ads fell off a cliff. announcer: co-authors tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our new c-span now cap -- app. announcer: the supreme court hears oral argument, a case on the state secret's privilege and an fbi surveillance program conducted on the muslim community in irvine, california. watch live coverage at 10:00 a.m. eastern, online at c-span.org, or on our new c-span video app. union, to talk about political events of the past week and the future of the republican party. welcome to "washington journal." guest: great to be with you. host: let's start off with

tuesday's win by glenn youngkin andy near-win by the republican candidate in new jersey. what is behind those wins for republicans? guest: i wrote an op-ed for foxnews.com. i am a conservative so everyone has to take that into account. there were conservative wins all over the country like in my hometown of wichita, kansas. any school board member supporting crt was defeated during the election. we had a pro cop councilor elected in seattle. we had school boards shift all over the country. we had a close governor's race in new jersey. in virginia, it was a clean sweep. it was not just that glenn youngkin ran a solid campaign

and won a solid victory, we got a majority in the house of delegates. anybody trying to say maybe it is because glenn youngkin ran a great race and spent a lot of his own money, this was a win from shore to shore, even in places where republicans have not been doing well lately. host: what do you think this means for strategy for republicans going into 2022? guest: i think it is an interesting thing. anybody who watches politics knows that the democrats will take a drubbing next year if things continue on this course. if you look at their individual policies, which is this new socialist agenda, the biden administration, they are unpopular. it is tough for a party to win when they are unpopular. the republican party, when they get the majority, they have to

change their act. i have a lot of respect for the fact that nancy pelosi and chuck schumer, when they get the majorities, they push the agenda hard. unfortunately, it is unpopular for them. when republicans get power, they worry and say we cannot push too hard because people will not like us and we will get attacked in the media. for those of us who will push hard to get the majorities back, we also expect those running the majority to change their act. host: what does it say for republicans, based on the model of glenn youngkin in virginia, in terms of the role of former president donald trump? glenn youngkin did not embrace donald trump. donald trump supported glenn youngkin, but glenn youngkin distanced himself from the former president. guest: i would have a contrary take. glenn youngkin aggressively sought president trump's endorsement and got it. that allowed him to win in a very competitive republican

primary. glenn youngkin was an unknown political person unable to win that -- and able to win that and went on to win in the general election. they let glenn youngkin run his own race. i live in virginia. it is a blue state. joe biden won it by 10 points. we have two democratic senators from the commonwealth of virginia. it is a reliably democratic state. i think it was smart to allow glenn youngkin to run his race. that is what he should do across this country into next year. almost every republican will seek his endorsement and use that to make sure the coalition sticks together. think about it. it is mag of voters, conservatives, republicans. it is a lot of independents who were turned off by the idea that america is a rotten place filled with racists, that if you are

white, straight, a boy, that somehow there is something about that that is wrong and you should be taught at tender age is to rethink those ideas. the acrimony should end. we should have tolerance for everybody and go back to teaching kids to read, write, and do math and not making them little social warriors. host: matt schlapp is our guest. we welcome your calls on the line for democrats, republicans, independents, and all others. you touched on the issue of critical race theory in terms of being an election issue not only in virginia and elsewhere, the white house pushed back on that. i wanted to get your reaction. [video clip] >> america come as you heard the president say, is a great

country. great countries have to be honest themselves about the history of what is good and bad. our kids should be proud to be americans after learning that history. the president certainly is. fundamentally, we believe a school's curriculum is not a federal decision. it is rightly up to communities around the country. the parents, the school, the teachers, and the administrators. that means politicians should not be dictating what our kids are being taught. we also need to be honest about what is going on here. republicans are lying. they are not being honest and truthful about where we stand. they are cynically trying to use our kids as a political football. host: matt schlapp, do you think kids were used as a political football? guest: i cannot sue that was -- see who that was.

i think it is someone i know well and have debated on television. i seem to remember a democratic debate where kamala harris called joe biden a racist proposing -- for opposing busing and keeping a young girl herself off the bus to go to an integrated school. it is not that both sides do not want history taught. it is not a history that sanitizes slavery. as a republican, i'm proud to be part of a party that was organized to stop slavery and give those former slaves their full political rights. i am proud of the fact that the republican has been forward leaning on knowing the history. but now, that history is being perverted into the idea that america was founded because of slavery and to guarantee that slavery would not go away and that america is bad because it

has been primarily animated by people of the christian faith and was founded by people from europe and we have to end this. i think a lot of people out of caller and immigrants realize we are wasting time in school talking about things like gender, why america is a bad place, talking about climate change, talking about a political agenda. kids have their whole lives to do politics. when they are young and tender, we don't have to saturate them with sex, with questions of if they are one of 162 genders. there has to be a balance with the good and virtuous in our history. i can have my opinions all i want. the voters spoke up on tuesday and they are tired of this cra p. host: we talked about georgia. what about new jersey?

with the issues different or the same -- were the issues different or the same? guest: i think it was similar. it was a race not covered by the media. new jersey is a state that republicans have won recently. chris christie was a two-term governor. new jersey offers some hope. i think the real story is across the country. think about minneapolis. there was an effort to have a ballot initiative to defend the cops. that failed. people realized they need cops. they do not like the spike in crime. the themes and new jersey were similar to the themes across the country. as much as glenn youngkin ran a good campaign for virginia that reflected him and his values and seems to be a decent guy, there

was no question this was a nationalized race animated by the issues that donald trump brought to the table, whether it was him from the white house grounds talking about crt and why it has to end, but he started the commission to go back to teaching our history as it actually occurred, to the idea that we should stand for the anthem, back the blue, these are all themes donald trump talked about. these cultural questions that some republicans are uncomfortable with our water animating debates across the country. host: let's hear from bill on the democrats line. caller: glenn youngkin was running on a white fragility platform because snowflake white kids are not able to handle [indiscernible]

does matt schlapp believe george soros is destroying western civilization? the anti-semitic dog whistle. the lie about election fraud and crt, why doesn't the mainstream media call it a pernicious lie? they are lying nonstop. trump was smart on one thing. he did run as a populist. [indiscernible] oligarch. the only thing he accomplished was 82% of benefits went to the top 1%. matt schlapp is an industry tool . host: several things, matt

schlapp. do you care to respond? guest: go grab a cup of coffee, bill. it sounds like you have some animosity. let me try to soberly give you a response. glenn youngkin made historic gains with hispanic voters across the commonwealth of virginia. the constant push that everything about america is racist and anybody that looks like me is racist is not working. when it is not working in minneapolis and seattle and new jersey and the blue state of virginia, you might want to rethink the strategy. yes, we should fight racism in america. but we should not fight america or america's founding. we should acknowledge the fact we have gone through these civil rights struggles in this country. it was not perfect. a lot of people died. there is great tragedy associated with all of these things, but we ended up on the correct side of history.

we got rid of slavery. the republican party led the way. we gave full civil to the former slaves. we have had three minutes to the constitution all led by great republicans that gave women the right to vote in the 1920's. that was a republican effort. the republican party has a proud tradition of giving rights to people but democrats did not want to give rights to. now, the strange thing in our postmodern context is there is this attempt to change that history, to turn conservatives and republicans into trying to deny rights. he just had the secretary of state of georgia. in georgia, the black turnout in elections was at historic levels that equated to other communities. there is no attempt to stop people from voting. there is just a desire to follow the rules. when it comes to schools and

school boards, the department of justice, the biden department of justice, i'm so disappointed in our attorney general, should not call parents raising concerns on gender domestic terrorists and start investigating those parents. by the way, the doj should not just go after people that have trump's politics. the doj should go after crime. they should not go after political opponents. host: you just called virginia a blue state. president biden won that state by 10 points in 2020. the mass looks different after 2021. do you think it stays that way for 2022? guest: the one thing about politics is it is always changing. events have a big impact. i think the media has contorted politics. conservatives always assume that they are small, fringe, the

smallest group in american politics, so we assume we are fighting a losing battle where we all have to retreat to florida and texas which are becoming ruby red with the in migration. the fact is conservatives are the largest part of our country. we are the biggest part. if conservatives will understand that an act like that, we are not a majority. we have to have a coalition. we have to pull in moderates, independents, and even democrats who are pro-life and may have served in the military, but things are changing all the time. i would say there's probably more positive change for conservatives and republicans, even though you hardly ever read about it, than the change for democrats and socialists. what is happening in big cities in america is these big cities are crumbling under the weight of drug abuse and homelessness

and companies fleeing those jurisdictions because crime is spiking, but also taxes and regulations are out of control. the change from new york city to florida alone is a huge economic impact. probably the biggest one we have had in our country. people are fleeing socialist big cities. even if they like some of the notions, the policies do not work in their lives. that is why i think republicans will do very well over the next two elections, unless the democrats pull back. the reason democrats did well in virginia for a decade was they were seen as believing in the social net. they wanted to take care of people. they worried about people that did not have a lot of economic choices, but they were also moderate and careful when it came to business and respect for people with a traditional point of view. they eviscerated that with socialist ideas. election results show that. host: here is peter in new york

on the republican line. caller: matt, it is a pleasure to speak with you. i would like for you to address a few things. i'm assuming you saw the raffensperger interview. guest: i was trying to watch it. i got to hear and see parts of it. i know what he says. i have some strong counter arguments to what he said. he is simply wrong. caller: that is what i wanted to say to you. i wanted to make a few points. number one, president trump wanted governor kemp to call back the legislature to deal with some of the inequities in the election in 2020. that was not done. also, i think stacey abrams did a great job of getting the vote out. she lost the election. so is hillary clinton for that matter.

if you want to get changes made in the election system, you don't just say everything was great, that nothing was wrong, because that will not motivate people. guest: could i jump in and give a couple of quick answers question mark they say that anybody who questions the 2020 election results is pushing the big lie. but when hillary clinton in 2016 refused to accept the results and said donald trump only won because of collusion with russia, which just last week was shown to be a completely false flag, that big lie was not called a big lie. no one called hillary clinton out. stacey abrams literally in the last couple of weeks pushed this false claim that she won the race in georgia and is the true governor of georgia. nobody said it was a big lie when she said that. now you go forward to it happened in the 2020 election.

these people deserve great political credit in a non-moral sense for doing what they could to push the envelope. what they did in georgia very simply is they did not follow the law. the only reason donald trump was not declared the victor in georgia is because the secretary of state was part of a corrupt bargain to not follow the election law, by his own admission, in a state of georgia, you cannot vote from a commercial address or a phantom address. you can only vote from your residence. thousands and thousands of people in georgia voted from those illegal addresses. in previous elections, those ballots were not counted. in this election, those ballots were counted. the secretary of state participated in an illegal scheme to not check any of the signatures for those who voted by mail. because of the pandemic, mail-in ballots increased by 50% in most states. if you did not check the

signatures, thousands, enough to change outcomes, were included in the count. stacey abrams and mark elias worked with the west wing republicans to make sure it would be no verification of voters in 2020 when it came to balloting, knowing those were the rules that they got the six graham state to change, any ballot that hit a box was counted. you know that because when you check the math, there is usually a 3% to 5% tick out rate not verified. in this case, it was less than 1%. you know that is a statistical anomaly. follow the math, follow the science, and you will see that we can never vote like this again. host: is that what you were referring to when you said brad

raffensperger was part of a corrupt bargain? guest: he did not have the statutory authority to change the state law unchecking signatures on mail-in ballots. that can only happen through the legislature which is why the president and other people were saying that the legislature, who was unaware that the law changed, should come back and make sure the balance that did not follow state lower were kicked out. the reason there was confusion in these states is because there was one slate of delegates, a electors, sent to make the decision on the election, to validate joe's victory. the reason some legislative chambers were trying to get back into session is they did not realize the wrongdoing until they supported the slate of electors that favored joe biden.

many realized if they had followed state laws, some of these states would have put up two slates of electors and that would have changed the dynamic in congress. the reason they did not do that is because laws around the electoral college do not contemplate this level of wrongdoing and illegal voting and they did not have the time to look at it. unfortunately to this day, at least 50% of americans view the fact there was a lot of illegal voting in the last election and are very troubled by it. we should never elect our president like this again. no other country does. host: do you believe joe biden was intimately elected? guest: absolutely. he lives in the white house. i said the other day he is my president, your president come our president. we have to deal with the fact it was an election like we have never seen before.

it does not mean joe biden is not president. it does not mean people like me should be suppressed from explaining the fact that i do not know the level of illegal voting because we have not put the hood up on the car and walked through in every state why the results should not have been the result. that is what we need to do. host: kentucky, go ahead. caller: good morning. it is regina. i am good. i was a trump supporter. i supported his policies. i even like his style in fighting new, holding the media accountable i should say. i am a black woman, a woman of color, and i wanted to help the republicans to continue on this path of having these

policies across the country, starting with my own state, so i reached out to our state to see how i could help with outreach to communities of color in kentucky. i was given a contact to a regional rnc. these people never called me back. i am not here to ask you to explain what happened. the ball was obviously dropped. it was very disappointing to me. i have a bad taste in my mouth about that because you have got some people of caller -- color who could help with outreach and messaging when it comes to the republican party. we are sick of hearing that republicans are racist every time. i think there needs to be some

proactive approaches. you have to be able to use the people of color in your community to get the message out. my frustration is, we have got to be able to do that. i think one of the things the republican party needs to be careful about is i think there is too much confidence going into 2022 and 2024. there is no reason why some of these districts or states republicans give up on. host: thanks. we will hear from matt schlapp. guest: regina, what you are diagnosing is a real problem on the republican side or the conservative side of politics. unfortunately, we rely too much on spending, digital media, broadcast media, cable media.

it is all about the digital explanation of why our candidates are better. in my role, we believe politics should be animated by a grassroots approach. i know the rnc has attempted to try to fix the problem. i think this problem will be fixed by people like yourself, hopefully people like myself, who organize their communities. seeing in these schoolboard elections is nobody waited for permission to go to that school board to speak their mind. what i encourage you to do, if the rnc or national leaders do not take you seriously, go show up at these events, go speaker mind. when it comes to black voters on this whole question of sexual lysing our kids at young ages and this idea of trying to indoctrinate them into this idea that they are probably the wrong gender and there is a one genders they should consider before they have gotten into puberty is outrageous. i think for a lot of people this vaccine mandate is outrageous. i know there are people in the

black community that feel that way. you want to make choices about the chemicals they put into their body. the issue is very well set up, people like regina, need to go to these community events and express herself. in national folks -- maybe some people consider me a national folk -- we cannot solve these problems. it is going to be these grassroots leaders. my hat is off to the people around the state of virginia and other states that stood up in their communities and fought back against crt, against sexualizing our kids. overall this question about, somehow america is a cruddy place with a history we should be a same -- ashamed of, that is outrageous, and i think americans want to fly the flag. as imperfect as our history has been. you want to stand up for people who put on the uniform. they are not all perfect i have been the victim of bad policing,

i'm sure we all have, but the majority of them are doing a courageous thing and we want to stand behind them. host: alabama, keith on the republican line. go ahead. caller: [indiscernible] i got two questions. [indiscernible] host: keith, we are having a little trouble hearing. are you on a speakerphone? can you use the receiver? caller: can you hear me now? guest: oh, man. host: go ahead with your question. caller: my first question is, was they 400 million that took a boat harvesting, was that tax-deductible?

the second question is, why wasn't joe biden when he was caught on video bragging about getting a prosecutor fired on his son's case? guest: i would like to answer these questions. the first question, i'm smiling not because i'm happy. $400 million, you know, there is a bunch of young staffers that worked the white house that have been subpoenaed to appear before a democratic commission, with a few phony republicans, to talk about what happened on 1/6. they are trying to make it sound like that rally was an insurrection. do you realize that mark zuckerberg has not been subpoenaed to go to that same commission to talk about how he spent $400 million through nonprofits? whether that was c3 money or c4 money, i think we should all know.

you make a point about scrutinizing whether that money should have been tax-deductible. that 400 million dollars was spent, 90% of it, to try to allow for voting in communities that would not follow the law. to me that deserves a lot of questions, it should never happen again, i think anybody involved in this $400 million schema to install somebody into the white house who did not even basically campaign, we all need to know about it. it is why so many of us have a bad feeling about what happened in 2020. a second question was on -- was it on hunter or biden? host: it was about the prosecutor in the hunter biden case. guest: i will just go big picture on this. there is no question for conservatives there is a two-tiered system of justice. the obama administration used

their power to spy on their political opponent, namely donald trump and those around him, and a corrupt attempt to bring him down, to weaken him politically. after he won, even though they said he was not a legitimate president, they used their power to take him down. that is a fact. reporters won pulitzer prizes about the story of fake russian collusion. yet at the same time if you are associated with donald trump now, it looks like doj is coming for you. if you are a parent that spoke up at one of these schoolboard meetings, you are considered a domestic terrorist. we just heard that james o'keefe, his home was rated recently. -- rated recently. rudy giuliani lost his law license. and we read yet another case where they are going after the trump organization.

trump and anybody associated with trump seems to be the focus of persecution by prosecution, either in new york or these other states, or by the federal government. we will not continue as a republic -- and by the way, if this continues -- and by the way, when joe biden says he wants unity, i would say to him, call these prosecutors and say, the election is over. call off the dogs. simply do a good job as president -- which, clearly he is not doing -- then let the voters decide what they want going forward. host: let's go to ben, florida on the democrats line. caller: good morning. how are you doing mr. schlapp? guest: how are you? caller: how do you live with yourself after i just listen to you -- you twist everything around. first of all, military. do you think military men should be vaccinated? guest: i think everybody should

be -- i'd love to answer your question. i think every teacher and every american and every cop and person in the military should make their own health care choices. caller: in the military? guest: yes. caller: do you understand military got certain protocols? guest: yes, i do. caller: so if you join the military that is not your decision whether or not you get vaccinated. you joined the military. is that right? guest: you join the military. don't conscript anybody into the military. everybody and our military made a voluntary choice to join. caller: therefore if it is a real you have to get vaccinated, just like going to school, shouldn't you be vaccinated? guest: i believe everybody in the military should be able to make their decision on their health care. let me explain to you why. unlike other vaccines -- and i have taken all of them -- unlike other vaccines for smallpox and polio, where your chances of recovery are statistically

varied troubling -- statistically very troubling and mortality rates were off the charts, this verlander form of the fruit -- of the flu is a -- be real form of the flu is different. if you are a young, healthy person like the people we have in our military your chances of surviving chinese corona are 99%-plus, because that is a different type of health care challenge. and because so many of us have had it already and we have the natural antibodies and the immunity, that should be taken into account when it comes to how you handle chinese corona. as you know, the biden administration taking into account the fact that a huge percentage of americans have already had chinese corona. therefore, i think because the mortality rates are so low and so many of us have already survived it, that there is no

reason to have a vaccine mandate. host: let's get one more call from john, plainfield, new jersey. go ahead. caller: hi, my name is john weston. i just find that your point about the country is that most people in this country are in the middle. and i think we are not finding common ground in this country, because we have both sides who are saying one thing and other things. i just find that when you talk about critical race issues and issues we are talking about with lgbtq children, one of the saddest things is, you support people going up to those kids and getting beaten up because they are gay? guest: not at all. i think we need to be more tolerant of each other, including on sexual orientation. i support those efforts. all i'm saying is that when it

comes to this idea of transgender ideology, this idea that very young ages, almost encouraging kids to rethink their gender, you go to that point we have gone way too far. i have gay friends you agree with me. there are ages where there was are appropriate conversations. adults of course should be able to make their own sexual decisions, but in the public school system it should not be a mandated curriculum for people at too young an age. and the parents should be involved, of course. that is the other part of this. parents are the ones who should be involved in the conversation. in virginia the parents were purposely excluded from those conversations. host: quickly back to the virginia race. you are getting some agreement from an unusual source and the new york times this morning. or rained out -- guest: oh no, something is wrong. host: the headline of her piece "openness derails the

democrats," is what her piece is about. guest: james carville said that woke this is destroying the democratic party. i have a lot of democratic friends. democrats and republicans disagreed on how much spending that would be. democrats wanted a little less rigor on the constitution. now you have a democratic party that does not degree in the constitution, once to socialize our economy, and they are headed right toward the family. and this idea that there are some private decisions you make as a family, including whether or not you are going to vaccinate your nine euro child. these are decisions the government has no right to interplay in. this democratic party is being rejected. i wish the democratic party would listen. for me as a political guy, i hope they don't listen because they are going to get there butts and to them. host: matt schlapp,

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