politics podcast and bring incivility to political discussions. join the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, tweets. starting now on washington journal. host: welcome to washington journal. the cost of inflation is on everyone's mind as a spike in costs is making everything more expensive as we near the christmas holidays. prices are rising at the highest rate in four decades with clothing, houses, even fast food rising faster than almost ever before. lawmakers say they're working on plans to fight the inflation spike. the costs are falling on

consumers. that is our topic this morning. how are you dealing with the fact that inflation is at the highest level since 1982. we are open up our regular lines. republicans, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent voters, you can call in at (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading social media. you can always follow us on instagram. once again, our topic this morning is inflation. and the huge spike we are seeing right now in inflation rates and consumer costs. the new york times has a story on the front page of this

morning that talks about what we are seeing. to get more information about

the inflationary spike, let's turn to heather long with the washington post. good morning. guest: good morning. host: let's get the basics. this is the highest inflation rate since the 1980's. what got us to this point? guest: what is happening in november right now is it's very broad-based inflation. in the spring and summer, we were talking about used car prices being up and the laundry machines enough. now, we see the price tags across the board, gas prices were up a lot in october and november. many of us know that very well from going to the pump. one of the second-biggest drivers is one that hasn't gotten enough tension. that is rent prices are rising. we see some of the fastest rent increases across the country,

not just in major cities. some of the biggest are in phoenix and boise, places that used to be seen as more affordable. the other thing that many people are recognizing is how much food prices are up, especially meat prices. beef and chicken and pork, even eggs and peanut butter if you're trying to not eat meat and look for meat alternatives, they are up significantly from where they are last year. another one popping up on radar screens as people head back to the office, clothing, suits, kids clothing, also experiencing big increases. host: what can cause this inflation that we are seeing go through the roof? what can bring that back down? what has to happen? guest: the main thing would be a huge help is most people in

america have been spending hugely on goods. on new couches or building a deck or redoing their kitchen, to spend less money on those goods and spend more money on going back out to restaurants or entertainment venues. i noted that grocery store prices -- this is very rare -- they have risen more in the past year than eating out at restaurants. it is still cheaper to eat at home. it shows you the shift happening in the consumption patterns were people are spending more on their homes, on their goods. usually americans spend more on services like travel and entertainment and restaurants. host: what are government officials doing to help american consumers? is there a political reality that this can happen quickly?

is this something that will happen in the future? guest: it's not likely that this comes down anytime soon. it may come down a little bit from that 6.8%. nobody expects this to be in a normal range around 2%. we've got a long wait to go to get back to something that makes people feel more comical. this is the era of uncomfortable inflation. the white house has tried to speed up ports, bringing goods and from other countries, trying to run ports 24 hours. they have released some strategic petroleum to bring down the gas prices a little bit. it helped a little. there is not dramatic actions that they can take on their own. one they have not done and it

would be interesting to see if they do it, they have not taken on tariffs they're still in place on thousands of chinese products, some canadian products, products from over the world in some cases. that's a tax that does at extra costs on quite a few goods. host: how much of this is due to the pandemic? guest: a lot of it is due to the pandemic. what we were talking about earlier, we've been in a weird pattern were people not going out as much to restaurants and entertainment venues and concerts like they used to. they are spending money on cooking at home, peloton bikes, even bicycles are close to 10% higher. the demand has really surged. there's a debate about what role the stimulus money plays,

particularly this year. we did record-breaking stimulus, pouring some of that money into the economy to keep businesses alive and keep americans from slipping into poverty. it was successful. we did manage to keep businesses alive. some of that gave people extra money which they have spent on used cars, new cars, couches, the sorts of things. that played a little bit of a roll. the pandemic is the number one driver of what's going on. host: what can we expect from the fed to fight this spike? guest: it's pretty clear that fighting inflation will be contain it from going any higher. that has to be their top priority. they have really shifted the rhetoric in the last two weeks. they used to preach this message

that high inflation was going to be transitory or short-lived. they have banned that word. they are knowledge estate transitory anymore. it is likely to last many months. they have spent up their pullback. they have done so much to support the economy. they are starting to expect to see the pullback of bond buying they've been doing it. we now anticipate many wall street banks and economists anticipate few if not more interest rates increases. that's another way they will tap the brakes on what appears to be an over stimulated economy in some areas. host: we would like to thank heather long from the washington post for coming on with us this

morning and walking us through this big jump in inflation rates. thank you so much for your help this morning. guest: thanks for having me. i am going to buy a subscription to the washington post. host: we appreciate that. christmas is coming up. we want to know what you think about the inflationary rates hitting the highest level since 1980 two. let's start with mark who is calling from new york. good morning. caller: good morning. this inflation can be put squarely on the democrats shoulder. ok? the whole deal with the democrats have been to lock down and vaccine and to constantly press money into the covid.

that's losing production. people are quarantined and not going to work. people are scared. people don't want to go out and socialize. that is a loss of production and a loss of movement from people. you also have all the energy problems. we can't unload cargo. we have to continue to buy oil from foreign countries. this is raising costs. gas prices that the truckers have to used to deliver the supplies is added to the cost of the goods. when trump was in office, things were going swimmingly. the pandemic lesson a problem. this is not transitory. host: let's go to jim from texas.

good morning. caller: m ionic? host: -- am i on? i got no cost-of-living adjustment. i'm on social security. all of these things are hurting me as far as other seniors. it's more than it's hurting the guy who is on welfare or whatever because he can go out and work and i am housebound. i am crippled. i can't go out. i would love to go to a restaurant. the last time i was at a restaurant was father's day. i had my son and daughter-in-law help me get to a restaurant. that was like christmas to meet. a lot of people don't realize there are a lot of people that don't have the luxuries like

getting in the car and going somewhere. i can't do anything unless somebody helps me. it's really sad. i am 79 years old. i feel like i am 109 years old. i wish that god would help me. host: barry is calling from missouri on the independent line. caller: -- host: are you there? let's go to james from connecticut on the independent line. good morning. guest: thanks for taking my call. caller: i have a question for these people talking about inflation. i'm working on a phd in economics. when they tell you that prices are going up, did you ever ask

why? why does the price go up? is it demand? if it's demand, we've got more than enough stuff to buy. how does money ask -- affect the price of goods? we have a system that adjusts the prices to your pocket. these people are not thinking about the economy. they are looking at how much money you get and matching the price to that. they call that inflation. it's really greed. host: brenda is from new jersey on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am so disappointed on how

these prices just keep escalating. president biden is so disappointing to me. i don't know where it's going to end. how are we supposed to live with rent increasing for the new year? food prices, you can't touch the meat. you go to the produce department, the prices are high. canned goods, it's expensive. i wish the president would understand how hard it is for anybody -- i'm a senior citizen -- trying to make ends meet. this is america. he is doing nothing to help us. i am so disappointed. it's making me not want to be a democrat anymore.

i am going to switch to become a republican where they do a lot for people. caller: it seems like biden is hitting all the wrong notes, making the wrong decisions. the ships that are waiting at sea, they just push them out farther. they are all still there. shutting down pipelines and drilling and hindering our own local energy production, you get strange answers like we won't start that because it's a global market. they will ask opec to produce more oil. they will release some oil from.

host: at the white house and referenced the new inflation report and made the case that build back better will help reduce inflation. here's what he had to say. >> if you're paying less for childcare, less for health care, less for insulin, down the list, all the things that are in build back better, the reason people think it's going to in fact diminish the impact of inflation is because it's reducing costs. it's reducing costs for ordinary people. in the meantime, in order to get that up and running, we don't have a single public and willing to support it, it's going to be focused on the downside.

the downside is prices have gone up because of supply chain concerns. we have worked hard on the concerns. you've begun to see oil prices, one third of the increases in inflations is automobiles. it is a real problem. the point is that has to do with supply chain as well. it has to do with everybody is looking for a used automobile. there are fewer of them because of covid. it's a real bump in the road. it does affect families. if you are paying more for whatever your purchasing, it matters. when you are paying more for gas, it's not gone down quickly

enough. i think it will. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about the highest level since 1982. tweet says. another tweet says. another tweet says.

we want to know what you think about inflation hitting the highest level since 1982. let's talk to robert from florida. good morning. caller: this is robert from clearwater, flora. the price of gas and oil, everything is a big mistake. he left our ammunition for the other people to turn around.

let russia go do their thing. don't threaten russia or china. let them go after japan it. that's their problem. this is ridiculous what's going on. my wife is a schoolteacher. i had an operation on my back. my neck. my head hit the stairwell. there is a bruise mark on it. this is crazy. people don't want to give you what you were worth. i'm tired of this economy. even people that voted for biden no they are changing their minds. the next election is going to be all republican. at least they stand up for this country. this is disgraceful what this president is doing.

she comes off the plane like a big smile. she ain't doing nothing. you try to get a question out of her, she laughs about it. host: mike is calling from california on the independent line. good morning. caller: i think the ordinary citizen can exploit inflation. if you put the down payment of 20% on a house, that leverages up your investment. if the property value of the house goes up 50%, your investment has gone up much harder, bigger. that is one way that many americans can actually exploit inflation to increase their net wealth.

host: let's go to joel in arkansas. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call this morning. we need to stop and listen. we've had over 50 people killed with the tornado that swept through that area. the tornado is going to go through nashville, arkansas, on cnn this morning, be thankful for what we have. my comment about the inflation, it's the highest it's ever been and it's not going to get better. john kennedy this week on youtube, they want to cut $36 billion to medicare and the farmers. he's trying to cut medicare and

farmers. they want to cut it out. i'm nervous. pray for people in kentucky. there were supposed to be over 50 killed with this tornado. thank you very much. goodbye. host: we will talk more about the tornado in our open forum segment later on the show. let's go to mike who is calling from georgia. good morning. caller: thank you for having an open forum on various topics. i listen to the columnist earlier. she explained that most of this cannot be blamed on the administration, this or the previous administration. it's mostly due to covid. since march 2020, you saw --

solve covid and you solve these problems. a lot of the programs democrats have done have been to keep us afloat during this time of covid crisis. every educated person is factually correct. the interesting thing is c-span allows people to call linda. most of these calls are venting. they want to complain about the previous administration or the current administration. let's solve covid. i voted republican 75% of the time. i've been voting since 1972. the republicans that do not address covid by wearing masks or getting vaccinated are causing a lot of the problems that are going on. host: let's go to angela in

california. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i'm calling in regards to inflation. i don't know what planet he lives on. it is terrible. hillary clinton, barack obama made me a republican from a democrat. thank you. host: the wall street journal has a story this morning pointing out how certain items are seen massive price jumps. i want to bring that story to you before you make our next call. this is from the wall street journal this morning.

that is how are you dealing with inflation hitting its highest rate since 1982? frank is calling from montana. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to point out that when you over emphasize the amount of inflation in 40 years, you do an injustice to your listeners. there are a lot of variants that go along with inflation be at supply, demand, wages, excessive costs in production. it's not quite that simple to just project.

washington journal could be giving more context to their assertions. i appreciate your time. host: samuel is calling from wisconsin on independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i opened my energy bill in wisconsin. last year, it cost two dollars. now it's $3.98. that is almost a 200% increase. that is outrageous. host: phil is calling from florida on the republican line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my

call. if we went back to trump's policies, we had a booming economy, start using our own oil instead of depending on opec, we would be a lot better off. people like to blame covid for our problems. they are not letting us shift the docks in california. they are being redirected. if people would wake up and see what this administration is doing, they are turning this into a commonest country. i appreciate you taking my call. host: let's go to lisa from field brook california on the democrat line. good morning. caller: i agree with the

gentleman who said inflation is because of covid. if we take care of covid, we take care of inflation. we knew this was coming during the first wave. we were told there would be supply chain problems. eventually, it was going to be cars. it is caught up. people need to get vaccinated. people need to do what they are supposed to do. do the responsible thing so we can all get back to normal. thank you so much. host: ryan is calling from maryland. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i think the first thing that comes to my mind is inflation

has been manufactured. what's worrisome is these assets and with these other countries are pushing in on the dollar. the way the administration is covering for themselves, it makes me scared about government. don't worry. the next thing you know, the dollar has collapsed. the way the media has covered for them. i think they are not looking at this objectively at all. i am a small business owner. it makes me nervous. a lot of this could go away if

policies were changed. i know they are trying to devalue our debt. this benefits them a lot. they are trying to push us in a direction where they don't really care about what happens with the dollar. my perspective, i think a lot of this is manufactured. host: amy is calling from virginia. good morning. caller: hello. i think it's mostly caused by the pandemic. if people would think about it for a minute, when the pandemic began it, everything stopped. prices fell. affection fell. the economy stopped. now we have high prices, amanda

is way up. supply is having a hard time catching up to it. in some cases, there is a microchip problem. i was at a car lot the other day. there were no new cars on the lot. how are these people staying in business? around this time, there are lots of sales. my shopping has been less expensive than usual because of all the sales. the lady that you had on a minute to said people should go out to restaurants more. less people are going to restaurants. they are going to the grocery store more. i think it's largely due to the pandemic. host: the economic council

director was asked by reporters about the concerns about inflation. here's what he had to say. >> the issue of increased prices hits people in very practical ways. no one likes to pay more at the gas pump. it can be tough. the message is employment and the labor market are important ways in which people can seek and find prosperity. the fact that wages are increasing the most for people in the bottom 40% is something that hasn't happened in some time. it's really positive. there are more job opportunities for people to move into. in terms of household income and

their balance sheets, if you look at the bottom 25% of households, if you look at the increase in wages, we passed a child tax credit that is going to families on a monthly basis. we provided checks to people in their -- when you look in the aggregate, household income is actually higher today. even when you take into account increased inflation. host: let's see what some social media followers are saying about the high rate of inflation. here is one tweet that says: tweet that says:

tweet that says: another tweet that says: one last tweet that says:

we want to know what you think about inflation. are you making any changes because of inflation? how is this going to affect the holiday season? joel is calling from texas. good morning. caller: good morning. the first thing i would like to tell everybody is the origins. where did it come from? why does no one want to be interested. i'm on the border. no one is tested here. the people coming across are not tested. for all those people that are saying it's covid, what you

start the flow. there are thousands of people coming. they are shipping them to your neighborhood. all over the country. host: let's go to susan who is calling from florida. good morning. caller: i was also going to mention the interest rates. in 1984, we were getting 10% on cds, which was a great way to save money. it's an impossible task for seniors today. it's one of the only way seniors can make any money. they are now at half percent. at least over three years ago, in the supermarket, we would be chatting, saying look at this.

let's just say paper plates at publix. a week later, $2.39. we would say, i thought when gas got cheap prices would come down because they would always say we have to raise prices because the cost of trucking. this is when gas was below two dollars. we don't understand why when the price of gas goes down that the prices on goods and services still go up. the reason is greed. host: gregory is calling from california. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to say this administration, we've got to get them out. i am talking to more and more african-americans and they are leaning republican. as far as this coronavirus, at

least one thing -- they are against this mandate. it should be your body your choice. with the lady who brought up interest rates, there is a company called block five that you can buy cryptocurrency and their pain 6%. let's hope we can get biden out of office. host: george is calling from new mexico. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. inflation increases are to be expected because the means of production are shifting it. this has to do with resources. in new mexico, we are going to go to hydrogen. we can be solvent using solar. we can fill up the colorado.

everywhere, we have large freshwater reservoirs. we can use solar again, cracked the water, send hydrogen for heating and large combustion engines. we can use batteries for the smaller engines. we have freshwater. because of the hazard pay, they are going to get there hazard backpay plus interest. we have to have american-made offerings for them. thank you. host: carol is calling from wyoming. good morning. caller: we knew this was coming

when everything was shut down due to covid. it isn't joe biden's fault that the prices have gone up. we had 700,000 people died. that's going to hurt the job market. companies want to make up the money they lost as fast as possible. they are not going to do anything for the people. if they would raise the minimum wage to a decent amount, i get tired of listening to these senators who say he lived on this much. you weren't paying this much. host: let's look at a poll that

came out of monmouth university about how americans feel about the rise in costs of everything right now. i will bring this pole to you. pain everyday household bills, the list of concerns that americans say they currently face.

that country monmouth. american families currently say one of their top concerns are inflation or everyday bills. we want to know what's going on with you. how has this affected your life? bill is calling from south dakota on the independent line. good morning. caller: i just wanted to refresh your memory of americans.

if you look at a lot of the changes that began several years ago when you incurred tariffs trying to punish the chinese and control them and the rest of the world, you created tariffs which you saw an immediate rise in prices. we've continued on with that. industry practices, they didn't get new starts. oil started to become more controlled. prices went up. the middle east stopped producing as much. oil didn't have the abundance. you get hit with the pandemic, that made things much worse. the administration failed to do anything about the pandemic.

biden is in a position where he has very little he can do. i'm old enough to remember when we inflicted price controls on people. the fed has limited ability to change the interest rates. you are finding that the industry has to maintain profit ratios to look good. we're not going to see a change in inflation in any quick matter. the bottom line is government is not alone the cause of inflation. that just didn't happen. that's not reality. memories are too short. host: let's talk to free to in new york. good morning. caller: >>

host: are you there? emilia is calling from georgia. emilio, good morning. caller: good morning. i like with this gentleman just said it. the lack of critical thinking in america it's the demise of this country. people don't stop and think about what's going on. as the gentleman said, it's the tariffs. everything the trump administration and the pandemic is what has caused this. if people would stop to think, you will see what happens. they want to cut medicare. they want to cut social security. they want to privatize social security.

they're looking at their pockets. i wish the republicans would stop. the lack of critical thinking skills will be the demise of the country. host: in remarks earlier this week, rob portman spoke about inflations impact on the economy and what that means for american consumers. this is what he had to say. >> just before going into the covid-19, we had 19 straight months of wage gains. that was because inflation was so low. people were getting a wage increase. that was the first time in 15 years. wages are down when you take inflation into account.

inflation is high. we've dumped so much on the demand side of the economy and the supply-side is restricted with covid. it creates this inflation. this was warned by republicans. the biggest bill ever, larry summers, former secretary of the treasury under president obama. he said this is going to stoke inflation. it's going to overheat the economy. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying on inflation. this is one tweet that says:

another tweet that says: another tweet that says: tweet that says: one last tweet that says: we want to know how this

inflation rate is affecting you. we just heard from rob portman, talking about the inflation rate. there is a story in politico that talks about how republicans land to use the high inflation rate to help defeat democrats in the midterm elections.

that comes from politico. republicans are spending millions of dollars to hit senate democrats on inflation. we want to know how this high inflation rate is affecting you. let's start with and calling from north carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. my experience here in north carolina, my trump landlord

raised the landlord. he raised us each $100. i'm the only liberal. he raised the rent on people that voted for trump $100. i would describe that is price gouging. there is no rent protection in 35 states. i find it ironic that i can't be the only person who has a trump loving landlord that this happened two. it's ironic. the other six tenants voted for trump. one more comment. mitch mcconnell is worth $39 million. he's got one of the poorest states in the country. thanks a lot for your help.

host: tony is calling from montana on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to say inflation has caused by money printing. at this point, get used to it. the input costs for food for this year are over with for the coming year. costs are doubling as new crops go into the ground. inflation is here to stay. it will probably start feeding on itself. energy costs are up. the cost of irrigation is up. it will continue to get worse as we rob energy to power car charging stations.

this will only get worse until we stop printing money and stop producing energy. have a good day. host: william is in pennsylvania on the republican line. good morning. caller: i just want to know if the white house called you and asked you to push their best economy speech. host: no. anything else? caller: that sounds like state run media. host: they have not called us to do anything. caller: thank you. host: let's go to charlie who is calling from ohio. good morning. caller: the biggest problems are much like the lady said. i'm an independent from kentucky. mitch mcconnell's father-in-law has borrowed $400 million from

the chinese government. nancy pelosi is worth $225 million. hunter biden and his uncle are worth hundreds of millions. there is no question killing energy has taken the united states down from dramatically. the biggest killer is currency manipulation. $7 trillion of the debt is owned by foreign interests. as long as we allow to continuously spend money and not know where the money is being spent, we will have problems for everyone. host: we would like to thank everyone who called in for our first segment. next, the wall street journal

will be here to discuss how the transition from coal to green energy is affecting jobs in different parts of the country. later on it, we will talk to the pantsuit politics podcast and their focus on bringing civility to political discussion. we wanted to show you a portion of joe biden's eulogy for bob dole at the service at the national cathedral. >> he wrote this when he knew his days were numbered. my fellow americans, taps is sounding for this soldier. tested by adversity, taps is sounding for this patriot,

driven by a sense of mission to give back to the land that gave everything to him. taps is now sounding for this giant of our time, and of all time. bidding this great american farewell, we know as long as we keep his spirit alive, as long as we see each other not as enemies but his neighbors and colleagues, as long as we remember that we are not to tear down but to build up, as long as we remember that, taps will never sound for bob dole. bobbitt will be with us always,

cracking a joke, moving a bill, finding common ground. his final message to the nation, he said whenever he started a new journey, when he started a new journey, whenever you start a new journey the first thing he would do and i quote is "sit back and watch for a few days, and then start standing up for what he thought was right." bob is taking his final journey. he is sitting back, watching us, and now it is our job to start standing up for what is what -- what is right for america. i salute you, my friend. your nation salutes you. and, i believe in the poet -- in

the words of the poet when he described heroism, it better for you that -- better for you than anyone i know. "when the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns the compromise of death, that is heroism." may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, bob. god bless bob dole. god bless america. and, may god protect our troops. [end video clip] >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with shane shifflett who is a reporter at " the wall street journal" to talk about how the transition from coal to green energy is

impacting jobs in different parts of the country. shane, good morning. guest: good morning, thank you for having me. host: let us start with how you came up with a story, and what you did to report it out. guest: you know, in november, world leaders were meeting in scotland to discuss how to de carbonized the energy grid and one of the central questions that my editors had is what will this cost to turn the energy green and reduce carbon emissions? part of that cost is obviously going to be jobs. now, coal has faced, -- competition from natural gas and we have seen coal production and coal fire plants close. so what i started to do is look at power plants that were slated for closure in the next couple

of years and see which utilities relied on them and if they had any net zero commitments and that is a pledge to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels in an effort to use clean energy to power homes around the country, and i came across two utilities and two power plants that both sourced their fuel from two small counties in utah. and so, the question became coal communities around the come -- around the country that have been harmed by the decline of the coal business, so what is going to happen to them when these two power plants shut down and that these two communities provide fuel to? host: let us set the stage. how may communities out there are still coal-dependent?

and how many of these coal plants out there are still running, and possibly thinking about switching over to green energy? the cleaner energy? guest: i do not have the exact number, but it is over 100, about 150 communities around the country that are coal dependent, meaning that their tax base and employment relies on some large coal producer or coal company. they are in wyoming, utah, appalachia, pennsylvania, so it is not just one coast or the other, there are places around the country. and, coal-fired power plants are rapidly closing. there have been hundreds of them that closed in the last decade. coal fire power plants really only have an -- a life expectancy of 50 years, so you

have a lot more out west coming up on the life expectancy. we will see dozens more at least close. i do not have the exact number in front of me either. there are only a couple of decades left where the coal-fired power plants can expected to be used based on when they were billed. and many were built in the 70's and 80's. host: how many jobs are we talking, thousands, tens of thousands? what kind of economic impact are we seeing on the people who work in these mines and at the factories? guest: you know, green energy jobs, wind and solar outnumber coal mining jobs and coal related jobs. there are fewer than 100,000 jobs for coal miners and coal related employment positions around the country.

that is according to the bureau of labor statistics. and, in the two counties that i looked at in particular, carbon and emery counties in utah, while they may not be the biggest employer, they are at the highest paying jobs and often provide benefits. this might be a majority -- a minority of the jobs, but for these communities they pay high wages and they provide benefits for their workers, so they are very important jobs, while the west of the jobs -- the rest of the jobs are service sector jobs that pay an hourly wage and will not have health care, things like that. so, the families that work at coal mines, these jobs are important because there is not a job to replace it in these communities. host: we heard a lot during the early manufacturing days how the current jobs might be going

away, but there will be new jobs and replaced by other jobs. we are hearing the same thing when it comes to cold. the coal mines and coal fire factories might be going away but green jobs are coming. are these new jobs that they promise are coming, coming to the same places that are losing these coal jobs? guest: this is the problem with the energy transition that nobody has figured out how to fix. the crux of it is no. the jobs being created, and there will be more jobs and there are expected to be more created in aggregate around the country, building solar panels, wind farms, manufacturing the supplies to build these power plants. those are getting built around the country, but there are only certain states that are really capable of producing or are going to be the best and biggest producers of solar and wind energy.

it is really behind the state legislators and on their shoulders to create the policies that will bring those jobs to their state. and right now, coal communities, the states that they are in are not making the effort to create those policies to work with other states to bring the jobs so that solar plants are built and wind farms. that is a generalization, but that really is what is going on. when the coal-fired power plant shuts down, there will not be the equivalent creation of jobs for a solar plants to come in. in utah, even though there is abundant potential for solar energy and solar farms, many of the residents in the coal communities do not want wind and solar farms coming in, and sort of daunting the landscape -- dotting the landscape.

and utah lags in green energy production. host: let us get some of our viewers to take part. we are going to open up regional lines. that means that if you are in the eastern or central time zones, your number will be 202-748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, your number will be 202-748-8001. keep in mind that you can always text us at 202-748-8003. and, we are always reading on social media on twitter at c-spanwj and facebook at facebook.com/c-span. your story focused on two communities in utah. the question because what other regions of this country are being affected by this move away from coal? guest: right.

so, wyoming is a big producer of coal. pennsylvania is likely to be impacted. west virginia, obviously, is gonna be another area where coal jobs are the best employer in some of these counties. so, they will be hit hard if coal production goes away. and, in the green economy, if there is a transition of the electricity grid, the energy grid, to completely electrify and dump fossil fuels, coal will be the first to go. host: two of the plants that you mention in your story are switching over to cleaner energy years earlier than they have anticipated. why are they moving so quickly? guest: pressure from utilities and state policies. so, the two power plants that i looked at in the story, one is a

nevada. its parent company is owned by berkshire hathaway but locally there has been a lot of discussion about switching over to renewables. it became more cost-effective for the plant, essentially, to switch than to try and switch to other fuel sources such as natural gas or continue to maintain coal as the primary fool -- fuel source. essentially competition from cheap, renewable energy has made it more cost-effective to complete -- to retire the plant and build solar farms and continue to run the coal-fired power plant for years into the future. in the case of the utah power plants, they looked at that it sells almost all of its energy exclusively to los angeles and neighboring communities. so, california made a big push to make their energy system as green as possible.

and so, for years, l.a. has been debating ending contracts with power plants that still use coal as the primary source of fuel. in order for this utah plants to maintain its contract with california, it essentially has to switch to natural gas and hydrogen or plan to, otherwise it was going to become -- it was going to lose its only customer, essentially. host: we have talked about the macroeconomy of coal mining, but what is happening on the ground and those two counties that you wrote about? guest: they suffered from a decade-long recession or depression, essentially. you know, as coal production -- the state and counties receive royalties or a portion of the share from taxes of coal production. if coal production declines,

less money is going into those communities directly. things that will pay for things like schools. you are seeing declining share of income, royalties, and taxes and so forth. more importantly you are seeing an exodus a population because people are leaving the counties who are employed at those coal mines that are closing or had to lay off people. they do not stick around because there are not equivalent jobs or other good paying jobs, so they will move and go to gold mines in nevada or coal mines in wyoming, or wherever else they can get work doing that kind of work. they are not sticking around, and so, unemployment is especially high in these two counties in utah, while the rest of the state, utah's one of the fastest growing states. so for these two counties to have high levels of unemployment

is not taking part in the growing economy of utah. and, it would be higher if there were not more people making it happen -- making account. host: we will start from lou from maryland. in morning. caller: one of the things that would seem to make common sense is to have parallel training and building of renewable energy in those communities, while you cut production of coal, start training the same individuals to do renewable energy, and it would make a lot of sense, so than the people wouldn't leave, that is one thing. the other thing is based what we were talking about, inflation. several years ago we were told that the united states had enough oil and fuels to keep us

afloat for -- without any participation from any other country. for providing us with that energy. and every time we have a change of government, we have inflation with the petroleum. it is always those states. if you look at those states which are producing the most petroleum, and we can understand that, i think, that this is price gouging and done for political region -- reasons. that is texas, oklahoma, montana, new mexico, and i cannot remember all of them. but they are all red states. and so, we have to stop being political in terms of trying to take care of this country because what we are doing is tearing it apart. and it will not be another usa

that we all love. host: go ahead and respond. guest: i will respond to the first part. with training there has to be the opportunity for jobs first. at least in utah, they are not looking to build more solar plants, necessarily. the carbon and emery counties are looking to fund carbon capture and looking at nuclear energy and programs that help fund research into efficiencies and nuclear reactors and things of that nature. they are not trying to court solar and wind projects, necessarily. solar projects are often subsidized, so the county will not receive the same level of income that they would from coal-fired power plants. this is all to say, first the jobs have to be created, for the potential to even begin retraining programs.

that is currently not something that is happening in the utah area. host: lupo from los angeles, california. in morning. -- good morning. caller: good morning, i am hearing you from the phone and tv, should i mute the television? host: yes. caller: doing that right now. on the screen, it shows it. i am ready. several comments. it is a very complex issue but excuse me if i go on a bit, just letting you know. i agree with everyone that says that coal is heavily subsidized and harmful economically and environmentally, i agree with that, regardless of their party if they say that i still agree with them.

i think of myself as a liberal, or left-leaning, but even if a republican said that, i would say that. it is that obvious that that is correct regardless of who said it. so, when i saw earlier the reporting about the funeral of senator bob dole i said everything i've heard about him was also obviously amazing, and i respect him, despite being a republican. and, i am not, so there are still things we could hold in common. my take on this is everyone who works for bipartisanship and compromise is doing the right thing and everyone who speaks of division regardless of party is probably wrong. host: you have anything about

the story that shane wrote on: utah? guest: yes. it is the same idea. -- caller: yes, it is the same idea, it is for coal only, and there are alternatives, and they are wrong. if they are considered -- considering the alternatives, in my opinion they are probably right. that is my opinion on this story. host: tyrone calling from illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. shane, i have a couple questions for you. you talk about the wind energy and stuff and yet i see the blades of these turbines being buried outlets and, leaving a carpeted -- carbon footprint on our country and we are trying to make our country better as far as cleaner and safer environment.

we do not have a lot of studies yet on what effect the changing of the wind patterns are with these turbines. and yet when we talk about gas and coal and that, we talk about going to these electric cars that once they are done we do not have a place to put them because of how much batteries and all of that. and the footprint that will leave on our country. so, my question to you is, maybe we need to spend more on technology than we do to be in such a hurry to be switching stuff to know what we need to do, that is my question to you. thank you. guest: so, you know i agree we have not seen a great study on what the cost of disposal is for electric vehicles, and so on and

so forth. obviously, building the bauer -- the battery-powered electric vehicles is intensive business. i think the prevailing notion is that it is less intensive, less carbon intensive than burning coal to power a large percentage of the country's electricity. host: we talk a lot about trying to replace the coal-dependent jobs on "green energy" and alternative fuel jobs. what exactly type of jobs are we talking about? what kind of jobs are there in the renewable and cleaner energy industries that are being created, and how do we get those jobs the places where people are losing their jobs because of the

less reliance on coal? guest: there are going to be three main pillars, the first is construction. that is where the bulk of look at jobs -- the bulk of the jobs are being created. they will be building solar plants and the wind farms. those jobs are going to be temporary just like in utah. a solar farm takes 18 to 24 months to build, it could take more time if they are larger. but, there -- they are essentially temporary jobs. a plant will be built and workers move onto the next plant, and at some point they will have to go in and those solar panels will be retired, so there is some level of replacement, but not the same level that is required to build enough solar plants to power a large chunk of the country's electricity. the next kind of pillar is

manufacturing, and this will especially apply to windfarms. so, you will have to manufacture the pieces domestically, you do not have to, but it should be more cost-effective to manufacture the components to build the windfarm domestically than what it be to in -- then it would be to import from overseas. you would see a large number of manufacturing jobs created that way, and the third is a less discussed pillar is energy efficiently -- efficiency. you will find ways to reduce energy consumption to to make those offices and homes more efficient and a lot of jobs to come in and just to look at a building and figure out how to seal it, so heat and air are not leaking out of the building.

and so those are the three main places where you will see job creation in the short term, and the way that you get those jobs to places where jobs are being destroyed because coal plants are shutting down, and because coal mines are closing and producing less coal, or any other fossil fuel sectors is going to be incumbent on state legislatures and the federal government to essentially assent -- incentivized developers to go in and build plants, or build the solar farms in communities where there are large numbers of people being laid off because the industry they worked in is gone. host: where there any chances of any of those green jobs in the two utah check -- utah counties that you profiled? guest: you know, there is one. in the utah plant that is switching over to natural gas

because they sell a large amount of the power to los angeles and california in general. there are hopes that developers build more solar and wind energy and there will be temporary boost to employment as they build the new natural gas turbines to make that switch. so, there is some -- there should be some boost to employment, but the stage -- the state legislature is really fighting california tooth and nail instead of focusing on incentivizing developers to come into the counties and create more jobs. host: one last question before we go back to the phone lines. if these plants cannot sell their coal took coal firing

plants in the united states, is there a chance that there could be international markets? guest: they export about one third of their coal internationally, largely to japan. coal exports are a thing. japan, ever since their nuclear reactor was damaged during the tsunami about a decade ago, they have shut a lot of their nuclear power plants. they are dependent on coal imports, and there are other regions that are going to be dependent on that. what has happened is that utah has to shift its coal, because it is landlocked to a port to send it overseas, and those ports are in california. and the council at the ports that they use effectively banned coal, and they have come to a settlement, a tentative settlement that will allow utah's coal to export through

2026. but after, they will have to find ports elsewhere, and it is going to be much more expensive to ship the coal to any other conceivable ports than it was in california. so whether or not that is a viable economic model is to be determined. host: let us go back to the phone lines and talk to bryce from maryland. morning. caller: good morning. two questions. they are basically about the green jobs and not from the building of plants, but the manufacturing side. how many solar panel plants do we currently have in the united states that are manufacturing solar panels? and how many are under contract to be built? and the same for the wind turbines. we manufacture any of these products now and have any plans do we have and how many are being built because that is a

key problem, as you said earlier, we do not make it ourselves and all we are doing is giving money away to the chinese and all these other countries that are already building it. guest: i think right now we are only importing solar panels, and i do not know if that will change. many of the experts i spoke to do not expect manufacturing plants to be built to create solar panels and manufacture solar panels. you know, there are mining companies that are opening minds in the u.s., north carolina, to gain more lithium. there might be a manufacturing hub that pops up around battery manufacturing, but it is still early days, and unclear how substantial that will be in the u.s.. on the windfarm side, i do not

think that there is any necessarily manufacturing plans for wind turbines, but i know that some states including maryland have struck a deal to keep all manufacturing within three states when it comes to wind turbine manufacturing, so they are just getting moving on that front, and you will see more played manufacturing jobs pop up along the eastern seaboard in the coming years. host: let us go to jimbo from california. good morning. caller: thank you very much for the opportunity. i was wondering if your guest could compare and contrast china and how they are planning on building five new coal burning power plants, and how much contribution are we reducing in our co2 compared to how much

china and other developing countries as well as apparently i learned about japan as well. how much are they increasing the co2 for their contribution to climate change? i am trying to figure out or we only reducing 1% while they are increasing 10,000% at the same time? are we able to make any substantial difference. and a shout out to c-span and your coverage about january 6. you guys are getting information in real-time time on january 6. no one else was getting that, and you guys did the best job way over all of the networks hands down, and no one has ever given you any recognition for the contributions that you guys did that day in real time. host: thank you. go ahead with your answer. guest: sure. i do not have numbers in front of me. if you are talking about global

emissions, countries like china and india are a concern with where their commitments are at in terms of ending the use of coal-fired power plants. if the usa were to end the use of coal-fired power and natural gas, it would make a substantial reduction in co2 emissions globally, no matter what china, india, or japan are doing. host: kim from north carolina. in morning. caller: good morning. are you the shane shifflett that spent a lot of energy shoveling horsemen newer as a kid? guest: i do not think so. caller: there was a shane shifflett in asheboro, north carolina. guest: that is not me. host: did you have a question? caller: yes.

so, i am a believer that nuclear is not dead. they are dealing with -- the dealing with the waste is a problem but in the 60's and 70's there was a plan in south carolina that reprocessed it. i think that was still on the books as could be part of the solution. and, i will take your question -- your answer off-line. guest: yes. utah, you know there are people in utah who are certainly with you in that thought, and they are researching ways to build smaller and more efficient nuclear reactors that would not have the same waste issues or comparable waste issues to the

nuclear plans currently in service. there is a bit of a debate over what role nuclear power plants will play in terms of the green economy, and the green energy grid, and that is still being debated today. host: shayne, one of our social media followers has this to say, and i want to follow this up with what brooking says about coal production. "the car replaced the horse driven carriage, electric lighting replaced kerosene lighting, now natural gas is replacing coal, it is that simple." brooking says "coal production in the united states fell by one third between 2007 and 2017. projections show that its decline is continuing gradually under current policy." with coal production going down, what is the end game.

with cold -- with coal production reducing and more people going to solar and natural gas, it seems to be a dying industry, what is the end game? guest: coal is a dying industry, and natural gas has been driving it out of business. renewables have joined the game, and they are cheaper than a decade ago, and they are being rapidly deployed across the country. you know, coal-dependent communities and coal mining companies are not budging. they are holding on and trying to produce as much as they can. as economically feasible. coal will never fully goal -- go away, there -- for the foreseeable future there will be a need for metallurgical coal, the only source of fuel hot enough to smelt metals and things of that nature, you are

talking about an industry that has long been on the decline and has not found a way to make itself liable and competitive against natural gas. it is going to continue to face competitive pressures from maneuverable and there is no answer from the industry. host: what is the argument from these communities that are coal dependent on why the government should continue to subsidize, or in any way help prop up a dying industry? guest: i think one of the popular arguments is that the government should at least subsidize into research into carbon capture technology to make the burning of coal more efficient and less carbon intensive, but i think the real arguments and what a lot of people get at is that there are still questions about whether or not renewable power sources can

supplement and make up for the power loss from coal-fired power plants. with solar you only have so many hours of the day that the sun is out so you do not have a baseload generation capacity right there. coal for a long time has made that up. at night when you are reaching peak electricity demand and the sun is not shining, power plants can always switch to coal and burn that to provide the electricity to its customers. the question is what is going to happen if coal goes away? for how long will natural gas be able to fill the role? there is questions about what happened in texas earlier this year when the freeze impacted natural gas lines, and the weather impacted natural gas lines and power plants were not able to produce enough electricity and the power went

out across cities. so, there are just questions from coal dependent communities about whether or not the current energy -- the current to -- trajectory will be enough to power the nation when the sun is not out in the wind is not blowing. host: let us talk to rick from altoona, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: my question is, i live in pennsylvania, and the coal mine industry is dying. we have windmills up and people protested the windmills when they came through, and i am sure people have calmed down. they are a good thing. my question is, you hit the nail on the head when you said that how long is natural gas going to last, how long is coal going to last?

do not have solar up here. but there are other ways to get energy, and one of them is the hemp plant, did you ever hear about the hemp plant? you can get ethanol off of it. the byproducts can be used in -- make electricity. and other parts of the plants -- the one thing is, it is renewable, so there is the keyword, renewable. you can build this and, the articles i read and i hope that people read up on this plant is that 6% of the farmland that is sitting vacant now that is being paid for by the government not to raise the plants, and the crops can be used and it can power the whole united states, that is heating your homes, running your cars, and

everything. so why is the government not looking into this energy? that is my question. host: go ahead. guest: that is a great question. biofuels, which i believe that hemp would fall under, it is definitely a component of many of the net zero plans that i have seen. it is a smaller share, i am not really sure is the reason is that it is a smaller share, it is a more nascent industry. solar and wind technology has become more efficient over the last decade, and it is what a lot of experts look to as the larger power source for any net zero plan transition to transition the energy grid to carbon neutral. but biofuels will make up some share of that. there is always going to be,

even with solar and wind and any bioenergy, there will be competition with farmlands, so that would be a component of it. but there is only so much land that can fit a solar farm efficiently, and a lot of that is going to be in rural areas, and when farming is going on so there will be competition over that. host: what is the biden administration doing when it comes to the coal and push for green energy use? guest: the biden administration is making a big push for renewables and setting targets to reduce the nation -- the federal government's carbon footprint, so that will play directly into the energy transition to renewables and away from fossil fuels. abide in administration -- the

biden administration, there is a lot of ways to attract jobs to coal communities. nothing is set and stone yet -- in stone yet. host: michael from west virginia. good morning. caller: hello? i would like to make the comment that i think this green energy is 15 to 20 years behind what it should be, and they are shutting the coal plants down too quickly. does anyone remember california when they did not have enough power? people would get a 1200 to 15 to hundred dollar electric bill. that is what is going to happen. there is too much of a shortage in green energy. they need to keep these going, they make scrubbers now, the cold fire -- coal-fired power plants, and i think they need to slow down on shutting them down until the green energy is caught

up. it is not caught up. thank you very much. guest: i think that is a great point, and there are a lot of folks in utah that would share this concern. when utilities make the switch to renewable energy when they decide to retire power plants and replace it with a solar plant, they have to file projections with state regulators and they go over things like when will it be able to provide power, at what cost. there is going to always be a little bit of inflation and energy prices from constructing new power plants were maintaining coal power plants. solar energy in particular has become much more efficient and these utilities think that they are going to be able to meet the demand of the customers when they make the switch.

host: michael from michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. i am wondering, the electricity to charge one of these cars, the way i understand it is that it takes the power of four or five homes to charge one car. now, how many more power plants or wind and solar plants are they going to have to build to replace one gas power plant? and besides that, the way i understand it, it costs over $1000 a month to charge one car. how can the average family go from $100 per gas for one month to over $1000 a month? those are my questions. guest: that is a great question.

i mean, there is going to have to be a large number of solar plants and wind farms constructed to be able to replace gas fired and coal-fired power plants. i do not have the figures in front of me. the thinking is in terms of the utility bills, once the energy grid is largely powered by renewables that electricity is basically free and utilities will be able to pass that on to their customers. will there be larger than normal utility bills for customers? during the transition? it is possible, but once the energy grid is transition, if it does happen and solar and wind make up a component, that is free energy. host: let us see if we can get a question from harry from georgia. can you get a quick question and for us? caller: i had a comment more, i wanted to say that everybody

should understand that we are using internal combustion engines you use about 80% of your energy overcoming friction and then running the cooling system. neither of which electric motors require, so you use less energy with an electric car. and, there are new design, small nuclear power generators that do not even -- there is no waste in anything from it. its just that nobody is building them yet. they are already designed and in experimental. that is all i had to say. host: go ahead and respond. guest: i am not sure so much about the car, but there are smaller nuclear plants that are being developed that can be deployed, just like the caller was saying. bill gates funds research into that. i am not sure if they are used anywhere, but it is one of the

essentials out there. host: we would like to thank shane shifflett and from "the wall street journal" for talking us through job gains and losses from coal shutdowns. thank you so much for being here. guest: thank you for having me. host: coming up we will move to our open forum where you can call in and talk about your most important political topics. later, we will have the hosts of "pantsuit politics" sarah stewart and beth silvers here to talk about their podcast in their push for more civility in politics. steak with us, we will be right back. >> next week on the c-span networks, congress returns for a shorter workweek because of the holiday break. the senate takes up a bill increasing the debt limit. the senate also continues work on the defense bill.

on monday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, house committee investigating the january 6 house on the -- attack on the capital moves forward for citing mark meadows for criminal contempt of congress for refusing to cooperate with the investigate. -- with the investigation. tuesday at 10:00 a.m. the hearing for the head of the food and drug administration. on wednesday on c-span.org and the mobile video app, airline ceos discuss the impact of the coronavirus on their industry. watch net week -- next week on the c-span networks or watch the full coverage on c-span now. also head over to c-span.org for scheduling information. live or on-demand any time. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪

>> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back and moving to our open forum segment where you can call in and talk about the most important political topics to you this morning. we will open up regular lines meaning that republicans can call 202-748-8001 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002.

and, you can always text us at 202-748-8003. and, we are always really young -- reading on social media at twitter -- on twitter at c-spanwj and facebook at facebook.com/c-span. we want to bring to you what is going on in kentucky and other states in the south this morning with several tornadoes devastating states like kentucky and tennessee this morning, but really stretching out across six states in the south. i want to bring to you the story from the "louisville courier journal" with their report on what is going on in kentucky right now. "as of 7:00 a.m. around 56,000 people were without power in the immediate aftermath of saturday's massive tornado event.

the hardest hit areas were in western kentucky where a tornado that traveled more than 200 miles are believed to have caused upwards of 50 deaths. outage numbers from some counties were unavailable as of 7:00 a.m. but the presentation cited hopkins, mullen berg, -- muhlenberg and ohio counties as the hardest hit. louisville was spared the devastation but was still hit by strong storms. just over 22,000 people were without power cord -- as around 7:00 a.m. around the same time kentucky governor andy beshear submitted a request for a federal emergency declaration to president joe biden, and i will bring you his tweet this morning. kentucky governor andy share submits request of the federal mr. president bryden for federal emergency declaration.

"this has been one of the toughest nights in kentucky's history with multiple counties impacted and a significant loss of life." we hope that all of our viewers out there in kentucky, if you have power, -- if you have power, you are safe and hope that you get your lives back together. let us go to the open forum calls and we will start with carol from east's etiquette -- from new york on the independent line. caller: hello, i just lost my home. my bank took my home. we have services that do not serve us. the courts are supposed to give us hearings, but the judges are refusing to do that. a travis hearing is when you confront the process to have it and you prove. i did not live in the house that

was served. the person was never served, and yet the judge refused -- host: i think we lost carol. let us go to don from alexandria, virginia on the republican line. caller: good morning, and this is somewhat related to your last segment on coal-fired power plants and energy. and, and then therefore the build back better legislation. i am very fearful that we are going down a path of wind and solar dependence that will not supply our energy needs, and what we need to recognize that is we do not want fossil fuels that the only good baseload energy to provide and complement wind and solar is nuclear.

and the department of energy is working that, but it needs to be supported and much more emphasis placed by our government in supporting nuclear energy for the future, if we think we will going to -- we are going to get off fossil fuels. and that is it. host: susan calling from connecticut on the independent line. good morning. caller: hello. i just had an interesting thought that if biden was -- withheld funds from kentucky until mitch mcconnell stops stonewalling pix for key spots for his administration, so the government could function as it is supposed to, it is actually probably using something from mitch mcconnell's own playbook, stonewalls and withholds and do not move anything forward so our government does not function and he looks like he is winning for the gop. just my thoughts, thank you. host: jerry from council grove,

kansas on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: just fine. caller: i want to bring something up that was only seen one time, and one time only in the media when biden first got elected, and then after that nobody in the media, not even c-span has brought it up, and that is joe biden himself said on national television that he is financially invested in the electric car industry. now, i did not think the president was allowed to do things like that, and look at how he is doing that and shutting down the fossil fuel industry in order for him to financially gain while being president, i did not think that that was allowed to happen in our country, that the president

was allowed to financially gain by that type of industry. host: didn't we have some of these same discussions during the trump administration and the idea of him owning a hotel in washington, d.c. while being president? caller: well, having him owning a hotel was not him mandating that we shut down all of the other hotels and only use his. host: so are you now saying that presidents should not have any outside business interests while they are president? caller: not in the fashion in which he is doing. not when he shuts down all the other industries that are related to that one particular one, and that is what biden is doing. he is shutting down all the other industries that can compete with the electric vehicle. host: joe from cliffside park, new jersey on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning.

first of all, sad sorrow to those who lost lives and the tornadoes in the six states. the -- my comments deal with biden and trump, and other democrats and republicans that comprise our congress. it seems like we have lost our way in regards to this democracy that is being shattered from various aspects of this country, right, left, center. it seems like everybody has a theory, no one has backup in regard to data or information that is real in their decision-making, whether it is on this broadcast or elsewhere. there must be away, and i do not know it, to bring this country together, and may be a way to bring it together is more

informative news in regard to not so much who is telling right and wrong and who is getting paid, or who is benefiting by different legislation. this is some -- somewhat of a nonsense approach to understanding and making your own decision about being informed. the keyword is informed. thank you. host: let us go to another joe, joe calling from dayton, ohio on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. i want to extend my prayers out to the innocent souls lost last night and early morning in the states, it is a travesty on what happened in these other states. i also want to talk about our economy, and joe biden has done an atrocious job and so has kamala harris.

it is tragic what is going on with our economy. i also heard yesterday on foxbusiness that it is being reported that the amtrak, the infrastructure money headed toward amtrak is going to be going toward funding amtrak's pension funds, and i think it is sad. i really do. i think it is about time that these companies stand on their own feet. i know covid and this and that, but i think it is terrible and the states that a lot of the covid money had to go to fund the teachers unions and like illinois, and california had to go help new york pay their pension funds. i just want to say that joe biden owns this economy and it is terrible. have a good day. host: speaking of the poet -- the covid pandemic there is a story in "the washington post"

talking about where we are and the state of the pandemic in the united states. "coronavirus cases driven almost entirely by the delta variant continue to search across the united states, defying previous patterns calling -- causing military medical backup to be called and creating large caseloads in some highly vaccinated states. cases in colorado rose by 4% in the past week according to an analysis. hospitalizations in michigan and new mexico jumped by 4% and 9% respectively. michigan has more possible is asians are 100,000 residents -- hospitalizations per resident than any other state. in new york where they have shot up more than a third since thanksgiving, governor kathy hochul introduced a mask mandate for all places in new york that do not require full

proof of several hospitals in new mexico are operating under crisis standards because of staffing and capacities georges. ordering to local news reports. in early november, more than half of the patients it admitted to the medical center, farmington, new mexico, had covid-19, the hospital said. on november 3, the hospital declared a crisis standard of care which allowed aid for the state as resources ran short. in other parts of the country such as minnesota, the surge has been affecting it for months, spiking and thinking. he created enduring pressures for hospital infrastructure and staff. once again, the delta variant of the coronavirus is surging through states, forcing states to call on military medics to relieve overburdened hospital

staff. let's go back to arson -- our phone lines and talk to paul in louisiana on the democrat line. good morning. good morning. caller: i would like to say that i think the president is doing a great job. i am a republican from delaware, so i have known joe biden for a long time. he is a fine job. that's it. host: let's go to patty from atlantic city, new jersey, the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i wanted to make a comment about what you are talking about before. i believe that inflation is because of the pandemic. people in other countries -- there are vaccinations that are

low, and people are sick and suffering. mainly, big corporations are passing the buck down to the consumer because they pay their people more. it is about greed. big corporations. that's what i believe. people have to really try and realize that people are suffering right now. for the big corporations, they are paying people more. they are passing the money to the consumer. that is what i think. host: let's go to bill in northbrook, illinois, on the independent line. caller: good morning. i am an independent. i watch a lot of fox news. i watch c-span. i am calling to -- every night, i see images from california, from downtown chicago, about

diluting, but particularly images about homelessness in california. it's being whipped up into a national problem. my comment is this. if this is a problem, the people in los angeles and california are going to have to solve this problem. i am getting annoyed every night, watching the news, and, in other words, this is something that is horrible and i need to solve this. no. it doesn't bother the people in california. my opinion is why should it bother me. that is my comment. host: let's talk to linda in orange, connecticut. good morning. caller: first of all, i would

strongly encourage every c-span person listening to pickup the phone and get whatever you can to whatever the local food banks are in your area that artists -- devastated. it doesn't matter. we are all americans. let's help each other out. as for the inflation, which is very exciting today. there is a conversation. you read a couple articles in the prompted me to look at the overall day on wall street. with investors. guess what? it is 6.9% written exactly the cost of inflation. we are being -- because of covid, it is interrelated. we have to stop and think and demand more out of our government. democrats, republicans.

we are being overrun by corporations, but they are paying the politician campaigns two. it is complicated. if you pick it apart, the numbers line up perfectly. please pay attention. everyone have a lovely holiday. host: let's talk to robin in coleman alabama on the independent line. caller: thank you for having me on. i have two comments. joe biden [inaudible] he got 13 soldiers killed. 84 million 80 -- idiots voted for them. host: we are beginning to receive text from lawmakers as they -- as the sun comes up in kentucky. we are beginning to find out about the devastation.

i want to bring you the tweets from lawmakers that are coming in now about what is going on in kentucky and other states in the south. here's a tweet from senator paul of kentucky who says our hearts are broken for all the suffering from last night's terrible storm. i and my team will do all we can with local and state officials as they leave the immediate response and will aggressively help families, businesses, and officials, access recovery resources. a tweet from thomas mackey. my prayers are with the affected families as daylight breaks on the full extent of the havoc. it will cause a series of tornadoes. -- the cost of the series of tornadoes is realized. we are praying for the people of western kentucky, where a wake

of construction was left overnight. may god be with every family impacted by the deadly storms and our search and rescue teams in the days ahead. one more from james kohler. please be with the loved ones who were lost in the terrible tornadoes last night. all of us will be in prayer for the outstanding first responders who have been on the ground all night long. let's go back to the phone lines, and let's talk to faye who is on the independent line. -- democrat line. caller: i am calling with reference to joe manchin. host: go ahead. caller: good morning. host: turn your tv down, faye. caller: i'm cutting it off. i am sorry. i am calling about joe manchin.

i am a democrat from perth. i am in my 80's. i love all people. democrats and republicans. but i do not understand what has happened to our country. we are totally and completely divided. along party lines. i believe that joe manchin needs to look back at his childhood and see who he was raised by. james mentioned was the governor of west virginia as mr. manchin was. there is something wrong that he is neither republican nor democrat now. i don't know why he is doing this. let's do the right thing and come together as americans and stop the infighting and deadlock that has happened to our country. host: let's go to richard from north carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: i would just like to say

that everyone needs to wake up. biden and the democratic party have sold us out to china and they are just trying to figure out a way to hand us over. that's all i've got to say. host: let's go to daniel in buffalo, new york, on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. top of the morning. i would just like to make a few points. regardless of biden or trump or the next man or woman in order. i'd like to know whether it is inflation, recession, depression -- what is our government doing to educate us and keep us educated. my pocket. my front door. are they going to help me at the food store? are they educating people and

preparing us for these types of situations, or are we going to the democrats and republicans? this is just going full-circle. it keeps going in a circle. we have to get our act together or we will not have a country. host: let's go to jeff who is calling from fairplay, missouri. republican i. good morning. -- republican line. good morning. caller: i am calling about trump owning a hotel and the bidens owning mining interests in africa. i think it is very disingenuous of you to sit there and act as if it is even remotely the same. the idea that build back better is mandating $70 billion for electric cars, taking everything unionized, $12,500 in subsidies

for a union made electric car. a 45 hundred dollars subsidy to a nonunion car. i just think c-span should be more nonbiased. i see the bias showing, and i really --. host: let me stop to you -- stop you right there. i have been a few blocks down from it, but there are other businesses that president trump was in control of during his presidency. that was the first example that came to mind. are you arguing now that president should not be in control of business interests while president? caller: i am arguing that they should not pass bills that they should that -- that would assist them.

i understand his son china has a $7 billion tied to the coal mining in africa. host: what does that mean for congress? that is who passes bills. caller: i get that, but the idea of art government being crooked and blaming trump, the idea that the bidens are in bed with china and the cobalt mining in africa, that is crooked. host: let's go to anthony who is calling from buoy -- bowie, maryland on the democrat line. caller: people tend to forget [inaudible] they are hungry.

the bailout was small businesses [indiscernible] the government shutdown. it was not only done by the biden administration. it was done by donald trump. [indiscernible] [indiscernible] the people now go out [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

t [indiscernible] [indiscernible] host: we would like to thank all of our callers who called in for our open forum segment. coming up next, stuart holland and beth silver will be here to discuss their podcast and they're focused on bringing civility to political discussion. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> weekends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. every saturday, you can find events and people from our nation's past. american history tv. book tv brings you the latest in lawn fiction -- nonfiction books and authors with serious

readers. this cover and explore on c-span2. >> next week on the c-span network, congress returns with a shorter workweek because of the holiday break it the senate takes up a bill increasing the nation's debt limit. it will go to the house. the senate also considers work on the defense bill. at 7 p.m. eastern on monday, a house committee will investigate the attack on the capital, citing former trump white house advisor, mark meadows, for contempt of congress for refusing to cooperate with the investigation. tuesday on c-span3, the hearing for robert kaelin, the food and drug administration commissioner , in front of the labor and pensions committee. on wednesday at 2:30 p.m. eastern on c-span.org and the c-span out mobile video app,

airline ceos discuss the impact of the coronavirus other industry. this is a front of the transportation committee. watch on the c-span network or watch on c-span now, our new mobile and video app. watch on c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video. life, or on-demand, anytime. c-span. your unfiltered view of government. ♪

>> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with beth silvers and sarah stuart holland of the politics podcast. we are here to talk with them on their focus on bringing civility back to political discussion. good morning. guest: good morning. thank you for having us. host: i have to tell our viewers that both of you are in kentucky this morning. beth is in union, kentucky. sarah is in paducah, kentucky. are you safe? guest: yes. thank you for asking. we are safe. the worst of the tornado passed about 30 minutes away from here. it was in a small town called mayfield. it was pre-terrible, but it went right through the middle. host: you are in union.

was there much damage around union? guest: union is near cincinnati, so we have very high winds and storms, and there were concerns about tornadoes and the weekend, but we sustained no damage that i am aware of. host: my parents are in mississippi. that was the first telephone call i will make as soon as we get off the air. we are here to talk about your politics podcast. first, beth, how did the pass-through politics podcast start? guest: we went to college together. we knew each other well and stayed in touch online. when i was on maternity leave, sarah was writing a blog where she talked about political things. i was interested in the work she did, so we occasionally popped in. i asked if you wanted to start a pollock test -- podcast.

we started talking to each other twice a week. we really wanted to sit down and have the kind of conversation around politics where we could not just talk about party talking points but about as a mom and living in kentucky every day. our conversations quickly became interesting to other people and we started hearing from listeners who brought their points into the discussion. it is a wonderful part of our lives, since 2015. host: i was going to ask how long the podcast has been on air, and to his listening to you? guest: our primary audience are women like us. when i first started thinking about writing a political podcast, i had not been back to my hometown of paducah from washington, d.c.. because people knew i worked in

politics previously, it was like i was, like a woman, they were over like a secret. i have something i want to get off my trust. essay political space. -- a safe political space. they don't feel comfortable talking about these things. take care, but for women, and especially in the south where we live, i grew up with my grandma shushing conversations about that. it was too stressful and it will make people fight. there will be conflict. i could tell that wasn't working for us. it wasn't working for us in 2016, and it continues to not work roads needed -- not work for us. will attack politics. everything. it was for women like us who want to talk about these things

but felt they were intimidated by a level of expertise or passion about every single political topic needed. then, as it continues, our audience spans any demographic. we have college students. we have septuagenarian's, we have people all over the country. our geography is diverse. all education and income levels. men and women. i think there is just a hunger to interact as citizens. not as combatants. as citizens. host: you both represent different spectrums on the left and the right. do you find common ground for yourselves to do this podcast, and house -- how do you think people should find common ground when they listen and they talk about the issues you talk about on the show? we will start with you, beth.

guest: we thought we represented left and right when the podcast began. that is not really true for us. maybe that is not true for many americans. once we get out of that arena, we started the show. so much has evolved politically that we are both now democrat. we still have very different personalities and different perspectives. what we've learned is that when you center your value on political conversation, with tactics, we do find we both want a better world for our children. we both want a healthy and functioning government were people with lots of opinions feel represented. where processes are fair. so much of the past six years have been about that, and how you achieve that in america. people tuning into our podcasts are not going to hear the kind of left freight difference they

come to expect in most media. instead, i hope they hear people asking themselves hard questions about what america needs right now and how we can be part of the solution. host: you brought this up earlier. much of the national media focuses on politics like washington, d.c.. your podcast that you are cohosting is out of kentucky. how important is it that to get out of washington, and out into the world? guest: it is essential. when we started the podcast in 2015, i decided to run for office in 2016. i ran for a local city commission. the experience of knocking on 5000 doors and asking for votes and starting this podcast are just so recent in my memory. it is a valuable experience

because so much of our local politics have become nationalized, to the detriment of not only are civil conversations, but our government. i would knock on the door saying i was running for city commission, and they asked who i was voting for in the presidential election. realizing that has infected all of those levels has really empowered us on the podcast appeal that away. it is not like we sit down every week and never talk about national politics and only talk about our local cities or the state of kentucky, we do spend time on what is happening and what it means. what is happening around our infrastructure. it is not just paint -- paying attention to local governments, but realizing what the national government will mean to us locally. we talk about infrastructure and we continue to spend a lot of time on infrastructure because that happens in washington dc and it will affect every local

community. it is a generational effect. everything will be touched by it in ways they can see and hear. the latest traffic. it is a two-way flow. it is not just to weaning -- tuning out washington. it is all connected and important. it is not seeing washington as a negative thing all of the time. what we tried to do is look at it through that nuanced lens. that is a word we use a lot. remember that the flow goes both ways. in washington, and is not a siloed place we are not responsible for. they affect us, and we affect them. we keep that front and center all of the time. host: let me take this time to remind our viewers that they can take her in this conversation. we will open up our regular line. republicans, your line is (202) 748-8001.

democrats can call (202) 748-8000. independence, your line is (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always reading your twitter at http://twitter.com/cspanwj. how do you choose which topics to take on on your podcast, and for both of you, what is a normal production of a single show like? how do you come up topics, gas? -- guests? guest: that is something we think about all of the time. when we started the podcast, we felt a lot of pressure to stick with whatever was making headline news. that is what we needed to talk about. whatever controversy is at the top of the mind for everyone. we talked about topics on twitter. we evolved that approach because

we know our audience better. we know ourselves better. now we try to focus on water topics that impact us as citizens? even it is with people in our lives, where do we feel like we can have a discussion that engages an audience and meets them where they are and the topics they are thinking about? even if those are important but not urgent. we had a couple of episodes about the community and vaccines. we didn't cover the school shooting in michigan right away. we wanted to give that some time to think about it. we put in a context of a larger conversation about guns in america. we have that coming up. we are keeping our eye on where things are going, where things are right now, and how can we have a different approach to those topics that can be heard on many excellent programs

throughout the country? where can we bring something unique to the conversation? host: walk us through the production of a single podcast. how long does it take. are you in different parts of kentucky and can only communicate online or on phone? walk through that? . guest: we live five hours apart. we get on a zoom call like this, and we have done planning previously, so we map out what we will spend time on and how we will wrap up the show. there is a little bit of scripting, as far as the intro and the out show, but that is about it. we record locally, and we talk or about 45 minutes to an hour. we will spend about an hour and a half. then we send it to our engineers, and they take out all of the stumbles and his

pronunciations, and we put it all together. it is very simple compared to most podcast. we have a quick turnaround on monday to friday. we create content for our subscribers every day. every day, i create a news brief. i think about it like i am sitting down with a girlfriend talking about the news with the journalist. i went to law school, so we do that. it is a slight nuance, and she'll do a deep dive for she'll see a story about something that is happening, and she will spend some time on that, getting more depth --. we spend a lot of time reading and taking in other people's work and thinking about -- we want to help people process the

news and all of the information out there, so we process that ourselves. sometimes, we think there is an important perspective, and we reach out and say, would you like to come on our podcast. sometimes they say yes, and sometimes they say no. that is the general flow of how we put the podcast together. host: you have a regular segment on the show called five things you need to know about blank. tell us about some of the topics. fill in the blank for us. what are some of the things you say? guest: thank you for asking. our most recent five things episode was five things you need to know about the federal reserve. this is where we try to demonstrate that curiosity is a value for us. we recognize that we didn't have enough foundational knowledge to have a healthy opinion about some topics. we started to develop episodes where we looked at the history.

we tried to go very neutral in the five things episodes and not bring any opinion two. we just focus on the basics. we decide to focus on that because there is a topic in the country about tools to combat any kind of new gages of the pandemic. economic distress. the federal reserve seems like a bit of a mystery to us. we trust her audience enough to hang with us for an episode of monetary policy. we also have done five things to know about immigration law. five things to know about a number of foreign countries, whenever we are having a foreign policy discussion. we think a little bit about the places we are in our history. we get a lot of positive response. teachers use those in the classroom. that is really rewarding for us. every time we talk about something like this, we hear from experts in the audience as well. the conversation continues

beyond the initial episode. it is very fun. host: speaking of extending your audience, let's open up to calls from our c-span audience. here is rachel from forney, texas, on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. when you go vote for president, character means a lot. i didn't vote in 2016. i didn't care for either one of them. to see trump get out there in a rally and say he could shoot someone on 5th avenue, during one of his rallies, a protester was protesting, which they have the right to. and he said knock the hell out of them. i will pay for your lawyer. i didn't know he was voted for after that. it's not hillary. the email thing was blown out of proportion, but i didn't want

her husband in office again. i just cannot understand how people can vote for somebody. they knew were trump was going. i believe he had something to do with january 6. the way he talked and made fun of people like john mccain, and they said he speaks from the hip. he was talking about grabbing women. that is locker room talk. know that is character. guest: go ahead and respond. can i say something really quick? that is something we hear a lot in our audience which is because of the past couple election cycles, we have a need to rebuild trust with each other. i think we have seen people in our lives processing what they've heard from politicians in ways that are shocking to us. they seem inconsistent with character. we often think about how we are

coming out of this. what is next when we have come to view our fellow citizens differently because of the way they reacted to political leaders? host: did you have something you want to say? guest: her comment is so reflective of how we get stuck in these moments in time and election cycles that feel really traumatic are so many americans. because we have this environment where it feels like you need to be an expert when you talk or surrounded by people who already agree with you to share, we cannot exercise those feelings. people used to ask me all of the time in 2016, how do you do this? how can you possibly talk about the thing that we are all trying to avoid? i would say, it is the avoiding that makes it worse. sitting with beth and processing exactly what rachel was

expressing, how can you say that? how can you still go from? it is so frustrating. i don't think about that stuff is much used to because i worked those feelings out. i did what i could do. it was in my area of influence. i expressed how angry and hurt and frustrated i was as with my fellow americans. i was able to move on in a certain sense. that doesn't mean that i don't think about it. it certainly doesn't mean i don't get frustrated or angry at my fellow americans. but i feel our audience, i am able to do this. we have forward momentum. i don't feel off in my frustration in the way i used to. host: i will stick with you, sarah. the two of you have called upon your listeners to put relationships before policy and understanding before arguments. first of all, explain what that means, and why are you calling your listeners to do that? i will start with you and then go to bed. guest: it depends with what we

are talking about. we get a lot of emails between fathers and daughters. my father is on the other end of the political spectrum than i am. i have struggled with that. if you are in close relationship with someone who you want to remain in close relationship with, then, let's prioritize what is important. we cannot fix it with one conversation. no one is asking me and my dad to come to an agreement. on immigration reform. to put the relationship first, to learn about each other and be curious about each other, that is important. i am not asking anybody to step on the steps of the lincoln memorial, tap on the shoulder of their fellow citizen and start a relationship. it depends on what relationship you're talking about. you need to acknowledge that you are in a relationship with that citizen. for better or for worse. we are in a relationship as

american citizens, and we have to decide what we want that relationship look like it. host: talk to me about understanding and oral argument? what does that mean? guest: we live in a prolific media environment. we have internalized the panel format. maybe i feel like i come to a conversation and i have to represent a perspective instead of just being a human in a discussion. i worry that we hear people talk about grace to politics and we should be nicer. what we do mean is that we should recognize that we don't get to live in a six minute segment where we put her argument out there, try our best to defeat our opponent, and everyone walks away. this is a long game. we have to keep showing up in conversation with people who don't agree with us. the more we understand not just

about their policy positions what led them to those missions. what influences people. why some people feel strongly about things. it seems bizarre to us, sometimes. we want to encourage everyone to be willing to continue to show up and listen and engage with what is going on with other people instead of just having a say of what they think is the right outcome. host: let's go back to our phone lines. here is john, from beaverton, oregon on the democrat line. good morning. caller: hello. thank you so much for what you are doing. i wanted to key in on what beth was saying. the idea of an arena of combat is, for me, moving towards a community. we are in communities, and we are going to live in

communities, long-term and then also, i come from an i.t. background. an administrative background and a background in administration -- immigration law. the one thing i find is that we need to, in these conversations, ring ourselves -- bring ourselves, not what we hear from the media, and listening. we need to listen and get into some kind of dialogue. that is really about being intentional, and realizing we are in a community. thank you. guest: go ahead and respond. guest: i agree. host: let's start with sarah. guest: i couldn't agree more. a beautiful reflection. we use the word community a lot on our podcast, and they are working on us all the time. listening is, especially in the

media environment, it is hard. especially in the middle of a pandemic where we were secured -- secluded from each other. i recommend reflective listening, if you've have ever been with the marriage counselor, it works. if you can repeat back. don't trust anyone in washington, d.c.. that is what i am hearing from you. you lost trust in this institution, but where that start? what can we do to change that in the country? it is like you are a detective. an investigative journalist. people are curious. you will learn, and it will improve your understanding of yourself and your understanding of their position. in my experience, it is stronger. we really try to convey a point or improvement. host: go ahead. guest: i would mention

immigration. i don't want to beat up on the media. i value at the media does. it is important. i trust a lot of media. i think people are trying to do good work. a lot of good work is being done. it is just that, as citizens, we have to carry the ball down the field even more. if we are having a conversation about immigration, we don't want to just tear what we've heard in media with our families. we want to ask questions. if we all decided to move to a new country, what would the rules be about that? what we have to show to live there? show would be able to go wherever we want? would we have to speak the language which mark what would be the starting point? we have to come back into our communities and do good productive work as citizens. guest: social media environment

is the other element in the room. were not going to fight about at the kitchen table. a lot of us are intaking media. not all of it is trustworthy. there is a lot of information in social media, and that really makes the next level of connection and conversation and community incredibly difficult. we talk about this, i don't want to make it sound like this is all individual choices. if we try harder, it will get better. america is an institution that is problematic the way we interact with each other and the way our brains interact with social media. it is a context lists -- context less weight. it is really harming our discourse as a country. i'm not breaking any new ground. there are lots of studies on this topic.

this is hard. it is hard because there are real institutions and processes and problems in our society that lead us down this path of disconnecting. host: the two of you developed along the same lines of your podcast. i think you're wrong but i'm listening. i will start with this. what made you decide that what you're doing on the podcast would translate over to a book? guest: we tried to write down what we were doing on the podcast every week. assume out of the weekly conversation of whatever topic we were discussing and said what are we cultivating as we discuss these topics? how are we treating each other? how are we prioritizing. that is a listening attempt with

10 practices. they really are practices. there is a lot that people come up to us, and you want to hate to give it. i know who needs this. if you are thinking i know who needs this, you probably needed to. it is about working on yourself as well as trying to engage differently with other people. we put together 10 practices to just keep showing up. i think there is more work to do, and we have a new book coming out in may called now what? people have read our book and they are saying that they've done it, and they are using these 10 steps, and we've had a pandemic, and also we've had another election. and also, everyone around me is not doing this, too. what is next? we've tried to zoom out and think about that. host: talk to us about now what? what ground are you breaking with that book? guest: what we are trying to do

in this book, it is what we were describing before. it sounds good to put the relationship first, but what relationship are we talking about? in this book, we start at the very big -- basic relationship between parents and children, media, family, coworkers, our local communities, our churches, our schools, our state, our nation, and our globe. what is the dynamic? what is the connection? what is the expectation? we tried to give clarity to what we mean when we put the relationship first, based on the relationship we are talking about. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to steve and jose -- san jose, california. caller: thank you for taking my call. when i started to listen to this program, i was hoping that the

two women were of different political views. one being a republican, and one being a democrat. i was hoping that it would be a discussion on how they could pull together and come to a discussion of what is best for this country, but i come to find out they are both of the democratic party, which, i don't believe that they can be honest about anything in regards to having an opposing point of view. let me ask you a question. can you be honest? do you believe that the democratic party is the party of division because i've noticed this trend, starting with obama.

continuing with biden. it has become very defensive. it continues with crt in our schools. being the oppressor and the victim. obama was going out of his way to make an opinion, broadcast an opinion on every shooting. it continued with biden. with the jesse small case and time and time again, when facts are known, it's untrue. host: why don't you take that first, beth. guest: i understand your disappointment. i have experienced a lot of that

disappointment since we started the product debts podcast. i was a republican we began our work. when the party changed, so did i. i think it is true that the party has changed. in terms of truth telling, i think we have a problem with that in the democratic party i think we have a problem with that the republican party. i think we have a problem with that in independence or members of third parties. we have some very serious issues right now where people are not feeling heard and we are not listening to each other well. i hope that sarah and i are always honest on the podcast print we have different perspectives on vaccine mandates. we have different perspectives on what would be best in service of the economy as the next step. the scope of the agenda. there are places where we disagree. we also don't try to fixate on disagreement. we don't try to fixate on labeling any particular politician or authority is the

party that is addressing the vast majority of our problems. there are plenty of places that are doing that. you can have that conversation anywhere. what i want to bring is a sense of how i can be helpful. i don't think constantly diagnosing where or with him this on -- with whom dishonesty begins as a way for me to contribute to the dialogue. host: sarah? guest: i was a democrat since i was 18 years old and i worked in the democratic party before moving back to a red state. it is a purple city. my city is not as read. i don't feel any obligation to defend the democratic party at it is a lot of people. i have disagreements with it. i think the idea of the democratic and republican parties are standings for

everything wrong with one side or the other. it is ludicrous. it is -- they are both massive parties. they have every type of imaginal person -- imaginable person in them. just the two of us with so many similarities, we are both white women living in kentucky. we are mothers and we have lot agrees. there is a universe of complexity between us. based on personality, based on life experience. based on one million different things. so much complexity just between the two of us. that is an analogy. if it comes to the government, i am the one that uses the brakes. let's bring the government into this. that will not work out. then we go to private industry. she is the gas and i'm the brakes. there is so much complexity between the two of us that are so similar on paper. so much complexity. it is contained within the democratic party and the republican party that does not

mean that i think the leadership of both parties holds responsibility for their actions and should be held responsible, but i'm done talking about the democratic party and the republican party. i know loving, caring, thoughtful people including my own father who are republican. i know self-interested people who vote democrat. i am not going to do that anymore. i don't think it gets us anywhere. i do not think it is accurate. we can talk about politics and leadership. we have a stand-in for everything in this country. how does that work? i don't think it is working well. host: let's go to peter who is calling from kentucky on the independent line. good morning. caller: [no audio] host: we lost peter so let's go to gary. good morning. caller: merry christmas and good morning to all of your c-span

guests, and one thing that has been kind of sticking in my crawl lately is people who say, when you talk about democracy, we are not a democracy. we are a republic. well, i think both are true. you see a commonwealth. it is defined as, as among other things, democracy or a republic. these people who say that stuff, they are about the green dollar. host: jump into that. guest: first of all, i love sticks in my craw. it is a great expression. it is frustrating that we have been caught up in the language

and the small debates or processes. we have bigger issues, we need to pay attention to them. i am sitting here, and i am filled with images of the area surrounding my town. i get choked up. houses are gone. churches are gone. i think, would any of us stop and ask about the party registration or the future of our democracy we help someone before we go to our fellow citizens and say what we are going to do to help them. our connection is clear, and we can debate about democracies and republics and i wish -- i know we can occupy that space in the middle of a pandemic with people's lives at risk those debates are heightened. but we have to hold debates for each other and remember that, in moments of real need, and community, we can be there for

each other and let some of that fall away. host: anything to add? guest: i would just say, as a republic and not a democracy, i am interested in where people heard that and what do they mean by that, and in what context is that important to them. whenever i unpack that with someone someone, it means that there is one issue there passionate about, one particular leader who uses that phrase, to meet a particular thing, and as we started to expand the context for that phrase, we find that they don't always feel that. i love having conversations about process and structure. i feel like we have a lot of room for commonality and progress and improvements to our system there. as much as i, sticking your craw, which i think is great, i think it is a good conversation starter if you really want to figure out where someone is

coming from. host: let's talk to darrell, from seattle, washington, democrat line. good morning. caller: this is a wonderful thing you are doing. we need more of it. one caller called in a couple of minutes ago and said that this started with obama and continued with biden. big skipped over that we had a president between those two gentlemen. amazing how there was no division coming out of the white house and that for your span. it skipped from obama to biden. i think that is part of the problem. when your party becomes a religion to you, where you just sort of blindly follow whoever is spouting the party line without question, that becomes problematic.

we didn't have these problems when news was a lot lighter in our society. now it is a process in our own networks, so fox news has to out conservative -- not even conservatism really, but they have to out to write -- outright oann. it is less about informing the public. the creation of the punditry class is also damaged our society because now we are not hearing the news. we are hearing how we should feel about the news. what conclusions we should draw about the events of the day. that is dangerous for a society. we need a classroom in this country. this notion that we are not a democracy, we are republic. a republic is a representative democracy. we just have to, i think we have

to be honest with ourselves first. honest enough to challenge those news sources that we rely on. host: i will let you jump into this first, sarah. guest: so many good points. i really agree -- what we try to do is not be pundits. we were clear from that. i have no obligation to push any talking point. we want to help people process the news. i think a classroom is important, but we also need a kitchen table where we can sit and say, sometimes, i don't know. i don't know how i feel about this. i don't feel like i understand the issue. there is not a lot of space for that. a steady intake of information from india or social media. we pause. that is what we do. we give space and oxygen to say,

i need to study and work out why. i don't know how i feel about this, and no one will let me say that. if i don't know. i am a bad person. i am an idiot. never the situation is. we need -- whatever the situation is. we need space for processing. it also includes learning and curiosity which is important, too, but there is a motion that we really need to let process. we are stuck in a reactive mode. everyone is responding thoughtfully, but they are reacting constantly. that -- he is right. that is an issue. we do that on the podcast. we give some space to move past reacting to a more thoughtful response. host: anything to add to that, beth? guest: i appreciate talking about partisanship not as a religion. i change my party affiliation in

public because we were well into the podcast when i became a democrat after having been a republican for my entire adult life. that was hard. but also, it is just not a big deal to me because i am a member -- i am not a hard-core democrat or republican. i am very uncomfortable and both arteries. i like it that way. i don't disparage people who contribute at the party level. that is not my work to do. i think of myself as a lot of other things, or i think of myself based on my party registration. i would like to encourage more of that. fundraising, party billing, and candidate recruitment, but contribute in other ways. hold your identity more usefully -- loosely. it would be helpful. host: we would like to thank beth and sarah for being on this morning and talking about their podcasts and their focus on

bringing stability to political discussion. thank you so much for being with us. guest: thank you for having us. host: we would like to think our viewers, our callers, and our social media followers. remember to continue to wash her hands and stay safe and have a great saturday. ♪ >> c-span's washington journal, every day we take your calls live on the air on the news of the day and discussed policy issues that affect you. coming up, the quincy institute talked about the recent piece in

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