then henry olsen looks at last week's elections and what the results could mean for republicans as we look to the midterms and the 2024 presidential race. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to the conversation on this tuesday, november 9. we begin with your thoughts on the identity and. -- on the biden agenda. what do want to see next? if you are a democrat, call in at 202-748-8000. republicans at 202-748-8001. independents at 202-748-8002. text us with your thoughts, include your first name, city, and state at 202-748-8003. you can go to facebook.com/c-span and post

comments there or send us a tweet at @cspanwj. usa today asks this question of readers, what we want to see from president biden in his next year? these are the top 10 answers. number one, 20% said resigned, retire, quit. jobs ranked 11% after the number one answer. look where inflation, health care, climate change ranks. all around 4% or 3%. covid mandates around 6%. immigration and border control got a high response than those other issues. we want to know what you think this morning. while they wait for your answers, hear what republicans are focusing on, a few tweets. tweeting out that the president is to focus on inflation,

"americans are paying more for just about everything." he says it is president biden's fault. carol miller tweeted that skyrockets -- that gas prices are skyrocketing. "more jobs have been created in the first nine months of the biden administration than any other administration industry and we are just getting started." jeremy -- jamie raskin says, "the infrastructure act is a key part of president biden's agenda. we will keep working to pass the rest of his agenda and even more extraordinary and transformational build back better act." is that what you want the president to work on? or is it another issue?

president biden on saturday cutting passage of infrastructure bill. here's what he had to say. [video clip] pres. biden: yesterday, i don't think it is an exaggeration to say we made a monumental step. we learned our economy created five one 6 million jobs since we took office in january 20. an un-employment rate of 3.4%, earlier than economists projected it would have been. we are just getting started. we just did something that is long overdue that long has been talked about in washington but never been done. the house for percentage past the infrastructure and investment in jobs act, and parts and structure built. a once in a generation investment that will create millions of jobs organizing infrastructure, roads, bridges,

and a range of things, to turn the climate crisis into an opportunity. it puts us on the path to win an economic race of the century facing china and the rest of the world. it will create more good paying jobs, union jobs, and cannot be outsourced. they will transform our transportation system with the most significant investments happened to rails, in roads and bridges, and more investment of public transit than we have ever made into. -- we have ever made, period. i will be going to's -- going to some airports next week and the freight rail. we are doing so much with this legislation. it will make it easier for companies to get products and reduce supply chain bottlenecks

for now and decades to come. according to economists, this is going to ease inflationary pressures by lowering costs for working emily's. it will create jobs replacing lead water pipes so every american and every child can drink clean water, improve their health, and put plumbers and pipe players -- and pipe layers to work. jobs making high-speed internet available everywhere in america. host: president biden on saturday on how he will implement and what the outcome will be of the infrastructure bill that passed the house friday that already passed in the senate. what are your priorities for resident biden? ted in north carolina, republican. what do you want the president to do. guest: to resign -- caller: to resign. he is a disaster. host: why do you say that?

caller: he is the weakest president ever. his wife is keeping a secret that he has alzheimer's. host: what policies do not like that the president has put in place? caller: the gas prices are going up. host: you think the president has control over the gas prices when his administration is saying presidents don't have control over that because of the global demand and global control that entities like opec have? caller: everything was working before trump got out. he stopped it and reversed it. everything is a disaster. his poll numbers are going down. harris, she is worse. host: this is usa today, the

whole released sunday -- the poll released sunday. a gloomy landscape as president biden's approval drops to 38%. jt sends a text saying quote must pass the boat and ransacked. our right to vote is everything." jay in beverly hills, california. what do you say? caller: good morning. i think we need to install a pillar of democracy which is the u.s. post office. if we can change the people running it, and infrastructure for rod band should be spread through the post office. the post office could have phone -- could have internet-based phone.

he could have an internet in which you could just communicate for politicians to put their platforms out rather than attack ads and stuff. spending the money on broadband and the post office -- because they already have post offices everywhere. all of the hard infrastructure is there. adding a soft infrastructure of internet, it would modernize the internet. host: robert, massachusetts, democratic caller. what do you want the president to do? caller: i would like the president to get to the bottom of january 6.

the other thing is hr one, the voting rights bill. ahmaud arbery, three men shot and killed that young man in the street. i'm afraid of people getting away with this. we are going to have another case like george floyd. i would like the president to focus on race. we need to get back together as a country. when they called on from their offices at their desks -- stop watching c-span and get to work. host: let me give you an update on to what happened in january 6 in the washington post.

"the house committee issued subpoenas to six top trump advisors." you can read that in the washington post this morning. in virginia, independent. what is on the list for you for the president? caller: good morning. i would like to see joe biden control the inflation rate. i would like to see gas prices go down. it is really doing a number on me. that is pretty much all i have to say. host: when you say it has done a number on your, explain. caller: [indiscernible] host: sorry, it is hard to hear you. arlene in michigan, independent. caller: good morning. i am very disappointed in

president biden. the number one thing i believe he needs to work on is closing our southern border and people that have come over here, illegals, and get them deported. there is absolutely no reason why they let them come over the border in the first place except to get the votes. that is about it. host: that is an issue that the vice president is also getting criticized for, not only immigration because the president has put her in charge of that, but also on social justice. here -- it is making front-page of usa today. they writes that "harris, the doctor of immigrants, broke areas when she became the first black woman and asian american vice president of the u.s.

activists call on to use her background to advocate for those with similar experiences. immigration and social justice." look at the vice president's approval rating from that same usa today poll which shows the president at 38%. it finds the approval rating for the vice president is at 28%. disapproval approval is at 51%. kathleen in new york, democratic caller. what do you want the president to do? caller: hi, greta. i love biden and harris. i love president biden. he actually has the courage to do what needs to be done with this country. thank god he came in to help

distribute the covid vaccines and so on. please, i want to say this. it hurts me so much when i hear people talking about that he has dementia. i was in the medical field for 20 years. i've taken care of people with dementia and alzheimer's, he does not have that. he is a peaceful man. he talks peaceful. he is doing everything. he cares about us. he is doing everything he can possibly do. as far as gas prices and inflation, there has been a global pandemic and there is still a global pandemic going on. you know what i am saying? host: what do you want them to focus on now? -- want him to focus on now? caller: i think he is focusing on what he is was to be missing on -- supposed to be focus on. host: ray says "student loan

forgiveness. he promised $10,000." nick in florida, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. these people calling in saying they are surprised at what joe biden is doing, i have to laugh at this people. have they not been paying attention for the last 50 years? when he was a senator, he was known as the dumbest person in the senate. to think that he is a doctrine old man will be any different, i don't know what people are thinking. what were they going to expect what joe biden was going to do? host: i heard your point, but what you wanted to focus on? -- want him to focus on? caller: as far as inflation goes, i'm hearing people say it is not joe biden's fault.

when you pump money into the economy that people are not working for and you create an environment where you cannot get goods into stores, that creates a system where you have money chasing no goods. people have money in their hands but nothing to buy. that is why inflation is so high. as far as gas prices are concerned, it is not the pandemic. this china virus hit us at the beginning of 2020. all of a sudden, gas prices are going up. do any of these callers think perhaps it might be defect that he shut down pipelines, he took us from an energy independent nation. now we are begging opec and the russians to produce more oriole. our people -- it is more oriole -- reduce more oi -- produce more oil.

what do you think that is going to do to gas prices? what do you think that is going to do to people when they heated their homes this winter? -- when they heat their homes this winter? the reason this country is in the position it is in is because of stupid people. host: this is a tweet from russ in california. "broadband going to people that don't have it. my company raises prices two to three times a year and they have no competition." diane in winter park, florida, republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. mr., fix the border. 60 -- mr. president, fix the border. fix our southern border. that is your job and your legal obligation. you are flying these immigrants into florida in the middle of

the night and dumping them into our state. fix the border. thank you. host: michael brown on facebook, open boat lowering gas prices, fixing supply chain issues, getting a handle on the rising cost of everything." that is what michael wants the president to focus on. anthony in minneapolis, to arctic caller -- democratic caller. caller: good morning, greta. what i want the president to focus on is a couple of things. education, because i have been listening to c-span for years and c-span callers are not educated. that last woman talking about the border, we have 7.5 million jobs that we cannot fill. that is tax money. host: we are listening. aunt? -- and? caller: i have a problem with

c-span because you need to tell people when they come on here with these stories about they are getting food stamps and welfare, that is not helping. that is the problem, we are not educated. when i was a kid, we were number one in the world for education and now we are 27. this is really crazy. i drive an audi, i pay for top grass and i don't care -- i pay top gas and i don't care how much it costs. they don't seem to understand that these stronger storms are from climate change. educate yourself and this is the most educational time in america. host: mitch mcconnell of kentucky was back in his home state on monday talking to reporters about the elections

earlier this month and what it means for resident biden's agenda. take a lesson. [video clip] >> we had a chance for the american people to express themselves in states that had some kind of elections this year about how they feel about what is going on. 71% of the american people believe we are going in the wrong direction. 71%. i have been around a while. i don't remember 71% being on track before. you asked me a political question, i think the fall of 2022 is likely to be a very good election for republicans. >> is the playbook to keep donald trump at arms length and virginia -- like in virginia?

>> i think the answer is that people are in the resident and want to vote on what they see going on now. i think the key to 2020 to is to have a discussion about how they feel -- the key to 2022 is to have a discussion about how they feel. i think the election will be about the future, not the past. host: you heard it there. what do you want the president and the democrats who have control now to do next? joseph in gilbert, arizona. independent. good morning. caller: i don't know how realistic this is, but what i would like to see is the president, nancy pelosi, kevin mccarthy, chuck schumer, and mitch mcconnell get together and you like they did with the infrastructure bill. have a bunch of moderates in the

house and they can go over policy and make changes that are reasonable. it pushes out the extremism on the far left and the far right and it is a more moderate way to get things done. i think it would be popular with the american people. i think you could get a lot of problems solved if everybody stuff together from both parties and got reasonable policy that would help this country. there are a lot of ways we can do that. host: in the usa today, talking about bipartisanship, that did not make the top 10. 3% said bipartisanship. caller: i am stunned because i feel like that is really the way you need to be going. depending on who is in power, having these radical changes one way to the other, we are not

really getting much anywhere. host: elaine in connecticut, republican caller. good morning. go ahead. caller: i say the sooner we get biden out of there, the better. i am 85 years old, i live by myself. i was okay at 60,000 a year -- at $60,000 a year, but the gas went up since biden has been in. oil went up. groceries went up. trump is the one who got the pfizer vaccine. biden seems to be credit for the vaccine. trump is the one. if the democrats cannot open their eyes and see what the hell biden has done -- the border,

people are coming in with the virus. they are not been tested and being thrown into different rooms and towns. what is wrong with the people? when nancy pelosi ripped up trump's speech, she should have been dragged out of there off of that stage. host: do you know how much mortgage or paying for groceries per week or per month -- how much more you are paying for groceries per week or per month? caller: say i usually pay $60 or $65, now i am paying $85 or $90. my gas has gone up double. i was paying two dollars and now i am paying $3.58. host: how do you heat your home? caller: -- host: what are you looking at this winter? caller: it is bad.

i have not gotten a build yet but it is going to be bad. i could live very nice with trump in. boy, when he went out and biden got in and shutdown the pipeline. how many people were out of work? 1500 people or more? people cannot open their eyes and see what that guy is has done. it is dark communism. host: you think the price of gas and oil is all related to that pipeline? there are not other things at they like opec -- other things at play like opec? caller: probably. when trump was in, gas was good. you could live. everybody is making $200,000 a year.

i am not and i never did. i worked at mount sinai hospital and my retirement is 68 a month. the girls and i who came first, we got a class action lawsuit to try to get more money at we never did. it was so nice when trump was in. when my grandchildren come home, one of my granddaughters said we learn something in school. if you are not a democrat, you are a racist. i said don't ever say that to me again. i said who told you that? a teacher or one of your friends? whoever taught you that is bad.

they have to clean up the whole world. give me the 1950's back again. host: we heard your point. this is mark, "cash -- this is mark, "the social security insolvency crisis." that tops his list. this israeli -- this is ray. caller: the border, they don't know what they are doing on there. it is like a blackout of what is being accomplished. that is why the border situation keeps coming up and people are upset about it. i don't know what is going on down there. this pipeline that was going to

give us two dollars per gallon, people need to know what was going on through that pipeline, who gets the money, and where it is coming from. it is -- it's belongs to canada and is going through a pipe. -- through a pipeline to us. it is a very heavy, oil that nobody can refine. it will be pumped and sent to japan, china, and all over the world. the money will not come to us, it will go to the trans-canada corporation. it is just a pipeline that will burst all over our land. you need somebody that can explain this to the stupid trumpers who think there is real oil going through there.

it cannot go through your car. host: thank you for the suggestion. susan in south dakota, democratic caller. what do you want the president to do? caller: i want to comment on the fact that i have not heard any republicans say anything about the fact that they one of the election that the election was legitimate. that is insane to me. if they would have lost, we would be in the same fraudulent voting situation. my main concern is health care. the premiums -- my husband works for a smaller company so the names are ridiculous. about to mention the fact that

the amount we are still paying out of our pocket to the tune of thousands of dollars. i know we are really affected by the process of everything right now. health care takes a dive into our pocket. i don't understand. bernie sanders has worked on this issue for so long. we talk about housing, we talk about food, we talk about all of the welfare people. health should be number one. -- health care should be number one. host: thank you for calling in. the washington post this morning, "faulty data imperils climate plans." they report that across the world many countries underreport their house gas emissions in

their reports to the united nations. "an examination of 196 countries reveals a giant cap between what nations declare their emissions to be versus the greenhouse gases they are sending into the atmosphere. the gap ranges from 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tons a year of underreported emissions. -- underreported emissions." president -- former president obama talked to a group of young people and talked about how climate change should be on the agenda and not be partisan. [video clip] >> there is one thing that should transcend day-to-day politics and normal geopolitics. that is climate change. it is not just that we cannot afford to go back words, we cannot afford to stay where we

are. the world has to step up now. how is that going to happen? how to be close the gap between what is necessary for our survival and what seems politically possible right now? i confess i don't have all of the answers. as i am sure is true for all of you there, those who are steeped in this work and are far more expert than me, there are times when i feel discouraged. there are times when the future seems somewhat bleak. there are times i am doubtful that humanity and get its act together is too late.

images of dystopias start creeping into my dreams. yet, whenever i feel such despondency, i remind myself that cynicism is the recourse of cowards. we cannot afford hopelessness. we will have to muster the passion to push companies and citizens and everyone else to meet this challenge. host: one headline this morning calling him the high command for climate change. is that on your to do this for president biden? lee in ohio, republican. good morning.

what you think the president should focus on? caller: the president has got no clue. everybody knows this is obama's third term. it is the democrats pushing more and more, they're using the constitution as toilet paper. host: in what way? give us specifics. caller: in every way. we have got no border. they use the pandemic to change election laws. it is crab. it is -- it is crap. host: international travelers from canada, mexico, and are now allowed to enter the u.s. if they are vaccinated. that makes the front pages of the newspapers this morning. diedrich in gainesville, virginia. independent. good morning. caller: good morning.

one of the biggest things -- as the previous caller said, this stuff about pipelines, less than 3% of the revenue goes to u.s.. this stuff is simple. when you get facts, you don't get it from networks, you get it from sustain -- we get it from c-span and historic channels. this administration is still pretty early. he is not been in for 24 years -- in for two full years. host: what do you want him to focus on? caller: i think we should start looking at student loans. the reason i say that is when

when you start moving -- said that is when we start moving debt -- when you start removing that, you release the creativity and ingenuity and that is what makes america great, the creativity of the young individuals. they cannot solve the debt if they are stressed out with that. host: madison -- glenn from madison, illinois. we will go to you next. caller: i have a few things about this pipeline. these people, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. the indian reservations, they are going to bury this thing under the lakes. would you want it after

california on the beach? look at the oil and the mess they had over there. now they are going to flood the lakes with it, too. another thing is that biden is on the right track but his republicans don't want anything to do with it. the next thing is georgia. when are we going to put this guy in jail? host: let me ask you, you say he is on the right track, what do you like that he has done so far? give me a couple of examples. what do you want him to do next? caller: he is doing what she can do. the republicans are fighting him tooth and nail about everything they try to do. host: what do you want him to do next?

caller: let's get trump in jail where he belongs after the georgia thing he pulled down there with the secretary of state. host: lewis, republican. good morning. caller: i have a quick list. bidenflation. he is on track with that. bidenvasion, what he's doing on the southern border. bidenfection, what he is doing with these mandates is crazy. biden justice, it just seems crazy what he is doing with the nurses and the firefighters and responders -- and first responders. people are bidenraged. how about bidenbarrassed?

can this guy walk away from his press briefings? just cowardice. what i would like him to do is finish his last three years, repealed the bill of rights of executive order, and an executive order to clear martial law, outlaw all on enforcement and put out the military. host: the president on a vaccine mandate talked about the latest one he has put in place and that is for business owners. [video clip] pres. biden: yesterday osha issued a rule to require employers with 100 more -- with 100 or more employees ensures each of their workers is vaccinated or test negative for covid-19 once a week. the centers for medicare and medicaid services issued a rule

requiring all workers at health care facilities participating in medicare or medicaid are fully vaccinated. these rules along with other requirements we have put in place means two thirds of all workers of the u.s. are covered by vaccination rep armen's -- by vaccination requirements. they work. already we have seen organizations that adopt requirements increase their vaccination rate by 20 percentage point. this is good for the workers, for their colleagues, loved ones, and communities. host: president biden on a vaccine mandates, do you want to see him add more mandates? for example, schools, mandating that kids be vaccinated in order to attend? fred keller was on the friday on the federal vaccine mandates.

here is what he had to say. >> i have talked with job creators and hard-working slovenian who go to work every day -- hard-working pennsylvanians who go to work every day. they are saying i don't need the government to tell me what is good for my family. president biden is his mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees. president biden's go is alone approach -- go at it alone approach to running the u.s. has left him -- i have partnered to strike down this unconstitutional overreach of government. every member of the education labor committee that is on board with this bill and we have growing interest throughout the republican conference. right before the holidays, america is facing a supply-chain crisis, as in cost gas to groceries. president biden was not listening to the people for whom

he works. our resolution sends a message oddly and clearly, americans -- loudly and clearly, americans are fed up with government control. host: vaccine mandates, does that top your to do list for president biden? we are asking you what is next for the president, what you want him to focus on. usa today asks this question, here are the top 10 answers they received. resign, retire, and quit topped the list. covid vaccine mandates topped the list. besides that, health care, environment, and bipartisanship topped out the top 10. third was to unite and help the country and immigration was fourth. bobby, what do you want the

president to do next? caller: i think many colors remember the day and we had gas lines and we could not get gas. we said to ourselves as a country, we will be independently -- we will have petroleum in this country where we can control our energy. we did that. now, we are finding that we want to call opec, our deal with foreign suppliers for our energy, for our oil. you had some colors call in and say i don't know what is going through the pipeline. i am pretty sure it is a petroleum product. i can understand the president and the green new deal and weaning us off of fossil fuels, but this is not the time. this is just the tip of the iceberg. inflation is here.

you are going to see gas prices go up and go off the cliff. i was listening to an interview with our secretary of energy. the question was, what can we do to help with gas prices and she left -- and she laughed. she said there is not much we can do about that, it is a world thing. we have to depend on foreign oil. we don't, but that was not part of the biden agenda. this is not 2090, this is now. someday we will get off of it, but you cannot do that now. host: on our facebook page, a couple of messages from viewers. "expand medicare eligibility to those 60 and older." samantha says, "legalize medical

marijuana at the federal level. people cannot cross state lines with their alternative to opioids and obstacles. even arkansas has medical marijuana." cindy says, open vacate the premises." robert says, "police accountability." tom is from virginia, democratic caller. what is on your to do list? caller: don't cut me off, please. the number one item is the voting rights bill. the number two item is to get control of the border. number three, do something about january 6. get some of those people executed and put in jail. host: bernadette, scott planes, new jersey.

their -- there we go. go ahead. caller: president biden is mandating vaccines all across the country. even the people coming in from europe and canada have to be vaccinated before they come in. i am wondering when he is quick to mandate the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants coming from mexico and all over the world. they're not only mexico anymore, they are finding terrorists there, too. is he testing them? does anybody know? can anybody answer that? host: there are legal questions around these vaccine mandates. here the white house press secretary responding to the latest legal challenge. [video clip] >> there is precedence here. the department of labor has responsibility to keep workers

safe. the secretary of the department of labor determines if workers are at list -- determines workers at risk are a grave danger. if we zero in this past year, more than 750,000 people have died of covid. you have approximately 1300 people a day who continue to die from covid. if that is not a grave danger, i don't know what else is. i want to be really clear that congress empowered osha through a law that has been in the books for more than 50 years. this is an authority we believe the department of labor has. we are confident about it. this is about keeping people safe in the workplace. host: deputy press secretary on the legal challenges to vaccine mandates. harry in georgia.

what are your priorities for president biden in the next few? -- in the next year? caller: i would like to see the old back better plan past so that cash the build back better plan -- the build back better plan passed. women cannot find childcare for their kids. next, i would like to see some kind of voting rights law passed because all of these republican led states are restricting voting rights. they are going to figure out a way to steal the election next time. i did want to say that the vaccination mandate has been going on since the very beginning of the country. ask all of these people if they are vaccinated for smallpox, rubella, polio which they had to

get before they could get into school. this pipeline, the guy that called in and said they are shutting down the pipeline from canada, that oil is going to be shipped to china. we don't want to refine that here because it is too 30. -- it is too dirty. everybody that comes here from across the border, if they are single, they are sent back to mexico now because of the supreme court. if they are children alone, they are tested. that is the first thing that happens to everybody. they are tested with what is called a refugee status.

we are member to an international treaty that requires us to accept pleas for refugee status. all of joe biden is doing this following the law here. just relax. he does not have control over gas prices. during the pandemic, people were not driving as much. the oil produced here in the u.s., they shut down fracking because it is the most expensive way to produce oil. they stop that for a while. it takes a while to get that going again. they shut down refineries. oil companies are trying to get refineries up. they had all of these hurricanes coming in and that is where a lot of these refineries are. that is where a lot of the oil is pumped out of the gulf. all of this stuff has to get going. host: mike, california. independent.

caller: good morning, greta. host: good morning. caller: i would like biden to continue with the investigation into the insurrection at the capital so we can find out who was involved. the color before me was spot on. he was talking a lot of facts. people calling in with a lot of myths. they need to do research. -- american-made products before slaves were brought to america, there was no such thing as a ne gro. most negroes had very not much

say so on the border. host: juanita, democratic caller. caller: everybody is complaining about the mandates of investigation -- the mandates of vaccination. i did get polio. when the vaccine came along, parents rushed to get their children accented -- children of vaccinated. -- to get to their children vaccinated. the price of groceries has been going up for the past year and a half. most people have not paid attention. the price of meat has gone up mainly because we have had droughts. we have lost the ability to grow

coin -- to grow corn. i am for mandating this vaccine for. people have forgotten a time there was no vaccine for many diseases. today, they are able to walk around without worrying around mumps, measles, diphtheria, and polio because of the vaccine. i think biden is doing a very good job under the extreme circumstance due to many things. as far as gas, i remember a time not too long ago when gas was sitting five dollars a gallon in california -- gas was hitting five dollars a gallon in california. host: debbie in michigan,

democratic caller. caller: it does not sound like he republican callers were listening to your program yesterday because both economists who were on clearly said inflation, joe biden has nothing to do with it. the guy was mad because jennifer granholm laughed about gas prices. she is right. it is a global situation. there is nothing we could do about this. i wish these were the bookends would focus on shy wish these republicans would focus -- i wish these republicans would focus on the governing. i think this is a great thing. i want them to pass the second piece of it. i wanted to lift half of the children out of poverty. that is a huge thing in the u.s. i appreciate your show, i love c-span. i tried to call every month. i get sad.

the other guy was calling and complaining about calling in and not using facts. you can hear everything on fox news and newsmax verbatim, they just spit that out. they don't know what they are talking about. host: what do you watch? caller: i watch them all. bbc, canadian television out of windsor, i watch fox occasionally because i want to see what they are doing. host: thanks for the call. the previous caller entered the january 6 attack on the capitol building. there is a january 6 committee in the house. the washington post says, "the six top advisers to former president trump. the subpoena is to provide

testimony and documents, including scholar john eastman, who outlined a legal strategy in early january to delay or deny beau biden the accident seek, and former new york city police commissioner bernard kerrick, who led efforts to investigate fraud in key states. the list includes three members of the trump reelection campaign, bill stepien, jason miller, and a senior advisor to the campaign. it also includes michael flynn." larry in louisiana, what tops your to do list for the resident? -- for the president? caller: he needs to clean up housing. he needs to clean up house, nobody wants to focus on nothing.

if he wants to make any himself, he needs to start cleaning it all. he has to do the hard drop first. he has to get rid of everybody. host: janet, jacksonville, florida. republican. hi janet. you're on the air. caller: i think biden is failing on every issue. he is tearing this country of art. -- he is caring -- he is tearing this country apart. the climate stuff going on, they pour all of this money into programs that do not benefit the majority of people. if we do not stop this bill that is coming along, it could sink america. i cannot wait until 2022 comes

along and we can kick out half of these people. host: coming up next, what happens -- what happened this election and what is to come in the midterms. joe, democratic caller. joe, good morning to you. caller: hello. what i would like president biden to do, since trump already provided a precedent of using money from the military -- we are no longer in afghanistan. there were billions of dollars allocated to the military to fight the war in afghanistan. i would like president biden to use his authority that donald trump set the precedent of to

move money that was allocated to afghanistan to other projects. host: we will leave it there. we will take a break. when we come back, we get two different perspectives on last tuesday's elections and what it means for the midterms. we will talk to steve israel who committed the -- who chaired the house campaign. and then we will talk to henry olsen. we will be right back. ♪ >> congressman -- congresswoman liz cheney speaks at a free-speech awards event today. she serves as vice chair of the house select committee investigating the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol building. watch live coverage today at 4:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or c-span now.

finance experts and civil rights experts testify on barriers facing lgbtq individuals in the financial services industry in front of the house financial services subcommittee. watch this at 12:05 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or c-span now. ♪ >> you can be part of a national conversation by participating in c-span's video conversation. if you are a high school student, we are asking you to create a five to six minute documentary that talks about how the federal government affect your life. use c-span video clips which are easy to find and access at c-span.org. c-span's studentcam competition

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you can find our podcasts on the c-span now cap, or wherever you get your podcasts. you can also watch about books sundays 7:30 p.m. on c-span2 or to 2017 and now at cornell university's institute of politics. i want to begin with a quote from you in "the new york times" recently about the 2021 election. " there is no way to sugarcoat this. this was a shellacking on a something." explain. guest: the off year election we

saw in virginia and new jersey, that we saw throughout the suburbs of long island and across the country, were undeniably bad for democrats, an tables.

they were talking about faxing mandates, and i support faxing mandates. -- vaccine mandates, and i support vaccine mandates, but there was a lot of uncertainty around them. republicans were campaigning on things that resonated that tweak the anxieties of voters and democrats were stuck in this beltway brawl before progressives and advocates -- progressives and moderates, and republicans won because they campaigned on issues that so many undecided voters were addressing in their homes and businesses. host: republicans have talked a lot about inflation, and we heard from an economist yesterday, a conservative and liberal economist, saying president biden is not to blame for inflation necessarily, that it is because of the pandemic. however, do you see that this is

resonating with the voters and that they do blame him for gas prices and the cost of goods going up? guest: here is the thing, this is vexing, cultural climate that i believe we are in. we are two tribes in america right now. if you are democrat, no matter how bad inflation may be, you say it is not the president's fault, and if you are a republican, no matter how much the president may not be to blame, no matter how low inflation may be, in fact, you are still going to blame president biden. we are a tribal nation, and both sides kind of cling to their own absolute truths. there is very little room in the middle for facts. in this case, the issue of inflation, and inflation is going up, does not matter to republicans whether were joe biden whether jill biden is responsible or not. if they can blame -- whether

jill biden is responsible or not. if they can blame something on him, they will. members of my party had the same outlook on things. host: how do you compete with that? what do you do in order to win elections? guest: whoever can seize that narrative and propel energy wins elections. let's go back in his example. -- is go back as an example. i said elections are lost and won in the suburbs. if you look at recent elections, that is undeniable. think about what happened in the most recent election, suburbs of new jersey, virginia, new york, all the energy was for republicans because republicans owned the message and narrative in the suburbs, talking about schools and critical race theory and inflation and democrats for not addressing those issues. think back to

and in 2017, democrats won the message work, particularly in the suburbs. he saw millions and millions of peopleof positive that when you can, when you have a crystal clear message that counts with voters, particularly those undecided voters who go either way, then you have a great shot at not only winning them over but national elections. host: what is your prediction for 2022? guest: i do not want to be too dour, i never said i was the smartest member of congress, but i know my history. anybody who knows their history realizes the president's party almost always loses seats in the

first midterm election. there are three exceptions, greta. 1934, when fdr -- it may be a little too early to go back to 1930 4 -- 1934, fdr picked up seats. 2008, bill clinton -- sorry, 19 98, bill clinton and the democrats picked up seats. 2002, george w. bush and republicans picked up seats. what was different than? what was different was the country was emerging from a national crisis, and people do not want to put a check on thete opposite party to the majority. it was only those three instances, and only those three instances, american voters said, we like the course we are on, let's stay on it, let's not check the presidency. and every other instance, the president lost seats. and if the democrats are going

into 2022, and the energy is with republicans and independent voters who want a check hunter biden, -- check on joe biden, it is uphill for the democrats. on the other hand, if they go into 2022 and people say you have done a good job managing covid, and we just added another 500,000 jobs a month to the economy, it is doinweand then i.

e process reaches its zenith in august before the midterm elections. the year before. and that is when a lot of members of congress are home. they are thinking, do i really want to do this again? and then in the holidays, around christmas and new year's, that is when members who are thinking about retiring really make that final decision. i do expect to see or sense a lot of thought from my former democratic colleagues and republican colleagues, who were getting bonked or compromising in their own party, adding death threats for compromising in their own party -- getting death

threats for compromising in their own party. i believe a lot of members will sit with their families and say, do i really want to go through this, go into a tough campaign? you may see announcements then. host: i want to join viewers to join in on the conversation about what happened in the 2021 off year election cycle, but also, what do you think about what do you want to see your party focus on to gain control of the majorities in the house and senate? democrats, (202)-748-8000. republicans, (202)-748-8001. s independent, -- independents, (202)-748-8002. text as at (202)-748-8003. larry is up first in new york. republican. good morning. caller: good morning. well, basically, what i see is

that the republicans right now are more so speaking to the heart and soul or the norms of what americans are really used too. a lot of the new progressive ideas and ideologies coming about do not seem to stand in line. another problem or a big problem that is going to come up with democrats thinking that people of the african-american vote is going to be in their pocket. it is the thing that has happened with biden so far. it is total meltdown in government. it is a failure so far as far as i'm concerned. again, i think the better had watch out in this upcoming election because they are not

going to have the african-american vote. they did not have mine. i am african-american. from the beginning. they definitely will not have a majority. i spoke to a lot of my friends, and we are all seen this as a disaster. guest: larry, you cannot take any vote for granted. it remains to be seen whether democrats will have the majority of the african-american vote. remember, midterm elections is not just help people think they are going to vote or say they're going to vote, it is energy. if democrats do not have energy among african-american voters, it is a real problem. you have to turn out your vote in the midterm election, and if democrats cannot turn out that vote, it is going to be very hard for them to retain this majority, particularly since it is a three vote majority. i will say one other thing, larry, with all due respect, we are long islanders. you speak about how democrats are not really speaking about what people want. you live in hempstead. you may live near hempstead

turnpike. yesterday, the republicans called a bipartisan infrastructure bill socialist. larry, i don't think you would agree that hempstead turnpike is socialist. that the roads that you travel on or the long island railroad, or laguardia airport, or kennedy airport, that those are socialist. i would caution my republican friends not to overplay their hand. if the structure has always been a bipartisan source of agreement , republicans and democrats could agree on things that create jobs and make us a better country. when you call a bipartisan infrastructure bill that 13 republican members of the house supported, and that republicans in the senate also supported, part of a democratic-socialist wishlist, i don't think you are resonating with most people. i do not think that is normal, calling these things socialist.

i am hoping we can at least come back to a certain agreed-upon, as you said, norms in terms of the issues that we are addressing. host: what about what progressives are saying, what issues they are pushing for, and what language they are using? what do you warn them about and going too far? guest: i have been pretty outspoken about this. when you begin a narrative and talking about defunding the police, even if you do not mean it, that is a problem. in addition to chairing the dcccc, i would tell you what -- dccc, i will tell you what, starting off with defunding the police, and talking about multitrillion dollar bills when particularly those undecided voters in the suburbs do not have an appetite for

multitrillion dollar bills but are willing to invest in things like the cares act and covid relief bills. when any party goes too far, you lose those swing voters. those moderate, suburban voters. the democrats cannot afford to go too far and lose those voters because there is a very good chance they will lose the majority in 2022. greta, i have been in the minority. it is not really that fun. if you want to even have a chance of passing even elements of a progressive agenda, then keep the majority. to keep the majority, you have got to resonate with that center. you have got to be willing to compromise with moderates. i know this agitates progressive friends, but i did not become involved in politics to make a point. i became involved in politics to win and pass a decent agenda for

the american people. host: matt in virginia, democratic caller. caller: i have a response. my first responses you have got to run on something, i agree. terry mcauliffe ran on "i am against trump." "glenn youngkin is for trump, trump is bad." i think trump is bad, too, but he is not on the ballot. he is not current president. you have to announce something that people actually want to vote for. the second thing is, republicans have three news networks. they are constantly running antidemocratic messaging, constantly. if you look at the results from virginia, people who are pre-basing those news programs are coming out democrats -- coming out against democrats in droves. there is a reason democratic messaging is not getting through.

it is because we do not have three news networks always running against republicans like the republicans do. i do not think democrats need to spend more money on messaging. i think they need to start buying news networks. host: matt, all right. steve israel? guest: you raise two excellent points. democrats, particularly into this made election -- midterm election, need to craft a message centered on you are not trump. the american people made a decision in 2020, despite the myth and the big light out there that trump won election. he did not. in the american people made a decision. -- and the american people made a decision. they may not have wholeheartedly embraced every element of joe biden's policies, but they wanted donald trump off their television sets. they just wanted to be left alone. there was a trump fatigue.

he overplayed his hand. the american people made a decision, we want to move forward without trump. that decision was rewarded in the elections this year. we learned republicans actually do better, republican candidates, without trump on the ballot than with him on the ballot. he dragged them down in the 2018 midterms. and in this election, the 2021 election, not being on the ballot, despite his attempts to insert himself, allowed people like youngkin to hold him at arms length. they winked and nodded to trump voters, but he was not there. he was now doing campaign rallies, and that ended up having a very beneficial effect on republicans who were able to bring back those moderate suburban voters, who rejected trump in 2018 and 2020. the other issue you raised, and

i do not how to fix this, it is a real problem. i said before, max, that we are two -- matt, that we are two tribes, red and blue. how we receive our news content is also tribal. there is one tribe that views everything that they here on newsmax, one america, or fox as gospel. it is the absolute truth, no room for disagreement. quite honestly, there is another tribe that watches programming on msnbc and views that as absolute gospel. our news content on social media is provided by algorithms. we do not have full control on what we are reading on social media because social media companies are deciding based on our preferences what we should get. we are living in blue and red communities. there are only 20 purple districts left in congress. when you have an aggregate, people are getting their

information either from a conservative to wildly conservative media outlet, or progressive, or wildly progressive media outlets and messaging, and they are talking to the same kind of people with the same ideologies. guess what is going happen? we have two completely different views of reality. it is not like we're are living in different parts of the country. each tribe believes the other tribe is alien, and until we can find ways to bring discourse back into the process, maybe it is with some kind of restoration of some of the elements of the fairness doctrine, equal access, making sure that there is more balance for people, or maybe we tell people to watch greta on c-span all the time, whatever it is, there needs to be the consumption of news and not propaganda. host: i want to share these numbers from the cook political

report, democrats have 68 vulnerable seats. these are house ratings. republicans have 30 vulnerable seats and there are four tossup races. what do you make of these numbers? guest: it suggests, as i said before, it is an uphill battle for democrats to retain the majority. and it is a three-vote majority in the house of representatives. the senate might be a different story, but let's break down the house. going into the president's first midterm, you know you are likely to lose seats unless it is an environment that led to the three exceptions that i mentioned. you have got a lot of democrats in those suburban districts. we are talking a congressman from new jersey, long island, suburban democrats looked at the local results where their party got swamped. they are very nervous about what kind of climate prevails next year. the numbers are not good for democrats.

they can overcome it, but they are going to need two things. number one, it is going have to be behind us, not vanished but behind us. and number two, the economy has to be doing well. if those two situations exist in 2022, then those moderate voters are likely to support their democratic incumbents, and democrats will be more competitive. without those two improvements in the national mood or mood of swing voters, very tough for the democrats to pick up seats. host: you mentioned trump fatigue, your words, how did the former president overplayed his hand, as he said? and is at a warning to president biden? guest: no because they are completely different people. president trump was not satisfied unless he was on his 50th tweet of the morning. he was not satisfied unless he was getting rave reviews on fox

news. we know he would call fox news on air personalities and complain to them if coverage is not good. he needed to be at the center of attention at all times. he cannot help himself, in my view. if you disagree with me, tell me. when did president trump -- when was he ever a shrinking violet? when was there a time when president trump did not try to command your attention? i think most voters, and likely they would be qualified as moderate voters who could go either way, those voters who like policy of mitt romney but also the policies of joe biden, they just wanted him out of their lives. now, i have a view that antagonized some of my colleagues, which is that had president trump dialed it down and listen to scientists and taking a different approach on covid, i believe he might have

legitimately won the election, not the popular vote, but i think he still would have won some battleground states. he just cannot help himself, and voters finally said, enough, we want an alternative. host: stephen, sarasota, florida. republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. two things that i wasn't going to discuss until i heard the other caller and your comments, steve. one of the things of my conversations with democrats, as well as moderates is that i asked them to say five things that they like to hear -- i am sorry, i mentioned five things positive and negative about trump, and five things positive or negative about biden. one thing i would like to do is have more debates, like i'm having these conversations with the average person. the one thing i find out if we do have that to date, we cannot get anybody on the left in the debate, and when i ask russians

to democrats, they say i hate trump. what policies do you hate about trump? can you mention five things that they accomplished -- can you mentioned five things trump did well or bad? guest: i will not go with a number. give me some time, and i might be able to get to five, but i will tell you i supported his policies and execution of those policies, fully supported those policies. but a lot of time and congress -- but a lot of my time in congress was dealing with the instability in the middle east and the relationship between the united states and israel, and making sure we had a secure and stable environment in the middle east. and i fully supported president trump's policies and the policies on the abraham accords on moving the u.s. embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. i sponsored those bills to move the embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. why would i want to oppose that just because president trump, you know, actually pulled it

off? that is an example of where i agree with president trump. and to your point, stephen, i think we would all be much better off if we could just drop some of that almost reflexive tribalism that is in so many of us and try and figure out where is the common ground? congress would be a heck of a lot better off if instead of focusing on the 80% of intractable disagreements they have, they can focus on the 20% where they do agree. and if they can do that, i think they will be 100% better off. host: we are talking with former congressman steve israel, presented new york districts from 2001 to 2017. he is now the global affairs director at cornell university's institute of politics. steve, you are next, portland, oregon, republican. guest: a lot of steve's. caller: hello, can you hear me? host: yes, go ahead.

caller: i do want to employ that the world really needs to come together. i can understand where rhetoric went off balance. i do not think i would make it this far. i wanted to stay in oregon. i did not [indiscernible] i do want to employ that i really want to get people together to work on things. there are those we should be looking at and be able to read. i would love to read them. if not, work together. i clean up messes all day long, i know how to do it. it takes a lot and everyone to be on board. [indiscernible] i just need to understand a little bit more by looking at it. host: steve, i am going to jump in. sue israel, does bipartisanship sell to voters -- steve israel, does bipartisanship sell to voters? guest: i think that is the saddest of all political environments. it used to. but due to gerrymandering and

other influences drawn further to the left and right, the incumbents in those districts moved with the lines. in other words, many of my former colleagues do not wake up in the morning concerned they are going to be defeated in a general election by a candidate from the opposite party. they wake up concerned that they're going to be deceived by someone from their own party who is further to the left or right of them because districts are now so much bluer and redder. so political survival means you have got to attend to your base. a few want to avoid a primary, you just got to be ideologically compatible with that base. let me give you some raw numbers because facts matter. when i was elected to congress in 2000, there were about 150 purple districts where bipartisanship sold. where voters expected their

member of congress to reach across the aisle and get things done. when i shared the democratic congressional campaign committee in 2000 -- when i shared the democratic congressional campaign committee in 2000, 20, the number of moderate purple seats had been cut in half to 75. all of the other congressional districts members could not afford to compromise. cannot afford bipartisanship because it was rejected by their voters. in 2020, the number of truly, swing districts was 16. 1, 6. that was the nine republican house districts that voted for biden and seven democratic house districts that voted for trump. that is the entirety of the peer swing districts. you could -- pure swing districts. you could argue and some may

say, well, there are more vulnerable but by the time we reach a year from now, right, or before a year from now. let's say next october, one month before midterm elections, i believe that battlegrounds, those competitive districts, will be reduced to less than 20. in 20 out of 435 districts does bipartisanship, civility, and compromise really sell to an electorate. the country as a whole, everybody -- i should not say everybody -- but a majority of americans want bipartisanship. as a result of gerrymandering in each district, one by one, very few people actually want bipartisanship. they may say they do, but if their member of congress agrees with the other party, they hold it against them. host: who or what could fix the

redistricting that happens in this country? guest: there has got to be fundamental reform on how districts are drawn. if you draw district with a sharpie to protect an incumbent, you will get more polarized districts. there was a very famous district in pennsylvania that political pros called goofy kicking donald duck on the outskirts of philadelphia. it was drawn, in this case, for a republican. and the contours of those districts, by circling or including the republican voting households and excluding democratic voting households, the final contours of that caricature of the disney characters, goofy in a battle with donald duck. how do we expect democracy to survive? how do we expect members of congress to find ways to compromise when districts are drawn like that? the most effective and democratic way of drawing

districts is as our founders intended, draw them so that every member of congress or most members of congress reflect or have districts with a roughly equal number of people. not to protect their incumbency. many states, the good news is many states on their own have decided that they are pursuing redistricting reform. you have independent redistricting commissions. you have legal standards, like in florida. you have different mechanisms that try and take as much of the politics out of the system as possible. and when that happens, you tend to have more centrist districts where bipartisanship and compromise are valued by voters. host: we go to california, ken, independent. caller: good morning. i would like to respond to the lady that called in earlier about fox news and all those channels being the main reason why the people are voting the way they do when we have got

every mainstream media out there preaching socialism. i think that is really the reason. people are changing. they do not want socialism, and that is what democrats are pushing. thank you. guest: well, i am not sure where in arizona ken lives, but if he ives in -- if he lives in the phoenix area, say we want to invest in less traffic on route 10, i don't see that as marxist. i would say in fairness, ken talks about all the mainstream media. i have asked this question of people, what do you watch and read? and where is this mainstream media that is preaching socialism? i'm still waiting for a good answer. most people, since ken raised it, they are watching fox, newsmax, when america. the are you reading -- they are

reading conservative newspapers, and they had this notion the are being surrounded by mainstream social preaching media. yes, there is socialist media out there, media that preaches socialism. but mainstream i do not see it. host: where do democrats need to be careful about this rhetoric of socialism appealing to the swing voters? guest: no. republicans, again, i have to tip my hat to them. they do a very good job of labeling something and using it to kick people in the gut. republicans' message based on the amygdala and emotion, and democrats tend to message on rational and empirical. republicans message in socialism or high taxes. so what democrats need to do is find a way of resonating responsibly with anxieties people have.

i am not preaching to democrats, i am no longer there. and there are democrats who have figured this out and do exceptional jobs of framing issues so they are resonating with their voters, which leads to the final element of your question. democrats should not, and i have been preaching this for a while, democrats should give up this urgency to have a national message. you cannot have a national message as a democrat. here is why. democratic districts are far more diverse than republican districts, so you have progressive brooklyn, new york, and conservative oakland, iowa, and you need -- brooklyn, iowa, and you need two different message that resonated in each. i am not hung up on this notion that democrats have to have this national template to counter republican messages of socialism. you have to have a message that resonates with your voters. you have got to be able to talk about, as you have seen it on the show, talk about local

roads. talk about what is happening in schools. talk about the people's health care. talk about the need for people to get their jobs back and wages up and feel good about the work they are doing and maybe pass those savings on to their kids. those are the messages that you talk about, but they differ in different media markets. host: do democrats need a different messenger in the house and senate? speaker pelosi, the majority leader chuck schumer. guest: they are the leaders, but the one thing about chuck schumer nancy pelosi -- well, there are many things. one thing the our firm on his you message to your district. i was nancy pelosi's chief political lieutenant. i could sense the blood pressure going up among some of your viewers, as i say that. i will tell you, she would say to moderate democrats in top districts, go home and talk about what voters are interested

in. do not bring them the talking points from the democratic caucus in washington, d.c. go home and talk about those issues. chuck schumer, god love him, i am in his media market every sunday, greta. almost every sunday, he is in a local community talking about a local issue. this is a guy who literally will talk about potholes on main street, despite the national narrative going on. and this is how he wins. democrats, and many do, should continue to take a lesson from those playbooks. host: tina in mississippi. republican caller. you are next. caller: thank you for taking my call. very interesting conversation this morning with mr. israel. i do agree with some of the things he has said, but i am going to call in, you know you

can only call once a month to get through, and i just cannot believe now that we are pretending that what happened when donald trump became president happened that 90% of the media went on a daily attack of everything he did, said, and was with lies and everything. i mean we all witness that, and now, democrats are trying to pretend like it did not happen. this is the reason that republicans are so upset because it is totally [indiscernible] that 90% of the media is owned by liberals, and they did go after trump. we cannot dispute that. host: let's take that point. guest: i will dispute the fact. i would like to know where that

90% is. when people say at 90% of the media is owned by liberals, fox news? which has more viewers on a single night than both msnbc and cnn? that is owned by liberals? the new york post, which covers huge swaths? sinclair broadcasting system billboards? conservative radio talk shows? show me the 90%, and i will concede that you are correct. but i do not believe -- and i do not know anybody who really does believe that that is true because they have not been able to show us where that ownership is. if you are talking about "the new york times," which has a liberal slander, no question about it, it is a liberal newspaper, yeah, that is a liberal newspaper. but taking it as a whole across the country, if there is a mainstream media, it actually tilts significantly to the right

when you take all of those media platforms as a whole. host: steve israel, your thoughts on woke culture. guest: i understand the anxieties and frustrations that many people have, and i do believe we have responsibilities to society to be more understanding, more empathetic, to strive to be more inclusive and diverse. so, i get that. in my conversations with, again, those suburban voters on both sides of the aisle, they also have an anxiety that they are not being sufficiently listen to. that their voice is being marginalized and it seems little softer. that they are not as relevant as they once were. somewhere between diversity and inclusion and empowerment and

leaving voters with a sense of any party that they are not as important and relevant as they were, somewhere between those two things is a fair and equitable balance. we used to be able to figure that out in discourse. now we seem to be screaming at each other and attaching labels to our arguments. host: i linda connecticutn -- linda in connecticut, democratic caller. caller: nice to hear from you, representative israel. i am a democrat. i do not believe in this argument because every american that is on an airport, highway, receiving social security checks, get goods from a port but were participating in socialism. that is not my primary reason for calling. i want your opinion on our next

group of democratic leaders. [indiscernible] she is out there every weekend listening to constituents. yes, she is going to win as long as she wants to. but nancy and chuck are not getting younger. president biden is not getting younger. i am looking for our next group of democratic leaders. i see tim ryan, katie porter, but i do not see a lot of democrats that are stepping up into the mainstream and starting to create their own message. and i do worry about that combined with all the right-leaning media. host: linda, let's have steve

israel have steve israel respond. guest: i am smiling because i was with chairwoman rose two weeks ago at federal hall in new york have steve israel respond. guest: i am smiling because i was with chairwoman rose two weeks ago at federal hall in new york city. i can barely keep up with her. there is an energy, and the same for speaker pelosi. with reagan democrats. hakeem jeffries, the chairman of the house democrats, the caucus in the leadership, i expect will advance in leadership. katie porter, so many others. the democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, they replenished. they just elected a whole new generation of younger, active, energetic and, quite honestly, restless members.

and those members, it is a matter of time before those members represent the leadership, the committee chairs, the ranking members, and the new face and energy of the democratic party. host: steve israel, thank you. appreciate it. guest: thank you. host: we are going to take a break. when we come back, we will talk with henry olsen, "washington post" columnist. the conversation continues. we will be right back. ♪ >> congressman liz cheney speaks in new hampshire today. wyoming republicans will select a chair of the house committee investigating the attack on the u.s. capitol. watch live coverage on c-span, online at c-span.org, or on c-span now, our new video app.

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henry olsen, "washington post" columnist and senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center to talk about campaign 2022 and the next cycle after, 2024. let's begin with your thoughts on what happened in this off year election in 2021. guest: i think it is clear it was a national shift against democrats. if you take a look at basis with partisan designation, whether county offices in new york, city offices in new york, or virginia's gubernatorial race, you saw a similar shift away from the margins that joe biden piled up between 10 and 15 points. that is almost exactly the difference between where biden 's job approval rating sits, minus eight points on election day, and where he was on the 2020 lection day, winning by 4.5 points. i think what you saw was a turnout and persuasion element of swing voters deciding that

they do not want democrats and republicans being enraged at what they have seen and turning out in large numbers produce large landslide defeats. host: what resonated with the swing voters? guest:guest: i think swing voters are disappointed in washington, that joe biden promised he would return to normalcy, that he would represent competence, stability and moderation. instead, you are saying chaos and liberalism. that is not what moderate swing voters voted for, and they went to the polls to say, no more of this, give me what we wanted, and we will see if democrats listen. host: what you saw in virginia was the gop candidate glenn youngkin talk about the former president, but did not have the president come to the stage. he made inroads with suburban voters. is that the playbook for republicans in 2022? that the former president should

not be campaigning for these candidates? guest: any state that is purple or swing, president trump should not go into. it is quite clear, and it was clear in 2020 and increasingly clear that the verdict against donald trump was personal. it had little to do with policies. people do not want donald trump, to clearly suburban educated voters. remove him personally from the equation, and they revert to what they would like, which is a centered right economic policy and the centrist policy on social policy. that is what youngkin offered. republicans should not run away from issues that excite the conservative base. they should not denigrate president trump based on the evidence we currently have on january 6, but on the other hand, they should not embrace him and he should not embrace them either. that is the recipe for winning in light blue and purple states. host: where do you think

president trump should appear on the campaign trail? guest: i think were president trump will appear that no one can avoid is he is on a vengeance based mission to root out people he considers to be disloyal. so what he will do is actively contested number of republican primaries, particularly against people who he does not want to see win again, which is the people who voted for impeachment, conviction, or, such as governor brian kemp, did not, in his view, adequately support his election challenges. i think that is where trump will spend the bulk of his time until august. whether or not he feels he has been vindicated or chastised by republican voters, who will determine if he wants to be campaigning in the fall. host: will that strategy be helpful to republicans? guest: the more trump focuses on

that -- first of all, there is nothing you are going to be able to do about donald trump campaigning for his favorite candidates in certain seats. i think in these primaries, you know, you have no leverage over the man. i think it will hurt republicans to the extent it reminds people who donald trump is and what his particular grievances are, but it gives them opportunity, which is to say that it leading republican candidates to not follow suit or show up at these rallies and endorse the president's view, it allows them to create little space between the president and himself. if the president then does not turn his laser eye on them and say, well, just because you did not attend my rally means you are equally as guilty as the object of my wrath, that is something that could help republicans. trump is a wildcard, and you should not think you could control him when the alleged and

wrongful allegation of the alleged election is in view. he cannot let go of that, and republicans have to try and minimize the fallout from his efforts to re-indicate that. host: i want to get your reaction to the messaging from republicans on socialism. here's our previous guest, steve israel, the former congressman talking about republicans taking that too far. [video clip] >> you live in hempstead, you may live near hempstead turnpike. yesterday, the republicans called the bipartisan infrastructure bill socialist. larry, i do not think you would agree that hempstead turnpike is a socialist. that the roads that you travel on or the long island railroad, or laguardia airport, or kennedy airport, that those are socialist.

so, i would caution my republican friends not to overplay their hand. if the structure has always been a bipartisan source of agreement, republicans and democrats could agree on things that create jobs and make us a better country. when you call a bipartisan infrastructure bill that 13 republican members of the house supported and that republicans in the senate also supported, part of the democratic-socialist wishlist, i do not think you are resonating with most people. i do not think that is normal calling these things socialist. i am hoping we can at least come back to certain agreed-upon, as you said, norms in terms of the issues that we are addressing. [end video clip] host: henry olsen? guest: i think republicans know that calling the democrats' domestic spending resonates with a number of swing voters who are immigrants with genuinely

socialist backgrounds. i think it would be who republicans make clear which elements are socialist, the more you move government into this usurping charitable sector endeavors give them the commanding heights in terms of funding and setting rules that is more socialist than funding hempstead turnpike, something the government has done at the state, go, and federal level for the entirety of american history. i think republicans are on good standing when they are calling out the dramatic expansion of government ownership and oversight of financing in traditionally nongovernmental functions. i think they run the risk of overplaying their hand if they levy the same label as things like the turnpike or like an airport. host: this talk about the new jersey governor's race. you see particular weakness for democrats with the working-class

areas. what did you see in that election? guest: what you see in that election, take a look at south jersey. south jersey, the six counties, if you draw a line from philadelphia to the ocean and go south, that would be south jersey. you saw massive swings against the democrats compared to 2017. over 20 points, when i wrote that article, a few days after the election. the margin places were murphy, won by double digits and he is losing by double digits. you saw similar things in comparing and virginia. comparing terry mcauliffe to governor ralph northam in 2017. northam lost working-class virginia. terry mcauliffe annihilated there with a 20 point shift. what that means is the white working-class vote no longer needs donald trump on the ballot to come out in droves for

republican candidates. they are alienated from the national democratic party. they do not distinguish between murphy, joe biden, and democratic leadership, and they are energized and rabidly republican. that is something that should scare democrats up and down the nation because they are congressional majority. it depends on them not winning working like class voters but them not being annihilated 80-20. you get moved to 2021 numbers into the 2022 election and you easily see a loss of three or four senate seat on those numbers alone and probably 10, 20 house seats on that one democratic shift, not including the other democratic shift you saw among minorities in suburbia. host: henry olsen's piece says election results should terrify democrats. you can read it in "the

washington post." what is it from the democrats that is alienating them? guest: typically, you cannot generalize about a group as large as the white working-class and say a trend pertains to every member of that group. they are clearly still -- there are clearly still progressive white working-class members and conservatives who have been republicans for decades. the shifting vote is people who have traditionally been morally or socially moderate. in other words, in the old culture war between people who are traditionally ledges and people who are more secular and progressive, they did not have a dog in the race, so they did not get animated about it. but they have always been patriotic, respectful, and protective of their traditions. they now see the democratic party in engaging in culture war on them. so, a morally moderate center that has also tended to be centrist on economics now sees

themselves in the target hairs of secular progressives who are declaring war on their culture. and they also see those people align with the extreme climate change agenda that tends to take aim at their economy, the resource producing and manufacturing economy, so between declaring war economically and culturally, the democrats have scoped a reaction he could only by -- not declaring war on them. a large part of their base wants to talk about american patriotism and american culture in a way that white working-class voters and other voters find it disrespectful and wrong. they want to engage in the climate change agenda that will have a disproportionately negative impact on working-class voters, resource, manufacturing, and transportation sectors.

it's hard for the democrats to do the lytic lease smart thing, to stop stepping on their toes. host: mary, cleveland, independent. caller: i may for -- i'm a former republican. i was a republican for 44 years. i changed my party after trump to independent. here in ohio, we have two trumpeters running for the senate. mandel and vance. it's the same playbook of hate and division. i am sending monthly contributions to a centrist democrat. i am from the suburbs. i do have a college degree. i can't be for a party who could nominate trump. i cannot be for a party who

allows marjorie taylor greene or that type of person in the party . it used to be a party of lincoln . it used to be a party of dignity, like ronald reagan. and now we have all of these far right people trying to divide us constantly. i used to watch fox news, a long time ago. now it is the tucker carlsen's who get all the ratings who lie repeatedly about everything. the funny part is, at fox everybody has to be vaccinated. everybody or they can't come to work. yet they are telling their viewers not to get vaccinated. you know, i'm not for mandates, but i am for common sense. guest: there are many people who

share her beliefs. i regularly correspond with former republicans who have been outraged about donald trump. i know that certainly many of my colleagues at the editorial board of "the washington post" and in other walks of life share a similar sentiment. all i can say is two things. one, there are many republicans who are not extreme trump tests, -- trumpists, like glenn youngkin, if you want to save the party of lincoln there are people you can vote for in that ohio primary. there are more than two candidates. i believe that there are six right now and many of them will have a chance to win. the other thing i would say is that we just saw, in the 2021 elections, despite the existence of many people like the caller, republicans were still able to prevail and create huge margin shifts, which is to say that

many people may not have liked donald trump but don't blame the entire party. they are able to distinguish between other republicans and trump or extreme trump republicans and that is what gives republicans hope. if you can shift a new jersey race 13 points in the republican favor, which is what jack should a rally did against bill murphy, if you do that as a whole, with republicans gaining 50 house seats and four or five senate seats, there is a large number of people who may not have liked trump are willing to embrace a non-trump in tone republican party and it gives republicans hope. host: if the former president runs in 2024, can he win? guest: two polls in the last week have an interesting verdict. to him ahead of joe biden by a couple of points, the first time

since 2020 since that have been the case. but they have him at the same percentage of the vote that he had, 45% of the vote, 10% to 11% saying they want someone else. i think a lot of those people would end up backing the current president, biden, even though they would prefer not to, they have already demonstrated that if forced to choose between the devil they knew and the devil they now know, they would prefer biden because they think he is better for the country. he can win, but i think he's unlikely to win. absent the type of economic or cultural collapse that would be calamitous for the country. host: could another democrat

beat former president trump? guest: it depends on where the democratic party stands. going into 2024, roughly where they are right now, you would have to have somebody who is completely disconnected from the biden administration. kamala harris could not come into say she represents the change. she's part of what's being voted against. they would have to take the populace anger and turn it into energy for the progressives. it would depend on who the republicans are. if they nominated somebody who, like trump, that person could win. the thing to remember is that if

the biden administration goes into 2024 with a 42% job approval rating it would break down the label of democrats and you would have to find someone with strength who is able to claim they were not part of the problem. host: donald, go ahead. caller: i have got a couple of questions. when trump was in there, he answered any question from any reporter. not just the hand-picked ones. biden gets up there and he only takes one or two questions, runs off the stage. he only picks the people he knows and then he says i can't take any questions, i might get in trouble. who's he going to get in trouble with? that's my question.

guest: you know, i think that biden's lack of transparency is well documented. he has held fewer press interviews than trump or obama before him by an order of magnitude. that and plus some of his faltering answers when he does appear and take questions, has raised in some peoples, particularly swing voters minds, is he up to the job? he wants to reverse his abysmal poll ratings. it's not just that he's upside down. independence have decisively rejected him. if you look at the crosstabs, independence in the last two poles are more disapproving by an average of 40 percentage points.

he has to go back to what he ran on. is he able to lead and not deal? able to show that he's in command and not someone who gives one answer and is countermanded by his staff the next day? can he push for moderation rather than with the progressive winds blowing from the party, you are going to have to take some risks in the next six months. that includes going before more voters and more americans, taking more public questions. host: ray, taylor, michigan, republican. caller: can you hear me? host: you've got to turned on your television. caller: with the vaccination for the coronavirus, if you have to

go into canada from michigan, you have to be vaccinated. if you go on a plane to go east or west. you have to be vaccinated. southern border, vaccinated to get into mexico. could someone please answer how all these people could walk from mexico into the united states, not be vaccinated, but the have to be vaccinated? and now the idiots want to pay some of them now $450,000 for losing a child on top of it? is this a wedge issue that could hurt democrats? it is already hip hurting

democrats. he consistently performs worse on immigration. americans would like to be compassionate, if you believe the polls, to those who are already here without documentation. what they don't want his millions more streaming across the border. there's no serious attempt to enforce the law and no serious attempt to put these people already apprehended back on planes to their countries of urgent. angering not just republicans out of control record-setting crossings of the border, that's what you've got right now, the more it seeds the idea that joe biden is not competent and is not moderate. host: carol in tyler, texas, democratic caller.

caller: good morning. with the trump presidency followed by the biden presidency, is the american choice really just coming down to you either it's dictatorship or socialism? is that where our democracy is headed? i will listen off the air. thank you. guest: i don't think so. i think americans want someone who is a vibrant, nationalistic and compassionate. what they keep getting his people who aren't all of these things at once. when someone comes on who offers that vision, you will find them displacing the people from the extreme left or some sort of authoritarianism. i think americans want genuine, strong, reform oriented patriotic leaders and i think we will get that person sooner, hopefully sooner, but definitely sooner or later.

host: laura, gaithersburg, independent. caller: good morning, you had mentioned why are independents turning away from the current administration and i think that first and foremost, people are tired of being treated like they are stupid and tired of being told what to think. as an independent thinker, it's not difficult for us to see the contrast between trumped and biden. trump actually kept his promises to the american people. the ones he made on the campaign trail. i haven't seen that in my 60 years of existence on this planet. biden, it's communism and marxism. they are the ones who are fascists, acting like dictators with these mandates that are unconstitutional. everything they are doing is intentionally to destroy this country. from the illegal aliens pouring over the borders to now paying them for coming in illegally?

it's just insanity and idiotic receipt. that's why people are turning away. his writing isn't 42%, it's 38. it's 38%. guest: yeah, i said 42 because that's the average of the number of polls taken exclusivelyftif ,

five house seats, they lose the majority. there's only one midterm where the democrats, where the incumbentfeel better about the n of america, including questions about appointment and inflation, tamping down the culture war, yes, the president can improve his standing. can he keep control of the house? highly unlikely. losing only 10 seats so republicans had a narrow majority would be a moral victory and a good sign for the democrats into if they got to the point where biden was at 48% national approval rating, i think they could hold onto a tie in the senate or pick up a seat. the house majority is different from the senate majority but don't underestimate, we are talking about a very large increase in basically 10 months to 11 months and biden's numbers are really, really low right now

. particularly low among independents. host: as you were talking, cnn ran a headline, 11 senate democrats asked president biden to fight gas prices. do you think that this is an issue democrats are fearing will hurt them? guest: i think it's already hurting them. threw money at covid. personal savings rates were through the roof during the pandemic. we threw money at people with jobs. we threw money through stimulus checks and people that were not economically impacted. we did the same thing with the american recovery plan, more stimulus checks to people who didn't need them. i have been talking about inflation since the beginning of the year. when you throw that much money to people who don't need it, it's got to go somewhere.

increased purchases, increased prices and the biden administration has no credibility on this. they said first it would be transitory, then over by summer. the can -- the price index came out and it matched the previous record from the previous month. there's no end to this inflation . you can talk about gas prices all you want, but when you have that much money floating in the economy and the federal reserve is set up to a top -- set up to accommodate growth and the approach of the biden administration is to put more money in the economy, you won't have an appreciable effect on gas prices by doing something like selling off oil through the strategic petroleum reserve. you are throwing gas on the inflation fire and the thing to do to stop inflation is to actually listen to joe manchin and not approve the extra $1.75 trillion to throw after the $3

trillion they already approved to go into the economy over the next couple of years. host: steve, charleston, republican line. caller: how are you doing? i tell you what, this is a strange political environment we are in. greta, give me a little minute here. i want to talk about the vaccine but before that, i want to say i just don't understand, it's almost as if democrats and don't get mad at me if you are a democrat. the first job of any politician is to get into office and win and you have got a struggle ahead of you. i don't care what the policy issues are. i'm a logistics analyst. there is something that's got to happen before november of next year to keep you guys in office. and by the way, you know, henry mcmaster, the port of charleston has been open from the start. you don't have ships parked

offshore in charlston. i pay two dollars 80 five cents per gas here. there's a lot of talk about bipartisanship and i'm the kind of guy that grew up voting for both, for democratic representatives. but you know, democrats won't vote for republicans under any circumstances. i used to vote for fritz hollings. i voted for jimmy carter. you cannot find that kind of attitude just, you know, greta, steve cohan was on the other day from tennessee. tennessee has landed those four db jobs and smith & wesson moved out of springfield massachusetts, they have been there since 1852. blue states are not friendly to business. people coming here from the northeast. californians moving into texas. where -- when are people going to get the message? host: and your question? caller: vaccines.

do you like football? guest: a little. not a huge fan. i followed during the playoffs. caller: i watch college football. 80,000 football fans across the country. i believe in the vaccines, i've got my vaccine and my booster. my wife and i sat down and said here's the super-spreader and the next few weeks, nobody gets sick. i reached out to the cdc and no answer. 80,000 fans hundred thousand fans, i don't care what they are saying, those fans are not. if they were getting sick, that would be a big story for them. that would be a big story for i told you so, a big story for biden. something strange is going on here. i can't put my finger on it and i wish somebody could do. time to get the mandates off the books and let people go back to work. get out of their pocketbooks. don't mess with their children if you really want to get somebody riled up, start messing

with their children. guest: i think that vaccine mandates, i wrote about that. the ones that biden is pushing is arguably unconstitutional. that's what the fifth circuit ruled. that's why they stayed the enforcement of the mandate in the hearings taking place this week. politically they are 50-50. take a look at the polls right now. its week support for the mandates. it's almost all concentrated among partisan democrats. you saw glenn youngkin, the attack by terry mcauliffe for not being enthusiastically in support of the mandates. even though there might have been a week support in the polls, it wasn't something swing voters carried a bet cared about. the fact is that we are at the end of the pandemic. mass vaccination plus increased

treatment has met that the risk of catching and dying of covid is substantially less. particularly if you are vaccinated. the possibility of new pills to treat mild to moderate cases of covid, approved in britain, likely to come under approval in the united states, decreasing the chances of severe illness dramatically. covid scaremongering has to stop. i wrote a piece on this recently that biden came into office wanting to be the new fdr in the first thing fdr said when he took office was that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself and if he wants to start imitating fdr he needs to start spreading hope instead of fear. he needs to tell his cdc to do the same thing. host: mike, democratic caller. caller: yeah, the topic is 2022, 2024. mystic mike here, i'm going to

tell you, i'm looking in my crystal ball and republicans are going to take the house in 2022. no one disagrees with that. in 2024, whoever wins the presidential election, january 6, 2026, this is -- the decision will be thrown to the house and the republicans will win and because they control the majority of states, so then we will have republicans in charge and so my question is, what are they going to do? what is their plan to govern? i don't know of anything they will do except cut taxes and maybe outlaw being a democrat. their policy is just attack democrats. host: henry olson? guest: what americans badly want is they want people who can be effective at moving the country

in a clear non-radical, non-ideological direction. they want people who are animated by principle but are not involved in culture wars of one sort or another or demonization of one sort or another. a successful republican presidency is one that can embrace that. one that will not try to govern from a wing of the party but from the center of the party, the center of the country, including a vast majority of republicans. i think if you had that, you would start to see a political realignment of the sort we haven't had in decades because americans have and hungering for that. you know, they were told that president bush would be a uniter and not a divider. barack obama said he would run from the center. donald trump, not exactly a unifier. president biden said he would be moderate and is governing from

the left. you actually get someone who delivers on a principled patriotic agenda, that person will build majority in the country. host: rob, kansas. caller: good morning, everybody. mr. olson, you are talking some nice republican game, but you know the ad i want the republicans to run? trump leading the insurrection on the capital in an attempt to destroy and overturn democracy. i think somebody got up after the red scare in the senate and set at long last, have you no mode -- have you no shame? it means you are destroying our democracy and by the way, mr. olson, have you been vaccinated? yes or no would be a good answer and tell us why you are vaccinated or why you are not. no, democrats are going to hold on in 2020 two because people don't want insurrection in this country.

they don't want some idiot standing up and talking about the wall and somebody who basically paid to prostitutes and lied about it. ok? he's not jesus like. did he not pay stormy daniels, while you are rolling your eyes? there's a check that he paid her for what they, what she, for the service provided. guest: so, you obviously have no idea who i am. i called for trump's appeal -- trumps impeachment. i opposed his election in 2016. i'm vaccinated twice with the booster. i'm rolling my eyes because you are, your inferences demonstrate you have no idea who i am. with respect to the question of do voters share your fears about donald trump and democracy? terry mcauliffe ran on that in the last 10 days. that's all he talked about,

right? i got a piece of mail entitled highlighting and touting the trump endorsement of glenn youngkin. something that glenn youngkin did not reject. the fact is, the things you talk about are believed by partisan democrats but are not shared by swing voters. they don't believe that every republican is trump. they don't believe that the republican is anti-democratic. they believe republicans are what they say they are and it's not something democrats want to hear, but the evidence is clear. that's what 2021 shows. the attempt to taint an entire collection of tens of millions of people with a big lie of saying they are anti-democratic and authoritarian because of one man is simply not believed. if you want to run on that, if the party wants to run on that in 2022 and 2024 it's the biggest gift the republican

party can get, it will show swing voters that you are tone deaf to the things they care about. host: congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez responded to a tweet sent out by congressman gosar within animated video of him killing her. she responded saying that while i was on the way to glascow a creepy member that -- i'm killing me. he will face no consequences because the gop readership here some on excuses. do you think there should be consequences? guest: the question is, what consequences are there to give out? look, paul gosar is continually someone who is attention seeking in the extreme, and that radio was at best in poor taste, and at worst disgraceful. i have not seen it, only descriptions. he is the only elected member,

the only thing republicans could do, theoretically, be to remove him from committees, and, yeah, i think the question would be whether or not that is the appropriate response. certainly, the democrats used their power to remove marjorie taylor greene from committee, a representative from the bronx, and if she feel so strongly about it, she should go to nancy pelosi and try to do that again and use the power of the democrats to remove him. as long as he is an elected representative, that is about the most i can be done. host: from st. louis missouri, independent. caller: good morning. three things. first of all, it is biden or trump -- if it is biden or trump these two corrupt parties can come up within 2024, that is not good for our future.

biden did great on covid, and trump did horribl. secondly, take illegal immigration. trump could have secured our borders, but he got a tax cut for the richest republican contributors instead, and they like cheap labor, and the democrats want them because they usually vote democratic, and so much for illegal immigration reform. lastly, i have been watching c-span for 30 years, and i do not get any info from the internet, and until we can get a president who will take all the money out of the campaigns and get back to something like the lincoln douglas debates, you bozos are just going to keep bringing this country down. lastly, i got all three of my vaccinations because i believe in science, and i know 95% of the new people getting this are unvaccinated. host: henry olsen, you can

respond to her, but i also want you to talk about taxes because you wrote a column on republicans working with democrats on taxes. guest: i think the person who just called has a very interesting perspective, concerned about illegal immigration, and concerned about giveaways to the well-to-do. that is the sort of populist view of problems facing our country that currently or right have a hard time with. i think republicans, before covid, we had a $1 trillion deficit, we had massive fiscal clips looming in the future with the running out of the social security and the medicare trust funds, and i think republicans should be looking at places to raise money from well-to-do people without raising marginal income tax rates, and there are a lot of tax breaks that well-to-do people get that they do not need. they do not need mortgage interest deduction.

you do not need to be untaxed on medical insurance to be able to buy policy when you are making half $1 million a year or more. you have tax breaks on the code that you do not need if you are a wealthy senior. you do not need to be subsidized for your medicare premium, but you are. that means you are taking from hard-working people today so you do not have to draw down on your multimillion dollar ira or 401(k). i think republicans should embrace those increases and use those as part of the deficit reduction plan when they take office. it will show americans that they care about the safety net, and that they are not in the back pockets of the well-to-do, while they are also taking care of a real problem, which is we cannot keep been wealthy when we are borrowing $1 trillion a year. eventually, people will want to stop buying our bonds. host: here are some proposals republicans can embrace to tax the rich, henry olsen's piece,

and it is interesting there is a picture of just bezos on the side of a truck -- jeff bezos on the side of the truck saying tax me if you can. guest: i enjoy the puckish humor of our editorial graphics team that took aim at our article. host: eddie, massachusetts, republican. caller: build the big dig in bo ston, and it cost 20 billion, now they want to increase the rail line for four miles. that estimate is $3 billion. it is ridiculous what government can do. we used to build our railroads by private industry. now we have to subsidize them. we want to build telephone, at&t is for everybody's telephones. now they want to subsidize that. even the pentagon originally was supposed to be hospital. it was hit by that plane.

the next, could be hit by a bomb. go to annapolis, big government is no good, the enemy is us, thank you. host: your final thoughts? guest: my final thoughts is there are lots of things the government are doing well, but they should be doing it more efficiently. europe has shown they can build infrastructure much cheaper than we can than the large cities in the united states. i came back from copenhagen the summertime, and they have got subways that arrive every two minutes or three minutes. how do you get such frequent traffic? they are driverless. they took on their unions. people get clean subways that run efficiently and quickly. until we are able and willing to take on special interest that profit from these contracts, we are going to get less for more when we should be getting more for less. host: henry olsen, thank you for talking to our viewers this

morning. guest: thank you for having me on. host: we will take a break. when we come back, we will open up to an open forum for today's "washington journal." you can call in if it is anything on your mind related to public policy and politics. we will be right back. ♪ >> congresswoman liz cheney speaks today. the wyoming republicans will elect a vice chair for the committee investigating the attack on the u.s. capitol. watch live coverage at 4:00 p.m. on c-span, c-span.org, or c-span now, our new video app. today, finance experts and civil rights advocates testify on barriers facing lgbtq individuals in the financial services industry before a house financial services subcommittee. we join this live in progress a little after 12:00 p.m. on c-span, c-span.org, or c-span

now, our new video app. >> stay up-to-date on the latest in publishing with book tv's new podcast, about books. we look at industry news of friends through insider interviews and reporting on the latest nonfiction releases. you can find about books and all of our podcasts on the c-span now app or wherever you get podcasts. you can also watch sundays at 7 p.m. on book tv on c-span2 or online anytime at booktv.org. ♪

>> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. we are in open forum until the top of the hour. start dialing in now with their public policy issues, your politics, and we will get to those in a minute. i want to tell you what is happening today, congresswoman liz cheney at 4:00 p.m. eastern time, will be talking at the manchester, new hampshire. we will have coverage of that conversation on c-span, on our website, c-span.org, and you can also watch with our new video app called c-span now. it is free. you can download it on any mobile device. while we wait for your calls, let's listen to president biden saturday after the house passed that infrastructure bill.

perhaps this is one of the issues you want to talk about this morning. [video clip] pres. biden: folks, yesterday, i do not think it is an exaggeration to suggest that we took a monumental step forward as a nation. our economy created 5.6 million jobs since we took office in january. recent unemployment rate of 4.6%. two full years earlier than the vast majority of economists projected would happen. we are just getting started. we did something that is long overdue, that long has been talked about in washington but never actually has been done. the house of representatives passed an infrastructures jobs act, a fancy way of saying a bipartisan infrastructure bill. a once in a generation investment that will create aliens of jobs modernizing the structure, roads, bridges, or broadband, a whole range of things, to turn the climate

crisis into an opportunity, and it puts us on a path to win to economic competition that we face with china and other large countries, and the rest of the world. it is going to create more jobs, good paying jobs, union jobs that cannot be outsourced, and they are going to transform our transportation system with the most significant investments, in passenger rail, the most significant investment in 50 years, roads and bridges, the most significant investment in 70 years, and more investment in public transit that we have ever made, period. our ports and airports, and will be going to some of our ports next week. increasing rail. we have bottlenecks across the country. we are doing so much with this legislation. it will make it easier for companies to get goods to market more quickly and reduce supply chains, bottlenecks, and, now, and now in for decades to come, you know? and according to congress, this

is going to ease inflationary pressure, not increase, but ease inclusionary pressures by lowering cost for working families. it will create jobs replacing lead waterpipes, so every american can drinking, improving their health and putting plumbers and pipers to work. how long have we been talking about that? it is a gigantic issue. jobs making high-speed internet affordable and available everywhere in america. [end video clip] host: president biden, after the house passed that bipartisan infrastructure bill last week to read we are in open forum -- week. we are in open forum. some sad news, this is "the washington post," the vietnam veteran who served in the senate, died at age 79. it says that max cleveland was an army captain whose injuries during the vietnam war left him a triple fut and propelled his career in public service, including leadership of the veteran administration.

he died today at his home in atlanta. he was 79, and the cause was congestive heart failure. stan, you are up first in open forum. stan from florida, an independent, go ahead. caller: i want to talk about january 6. where i live, there are two bookkeepers, one is in prison, and the other is on house arrest. the attack the capitol, 150 police officers were hurt, some still have not gone back to work, and they call this photo op to republicans. this was a photo op. they were there to take photos. it was not a photo op, and those people that voted for the infrastructure bill, now the republicans want them off the committees. it is ridiculous because they voted for something bipartisan, and now they are in trouble. they are going after everybody that voted against him or in georgia, going after arizona, going after everybody.

they are quitting by the gross. host: we are listening. what do you want this january 6 committee to do? caller: i want them to get the truth, but none of them will come forward. they say we are taking executive orders. steve bannon, i called the fbi on steve bannon because listen to his program where he talked about go to michigan, go to michigan. and a couple weeks later, they did that. they went to michigan. he has got a big following. like the lady said, fox news, newsmax, and it was supposed to be a stock channel, and all they do is attack. no wonder his ratings are down. they attack every day. host: ok, stan. an update for you and others who care about this issue. this is from "the daily mail" headline. capitol rider seeks asylum in

belarus, where he is parroted on state tv as a type of simple american who was burned by blm activists. that is their headline. in "the washington post," the january 6 committee issues subpoenas for six top trump advisors, including the pair involved in the willard hotel command center, and michael flynn. from california, dave, good morning. what is on your mind? caller: good morning. trump had a lot of personality issues that i did not like, but i have to say that it has almost been uncanny how every action biden has taken has turned into a disaster, whether it was the withdrawal from afghanistan, his policy at the border where he essentially ceded control of the border to the mexican drug

cartels, his anti-fossil fuel agenda, which has taken us from being energy independent to once again being at the mercy of opec. all of this covid relief, money, and programs has made it more sensible for people to stay home and go to work, which is why we have high inflation and supply chain bottlenecks. now he once to pay illegal immigrants hundreds of thousands of dollars for coming into our country illegally. what message is not to center the world? over the past year, we have added $6 trillion to our national debt, social security and medicare are on the verge of [indiscernible] , yet, they want to expand medicare and create new entitlements? if you wanted to destroy this country intentionally, he could not have done a better job than what he has done. host: terry and anderson, indiana. independent. what do you think?

caller: i would like to make a statement about the guy who just called. i do not hear any facts that he is bringing out. just like the rest of the republican party. although lying that trump did, all of a sudden, abiding is a liar and trump never was. -- biden is a liar, and trump never was. what i heard this morning about the republican nazi who made the cartoon about killing a democratic congresswoman. if i made a statement that i think all republicans should be lined up against the wall and shot -- host: let's not do that. this is from factcheck.org, some of you brought up gas prices, where we get our gas, and he was to blame for rising gas prices, this is fact check they did on

former president trump's remarks that the u.s. does not rely or should not rely on the middle east. it says the united states continues to import smaller amounts of petroleum from the middle east per the decade-long trend that has continued under president biden. the u.s. gets most of its imported oil from canada, about 9.8 -- 9.8% come from persian gulf countries in 2020 that has dropped to an average of 6.6% in the first five months of 2021. but a rally -- at a rally in alabama on august 21, former president trump said he had gotten the u.s. to the point where we do not need the middle east, and now we are going back and asking for help. it is a reference to a white house statement that urged opec to pump more oil to bring down the price of gasoline in the united states. opec plus agreed to production

increases, saying freezes will not fully offset previous production costs that opec impose during the pandemic until 2022, from a statement by jake sullivan. at a critical moment in the global recovery, this is simply not enough. the announcement was criticized by some conservatives and progressives. trump described as fighting begging for opec to send energy our way. -- described it as biden begging opec to send energy our way. they said that they were referring to the balance between u.s. imports and exports of petroleum paid you can look at factchecks.org. marion in new jersey, republican. caller: hi, today is my birthday, i am 84 years old. host: happy birthday. caller: thank you. just give me a little extra time because it is my birthday. [laughter] host: [laughter] caller: listen, i am eight trump

fan 100% -- i ama trump fan 100%. first of all, the democrats are hypocrites. in every way, we have a bumbling idiot for president right now, but they do not want to admit it . they know it. everything they say, they tell us what we have to do, but they do not do it. as far as the war goes, he stopped the war, -- as far as the wall goes, he stopped a while, but he is building one around his house. do not let me hear about that. as far as the climate change, biden had 85 car entourage just in italy alone, and then 45 in scotland. plus, all the leaders from all these countries fighting global warming came in with their jets. that was no global warming, eh? they are hypocrites.

they are telling us what we should be doing, but they do not do it. as far as what happened on january 6, they want to investigate it, go ahead. but one them to investigate first what happened in the democratic cities throughout the summer, the burnings, what they did to the statues, what they did to the policeman, how they hurt them, killed them. they even burned down a police station with policeman in it. they locked it down and was burning that voting down with policeman in it. let's investigatek that. -- let's investigate that. kamala harris paid for them to get out of jail. let's investigate that first, ok? host: all right, marion. we will go to maria in new jersey, independent. caller: hi there. good morning. first thing i want to say is since biden and his

administration have been in office, this country has come right down. this is not our country anymore. all the illegals coming into this country, it belongs to them. they come in here, and biden invited them in from the beginning. he invited them. he said, you have a new president now. you can come in. well, they are all over our country. they are being taken to all different cities all over this country. they are given everything. host: maria, where have you read or heard that? caller: i am seen it on tv. host: which channel, which network? caller: i do not remember. host: what do you watch? caller: why? are you going to deny it? host: no, i'm just asking where

do typically get your news? caller: regular channels, 2, 4, 7, i watched c-span -- i watch c-span. host: ok. caller: anyway, let me continue. they let all these illegals in here, and now what do they want to do? some of them are complaining their families are separated, and now this administration is going to give them hundreds of thousands of dollars when they are here illegally. they should be prosecuted for child abuse, for putting these little kids through this, coming over here across these borders. they should be prosecuted. host: all right, maria. let's listen to the republican leader mitch mcconnell in kentucky, talking to reporters about what the off year election results mean for president biden's agenda going forward. [video clip] >> we had a chance here for the

american people to express themselves in those states that had some kind of elections this year about how they feel about what is going on. 71% of the american people believe we are going in the wrong direction. 71%. i have been around a while. i do not remember 71% before. so, you asked me a political question. i think the fall of 2022 is likely to be a good election of republicans. >> [indiscernible] would it be on a state-by-state basis? >> i'm sorry? >> with the playbook for republicans be to keep president trump at arm's-length? >> i think the answer is people are in the present and want to vote on what they see going on now. i think the key to 2022 is to

have a discussion with the american people about how they feel about the new administration and democratic congress and what they are doing. i think the election will be about the future, not the past. host: republican leader mitch mcconnell. dennis in iowa, democratic caller. what is on your mind? caller: hearing the republican callers talking about illegals, in iowa, it was famous over a year or two ago, mollie tibbetts was murdered by an illegal. this illegal was working for a republican. i work in a meatpacking house with a bunch of illegals because republican management hired them because republican sheldon cannot do the job. it is bull crap.

thank you, bye. host: theresa, california, democratic caller. caller: hi. i am calling to say about when biden was elected, and trump stopped everybody from letting him come in and get all of the info so that he could not help the country go forward. everybody took away that opportunity. we are still having people being interviewed for nominations, when that should have been done earlier. afghanistan, trump said, do not tell me nothing about homeland security. i do not want to hear about it. so how is somebody supposed to

take over when they are in the blind, and they cannot do anything to be there and put the right people in place because they were stumped? host: brenda, omaha, nebraska. republican caller. caller: hi, can you hear me? host: we can. caller: i have two questions and a comment. greta, are you a reporter or opinion host? host: why do you ask? what is your point? caller: i am very upset about the political prisoners being held in washington, and about how they are not being able to get medical treatment and the way they are being treated, and i cannot figure out for the life of me why c-span or somebody else does not go to these jails and check on these people. these are american citizens, no matter what you think of them,

these are american citizens. the last thing i would like to say is, biden is destroying this country, and i am so tired of republicans telling us to wait until the next election. no, they need to do something now because it is going to get worse before it gets better. host: all right, brenda. we believe it there for now. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. thank you for joining in. we will have another tomorrow. enjoy the rest of your day. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] >> a, they testify on lgbtq

individuals before a financial house subcommittee. we join this live in progress a little after 12:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, or c-span now, our new video app. >> washington unfiltered, c-span in your pocket, download c-span now, today. >> c-span has your unfiltered view of government, funded by these television companies, and more, including mediacom. >> the world changed in an instant, but mediacom was ready, and we never slow down. schools and businesses went first, and we powered a new reality because of media -- because at mediacom we keep you had. >> mediacom support c-span,

along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> next, a u.s. supreme court case on carrying concealed handguns in public. a challenges a new york law requiring a person to show cause in order to carry a gun outside of their home. this oral argument is about two hours. >> we will hear argument this morning in case 2843, new york state rifle and pistol association versus bruen. mr. clement? >> mr. chief justice, that text of the second amendment enshrines the right not just to keep arms but to bear them, and the relevant history and traditions exhaustively surveyed by this court in the heller decision confirmed that the text for text in individual rights to carry firearms outside the home for purposes of self-defense.

indeed, that history is so clear, that new york no longer contests that carrying a handgun outside of the home for purposes of self-defense is constitutionally protected activity. but that concession dooms new york's law, which makes it a crime for a typical law-abiding new yorker to exercise that constitutional right. this court in heller labeled the very few comparable laws that restricted all outlets for carrying firearms outside the home for self-defense, outliers rightly condemned. new york likens its law to a restriction on weapons and sensitive places, but the difference between sensitive place law in new york's regime is fundamental. it is the difference between regulating constitutionally protected activity and attempting to convert a fundamental constitutional right into a privilege that can only