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discusses what the virginia and new jersey governor races mean for campaign 2022 and the latest on redistricting. then andrew ujifusa of education week talks what critical race theory is and how it originated. ♪ host: good morning on this wednesday, november 10. welcome to the washington journal. we will begin with parents only. do you plan to or have you already vaccinated your children against covid-19? if the answer is yes dial in at (202) 748-8000. if the answer is no, (202) 748-8001. if you are not quite sure the line for you this morning is (202) 748-8002. text us as well with your first name, city, and state to (202)

748-8003 or go to facebook.com/c-span or you can send in email with the handle journal@c-span.org. now that kids ages five years older able to get the covid-19 we want to know as parents plan to vaccinate or have you already vaccinated your children at any age this morning beyond the five to 11 years old we want to know if you have, if you are not going to, and if you are not sure. this is from "the hill" newspaper yesterday. more than 360 thousand children under 12 have been vaccinated, according to cdc data. have received at least their first shot of the covid-19 vaccine. on the hill recently during a senate hearing the biden administration's top doctors were testifying about the biden administration to the pandemic.

i want to show you what the cdc director had to say about the effectiveness of these vaccines for kids. [video clip] dr. walensky: some of our data reinforces why vaccination is important. unvaccinated people have six times greater risk of testing positive for covid-19 and 11 times greater risk of dying from covid-19 then people who are fully vaccinated. importantly, we have data showing the pfizer vaccine is nearly 91 percent effective in preventing covid-19 infection in children ages five to 11 who did not have covid-19 infection previously. why is this important news? surveillance data indicates there have been 9000 hospitalizations and kids five to 11 since the pandemic. mortality data has recorded more than 97 deaths in this age group . there are over 5000 children

diagnosed with mis-c and living with complications of this disease. as a parent no parent should see their children suffer complications or be hospitalized. we now have a highly effective tool to prevent this disease and our children. i endorse the cdc's advisory committee on practices recommendation that children ages five and up should receive a covid-19 vaccine. i strongly encourage parents and their children to get vaccinated. if you have any questions about the vaccine, please talk to your child's pediatrician, school nurse, pharmacist, or trusted medical professional. host: dr. rochelle walensky the cdc director to parents encouraging them citing numbers of effectiveness. you agree with her and do you plan to get your child vaccinated? or are you concerned about the

emergency use authorization and want more information? after matthew mcconaughey and the hill newspaper telling in an interview yesterday a reporter that he is not going to vaccinate his kid. he and his wife are vaccinated, he doesn't believe there is a conspiracy, but he wants more information. do you agree with him? you say yes, going to get your kids vaccinated. tell us how you came to that decision. caller: i came to that decision through education that i have intellect and knowledge. and also once trump got out of office he knew this was an airborne virus. almost a million people have died from it. republicans continue to die. what we basically have is a pandemic out of control. it got out of control -- host: let's stick to the topic.

how old are your kids? caller: kids who are 5, 3, and 2. host: your 5-year-old can get vaccinated. do you think that your 5-year-old, that there should be a mandate that your child get vaccinated to go to school? caller: yes, i feel there should be a mandate because they are vaccinated already. numerous vaccinations. this is blowing things out of proportion and going into conspiracy theories that the republicans are in. how many people in the military already have vaccinations? this is smoke and mirrors, conspiracy theory, and most of the people on fox news are vaccinated. i bet their kids are going to get vaccinated. host: claudia in ohio. you are not sure. tell us why. caller: there haven't been enough testings, i believe. second of all, i would love if

anyone has this answer, how many of the children of the cdc folks or how many people at the cdc have been vaccinated? the question was asked of the cdc director. host: the question was asked? caller: she did not answer it. she said they kept trying to make their best effort and educate the people so they would get vaccinated. i find it interesting that the cdc, of all people, won't give us a definitive number. i thank you for -- host: claudia, what about the testing they've done to get the emergency use authorization? according to the research and they did in testing they did the fda found it was 90.7% effective in preventing symptomatic covid and there were no serious side effects in about 3100 children studied who received it.

that is not enough for you? caller: i'm not sure. i would like to see more. truthfully, i would like to see more. think about this. these are children 5 and above. how long have they had the vaccine that we can see the long-term side effects? i think we need to think about that. i am vaccinated, so i believe in vaccinations. i have no problem as far as that. i am just worried about what will happen to the children when they are five to when they are 10. i think it is a reasonable question to ask. host: they are studying these kids. they will keep track of these kids. for months and years. they did follow these kids for two months and there were no side effects for two months. we learned from a pediatrician at children's national hospital

this week that no vaccine has long-term effects. do you believe that? caller: for the most part, yes i do. host: you just want more information when it comes to kids? caller: yes. i don't know why everybody seems to be avoiding it, why we can't see the statistics on the cdc -- they want to know everyone else. republicans and minorities.why can't we see the statistics on the cdc folks? host: for claudia and others who are hesitant during the same hearing that we showed you the acting commissioner of the fda was asked about this emergency use authorization and how it was done. listen. [video clip] >> dr. woodcock, can you describe the fda's thorough review of scientific evidence in making this decision as well as your advice to parents who are hesitant to get their children vaccinated? dr. woodcock: certainly.

the fda first reviewed the manufacturing of a new dosage form. children need a lower dose. that was carefully reviewed as well as the stability of the new dose to make sure it was appropriate. then all the data on the children were reviewed at the patient level. we went to the raw data and re-reviewed that and made sure that the evidence presented to us accurately reflected the data on effective -- on effectiveness, and safety. we made sure they were properly recorded and that we understood the magnitude of those events. in this trial of thousands of children who receive the vaccine, ages five to 11, we sell mostly very mild to

moderate flu-like symptoms, primarily, after vaccine, or a sore arm, which people can expect after getting a shot. we did not see any serious adverse events. the vaccine was over 90% protective. we feel very confident, along with all of the adolescent data that we have on this vaccine and all of the data and administration to adults, that this vaccine is safe and appropriate for children. it will protect them from severe covid. host: parents only this morning. dr. woodcock, how do you react to what she just said? angela, you say no. good morning to you. caller: good morning. i just can't understand what in the world is going on here.

we know that the drug has not had appropriate testing. we know that. all of us know that. this time last year they didn't have it. we all know the drug has not been tested. what is the rush about? in order for 1% of the american population to have died it would take 3 million deaths to get to 1%. ok? we are not even at 1% and this drug has not been tested. what is going on here? we are asking rational questions and we are being called conspiracy theorists. i mean, you have to start trying

to figure out what is going on, because nothing is making sense. to vaccinate the children when -- if they get covid they are more than likely not going to die. the vaccine has not been tested. why not just wait until we can understand the long-term effects? the children are not in grave danger. why are we doing this? host: what about hospitalization? does that concern you? caller: i understand it. why are we rushing a vaccine that has not been tested? ok? that is what i'm concerned about. we don't know the long-term effects and we are doing this to the children? host: the statistics that you are citing about the death rate,

this is from nbc news. covid deaths among children are rare. young children make up less than 1% of all covid deaths. ages 11 and under in orange and 12 and up in black. not sure, good morning. tell us why. caller: good morning. i am definitely worried about exposing my children to experimental drugs. the only way that i can feel halfway comfortable is if we have a second nuremberg trial for medical experimentation and we trial these people. these are human rights violations. we trial the nuremberg trial for medical experimentation for exposing the general public to an experimental drug. we need to put them on trial and if anyone is found guilty for violating the nuremberg code for medical experimentation they

need to be taken immediately. they need to be tried for treason and the sentence needs to be carried out immediately. host: you are not vaccinated? caller: i exercise my hepa rights. the only time i discuss medical practices is with me and my private doctor. do you have kids? caller: hippa is h-i-p-p-a. caller: it is conditional like a lot of other people are saying. the statistics that you mentioned, the 1% of deaths are children, but when you look at the demography pyramid it is an inverted statistic. it is very low probability with that.

the comorbidity, i think they may be higher as children, but when you look at pictures, and it is hard to get pictures of children in hospitals, but every time i see a kid when they say healthy teenager dies of covid in a hospital, they usually look sort of obese. that is a comorbidity. if you have a generally healthy kid who doesn't have any known elements or maladies -- known ailments or maladies i think it is selective. if you have a high risk and are comorbidity ought to consider getting the child the vaccine. it is a choice. to mandate it, i agree with the guy before. this is experimentation. what about cancers? there is always a cancer cell growing in your body and we are tinkering with proteins and rna. what about the reproductive ability of the kids we are going

to start injecting with this vaccine? we don't know. it takes time and i don't think we have enough observation or time. not just observations, time. i don't know if 3000 is a sample of the entire united states of the world. i think you need to get into the 100s of thousands before you make that claim. host: in new jersey, you say no as well? caller: good morning. i say no to this vaccine, i say no to the vaccine for adults and children. i think the pharmaceutical companies are pushing this way too much. everybody i've been seeing that comes down with covid is fully vaccinated, double vaccinated. i don't see the need to put more chemicals into our children's bodies when they are so unlikely to be affected by covid. i think parents need to really wake up and see what is going on. the media is pushing this agenda. it is shoved down your throat everywhere you see the

newspaper, the tv, the radio. everybody is trying to push this on the kids. it is being put onto our children's vaccine schedules for school. us parents need to fight back and take back what is right for our children. the government doesn't need to be telling us what to do for our children. they don't need to be needing to wear masks in school. it is ridiculous. parents, please use your hearts and think twice before you inject this into your child. i believe you will be making them 10 times more likely to get severely ill from covid. covid will not go away. covid is here just like the flu will be here. it is not going to go away with vaccines. we need to be smarter and say no to the vaccines, say no to the mandates. please, think twice before you vote, everybody. vote, people. host: i heard you say that your school is mandating it for next year? caller: they are not mandating it yet, but it is already on the

children's vaccine list, covid-19.schools are starting to have pop-up clinics. my school district is having it tomorrow to vaccinate the children. i am appalled. host: do you get your kids vaccinated -- do you give your kids the other vaccines that are required to go to school? caller: i do absolutely. those vaccines have been around for a very long time and have been tested. not tested on a group of 2000 kids. it is not right, the testing they are doing, and the media is pushing this. these vaccines and covid -- covid hardly affects children. like the other caller was saying, the people who are getting sick from this have comorbidities. people need to be more aware of their diet and exercise. take better care of yourself and stay away from the pharmaceutical companies pushing drugs on you. host: the vaccine that was fully

approved by the fda for adults recently? you heard the president say those of you who were hesitant because this was only emergency authorization, now you should feel confident in getting the vaccine because it has gone through all of the trials of the fda? did you get it after that? caller: absolutely not. host: it went through the same trials as other vaccines that you give your kids, but you wouldn't go get this one after it was successfully passed the fda's trials? caller: i don't believe what they are saying. i will not get this for my children. i will not get this for myself. host: why do you believe the evidence and the science for the other vaccines but not this one? caller: because they have been tested. they have been tested under an agenda that was not being pushed like this. this came out of a lab in china. these other viruses, smallpox and measles, did not come out of

a lab in china. china is out to get america and become the number one. they are using this as a biological war against us. host: karen in newburgh, maryland. you are no as well. caller: about the trials, we are all supposed to jump for joy because the trials were done like everyone else did? no, they were not. the emergency use authorization and the fully approved law, blah, blah -- approved blah, bla h, blah that doesn't coincide when you consider they haven't lifted the liability waiver. why not? if there's nothing wrong with the vaccine why are they changing the definition? i have been alive long enough to have never seen a vaccine like this one. it is not real. it doesn't work.

you don't understand what you were doing because you didn't understand what you were doing -- you didn't understand covid. we didn't get the truth. host: we didn't get the truth about what? caller: we didn't get the truth from dr. fauci. we didn't get the truth from the world health organization. we didn't get the truth from china. and we are not getting the truth from you if you are going to pretend like you don't know that. host: i was just asking you to explain more. caller: the swine flu is another stupid vaccine but we weren't pushing it on everyone. this vaccine is not effective enough for you to not -- for them to not change th definition of what the vaccine is on the cdc's website. what about the fentanyl that is killing young people in this country coming over that border? let's focus on that. it is taking us out. host: how old are your kids? host: we will go to sheila in

massachusetts. you say no. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. one of the reasons i'm so opposed this mandate with vaccines is the fact that the spike protein vaccine has not been thoroughly tested. it is very odd that fda and cdc will not allow opposing views to be heard. ron johnson has had numerous hearings on the effectiveness and adverse effects of this particular vaccine. this vaccine does not stop the covid virus. all it does is prevent you from getting it seriously. the other vaccines that children have had, smallpox, polio, mmr, those eliminated those diseases

in children. this vaccine does not. i would like to hear some other experts come on and tell us exactly how they feel about this vaccine, because it is not safe. they stopped animal experiments with it because the animals were getting too sick from it. host: where did you read that? where did you learn that? caller: a lot of it is from ron johnson's report. different experts. one thing that really bothered me was early on ron johnson had a hearing in congress with multiple experts, and the democrats refused to attend or listen or have any input in that hearing. i thought that was disgusting. they walked out of that hearing.

we are not hearing the other side, and i think in order to have this vaccine given to anyone, every one of us should hear the opposing side. besides the fact that it is against the nuremberg code, which says no person should be allowed to have an experiment done on them without their consent. thank you so much for hearing me. host: let's listen to dr. ben carson on fox news sunday. fox sunday morning futures. october 31. this is what he had to say about vaccinating children. [video clip] >> do you agree with the cdc's decision to vaccinate children 5 to 11 with the pfizer vaccine? >> absolutely not. the fact of the matter is the mortality rate for children from covid-19 is .025, which is similar to the rate for seasonal flu. we haven't been for years going through all of these things for seasonal flu.

plus, we don't know what the long-term impact of these vaccines is, so this is a giant experiment. do we want to put our children at risk when we know the risk of the disease to them is relatively small, but we don't know what the future risks are? why would we do anything like that? it makes no sense whatsoever. host: on mondays washington journal we had a pediatrician on the program. she responded to dr. carson. [video clip] >> children experience two symptoms that are unique and we still don't totally understand. they can have the post-covid syndrome, the long covid. some symptoms last longer than four weeks which is not typical of any other virus. the other thing is that kids particularly in the age group between 5 and 11 can come down with a life-threatening illness called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in

children. that is one of the biggest concerns i have as a parent because that is life-threatening and very scary, and it is usually after just a mild case of covid. that is a very small risk but it is something i don't want my child to have to endure, especially if the other option is getting a safe vaccine. what dr. carson said about the safety of this vaccine, he seems to be saying he is afraid there will be long-term consequences to this vaccine. there are no vaccines ever created that have any late onset side effects. there is no reason to think this one would as well. the way vaccines work is we trigger your immune system to build a response against something that is harmless so it can fight off something that is harmful. in the case of the pfizer vaccine we did a little of what we call messenger rna which is a recipe for your cells to build

protein. if you have seen a picture of the coronavirus, it is a ball with spikes on the end of it. the messenger rna tells your body to build a spike protein. the spike protein is not harmful, even on the virus stick to your cells. every coronavirus where is the spikes. if your body recognizes it is not yours then spends three to five days building an antibody response, those antibodies will be in your system so that if someone coughs on you or sneezes on you or if you are in a public space and breathe in the coronavirus your body has an army of antibodies that will recognize it, tag it, and your white blood cells will eat it up before you can get sick. there is no reason to think that your body can have long-term consequences from this vaccine. host: if you missed our conversation you can go to c-span.org and find it there. chris in marysville, maryland. we are talking with parents only.

have you vaccinated your children against covid-19? you are a yes? good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: good morning morning. go ahead. caller: you may have to let me go. i have you on speed dial but i am in the know category. i am just on the wrong line. i have one thing to challenge -- no category. i am on the wrong line. i have one thing to challenge. we keep using the stat about 1% of the deaths in america our children come under 1%. we have to peel that back because it is way lower than 1%, like dr. carson said. i think the .025%, we are talking about if there is an actual number, 1% would be 7000 people. we are talking about less. 1000 kids? i think it is even less.

is there a way that you can google the horrible stat of how many children have passed away from covid? it is very, very, very, very small. if we break down that, what, writ 80's -- what comorbidities are going on in that section? the known risks that we are looking at that we have been able to study over the last year compared to the unknown risks of vaccinating our children with this, i don't know if it balances out. let's wait it out. a caller earlier said "what is the rush?" if we are talking about what a small number of children, i have five children. losing a child, i would be a different person the rest of my life. never what i be the same. that risk is so small. host: what about the -- respond to this viewer. mike in silver spring says, "yes, i got my children

vaccinated as soon as possible not only to protect them but to stop the spread in the community. any other choice would have been irresponsible." what about that? caller: there is no way we are going to get rid of covid. i think we need to spread it. i grew up in an era where if someone got chickenpox we had a chickenpox party and brought everyone over to get it. i'm not saying we should cough on people on purpose, but i think there has been more a symptom attic cases and symptomatic -- a symptomatic cases and symptomatic cases. the non-symptomatic, the people who had a cough for two days. the natural immunity is running through our system now. host: what about the families who have lost -- 725,000 lives? what about the families who lost a loved one to this?

caller: it is absolutely horrible. i can't balance that. i can't balance that. if we look at those 700,000 people, we have to do the data, we have to do the science. a lot of those people were very, very old. very old. maybe even severe pneumonia would have caused them to succumb to death. we have to look at the population in general. if we continue to augment our natural systems, if we continue to do that, we are going to become the boy in the plastic bubble and not be able to deal with anything. i'm not saying spread this disease with no masks, know this, cough on everyone, no vaccines. if you want the vaccine, it is available and seems to be effective, but i don't think we should force this on anyone.

we certainly should not force it on our children. i think we should go back to a little bit of freedom and give people the choice to make the decision. host: chris in merritt sville, maryland. a tweet, they are already required to take vaccines. it is triggering an immune response. in kentucky, you are not sure. have you been listening the first half-hour? has the conversation swayed you one way or the other? caller: well, i think everybody is saying they are not supporting the mandate for children. there was a question asked earlier that made me wonder if you knew the extent that this mandate that is happening is different from prior vaccines we've used?

prior vaccines have been different in form and function than what is in place now. for example, the diseases have been for more lethal and transmissible diseases. when the polio vaccine was introduced it was crippling 15,000 children a year in the united states. covid has killed -- unfortunately each death is traffic, 546 -- is tragic -- 500 46 children. 576 children out of 80 million. is that something that you think you need to mandate? i'm going to have to question what is going into your belief in this. i think someone pushing that is

advised about something. as far as this being different from other requirements -- the biden administration is federal from the executive branch that is a dictate from them. the others going for school and things, those are from state legislatures. what would be the difference? the people have a voice and representation in things implemented by their state legislature, and things coming down from the executive branch, there is no voice. if you have seen recently, the said don't worry about the court's pause on it. we don't want people to wait. there are a lot of differences. to compare, it is easy to compare them to previous vaccine requirements, but they are different things entirely. host: i was posing the question,

not pushing one way or the other, on this notion of mandating vaccines for kids. dr. rochelle walensky, the cdc director, was asked about it at the hearing in the senate. [video clip] dr. walensky: i am delighted this week we were able to strongly recommend 28 million children receive a covid-19 vaccine to prevent infection, severe disease come along covid, multi--- multi-symptom inflammatory syndrome, and death in ages five to 11 will stop those recommendations are strong after the endorsement of the fda's emergency use authorization. vaccine requirements for schools are left to the local jurisdictions, so we will leave those to the local jurisdiction to make those decisions. >> kansas parents who may have concerns over whether their children will be able to attend school, that is not a decision

that will be made by the cdc or the biden administration but remain a local decision to be made by the local board of education? caller: i will always -- dr. walensky: i will always encourage that parent to get their child vaccinated. right now at this moment those decisions are made at the jurisdictional level as they are for the vaccination of all other vaccine-preventable diseases among children. >> i felt better before you said "right now." is there any intention to change that long-standing practice? dr. walensky: not to my knowledge. host: getting asked about a possible mandate for kids to get vaccinated for covid-19 to go to school. you heard her say that there is no change in the law. this is a local issue. in the wall street journal's op-ed pages, he believes that

the forced covid vaccination for kids is unlawful. he is at the new civil liberties alliances and writes, "patients, in this case children, it may not be forced, coerced, or pressured into taking emergency use authorization products and are entitled by law to refuse them. another statute authorizes the president to require members of the armed forces to take eua products and president biden invoked this power to require covid vaccination. no law authorizes such mandates outside the military. conditioning, access to education, and participation in public life on treatment with an unimproved vaccine is the antithesis of free and informed consent and is therefore unlawful. private institutions who force an eua drug on children could face lawsuits." he notes that there is some talk

of requiring proof of vaccine for children to enter restaurants. lester in oregon, you say no to vaccinating your children. welcome to the conversation. why do you say no? caller: well, my concern is i believe in yes and no. the problem is is we have people like me with immune deficiencies. it is called igg4 and it causes lumps in my body. if i'm not careful those lumps can become cancer and kill me. one of my fusions is $20,000 and i've had three of them. my concern is that children who may have -- not just children, but people who have immune deficiency or have a heart that is in perfect condition or a

kidney, or liver. my concern is the safety of those people, like me, that has immune deficiency. i had the shot, but i had to wait a year before i could have the shot. i have the notion of saying no because me and my family have already had covid-19. they didn't know what it was in january of last year, and that is what it was. host: how old are your kids? caller: my son is 36, but his little girl is four years old. my concern is these children need to have immune tests done. host: charlie and west palm beach, florida. you are a yes. how old are your kids? caller: i am the guardian of my

granddaughter who is 16 and she has already had her two shots. my grandson is eight years old and he cannot wait to get his shot. he is in third grade. host: tell us how you came to this decision. caller: well, i went to the veterans administration when they first came out, and i got it there. i got the booster shot. when i was in the military i was overseas. when you came back you had to have your shot card or you would have to take the shots again. i don't see the people in the military -- host: i was talking about the decision to get the kids vaccinated. caller: the kids, yeah, right. ok. i think children should get it.

no parent or grandparent would want to see their children die or be hospitalized for a long time when the vaccine is available here. people are not getting it there. host: listen to dr. anthony fauci at the same hearing before a senate committee. he was asked about when vaccines for kids of all ages, under five included, might be available. [video clip] >> dr. fauci. as probably some colleagues have noted, i wanted to talk about the availability of vaccines for younger children. i think all families in new hampshire were relieved when the food and drug administration and the centers for disease control signed off on pfizer's covid vaccine for children ages five to 11 last week. at a hearing earlier this year i asked when you anticipated that vaccines would be available for

children of all ages. you told me that you thought vaccines would be available for children of any age but the end of the year. you still anticipate vaccines will be available for children under five by the end of the year? dr. fauci: when you say available, that is the difference between the clinical studies shown to show the data currently as we are speaking now. the age de-escalation studies are part of the spectrum. one of the spectrum was what you just heard, five to 11. the data was convincing. you heard from doctors woodcock and wilensky. the studies are ongoing from six months to five years. i would anticipate and hope that the data might be available by the end of the year. i would say again that it's very difficult to make predictions. you don't want to get ahead of the data and ahead of the fda. >> i'm just trying to get a

sense of the timeline. dr. fauci: i think towards the beginning of the coming year or the end of this year i would help. -- would hope. host: if you missed this hearing you can go to c-span.org and find it. on our video player you will find yellow stars that indicate points of interest in this hours long hearing so you can quickly go through and get an idea of what kind of questioning the doctors for the biden administration answered and what the debate was like. ron in springfield, virginia. we are talking to parents only. good morning to you. caller: i actually called the independent line. i am for the mandate for kids in school, absolutely. i support the vaccine. i want to make a broader point and i would appreciate it if you don't cut me off. you seem to be letting people

talk for a long time. i think it makes sense why people are cynical. if you look at our testing regiment, if you want to get tested you have to find someone to test, wait 24 to 48 hours, or you can spend for a rapid test. i don't know if it was c-span or npr but i heard guest saying that in other countries in europe tests are readily available. in england people are given 10 tests per week. in germany they are $4 for a rapid test. it makes sense why people are cynical because the government is not taking this seriously. in our defense budget it keeps going up, but we cannot have a testing regiment? if you go back to the origin of covid, i always remember the video from the surgeon general. he did his youtube video about how to make a mask out of old t-shirts and underwear or whatever.

that tells us americans that the government is not taking this seriously. host: at the hearing administration officials were asked about getting testing put in place for schools by republicans, senator susan collins of maine. [video clip] >> why doesn't the cdc issue guidance and recommendations to encourage school districts to adopt tests in order to avoid these highly disruptive quarantines of students who are asymptomatic and could be tested? >> thank you for that question. when we spoke in this venue in july we shared the priority of getting our children back to school. i said it is the first place that should be open and the last place to close. in that context we have studies this school year that have demonstrated we have 96% of our

schools open, for which i am pleased, and still 4% of schools who have been impacted by covid-related outbreaks and the schools have had to be closed. data demonstrates prevention measures have been working. schools practicing prevention measures, including masking, have been 3.5% less likely to close because of a covid-related outbreak and those with masks. these are new data out of the u.k. that have demonstrated the new testing strategy, the strategy after a child is exposed in a classroom, that they stay in that classroom with sequential tests every day and every other day to indicate they are negative so they can stay in school. w have updated our frequently asked questions. we are working with jurisdictions to demonstrate the domestic data in the united states that this practice works, is effective, and gets children back to school.

we recognize jurisdictions are doing this and other jurisdictions may want to. in that context we are doing peer-to-peer matching of schools interested in doing the tests the safe practice and talking to schools who are also doing it so that they can use the implementation strategies that a school has used. we are actively studying this to provide the data on it working and actively encouraging it as a promising practice. host: stephen in new jersey, you are a parent and you say you will not get your kids vaccinated. tell us why. caller: i don't have a choice. these are my grandchildren so my children will make that assessment. but do you see a pattern? you what about questions? you are talking about kids and then you are asking, were you vaccinated? have you been vaccinated? this is about children. you remember h1n1 people were positively tested during that course of events.

there were 70 million people tested and they were all positive. they stopped testing. the obama administration stopped testing. the chief of staff said openly, we stopped testing because we couldn't do anything about it. host: we are talking to parents only. if you're going to get your child vaccinated or already have, dial in at (202) 748-8000. if you say no, you don't plan to, (202) 748-8001. if you are not sure, (202) 748-8002. you can also text us, first name, city, and state to (202) 748-8003. here is lynn who says my kids are grown and have their own kids. i won't tell them what to do but i hope they get their kids vaccinated. it is a parents job to keep their kids as safe as they can. it should also be mandated for them to go to school.

you say yes. go ahead. good morning. you have to turn the television down. just listen and talk to your phone. caller: i am agreed with the vaccine. i don't see nothing wrong with that. i already have my vaccine. i am agreed with that. host: a reminder to you and others that you have to turn down the tv. it is difficult to understand you. just listen and talk to your phone when you call in. greenbelt, maryland. what is your name? caller: tom. host: and you say no? caller: children make up just a minuscule, about 320 million

people in the united states. if you look at cancer and heart disease, i believe that they outweigh the overall numbers. number two, why are children being required to in school when i turn on the tv and i see football stadiums filled with people, college and pro stadiums, concerts filled with people with no maks. i think -- no masks. i think people are looking at this, skeptics and theories. if you want to have the vaccine, that's one thing. to mandate it -- biden said i will not make it mandatory. i don't care how you vote, he said that. politicians lie all the time, but when you about something on this level, injecting people with something they really don't know anything about, the long-term effects of this, that's just wrong.

that is definitely government overreach no matter who sits behind the resolute desk. i think there is a bigger issue. people are calling and saying, why is this happening, why are they doing this? to me i think all of this is a diversion for a bigger, bigger issue. if you look over here it's almost like these are excuses and diversions as human costs. saying look over here, look over here. the vaccines, delta, all these things. over here you have the federal reserve creating inflation out of control, and that is hurting people. host: how old are your kids? caller: 13 and 16. host: they won't get vaccinated? caller: i think he said he

wouldn't mandate it and he went back on his word. that is why his poll numbers are cratering. host: pennsylvania come you are a yes, lorraine. caller: yes, i am yes. i am taking my 9-year-old to get his shot today. he wanted to get the shot, although everyone is saying that is -- saying that it is a small percentage of children dying from covid, i don't want my child to be part of that percentage. i had my shot and i feel fine. the reason why i decided to have my child get his shot is because i lost my mother and my brother this year to covid. so it is not a question of if,

it was a question of when. when can children get their shots from five to 11? now, they discovered that it would be safer children. i am taking him to get his shot. he wants to get his shot. we will both feel more comfortable now that both of us will be immunized. host: i am sorry to hear about your mother and brother. we will go on to aaron in silver spring, maryland. you are not sure. have you been listening to the conversation? caller: yes, i have. thank you for having me. i am generally in favor of vaccines. i myself am vaccinated and most of my family is. the issue for me is the schools.

i live in a very blue area and the schools have been very tightly restricted, tight quarantines. the schools really have to give me an incentive to vaccinate my kids. if the schools say we will remove the mask requirement, we will stop these to connie and quarantine -- these draconian quarantines, i will probably get my kids vaccinated. if not there is no benefit from my perspective to getting my kids vaccinated. that means a critical part of getting my young kids vaccinated. there has to be a benefit on the public-policy level. host: what about the previous caller who argued she is getting her 9-year-old vaccinated for peace of mind? she doesn't want her 9-year-old to be one of the statistics of kids who gets hospitalized or dies.

what about that benefit? caller: sure, and i think everyone has to do what they feel comfortable with. i can understand from that previous caller the terrible things that she had gone through. from that perspective i certainly understand it. as other callers have indicated from a purely statistical level for kids that are my kids' age, six and eight, the chances are minuscule. i respect and understand where the previous callers coming from and every parent has to do with they feel comfortable with according to their own risk calculation. from my perspective it is -- there has to be incentive at the school level. host: we heard that point. i want to show for you, this isn't directly responding to

your argument about incentive at the school, but at that hearing that we have been showing to you senator john hickenlooper asked about administering the vaccines and the rollout. [video clip] >> this week's vaccine approval for five-year-olds to 11-year-olds, i think one question that we've heard is how is that going to affect this increase in infection rates? how do we do everything we can to make sure these kids get vaccinated? those who want to be vaccinated? >> thank you, senator. let me go back to senator romney's question on the percent of children who get long covid. we have seen a long covid rate of 4.5%. less than adults but still high. we have seen in that demographic 5000 cases of mis-c that can be

devastating. we have had 46 deaths from mis-c. nearly 100 in the demographic from five to 11. we have a lot of work to reach out to our pediatricians and parents to make sure that we have the communication and education and information that parents need. this is a new vaccine to them. they perhaps receive the pfizer vaccine themselves, but for their children it is a new vaccine. one thing that is important and worth grounding people on is that we have a lot of vaccine-preventable diseases for our children. the death rate from vera cella were 16 per year, hepatitis a about three per year. furman enterococcus, about eight per year. the death rate for covid in this demographic was 66. host: in pennsylvania, you are going to vaccinate your

children. caller: i called in on the yes line because i already vaccinated my children. right now, i am hearing things on the news about myocarditis and other things and i guess that i am having a little vaccine regret. it seems like every day they are coming up with new therapeutics that can be given early and can stop it. those things are happening all the time. what i'm afraid of is as time goes on we will find out more and more things that are being caused by the vaccine and will be way ahead in the therapeutics, but now we have vaccinated all of these children and over the next few years we will see all of the problems arise.

i'm having a little vaccine regret. host: i encourage you and others to watch the white house covid-19 response team holding one of their briefings today at 11:00 a.m. eastern. you can watch it here on c-span. this is where they lay out the latest numbers and they take questions from reporters. you may hear your question asked of them about your concerns with what you are hearing in the news . again, c-span, 11:00 a.m. eastern will stop audrey in west virginia. you are not sure. go ahead. caller: i am not sure about the vaccines for the children because i don't feel there has been enough time to know what the long-term effects are. in addition, i would like to know have there been any specifics about where these people are being taken from other countries being taken here, the immigrants, being

placed in these cities. has there been a surge in the virus? these people are not being vaccinated. they haven't even had mumps or rubella that we have had, yet they want to mandate that we give it to our children. host: there is no host: there is no mandate for children. to our previous caller concerned about myocarditis, from nbc news, as for concerns about this heart inflammation known as myocarditis, or paracar die tis, no cases -- were reported the pfizer trial of children 5 to 11. the c.d.c. says there have been rare cases, mostly in male teens and young adults. these patients can be treated with medicine and recover quickly. there is more information out there for you if you want to find it. this is from nbc news.com. we'll take a break. when we come back we'll talk to political report house editor

david wasserman on the virginia-new jersey governor's races and what they mean for 2022 and the latest in redistricting. later education week assistant editor, we'll talk with him about critical race theory and where it originated. >> book tv every scun on c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 2 p.m. eastern, coverage of the brooklyn book festival with a conversation with heather mcgee author of the sum of us, what racism cost everyone, and how we can prosper together. george packer author of last best hope as he they offer ways to overcome inequalities and divisions within the country. and between the lines, the collection of interviews conducted with over 170 people she met on the new york city subway. then a conversation between paul

and joyce on the writing life. and later, a discussion on the late hearseton who is work about the last living survivor of the atlantic slave trade was published in 2018. the oldest imprint by a major publishing house devoted to the african-american market. at 10 p.m. eastern on afterwards, dr. paul offitt head of the children's hospital of philadelphia's infectious diseases division and director of their vaccine education center, talks about his book, you bet your life, from blood transfusions to mass vaccination, the long and history -- risky history of medical innovation. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online any time at book tv.org.

>> c-span shop.org is c-span's online store. browse through our latest collection of apparel, books, home decor, and accessories. there's something for every c-span fan. every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now. at c-span shop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us this morning is david wasserman. he's the senior editor focusing on the u.s. house for the cook political report. thank you for being with us. i just want to begin with the latest of how the odds are looking for the parties heading into 2022 from your analysis. there are 68 vulnerable seats for democrats in the house. and 30 vulnerable seats for republicans. and four tossup races. how is it looking, david wasserman? what's the lay of the land?

guest: republicans are the clear favorites for house control in 2022. there are going to be fewer competitive races in that by the time redistricting is done. redistricting is the single biggest factor that will predetermine a lot of house race outcomes because the parties who control the line drawing process in most states have an incentive to maximize the number of safe seats for their own side and minimize the number for the other side. but if you look at the results that we saw in new jersey and virginia, it was a big night for republicans, obviously, but what should really scare democrats is two things, first of all the consistency of the pro-republican trends that we saw between 2020 and 2021 in virginia where glen young kin, the republican won by 2.5 points. that's a 12 1/2 point swing from biden's 10 point victory in virginia in 2020. new jersey it was a biden plus 16 state. looks like democratic governor phil murphy will hang on by three points. we also saw about a 12-point

swing in republicans favor in state legislative races on average in both states. if you were to super imposed that on the house of representatives, then republicans would gain 51 seats next year. not even counting redistricting. is it going to be that dire for democrats who only have an eight seat majority at the current time? they can only afford to lose four seats? it may not be. back in september when gavin newsome in california survive the recall he did so by 24 points. that was a five-point swing when biden won california by 29. let's say there is only a five-point swing, democrats would only lose 19 seats. either way between retirements, redistricting, and biden's low approval rating, republicans have a lot of roots to pick up more than the five seats they need for the majority. host: the headline in "politico," republican wave bills to take back the house.

aggressive redistricting is one of the reasons. is redistricting favoring republicans? guest: it is. and i would have told you a few months ago that redistricting was the single biggest threat to democrats' majority. today it's clearly biden's low approval numbers. but republicans still have the upper hand in redrawing these maps. they control 20 states that add up to 187 districts compared to democrats who are final authority in just eight states totaling 75 districts. why do republicans have such a lopsided advantage? two factors. number one, disproportionately it's been blue states that have adopted independent or bipartisan commissions to redraw lines. so california, for example, biggest state in the country, 52 seats, it has a citizens redistricting commission that is forbidden from taking into account partisanship in the way it draws districts. new jersey, washington state, colorado, virginia these are blue states that have also adopted redistricting

commissions. democrats are kind of approaching this cycle with one hand tied behind their back. whereas republicans get to redraw the lines in texas and florida. the second and third biggest states in the country. as well as georgia and north carolina. i expect that republicans could score a small net gain from redistricting alone, probably between 0 and 8 seats. the bigger impact from it will be that a lot of very marginal republican districts will get a lot safer. in texas where republicans currently hold 23 of 36 districts, and nine of those 23 they hold gave joe biden more than 40% -- 47% of the vote in 2020. republicans have systematically made those seats safer in their new map. guest: you noted president biden's low approval rating. host: yesterday we talked with steve israel, former chairman of the democratic campaign arm. he said he believes democrats could turn this around in, if

president biden approval rating improves because the economy continues on a recovery, and also that the covid-19 pandemic is mostly behind us. guest: it's possible that biden's approval rating rebounds before next year, 12 months is a long time. i do think it would need to be above 50% to give democrats any hope of retaining their majority in the house and in the senate. that said, history is not on democrats' side here. the average midterm loss for the party in the white house in the post-world war ii era has been 26 house seats and two senate seats. republicans only need five and one to retake the majority. it is a really uphill climb for democrats. another factor here is the retirements that we are seeing. so far there are 13 democrats who have announced they are not seeking re-election compared to 10 republicans. which may not sound like a large disparity, except it's the kinds of seats where we are seeing democrats leave. out of those 13 seats, there are eight democratic seats that are

potentially vulnerable either as currently drawn or in the redistricting process, which is a factor in why you are seeing members like connor lamb in pennsylvania or tim ryan in ohio decide to run for statewide office instead. or perhaps why john yarmuth in kentucky or ron kind in wisconsin are retiring. and on the republican side of the 10 retireees, there are only two districts that are potentially vulnerable in redistricting in new york. when you add all of that together, kevin mccarthy looks like a formidable favorite to be speaker in 2023. host: what about the amount of purple districts in this country versus truly red and blue and how that has changed over the years. guest: yeah, in 1997 when the cook political report first started calculating what we call our partisan voter index, which is an index of how all 435

districts vote relative to the nation as a whole, we found that there were 164 districts out of 435 that were kind of within the partisan 40-yard line that were within five points either way. and those were the places where we saw a lot of competitive races. in the past 24 years we have seen that number key klein -- decline 53% to 78 districts out of 435. i expect it could decline again by a third as a result of this round of redistricting. increasingly what we are seeing is redistricting provides the majority party in each state the ability to politically bludgeon the minority. so it's like illinois and maryland and new york we are likely to see democrats draw maps that purge even more republicans from those states. and in texas and florida and georgia and north carolina, we are likely to see republicans draw maps that puts democrats even further into the minority.

yesterday republicans in georgia just passed a map that would basically guarantee them a majority in the state senate. that kind of transcends what we are seeing in georgia where the state has become quite purple. democrats have actually won some statewide races. republicans would still hold i believe a 33-23 seat majority. and very few of their seats, i think hardly any of those seats would be competitive. as voters have increasingly self-sorted into heavily red and heavily blue neighborhoods and as we see a decline in the number of split ticket voters, voters who cross over from their presidential choice to a down ballot choice, that has only made the ability for party strategists to draw more durable maps even greater. and so, yeah, this is really become an arms race. and republicans are always going to have the slight upper hand in

that arms race. host: i want to invite our viewers to join in this conversation. your questions or comments about campaign 2022, the midterms of campaign 2024 as well. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. and independents, 202-748-8002. text us as well. city and state. read some of the texts, 202-748-8003. i would like you to call in and tell us what is motivating you to vote in this midterm election and how you plan to vote right now. david wasserman is our guest. we are drilling down into the midterm elections. you mentioned the redistricting efforts, specifically in the state of georgia. are there people like stacey abrams in georgia who are trying to reverse what they are seeing at that level? is it happening in other states? guest: yeah. it's becoming increasingly clear to democrats that republicans'

ability to draw the lines is self-perpetuating. in most states it's the state legislature who redraws the maps. and the state legislatures in most states can redraw their own maps to entrench their power. this is a root for minority party in some cases to thwart the will of the majority and in a lot of cases it's simply the majority's way of seizing even more power. there has been a trend in the number of states towards reform. but most reforms have been successful, most ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments have been successful in bluer states. there are new commissions this time in virginia and michigan and colorado. but not all commissions are created equal. there are 10 states that use them right now. and some are quite successful. california and colorado have had success with very citizen driven

processes that in california it's blind to incumbents and party. in colorado there is a stipulation that districts be drawn with competitiveness in mind. and because there is either a contingent of independents or un affiliated members of these commissions, there tends to be some form of compromise. other commissions have failed. in virginia, a state that passed the commission in 2020, there are eight democrats and eight republicans on the redistricting commission. there is no tiebreaking members. there is no unaffiliate the or independent members. it ended in partisan deadlock which means the state supreme court is going to be taking over redistricting. some reforms have worked better than others. and this is a case where you're going to see a lot of state supreme courts and state courts be more important than ever. since neither congress nor the

u.s. supreme court has taken action to put guardrails up against gerrymandering, state courts are increasingly the last backstop against parties' ability to draw the map any way they want and seize power. host: carol in new york, democratic caller. good morning to you. go ahead. caller: good morning. not only is my name carroll, the she is a male. i'm calling from new york state, new york 22. and i'd like you to ask you about redistricting in new york generally. and then more specifically with about 22 i realize we don't have a district yet, at least one with boundaries, and i guess i'd like you to make some kind of comment about claudia tenney and her ability to gain re-election.

guest: which town are you in? caller: nor witch. in the central part of the district. guest: so obviously very close race there in 2022 where you had republican claudia tenney unseat the democrat, anthony brindisi, by about 100 votes. it was really tight. new york is probably the single biggest redistricting weapon for either party in the country. and it's the state that democrats are counting on to offset their losses from republican gerrymanders in other big states. keep in mind that new york right now has 19 democrats and eight republicans. but two of those democrats are pretty important figures. hakim jeffries who is in the democratic leadership in the house. he's assumed to be democrat speaker in waiting when nancy pelosi calls it quits. and then sean patrick maloney,

the chair of the d-ccc democrats' campaign arm. they'll apply heavy pressure on their legislative counterparts in albany to pass an aggressive gerrymander. even though new york has a voter approved commission, that mission is deadlocking along party lines much as we have seen in virginia. and so it's unlikely to agree on a new map. and at that point the legislature would take over and democrats could conceivably pass a gerrymander that packs republicans into three of the 26 districts in the state. by drawing what we call vote cincts. one heavily in western new york. one in the north country which would be for elise stefanik. and one on long island, democrats could make all other 23 seats biden plus 10 or more. yet democrats suffered a small setback last tuesday when there was a constitutional amendment to reform the reform on the ballot that voters rejected.

that amendment would have made it easier for democrats to gerrymander by moving up the commission's deadline to act, which would give the legislature more time to draw its own map. and it would have lowered the thereby hold for the legislature to -- throash hold for the legislature to pass maps by 2/3 to just 50% plus one a bear majority. democrats do have super majorities in albany. this is the first time they held the majority during a redistricting psych until over a century in albany. yet they are going to have -- have to have near party unity in order to pass a gerrymandered map. that can be challenging given that some incumbents don't like it. don't like giving up favorable turf to help their team. they want to keep as many safe pre60's as possible. if democrats were to try that map that would create a newly safe democratic district in

binghamton in the area that the caller is from, they would probably have to give a lot of republican precincts to progressives like alexandria ocasio-cortez or jamal bowman or mondaire jones. are they going to be ok with that? or will they pressure their fellow progressives in albany to vote against such a gerrymander. there are a lot of moving parts here. host: joyce next in portland, oregon. independent caller. good morning. caller: good morning. hello, can you hear me? host: we can. go ahead. caller: yeah. i'm not going to vote ever again because my personal color, i know they have not passed the voting act right act yet. and i just about tired of america anyway. i was born in this place. and when i went to school, the only thing they taught us about was abraham lincoln, george washington carver and frederick

douglass. now they own this -- on this big kick about c.t.r. earn all that. i don't care about the redistricting. it's going to leave black people out anyway. goodbye. host: two points there. not going to vote because she doesn't see any action on voting rights. and you have heard the speaker of the house talk about getting that passed in the senate. then two, the redistricting will leave out black voters. guest: well, a couple points here. this is complicated. there are some new voting rights act considerations for this round of redistricting. first of all this is the first cycle since the supreme court struck down the formula that required the justice department to preclear states with histories of discrimination. and so a lot of southern states that used to have to get the justice department to sign off on new maps no longer have to

seek preclearance or approval from the federal government. what that means is that democrats don't really have a way to block maps in texas or the deep south from taking effect even if they view them as discriminatory. they have to take the long route. which means filing a federal lawsuit, a voting rights act claim that could take years for districts to be overturned. that is a pretty significant difference versus the past. however, there are an increasing number of cases where we are seeing republican drawn maps overturned by courts. in the past five years, we saw in virginia and north carolina federal courts did strike down republican-drawn maps as racial gerrymanders. the supreme court ruling still left intact that avenue. had it not been for democratic lawsuits that overturned republican maps in those states, plus florida and pennsylvania, then democrats probably wouldn't be holding the house majority by five seats.

these legal questions are going to be very, very big in the months ahead. as we approach these deadlines and it's possible a couple of plans could get struck down. the other factor is that in the south in particular we are noticing in southern metro areas, there is a growing openness on the part of voters to vote for candidates of color. and now a lot of african-american members of congress are winning districts that have less than 50% african-american populations. out of the 53 current members of the congressional black caucus, only 19 represent districts where there is an absolute black majority. what that's led to is a conversation about what is the fair threshold to allow communities of color to elect candidates of choice? and that varies from district to district. in a rural southern district it might take an absolute black majority to elect a black

member. but in a more metropolitan district, charlotte, north carolina, a 32-35% black district can comfortably elect a black candidate of choice. this is a very difficult matter for courts to resolve. what is the fair threshold to draw these districts? and you are going to find disagreement on both sides of the aisle. host: i want to ask about what happened in new hampshire. your colleague, jessica taylor, on political report website, sununu's decision not to run for new hampshire senate gives democrats a brief reprieve. guest: this is a welcome development for democrats, the most popular figure in new hampshire politics is not going to be running against democrat maggie hassan. but it's not in and of itself going to change the overall picture in the senate, which is that republicans still have a lot of opportunities. in this political environment, given what we saw in new jersey and virginia, republicans would be poised to reclaim the

majority. they have got a lot of more purple states to compete in rather than virginia and new jersey, which are quite blue. arizona, georgia, nevada. even new hampshire could still be on the table. host: bob in logan, utah, democratic caller. caller: good morning, david. i'd like to say that i listen to morning joe and liz cheney was on. she hit the nail on the head. she said that she's very proud to be a republican. but she's more proud to be american. i wore a uniform. and i never felt more patriotic. and when the towers come down, listen to this malarkey on both sides, we are split up and divided this country's got to

come back together. we had a horrible man in there. and we've got a man now trying to -- but we need younger people in there. you know it, the world knows it. we are looking like clowns. but anyway -- host: i'm going to jump in and have david respond to the unity message. it's something president biden ran on. and he won. does it work in the midterms for him 20 get out there and talk -- to get out there and talk about keeping democrats in power for unity? guest: it's a very difficult message to sell at a time when voters are foremost concerned about the rising cost of goods and inflation. look, voters are not looking at the infrastructure debate in congress and thinking about what's in, what's out of the bill affecting their everyday lives at the moment. that's part of the problem for democrats. voters are really feeling a

pocketbook pinch from supply chain issues we are seeing. they don't perceive democrats to be taking immediate action to improve that. they seed both bills as kind of a laundry list of long-time pet priorities rather than a way to address acute problems. we saw democrats in virginia run n -- on a very anti-trump message trying to tie glen young kin, the republican, to trump for most of the campaign. that was in a state trump lost by 10 points. it still didn't work. republicans are having a lot of success in down ballot races by running candidates who don't look or sound like trump even if they don't disavow trump. the caller mentioned liz cheney from wyoming. there are 10 republicans who voted for impeachment back in january. i would be surprised if more than three of them are back in congress in 2023. the reason, like liz cheney, and tom rice in south carolina, peter meijer in michigan could be quite vulnerable this their primaries. we have seen adam kinzinger in

illinois, anthony gonzalez in ohio retire. we could see fred upton in michigan join that list. just about the only members in that bucket who have a chance of winning re-election are those who come from states with open or top two primaries where they can depend on some democratic votes to carry them through both the primary and the general election. people like dan new house from washington or jamie herrera beutler from washington, or david valadao from california. then there is the question of the 13 republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill. some of them are retiring. so have little to lose. about half of them came from new jersey or new york. we could see some of them redistricted out of their seats in new york. there are likely to be fewer republican compromisers or trump critics when all is said and done after the midterms. host: and the hill newspaper echoing what you are saying, david. g.o.p. centrist face attacks from the right. some house republicans are

furious 13 of their g.o.p. colleagues voted to pass president biden's bipartisan infrastructure legislation. those members were denounced as, quote, traitors, and could face primary challengers next year. ryan in georgia, republican. hi, ryan. caller: hi, greta, hi, david. my question for you is the past two major leakses, being 2015 and 2020, you among other pollsters, particularly yourself, have been not accurate in your analysis. and i can't help but see that you tend to favor the democrats and you tend to give them more favorability in your analysis. why should what you're saying be taken seriously? when it seems to be that you're just a shell for the democrats and providing this information to support their narrative? guest: i think you're being quite selective in your analysis of what we have written. had you gone back and looked at

our house ratings in 2010, you would have found that our forecast in the house actually sold republicans a bit short. that we said that republicans were going to take the house between 50 and 60 seats. they won 63 in 2018. we said democrats were going to win between 30 and 40 seats. they ended -- they -- they ended up on the higher end. there was a polling error in 2020. no doubt. the polling that we saw across the house environment on both parties' part showed that democrats were doing quite well in down ballot races. it didn't pan out on election day. we actually did a deep dive into what went wrong with polling in 2020. and what we found was that there was a systemic underestimation of republican support that i think has a lot to do with the low response rates to polls

right now. thepeople that are willing to answer a survey, a traditional mode survey, are disproportionately those with higher levels of social and institutional trust. i think president trump's position atop the ballot has been a confounding factor for polls. polling was a bit more accurate in virginia this time around. look, and 2022, we are forecasting republicans will have quite a good year. our analysis is based on our best understanding of the numbers and the facts at the time. hold us accountable to what we say either way. host: democratic caller. caller: good morning. i am calling because i think --

about what happened in virginia. the virginia elections. there were almost 4 million voters who voted in the virginia election. the republican candidate only won by about 6000 votes. the lieutenant governor only won 55,000 votes. the attorney general republican candidate only won by 28,000 votes out of almost 4 million. for the legislature, doing a recount. 1% or less. you compare the virginia governor's race to what biden did, comparing it to the other two times the democrats won in virginia, the suburban counties. the only suburban counties that went republican that biden won were stafford county and

chesterfield county. none of the democrats who had won in the governor's race prior, none of them won those counties. host: david wasserman? guest: what we saw in virginia was an extraordinary rural turnout for glenn youngkin relative to 2017. he was able to get more trump voters from polls that mcauliffe was able to get biden voters. when the party out of the white house is feeling under siege, they tend to turn out. anger is a stronger motivator than love. mcauliffe, i think he could have moved beyond trump and made his message more about what voters were focused on, but at the same time the big trouble spot for democrats in a lot of down

ballot races for the house of delegates was in the i-95 corridor south of richmond. democrats lost four races by five points or less. that included two districts with black pluralities. it was not that black voters did not turn out at a high rate or defected to republicans. it was that rural white turnout was extraordinary. that is a warning sign for democrats in congressional races next year. the fact we saw so many suburban areas that mcauliffe was a notable -- unable to match biden. those voters were more simply anti-trump then pro-democrat. that is a problem democrats are grappling with. they can't convince voters these republicans are equivalent to trump. they have to have a way to keep

those voters in their camp. i think the only way is for biden's approval ratings to approve. host: brian in d.c., independent caller. you are on the air with david wasserman. caller: good morning to you and your guest. hi head two questions. could you tell me about the state of mississippi, which i believe has the largest african-american population? about 40%. white people about 50%. how many -- how does gerrymandering affect that state? how many african-americans hold political positions, either in the federal, the house and the senate? if you can speak to that issue. second, could you tell me what you feel was the supreme court's

reason behind dismantling the voting rights act? i will take my answer off the phone. thank you. guest: to the second point first, i don't think it is fair to say the supreme court dismantled the act is much as they altered it and weakened it. the provision i mentioned, the free clearance provision that was struck down, that was based on a coverage formula the supreme court said was outdated. the formula used to determine whether a certain state or locality had a history of discrimination, they threw that part out. the john lewis voting advancement act democrats are trying to push through congress that joe manchin has expressed support for, that would reestablish a process that covers every state in the country. it would not require a formula.

the supreme court has not ruled that out. the prospects for that the past look fairly dead. as far as mississippi, there are two republican senators. three out of four house members are republican. there is one african-american majority seat, the second district that takes in the delta and jackson. that is represented by bennie thompson. bennie thompson was the lone democrat in the house to vote against hr 1, the package of voting reforms democrats wanted to pass earlier this year that would have included gerrymandering reform. i spoke with congressman thompson about this for his no vote. he is very suspicious of redistricting commission's over the process. -- commission taking over the process. it would be possible for there

to be two black majority districts in the state, but republicans in charge of the legislature and governorship would not draw that map. it would require federal or court intervention to do so. there is a stronger case for additional black majority districts in states like louisiana, mississippi -- i'm sorry, alabama and potentially south carolina. host: mark from fort lauderdale, democratic caller. caller: hello and good morning to both of you. thanks for c-span. i sure hope he is wrong. i regard these upcoming votes as watershed event. she called a while back and said she was never going to vote again because of the things that were going on in the way they were trying to block her vote. i wanted to call up.

hopefully she is listening and tell her do not do that. right now is the time to turnout. mr. wasserman spoke about how the trumpers poured out in virginia. that is how they may have won. they poured out. what generated that was race something or other. they are trying to stop you from voting. don't let them stop you. please come out and vote. my wife just passed her citizenship last week and getting her ceremony in a week or two. the thing she is most excited about is her ability to vote. to that woman and others like her when they are trying to block you and using every trick that got between gerrymandering and voting laws, this is the time you must vote. hopefully prove the guest wrong. host: david wasserman?

guest: we are seeing extraordinary turnout in this era of elections. 159 million americans voted in 2020, more than 20 million higher than we saw in 2016. in virginia, about 3.3 million virginians vote. it shattered the all-time record for gubernatorial elections, which had been 2.6 million in 2017. what we have entered -- we have entered an era of high turnout. it is not clear that helps one party or the other. we had a huge surge in virginia and the republican glenn youngkin was able to win. this is a question of how high can the parties turnout there voters? how much can they engage their base? democrats are going to need to win back a number of independents to succeed in 2022 or 2024.

host: ken in south carolina, the line for republicans. caller: thank you. give me a little time. i have been a longtime viewer and caller. i started off as a democrat. then i went to independent. i'm not quite fully republican but i'm leaning that way. on the gerrymandering, yes. it is a problem at the local level. on the federal level it is not going to make any difference. all democrats go to washington and they think the same. coming from a black man perspective, the democrats left the black people, black americans for the new immigrant vote. on the national level everything being passed will hurt their party. inflation is up. immigration at the border is a disaster. the proposal to give illegal immigrants money. blacks are hearing that and seeing that.

critical race theory says -- the y generation of kids don't have nothing to do with slavery. we have to teach kids about history. it is like race baiting. are the democrats going to do something for black america? the black politicians have changed on us. host: david wasserman? guest: there has been discussion about the role that the education issue played in the virginia outcome. glenn youngkin and republicans were hammering on critical race theory and talking about terry mcauliffe gaff in a debate where he essentially said parents should not have control over what is taught in schools. mcauliffe later walked to that back. i don't think youngkin's win is

an endorsement of republicans' position that critical race theory is encroaching in schools and teaching kids wrong lessons so much as it became a catchall for parents' frustration with what occurred with schools in the last 20 months. especially school closures. that was a big factor in why you saw such large republican turnout not only in rural areas but in rapidly growing suburbs. all of which saw a pretty big swings towards youngkin. host: we will talk about critical race theory and education coming up here in a few minutes. first, patty in louisville, kentucky. caller: thanks for taking my call. host: you have to turned on

your television. caller: i just did. sorry. thanks for taking my call. i wanted to speak about the redistricting. i am 68 years old. i have voted ever since i was 18. i vote and all the local, the state and the presidential every single year since i was 18. i have noticed that where i live now and most of my life my voting has been real easy. i always voted in-person until last year. it has always been easy to do. last year i voted early. then i went into neighborhoods in my city where voting was harder. i drove people to the polls. i had waited in my car for

people to vote up to 10 hours. for me looking at this, i think this is wrong. whether it is the ways they are trying to suppress vote or discourage voting, i'm not sure. but as an american who has voted every year, i don't feel this is right. the redistricting i have never understood why that is the way it is either because i have watched i think it is three times republicans have lost the popular vote but the system elected them. that is something that, like i said, as an american i don't feel that is fair. i feel that is not letting the people choose their leaders. i feel it is the system choosing

their leaders. host: david wasserman? guest: a couple of different things. first of all, yes, the caller is correct. there have been two occasions in the past seven elections where we've had a split between the electoral college and the popular vote. that does not have to do with how district lines are drawn, although it is a structural benefit to republicans in both the electoral college and the house. in addition, the senate, which gives disproportionate power to small states. in the house redistricting is part of the equation. there has been one occasion in 2012 where republicans did -- democrats did win a slight plurality of the house vote and yet republicans won the house majority. similar situation in 2016.

you have this built-in advantage from redistricting for republicans that is likely to expand. it's also important to note that part of republicans' advantage is based on the distribution of where voters live geographically. the fact that democrats tend to be clustered in urban areas like louisville and republicans tend to be more spread out across rural areas and small towns. in kentucky, there is the possibility a republican general assembly will overrule or override the democratic governor to pass a map that converts john yarmuth's open seat into a more competitive or more republican district. he is the last democrat holding federal office in kentucky. he is announcing he is retiring in 2022. host: david wasserman, u.s. house senior editor for the cook political report. you can follow his analysis if

you go to cookpolitical.com, and on twitter. thank you for the conversation. guest: thanks so much, greta. host: when we come back we will turn to critical race theory. we will talk with education week assistant editor andrew ujifusa, and where it originated. we will be right back. ♪ >> download c-span's mobile app and stay up-to-date with live video coverage of the big political events. from the house and senate floor, key congressional hearings, white house events and supreme court oral arguments. even our live interactive morning program washington journal where we hear your voices everyday. c-span now has you covered. download the app for free today. ♪ >> american history tv,

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>> washington journal continues. host: joining us this morning is andrew ujifusa, the assistant editor at education week to talk about critical race theory. let me read the definition of critical race theory. a conceptual framework that considers the impact of historical laws and social structures on the present day perpetuation of racial inequality. where did this originate from? guest: thanks for having me. this is a theory that comes out of higher education. it's been around for several decades. it is the brainchild of scholars like derek bell and kimberly

crenshaw. it posits the idea that racism goes beyond just individual prejudices and individual beliefs and is embedded in american society and law and policy. one example people bring up when they talk about this issue is racist housing policies and racist lending policies from many decades ago. policies that are no longer enforced today in terms of being exclusively racist but have an impact on segregated neighborhoods, who can afford to buy a home and things like that. host: we are getting our viewers' thoughts on it, questions and comments as well. this is how we are dividing the lines. parents, (202) 748-8000. educators, (202) 748-8001. independent -- all others, (202)

748-8002. text us at (202) 748-8003. include your first name, city and state. critical theory on the education level. take a look at the states. they have all banned teaching of the critical race theory. no state except idaho actually mentions the words critical race theory. legislation bands discussion, training and/or orientation that the u.s. is "inherently racist." nearly 20 states avenues duties -- have introduced similar legislation. how did it go from higher education to this discussion we are having at school boards and with parents and at the lower levels of education? guest: i think the basic answer is some of this comes out of concerns about the black lives

matter movement and the reactions to george floyd's murder last year. lawmakers became increasingly concerned about teachers showing a certain political bias in the classroom. i think some of this anxiety or backlash stems from the idea that critical race theory has become a catchall term for different things. not just in classrooms but at the school board and school administrative level where school officials are prioritizing student identities more than student learning. the idea they are pitting students against each other and making some students feel ashamed about past actions they are not responsible for and other students should feel oppressed. they feel as though legislation or laws and regulations to combat that -- are needed to

combat that. there is a lot of opposition to that critique. there are a fair number of people in the educational space who feel the backlash is a trojan horse. what this is really about is trying to push back against accurate and complex trails of history. it's about pushing back against being more inclusive in terms of student identities and taking their backgrounds into account when teaching certain lessons about history and social studies. they think this is just in large part a white backlash the cultural developments, a long line of things like fights over sex education and teaching evolution that put schools at the center of america's cultural wars. host: education week that a survey of teachers. more than nine out of 10 teachers say they have never taught about critical race

theory. is this getting taught? guest: well, as you mentioned, if you go by that survey the answer is no. this is not something that the vast majority of teachers engage with or talk to students about on a daily basis. i think that comes back to the idea that a fair number of people have been talking about this. this is not an actual, genuine development in classrooms. crt is being used to attack the books students read and what they are taught about america's history of race and racism. i think that, especially recently, the argument has been made it is not so much about crt being taught but whether crt and related ideas are influencing curriculum and professional development in schools that are counterproductive -- in ways

that are counterproductive. a big fight is focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. it is coming at the expense of actually teaching students what they should be learning in their academic progress. on a political level this is about whether critical race theory and related ideas are undermining fundamental american values or teaching students something other than what they should be learning about in american history and principles. that is a very bitter fight. something that is difficult to resolve. host: doris in clarksville, tennessee. caller: good morning. host: you have to turned on your television. caller: i thought i had it muted. i do understand what he is saying.

we have come into a political point where the truth is no longer believed in. we have never taught critical race theory in schools. for it to become an issue, when the backlash is people are saying they teach kids to feel bad while learning history. well, i think the indians feel bad when they are hearing history taught. i think black kids have felt bad when history was being taught. i think that this is just another way to have americans not talk to each other anymore and for everybody to take aside. this -- take a side . this has empowered one side and denigrated one side again and it's a circle that goes on and on. every time black people expressed with the power, there is always a backlash. if you go back through history, it has happened numerous times.

every time the majority starts to stand up, vote, understand their rights, the next thing is there is a complete and utter backlash from the other side to suppress it, instill fear in it, to maintain the status quo. host: andrew? guest: i alluded to some of those issues earlier. as i mentioned, some people bring up the idea that they are certain kids are made to feel shamed because of what they are being taught about american history and racism. some people respond with, for decades, students of color have been made uncomfortable about the types of history they are taught. it does not include important perspectives on things like slavery and the legacy of slavery. you mentioned surveys we have

done about this. we surveyed teachers about whether they believe systemic racism exists. roughly 60% of the survey -- of those surveyed believe racism exists. it is not just about individual prejudices. this is an issue teachers are finding difficult to to navigate -- to navigate in classrooms, especially in states where regulations come out of the vote. did made the situation more politicized for teachers in ways they are not used to. some people would say this is not new. this is an ongoing culture war that puts american schools at the center of things. there are teachers in this debate that are new or different, particularly with respect to how it is being used politically. host: what groups are pushing

back against critical race theory? what groups are pushing -- are on the other site of the debate? guest:caller: -- guest: that is a good question. and this goes back to the pushback on critical race theory and if it is organic or genuine. i would groups like the tea party, and other folks have sort of raise concerns about how critical race theory's adjacent ideas are influencing schools. they have highlighted ideas that they think our projection and concepts privilege. on the other side, you have the naacp saying this is just a moral panic.

it is not real. they say that people who are sort of the most fervent in terms of their backlash is not much different to the people who opposed the integration of schools many decades ago in the south. i think that the groups that are involved in this stepping up their efforts on both side, especially since the issue really came forward and the virginia's governor's race. and political campaigns with the midterms coming up. i think those groups and others will get more involved in discussions. host: leo in georgia. leo, do you teach? caller: yes, ma'am. i am a history teacher.

i took today off. host: what are your thoughts on this? caller: first, thank you. i love c-span. i use your material in my classroom all the time. i wanted to say a comment on critical race theory. the gentleman is correct. it is not a specific content. critical race theory is not specific content, per se, but it is a view of which to -- blends of which to view society. if you are a native american, your perception of the united states government is going to be different from eight white anglo-saxon male -- a white anglo-saxon male. if you are in a u.s. history class, are you not going to talk about the indian movement? are you knocking a talk about how the chinese were exploited out west -- are you not going to talk about how the chinese were exploited out west? etc. the reason there is such a disagreement on this topic is because there are two america's.

you know, lyndon johnson in the 1960's, he commissioned a study, where they found that race was the flashpoint for a lot of the issues that we were having in the united states. bill clinton in the 1990's revisited the commission and found out we were just as segregated. and two years ago, the fbi just came out with a study that said, you know, the greatest threat to the united states is not drugs. it is not muslim extremism, but it is a white supremacy. when you have white supremacy for so long being a push factor, critical race theory is a way to analyze that. thank you. host: go ahead, andrew. guest: sure. maybe an example of what the

caller was talking about would be helpful here. maybe an example that is related. oklahoma, as i think you mentioned, greta, has passed sort of one of these laws restricting sexism and racism on how they classify students and talk about students, and one of the things that some teachers brought up is, well, you know, the state requires us to teach, among other things, about the tulsa race massacre, which occurred 100 years ago. brutal, horrific instances of racial violence. the teachers are wondering, how do we talk about that without talking about historical and structural racism that fit into that terrible event -- that fed into that terrible event? the governor of oklahoma, kevin stitt, said it is possible to teach about things like the

tulsa race massacre without making white students, for example, feel shame or guilt about that event, which they were not present for and were not involved in. currently, in oklahoma, there is a lawsuit that has been filed, seeking to overturn this new law in the state on the grounds that it infringes on the first amendment rights of teachers, as well as students, to talk about these issues in a sort of free and constructive way. i think that gets into a different set of legal issues about students and teachers, especially with free speech rights, but, you know, that is one case to watch closely in this debate. i suspect it will not be the last, as well. host: catherine in minnesota. good morning. caller: good morning. when we talk about race theory, i think my own fear -- when i

think about historically the way i was taught in a classroom in minnesota, they left out so much information. they left out anything that did not reflect positively on white people. so, we were not teaching much about race at all. i, fortunately, went to a catholic college in minnesota, saint catherine's, and got the opportunity to take some incredible coursework and read some things that are difficult to read, and some of these things, but, you know what? what we are teaching in our classrooms are so limited, and we are not exposing people to the pain. there is such a limitation. it is hard not to realize how we have left out so many groups of people. right now, i worked at a school

, and we had 25% black, asian, white, and mixed-race kids. we had a school that was so diverse, and these kids are just wanting to learn. and they did not release each other like the other. i feel heartbroken that as a white woman i have not had -- i did not grew up with privilege. we grew up very poor. now we are fine. i am grateful for that. i also think there was so much missed from our experience of what we were being taught. i am afraid if we start teaching that right now they were sort of a hatred about white people, and we have all grown up with this privilege. i did not have this privilege. i feel lost when people talk about this because i remember us wondering if we would eat at night and wondering if my parents are going to be able to pay for our home, and i remember worrying about these things as a small child.

so, i did not grow up with this benefit. host: ok, catherine. we will take that point. guest: yeah, i think there is a lot to unpack there. a couple of things. yeah, i think people who are skeptical of crt and the influence at school say that it is not appropriate for schools to be teaching white students that they have a certain privilege or that more exclusively there is an a pressure class, and classmates who are students of color are oppressed or inherently disadvantaged because of their race. i think that is one of the points skeptics of crt are making. in large part it is conservatives making that argument, but i think there are also some liberals. people who would identify as democrats, who are uncomfortable with the idea that these sorts of ideas in schools are sort of

displacing the job schools should be doing, reading, writing, arithmetic. on the other side of the ledger, however, there are people who havein -- who have focused a lot in schools on equity and how can we provide experiences and the history of black people in the united states, how can we think about how to get more resources, more highly qualified teachers to those students? how can we provide them more access to advanced coursework? so, that idea of equity is relatively powerful in education, and it does deal with issues of advantage and disadvantage to students with different backgrounds, and taking students' identities into account and their socioeconomic circumstances. those things may be our

necessarily -- maybe are not necessarily intentional, but i think they are to a certain extent in this debate. host: tom, lancaster, california. good morning. caller: here is one thing that is not being taught in schools. taxation on sovereign nations, all the native and treaty lands. the government and the states are taxing people and not getting back the taxes that they should not even be collecting on native american lands. the native americans -- i bade you to show the treaty agreed -- i beg you to show the treaty agreements on c-span. you can do it tomorrow, next week. you can show any representation for the native people all the money that has been stolen

through the years, through the indian removal act's. host: tom, we are talking about education in critical race theory. we will go to patrick in louisville, kentucky, and educator. what do you teach? caller: i am an elementary school teacher, grades one to eight. host: go ahead. caller: what you are leaving out of this debate is the definition of what public education is. the definition of public education is a person, the more educated you are, the more you become a human being. it is a process. in american public education, it started out with charles darwin and herbert spencer. herbert spencer was the president of harvard university. at that time, it was people

thought that they did not leave that human beings were, you know, created in the image of god. spencer came about with the idea that education is a process, what they call, for example, the human body. the human body was just an animal state, and today in critical racial theory, we had to come up with what they call national education association to debate those theories of spencer and charles darwin.

and, if you look at the human person, and as a human person is created in the image of god, then we have to treat that person as an image of a created supreme being. if we look at education as an animal, it is a whole new ballgame. if you look at a black person, they do not look like they are created in the image of god. host: i -- apologies for that. kenneth in arkansas, you are a parent, good morning, go ahead. caller: good morning. you need to have that guy put on your show so he can explain what he was saying to the public. but what i want to say concerning critical race theory, you had an election in virginia

for terry mcauliffe and this other guy that was speaking on critical race theory. well, he used a critical race theory to go ahead and try to win the vote, but let me tell you what happened. two black women were running for their positions for governorship. when he primary those black women, the black women did not come out and vote. that is why he lost. a lot of people do not know. they say he won on critical race theory. he did not. he won because he primary two black candidates that were running for the position. i have been talking with a pastor williams. i just emailed him and told him he needs to watch this show that is being presented. you can understand, if you look at your path, if you want to deny what happens, you will make those same mistakes in the future.

if you do not know where you came from, you will not know where you are going. you all have a good day. host: matt in plano, texas. caller: good morning, greta. thank you for having me on. this whole issue, which i do not really understand at all, is causing confusion here in texas. they just had a principal here who was dismissed. he was a black, great principal at a predominantly white suburb, who is being bought out of his contract because parents that he was voting prickle race theory. i wonder if it is just because he was --was promoting critical race theory. i wonder if it was just because he was a black principal. and then an administrator says we have to start teaching opposing views of the holocaust because of the way the texas law is written because it mentions in the law that we have to

promote opposing viewpoints on race issues. so now everything from the holocaust is now being looked at. not just african-american issues. i want to ask your guest if you are seeing the same issue happening in other states because this law in texas seems to have been vaguely written, and it is starting to confuse teachers and administrators. i want to know if you are seeing this happening other states. host: andrew, go ahead. guest: sure. i think the caller raises a good point about sort of how this debate, which in some respects started out merrily on critical race theory is spreading to sort of -- out merrily on critical race theory is spreading to sort of agreements and disagreements on what teachers should teach and should not teach. i know the example of the holocaust and how it is taught and attested -- talk in a texas district are shocking to a lot of people, understandably so.

of course, there is a tennessee teacher who was dismissed because he talked about white privilege as a fact of life and not just a theory. we have written about how he tried to fight his dismissal. there is at least one effort to remove a book from school in tennessee. it talks about ruby bridges, the girl who helped integrate new orleans public schools many decades ago. i think people who are sort of skeptical about the backlash to critical race theory and the concepts i alluded to earlier, but they believe the backlash of crt is really about broader efforts to limit what students are exposed to when it comes to different social issues about race and sexuality, sex, things

like that. on the other side, as i am sure that caller is aware, republican governors and folks on the other side of this debate say that there should be a right to limit , not just limit what students are exposed to, but the tools should be transparent, and they should be posting curriculum materials in a way that is accessible to the general public. some of the so-called critical race theory bans new laws that deal with the restricting of that instruction that do involve this curriculum transparency. so, yeah, this issue is sort of moving beyond standing critical race theory and touching on different social issues that students are taught about. host: denise in raleigh, north carolina. a parent. caller: yes, thank you very much.

i have a statement and a question for the gentleman. now, i am black. i have raised black sons and a daughter. i taught them, yes, black people have been seeing some things in america, but, now, you are intelligent. i want you to be educated. i worked two and three jobs to put my children through private schools. i had to remove them from the public school. they were not working to their potential. then, when they went off to ivy league schools like princeton, harvard, it brought tears to my eyes because the value system that i had raised them up under that you can be somebody, that you are smart, to be kind, to

look at people as martin luther king said, for the contents of their character, well, when they went through the ivy league schools, princeton, harvard, i began to see a difference from this critical race theory. they had undermined my value system. and it brought tears to my eyes. and i had to sit down and let them know and point out that in this country, one a do to get this education -- i wanted you to get this education, but i did not want my value system where you were kind young man, not thinking you cannot make it because america is not like black people. now, my question for this gentleman, what can we do as

parents to instill this value system into our young people and be guaranteed that our educational system will not undermine what parents are working hard to raise, productive children? host: andrew ujifusa is not in the advice business, he is a reporter. but have you heard similar arguments from teachers or parents? guest: yeah, so, as you mentioned, i am not in the position to give parents advice about what values they should instill in their children, but, yeah, this is something i mentioned earlier, which is the idea of to the extent schools are talking about a sort of american history and society and america's record on important

issues. there are some people who are saying, look, school should not be teaching certain ideas about meritocracy and individual freedom. liberty are fundamentally white ideas, and those ideals were principles supports all people, regardless of their race. again, to move to the other side, i think many people in this debate would respond that schools are trying to undermine educators who are grappling with questions of race. what they are often trying to do is provide a complex perspective that has often been denied to students, and, especially, students of color, who have often felt disempowered and not really part of the american experience in years and decades past. a lot of this centers, and i

think the caller alluded to this well, a lot of this comes down to how children feel and how children are being made to feel or supposedly made to feel about history, and how that influences their present-day actions and their views of the world, which is obviously very important for the future of the country. i think those issues are really at the frontier. they are emotional issues. they are difficult to reconcile through a political debate or one election. one of the facts of these laws that states are adopting to prohibit sort of action civics from being required with students, meaning students should not be able to engage in social advocacy in order to get course credit. that gets at the idea that school should not be sort of

pushing students in certain directions that lawmakers, especially conservative ones, and takes a political direction and leads students to political conclusions and views. so, that idea of civics and how students participate in civic life at a young age, or perhaps they are old enough to vote, you know, is also part of this debate. host: adam in new york. an educator. caller: yes. good morning. i would like the gentleman to address what i see as potentially [indiscernible] the first being that crt is being taught in most primary and secondary public schools. i see crt as being an intellectual paradigm that is being taught potentially at higher undergraduate levels and in law schools. at the primary and secondary school level, i think what is

being referred to as crt is merely the instruction of students in structural racism. and this is not a novel idea. this is something that has been taught to students for 40 years or 50 years about racism that there is a short effective in structural racism. the second thing i would like him to respond to is the notion that the crt theory comes out of marxism and it is fundamentally a marxist theory. to my understanding, crt theory, i am not referring to what is top in primary and secondary schools -- talked in primary and secondary schools, i am talking about the academy, comes out of structuralism. it is in many ways discordant with marxism. i would like to ask the gentleman why he thinks that there has been a drawing of a

relationship between crt and marxism. guest: i will take the first question first, probably the easier want to address. i will reiterate some straightforward data we have from education, surveys of educators, showing that more than nine in 10 teachers we surveyed recently saying they do not teach students about critical race theory. and that is pretty straightforward, but, as i mentioned earlier, it sort of does not and has not resolved the debate about how not crt per se, but ideas of white privilege, equity, diversity, inclusion, all these things people tied together, rightly or wrongly, are influencing how teachers talk about the world to their students and what they teach them. i mentioned earlier that roughly

60% of teachers we surveyed in a different poll say they believe structural racism exists, to the gentleman's point about structural racism, and nearly two thirds of teachers we surveyed said that they talk about racism, both as a matter of history, also as a matter of present day events when we talk about what is going on in the world today, which i think is very important. as for the second point, perhaps you could go down a rabbit hole with that. i would just say that i think critical race theory should be looked at as its own sort of academic concept, as its own discipline. it is complicated, and it brings together different elements of society. i would hesitate to definitively say it is connected or not connected to post structuralism or marxism.

it might be a bit beyond the scope of this debate, but it is something that has been around a long time and is taught directly and mostly at the undergraduate level, but i think really in law school is where it has the most prominence. host: andrew ujifusa is assistant editor at education weekly. you can follow his reporting if you go to edweek.org. thank you. guest: thank you, greta. host: we will take a short break. when we come back, we will be an open forum until the top of the hour. start dialing in with any public policy issue. we will be right back. ♪ >> on this episode of book notes plus -- >> edward mozer is a historian, tour guide, and author. his latest book is called "the

lost history of the capitol," an account of tragic and violent episodes around the u.s. capitol building from the founding of the city in 1792 contemporary times -- 1792 up to contemporary times. he has been a writer for george herbert walker bush and "the tonight show with jay leno." >> book notes plus is available wherever you get your podcasts. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday, you will find events and people who explore our nation's past on american history tv. on sunday, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors, television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore weekends on c-span2. >> "washington journal"

continues. host: and we are back in open forum this morning for the rest of today's "washington journal." we are listening to any public policy issue and topic you have on your mind. i want to also let you know what is happening today. the house agriculture subcommittee is having a hearing on hunger issues among military members. we will have coverage of that i told :00 p.m. eastern time on c-span -- at 12:00 p.m. eastern time on c-span, or you can watch at c-span.org or with the free c-span now video app, available on any mobile device. later on c-span this evening at 8:00 p.m. eastern, we will have the nasa space x launch -- space launch. that is 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, and you can listen with the free c-span radio app or watch on that free c-span now mobile app, mobile video app.

open forum. robert in maryland, independent, what is on your mind? caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: yeah, look, here is the reality that a lot of americans probably are not going to want to hear, but it is a fact. n95 years -- in 95 years, starting in 1898, china ended in vietnam, every country in the far east with a valid revolution got rid of [indiscernible] every country in the middle east, including egypt to gandhi, got rid of white supremacy. 54 countries [indiscernible] in 1993 ended apartheid in south africa got rid of white supremacy control. america has a history of racism,

second only to nazi germany. that is a fact. as long as you dispute and do not want to hear it, like they did not in germany, the nuremberg trials force germany to take a listen to the horror they caused races of people. that is something we are going have to do. in our country, the horrible racism we have had in this country has devastated this country. thank you. host: roosevelt in brooklyn, democratic caller. we will go to you next. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i would also like to discuss that critical race theory. host: ok. caller: first of all, that is critical. racism is not a theory. racism that existed in this country's history. -- in this country is history. we have a deep wound running

through this country, and in order to heal that wound, you have to uncover the festering, the festering that is going on underneath. history exposes all of the hypocrisy, and the only way we can heal as a country is to tell the true history of the country. all this critical race theory, blah,blah,blah, that is garbage. and until we tell the true history of america, we will always have that wound. that is all i have got to say, thank you. host: all right, roosevelt. maybe inflation is on your mind. take a look at this headline from "the wall street journal." "u.s. inflation reached 30 year high in october." consumer price index rose at 6.2% annual rate while core index was up 4.6%.

on the front page of "the new york times," one of the causes some state of this inflation is the supply chain and the gridlock we are seeing. lack of truckers is choking u.s. supply chain. that is the headline in their paper. and then, also, this morning in "the washington post," is a piece about the white house announcing action plan to ease the u.s. supply chain backlogs and says most of the new activity involved 17 billion imports funding, including the bipartisan info structure legislation that congress approved last week. the administration plans within the next 45 days to award 200 $43 millionin newport -- million in new port infrastructure grants. that in "the washington post echo "the washington times" front page this morning -- that end before the washington post." "the washington times" front

page this morning. perhaps inflation on your mind. joe in quincy, massachusetts, a republican. caller: hi. yeah, -- good morning, greta. host: good morning. caller: as far as inflation, and i think most of the problems going on today, i think we can -- i am a pretty simple minded person, but i am thinking most of the problems go back to covid. we can just about check every thing back to that. it upset the supply chain and businesses throughout the entire planet. i just wanted to touch on your previous caller on critical race theory. i am an educator, retired educator. i taught for 30 years. the one thing i noticed, one think i agree with as parents, is part of the problem with that is racism has also started in the home, and most of the kids i have come across in my 30 years

who had racist ideas, unfortunately, were taught those ideas. at least at the responsibility of the education system to unteachable things that are not true, such as racism. as far as crt being taught in schools, it is not a theory i ever taught. i mean, if you call teaching "to kill a mockingbird" critical race theory, i guess i would have some issue with that. if there is a bit of shame people feel, i am white myself and feel a little shame when i read a book like that, i don't see any problem with that. i don't think it is a problem that we integrate black history not just one month a year but 12 months a year that we learn about it. i think critical race theory, unfortunately, is a deflection from the black lives matter movement, and we want to make sure how important that was. the last thing i want to say, for all the white people out there who are confused or have

questions about racism, i would challenge them to speak to two or three black people that they know and find out the real deal on how black people feel in this country. thank you. host: gina in new york, independent. caller: it is so upsetting to hear everyone all over the world bashing the united states, saying that we are the most racist country. the united states is one of the most best countries in the world that accepts all ethnicity and nationality groups. it is just so sad to see that the school systems are so embedded in this political war, and while covid was going on, they were putting critical race theory in the classrooms. we are talking on the way down to kindergarten. i coached elite level gymnastics for years and years heard in the 1980's, we did not have this

problem. this problem started coming about in 2010 to 2020. it has just like exploded. it is sad because the kids of today, they do not how to write. the kids of today, the mathematics has gone down the drain. the teachers are so busy having the kids to run out to school to do protesting when they should be in school. i mean, i am so passionate and so sad to see how everyone is bashing the united states. the school system used to be so fantastic in the 1970's and 1980's, and the 1990's. and the schools have gone down the drain. host: heard your point, gina. i want to share with you that president biden plans to tout the infrastructure bill when he travels today to the port of baltimore, where he will be talking likely about what his administration is going to do to

address the bottleneck in the supply chain today in baltimore. let's go to claudia, tallahassee, florida, democratic caller. good morning. good morning caller: -- caller: good morning. the critical race theory item is very serious in this country. even though it is not being taught in the schools, even though teachers and principals and school boards proclaim that they are not teaching critical race theory, there is a segment of america, a white segment of america, who get their, who get riled up at even the mere mention of the word race because they have, i believe, a sense of superiority, and they do not want that sense of superiority,

i believe, threatened by other people believing that everyone is equal. the last caller said that schools were better in the 1980's and 1990's, and i am assuming before that, because race was never an issue. but, today, people think there are critically thinking people who are not necessarily critically thinking about race thinking about in general for themselves. host: all right, claudia. on the january 6 investigation by the select committee in congress, "politico" with the headline "the january 6 panel man's testimony from miller and kayleigh mcenany." they are demanding testimony from them. and then there is this headline in cnn, "federal judge denies trump's attempt to withhold

records from the january 6 committee, saying executive which does not apply here." chuck in tennessee, republican. what is on your mind? caller: hi. i just wanted to talk about kyle rittenhouse's trial. i think it is almost hilarious about how the prosecution is making so many fumbles and follies because, first, you have each of their witnesses, for example, a witness basically admitting that, yet, he had pointed his weapon. and we also have one video -- on video. he was basically hitting rittenhouse. and then you also have joseph rosenbaum. he is chasing after him and tried to lunch for his weapon. -- lunge for his weapon. host: apologies.

nancy making news this morning. she sent out a tweet yesterday responding to a video that republican product -- republican congressman paul gosar responded with an animated video of him killing alexander cortez -- alexandria ocasio-cortez. she responded that violence must not be tolerated. she called on the gop leader in condemning the video and called on the ethics committee and law enforcement to investigate. and then there is also this headline about the speaker, "the washington post," led by speaker pelosi -- democrats try to convince the world that the u.s. is back on climate change. this speaker oversees talking to other leaders about the issue. and then "the washington times." this headline about the speaker being slammed for officiating a lavish wedding of --excuse me,

the ipad went out. and she was being slammed for officiating that wedding, as well as gavin newsom attending that wedding in san francisco. deb in minnesota, democratic caller. what is on your mind? caller: there is so much on my mind these days. anyway, i have to say, i do not really care for the educational system and what they are teaching our kids. blackblack i have grandchildren -- i have black and native american grandchildren, and i am white, and i will say that this is dividing our country so bad. i did vote for obama twice, and i really believe he brought our country down to hell. i am so sorry, but i will never vote democrat again. not after what i have seen and what i hear every day. none of us can have a peaceful life.

none of us know if we are going to freeze to death in minnesota because they are cutting off the pipelines everywhere. the schools are closing again in colorado because of lack of teachers. there is frickin'no workers in our town, we cannot even employ a store. nobody wants to work because we are giving money away. please, god help us. these democrats are marxist, they are teaching marxism in the colleges. they are teaching it to our children, and i hate this country for what it is doing. host: ok, cameron in washington state, republican. caller: yeah, good morning. i have a quick comment to make about crt, as it is termed. but i wanted to say bravo to that last caller. i don't think there has been a caller in a week that has been more right on the perspective she came from. it is sad to see that she is being emotional about it because

it is such a democratic marxist leftist beatdown that is pathetic. what i want to say about race that i hope people will take to heart is look at the mathematics. if you look at the founding of the nation at that time, it was the demographics of the nation was 97% caucasians. from europe the remaining -- caucasians from europe. the remaining 3% were naturalized native americans, african-american slaves, and miscellaneous, nonwhite people from around the world. 97 to three. now we are in a nation where white people are 53% or 55% to the majority. the question everyone should ask themselves, if white people are so inherently racist, why was it not written in the constitution, number one, that immigration only from white nations, why was it not changed with amendments or laws every year since the founding of the nation? white people were the majority, so they could have obviously passed something racist and denied any immigration from any

nonwhite nation, but they did not. so there are people who need to understand the demographics of yesterday and today and put race in the context. so, last point is i am for teaching race issues in school, but not in the way they are doing it, demonizing white people and using these, as the last caller said, as these marxist principles that are dividing the nation. talk about black history. host: cameron, have you looked at critical race theory curriculum and exactly what they say? caller: well, i do not know. it would have to depend on the source, right? host: have you looked it up yourself and what is being taught at colleges? caller: well, i know that it is from my perspective, like i said, it depends on where you look it up. if you look up democratic sources, you are going to get the same perspective that white

people are bad. host: if you go to university and look at their website on a curriculum for a certain course, you can probably see yourself how they teach it. what are they reading and talking about? caller: well, i have not done that per se, but i following of politics working on news or youtube channels that people have reported on it. i have said i have set my computer and -- i cannot say i have sat at my computer and googled it. but you are going to get it skewed perspective. no, i have not looked up exactly what they are saying, but that is going to be diverse, is it not? depending on who is saying it, university, teacher, instructor, professor, how they are acting on it. host: well, you said it was all marxist, though, so i was wondering if you looked it up. caller: well, the democratic way of putting everyone in their yellow boxes of race, gender, sexual affiliation, all of it,

is divisive. host: ok, i will move on to diane, waiting in st. louis, missouri, independent. . go ahead -- go ahead. caller: yes ma'am. i totally agree with the man from washington, your last call. as far as the reference and everything, read karl marx and a couple others that were communists, socialists, and you will see they push crt. host: ok. caller: you know? because when i grew up, i grew up in st. louis. i am 64. we were never taught about racism, white supremacy. we all got along. all of a sudden, they bring out this white supremacy, and it is tearing us apart. host: all right, diane.

james in fort worth, texas, democratic caller. what is on your mind this morning? caller: thanks for taking my call. let's go back to history. this country was founded by the genocide of native and africans to work stolen land. -- native americans and africans to work stolen land. they are trying to tell america that racism does not exist, whereas, if you look at the truth of the things and what is going on in america today, it is the revisitation of the neo-nazi america that agreed with hitler's in the 1920's and 1930's. i am living in texas, but i am not a native texan. i am surrounded by people who are telling me on a daily basis that black people are intellectually, socially, and environmentally inferior to white people, and those are the same people that are trying to tell me that racism does not exist. i think it is worse. when i was a grown man, i am 76

years old, when i was a grown man, the man sitting beside me at the next desk, doing exactly the same job i was doing, was paid less and could not vote. that is being revisited by the neo-fascism, which i think has taken over a major part of the republican party, and i am sad to my country. i am a vietnam veteran. i fought for freedom, and freedom is being attacked every day by these lies. host: james, i will leave it there. earlier this morning, we talked about vaccinating children and the issue of whether or not you can mandated that children get the covid-19 vaccine in order to participate in school came up. it is also a question that was asked at a recent hearing in the senate to dr. rochelle walensky, the cdc director. [video clip] >> i am delighted that this week we were able to strongly recommend that 28 million

children receive a covid-19 vaccine to prevent infection, severe disease, log covid, -- long covid, and death in the children we have seen between five and 11. those recommendations are strong. they are after endorsement of the fda's emergency use authorization. vaccine requirements for schools are left to local jurisdiction. we will leave those to the local jurisdiction to make those decisions. >> so, kansas parents who may have concerns about whether or not their children will be able to attend school, that will not be a decision made without a vaccine, that is not a decision that will be made by the cdc or the biden administration, but remain a local decision to be made by a local board of education? >> i will always encourage that parent to get their child vaccinated and speak to them about the information and education they need in order to get their children vaccinated. right now at this moment those

decisions are made at the jurisdictional level, as they are for vaccination of other vaccine preventable diseases among children. >> i felt better before you said right now. that caused me to, again, ask is there any intention to change that long-standing practice? >> not to my knowledge. [end video clip] host: the issue of whether or not you can mandate kids get the covid-19 vaccine before they participate in school and activities is a topic written about today in "the wall street journal" op-ed pages by janine young, with the new civil liberties alliance. this is the argument being made. patients, in this case, children, may not be forced, coerced or pressured into taking emergency use authorization products and are entitled by law to refuse them. another statute authorizes the

president to require members of the armed services to take it and the president has the power to require this is done the military. no law authorizes such mandates outside the military. conditioning access to participation in public life with treatment on an unimproved vaccine is the antithesis of free and informed consents, and, therefore, unlawful. private institutions have forced -- that have forced a drug on children could face lawsuits. you can read more in "the wall street journal," and listen to the latest on the covid statistics from the white house covid-19 response team. they will hold a briefing at 11:00 a.m. eastern time this morning. look for our coverage right here on c-span. paul, we are in open forum. in virginia, independent. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i just wanted to weigh in on the conversation in terms of what happened in virginia on the last election, but also the

conversation that tries to go around what i consider a misnomer, which is crt. more so, what i think people are objecting to is what tends to be less than honest mogherini about -- brokering about what each political party is trying to leverage moving forward. a lot of that comes out on interviews of people who voted in virginia or other sort of msnbc and proper gators with those political views that wash everything is racist. i have seen a lot of people, i have worn a youngkin hat everywhere i went the last months, and a lot of people of color set i really love your hat. that reflected in the polls -- said i really love your hat. that reflected in the polls. there is fatigue of the brokerage. they say there is no crt in the classroom. in fact, a lot of consultants

are leveraging teachers and workshops to embrace the methodology of what perhaps that may involve. more specifically, it is a culture war. it is hard to see it as anything other than that. host: sonja in minnesota, republican. caller: hello, good morning. first of all, i want to say how much i enjoy watching your show in the mornings. host: good. caller: my thoughts on some of their stuff, the covid i do not think should be mandated. i think it should be our choice. i have had the shot, but nothing bad coming from it. but i still think we should have our choice, whether we want to do it or not. the second thing is the truckers in california, the reason why some of this stuff is not being moved from the ports and stuff is because they have such strict rules in california for tracking

to go in and out of the city that a lot of times, the truckers have to go up over the mountains. well, with the cost of gas going on now, they cannot afford it, to be going up over the mountains. that is taking a lot of gas. until they get these things figured out we are going to keep having the problems in the world or the united states. and the other thing that i think about is i am 81 years old. we were never taught racism in school. in 40's -- i went to school in the 1940's and 1950's, and there was not such a thing as racism going on. i don't know why it is so popular now, but i think the united states people should get it figured out. host: did you go to school with black kids? caller: no, i did not. i went to school in minnesota in

a one room school, but we read books about colored people. "uncle tom's log cabin" comes to mind. host: in tyler, texas, democratic caller. caller: thank you for taking my call. just listening to that last caller saying in the 1940's and 1950's kind of caught me off guard that racism did not exist. but, anyway, that is where we are. i want to say that racism does occur in schools. i think people focus on overt acts of racism but racism also comes in the form of micro-aggression and unconscious bias, as well. i have had two experiences in schools. i taught in public school until last year, and my granddaughter was in a public school, so i can

say crt is definitely not happening in schools. the daughter, the school where my granddaughter was a student up until about a month ago was about a month ago, as well, ranked the number one school in texas, william b. travis, a predominately white student body, faculty, staff. her mom withdrew her to homeschool her about a month ago. as a result of racism. that was not the only reason. let me be clear, but primarily because of racism within the school. to give you an example, she had an assignment, my granddaughter was given assignments like buy a book to read that was entitled "

10 little --as an eighth grader before she was pulled to be homeschooled, her class was given an assignment to dress up as a colonial colonist and to walk around schools as colonists did and answer questions about being a "nice colonist." of course, during colonial times, blacks were slaves, so that is kind of like my granddaughter found herself in situations where if you dress during colonial times, i would dress as a slave or perpetrate false historical information. host: we will leave it there for today. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. thanks for watching and 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] ♪ >> this morning the white house covid-19 response team will hold a briefing on the administration's pandemic response effort. we will have live coverage at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or you can watch on our c-span now video app. >> today advocates testify on hunger among veterans and servicemembers in front of a house agriculture subcommittee. live coverage begins at 12:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, or watch on c-span now.

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