policing and community engagement. andrew yang, former 2020 democratic presidential candidate talks about his new book, forward: notes on the future of our democracy. washington journal is next. ♪ host: >> the influences and practice of facebook came front and center as they looked at the procedures and standards the impact of some of that that appears on the platform. we will show you portions of that hearing. we want to ask you to share with us about your experience with social media particularly how you think it impacts you to get information pretty for think it has a negative impact is the number call.

perhaps you are unsure or don't use social media page you can give your opinion as well. text us if you wish at 202-748-8003. you can post on our platforms. you can also follows on instagram at c-span wj. as they do, the pure research center takes polls, this is from october. when asked about the negative or positive impact social media platforms have at the time they were asked majority of u.s. adults who say social media has the type of effect. six he 4% of those saying it was a mostly negative response or effect a year ago. neither positive nor negative at 25%. mostly positive at 10%. among those who identified her

lean republican. 75% say those who are democrat or lean democratic saying it was mostly negative for them as well. that's the experience from last year. that hearing could still find on our website featuring francis, that employee from facebook talking about the practice and standards of the company, axios saying as you probably heard she was interviewed on sunday but when it comes to the hearing yesterday, the whistleblower urged lawmakers amongst other things to modify section 230 which protects websites from liability for content. sears the creation of a new federal oversight body to regulate tech firms. lawmakers discuss the need for online privacy legislation and greater protection for children online as well. you can find the hearing, but in our first hour we will show you portions. when it comes to social media itself we want to get a sense of

how it might impact you. if you say it is negative, 202-748-8000. if you say it is a positive, 202-748-8001. perhaps you don't use facebook or not sure about the impact, call 202-748-8002. you can text us at 202-748-8003. from that hearing yesterday we hear the opening statement from the facebook whistleblower as she talked about the social media company [video clip] >> i used to work at facebook. i joined facebook because i think it has the potential to bring out the best in us. i am here today because i believe facebook product harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy. the company's leadership knows how to make facebook and instagram safer but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. congressional -- congressional action is needed.

they won't solve this crisis without your help. yesterday we saw facebook get taken off the internet. i do not know why it went down but i know for more than five hours, facebook was not used too deep in, destabilize democracies and make young girls and women feel bad about their bodies. it also means millions of small businesses were not able to reach potential customers and countless photos of new babies were not joyously celebrated by friends and family around the world. i believe in the potential of facebook. we can have social media we enjoy that connects us without tearing our democracy apart, putting our children in danger and selling violence around the world. we can do better. >> those are some of the claims made in that testimony yesterday pretty was after the hearing mark zuckerberg posted his own talking about the practices of

facebook in light of that testimony in which she said in part many of the claims don't make any sense. if we want to ignore research why would we create an industry-leading research program to understand issues in the first place. if we didn't care about harmful content why would we employ so many more people than anybody in our space. if we want to hire -- hide our results, why would we establish an industry-leading standard for transparency in reporting. why are we seeing polarization increase in the u.s. while it stays flat our declines in many countries with just his heavy use of social media around the world. those of the comments of mark zuckerberg, ceo of facebook. we will show you portions of that hearing. use -- as you talk about your own personal experience. ed tells us for the most part it's a positive. tell us why. caller: good morning.

i think it's because i'm searching up people that have the same kind of likes and dislikes that i do. there was a couple of things about social media that i have a problem with and that is when people, they call them cells people of color, i'm white and i'm a color. everybody on this planet has a color. i consider myself a person of color. what i don't understand is why of all the democracy everybody talks about in our constitution the word democracy doesn't even exist. host: when you say you search out people that follow similar things as you, what do you mean by that. hobby wise, is it political. caller: i try to stay away from political. host: why is that?

caller: on social media try to help people that may have a really bad problem or a bad disease or they are dying. stuff like that. host: bob from illinois says it's a negative. caller: good morning. i really kind of hate that they are eventually going to get rid of facebook because there are three things most important in the country but i would say on facebook and that is covid-19. that needs to be gone. voting rights and certain people to the spring court so it's more even.

everything else, we've so many important things in this country. everything else is important which left away with those things. a second term president. i call on the phone. >> let's take you back to the social media portion. you call it a negative. specifically why. caller: i call it a negative and then they might say that's not right or it's not legitimate and it's very important that covid-19, voting rights and adding to the stream court is the most important. they probably get rid of it and it's not good if it can be expressed. host: ok.

you think it's more regulation is needed. >> it may regulate me and that's very important. host: we go on to d in redmond, washington. caller: i work in the tech industry here and i've watched how it can influence life and with people, especially with the youth. it is sad because i just find there's a lot of people out there that will get on this and not think for themselves. host: when you say it's a poison, how would you illustrate that.

>> i would say it's a poison because people take the information and they allow it to influence their lives and like with -- i was reading something talking about how social media affects the youth with eating disorders and stuff and i'm thinking i don't keep it because i know what it does to people. i will do it to look at things to read on it, but i have no reason to keep it. >> would you call yourself a regular user of social media? caller: i try not to use it. i have seen the different levels of it that come and go, but i just think is a lot of negative.

host: a pull from pew research of this year about users and consumers of facebook, the question was among u.s. adults that use the sites. 49% of facebook users, 22% about once a day. 45% of users saying they focus on instagram. some say several times a day with visits and then down from that, youtube and twitter. maybe you visit those sites, maybe you think the experience you have the negative or positive or perhaps you're not sure. gabby in trenton, new jersey says it's positive. caller: good morning. i think it's a positive. every time i go on social media, even if sometimes being on

social media they might comment on something someone else is saying or hurt their feelings. it does inform people everywhere around the world. my grandma is like 80 years old and she will go on facebook and say this is happening in texas and she wouldn't have known that if she hadn't gone on social media. that's why think it's a positive. host: what information are you seeking out and how do you gauge the information on whether it's trustworthy or not? caller: sometimes on tiktok, there was a girl from a belief south korea who was talking about what's going on in south korea and stuff like that. that caused a bigger conversation about it. i did more research on that and it was the same thing every time. host: what is your favorite

platform to use if i may ask. >> i don't really have a favorite. i kind of like tiktok sometimes, but i also like instagram. host: thanks for the call. we go to duke in maine. social media is a negative. good morning, you are next up. caller: i feel it's a negative. i myself don't have it. i would not have it anyhow but i've had family members that have been ridiculed on facebook, things that have been said and spun out of control, lies said about them and try to cause them harm and stuff and threats and it's just horrible. this sucker to me, this guy is just making so much money off of

other people's misery and that just isn't right. for people to get on there and lie about people, i'm not saying there may not be some good on their but from what i've seen the biggest part of it is just nothing but hurting people and lying to people and you've got impressionable young minds out there listening to things and it's just horrible. host: you said you're not a user but you talk about negative experiences other people have. how did you find out about that? caller: because they told me. i have family members that have been hurt by this. lies and stuff set about them and things just blown so out of proportion, other people just trying to cause other people troubles and the things that are set on there. it's horrible. it should not be. there should be a law against this sort of thing. it needs to be regulated. host: a lot of people talking about regulation or at least

more of an oversight role when it comes to social media companies was richard blumenthal of connecticut who spoke about the reports about facebook. also the current state of social media companies. >> facebook saw teens creating secret accounts that are often hidden from their parents as unique value proposition, in their words a unique value proposition. drive up numbers for advertisers and shareholders at the expense of safety. it down on targeting children, pushing product on preteens. that it knows are harmful to our kids mental health and well-being. instead of telling parents, facebook concealed the fact and sought to stonewall and block this information from becoming public including to this committee when senator blackburn

and i specifically asked the company. still even now, as of just last thursday, it has refused disclosure or even to tell us when it might decide whether to disclose additional documents. they continued their tactics even after they knew the disruption it caused isn't just that they made money from these practices, but they continue to profit from them. their profit was more important than the pain they caused. last thursday the message from antigone davis was simple. this research is not a bombshell. she repeated the line. not a bombshell.

this research is the very definition of a bombshell. facebook and big tech are facing a big tobacco moment. >> that hearing available at our website. sonya from twitter says i can use platforms and listen to explicit lyrics, free speech hurt sometimes. brian saying social media has developed a false sense of bravery. they used to be a time when people were afraid to say stuff and peoples faces. now we have a bunch of keyboard warriors hiding behind ip addresses. tim saying it's great for keeping with friends, pretty much every thing else is hot garbage. if you are texting us, this is stephen saying social media connect people around the world. he of the ability to read and watch content from parts of the world there were never reachable. you can make comments or to the

positivity or negativity. john in minnesota who identifies as onshore or don't use the platforms. hello. caller: thanks for taking my call. i've been on facebook for a long time and my experiences, when i'm on a republican facebook page, i notice that nobody argues against anything that anybody else says. versus here we have a republican senate caucus site in minnesota and there's all kinds of postings saying masks don't work , saying the virus isn't real and saying the vaccines don't work and nobody, including the state senators who sponsor this site have ever spoken up to say

that this stuff is not true. i find it can be very dangerous place where people can be targeted. easily by politicians without anybody there to say this isn't right, this isn't true. what's going on here. that's my main experience. host: janice from san diego says is social media positive. hello. caller: i'm kind of in the middle of that. to the gentleman who just spoke about those comments on the republican pages, that is a flat out lie. because every time i go to post something on facebook about covid or the vaccine and how it does not necessarily work, they put a claim or on the bottom of your post that says this is full of false information or facebook

does not necessarily believe whatever it is you're saying. most of the time they was just flat-out take it down. i've been on facebook for 12 years. when it first came out, everybody was doing pictures and it was a wonderful platform to be able to find people i never thought i would see again. you are able to find people that you really would never leak if not for -- link if not for social media. i have friends all over the world in new zealand and ireland at some point i would never be able to meet. what makes facebook a negative is because of the politics that have become involved on facebook. it is divided on facebook. believe that. live democrats post on one side where they are able to make fun of republicans.

i've been told, sellout and the n-word more times than you can imagine by my own so-called people. if you don't agree with the liberal platform, i just got out of facebook jail for seven days for going there on -- the liberals jumped in on it about abortion. i had my say and when i said what i said, before i could even posted, facebook will be in jail for seven days. now i can post any group chats or anything else. host: how did that happen before the actual post came on the line? caller: it's like they are watching you and there certain words that they can pick up on and the very second i hit the enter key i was put in jail. immediately. but the young lady who called me low maturity and this and that

about the abortion and told me basically because i am a republik and she called me out of my name, i don't think anything happened to her. host: that's janice telling about her own personal experiences with posting online. donald the north carolina calls his spirits a negative. caller: good morning. -- his experience a negative. caller: you are the best anchor they've got. you are right down the middle, i think you are a great guy and what that woman from california just said is absolutely the truth. in 2020 i stayed in facebook jail all of two months for anything that i posted about trump or anything else even if i shared something that was on their site and the way they pick

people -- pit people against other people, that's what's drawing the hate in the country. what it does have very good uses. my daughter lives in oregon and she just had a baby and are not able to travel. but i am able to see facetime with her or i can see my grandson that was just born, so yes there is good because i connect with my family. i'm originally from virginia beach. six hours away is where all my childhood friends live. host: you say these sites, may be your experience with facebook , pitting people to get -- against each other, how so. caller: the first thing i did in 2021 was donated all my

political ads. they are either republican or democrat sites. all they do is fight and call each other names. if you stand up for a woman that's getting harassed, i get put in jail for standing up for an saying this st. right, leave her alone. host: donald in hickory, north carolina. many of you are citing personal expenses with the platforms. we are asking it negative or positive experience, perhaps you're not sure or use the site altogether. from joel in illinois, he says it's positive for him. good morning. caller: good morning, thanks for having me on. i'm not a social media -- i

don't use it very often. use facebook to find my friends. i think it's like anything else. people misuse it, people don't use it for its intended purposes and they run into issues. i just have one more point i know it's been upset some of our -- the ewers. -- the viewers per the world can be childproofed. it's up to a parent to control what a child does online just like they control with they see on tv. i know it's difficult. i'm not a parent but i have nieces and nephews. if you're going to regulate this , where does regulation stop and censorship begin. that's kind of a fine line there. those are my points.

>> joel in illinois. you heard senator blumenthal rep -- the global safety director. she purchased bidding a senate hearing, last week on the topic of protecting children online. talk about the recent reporting by the wall street journal which led to lower testifying yesterday. here is her talking about that. >> we understand recent reporting's of raise a lot of questions about her internal research. including research we do to better understand young people's experiences on instagram. >> we strongly disagree with how this characterized our work so we want to be clear about what the research shows and what it does not show. the research shows many incidents helping them with heart issues -- heart issues. -- hard issues. it includes a survey of 12 difficult and serious issues of loneliness, anxiety, sadness and

eating disorders. we asked teens weather was struggling this issue and whether instagram makes it better, worse or had no effect. on 11 of the 12 issues, two said they were likely to help them, and make it worse. that was true for -- on 12 of 12 issues. that's why we conduct this research to make our platforms better, to minimize the bad and maximize the good which proactively identifies groups. host: you can still find that hearing online at our website. when it comes to events happening in washington, d.c. today, another attempt to raise the debt ceiling. they will try to advance a debt

ceiling suspension bill, he said monday night you see the vote for today it would require 10 republik and to break ranks, something that is exceedingly unlikely, adding it was the end of the week the bill must get a pass which he said earlier this week. during the course of events it was possibly on the filibuster. it passed the debt limit with no certainty that that would happen. a lot playing out when it comes to issues of spending as far as the biden agenda is concerned. we invite you to follow along not only our website but those out and about and want to follow along on the social media platform, we invite you to download our new c-span now video app.

archive for a short amount of time, other features are there as well. you can do so by going to your favorite app store to hat and also if you want to go to our website and go to the page they are to download the new c-span now video app and explore its features there. from april in rock island, illinois who is unsure about her experience or does not use social media, good morning. caller: hello. you know i don't use social media. the only reason i'm calling is to talk about article 230. section 230. i do not think people really understand what it means. when al gore was vice president and the internet became a thing, all of these companies signed in with the government is saying they will not -- they will not

decide what people can and cannot say. it will be free platform. and that hasn't happened and now here we are. host: how do you think that should be changed? caller: i think they need to take it away in these companies need to be considered publishers because that's exactly what they are. host: tom in tennessee who sees social media as a positive. caller: good morning. i've been a facebook user since almost its inception and i have had nothing but a positive experience. i use it every day. host: what makes it a positive for you? caller: i go on the morning, check normally to see what my friends are up to and it's

something that's becoming a great habit. i'd miss it dearly. host: we saw shortage were people couldn't access it for a while. was that your experience and what was it like for you? caller: seemed like an old friend was missing. i check it every morning. normally about an hour and it's just become a routine for me. host: g use it to keep in contact with people or to gather information. how do you use it? >> pretty much to see they've had a baby, etc.. that sort of thing. more or less keeping up with my community. host: tom talking about his own

facebook experiences. many of you experience the shortages as well. you can roll that into the conversation. a negative or positive, you're not sure you don't use it, you can communicate with us on phone lines, you can go on our platforms as well. philadelphia, ohio calls the social media experience negative. good morning -- good morning. let me push the button. go ahead. caller: i'm going to start off with i'm 70 years old. i grew up for a lot of years with a different kind of life we learned very young this was all going to come out in our lifetime, the internet and all

that eventually. but what i see happening on facebook and twitter mainly on facebook. putting exotic pictures of themselves, they have no idea what they are doing and if mark wanted to do something, he would stop people from doing -- kids under 18 for doing that kind of stuff. and another thing is if you read my screen, you would be sick to your stomach. a young girl, 17 put on there today that she is so depressed she does not know what she is going to do. which scared me to death because she lost her father, her whole

life went upside down, i don't think mark understands. everyone is in it for the money, but our government needs to get rid of 230 and make them responsible for our country -- or our country is done. it's just done. >> some folks texting us, this is from joan pennsylvania. if you watch social dilemma which deals with facebook. that they purposely have addiction, it's a drug like interaction and must be regulated to protect not only children but also adults. same facebook was great back to accept the college email. it turned into a nightmare. larry saying i found myself going to the same thing looking for validation of view.

i freed myself by dropping off of facebook. bob saying social media is responsible for the public refusing to be maxing -- vaccinated. turning the american people against each other. those are some of the statements you can make if you want to do that. by the way you want to follow this program and this network on our platform, facebook.com/c-span is her facebook page. you can also follow us on instagram if you're just in doing that. the next way five minutes we will ask you about your experiences to social media whether you think it's a negative or positive. perhaps your onshore or don't use social media. kathy is up next. kathy and ohio. in that unsure don't use category. >> good morning. i no longer use facebook, very

little social media. it was a good experience for me and then it turned bad and i spoke with the police who told me they could do anything about it so i'm now off facebook and i will explain why. i filed a police report against a man in another state. he is not in jail and it did not know anything about him for many years, i looked them up once on my iphone and a few days later he very casually facebook friended me -- requested to be friends with me on facebook and this is a man who i filed a sexual assault report against. he is now a lawyer. i believe he was bullying me trying to intimidate me ever since that happened.

i felt very unsafe on facebook. and i've considered changing my name, because i got to reconnect with old friends and organizations i care about to do good things. i believe in general communication between people is generally good and when bad things happen it's a reflection of our society. we can stop communicating in order to fix those problems. we just have to figure out what the problems are and fix ourselves along the way. thank you for having the show today. >> the things you filed on those issues. any issues on those responses? caller: no. unless someone shows up at my house, there's nothing to do.

host: sharing experiences on social media. don saying the expense was a negative for him. caller: it is john. host: apologies for that. caller: no problem. i'm a therapist and i work in mental health and hospital setting and i work a lot with adolescents. lately groups have been talking about some of the adolescents experiences with social media and the responses are just, it is worse -- heartbreaking. what i expect to hear a lot of is content about body image or body dysmorphia and what i've heard lately is even more graphic. it's children talking about being exposed to graphic content online. there is no one protecting them

from that. i'm happy they are finally advocating for these children and just the bottom line is i think social media is a platform for misinformation and become so toxic. >> is there any sense politically here on capitol hill that changes could be made legislatively or regulation wise to deal with the issues you deal with in dealing with those who look at social media. caller: it's difficult to say. the only thing i could say is, parent of a teenager or parent with a teenager is really take the time to keep your children away from social media, monitor their usage. the correlation between mental health problems and social media, the hours used is staggering. host: don -- john there in

frederick, maryland. one of those conversations with the facebook person from last week, and their global safety director, one of those on the impact of social media. here is a part of that exchange. [video clip] >> has facebook held any information regarding its impact on mental health? when asked during a congressional hearing march earlier this year about the impact of social media on children's mental health, mr. zuckerberg responded the research that we've seen is that using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental health benefits. that's only one side of the coin. this answer clearly only told part of the story. these documents reveal facebook

new that. how can congress are facebook users have confidence in the credibility and safety of facebook moving forward and is facebook withholding information about studies they've done on negative mental health consequences? >> thank you for your question senator. i'd say the one-sided and misleading of reports were in the wall street journal which do provide the full context. in fact research showed more people, more teenagers found instagram use helpful when they were struggling with these issues. our research is not bombshell research. it's correlated to similar research out of harvard, out of pew and out of berkeley. we do this research to improve our products, to make them

better for young people, to provide with a positive experience. right now eight out of 10 tell us they've a neutral positive experience on our app. we want that to say 10 out of 10. if there someone struggling we want to build product changes to improve their experience. >> so do you have information from the two out of 10 who have not had neutral or positive experiences so you know how to adapt the presentation of your product to consider the fact that some children seem harmed or negatively impacted by what they are seeing? >> i really appreciate that. some of the research we did was to find out from them what they thought could be particularly helpful to them. what they identified his inspiring content or content that talks about people with those particular issues.

we are actually looking at product changes to find ways to knowledge that content to end vigils who are struggling. host: those hearing still available our website. if you want to see more of the back-and-forth concerning the topic of social media and the impact, not only last week but yesterday's hearing as well. margaret sullivan with a column taking a look at regulatory ideas for banks, touting one saying an idea from one comes from the former fcc commissioner who maintains his agency and the federal trade commission are tech savvy enough to object consumers from this volatile and evolving industry adding an agency doesn't need rigid rules when the rules become obsolete on most immediately. he was the head of the fcc from 2013 to 2017. the columnist writes a piece done by mr. wheeler about the

brookings institution saying the fcc and ftc are filled with dedicated professionals who are constrained. they may grab headlines but they don't protect anymore general consumer uses like take it or leave it terms and conditions that are forced on customers. there's more about this agency to oversee social media. you can read that in the washington post. the editors of the wall street journal taking a look at yesterday's hearing. they just say this, a better idea is to give users more control. and parents more control over what their kids are exposed to online. social media apps are especially unhelpful. here's what congressional pressure could do some good. the main concern of many politicians is misinformation. the wall street journal with those thoughts this morning.

let's hear from annie in south carolina prayed saying social media is a positive. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i'm fine, how about yourself? caller: i'm doing just fine. i'm 87 years old. it's positive for me because when i can go to something here i can always go on facebook. i keep in contact with my children over facebook and it's just a positive thing for me and i love it. host: as far as how you got involved in social media was it facebook to begin with? is that the only social media site you use? caller: yes. that's the only one i use. host: let's hear from christopher in new york.

caller: i don't -- i called in on the negative line on accident. i more on the fence. i do believe there is some benefit to social media, however i think the negative does outweigh a little bit. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: in terms of facebook, i don't really see any true benefit other than a connection with people, but the truth of the matter is there's too much negativity on the site, especially for young kids. there's no oversight, there's nobody there, you can go to social media sites and just get any type of information you want. people try to do their own

research but it's pretty much confirmation bias. it just creates dissension between people. you cannot have a conversation with somebody without being insulted or insulting someone because you're so frustrated. there are pros and cons. i think the negative outweighs the pros. host: doug is unsure about the impact or doesn't use it. caller: good morning. thanks for the opportunity to talk to you. primarily on facebook, i find it very positive, unable to reconnect with friends. also made new friends, it allows me to promote what shows him going to be at, times and everything else. i'm an independent, i don't want people thinking of just attacking republicans or anything like that.

when trump got into office it just seemed like the tone got more negative. it seemed a lot more people i respect their opinion and all of that is also a negative attitude. there were some i took off because it seems that's all they were trying to do. i didn't think you would think that way. then after the election, most of them have kind of realized the election wasn't stolen. they're still some friends that get on their. i think is trying to become the next rush limbaugh on facebook. he does stuff from sidney powell. and it's like come on. starting to see a lot of that. it some positive. most of those people realize. they don't get too toxic.

they have their point of view that they are entitled to. that's my feelings on it. host: facebook is but a series of ads taking a look at the effort they are making for regulation as far from capitol hill and efforts to keep people safe. here is one of those ads. >> at facebook we are taking action to keep our communities safe. which of our safety and security team, building privacy tools and invested billions to keep our platform safe. we are making progress but there hasn't been a major update to internet regulation and 25 years. tech companies need standards that will hold us all accountable. we support updated internet regulations that set clear rules were addressing the toughest challenges. learn more. host: a viewer off of twitter saying i don't use facebook, they deleted my account, i broke the addiction and don't miss it at all.

i've come to realize how much i was wasting. i've learned who my real friends are. steve from twitter saying might spirits on social media has been on twitter. there's an account on facebook -- in line -- jackson saying everything and have a positive or negative effect. i don't think social media platforms should be blamed for behavior. parents need to be involved on what's happening with children and how to respect others. from a viewer in california, facebook and other platforms are connecting your data -- collecting data, they are deceiving and addictive, they are politically dangerous, summing it up as negative. also the experience of fred in

maryland. you are next up. caller: i wanted to tell you you're my favorite personality on c-span. your professional and thorough and hold us to the questions of the day. facebook has totally become politicized. it's a palooka weapon used by the democrat party. i left facebook and 2018 after consulate being put in facebook jail for constantly winning arguments. the last time i posted a picture, anything with joe biden is a no no. this was just one of his pictures where he was hugging a woman and she has that uncomfortable look on her, it actually happened. they didn't like it. i got tired of it and now we are seeing facebook claimed russia spent a bunch of money on misinformation, they spent $100,000 on ads.

after these hearings we found out mark zuckerberg donated three and $50 million to democrat campaigns. this is becoming a political weapon and it's scary now. host: do you think both sides use that as a weapon? caller: the democrats are in charge of everything right now in the government. the energy department, housing. they are calling the shots. conservative viewpoints not only for facebook, but from the military and it's getting scary. host: let's go to hunt in hop skinned -- hopkinsville kentucky. caller: good morning. i don't use facebook anymore. i have a facebook account. facebook starting 2005, 2004.

i got a facebook account in 2005, had it for several years, didn't really use it much. but i got kicked off of facebook about seven years ago because they came up with some crazy idea that they kicked off everybody who had a native american last name and you had to send in a picture of your drivers license to prove that that was your name. i didn't do it personally, i had my nephew do it. i never got back. i just said i don't need them. host: are you sure that wasn't some type of hoax? caller: no because my understanding from what i read or heard on the news several

years after that, there was one native american tribe, i don't member the name of the tribe out west somewhere that that happened. they actually sued facebook and won from my understanding and they were let back on facebook. when i joined facebook, 99% of the people didn't even have a name on there. they would have a picture of themselves in some stupid name. not even a name, it was just something stupid. and they were like that for years and as far as i know still is. i have no idea, i've been -- i have been on facebook and over seven years. host: about his experiences.

these are from vice.com in 2015. facebook making it difficult for native americans to use their real name. the facebook real name problem came to light in october 2014 when a member of a tribe of oklahoma said he had been kicked off of facebook on columbus day for having a fake name. it was not the first time it happened to him when in fact using his given name for the facebook profile. saying the first time it happened i didn't have to do much, the second time it happened i also didn't think much of it. i sent them a picture of my state id. the third time was when it struck me, i was prompted to confirm identity. he started to go through them motions but stopped at one message that said it looks like your name violates our name standards. more from that, that is vice.com if you want to read that story

in relation to what the viewer told us about the experience. let's hear from dean in kokomo, indiana, negative experience. caller: i was just calling in to say i messed with facebook a little bit, not really into it like a lot of people. the latest thing is this thing with gabby petito that came up missing, she had stuff on facebook i think or youtube how glamorous her trip was and how much fun they were having and then look what happens there. i think it gives us the wrong perception sometimes about life. i think maybe if we spend more time reading the bible and what

god says to us. that could have a more positive effect on the whole world and all the problems we had. i'm not totally -- but i think there's a lot of bad things. sometimes how they regulate things, who is facebook to say you can say this or you can say that. host: giving his experiences therefrom indiana. a recent poll of social media used, 81% of those, of their top, youtube. then followed by facebook at 69%. going down from there. instagram, pinterest, snapchat, twitter.

the various sites people use in the various percentage of people who use them. mary is from westminster, maryland says it's a negative experience. good morning. caller: i wanted to say i have a facebook page and i don't use my real name or anything like that. i think it's all political, facebook is good, it's bad prayed i blame the parents. i think it's political because if people were really concerned about the youth they would look at youtube, video games, vaping. even cereal is geared towards young kids and it's all garbage. you get this whistleblower that comes from out of thin air and i think it's politically charged, they want to go after mark zuckerberg. i don't know the guy, but they want to go after these people because they have a hidden agenda.

the pornography through the internet is 1000 times worse than facebook could ever be. why are they not going after that? it's all a big joke and people are stupid, they don't really see what's going on. a jump on this bandwagon, facebook is bad and that's it. it's the parents and it's the family. host: one more call, this is stephen gardner, massachusetts print -- massachusetts. that will be the last call for this segment. thank you for all of you who coming up, two guests joining us. first, atlanta-based minister reverend markel hutchins, of movementforward, spearheading the upcoming faith & blue weekend. that conversation, next, later

on in the program. then, former presidential candidate andrew yang, here to talk about his new book, "forward." those conversations, coming up on "washington journal." ♪ >> coming up today on c-span, officials from the u.s. army corps of engineers testify on the response to hurricane ida live at 10 a.m. eastern and at 3 p.m. the judiciary committee examined the john r lewis voting rights advancement act of 2020 one that would restore provisions of the 1965 voting rights act that were altered by two u.s. supreme court lings and on c-span two the senate is back to consider it judicial nominations and hold votes to limit debate on legislation to

suspend the debt ceiling until december of 2022, requiring the approval of at least 60 senators. at 1 p.m. eastern on c-span three, the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction testifies in front of the house foreign affairs committee on how the u.s. funds were used to assist afghanistan over the last 20 years. everything is also available online at c-span. org or on the free video app, c-span now. >> get c-span on the go. watch the biggest political events live or on-demand, anytime, anywhere on the new mobile video app. c-span now, access top highlights and discover new podcasts for free. download it today. "washington journal" continues. host: -- host: this is the reverend#, --

reverend markel hutchins, thanks for joining us this morning. what is movement forward? guest: a solution focused civil rights organization that deals with a plethora of issues that approaches things from an innovative solution's and in the tradition of martin author -- martin luther king jr. and i was fortunate enough to be mentor by many of his icons. we are taking the work of the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, other movements for social change and moving them forward into cooperative, inclusive, innovative spaces. host: did your work in bridging gaps between communities and the police grow out of that? guest: absolutely. there is no more pressing issue in the human rights space than

the relationship between law enforcement and communities. of course, that's a very complex issue and it's an issue we are tackling in every state and place around the country. host: tell us a bit about the national faith & blue weekend. guest: it's the most consolidated community outreach project in american history. the department of justice, homeland security and literally every major national law enforcement professional and membership association is partnered together with us. several years ago, pedro, i recognized we were going in the wrong direction when it came to police and community matters. in the aftermath of some of these terrible tragedies that we have seen, i knew we needed to create a movement of collaboration because every time there is a strain between police, communities, crime and violence escalate and affect the most vulnerable among us.

i knew we needed to create something massive into major to build a movement to bring lawton wiseman and communities together to deal both with the tensions and the officer involved tragedies, mutual bias and engaging the community, the public, with public safety. there is a lot of conversation across the country now about the need for police reform and there certainly needs to be some reform in terms of use of force around those kinds of matters, but the greater need for reform is relational reformation. causing law enforcement and communities to see the humanity and each other and work around their commonalities and not be so divided by their differences. host: what are the ways the two sides can view each other better as far as the relations between them? guest: absolutely, the truth is that most of the tragedies we have seen over the last years have been based on for fear and frankly the professionals in

these communities fear the people that they are policing because they don't know them and vice versa, often times the tragedies are triggered by the people in the communities who fear their law enforcement professionals because they don't know them. some things can't be taught in an academy and a reduction in mutual bias and fear cannot be fixed by legislation or public policy. it has to be fixed by human engagement and for that reason we related and apparatus across the country where communities and law enforcement can get to know each other so that the mutual fears and bias decrease in the mutual trust and respect increase and we all win. host: to what degree do you think that racism and inequality matters are at the basis of what you deal with? guest: it's certainly a part of the equation, but we have to deal with how to cure, how to fix racism.

dr. king talked about transforming the heart and redeeming the soul of america. as we seek to eradicate social inequities based on race, gender, orientation and etc., we have to call people to see the humanity in each other. racism for the most part is based on the ignorance of people and their fear of others. we have to transform that in our country today. reform alone won't do that. we need reform but we need cultural, social transformation if we are going to see a reduction in racism and social inequity. host: you are welcome to speak to our guest and if you live in the eastern or central time zones, [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] -- time zones, (202) 748-8000, and if you are a member of law enforcement, you can call (202) 748-8002, downton and western time zones, (202) 748-8001. you can text us, (202) 748-8003.

what did the murder of george floyd do about this issue? guest: we started thinking about this weekend several weeks before he was killed. i convene a meeting of all the national law enforcement groups because i knew something was going to happen to cause things to iran and explode and it was perhaps just tragically divinely ordered that we started talking about this before the death of george floyd. but to you pedro i want to raise what i have said over and over. what killed george floyd was not simply flawed policy procedures. the thing that killed george floyd was the officer that had his knee on his neck didn't see and recognize the humanity and mr. floyd. he violated department policy and procedures. he didn't feel and sense the humanity of george floyd and that's what you have got to change.

we have got to humanize people, despite the differences and ideologically racial differences, we have got to call folks to see the humanity and one another. that and only that is going to stop the george floyd situations that we continue to see escalating and rising across the country. guest: be -- host: legislation efforts have been made to change these issues. it passed the house but didn't make it through the senate, some elements banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants and other things as well. where do you think is the legislative component, on the federal or state level, to make reforms? guest: i actually think it's more local rather than state or federal and i truly believe that local communities hold the answers. most policy and practice when it comes to law enforcement is

dictated and determined at the local community level because most communities are different from one another depending on the demographics, the ideologies, whatever the particular identities are that are unique to that community. those things dictate police policy and procedure at the community level and while i certainly support the passage of reform in the united states congress, the greatest need is at the local community level. the local neighborhoods, the local communities hold the answers to the challenges that are facing law enforcement and public safety and i continue to hold that until local communities, grassroots efforts are underway in every community and in every corridor for solutions, we will continue to see the twin headed monster of tensions between law enforcement escalating with crime and violence rising. host: are there examples you can

cite? guest: i think the best, the best example is what we saw during the civil rights movement. it was not just congress dictating civil rights legislation of the passage of the voting rights and double rights act. it was based on the grassroots efforts of the marches around the segregated south that led to the passage of massive legislation. i think that what we have historically seen is that until local communities and local neighborhoods raise their voices to really promote social change, we will continue to see this circular conversations. like so many americans i was disappointed the senate did not pass the george floyd act but i remain hopeful the local communities will get engaged and involved with local law enforcement leaders and be the change we want to seek.

shifting not only policy procedures but hearts and minds of law enforcement professionals and residents, which is so important at this moment in time. host: this is reverend markel hutchins and our first call from you, sir, comes from cedar, minnesota. catherine, you are on with our guest, go ahead with your question or comment. caller: thank you to the reverend for his perspective. just like he expresses, but maybe even broader than that, i feel that, you know, particularly with the george floyd incident, it's a very complicated incident. it just shows how we still need to be watching over police. watching over everyone. george floyd deserved protection and at the same time people deserve protection from him or whatever might have been going on and at the time, it's still

unclear, i think. i'm just disappointed that the larger view, our communities need help. i mean i've got a pastor who's a good friend, victor martinez in minneapolis, he's trying to help his community and he saying let's work with the police, figure out how we reform the systems to support people. he lives in that community and is trying to help change the community and people resist it for obvious reasons because they feel that tension against the police and at this point it's just hard, we really need people to support watching over the young people, you know, watching over the people that need help, trying to do what they can do to help these people. we all need some help today. frankly, there are a lot of people not receiving that help. host: reverend, go ahead. guest: i couldn't agree with you

on some level, certainly we all need help. we are at a difficult point in american history when it comes to matters of policing and honestly when it comes to how we deal with one another despite or in view of our differences, but i think that what is clear is that in that moment, george floyd was doing nothing wrong. but we also have to recognize that we cannot demonize the entire law enforcement industry because of the acts of one really, really flawed law enforcement professional. there are bad apples in every industry and i think everyone is clear about that. there's a false narrative in the country today that people overwhelmingly don't support law enforcement. it's not true. gallup recently did poles and in the studies they found that more than 80% of african-american and hispanic americans want the same or more public safety and law

enforcement. 90% of white americans. what we have heard from a lot as a small minority of americans who want defund the demonize law enforcement, but it's not the overwhelming majority. people understand we have to deal with police when they make mistakes. we have to hold them accountable and help them to change and innovate law enforcement. it certainly needs innovating. we need to look at public safety differently, but most people do not demonize or have hard feelings towards law enforcement and that's a conversation we have to have but again we've got to create a groundswell of support for solutions. we done the marching, we have done the protesting. we have had folks on different sides of issues screaming and yelling at each other. we are at a point now where we have to come together to have conversations based on facts, logic, and reason and put some solutions in place in every community across the country.

host: david in maryland, you are next up, hello. caller: thanks for taking the call. interesting topic. curious, self reflection within the community, improving upon the community. i guess in your efforts, reverend, what types of programs are underway to, i would say, take the pandemic out of the equation, go pre-pandemic. are the communities recognizing the increase in social welfare programs, like food stamps, snap programs? are they recognizing the shear increases and violence occurring within the community, between community members? are they self reflecting on their family structure? there's a lot of broken homes within

these communities. can you comment on any programs or self-help programs going on to get people to recognize that, you know, it's not just, it's not just complaining, but there's a fair amount of self-help that needs to get infused into these communities. guest: absolutely. i agree that we have to be reflective individually but we also have to be reflective as a community. again, there are some false narratives out there. most people are not on welfare, most people are not eating food stamps. i don't want to draw some line of connection between social welfare programs and policing and law enforcement. what we have to deal with in this moment is how lawton oarsmen and communities -- law enforcement and communities deal with each other. everybody deserves to be safe in their communities and dealt with

with equality and fairness. what i can tell you is that historically our faith based organizations, churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, etc., always have promoted personal communal responsibility and that is how we have progressed. whenever there has been a movement for positive social change personally or community lead has always been anchored in the faith space. these organizations constitute the largest body of volunteers of any kind in the country and that's why we have called upon the faith community. every church, synagogue, mosque, temple, school in the organization should be a beacon of hope and light to call for the kind of, to cause the kind of cultural and political public policy transformation that will lead to a reduction in crime and violence.

host: you mentioned the defund the police movement, social service programs that can be helped and communities. is there a role there? guest: there is. we have to focus on creating and finding resources in the community to deal with mental health challenges, homelessness and other challenges. especially addiction and other mental illnesses. i don't like the defund the police terminology. words matter. we have to use the kind of language that would endear people and some would disagree with me, i don't like the verbiage. i think it's intentionally inflammatory and we have to deal with the backlash of that. should we allocate resources to help those in need of mental health? absolutely. should we take away resources

from public safety and law enforcement? not at all. particularly when you look at what's happening with crime and violence and communities and as a person who has worked for and fought for civil rights the entirety of my career i absolutely reject the notion of taking resources out of the hands of public safety professionals. we need to invest more in law enforcement to make sure they are healthy, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, that they have the best equipment, the best body cameras, that they have law enforcement tools that would prevent them from having to fatally injure someone. every police officer in america should have not just a gun and a badge and a bulletproof vest but a body camera, a rap, other kinds of devices. you can't do that by defunding them. host: there is a professor who writes for the marshall project about some of these were worms and he said that it's pretty

much the status well, difficult to change the culture of policing, state and local law enforcement agencies around the country, it's difficult to legislate reforms that have meaningful effects at the street level, the local level and across the country. how do you respond? guest: where legislation fails, cultural political translation must come in. what affects us most will not be solved in policy procedures. the answers to the challenges that we face in the moment won't simply be in a policy procedures manual or the ink of a piece of legislation or an executive order. the answers to the crisis we are in now will be by transformation. it will be imprinted in the hearts and minds of every law professional and every local resident. i agree with the professor in part. we have got to d focus so much

on the political talking points and really get in and do the hard work of transforming hearts and minds. that and that alone will lead to a reduction in officer involved tragedies on both sides. host: for the reverend, eric, california. caller: brother, i appreciate the conversation you are having this morning. the philosophy that i see, even in the church we have to be able to speak out loud. when dealing with extreme violence and radicalism, it's spoken in the terms of i-4 and i, tooth for a tooth. torturing leads to the deaf and the dumb and the street where the radicalism, as christians we preach that i'm my brother's keeper, love my enemy and these lhasa fees work and these are the transformational things that we have to teach down in the bottom of the community. yes, we are working here in the

community of content and we addressed the issue where we looked at the police issue and we removed police and brought in the sheriffs department and if you looked across america, everybody had sheriff's departments and the problem we have is being over policed, double policed. there are more police on the streets than necessary. we have law enforcement in the communities, the churches. judges and prosecutors. they are all in the community. we are not saying get rid of law enforcement, that sounds crazy. we are simply saying look at the funding. we are being double policed in our communities. that's all we are asking. we can take the money and use it in other aspects to make the community a lot more peaceful and yes, we are doing the work here in the faith-based community and that is where the work that i see start.

where you see the extremism, where politics has took the religion of people, christianity not a religion, they took the belief in the word of god and made a religion and now you see the extremism that non-like president trump used to drive the extremism up to capitalism. host: you put a lot out there. guest: that's a lot of issues. number one, i completely agree with reallocation, not defunding. reallocation of focus, not defunding. i think that that terminology and distinction is critically important and number two, you are absolutely right, we have to approach social change, particularly those of us who are activists, from a solutions-based perspective. martin luther king jr. used to talk about the idea of not defeating your enemies, but

transforming your adversaries into allies. that's where the activism has got to go. pedro, we have gotten into this zero-sum mentality where for one person to be right, another person has to be wrong. for the issue to go forward, we have to defeat someone else and we have to change that. the aspiration must to transform and shape and expand the perspective of brothers and sisters. when we talk about the passage of the civil rights act, the voting rights act and other public policy reforms, it was always a sense of decency and dignity where we held our head up high. we were not angry, visceral, overly condemning of someone else. we really played at our best to transform the hearts and minds of people in that is where we have to take the issue now.

what we have seen is that over the last several years, the more radical minority has gotten too much voice. too much influence over the conversation. what we are doing is creating an apparatus for national faith this weekend where the vast majority of the american people can stand up and speak up and say that we are not nearly as divided as we are disconnected and we are re-centering the conversation not on the things that we disagree about, but the things that we agree about and what he agree about changing law oarsmen. all of our partners agree that the industry needs to be transformed, innovated, improved . we also have to innovate how communities deal with law enforcement. we cannot continue to expect law enforcement to do the job of reducing crime and violence by themselves or we cannot depend on the academy to shape the

mindset of these law enforcement professionals of the police in our community and we have to do that as community members and that's what you are calling on every community in the country to do over the course of the weekend and in the days after. host: one of the issues brought up from a viewer on twitter is that police are poorly trained when it comes to de-escalation techniques. as far as those specifics within reforms, what would you see as the best way forward? guest: i think we have to expand what training for law enforcement looks like. technically we have the best trained law enforcement ever in history or in any civilization in the world. in a technical sense, we have the training. the problem is you can't train the mind and the heart in a way that would lead to reduction in bias. that happens through transformation.

every professional needs to be trained in the cultural and other demographics, the particularities. the mindset, the tone, the tenor of the people they are policing. the big change in america now is we have law and oarsmen professionals policing communities they know nothing about, serving and protecting people they are not connected to in any way. that is what we have to change. that is what we have to transform and really, it's our only pathway forward to seeing a reduction in officer involved tragedies where professionals are taking and losing lives unnecessarily. host: viewer lou greene says we need powerful anti-gun laws and enforcement from the federal government. guest: i certainly agree that

there are too many guns on the street but i don't want to get into my personal perspective as much as i do the perspective of the vast majority of the american people in that is that we have to do something and the local communities hold the answer. while i agree personally, we have to look at some reform and change. most law enforcement association a groups agree that there are too many guns and we need the american people to make the body politic, the u.s. congress move on the issue. host: from herb in greenville. guest: thank you. one of the things that we need to do is understand history. the history of law enforcement comes from the 1800s, when the slave catchers would catch runaway slaves, return them to their rightful owner. during reconstruction, the clue

klutz clan had their own gasoline and by the way, reverend, the son of a sheriff burnt down a black tennessee church here a couple of years ago. anyway, now we the people, our tax dollars provide the funding for all of this weaponry. the high tech war materials these people use to destroy us. one of the smartest man's ever -- guest: what do you mean, destroy us? caller: well, spraying a nine-year-old girl with pepper spray? body spraying a girl on concrete , knocking her unconscious, turning her on her stomach and handcuffing her behind her back? that is destroying us? guest: every law enforcement

professional in america that does that kind of thing without any cause or justification should be held criminally responsible and i believe that every police chief in america and every sheriff, at least the ones i work with, would agree with that. no one should be condoning wrongdoing by law enforcement affectional's. the best way we can hold them accountable is to be connected to them. we can send them to jail all day long. listen, i have lived protests and demonstrations and marches one side of this country to the other. we can continue to curse the darkness, but at some point have to light a candle to drive away the darkness. what i am hopeful of is that we are going to a place in this country where we stop cursing the darkness and we give some solutions onto the table. the solutions are in policy procedures and most importantly are in transforming the hearts,

the mines, the perspectives. most law enforcement professionals, i don't know of any of them anywhere that puts on a gun or a badge to wake up in the morning to say i'm going to go out and do something stupid, go out and make a big mistake. we have to get ready -- host: one pastor, you primary john lewis in 2008. talk about that experience. guest: after his illness, i was there in his last days. i have always been a believer that if you want to see change, you have to see the change you want to see, congressman lewis,

misses king, the other legendary civil rights leaders, it's time for another generation to emerge. nonviolence, direct action, social change, a lot of the voices are passive. we have to be solution focused, not just yelling and screaming at each other, but bringing together the sisterhood and brotherhood of resolutions, solutions, not just trying to defeat each other. host: tim is in minneapolis this morning. caller: i think that people are forgetting that the public, when i was in the military, i was subject to the people. people in general, the police are also forgetting that, the people are supposed to be in

control. i'm all in favor of things like collaboration and citizens arrests. there is a law in our state, pretty sure i read this right, if you see a felony being committed, you have the right to detain the person. but there was a little incident that happened here in my little town where some guy breached my sidewalk and he was just some kid driving recklessly. the kids are walking up and down the sidewalk. he got caught up on my sidewalk and his skidmarks went right into my yard. i showed them the pictures and even one of my neighbors got a picture of him. there was a school bus in the background and when the guy finally got here, they were actually called several times and didn't show up, when the guy got here, he was nice and everything i said why don't you, why don't you, we got the license, i will put a little, my

grandson's bike was across there, we will put that across there and you will use your ea committee to get him here and we can say, you know, look what you could have done. host: caller, we are running out of time, what's the question for the guest? caller: no question, just a comment. guest: i am supportive of the notion of when you see something, say something, but i'm a little leery of people trying to be vigilantes. that gets us to trayvon martin and other kinds of situations. when you see a potential crime, if something looks suspicious, if you are a resident of the community call your public safety professionals. i'm leery of people promoting the idea of a citizens arrest and those kinds of things because there are implicit instances of outright bias that

people have that cause them to do things that other folk -- that are not right. host: the governor ending mandatory minimum sentences in california for nonviolent drug crimes. is there a role in this as far as the larger aspect of criminal justice reform? guest: in this country too many people are in jail. criminalization of mental illness. when we look closely at what's happening in california, the idea of decriminalizing mental health challenges, decriminalizing addiction is something we should be looking at. we need to be looking at how we can help the people who are incarcerated who are challenged to become healthy and whole and quite frankly, the last four

decades have shown us that incarceration only exacerbates the problem, it does not solve any challenges. host: dave, florida, go ahead. caller: i like a lot of the things that you say but in 2019, the word racist came out a lot and i think that there's only one race, the human race -- human race. red, yellow, white, black, brown. maybe we need to talk about prejudice. there is prejudice and it goes in an alliance against that, you can be prejudiced against someone heavy or someone of a different religion or things like that. i have traveled around the world. i know i had prejudices when i went to the middle east. what i found was that when i talked to the people individually, they were all good people. they were not the crazy people that we see on the news media. they were all good people.

when i traveled in the far east it was the same thing. the people were all real good people. as far as the police co., 99.9% of the police are good people. so really, what i think about that, this is just a perspective, we need to take the word racist out of what you are putting out and call it prejudice. that's what it is. guest: i don't think you have heard me use the word racist at all. the idea that there is no racism in america today is flawed. we still have racism, prejudice, and bias. we have to deemphasize the calling of names, i agree with you on that point, but we can't run away from the reality that race, gender, class and orientation are still factors in how people are treated and we have to deal with that up rightly and forthrightly. but i agree with the underlying

premise that name-calling doesn't get us anywhere, but we do have to deal with the need for changes in policy procedure and cultural changes to key prejudice from causing people doing harm to others unjustifiably. host: deirdre, good morning. caller: if there was a guest like this in every state of the union, we would see some beautiful transformations. i'm a former teacher and current owner of a therapy consultancy to hopefully help create some of this transformative policy around social justice plat. my question to you, pastor, is that do you believe that by teaching specifics in middle school and high school will help

to curb the problems we are seeing and return police officers to what i grew up with, they work officer friendly. >> i agree with you wholeheartedly. we have got to get to a place where we teach the young people not just what their rights are, but their social responsibilities. we cannot continue to promote this culture will -- where people believe that they have some rights without having some responsibilities. we do have a right for civil and human rights and civil liberties to be protected, but we also have the responsibility to govern ourselves civilly in our society and we have lost so much of that and that is something we have to deal with not only on this subject matter, but across the board. too many of our young people don't have respect for order and decency. we have to change that. but where the family structure is failing us, we have to

embrace the idea that we are all one in this community and the community has to step in and step up. i hear a lot of talk about single families and single parents and that kind of thing, but we have always had single-parent households and the difference between then and now is that other times, the community stepped in. the faith-based organizations i'm talking about stepped up. sororities and fraternities. we've got to get back to that place but we can't do it as long as the conversation is us versus them. we have got to get back to that civilized, civic place that was articulated by the caller. host: one more quick call from mike in virginia. caller: my thoughts go like this, why don't the faith-based organizations but small academies into their organizations, teaching the

young kids to become police officers? then we would have more minorities in the district and around the country? guest: absolutely. caller: why not do that? dr. king -- guest: dr. king used to say be the change you want to see in the world and that's why i created national faith & blue weekend. every community has folks that would be happy to serve, but we have so demonized, faster dies, and been critical of on in the fact of the matter is 97% of law oarsman professionals do a good job. when my mother, the best human being i know needs something, she is supposed to call the police. therefore, i want the best police officers possible to respond to my mother, your mother, and your grandmother. the reality is that your faith taste community organizations still constitute the largest body of volunteers and are ideal

for recruiting and hiring law enforcement professionals. pedro, once the weekend is over i'm going to promote to the u.s. department of education and the white house the creation of a police for america kind of model similar to teach for america. every historically black college and university should be a resource for putting more diversity into law enforcement. there are some innovative things that we can do, but we can't solve problem's if we have one group of americans and one party yelling our lives matter and other americans yelling our lives matter. we have to come together at the tables of sisterhood and brotherhood and figure out a pathway forward in every community and neighborhood. i hope everyone watching us today and is engaged in this conversation will visit faith & blue's website, find an event

near you in gash engaged. be the change you want to see in the world. host: reverend markel hutchins, we thank you for your time. andrew young joins us at 9:00 about his decision to leave the democratic party and to discuss his new book. until then, we can participate in open forum. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. something to watch for today, a vote to raise the data -- the debt ceiling, chuck schumer spoke about his expectations. here is a portion of that from yesterday. [video clip] >> he has to pass a strong bill and there are some in the caucus who want more.

the vast majority of the caucus, everyone of them voted for a budget resolution with reckoned cilia tore a instructions but everyone knows there will have to be give and compromise and we all realize we will have to come together to pass something. just about everyone will be disappointed. everyone will be somewhat pleased. but we have to get it done. >> can you guarantee the u.s. will not default? >> asked mitch mcconnell. the bottom line is it's simple, it's on his shoulders. we have been willing to cast the 50 votes ourselves. it's up to him, all he has to do is get out of the way. next? we are going to stay here until we get this done. next? >> if this vote is blocked by

republicans would you rule out the filibuster rule? >> the best way to get this done is for the republicans to get out of the way. it's what we are looking for tomorrow. host: the senate will be holding that procedural vote this afternoon to suspend the debt ceiling with 60 votes needed to end the filibuster and advance the bill. you heard the mention of senator mcconnell several times. the minority leader on the senate to talk about his perspective yesterday. [video clip] >> they have had plenty of time to execute the debt ceiling increase and have chosen not to do it.

now they have plenty of more time because clearly the pause button has been pushed on the larger reckless tax and spending bill. i implore them one more time not to play russian roulette with the american economy. we have been down this path before when you did not have divided government and the party in the majority got the job done. they need to do this. they have the time to do it. the sooner they get about it, the better to make sure the markets and the american people know that as usual, the american government will never, ever default. host: again, watch out for that vote on c-span two and follow along on our new video app, he spent now, with streaming video including other things, you can go to the app store to find that information online.

curtis is up first from middle river, maryland. democratic line, good morning. caller: morning, pedro. how you doing? host: good, how about yourself? caller: fantastic, fantastic. i have two things to stay -- to say really quick. it amazes me that how with this debt ceiling thing, the folks losing touch with reality, regardless to what you may think, the people adversely effective -- affected are the working poor. the working class. the people not up there, you know what i mean? taxing the legislation, creating the legislation. it always amazes me how when one party is not in charge all of a sudden we can't approve the debt ceiling but when they are in charge, yeah, we can approve it. when they have the power around the majority, and i'm not going

to say the party. it's up to the people to really pay attention and say hold on, something ain't right, what's good for the goose and good for the gander? and i was listening to what the sheriff was saying. he had some really good points but i'm curious, in my opinion, if you really want to reform the police department, i wanted to call and ask him, how do you feel about the immunity clause? i think if you removed that, the 1% of the police department that he was talking about that is not to the standard and is not protecting and serving, the police we don't want? i have a funny feeling that if you removed that, you don't have to worry about them, they won't apply for the job. host: margie, republican line. caller: good morning.

thank you for the open forum. i only have a couple of requests for things you might bring up in days to come. i'm 83, i'm pretty good on my phone, but i haven't quite understood this new government involvement in bank accounts. it used to be that if you had to deposit or withdrawal over $10,000, it had to be checked out. and now i think i understand, they want to make that $600. i'm assuming that's for little people during maybe the covid thing, selling arts and crafts or something. but it's such a change. i'm not quite understanding it and i thought maybe you could have someone to come on and explain it. host: that's a good suggestion. i will read you a recent story,

the biden administration proposing to monitor financial activity of $600 or more to fill the tax gap, concerning members of the bank industry who says that it causes burden and potential government overreach as a part of the infrastructure built. thank you for the suggestion. you had another one? caller: yes, i haven't seen a lot of discussion, a little discussion but not a lot, about the hundreds of sort hayes china is making over taiwan, which would clearly draw us into a war situation. it's like nobody wants to talk about it because people might, people might buy my -- purchase too much toilet tissue or something. i'm pretty sure i understand the situation, but to bring it more to the forefront, i would like someone to talk about that, too.

host: thank you for the suggestion, marge. larry, cleveland, ohio, independent line. caller: your caller from maryland, they stole my thunder, man. if you want to change hearts and minds in policing, the way to do that is abolished qualified immunity. thanks. host: tilly, illinois. caller: i wanted to talk about the insurrection. the bomber they never identified , i believe it's a woman. i don't know if they've ever thought about that, but the bomber walks like a woman, sits like a woman. i truly think that's a woman who left of the bombs at those different buildings.

host: jack, new jersey. caller: my concerns are the border. to secure our country. all the people that they say are coming up, 400 thousand? that's 400,000. are they going to be taxed the $600 that we give them for their free money when they come across? host: daniel is up next, texas, republican line. caller: they want to raise the debt ceiling, ok? why do they want to do that. i live on a budget. i'm on social security. i pay my bills. when i get through paying my bills i don't have a lot left, but i have to manage with what i have left in order to live. if our country is going to get trillions of dollars in debt,

our country's going have to pay our bills. because we are, i mean, it's just a bottom-line. if you don't pay your rent, you get evicted. if you don't pay for your car, it gets repod, you know? it's simple math. host: ok, daniel in texas, there . in a reversal of trump administration policies, the state department disclosed the number of nuclear weapons in the u.s. stockpile, those in both active status and long-term storage. as of september of 2020, it's down from 3800 51 year earlier and 3785 in 2018.

weapons totaled slightly above 10,000, peeking in 1967. let's hear from michael in south portland, maine, independent line. caller: one of those prime ministers, because of the weapons and everything, they signed a contract where france is not allowed to have any type of weapons and now the mercenaries have backed out. it just hit the news the other day, coming in on the bills. the infirmary company making people sick, people representing investments in this company in government today, they want to raise the debt ceiling and put money in their pocket and make people sick with the food. it happened 50 years ago and now they are backing out again. host: michael, the story this morning in the paper, secretary of state blinken talking with

french counterparts about that nuclear submarine deal, among other things. saying that after speaking in an interview after his meeting with president macron, that the united states should have better communicated its plans for the submarine deal for the french government so that they could turn the spat into something productive. that's in the washington post, if you want to read that there. front page of the times this morning, under the headline now for sale and afghanistan, american guns, writing that with the taliban and power, more weapons and accessories are being openly sold by gun dealers who pay government soldiers and fighters for guns, ammunition and other materials according to the weapons dealers in the kandahar province. three of them said that dozens of afghans have set up weapons shops south selling pistols, rifles, grenades, binoculars, and goggles.

originally provided under a training and assistance program that costed the taxpayer $36 billion after decades of war. tampa, florida, democratic line, go ahead. caller: i work in intelligence and the inflation issue everyone is concerned about is based on increasing the costs of everything in the united states so that the international community cannot purchase america. the chinese have been buying up property. other international hedge funds have been purchasing stocks. the costs of everything will go up here, but so will the pay. the money that goes out goes back into the hands of the corporations and increases pay for the workers, creating the high-cost of american property and goods, putting it out of the reach in the interests of

communities, keeping it ahead of the rest of the world. the facebook issue with witness, i believe that she personally has something against zuckerberg . maybe something from work or something of that sort. her tells in her body language were that she was personally trying to take down mark zuckerberg and that some of the things she said were exaggerated. host: which branch of the community do you work for? caller: i would rather not say, but i can say that i was a consultant and it was secret, but not top-secret. host: ok, melanie, new orleans. republican line? caller: sorry, i meant to, the democratic line. host: i apologize. susan, fort myers, florida, go

ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call, i hope all is well with everyone. i'm really concerned, questioning why president biden wants the banks to follow somebody who spends $600 at one time. what if somebody was saving for furniture, you know? this reminds me of a dictatorship and it really upsets me. i don't have that kind of money, but does this include the politicians? the people who are in government? i would like to point out and i wish you would talk about it, the politicians, both sides, regardless, they never come, they never have a problem, they never have financial issues. maybe that's the thing that we need to look at. host: one more call, jeff and

missouri, republican line. caller: yeah, i just want to speak on american carnage. the trumpet marred -- trump inauguration and he spoke of american carnage no more but as soon as joe biden come into the presidency, american carnage begin again. time democrats wake up and realize that the kumbaya moment won't come until they try to dictate to everybody there wants and needs. they need to take care of themselves. host: ok, that was jeff. thank you to those of you who participated. coming up, a conversation with andrew yang about his presidential run, his new book, and his decision to leave the democratic party and start

another party. that conversation, coming up next. ♪ >> watch book tv's coverage of the 21st annual national book festival on sunday. this virtual event features online author discussions, plus live: segments. joseph alice talks about his book "the cause." he will join us live at 2:30 p.m. to take your calls and tweets. at 3:00, a discussion about the opioid epidemic. after the discussion, patrick will join us live. at 4:00 p.m., a look at russia, featuring catherine belton and joshua ya for.

at 4:30 p.m., the history of women in medicine with the author of "the dr.'s blackwell." at 5:00 p.m., kansas representative shareef davis talks about her book. watch book tv's coverage of the 21st annual national book festival, sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on book tv, on c-span2. ♪ >> download c-span's new mobile app and stay up-to-date with coverage of the day's biggest political events, from live streams, and key congressional hearings, white house events and supreme court oral arguments. even our live morning program "washington journal," where we hear your voices every day. download the app for free today.

>> in the past 30 years eric larson has written eight books. six of those landed on the new york times nonfiction bestseller list. some of mr. larson's the snow and books include the splendid and vile, published in february 2020, isaac storm, leased in 1999, dad wake, about the sinking of the lusitania, and probably his best-known work, devil in the white city. with his most recent work, eric larson makes a transfer to ghost story fiction. the title "no one goes alone," is available on audio only. >> eric larson on this week's episode of book notes plus. you can listen to book notes plus on our new c-span app. ♪

>> "washington journal" continues. host: andrew yang is joining us. he ran for the presidency in 2020, and also with other decisions this week included leaving the democratic party. anchor for joining us this morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: as far as the decision to leave the party itself, at what moment exactly did you know it was time to leave? guest: i left because of the polarization that unfortunately threatens to tear our country apart. i like c-span because you really do just present unfiltered politics and news. if you look around, right now we have these media institutions that are inflaming tensions and polarization in different ways, and i thought that there was a way -- and a need -- to help bring the temperature of our country down.

and that is why i left the democratic party to become an independent and start the forward party, which will be this unifying, popular movement to change the incentives of our political leaders to actually respond to the reasonable among us and not the extremes on either side. because right now if you look at the numbers independence -- independents outnumber registered democrats and republicans almost two to one. we know that point of view is often getting lost. host: what part of being part of a major party was inflaming to you, particularly the democratic party? guest: i mean, i did not feel particularly inflamed, i suppose. [laughter] i was a democrat for 26 years. ever since i could register to vote. but right now we are seeing a dysfunctional system where we are not able to get anything

done on either side. i think people watching this at home can relate to that. if you are a reasonable person you are scratching your head being like, why is it our leaders seem so unreasonable relative to anyone else? [laughter] the answer is that those are the incentives of our system. right now if you become an elected representative you do not answer to 51% of the population, as much as we would like to pretend otherwise. who do you answer to? the answer to the 10% to 20% of the most partisan voters who will vote on a democrat or republican in your district. 80% of districts are safe seats. i can sense even from the people calling in, the approval rate for congress nationally is only 28%. people don't love what is going on or not going on. but the reelection rate for individual members is 92%.

people are going to win election over and over again, in part because they are catering to the base on either side, and then when they come together they can't get anything done. we are all fed up by it. we are all frustrated, and this is the biggest thing. we have been sold a bill of goods that is intended to work when it is not designed to work. i want to get to the real problems that i talk about in my book, and that is not just a democratic problem or republican problem. it is a systemwide problem. that is why i had to leave the democratic party to get this work done. host: as far as the real problem that existed elsewhere, how would you identify that and how does the forward party remedy that? guest: in a past life i ran a business, and i also have been an entrepreneur. one of the things you learn that

people respond to incentives. [laughter] if you reward them, that is generally where they will go. where are the political incentives right now? it is to get out and make very, very ideological or inflammatory arguments that some people love. the people that love those arguments will send you money, will vote you back in again in very, very partisan primaries. we have to do is change the intent -- change the incentives. instead of listening over here and getting money from over here, we want you to listen to all of us, and may, you know, if we were to really go far, maybe there is even a way to where your financial incentives are tied to how you are doing relative to the entire population. this sounds very dramatic. but it is entirely achievable. the way we get there is by getting rid of closed-party

primaries. everything is determined at at the state level. shift to open primaries and ranked choice voting instead. anyone can vote. i think that is very straightforward. then you need a process so you don't have any spoilers. if there were two democrats and one republican, the republican doesn't automatically win. you implement a process where voters can make their choices so there is no spoiler effect. if you do these two things, all of a sudden our legislators would become reasonable overnight. we can do this via initiatives around the country. cannot wait for congress to get its act together, because we know that will never work. [laughter] what we do is go to the communities around the country that are fed up, which is all of us, and say, let's change the process. host: you give an example in writing about that process to

senator lisa murkowski of alaska. guest: there is a state that has already made this change, and that is alaska, where all alaskans have a say in who their representatives are, and what this means for senator murkowski is that she can exercise her independent judgment and take her decisions to the entire state, instead of having to go through partisan primaries where only 10% to 20% of people will participate. a lot of people watching this at home no what i'm talking about. if you are in the minority party in 83% of the districts around the country, you know you don't have any say. that is something that we can change, and alaska has already made this change, just because a lot of alaskans got together and said, this is better. host: our guest until 10:00. if you want to ask him questions about the party, his book, and

other matters, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 free democrats. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. your decision to leave the democratic party, how much of that was influenced by your run for the presidency and mayor of new york? guest: i met a lot of wonderful people on my campaigns, made some deep friendships and connections. the thing i believe -- and i think most people watching at home will agree -- there are good people in every political party. there is no party that has a monopoly on goodness. [laughter] i have many tremendous relationships, and was difficult to even change my voter registration given that, again, i had been a democrat for a decade. but it felt like the right thing to do if we are going to pull our country together.

people sense that people of different political alignments are not your enemy. we are all americans. we love our fellow americans. friends and family will vote for the other side, and we still have to come together afterwards and have dinner together. host: you write in your book, more than 60% of americans say both political parties are out of touch. the structural forces make it nearly impossible. you can't win races, you don't have financing, the media will attack you. partisans will say you are empowering their opponents, which they will characterize as a toxic threat. will lose friends. on top of that it is impossible to start a viable third party. that is what you write, and yet you decide to go ahead and start one. take it from there. guest: immediately thereafter -- [laughter] i talk about how at this .57% of americans want a third party, and there is -- 57% of americans

want a third party, and there is no time like the present. candidates like myself, i'm happy to say raised tens of millions of dollars for my presidential run, and i believe can speak to people of any party. so that is the catalyst for what i hope is a popular movement, a forward party, that registered democrats, registered republicans, and independents are welcome to join. we can since that our country is not working right now. if you are watching this at home, or watching because you feel a responsibility to our country, it also most of you are feeling some misgivings and despair. reasonable. like most reasonable americans would look up and be like this is not functioning well. it is not functioning well because it is designed to fail. you know it is a nasty system when everyone acts rationally, we are all going to lose at an

epic scale. when you ask, why is now the time for a third party movement to succeed? it is because we have record-high, literally civil war-era levels of polarization, and we need a solution. if millions of us can provide this solution, then we will all feel much much better about the future of our country. host: the forward party, is this a vehicle for a future presidential run or a vehicle to make these changes you advocate for? guest: the number one change we need to make that would unlock our leaders to actually do the jobs that we hope they will do is open primaries and ranked choice voting around the country. we will support candidates that advocate for those changes, but we need to be focused on the upcoming races in 2022, because there is a lot of good that can be done. host: from alisha in columbia,

maryland. you are up first with andrew yang. guest: the independent line! host: alicia, go ahead. caller: good morning, pedro, and mr. young, is it? and good morning, america. listen. if you get some of those folks that have been in there for so many years, they become very bossy. you know who i mean. what do you think about term limits? would you please comment on that? and i am an independent, so i fully support you. thank you. guest: thank you, alicia. that means the world to me. we need term limits in congress. 75% of americans agree with that. you shouldn't be going to washington to spend the rest of your life. [laughter]

it should be a tour of duty. you get things done, and then you come home. if that is common sense and we know it, why can't we have term limits? the forward party is pro term limits on members of congress. they should do our work and then come home and not see d.c. as their ultimate destination. if you agree with that, forwardparty.com. it is common sense. it is a sign of corruption that something so obvious has not been done. host: from hopewell junction, new york. eric, hello. caller: good morning morning to both of you and props to brian lamb for this amazing form that is in full blossom. and you, you are a numbers guy. i'm not. i am a one-note numbers guy. i called in before about this. i have been taking the personal poll. i do four or five a day.

that is a lot of people, thousands. my criteria is, when i find them alone i asked him. my results were, 85% of people were nice. what do you think other people think? that really made it very complex and interesting. nobody was mean to me or nasty to me. they engaged me, check think is a positive, because it is unusual in this age when everyone has a computer in their pocket. no, for somebody to confront them with these kinds of inane on the surface, you know, sort of provocative question, getting out of their sin. you do it all the time. i'm amazed at your abilities and you saying that the polemics in

of sides are out of control. it ties into testimony yesterday about who is playing us and how our amygdalas are excited to the point of no return. host: eric, thank you very much. guest: i want to speak to that. it comes up in my book. we are being manipulated. so, you have these political incentives that are driven to manipulate us through alarmist fundraising messages and everything. we have all gotten the messages. [laughter] then you have many organizations -- c-span accepted -- that end up heightening their inflammation and polarization. you hit the nail on the head that social media is pouring fuel on the whole thing. social media is terrible for any semblance of rational discourse. negativity and mistruths spread

six times more quickly on social media. in that environment how are you going to be able to come together? again, love c-span for this reason. i sense you all are watching because you see it as something of an antidote. it is free of a lot of these market pressures i am describing, and we should be doing much more for local journalism -- which, by the way, tends to be much less political. if you miss your local paper, that's it back. 2000 local papers have gone out of business. it is a crime. how can you have a thriving democracy if there is no one covering news in your town? there are some obvious problems being driven by this hyper capitalism we are in the midst of, and it is shredding any chance of being able to come together and have rational conversations. so, love c-span. keep it up, but i understand what you are saying.

we are being manipulated. that is what we have to stop together. host: you mentioned facebook specifically in your book. the more data sets a company has, the more valuable each of them is. facebook's network incorporates other websites. you don't even have to be on facebook to participate in the harvesting of data. instead of having things sold to us, we are being sold to those with the means to buy access to every detail of our behavior and a financial interest to shape what we do next. what did you think about that testimony on capitol hill from that whistleblower? guest: i was entirely unsurprised by everything. there are people like me who know this stuff is going on. you know the only people who don't know this stuff is going on? washington, d.c., truly. you could line up most adults, certainly anyone related to the tech industry and they would say, oh yeah.

they are not just the facts of this facebook for sure. facebook is dissembling about those effects. why? because they are a trillion dollar franchise and they are not going to shoot themselves in the foot. this is a product of the fact that our leaders are decades behind the curve. decades. no one reason why they are decades behind the curve? because they have been in d.c. for too long. we need people rotating in and out, then you have people who might have used facebook natively themselves were like, yeah, this is a problem. host: is there a forward party approach when it comes to social media? not only how you use it, but changes that should be made? guest: we have a platform around data rights, which is our data is getting sold and resold for hundreds of billions of dollars. are you seeing any of that money? you know who is seeing it? mark zuckerberg and facebook. it is a human rights issue.

if our data is getting sold and resold, don't you want to stop that? we should be passing laws around our own data rights, and if we decide to share it with a tech opening for our own convenience, then we need to know what is going on, there needs to be an independent guardian for us that is not the tech company itself, and if there is money to be made, should be getting some of that money. i think those are straightforward rules. host: donnie, independent line. caller: i see the big problem in elections as the money. there is no way a lower-class person can compete. you have to be a millionaire, practically, or have access to millions of dollars to even run. we need to do away with that. having the states have a

election website where all of the information the candidates have, required to be on the ballots they would have to fill in the forms, like saying what their positions are. right now the people all they can rely on is 32nd tv commercial, and that is why we are getting such bad candidates. i don't think third parties would be an answer, and i don't like the ranked choice voting. that just adds confusion to the long, drawnout process, but we should just have, like, a conservative party, and then a liberal party, and all of the groups and parties would have to go into one of those and be on

the ballot. host: thank you. guest: i want to speak to the point about money in politics. he is correct. the average congressional campaign now costs over $1.5 million. senate campaign, $10 million. who can get that money? people who are plugged into high-level networks. how do you change that? public financing of elections would be the ideal solution, and what i propose is that every american gets $100 you can give to anyone you want. if you have 10,000 people together, that is one million dollars, and all of a sudden you are competitive. right now it is difficult to get any person to donate, because who has that kind of money? if you gave people democracy dollars it would be a huge step up. but you do have leaders who all look and sound the same because they all come from the same financial background. host: eastpoint, kentucky,

republican line. robert, hello. caller: i just got a comment with mr. yang there. well, a couple of comments. the first one is, there is too much corruption in politics. there is no investigations into corruptions that they be into, but the other comment i got is his idea on primaries. in the situation like he talks about their in an area where a democrat gets arrived -- get selected year after year, when somebody on republican or independent party has a better idea of what to do, run the government more honestly, and might be able to get elected, if they run on their party, the

opposite party can cross lines in the primary and get him completely out of the situation. and that is changing our election process for the bad, in my opinion. thank you. guest: thank you, and you are right. right now the party designation is distorting everything because people are making strategic decisions based upon how they are getting elected. you have a lot of people choosing which party to run under based on which party is going to help them win. which is why i think open primaries would help, because then you could say what you think and people who want to support you -- and you don't have to put a d or r next to your name to have a chance to win. to the question about corruption, of course corruption is rampant in politics. we are spending billions of dollars influencing these people. they all go to washington and come back somehow really wealthy. [laughter] you are like, wait a minute,

your salary is not that high. how is it you have somehow made millions of dollars? that is one reason why you need term limits, so that people cannot go and hover there and enrich themselves in various ways. it is all a club at this point. if you are in this club and someone screws up, do you drum them out or cover it up? it is unfortunate it is happening, but we all know it is. host: in washington, d.c. there are debates over the debt level. there are current debates over passing the president's agenda. what is the forward party way of dealing with these and coming up with a solution to go forward that makes the best of both ideas? guest: the forward party principles in many ways are on full display in washington, where you have these polarized sides and you have two senators who are essentially controlling the entire agenda. that is a function of how broken

up the system is. the goal with the forward party is to make both sides more prone to compromising by making it that you are responsible to voters of every political party when you go for reelection. then maybe we even get a few people elected through the forward party that represent this reasonable middle that end up being a bridge. what is funny is people talk to me about the ford party -- the forward party. we are going to be supporting open primaries, but if you win even a few races you can actually do a lot of good bringing sides together. you don't need to win in this senate example you don't need to win 50 races. if you were to win one or two then that could be a game changer for the entire country. host: would you go as far as changing rules and other ticket

agendas done, such as the filibuster? guest: i looked in the constitution and there is nothing about the filibuster. there is nothing about political parties. we are not big fans of political parties. they thought they would lead to factionalism and polarization -- which, by the way, they were right. if they were to have political parties, they would have wanted many, many more than two. the current situation is something of a nightmare for our founding fathers. when they wrote up the senate they did not include a filibuster, and you have to ask why. host: from new jersey, lynette, democrats line. hello. caller: good morning, c-span. i would like to know what mr. yang thanks about the job senator sanders is doing? i personally think he is the up enemy of a true public servant, and i am curious as to what mr. yang thinks.

thank you. guest: well, first time caller, you called on behalf of that question, which i love, by the way. i supported bernie sanders in the 2016 primary. meeting him on the trail when i ran for president was a privilege. when he said something nice about me and to me, i felt extraordinarily proud, like i had been blessed by my uncle or something along those lines. i am a huge believer in bernie, because he is not corrupt in the least. he is a pure messenger, a pure public servant. he has a vision for the country. i agree with much of his vision, and he is fighting like mad until the day he dies. have to love and appreciate that. host: a viewer off of twitter asks you a question, saying, reasonable people understand your position on becoming an independent. however pulling voters away to a new party opens the door to a cult of personality in the

republican party and the wealthy. how can your decision help? guest: this is a reaction you get a lot from a particular side , let's call it democrat. cheers, if you do anything independent it is going to hurt democrats. but if you look at the numbers, there is a higher desire for a third-party or independent party among republicans and there is among democrats. if you were to actually draw it out, you are more likely to have voters from every alignment or even from the republican party then you are democrats. when i ran for president as a democratic candidate, 42% of my supporters then, in a democratic primary, were not sure they were going to support the democratic nominee if it were not me. i have a record of appealing to people of every alignment, and structurally you are more likely

to draw in independent republicans than democrats. host: as far as your run for the presidency, he wrote an op-ed about what that did to you internally. could you talk a little bit about that, that impact on you? guest: i called a reality tv show on the debate stage, and i wanted to say in my book -- which, if you ever wonder what it is like to run for president, dubai this book, because i talk about it at length. you have makeup on your face and you are shooting tv ads, and you are surrounded by staff all the time who are ferrying you from event to event, and everywhere you go you are giving a speech or talk. it messes with your brain. it makes you into less of a normal person, that's for sure. over time it makes you less empathetic. [laughter] i guess that is one reason why we need term limits. if you are in this for text of attention and money it arranges

-- deranges you. i did not have "power" for very long. [laughter] i was the center of attention for a particular period of time, and even that was enough to influence the way you interact with the world. i talk about the reality of running for president as, like, it is not an active leadership like it should be. we talk about leaders -- i don't see getting in front of a tv camera and opining as an act of leadership. the ship is something you do quietly and interpersonally, and you care about the folks working on your behalf. that is not what politics looks like today, really. then you wonder why people seem so broken and corrupt. our process actually will make even reasonable people less

reasonable over time. host: from the book, you write in part, spend times with people who schedule -- who schedule revolve around you. you function on appearance. empathy becomes optional or unhelpful. leadership becomes the appearance of leadership. guest: yeah, we have a bunch of people who are literally just trying to stimulate leadership. [laughter] because that is the way our process is. it is not great, you know? think about all of the phenomenal people -- and you watching this are probably qualified. i'm going to say something dramatic. if he were to line up a bunch of americans of any background they were come to the decision that would probably do better than our elected representatives right now, you know? it is in part because in order to become an elected representative now need to have a certain kind of personality.

would be much more likely to have a certain kind of natural background. [laughter] and i am natively an introverted guy. i was a nerdy asian kid growing up. all i wanted to do was read books. so, for office was a very unusual thing, but in a way i want to speak for the introverts among us who suspect there might be something wrong with the folks who do this for a living and say, there might be ways we can treat the process so you get a different kind of people in the door, and also you do not have people's worst tendencies elevated over time. host: let's hear from john. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning morning, pedro, mr. yang. i wanted to hear your thoughts on, instead of creating a new party -- because you start a new

party and some of the same issues -- you know, everyone is with a party until their party is against something they personally are not in grants with, and then they are stuck with party. instead of starting a new party, what are your thoughts on an alliance of congressmen that will agree to disband the party system altogether? so, you know, you ban allegiance between incumbent congressman that, you know, once they are elected in office they will agree to disband the party system and just have no parties? because the system we are in now, people just vote up and down party lines. there is no reason in even

campaigning on policies, because people are going to vote on party lines. host: ok, john. guest: this is a fun and fascinating argument. i like it. first, the ford party's intervals are very broad. one of them is grace and tolerance, itches, again, we love our fellow americans. what we are upset about is a system that is manipulating us and turning us against each other. we are not taking stances on, like, you know, dozens of issues. we are trying to focus on the main problem, which is the structure itself. if a bunch of members of congress were to come together and say, let's get rid of parties, i would love that, but one of the realities see in governance is that you probably need at least some kind of team, because if you have a body of

435 people and there are no or -- are no organized groups, it is difficult to operate. if you look around the world, they have systems where they often have more than two parties. i'm going to suggest two as a sub optimal number of parties. think about it. two you are like, what is going on? if you look at the u.k., it has five parties. if you look at a place like sweden, it has eight. and i'm going to suggest that that would be superior to our current system, because instead of the two sides ringing against each other all the time, he would have a set of coalitions where, i agree with you on this, let's work together, i don't agree with you on this, i'm going to work with these other people. we need parties to organize activities. i think you need more than two. what is the ideal number? i don't know. i think it should be an odd number. [laughter] you know, helped make

tiebreakers more feasible. i love what you are arguing. if members of congress were to say, let's have term limits, if they were to stand up and say, look, this duopoly is not the way to go, that would be phenomenal. host: our guest, and drew -- andrew yang, with us until 10:00. mr. yang, what is venture for america? guest: venture for america is a nonprofit that helps train young entrepreneurs that create jobs in cities around the country, any of them in the midwest and south. i started venture for america in 2011, after i had some success in -- success and i thought about how hard it is to become an entrepreneur. it is too hard. i thought, we need more entrepreneurs, and we need more of them in places like troyes and birmingham and baltimore, and so i spent a number of years

running that organization. i'm proud to say it has now created thousands of jobs around the country. i was honored by the obama men -- obama administration. it was during that time i traveled that i grew to realize our economy was being transformed by automation and we eliminated billions of manufacturing jobs through a combination of globalization and automation. that is when many of you probably met me, when i decided to run for president on universal basic income in response to the technological decimation of american jobs. but i learned that through my activities at venture for america over six and a half years running a nonprofit organization that helps train young entrepreneurs. host: this is daniel, democrats line. caller: hello, can you hear me? host: yes, you are on. guest: america can.

you are on c-span. caller: yes, i believe you have a platform, and i was wondering if your platform includes the elimination of education by zip code? if i could just say that my son -- i live in a rural community. i son had his history education with five years on the civil war. one other thing, i live in a rural community and i see a lot of things here. if there is such a thing as affirmative action for the so-called deplorable? thank you. guest: there are massive inequities in our education system because of the way it is built around property taxes and zip codes, as you are describing. i think one of the great and

balances is that we are overlooking rural communities and operating as if, really, the only people of certain backgrounds are overcoming various struggles. the fact is poverty is rampant in rural communities around the country, and if someone is seeking an education and other latter -- ladder, we should be considering them in the same light. host: tony, independent line. tony in new mexico, good morning. caller: good morning. i don't really believe term limits is really the solution. solution, for me, is the nullification of citizens united, or corporations united, where because i am a giant adams

independent. two parties acting in opposition to each other, in other words, they have been playing us all. guest: agreed. caller: isn't it true that independents outnumber both the democratic and republican parties? guest: true. that is true. caller: we really need to get rid of citizens united, or the supreme court justices, for me, that committed treason and usurped our constitution and placing profit over humanity. host: thanks, tony. guest: i 100% agree that we should overturn citizens united, and i say that in my book, but i also think the problems predate citizens united, and if you were to overturn citizens united -- which, by the way it would be very difficult in our current structure -- that the money would find other ways in, even

if they could not do it directly as citizens united enable. money has been dominating politics for decades. citizens united is not that old a decision, so we should be thinking about overturning citizens united, but we should not think that our problems will be solved by it. you are completely correct that independents outnumber democrats and republicans. i think independents should get together. i think reform-minded democrats and republicans should get together. that is why i started the forward party. i hope you will all check it out at forwardparty.com and consider moving the country forward, literally. we are being played. we are being manipulated, to tony's point. host: you mentioned your idea of universal basic income. as a concept is it playing out and reality, particularly in cities and states? especially stimulus payments

being delivered to americans? is it a concept that could work now? guest: one of the very best things going on right now in our country is the child tax credit. if you are watching this and you got a $300 check for your child or grandchild, you know parents got it -- i guess that would be your kids. [laughter] if you got the $300 check you are like, wow, this is great. we should keep that forever. 448 economists just signed a letter saying we should keep it forever. it has made people less hungry, it has got school supplies, it has got people in her position to actually learn and spend time with their families in the way they want. so the positive effects are very, very clear, and everyone know who has looked at the data says we should have a child tax

credit go on indefinitely. i am thrilled that my campaign might have played a role in augmenting the thought that if we send people some money they will do something positive with it, particularly with their families are concerned. host: here is mary. mary is in kentucky, republican line. caller: good morning. i would like to know what mr. yang thinks about the current path that joe biden is taking us down of socialism and marxism, in lieu of capitalism. thank you. guest: well, thank you for the question. my outlook on this is that this is a little bit like the polarization question, where you have two sides and they clash, and then when we come to these economic conversations it is socialism, capitalism, clash, clash, clash. in america we have a system that is in some ways way too generous

to corporations. we have corporate socialism, in many respects. if a company gets into trouble, the government is there to bail them out. we saw that certainly with wall street not that long ago. right now we have in my mind the worst of all worlds, where we have socialism for powerful companies -- and, by the way, very low taxes, where you have companies like amazon paying next to nothing in taxes. so, socialism for mega corpse, and if you are down, it must be something you did. the conversation, to me, has to be tweaked to figure out who we are talking about and what the goals are, but i am going to suggest that this conversation is part of the manipulation. the way i can make you upset is by saying look, the other people are pushing for, you know, for socialism or whatnot.

then you have to unpack, we really talking about? i give you an example. most people watching this would agree drug prices are too high, and we should get them lower. is that socialism? like, is it socialism to have the government negotiate lower drug prices on behalf of millions of americans? most all of us think having the government negotiate on our behalf would be sensible during would you spend extra money on drugs for people? you have to distinguish between the goals, the specific goals you have, and then these big labels, which, in my mind, sometimes will end up leading us in the wrong direction. host: when it comes to presidential politics, if you are in arizona says, the first step should be to change the presidential debate commission. any candidate on enough state pallets to mathematically win the electoral college should be automatically included. guest: this is one sign of the

duopoly, really. the duopoly has made it nearly impossible for anyone else to run for lots of offices around our country, and certainly you can throw president into the mix. right now the threshold to make a presidential debate is 15% polling, which is extraordinarily high, to this person's point. we should make the criteria more realistic and achievable, to have different points of view. if your goal is to have different points of view meant, open primaries would be helpful. we need to open it up, and this locking out of smaller points of view is, you could say it is the most egregious at the presidential level, but in my view it is equally egregious at every other level. [laughter] we are doing it everywhere. host: another follow-up from a viewer who asks if you plan to

run for president? guest: i am focused on trying to make our system work there for us. and that action starts in 2022. we don't have any time to waste. host: democrats line. caller: yes, my question is, why do the democrats continue to try to work with joe manchin and kyrsten sinema, when it is obvious they stand in the way of progress? doesn't the 14th amendment give them the opportunity to expel them, or ask them to resign, to replace them with someone who can get progress done? because, you know, seeing as they are working for lobbyists, working for someone else and they are not working for democracy or the democratic party? guest: i'm not aware of an ability for them to somehow have them expelled. the only accountability i know of is that the voters in west

virginia and arizona would decide that they are not fans of their leadership. i think that is going to take a little while. do your bigger point, it is a sign of the difficulty, in my view, of having two labels, or somebody spoke to me the other day and said, it seems like kyrsten sinema and these other people are not in the same party. [laughter] so i will speak for myself on this. i would like to see things get done in washington. i hope that senator kyrsten sinema and joe manchin are able to outline what it would take for them to come to the table. host: from florida, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call.

left-right, wrong-right, i mean, i watch the republicans say their side, i watch the democrats say their side, i watch cnn, i watch fox -- i don't know how anybody knows what to choose anymore. we are all raised with certain values. i'm 58 years old. my father worked three jobs to put food on the table. if we are going to be handing money to people and not getting them to get work, to provide for their families, that doesn't seem in my point as a valuable thing to do. but my mind is different than your mind, just like my neighbor's mind is different, my husband's is different than mine. everybody thinks differently. everybody values differently. who is right? who is wrong? i don't even know who to believe when i watch this stuff on the news, because one says one thing, the next group says something different my completely opposite.

the debt limit, we are going to have to do it, but who is going to do it? they fight like children. it is ridiculous, but we need to work. we need old-fashioned values. need to be responsible for our own actions. host: that is beth in tampa, florida. thank you. guest: beth, you are 100% correct that no one knows what to believe or think anymore, because we are in these strange information bubbles. i think c-span is a counterweight to that it is one reason why i talk about it so favorably. i love work. i love jobs. i love people having a place to go where they're going to interact with other people and do something that contributes and makes them proud and they can go home and feel like they did something for themselves and their family that is going to help move everyone in a better direction. to me the biggest phenomenon we should be focused on is, why are so few americans working? the labor force participation

rate is at multi-decade lows. i think you know that. we all know that. he looked around and say, ok, how do we get more people working? how do we create more jobs? there are different ways we could go about it, but i'm going to suggest that if people have more money in their pocket, they are going to go to the local restaurant or hardware store, then that store is going to hire an extra person or two. that is something the government can deliver on, whereas if i said the government was going to create jobs in another way, maybe, maybe not? [laughter] i am 100% with you, though. i want my kids to work hard. i'd like to believe i work hard. we are on the same page. host: a viewer wants to know your thoughts on abolishing the electoral college going to a popular vote for president. guest: thank you. i think this conversation is something that you can only

field in the abstract. what do i mean by that? if you were to go into montana and wyoming and say, hey, would you like to decrease your influence? of course they would say no. in order to eliminate the electoral college you would need a super majority, essentially, of states and representatives, and no one is going to do it. so, talking about it actually ends up leading you in a direction where, in my mind, it ends up furthering the divine. that is why it should only be talked about in the abstract. let's bring senators from wyoming and montana to the table and there like yes, don't like having less influence. they did not want certain, more populated areas to dominate. if you were to have a presidential election where it was popular vote, someone like me would never set foot in any rural area. we would go to major population markets and try to get on tv in new york, l.a.

is that desirable? the entire thing to me is not something we should be using our head-on on, unless, again, you expect all of the people and representatives of less populated states to shoot themselves in the foot, which they are not going to do. that is where i am. you could talk about it, if you could would you do it? that's never going to happen, so we should focus on the system in ways that we can fix. with the forward party, one of the things that a state level where enough of us get together we can make it happen. it has already happened in at least one state. it is in our interest too. that is where ironman. that's focus on real solutions that will help our country right now. host: becky is bama -- becky is in massachusetts. caller: i know you are getting to the end of the show, so i'm going to try to be quick. i am a trump supporter, and if he went to the independent party

i would follow him. what i wanted to say is i appreciate the fact that mr. yang is an outsider of washington. i think that is wonderful. that is what we need. there is too many people that are too inside washington. but my question is -- and i will take it off-line -- is, when he ran for president did you expect joe biden to be the winner and kamala harris to be the vice president? or did you not think that? was it already predetermined? thank you. guest: thank you, and thank you for the kind words. they mean a lot to me. we are all americans, we are all parents who want the best for our families, and i think there was real resonance to trump's

message, because people are sensing that it is not working right. it's not working. i have a very different recipe, a very different prescription. [laughter] i think we should try and fix the guts of the system that is breaking, but thank you. we are all americans, we should be able to see the commonality. did i think that joe and kamala were going to win? you know, when i was running as a nominee against them, if you remember that time they were actually tough times for joe and kamala. [laughter] i'm not sure i would've called at a certain point in the race. after they became the nominees that i think they were going to defeat trump? i thought that they would get more votes, i did. i thought that would happen in part because, you know, i thought that the country, you

know when it was struggling at the time i thought people would be looking for a different approach. host: from california, in south san francisco, independent line. caller: good morning, andrew. i'm so excited you are doing this. i am an independent because i am so tired of all of the lies. i'm so excited to be doing this. guest: forward. caller: yay. host: go ahead, caller. caller: i have no question, i'm just happy that andrew is running, and i am on team. guest: i will take it. i will take that as a question or comment. forward. we are going to move the country forward. if you are an independent who is sick and tired of the nonsense, join me, and we will clean it up. the founding fathers would be horrified at what has happened to us. it is going to get worse, not

better, so let's be positive and fix this, and do it and a way that unifies the country. we are beautiful people. if you get someone individually to talk to you, lovely. [laughter] you know what i mean? what the heck is happening to us? i have talked to thousands and thousands of americans of every background and environment -- rural, suburban, city -- and we can get along together beautifully if we actually see ourselves as human beings. but we are being set up. we are in set up to be at each other's throats. we have to turn it around. host: mr. yang, what is a measurable amount of success as the forward party? guest: we are going to measure success by how many states we can unlock from these partisan primary system. you can have ballot initiatives in up to 24 states. we are not going to run that

many, but hopefully in 2022 you are going to see the process change. if you would like to make that happen, join me at forwardparty.com. host: andrew yang is the head of the forward party, the author of "forward go thanks -- forward." thanks for your time today. guest: i love talking to americans. have me back. host: we arehost: you can folloh the testimony of the army corps of engineers. that is it for our program today. another edition comes your way tomorrow morning. see you then. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: a live picture from