much money there is also a feeling that maybe they should not be

considered nonprofits because they are making so much revenue that they should be paying taxes on that. it's not enough to say "we are going to do so much charity care and to find as much charity as we can do and jump into the community in certain ways. maybe they should be paying taxes on that money. host: the house of representatives about to come in. from louisville, kentucky -- newlin caller: i want to ask her if she is familiar with the application process through the marketplace with obamacare come are you familiar with what the application, how the application goes when you are wanting to get insurance? host: -- laura: people have a detailed question i won't have the answer to. caller: do you realize you go through the application process and i u.s. family household is a

minimum or a certain number, you don't even have to pay for your insurance. you keep talking about people who don't have insurance. you can get your insurance in the marketplace with obamacare and not pay a dime, where are these people who don't have insurance? host: caller, we have to leave it there. laura: i can tell you there are 30 million americans that don't have insurance. so much of this is people who either are not in the workforce or are older. when we were in l.a. listening to their weekly meeting there was a patient that could not identify that had dementia. there was a woman that walked out of a skilled nursing facility and was found on the street after two days. these are people who are either aged out of the affordable care act or are not working enough to qualify for the affordable care

act. there are mental health issues and people of schizophrenia and a lot of homeless issues. the way that health care was designed in this country if you can even use that word was by small group by small group with the veterans after world war ii. it was the union workers in the 1930's. it was followed by the indian affairs act. then they did older americans with medicare. they did moms with babies with medicaid. it was small group by small group and the affordable care act poor. after all of those groups what's left is what is left now and it's not a group of people that people advocate for all the time. this is not a group that votes. this is either very poor people or undocumented people or people

with mental health issues, and then your average joe who does not have insurance. it is everybody across the board. it is back and still unfilled. even if you ensured all 30 million americans that don't have insurance you would still have the problems medicare and medicaid do not pay what private insurance pays. hospitals don't want medicaid patients, they want patients with private insurance if what they are trying to do is balance their budget. host: the pbs documentary airing tonight at 10:00. you can find that on your pbs stations and find it online. laura sullivan look a respondent for the --“the healthcare divide”. how long does it take to put one of these together? laura: about nine months. from start to finish. from sort of research and

putting the idea together and running through interviews and getting it on air takes about nine months. people are always shocked. my editor is shocked as well. host: thank you for your time, we appreciate it. that's it for our program. another one comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow morning. we now go to the house of representatives. the speaker: the house will be in order. pursuant to the order of the house of january 4, 2021, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with time equally allocated between the parties