like rwanda and austria and vietnam doing very well, the u.s. and the u.k. >> lawrence wright tonight on q&a at 8:00 p.m. eastern. you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ host: good morning. it's sunday, september 26, 2021. a three-hour "washington journal" is ahead-for-you -- for you as well as a focus on the federal elections in germany but we begin at the white house where president biden's job approval ratings has fallen sharply. as we take you through those new numbers this morning, we're putting this question to you --

how would you grade president biden's job performance? phone lines split as usual by political parties. democrats is 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. i-n-t's -- independents, 202-748-8002. you can send us a text this morning, 202-748-8003. if you do, please include your name and where you're from. otherwise, catch up with us on social media, on facebook.com/cspan, and @c-spanwj. you can go ahead and start calling in now. here's the headline on that pouille research. fewer than half of u.s. adults, 44% now prove of the way that biden's handling of the job as president.

353% disapprove, a reversal in biden's job ratings since july. while opinions about biden remains divided on partisan line, the decline we've seen and his public standing has come amongst members of both parties. there's ban 13-point drop of democrats leaning independents and right now, only 9% of republicans and republican leaners approve of his job performance, down from 17% two months ago. we will go through that pew research -- pew research later. he was asked about these lower polling numbers and here was his response. president biden: this is a process and it's going to be up and down. that's why i don't look at the polls.

not a joke. because it's going to go up and it's going to go down. it's going to go up. and hopefully, at the end of the day, i'll be able to deliver on what i said i would do one -- one, bring the country together like on infrastructure. moving ups in a position where we're able to actually generate the kind of change in the dynamic of how we grow the economy. not eliminate the super wealthy, not at all. but allow the working class and the middle class to be able to build out and up and that can be said, like i said. every time i hear and i drive my staff crazy. every time i hear it's going to cost a, b, c, or d, the truth

this based on the commitment that i made, it's going to cost nothing because we're going to raise the revenue. raise the revenue to pay for the things we're talking about. and we're -- if we take a look at the piece, $1 trillion of that are tax cuts. not raise anybody's taxes. tax cuts. people are paying less taxes. but the people pay less taxes are going to be working class folks. put women back to work. it's what people in situation where is they have -- i know you're tired of hearing me saying. just get people a little breathing room. a little breathing room. thank you, guys. host: that is how president biden ended that press conference. questions from reporters on friday in the wake of some of the new reports about his job approval numbers. you saw him there, talking about

some of the very big spending bills that are making their way to the house floor and the senate floor this week the bipartisan infrastructure bill as well as the funding bill for the president's build back better initiative. and the federal government funding deadline, september 30. so looking for action on that to see what happened to potential government shutdown come september 30. back to the polling numbers of job approval. here are the demographics breakdowns. the total job approval down from 55% to 44% in the latest poll. among men, the drop about equal among men and women from 53% to 44% for men, from 57% to 45%.

hispanics, 72 back in july to 56% now. and asians, 68% back in july, 54% now. the breakdowns among ages and schooling level as well. among ages 18-29-year-old seeing a drop 56% back in july. 42% now. among those, 65 and older, down 50 from july to 43% now. all these numbers from the pew research report. and that report getting a whole plot of attention late last week. the numbers having to do with the president's foreign policy and afghanistan, the border, factoring into some of these issues facing the president. it was "the hill" newspaper that spoke about those images and how they might be impacting the president's standing. this from "the hill" newspaper, a picture is worth a thousand words and the biden white house wants its image to be one of

professional of storing order after what democrats say with the chaos dysfunction and cold heartedness of the trump years the early months went according to script but things have started to come off the rails as a stark footage from the border and afghanistan. two difficult issues for the president crystallized in the public view. videos and photos from afghanistan depicting a noising scenes of people climbing on to military aircraft to escape. -it was ted cruz that he posted

using the exact images that "the hill" was talking about in that story. here's that web app from ted cruz. >> there is a step that the adults have returned. >> there are scenes of pandemonium at kabul airforce in what could be described as chaos exodus. >> conditions are dire. >> the numbers are expected to soar to 20,000 people within the coming days. >> the french took an unprecedented action. they recalled their ambassador to the united states. right now, it's a bit of a mess in france. >> the inflation index is up 7.8% over the past year.

host: senator ted cruz with that web app -- ad on his twitter page. taking a listen at your phone calls. how would you grade president biden's job performance? that's our question for you. phone lines as usual. ray's first, a republican. ray, if you're using the letter grade, what grade would you give him? caller: a d minus. at the beginning the vaccine rollouts went fairly well. the american rescue plan helped when we were still in crisis mode was done well but the afghanistan thing was a complete failure. the border, a complete failure. he seems to be moving more and more to the left every day. and i think it's more this is what i would have expected out of president sanders, not president biden. he portrayed himself as a moderate. and i don't think we're getting a moderate and i'm very worried

that -- and afghanistan is disheartening. host: ray is that grade set in your mind? what would it take to change your grade? caller: nothing's ever set in stone. if he could reaccomplishment -- reimplement the trump policies, building the wall, training the workers and the ice agents are doing the best work that they can. he could admit to failures in afghanistan and do everything he could do to get the americans out. there are things he could do to turn it around but i don't see him doing that. >> glen from florida. good morning. what grade would you give the president? caller: how are you doing? host: doing well. caller: i give president biden a because he's doing the job.

people don't understand that when you take charge of a situation that somebody else left behind, you have to clean up the mess that the person that you followed first. everything that he's doing is what trump left behind and he screwed up. so he's doing the job. the job's not easy. it's not pretty. and we're not worried about no optics of saying fine, look what happened in afghanistan. and look what happened at the border. it's called doing the job. and that's what republicans don't understand because they are not supporting him but they're going to use that in order to give and raise donation so they can get to the midterm elections. he's only been on the job for almost nine months. nine months. now compare what happened when trump was in office for the first nine months. what did we have? what did we get out of nine months of him the first year he was in office? we got charlottesville. we got a racial divide in the

country. he didn't do anything. we lost jobs. he actually did a tax cut for the rich. so he isn't doing anything. if you want to compare the first nine months to both of them, trump got an f. he gets a. i don't want to hear about how the optics look. he's doing the job. if you are in management, that's what you have to do. you don't worry about the doggone what his approval ratings are because he's got three and was it three in almost three eight years ago. so anybody that want to complain about how the optics look, realize one thing. war is what it is. what you saw with those people at the border and afghanistan, that's how war is. people have never seen those type of scenes because that's what war does. host: this is brenda out of fort meade, new jersey. brenda, republican. what grade would you give the president's job performance? caller: i would give president

biden an f. i'm so disappointed in how he's running the country. i think they could both do better for us. i just don't know anymore. i've always been a democrat. but i am not going to be a democrat anymore. i am changing to becoming a republican. host: did you vote for joe biden for president in 2020? caller: i did, i did. and i'm so sorry i did. he could be so much better on running the country. he's raised taxes he's going to be raising taxes. gasoline is expensive. booze went up impresencely. and it's just so difficult. and he continues to not work hard on getting people from

afghanistan leaving some of the americans still there. and he never gives, you know, talks to make us, let us know what's going on. and it's just. >> -- this is barbara in new york, democrat. good morning. barbara, are you with us this morning? john from california. republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i have to give him an f, a big f, as a matter of fact. i'm struck by the division of the man that called a couple of calls ago that said i don't want to hear about trump. yeah. that's the thing. nobody wants to hear. if they had the disaster on the border during the trump administration, that would have been another impeachment trial.

that's all you would have heard about. the withdraw from afghanistan was absolutely disastrous. and we'll be paying for that for years to come. he's obviously a bit infirmed. he has trouble putting sentences together. he's just not there. and then his policies -- this $3 trillion package that they're going to push and they're going to make sure it gets passed because they needed to get some of these congress men and senators re-elected in 2022. how would you like to give $10 a gallon for gasoline? because that's where we're going. we're not going to raise taxes on anyone anybody but the rich people. well, rich people are probably going to become more than $75,000 a year in income and not

$400,000. host: you talk about the border, some news from del rio, texas, the focus last week issues on the border when it comes to haitian refugees. the headline from the border reopening after the u.s. clears the m.r.i. camp -- migrant camp there. the port of entry was closed after thousands of m.r.i.s -- migrants closed. officials say they expected the crossing for all cargo traffic to begin again on monday at 8:00 a.m. the crossing closed in september 17 as thousands of those migrants making their way across the rio grande river from

mexico. the caller also talking about pumpkin, a couple of -- president trump. last night in a rally in georgia. calling brian kemp a disaster, president trump. he lashed out suggesting that rally that stacey abrams might have been better to meed the peach state. would you like to take his place? it's ok with me. the story noting kemp has been a starring of the former president since trump lost in georgia, losing the state by about a quarter of a percentage point, about 12,000 votes. and if you want to hear more from the former president, c-span covering that rally. back to your phone calls.

about the grade that you would give president biden about his job so far. mitchell is in new jersey. a democrat. good morning. what do you think? caller: good morning. this is a really, really difficult question because you have to look at everything in context. we came into the -- he came into this presidency in the middle of a major health disaster. you have all kinds of rules that were set up for the prior administration that biden opposed and plans that he had hoped to get enacted in order to change things. and the country is so divided and so angry right now. a big part of that is just what's happened with covid, what's happening with the economy. you're trying to balance all these different things.

you're trying to get health information out. and the health information is not cut and dry. it's changing. and people don't seem to want to take the time to really look at the nuances of what we're facing as a society. and i think that has a really -- it's been very difficult. i think you look at the border. i think the information to like dismantle, the stay in mexico policy was correct. i mean, people were being held up in mexico and they were being rained and -- raped and abused and a lot of human rights violations were going on. and the cy -- ali siloam process was dismantled. he should have looked at the logistics of that. still, there will be swells in

the border no matter what. host: you hear from politicians a lot. the phrase of a bad poll comes out that the only poll that matters is the poll on election day. this issue of presidential job approval and we'll show viewers president biden's job approval from when he took office until today that the red line there, the ticking up numbers of disapproving americans, the black line, the ticking numbers of americans who approve -- approve. does that matter, mitchell? the presidential job approval matter to you? is it something that you track much? caller: i think it matters at the time of the election, to be honest with you. i mean, you know, we seem to stay in a cycle where we're intensively involved in what's happening now and in the last week or two and then we're on to the next thing. because the trump approval is terrible now and that's not good for him in terms of getting

support for legislation and agendas that he wants to accomplish. are we going to remember what's going on now six months from now? i kind of doubt it. host: thanks for the call from new jersey this morning. herbert is in michigan, republican. good morning. caller: hi. host: go ahead, sir. what's your letter grade for president biden? caller: i would give him an a-plus and i'm a republican for life. i just look at all the things that's happened here. afghanistan, for one thing. i mean, what was he going to do there? what was trump going to do? he was going to pull out, leave everyone there. and they're talking fire and fury. what were they going to do? kill all the americans that were still there? biden was set up there. that's the bottom line. he was set up. and as far as all the oil and all that, i mean, people don't realize there's hundreds of oil

wells still shut down in this country because of the pandemic that trump mismanaged. host: herbert, you say you're a republican for life. did you vote for president biden in 2020? caller: yes, i did because i'm just tired of the way the republicans are giving all the tax breaks to the rich people and then when it comes to given something back to the american working people, they're against it. host: what makes you a republican for life right now? what's the republican principle that you must pride to? caller: my dad was a lifelong republican and me too. i am tired of what the republicans are doing. giving everything to rich people and working man pays for everything. it's just got to end. host: herbert in michigan. for our independents line, ted in middletown, connecticut. good morning. go ahead, sir. caller: yeah. ok.

i'm calling -- i give president biden an f. all the foreign policies or most of them -- host: most of his foreign policy what, ted? caller: well, no, not true grade. in fact, i believe it was the former secretary of defense -- secretary of state, robert gates made a statement. i believe it was him that everything, every policy that biden made when he was a senator was disastrous. and now, we're treading water. -- with the pandemic. urging everybody to get a shot. and a booster shot. and yet, how many of these people from this southern border came into the united states and we don't know how many of them

are infected. so what are we doing? we give a thousand people with shots and we're getting 1,500 people coming in and more. host: that are managing the covid crisis. here's some more from that pew research report. again, came out late last week. it's gotten a lot of attention since it's been out. they write that report as has been the case since he took office, biden draws more public -- of his handling than any other issue. about half, 51% are varied or somewhat confident in his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. hydroceles confidence in unifying the country than on dealing with specific issues. only 34% are confident that he can bring the country closer together. 14% decline since march.

president biden: the economics, and understandably, legitimately, deciding polls. every element is overwhelmingly popular. overwhelmingly popular. but the problem is with everything happening, not everybody knows what's in that plan. for example, all those women out there who are not able to go back to work because they have a dependent parent or they have a dependent child who needs help. or they can't find daycare or they can't find -- i mean, look at what's happening. well, there's a solution. there's a solution and a proposal that i put forward. and the plans were now debating in the united states among ourselves and are creating in congress is a plan, the plan that i laid out at the beginning. and so i'm confident that at the

end of the day, we're going to be able to get that done. second point i'd like to make. we talk about price tags. there is zero price tag on the debt. we're paying. we're going to pay for everything we spend. so it's not, you know, people -- understandably, well, you know, it start off at $6 trillion. now it's $3.5 trillion. is it going to be $2.9 trillion? it's going to be zero. zero. because in that plan that i put forward and i've said from the outset, i said i'm running to change the dynamic of how the economy grows. i'm tired of trickled down. trillionaire and billionaires are doing very, very well. you all know. you've all reported and in the middle of this crisis, the hard-working people are getting hurt.

host: news held by members of house budget committeele here is the story from the associated press. the panel ok'ing the 3.5 billion dollar spending deal crunch time for the biden agenda. they write democrats pushed that 3.5 trillion 10-year bill strengthening the social safety net and climate programs through the house budget committee but one democrat voted no on saturday. illustrating the challenges that the party leaders face in winning the near unanimity that they need to push the package through congress. the -- the story on the democrat who voted no on that proposal

yesterday, moderate congressman scott peters joined all 16 republicans on the budget committee in opposing the legislation. the a.p. note his objection includes one that troubled many democrats, a reluctance to back a bill that could later be dropped by the senate if the negotiations continue. and as those negotiations are happening, nancy pelosi yesterday releasing a dear colleague letter to democrats in the house saying in that letter that this coming week on capitol hill will be a "time of intensity" as party leadership aims to take action on three pieces of legislation she notes this week, we must pass the continuing resolution to keep the funding. the build back better act --

host: back to your phone calls. talking about president biden and job performance so far, asking you to grade it. jeremy's in madison, wisconsin, an independent. jeremy, good morning. caller: thank you for c-span. i will be the last person, i think, on earth here, to grade the president of one of the most important missions in -- on earth. let's think about the more important question. afghanistan. with all due respect to the individual's past, leaving afghanistan, we sure did get a lot of people out, really, really quick in afghanistan. one way or another. with a video image in mind, a lot of people left. and a lot of people might just be disappointed with the president due to gas prices. why don't we just think about

whether this is going to work where we don't have masks. just constantly or worried about contributing to spreading a global pandemic. simply by just walking outside or utilizing some form of transportation to get from one point to another to buy food. or more importantly, let's think about the election in germany. how is this new election going to go over regarding the nation of russia, the nation state of germany and the nation state that we are a part of? trump had more sanctions on russia than we can deal with, than we can think through. how is that going to play out? host: stick around in our 9:00 a.m. eastern hour this morning we're going to be talking about the palmer tri-- parliamentary elections in germany. markus ziener will join us with the german marshall fund.

we're going to talk through some of the issues and what it means for u.s.-german relations. a democrat in indiana, next. good morning. caller: i'm going to rate biden with an i, an incomplete. he's not even in the classroom. he's going to end social security, i just heard the other day in four years. totally end it. if everyone enjoys the whole theory and concept of communism, you've got the right guy in there. you've got to the right guy in there. thank you! host: steve, why would you think he wants to end social security? where did you hear that? lost steve. mary is in oklahoma. republican. good morning. caller: hello. i am a democrat. i'm sorry, but i give him a d.

all the vaccine, which i have, and yet people across the border and the very least when they fill out the papers -- [indiscernible] but he's not asking them. he just -- he's causing all these people -- [indiscernible] host: this is jimmy in westbrook, maine. good morning, republican. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. you know, if you want to grade the president of the united states, our country is such a mess right now. we have two sides locked in, extreme left, extreme right

there's no middle ground anymore. west virginia susan collins, a middle person. the people -- joe biden, i respect a man if he had a press conference. there is no press conference with this man. he's told what to do. they give him something to read and they swish him off the stage. host: did you watch on friday? he took questions from the white house press corps on friday. caller: oh, come on, be honest with yourself do you really think that he does what donald trump does? donald trump did some crazy things but this man here will not take questions off the cuff. it's just -- it's as an american citizen, who is the president of our united states? i need someone to actually sit down and give us a couple of hours of real questions. that's all. it scares me. he's our president of the united states and he cannot take questions from regular people. he can't do it. i just want to see him sit down

with a group of people. nothing recorded. no answers and just takes real questions. that's all i'm asking as an american citizen. host: this is benny, jacksonville, florida. democrat. caller: i think, i think he doing a wonderful job. and he got integrity, which the previous caller don't have. but president trump don't have it. and i think he's doing a terrific job. it takes time for him to build up so he can fulfill his obligation. and i know he's on the country's on the rite track with him. but we need to get joe in place. host: cincinnati, ohio, charlie.

independents. what grade would you give the president? caller: i would say he's doing a horrible job. i think he's much more interested in what he rest of the world thinks of him than he is of us. the decisions he makes are built around him being considered a world leader. host: what's the decision that you point to on that, charlie? caller: i think afghanistan is the best example. instead of believing right away, he made certain that he stayed to -- the president of afghanistan and so that he could show that he was supporting him and the guy -- host: charlie, you would have

wand him to pull out quicker than the u.s. did? caller: what i would have liked him to have done is to have had an organized movement out that was prepared, much like normandy, precise. we are "the largest, the strongest country in the world." so you can't tell me that i don't know how many people are in afghanistan. couldn't be more than 30 million or 40 million people. how could we not be able to organize ourself and put that all together? host: charlie in ohio. this is ann in queens, new york. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. yes. i think president biden is doing

a wonderful job. he has a hard road to travel. and, you know, to get the work done and needs to be done for the american people. he needs to build back america. and he loves everybody. he shows empathy for everyone. he's not a divider. he's someone who's trying to make america one of the thing it's built upon which is everybody is supposed to be treated fairly, given an opportunity to make it. and he just, you know, you can tell he has empathy for people. he's not a bad person. and he's trying to make america live up to its standards. host: ann in new york. in terms of what people in this country are concerned about right now, that also a part of this pew research tracking poll that they occasionally do. here's more from that report.

a majority of ultraands 63% say they're very concerned about rising prices for food and consumer goods that's larger than the other economic issues. employers being unable to hire workers. republicans, more likely than democrats to cite rising prices and a shortage of workers as their top concerns. democrats very concerned about evections and foreclosures and people who want to work struggling to find those jobs. this is the pew research and the one that got a whole lot of attention last week. elizabeth in maryland, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well. caller: i just want to say that

i think that biden is doing a terrific job, especially with his domestic policy, the recovery package, the stimulus tax, the child tax credit, and everything he does to help americans come back from the pandemic. the thing i like the most besida stimulus check and i'm a disabled senior and that meant a lot to me and my food stamps increased dramatically for the last five months and that allowed me to eat without worrying about food. and i love his policy about taxing the rich. because that's going to pay for the infrastructure plan, for the infrastructure program, and it's going to help everyone with the recovery package. all the rich people should be taxed to the hill, especially corporations like amazon and facebook, and coca-cola and all those corporations should be taxed to the hill because under trump, they didn't pay any taxes

and we need all those millions and millions of dollars and probably billions from the biggest corporations like amazon to pay for the recovery package, to help america, especially poor and low income america, especially people of color. and i love his program to help us. keep it up. biden, i love him. he's terrific. host: that's elizabeth from maryland. to social media, facebook and twitter and our text messaging service, this is butch saying canner that he has created two humanitarian crises in about eight months time, so far, he get answer f from butch. jody saying i say a c. but compared to who he replaced, a an a-plus. for not even a year, he gets a b from me. mostly because of the garbage he had to clean up and ending the war. there are still many achievements he needs to make during his term as president.

gene from jacksonville, florida, saying in our text messaging service, an f for his attempt to literally change his country with the socialist spending plan sneaking thousands of unvaccinated people into the country. and mary in south carolina saying i agree whole heartedly with the caller from florida. i give president biden a. he's doing a great job. about 20 minutes left in this first hour of the "washington journal." steve from florida, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i'm doing well. go ahead. caller: so, i would give biden an f for right now. very disappointed in how the change went, how the transition went the last eight months, we've seen such an increase in all of our cost of living, cost of fuel.

and the way that we exited the afghanistan, we did it totally wrong. we should still be there. i know a lot of people are against us being there. but now that we have exit the way we have, i believe we should have gave more support to stop the exit, keep us over there, keep control of our country. and with the covid, i'm 100% behind our governor, the state of florida, desantis he's done an excellent job at keeping ups open. i am a local employer and our workforce has really been hit so hard with the way they did to mandate. host: with a kind of business do you run, steve? caller: i'm a mechanical contracting company. so yes, everybody says new construction's booming, but it's just because the state of florida's been open. so our housing market is going

nuts because everybody's moving here from new york, california, all the states that are supported by democrats. a lot of them are moving here. so now, us republicans are worried that you're going to change how our state's going to go but at least desantis has been keeping us open, running and going forward. host: steve, did you expect difference from president biden in his inaugural address talked about uniting the country, bringing the country together. were you expecting different eight months in? caller: one man cannot unite this country. we are so separated right now that the damage has been done a long time ago. until we actually all realize what we want to achieve, we will never be able to unite. and our safety is a big factor

now. know one feels -- no one feels safe nipple when we -- safe anymore. when we go to climes or concerts, we're worried about our safety. everybody is. host: are you worried about safety from violence? are you worried about your safety from health impacts of the pandemic? caller: both. mainly the violence from open the borders up. host: carol in st. louis, missouri, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to give president biden a. i think he's great. he's 100% better than what we had.

and, you know, you always give the ratings. he gets the poll ratings. if i'm not mistaken, i believe trump was in the 30's. we never heard that much. and the other thing is, you used to have days when it was republicans only. but when you want to bash biden, it's everybody else. host: oh, we have lines sometimes for republicans only. questions for democrats only. this is simply rating the president of the united states. everybody get assay in that. so we figured we would do our regular phone lines, democrats, republicans and independents. but keep watching with. you'll see some of those segments in the future more from president biden on friday from that press conference at the white house taking questions from reporters, including questions about the growing frustration seen in polling over his ability or inability to deliver on his campaign promises. this is the president from friday. president biden: i hadn't planned on the 178-mile winds of

hurricanes going to louisiana and 20 inches of rain in new york and new jersey and a -- an area as big as new jersey burning down in the west. i do what i did in the campaign. i would be out making the case about what my plan i proposed contained. and it's been very much curtail by a whole range of things. and so i think that it's understandable, i think it's understandable. people being frustrated. i think they're frustrated as well by the fact that not just members of congress, democrats and republicans, frustrated by, you know, i thought this is going to be better. i thought everything was working out. we were moving along on covid-19. and now, we have all these people who refuse to get a shot. and now, look at the people

dying. large numbers of people dying. so i guess i think it's a totally -- obviouslies, this is a legitimate question but put into context here, it's going to take some time here. and i know i always kid you when you all ask me about well, what about are you going to get a done, b done, c done? well i said you want to negotiate? i was being facetious obviously but here's the deal. we're going to end up getting both pieces of my economic legislation. the first piece, the $1.9 fundamentally change the nature of the economy in this country. even though remember it got clobbered. it was oh, this terrible thing. no republican voted for it. we, we got real economic growth. now, we're at this stalemate at the moment. and we're going to have to get these two pieces of legislation passed. both need to be passed. and they'll have a profound

impact. host: president biden from the white house on friday. mary, next, in fort washington, maryland, a democrat. mary. good morning. your grade of president biden's job performance. caller: good morning. i give him a. but i have to put a minus to the a because i want him to make sure that he has police reform in the passage. that's kind of getting a little away for some reason. so, but a lot of the democrats this week and as far as the republicans keep calling in, they always talk the same narrative talk, the same narrow minded ignorant information that they get from fox and news, max. we have statement in the white house for four years what a mess he's made and he's still making a mess, going around spreading the lie. he is not going to be reinstated. he lost the election.

and joe biden is the president. and he's doing a great job considering what he has to deal with. and i hope he gets to continue. host: you bring up police reform. some news on that from the past week. this from "the hill" newspaper. their wrap-up to the latest. tim scott believes the month-long negotiation with democratic lawmaker has collapsed because their proposals called for reducing funding to law enforcement in his interview with cbs news. scott who's been conducting talks with democrats for the past year said that many of the proposals would have required him to agree to limit or reduced funding for police. he said i'm not going to participate in reducing funding for the police west virginia we saw a major city defund the police. that's just some of the latest back and forth. the end goal seems to be that

those talks have collapsed. caller: exactly. look at what he had talking. tim scott doesn't represent anybody he doesn't represent the black population. we all think he's something else that i can't say. we didn't say defunded the police the media took that phrase and went to town with it. what we said is we don't want people show up every time black people protest with tanks and armors and i mean, like ferguson. look what they showed up. that's what they do every time. when we, black people protest they want to shut us down. they don't want to us say anything. so that's my anger about that. but as far as everything else, he needs to do it and then we have two democrats who are highly paid off by big pharma and the oil industry. they need to get a grip on life. they need to understand that no money is coming out of your pocket. this is our taxpayer money that we paid to the government. and then we have a politician them who wants to say we need more ships. we don't need any money for

defense we are low on the totem pole in the country. we are last on the list for education and horrible health care system. so we got a lot of work to do. and racism is flying around like it's just -- these politicians are showing their racism and not even trying to hide it. they have no shame. so this country is going to erupt pretty soon. host: this is david in huntsville, arkansas. good morning. line for republican. caller: good morning. boy, i tell you, that last caller just really surprise me. but anyways, grading this president. how could i give him anything above an f-minus? he has been on warped speed since the first hour he came into office to do all he can to destroy our country. immediately stopped our energy independence, open our borders, disaster after disaster.

how is he supposed to unite a country when he calls half of us domestic terrorist because we want our constitution and republic back? this is a new world order term. folks, wake up. we're under attack and this man is lead the charge. host: this is greg in virginia. independent. good morning. caller: yeah, good morning. it's been pretty bad. i give him a b-minus. as soon as he got into office, we sagas prices go up. we saw inflation. and now, nobody's doing anything about the national debt. they want to continue to spend, spend. now they want to have another $3.5 trillion. i got a question for the democrats.

did they enjoy spending more money at the grocery story? -- store? did they enjoy spending more money at the gas bump? did they enjoy -- and they're going to end up raising taxes on everyone. they talk about raising taxes just on the rich. this is going to go across the board. everyone's going to have to pay more taxes. if not now, somewhere down the road. the country is going to fall off the cliff if we don't do something about the $30 trillion in debt. and now, it's mind-boggling to me that they want to add on to it with another 3:5 trillion. host: so the president from friday making the case that the -- it's not adding 3.5 trillion that this package is going to be paid for and you talk about taxes being raised. the president saying that the wealthy taxes will be raised on only the wealthiest but that this will be paid for, that it's not going to add that to the

debt. you think it's going to add the debt and raise taxes on everyone? caller: yes, because they're playing tricks with the budget. it's gimmicks. they've been doing this for years. the whole thing -- wealthy can't pay. there's only so much the wealthy can do. you can only soak them but so much. it's a -- it's got to come from somewhere else. and that's what people got to understand. and the reason i want to give him at least a d minus is because at least brought some sort of some good temperament for the job which was not the case the last four years. host: that's greg in virginia this morning after couple more of your social media posts as we wrap up here. just about five minutes left in this segment of the "washington journal." it was tony saying biden gets a

d. he accepts no responsibility for his actions and he blames trump for the afghanistan pullout claim the credit for pulling out due to trump's agreement. this is the tweet from one of those folks who watches this program near every day. you can join that community @cspanwj. if approval polls support your wish they speak the truth. if not, they are fake. this is joseph in indiana. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you today? host: i'm doing well, joseph. go ahead. caller: on the president's grade, i would have to give him an a-plus. he did come on the back of mr. trump's mess-uple that's being pilot. -- polite now he's inherited all that debt from the republicans. and that's all there is everything is paid for like mr. biden said which it is. if you go back and look, and

trump wants to give all the rich people tax breaks and everything else. we were making 32%. and now it's down to 28% or something like that. i believe in all honesty get off his back, stop the other stuff, the misinformation coming from god knows where. every time i look up, i see it and it just makes me sick. mr. reagan just like trump, he busted the unions i worked for conrail. and then they don't want to help the little guy at all. host: joseph, you say a-plus is the grade you give the president amount lot of callers were more critical of the. have cited afghanistan. the pullout in afghanistan as one of the reasons why they give him a much lower grade than an a-plus do you think afghanistan was an a-plus effort how the pullout went? caller: yes, i do. because mr. trump -- it costs us

more money to do that but we did it anyway. so i think that he should get an a-plus he's trying to build up our economy. republicans need to get off his back and wake up. quit drinking the same kool-aid. it's always been about the wallet and not the war. host: that's joseph in indiana. connie in pennsylvania, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you stood? host: i'm doing good. go ahead, connie. caller: good. host: doing well. caller: great. [laughter] biden, he's a failing grade for me. and it's due to his socialist and markist agenda. -- marxist agenda. we are a capitalist society as of nine months ago, striving on independence.

and unfortunately with this new socialist and marxist agenda, we have a mentality, at least the administration has a mentality of we will take care of you to cradle to the grave. and eventually you run out of using other people's money. so, it's really unfortunate. i would challenge the democrats that are giving biden high grades to maybe look outside of our country and look at those socialist and marxist society, such as venezuela and see what kind of status, how that country is going. i think the

the speaker pro tempore: the house will now be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c., september 26, 2021. i hereby appoint the honorable betty mccollum to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by chaplain kibben.

chaplain kibben: on this gold star mothers and families day we come together to pray for the families of all our heroes. it's on days like today we realize that added to the ultimate sacrifice paid by as the brave men and women is the toll taken on their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters and sons. we hold to you those who hoped in vain for their loved one to come home only to have the shock of a knock at the door alerting their loss. we place into your compassionate care all those who have felt the cost of war most poignantly and ask that you surround them in your embrace. holy god, enter into that vacant place in their heart, not to replace this love lost but to hold them tenderly in the depths of their pain. and help us to find appropriate and thoughtful ways to express love and reverence for those who sorrow. as we honor those greefing on this