also at 2:30, the police capital talk about improvements at the capital. on c-span two, at 10:00 a.m., the judicial court of appeals. >> c-span is your unfunded -- is your unfiltered view of government. journal, a economist and former trump senior advisor stephen moore talks about the economy and tax policy under the biden presidency.

then propublica reporter a.c. thompson joins us to discuss the newly updated pbs front line documentary film american insurrection, which looks at the events of january 6 and the rising threat of far right violence in the u.s.. host: this is the washington jan -- journal for january 4. protests taking place over covid vaccine requirements. numerous people have participated in protests. we want to ask you about if you have ever participated in a protest, what protest he participated in, and what you think the impact was. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. perhaps you want to text us this

morning. you can do that at (202) 748-8003. if you want to let us know on twitter or facebook, facebook is facebook.com/cspan. you can also tweet us at @cspanwj. the story about protests even as of yesterday with the swearing in of the city council, protesters disrupting that over concerns over covid mandates. here is the story from boston cvs -- cbs, saying protesters used loud sirens throughout the ceremony. this was over the topic of vaccine mandates in the city. if you go overseas in amsterdam, thousands of people there defying a ban on large gatherings. they took to the street to show displeasure at restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus. protesters congregated where the

rally took place. there was a clash reported because of that. here is one from amsterdam as far as protests that took place over concerns over coronavirus. that is just two in the united states and abroad. when it comes to your own participation in protests, let us know if you have ever done that, what you think about the impact, and other things related to that. you can call us at (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8002 for independents. gallup, who takes polls on many things, back in 2018 in august of that year did a poll looking at the urge to demonstrate to take a temperature of people who decided to do that. from those they polled, 30 6% of those saying they participated or felt the urge to protest, with more females participating.

most of them with a postgraduate education of 58%. when it comes to party affiliation, 21% of republicans saying they felt the urge to protest at the time. when it comes to democrats, 51% saying they felt that urge to protest. they also included the category of political ideology. 21% of conservatives feeling at the time the urge to protest, 36% describing themselves as moderate. as far as the topics they protested on, a gallup poll took a pull on that. most of them mentioning specifically women's rights and the #metoo movement, immigration issues, and gun control into second image in -- amendment issues.

president trump at the time and the president's family, the topic of equal rights and environmental issues, education also one of the things people want to protest over, law enforcement and police brutality, including black lives matter issues. last on that list come abortion, pro-life, and parenthood issues. just some of the specific topics people protested on. if you have done the same, you can let us know and tell us why. tell us things he protested over and what you think they do as far as the impact. your up first on this topic of participating in a protest. -- you are up first on the topic of participating in a protest. caller: just following up on the comments and data you gave our viewers and some of the studies. i have not participated in any protests. i am happy as an american.

it seems the very few, small minority has allowed his voice and it is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. unfortunately, the people who are conservative needs to participate in our government and not let the minority -- the very small few that want to change and radicalize our country. host: would you say overall protests have impact? caller: they do. i think they have negative impacts. i just heard listening to the radio -- i think it was on the music radio where they were talking about blm and the naacp. i researched what they have done over the last eight years. i do not know if they are now so

shooting themselves after the 2018 protests with blm. i think that was negative and should have been controlled by our government and stopped. host: in florida, giving us his thoughts on protests. let's hear from john and virginia, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. host: thank you for calling. what do you think about this idea of protest? have you participated in one? caller: in 2020, i went to the second amendment march in richmond and the women's march in d.c., both in january of that year. i would say that protests have -- i think they do more good than harm. looking back at history,

protesting the minimum wage, we were able to raise that nationally to seven dollars tony five cents. i'm surprised we are not seeing more protests on the availability of testing. as much division as there is in this country, i feel that is something we can all unite around. if you look at the nba, for example, players were not able to have testing for most of their players. i feel there should be more availability for the average citizen in that regard. host: use at secondment meant issues and women's rights issues. what prom to do to get involved in those issues -- prompted you to get involved in those issues? caller: i wanted to see what it was like. since i am an independent, there are a few issues that i do not have a firm stance on, so i wanted to see what they were like more than anything. host: that is drawn and virginia

giving us his thoughts. the gallup folks talked to people in 1965 and they highlighted a fact from that time, saying mounting public unrest in the vietnam war at the time joined the civil rights movement during the same decade as major protests. 10% of americans, if asked if they ever felt the urge of organ -- to organize or join a public demonstration about something, which means 90% of the participants said no. for those who participated, 15% of those participating were between 21 and 29. most were college graduates, some high school graduates. 90% of u.s. adults said they never felt the urge to demonstrate during that time. about the same percentage at 30 to 39 years old and even more for those 50 years and older.

let's hear from christopher from oklahoma, democrats line. caller: i have protested in my 20's, my 30's. i protested the afghanistan war. in the mid to thousands, around 2006. i think demonstrations are healthy. for our democracy. i think the urge to protest is healthy. the motivation to change things that you do not agree with or change attitudes or something. a lot of people do not understand how spooky and

dangerous it is to get involved in things like that, especially with a big group like these groups that go out and recruit on the internet and that -- then get involved with them and they may have other agendas. we had a picket in north texas about the afghanistan war and had a north korean veteran, a 75-year-old guy, drive-thru r picket line and run over children and people because he did not understand the upside down flag was a distress signal but he was a veteran of the korean war a long time ago. host: so the point he made about participating in these things, do you feel a changes minds or opinions or is this something

that fulfills you as being part of the event? caller: both. on the latter more so. as far as actually changing things, i think it is sporadic. i think the real movers and shakers control -- the little people are never going to have the control that they want, like peace on earth and all this stuff. that is romanticism. host: some of you participating on facebook and other means this morning. when it comes up or dissipating in protests, the taxpayer march on the u.s. capitol in 2009 in d.c.. richard thompson from facebook saying, i use my power to vote.

elizabeth davenport going back to the vietnam war as a means of protesting. from facebook, also saying when it comes to this idea of protesting, i was too busy providing for my family. just some of the thoughts from our facebook page. if you want to post there, it is available -- twitter is of able to you at @cspanwj. in miami, florida, democrats line. caller: happy and healthy new year to all the listeners. i was home on leave in detroit when there was riots and i was curious. i wanted to take some pictures. i got as close as where the national guard had set up barbed wire around the area. also in the service, i protested the anti-vietnam protests with martin luther king.

they wanted to see some agitation there probably to get into the papers or tv or whatever. i did and anti-vietnam protest in washington, d.c. something i noticed during the mcduffie riots in miami is the police cordoned off an area and let the protesters burn down or destroy wherever they were protesting. now, with social media and watching the summer protests, the police brutality protests, you see the protesters go to their house. they went to the police stations , to the downtown areas. that changed the police tactics. another thing i noticed when you

watch the video from the different cities, you can see a pattern of agitators. you saw a pattern of the way they initiated agitation of property in the different cities. host: scott in miami, florida giving us his history of participation in protests. caller: there is a big difference between protests and riots. i want to point that out. i will give you might reverse chronology. in a very white community in north eastern massachusetts, i heard the police chief say if you think there is systemic racism in america you cannot have a dialogue. that was disheartening. before that, i took part in

protests after the trauma ministration decided to dismantle science funding. before that, and the run-up to the war in afghanistan, i was in a small town where there was a college that had the largest selection of your shema -- hiroshima artifacts in america. a handful of people including a conscientious objector stood on the street and held up signs that said things like give peace a chance. people swore at us. one day a car pulled over and a guy got out and said you are going to burn and how because you do not support george bush. i said to him, i do not think jesus was an american and i am pretty sure jesus was not white. going back further from that, i was involved in protests outside

a military base in new jersey and i have a file with the fbi. then the first protest i went to was in washington, d.c. where john kerry threw his medals onto the steps. i'm grateful to have the right to stand up for what i believe in and there is a difference between riots and protests. host: he shared many personal experiences of participating in protests. you can do the same. call us at (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. independents, (202) 748-8002. if you are on the line, we ask you to hold for a few minutes. if you are calling in, please continue to do so. want to give you an update on where voting rights legislation exists in the senate. joining us for that

conversation, jordan carney from the hill. she will give us an update this morning. thanks for joining us. a date has been set by the senate majority leader. talk about that date and what happens in the lead up to that. guest: senate majority leader chuck schumer sent out a letter to his caucus yesterday setting a deadline. he said if republicans once again block voting rights legislation from getting the votes needed to start debate he will force a vote on the floor by january 7 on changing the senate filibuster rule. that is going to take all 50 democrats if they are going to do that. they do not currently have the support of all 50 democrats. the next weeks are going to be about figuring out what proposal

. host: if you can clarify which democrats in the senate are not on board. host: -- guest: the two names we know are joe manchin and kyrsten sinema. they both made it clear recently that they are still supportive of the threshold. they have also been skeptical in the past of this idea a lot of their colleagues support that would allow voting rights legislation to pass but keep the 60 vote threshold in place for other bills. host: if this primary plan for the senate majority leader does not take place, what is the plan b? guest: democrats are still deciding what rule change they would support. there is this idea of a talking filibuster where you vote on the

bill. there are other, smaller ideas, but they are focused until that january 17 date on figuring out is through proposal that could get joe manchin and kyrsten sinema on board? host: have there been senators recruited to specifically reach out to those two senators to get them to change their mind? guest: schumer has tasked a group of democrats to lead these negotiations, tim came from virginia who has been sort of leading talks. -- tim kaine from virginia. they have met with kyrsten sinema, so those negotiations are ongoing. host: that is on the democratic

side. how have republicans responded? guest: joe manchin has talked with some republicans about small the rule changes, things that would not change the filibuster. they hit that quickly yesterday over this january 17 date schumer put out there. they have warned will destroy the senate, argued it will cause them nuclear winter in the senate. if democrats change the legislative filibuster, it might make it difficult to do normal, day-to-day things in the senate. host: this is jordan carney, who reports on the senate. thanks for your time this

morning. guest: thank you for having me on. host: back to our topic of protests, if you have participated in one, what you think the impacts are. independents, (202) 748-8002. michael from ohio on our republican line, go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. i wanted to protest this past election but i was afraid of being called an insurrectionist. thank you for taking my call. host: we already heard that first part. as far as protests overall, what you think about their effectiveness? are you there? ok.

that is michael. just a reminder, if you could while you're waiting on the line, just turned on your television. that kind of slows the conversation for us, so if you can do that while you're waiting we would appreciate it. our line for democrats, florida, good morning. caller: good morning. i am an old protester. i have been protesting since i was in graduate school and we used to drive up to d.c., march for women's rights, the e.r.a., marched against nukes, marched for civil rights, marched against -- again when the pulse shooting happened. president obama opened the gates of the white house to protect the marchers if we needed. i am too old to protest now but i think everyone should. i appreciate of the men who said there is a difference between

protesting and rioting. always. i marched in the streets against no nukes. they provided three days of nonviolent protest training. you do not hit anybody. you should not even be yelling at anybody. just take to the streets, show what you support and what you are against. there is no need for violence ever. host: what drove you to participate in protests overall? caller: i was the child of a republican -- county republican in missouri who made me distribute literature for richard nixon and i never got over it. i promised myself after that i would always make my voice heard , especially against crooked politicians, and always be for the side of right. it is not a matter of partisan politics for me. it is being always on the side of truth and justice.

host: do you think protests are effective overall? caller: absolutely. if i could, i would be in the streets with black lives matter now. i wear my black lives t-shirt even around parts of florida where people yell obscenities at me. host: how do you measure if overall protests change minds and hearts depending on the topic or issue? caller: i think they can. i think they really can. i have seen protests in the streets. i have been on a lot of convincing, but not when you are hurting people. host: in florida talking about her experience with protests. denise laing on facebook saying when it comes to her history, back in the 1960's, adding it kills me that the people rights mm and has not been ratified. protests have become dangerous

because of others making trouble. i do not want to be part of putting others in danger. eric fairbanks saying he took place in the black lives matter protests and joined a group of occupy protesters when the 3% or -- against the occupy i.c.e. protests. again, people sharing their experiences, as you can on a variety of ways, whether you want to call us, text us, post on social media. in indianapolis, this is jeff. go ahead. caller: i think protesting and standing for social justice is american. what happened on january 6 was a coup, and attempted coup by fascists. unfortunately, the republican

party has been hijacked by fascists. host: when it comes to your participation in protests, what is your history as what you have done? caller: i marched in kokomo, indiana 40 years ago. i protested the invasion of kuwait in 1999 and 1991. i am a united states veteran. i have been in combat. that is right, republicans. i am also a progressive. i hear these trump supporters and they have nothing to stand on. it is all about grievance. they say they are pro-law-enforcement but end up

killing law enforcement on january 6. people have become basically stormtroopers. host: go ahead and finish your thought. caller: i am sorry. i equate what happened on january 6 with what the nazis tried to do in 1923. host: that is jeff in indianapolis. when it comes to laws on protesting, the pew trust keeps track of states and changes they make to protesting. they put on their website that new laws have been enacted in arkansas, florida, iowa this year. increase penalties for blocking traffic, tearing down monuments, and other unlawful behavior. the bill typically defines riots as a gathering of three or more people. new arkansas, kansas, and montana laws increase protests for protesting death penalty is

for protesting your infrastructure. to controller protests occur and charge protest organizers, adding that florida governor ron desantis, a republican, signed a state law in april surrounded by lawmakers and enforcement officers. we want to make sure we will be able to protect people, businesses, and property against mob activity or violent assembly, he said, according to the tampa bay times. it also quotes democratic state senator jones, saying the spectacle was a distraction that will only further disenfranchise black and brown communities. pew trust is where you can find that if you are interested in learning about more. we are interested in learning if you have participated in a protest. we will hear from john.

caller: i have been in a couple protests in my life and almost forgot about the last one. the first one was after kent state protested as a veteran against the war. during the march from that place that they took over in seattle this last year or so -- during the march i talked to a lot of people and found out i had nothing to do with any of those people. most of them were socialists, whatever. the other time i protested was against obamacare after my wife died and it was a singular protest and went on for months at my local intersection. host: just you or a few other

people or how many? caller: just me with a sign. host: what did the sign say? caller: you know that dirty harry deal that he is famous for? host: go ahead, make my day? caller: willing to take your chance or some thing like that. i did that with the obamacare deal with it. i only had about three or four people come back and get out of their cars where i was and raise how with me. for the seattle area, that is unusual. host: what do you think is the effectiveness? caller: it sure made me feel better, even though i spent

three months up there in the corner every day. just for an hour or two. it made me feel better. host: that is john telling about his experience. let's hear from don, republican line. hello. caller: i was in one probably 10 years ago for medical marijuana, maybe longer ago. it seems to help a lot. everything was peaceful. it educated a lot of people. since then, we were able to vote in medical and recreational cannabis in this state. i was caught in one i think two years ago. in seattle, the mayor called it the summer of love.

it was not for me. we were there on a family trip and did not know we were about to get parked in their -- there and got stuck in the middle of it. it was right before the whole police and precinct and they shut everybody out. two or three kids ended up dying behind the walls of that jazz -- chaz. i was hoping you could show video from that day. as soon as someone mentioned january 6, you guys were right on the button for showing video. if you could show some chaz video of that not so peaceful protest so people see what you should not do and maybe videos a peaceful protests so people know how not to put hands and burn stuff down. host: that is don in washington

giving his perspective on protests he has been involved with. it was a protest looking at education related issues highlighted by abc news, saying middle and high school students across virginia will soon be excused from school to participate in a protest thanks to a bipartisan group of students from the virginia young democrats and teenage republicans who joined forces to lobby for a new law which started as a school board policy and fairfax county, virginia. the policy granted students in excused absence from school one day a year to engage in civic or political events. school districts and other states passed similar policies, but virginia is the first to pass one statewide. there is a misconception that it is only about protests. it is also about getting a sense of what your government is, trying to make a difference,

meaning legislators. -- meeting legislators. abc highlighted this story in march of this year. if you want to find it on the website, it is abc news. let's hear from walter in connecticut, democrats line. caller: i am 67 years old. i cannot tell you have any protests i have been to. going back to the black panthers , protests on the vietnam war. that was only in high school. my mom was, i don't want you to get hurt. nobody got killed. people were just raising how --

hell. stop the war, stop the war. protesting is nothing wrong with that because that is your right. you can speak your mind cannot yell and scream and all that. i have been involved as an activist and with strikes. nobody wants to tear up nobody's property. you're trying to send a message and get things done. protests is like we had a walmart in connecticut and the things that were going on their -- if you do not say nothing, you are either the silent majority.

if you say something, speak. do not complain. host: that is walter in connecticut. the aclu on its website gives recommendations for those who are participating in a protest. you can check out the full list. as far as your rights when it comes to attending a protest, your rights are strongest in what are known as traditional public forums, such as streets, sidewalks, and parks. you likely have the light -- right to speak up as long as you are not blocking access to government buildings or interfering with other purposes the property was designed for. private property owners can set rules for speech on their property. the government may not restrict your speech if it is taking place on your own property or with consent of the property owner. it also says that counter protesters have free speech rights.

police must treat protesters and counter protesters equally but should allow them to be within sight and sound of one another. the aclu also offers this when it comes to what to do if your rights have been violated. write down everything you remember, including the officer's badge and patrol car number and the agency they work for. take photographs of any injuries. once you have all this information, you can file a written complaint. there is more there if you are interested in learning what they offer as far as rights are concerned. mel is next from ohio, democrats line. caller: beautiful morning here in ohio. the sun is starting to come up. a little cold, but looks better. i have a comment on protests.

i am a retired united mine workers union person. we have had over the years a lot of protests and rallies. we have a great president in our union. on these protests, which took place in st. louis, washington, d.c., pennsylvania, where ever we would go we would watch videos. everybody had a video on the bus and everything was explained to people. this is what you can do and what you cannot do. in d.c. a few years back, we had 10,000 people in front of the capital. we had people making speeches on both sides of the party. we had a situation where coal companies were filing bankruptcy

and pensioners were losing health care, which the coal companies at that time were responsible for that. we lobbied in capital. we had meetings with people on both sides of the aisle. it worked. we got a bill passed in 2019. to protect health care and pensions. if you do rallies right -- we did not make bombs and smash windows. we did not believe in that. we never had any problems concerning that kind of activity. i have been in a lot protests. i am still active. host: thanks for sharing your experience. let's hear from eric from florida. republican line.

caller: i have never been to a protest. i have seen on video and youtube, things like that. i have a feeling that a lot of the protesting, especially the last couple years, is occurring because of people's passions being inflamed and emotions being stoked. i do not condone violence during protests. i respect the right of everybody to protest, but the one thing that really gets to me over everything i have seen over the years is the insurrection thing about january 6. i think january 6 was stupid. it was a lot of stupid people doing stupid things and never should have happened. if you want to know where a real insurrection was, i do not understand why what happened in seattle with chaz is not being looked at as an insurrection.

by definition, that was an insurrection. the people of seattle took over six city blocks, kicked out the ruling authorities and legal authorities, and set barricades. they armed themselves and declare themselves an autonomous area. that by definition is an insurrection. that should be looked at and prosecuted as an insurrection, not january 6. january 6 should be looked at as stupid people doing stupid things. host: the counting of electoral votes, don't you think that was part of an interruption of that process? caller: i do see that and i think there was coronation by members of the government. i can concede to that point, that in that aspect you can look at it as an insurrection. i still think what happened in seattle was more of a direct

definition of what an insurrection is then anything else. host: eric and florida giving us his thoughts. let's hear from margaret in texas, independent line. caller: i have seen a lot of it. this month, i will be 94 years old, so i have seen a lot. i marched in the civil rights movement. we were spat upon by angry white people. i am so-called white, but i was spat upon by white people for simply marching for equality and i marched against the vietnam war and against the invasion of iraq. the only thing i ever saw that was violent and that is i was standing on the corner of a

courthouse in a little town where i live. friends and i were holding a hill country peace sign and a fellow in an suv almost ran us over on the corner and coldest communists. our response was, have a good day. i believe in protesting. that is part of the responsibility of a good citizen. when they say things that are dumb -- that the government has done wrong, they have the right to speak out about it. as far as what was happening at the capital, that was definitely an insurrection. i talked history at university. that has all the earmarks of what is called by the constitution and insurrection.

so i guess that is all i have to say. i would be marching today except my legs just do not work as well as they used to. host: that is margaret there in texas, giving us her perspective when it comes to protests. we are asking you to do the same for the remaining 15 minutes or so. you can post on social media if you wish. technology is one of the topics that usa today looks at in a piece when it comes to being involved in protests. the author says the fact that every one of us has a video camera and connection to one another helps and can also hurt. facial recognition is now a key investigative tool for police departments, with nearly every major city's searching for a person identity was nothing more than a person -- picture of their face. if you want to join a protest and stay out of harm's way, we

are still in the middle of a pandemic. there are ways tech can help. do not forget to wear a mask, practice social distancing, etc. it talks about if you want to find a march and resources to participate, saying he and his team, all under 18, have built a way to track protests. when you open the site and click on your state, city, or town to see the gathering location or spot the next general area where an event is planned. usa today has that story particularly on the tech aspect of protesting. let's hear from oregon, democrats line. caller: i am visiting washington, d.c., where i grew up. i have been watching everything. i did protest with a group,

which i understand is nationwide. we had protests that were very peaceful. my minister was in downtown portland and we have gotten a bad rap because everybody exacerbated all of the protests. when my minister was there, he was helping people and other people were helping each other. violence started after 11:00 at night, when most people had already left who were silently and privately protesting. i believe in protesting. i do not believe in violence. i am counting on our insurrection committee to start stepping down and saying we are going to prosecute every one of you. it breaks my heart to see what happened in our capital. as a little girl, i always was

able to walk down the street here and always felt safe in washington, d.c., particularly in portland, oregon. i wish we could do it in a nice manner. host: let's go to elizabeth in california, democrats line. caller: i did march against the wars, the war in vietnam. in 1967 and 1968, every week, there were 200 killed. 200 were killed each week in 1967 and 1968 and that is what drew students into the streets to protest. i protested against the war in iraq, which turned out to be a huge disaster. i protest against donald trump three times, the women's march,

the science march, environmental march. i agree that january 6 was not a peaceful protest. it was an insurrection. trump planned on it. he beckoned people there ahead of time. navarro talks about how they planned to grab the votes and stop the counting of illegal votes. january 6 was not a peaceful protest turned bad. it was a planned coup d'etat attempt. host: what do you base that on? caller: look at what is coming out the january 6 committee and the books. host: specifically to the committee, what did the committee put forward as far as to your claim? caller: trump started firing people within the administration , bill barr included.

he wanted to help him in this attempt. he wanted him to come up with some idea where they could halt the counting of the electoral votes from the states. biden won by almost 8 million votes nationwide, so it was not even close. host: that is elizabeth giving thoughts on protests and other things when it comes to the events of january 6. the washington times highlights what to expect later this week concerning the u.s. capitol. the president and vice president will make remarks that are expected to frame january 6 as an attack on democracy. meanwhile, former president trump will hold a press conference at his mar-a-lago resort in palm beach, florida. he's expected to discredit the house january 6 committee for repeating that the november 3 election was stolen from him.

a lot of activities that day, stay close to c-span for a quick rundown of what to expect. that will be a 2:30 in the afternoon with house members. you can see that on c-span.org and c-span now. you can also see events at 5:30 in the afternoon. that event on the steps of the capital. you can follow along on c-span. a lot of events that day. we will take your call on that -- calls on that one year anniversary. let's hear from jack in west virginia, democrats line. caller: i wanted to follow that got a little bit. he called from united mine workers. we do peacefully protest.

are you hearing me? host: you are on. caller: we peacefully protest now. i started under arnold miller. now with this bankruptcy and stuff, joe manchin, we process is -- protested for five years -- 10 years and mitch mcconnell finally had a vote. went to trump's desk, we got our pensions. it has been so hard about 10 years. host: jack there in west virginia giving us his thoughts on protesting. some of you posting on our social media sites. this is rebecca from facebook saying she participated. i used to attend protests to absorb the message and see people supporting the cause. i go and listen and watch,

adding that now i live too far away from washington, d.c., where protests are popular. jaclyn off our twitter feed saying, i protested the outsourcing of american jobs. ronald reagan and the republicans did it anyway. also from our twitter feed, if you are saying, i protested on the green many times. no one was arrested. my bus transfer was on the new haven green coming home from high school, so that was one of my regular stops. then robin casey from facebook protested ronald reagan's stance on women's rights. you may have participated in a protest and want to share your experiences. you may want to talk about if you think protests are effective overall. you can do that for the next couple minutes. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. independents, (202) 748-8002.

this is denise in florida, democrats line. caller: i have been in several protests. between the drilling of the oil and health care, everything. republicans are out to destroy this country period. the more they get their stuff passed through, the worse it gets. host: how do you decide what you are going to protest for? caller: it depends on what i'm interested in. i'm interested in clean air, clean water, honesty. the banks not overrunning the people. if democrats are for it, that is for sure. host: what impact do you think

protesting has? caller: it depends on the situation. you have what happened on january 6. it started as a peaceful protest and you saw what trump's gladiators did. it can get out of hand easily. you just have to be honest, be helpful, be whatever. host: denise there in florida. we will hear from steve in virginia, republican line. caller: i do not know why they have people getting together -- on january 6, i do not see anybody holding the governors and mayors accountable.

trump wanted to send in the national guard to keep small businesses from being burned down. they do not worry about where the rest of us go to work. peaceful protest turning into riots and burning down hundreds of businesses and bunches of these democrat cities. host: to our question, have you ever participated in a protest? caller: absolutely no and i have not at all. protests now turn into riots. host: is that your reason for not participating or are there other reasons? caller: it is. whether republican or democrat, you always have these oddballs and you never know what is going to happen. for safety reasons, just stay away. if you are a conservative or

republican, you will be shut down on your ideas. that is just my thought. i do not know why they do not have these committees getting together and hold these governors and mayors accountable for letting small businesses get burned down. host: we will go to arizona, democrats line. caller: my first participation in a protest was in 1960, my freshman year at city college of new york. the protest was against the speaker band set by the state, where they could decide who spoke on campus. everybody went out in mass -- en masse. in a few days, they gave in. what is interesting about that -- hello? host: you are on. caller: what is interesting about that is the first speaker to speak on campus was with the

communist party. he came. nobody protested. the next speaker invited by the young republicans was the governor of mississippi. he came and the left went crazy. can't let a person like that speak on campus. he is against black people, he is a racist. they said, we are letting everybody speak. then i spoke with a friend who was a member of the communist group. he said, this is what we wanted to do, to let our people speak, not yours. so the end justified the means. i learned a valuable lesson on life. that is a lot like how politics is today. the end justifies the means. people go crazy supporting trump

when he is not a good person. it is unbelievable to me. host: let's go to joseph in tennessee, republican line. caller: good morning. do you have a tally on the calls this morning, democrat versus republican? host: not in front of me, no. caller: evidently, from what i have watched for an hour, the democrats are the protesters. all these people that protested vietnam and spat on the soldiers coming back. the soldiers were only doing their duty. they were drafted into service. the people that spit on them have very little regard for the people who have fought to keep this country alive. some protests are good, but 90% of them -- and one more thing is

how many have you asked or paid to protest? host: before you go, you said some protests are good. what protests are good in your mind? caller: the people that do not impede traffic. they do not lay down in the highways. they do not burn buildings. the people that just hold their signs and do a peaceful march. that is fine. host: that is joseph in tennessee on a republican line. finishing off the hour for those of you who called about your participation in a protest and other related topics. thank you to all of you who have participated. two guests joining us this morning. we will hear from stephen moore. he will talk about the state of the economy and why he thinks biden administration policies are holding it back. later, propublica correspondent

a.c. thompson discuss his film american resurrection -- insurrection and what he thinks is the spread of far right violence. those conversations coming up. >> this week on c-span. wednesday the senate rules committee holds a hearing on the u.s. capitol police since the january 6 attack. thursday marking the one-year anniversary of the attack. friday the supreme court hears oral argument and two cases dealing with the biden administration's vaccine mandate for health care workers. a live coverage beginning at 10:00 a.m.. both the house and senate return in january for the 117th

congress. senate democratic leadership takes up voting rights legislation. watch these developments on c-span once congress returns or you can watch full coverage on c-span now. head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video live or on-demand. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> how exactly did america get up to its neck in debt?

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>> you have a shot at winning the grand prize of $5,000. entries must be received before january 20. washington journal continues. host: our first guest of the morning is stephen moore. he was a senior economic advisor to candidate trump in the 2016 campaign. thanks for joining us. >> thank you so much for having me. love c-span. love the job you guys do. informing americans about the key issues of the day. two you could title this piece the trump economic record. what point are you looking to make with that?

>> i was proud of the record we had under trump in terms of reviving the american economy. when i'm walking down the street now, i do a lot of traveling. people come up to me and say, i didn't like some of the things trump said or his antics. biden has -- multi-trillions of dollars and now he wants the biggest tax increase in american history. the big issue right now is this $5 trillion build back better, i call it the build back broker bill because i think it will bankrupt the country. the issues we had under trump,

america moving. get regulations. deregulate where we can and cut taxes to make america more competitive. don't forget we have the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. we had the lowest unemployment rate for hispanics and blacks ever recorded. we had wage gains and a really booming economy. i'm very proud of that record. when you look at what happened under biden with the raging inflation, people look back and say what trump did was pretty impressive. two the trump record was before covid really took hold in the united states as far as those records are concerned. casco i remember so vividly back in early 2020 when the u.s. economy was just on fire. we had all these surplus jobs.

the census bureau just reported the lowest poverty rate in the history of the united states. something's going to happen. i don't know if it's going to be an earthquake or terrorist attack. i had this premonition that things were going too well. then we got hit with this horrible virus that we are still fighting to this day. incidentally i just pray every morning when i wake up now that we don't repeat the mistakes we made in 2020. we cannot lock down this american economy. i thought trump did a pretty good job in dealing with covid especially with respect to getting that vaccine out in nine months which saved millions and millions of lives worldwide. host coat the president was meeting with independent farmers

and ranchers. one of the things he talked about was his own record on the economy. >> we are entering 2022 in a position of unique economic strength. 6 million new jobs. unemployment is down to 4.2%. three years ahead of predictions. new small business applications are up over 30% compared with before the pandemic and the fastest growth in america and nearly 40 years. america is the only leading economy in the world where the economy as a whole is stronger than it was before the pandemic even after accounting for price increases. because we took action through the american rescue plan, we made important progress. we have begun to change the

trajectory of our economy, the one that we inherited. to finally make it work for working people. to build up from the bottom up and middle out and give working people at the wages and benefits they deserve and encourage more innovation and faster growth so now we are in a strong position and we have challenges. we have already laid out a plan to address the costs the families were facing. protecting consumers, three lowering kitchen table costs including with my bill back better plan. host coat let's start about the jobs and the unemployment record.

>> this is about the best time to be looking for a job. we've gotten back 10 million open jobs in the country today and that's a very positive thing. the problem is that a major reason we were able to make this incredible comeback was operation warp speed. people like the washington post said we wouldn't have a vaccine until 2022 or 2023. it was one of the most successful government programs in the history of this country was operation warp speed. the job market is really good.

we have massively increased government spending. i have this new book out. everyone knows this is the problem. we are massively increasing the size of our government. just those bills that he mentioned, those added $3 trillion to our government spending and government debt. $3 trillion and now he wants another $5 trillion. that's more money biden is talking about spending up and we spent on the revolutionary war, civil war, world war i, world war ii, the great depression, the building of interstate highways, the building of

intercontinental rail system and the moon landing. this is going to cause a massive debt hangover. when you go out on new year's eve and drink a drink and you wake up the next morning and it's hard to get up in the morning. i think we are going to have a real debt hangover. host: but to the spending the president highlighted. was it a stabilizing force and did it contribute to what we are seeing economically? guest: government spending doesn't add to the economy. the only way the government can give you a dollar -- the government doesn't create resources. this is one of the principal laws of economics we learned from milton friedman. this is one of the points of my

book is we want to get back to the founding idea of our country of the limited federal government that provides the basic services for a country but doesn't have -- the new york times called what joe biden has proposed, cradle-to-grave government. that's coming from the new york times. my projections are that if we were to pass the bill back better bill, the federal government would consume 50% of our resources. we would be more socialized than we would be free enterprise. the government would be larger than our entire -- output of our private workers. that's dangerous. show me anywhere in the world where massive increases in government spending and government debt have led to a happy ending.

i look at venezuela and argentina and greece and zimbabwe and all of these third world countries. it never has a happy ending. many of the great empires of the past several thousand years were ruined by massive government debt and borrowing and overspending. host: so the previous administration made the same type of mistake that because of the spending during the pandemic. guest: look -- i do think when you have a crisis like the pandemic, you need to spend money. just like we need to spend money on world war ii. it's a great point you are making. when we have an economic crisis, we spend money to get past the crisis. here's the thing. this is the really critical point of my book. in every previous instance where we have had a war or a natural disaster or the great depression , once that crisis was over, we

didn't massively increase government spending. we should be actually cutting government spending right now because there's a direct link between all of this massive over government spending and all of this massive money creation because it's all being financed by the government issuing bonds in the government is than printing money to finance those bonds. that leads to more inflation. the one thing that joe biden said that was just cockamamie frankly is that it is $5 trillion spending bill is going to reduce inflation. i think any of your listeners and viewers with even a jr. high school education that the government printing more money is going to make inflation worse, not better. we cannot pass this bill. i think it's the worst bill i have seen and 35 years. host: we will start with ed in

baltimore, maryland. democrat line for stephen moore, former economist with the trump administration. europe first with our guest. go ahead with your question or comment. caller: good morning. you started off the program thanking c-span for their dissemination of information. yet you proudly tout that you work for an administration that made its bones by misinformation. just the fact that you keep calling it a $5 trillion bill, you know it's disingenuous. that $5 trillion number came from a fake cbo score of what would happen if the bill went on for 10 years. it's more like $1.5 trillion. but it gets you more points to say it's $5 trillion. as far as inflation goes, does not supply and demand have a lot

to do with the inflation going on now? the fact that everyone has been sitting at home ordering things, the ports are blocked up which raises prices. that's through supply and demand. not necessarily the numbers this current administration took. you talked about the record numbers that your administration did but all of that was trending in that direction when obama got out of office. and fourthly. host: you have made three points already. let's stick to the three points. guest: first, on this issue of how much this bill costs, this is really one of my pet peeves. if congress did bookkeeping and accounting, if a private

businessman businesswoman did accounting the way the government does, we would throw the ceos in jail for financial fraud. but this gentleman pointed out, they are pretending like these programs are only going to last for two or three years and then they are going to go away and the reason they are pretending that, they are taking 10 years of revenue and saying but we will only have government spending for three to five years. everyone knows that's fraudulent. even the democrats have said of course we are just going to renew these programs. somebody tell me ever when it government entitlement program went away. these programs aren't going to go away. the congressional budget office said let's stop this make believe budgeting. and they came up with a $5 trillion number.

that's the congressional budget office. they are the official scorekeepers. the congressional budget office also found but it's going to lead to a $3 trillion increase in debt. if people want to pretend and live in this fairytale world like these programs won't last forever, you could pretend it's a $1.5 trillion bill. the gentleman makes a good point about supply and demand. one of the reasons we have had this surge in inflation in addition to the huge amount of money creation and debt is because we have had supply disruptions. then you have to question why is it for example that we are not getting workers back on the job. we have done a lot of analysis of this and it's pretty clear. the wall street journal just had another piece on this yesterday.

one of the big mistakes we are making is paying people massive amounts of welfare programs. when we are paying people $600 a week benefits, $100,000 a year in many states collecting food stamps. benefits. a lot of americans were making more money to stay unemployed then to go back to work. and that is still the case in many states today. i believe we should have a safety net. we are a rich country, we should have a safety net. we don't want people to go hungry or homeless. but it is outrageous that we are paying people so much money and not requiring them to work. there are 20 new programs, new welfare programs in the bill but better bill. you know how many of those builders -- bills require work? zero.

work should be a qualification. just ask any small businessman or woman at a hotel or restaurant or construction and they will tell you, they cannot get their workers back on the job because the government is paying them so much money not to work. host: let's hear from peter in new york. caller: a pleasure to speak with you again. you're absolutely right. problem is that most americans don't understand the relationship between the federal reserve, the money supply and spending. and i wish somebody would come on the show and actually show the american people how that works. because i listen to these people on tv when they call up and they have no clue how the system really works.

he mentioned milton friedman. there was a documentary on prime tv called free to choose. i don't know if you've ever seen. guest: of course. caller: it's a 10 part series with milton friedman going over all the problems 40 years ago that we are still facing today and it's really great. he explains the relationship between the money supply, producing goods and services and inflation. if you have too much money chasing too few goods and services, this causes inflation. also the reason the economy is so good is because what you guys did in 2017 by cutting taxes and regulations, which hasn't changed in the past year. that's why you are seeing this great economy. host: we will let our guest

respond. guest: will respond to the last point. i am privileged enough to have gotten to know milton freeman and his last years of life. i knew him when he was in his 80's up until the time he died. i used to have lunch with him a couple times a year and he was obviously one of the greatest economists who ever lived. and he always talked about, i used to ask him at the end of his life, what can we do to make the american economy more prosperous? he said cut government spending. the government was a lot smaller than it is today. that helps growth of private sector economy. one point on the tax cuts. i helped put that text plan

together with larry kudlow and others. a lot of people said it wouldn't work. we had the experiment. we cut our business tax rates from the highest in the world to the middle and lowest in the world. all the money came into the united states as we became a very attractive place to invest. it was a spectacular success anyway you look at it. it created millions of dollars -- jobs. under the biden plan, we would move back to having the highest tax rates in the world could we want america to be number one. we want to beat japan and china and russia. we can't do that if we raise our taxes. we are going to have higher taxes in the united states than china does? that's absurd. host: $8 trillion which is

highlighted in a couple of different places, to what degree do the tax cuts contribute to that of debt racked up under the previous administration? guest: i didn't always agree with trump on spending policies. the problem of out-of-control spending is really a bipartisan problem. republicans and democrats are responsible for the debt. politicians love to play santa claus. it's that simple. they love to pass out free things. that's what build back better. everything is going to be free. your rent, your food, your child care. you don't have to pay college tuition. if you have debt, the government will pay for it for you. ronald reagan said it best.

remember this because it is so profound. reagan said a government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got. that is the situation we are moving towards. i was very proud of what we did under trump. the plan was to bring it down, not to have a massive increase in government spending. host: berry is in colorado. independent line. caller: good morning. i have a comment in a question. under the trump administration, it's been mentioned. $8 trillion in four years. the thing that i find disingenuous is that you did cut taxes. we've got to stop putting everything on the credit card and what's really bad is that republicans want to cut taxes

and try and grow our way out of the economic deficit that we have. can you give me one example where that type of policy has actually taken the country out of a debt that we have? guest: the deficit was coming down before the pandemic. we had record amounts of revenues. the congressional budget office has these historical tables. even with our tax cuts, the things you have to do to get debt under control is to get the economy really roaring. jobs are coming to the united states and then you get more tax revenues. that was our whole theory with trump. that america had become uncompetitive. someone explain why it was the policy before trump to have the

highest tax rate on corporations than anywhere else in the world? so that was a big part of it is get the economy moving again. the other thing and i don't think trump gets a great grade for this, you have got to control government spending. you can't have government spending growing faster than the economy. so the kind of keys to getting the debt under control and get the economy really moving. what worries me is we are going to have such a delusion of massive spending and there's negotiations now between joe mansion and joe biden to see if they can come to some kind of a deal. we don't need this. we should start a program of cutting government spending. we have all of these reports by the inspector general's,

hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud, waste, abuse. in the unemployment program, $150 billion went to people who don't even live in the united states. they were just fraudsters or people signing up for unemployment benefits that aren't eligible. before we spend this massive amount of money, when we get rid of the waste in the fraud in our federal budget which adds up to trillions of dollars? host: would you endorse an idea because you talked about negotiations, strip out the child tax credit, keep that separate. >> this is the worst bill i've seen in 35 years. unlike any member of congress, i have actually read this bill and from page one to page 2482,

there is nothing in america's interest in this bill. it massively increases spending and gives us the highest tax rates in the world. it doubles the budget for the internal revenue service and creates 80,000 new irs agents to harass people. by the way, president obama basically weaponized the irs. they were going after conservatives and conservative organizations. this is something that is very frightening to me. we are going to create a massive football stadium of the new irs agents. host: that's to ensure that wealthier people pay their fair share. guest: that's what they say. this gives the biggest tax breaks to wealthy people. they want to bring back the state and local tax deduction

which is something we got rid of in the trump tax plan. it would be the biggest single tax break for millionaires and billionaires in the history of the united states. it's so hypocritical to say we are going to tax the rich, except for the millionaires and billionaires that live in these high tax state. they are going to go after conservatives because that's what they always do. host: stephen moore joins us with freedomworks. he was trump's economic advisor during the campaign. you own without guest. good morning. >> i was wanting to know your involvement in the presidential budget draw up. and how it was going to cut out all funding for ebola and that

was redacted, but the cuts to the world health organization and pandemic control remained? do you think that might have created the problem with this pandemic we are now living through? >> i have to say, i am not familiar with what you are talking about except that the world health organization is one of the most corrupt organizations in the world and they have been completely wrong on covid from the start. if president trump proposed reducing funding for the world health organization and united nations, i'm in favor of that. caller: hello sir. nice talking to you. now -- work together. -- about 20% tax rate for all working people.

now, the tax bill you all past was 94%. -- tax. can you explain to me please? host: that's james. go ahead. guest: i didn't understand. host: why don't you ask again. caller: working at 20% tax rate for all working people. including ceos, including bank presidents and everybody else. 100%. that's what paul ryan and myself have been working on. what happens is that tax bill you all past. 94%.

-- and over paid nothing in taxes. host: i think we got it could go ahead. guest: i'm not exactly sure what he is referring to. i'm a huge advocate of a flat tax. get rid of all the loopholes and special-interest deductions that many times go to rich and politically powerful people. get the rate down. everybody pays it. that would have a profoundly positive effect. can you imagine what would happen to the american economy if we had an 18% tax rate on everybody? we would have so many jobs in this country you wouldn't believe it. steve forbes talked about that in 1996 when he ran for

president. americans love that. it makes the tax code really simple. all the special interest provisions are out of the tax code. i was mentioning this massive multibillion-dollar billionaire giveaway under the current code. and it gives a special tax breaks for big media. the billion dollar tax break for trial lawyers. $3 trillion tax break for union bosses. we shouldn't use the tax code to give away special favors to powerful groups. host: we are going to show you a little bit from jerome powell. he basically gave an assessment on the economy. while you are doing that, we will play you what jerome powell said about the economy and get a

perspective on it. >> economic activity is on track to expand at a robust pace. aggregate demand remains very strong. the rise in covid cases in recent weeks along with the emergence of the omicron variant pose risks to the outlook. notwithstanding the effects of the virus and supply constraints, fomc continues to see rapid growth. the median projection for real gdp growth stands at 4% next year. admit improving labor market conditions, the economy has been making rapid progress towards maximum employment.

job gains have been solid. the unemployment rate has declined substantially since our last meeting and reaching 4.2% in november. a recent improvement in labor market conditions have narrowed employment across groups especially for workers at the lower edge of the wage distribution. labor force participation showed a welcome rise in november but remains subdued. some who otherwise would be seeking work report that they are out of the labor force because of factors related to the pandemic including curving needs and ongoing concerns about the virus. host: what is your assessment of

what he said? guest: we are pumping way too much into the economy. that's why we have prices rising. that's what we had in the 1970's. it was a total disaster. senior citizens are seeing their savings just collapse. inflation is the worst tax of all. when joe biden says i'm not going to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000, we are already paying the tax at the gas station. they've got to start pulling all of this cheap money out of the economy or we are going to see a disastrous bout of inflation that is going to just rock american families.

62% of americans believe the american economy is headed in the wrong direction. and that's because they are feeling the inflation tax every single day they go to the store. host: lake city, tennessee. republican. caller: what drives me nuts, biden sits there. he doesn't know what he's saying. he's just reading. talking about the lowest unemployment rate. he is not counting the people who are not applying for unemployment. if you have been out of work for four weeks and are not looking for a job, you are not counted. millions of americans are not looking for a job. they are happy that money throwing out of d.c. just to get by. in the town that i live, if you want to go out to eat, you have to call and make sure they are open that day because people

don't want to work. they not counting people who are not looking for work. you have to be looking for work to be counted. the man that talked about the cbo. schumer always called it the gold standard. now they are talking down the cbo's rating. the thing that drives me nuts is when he sits there and lies and nobody correct him. guest: this woman is quite correct. she is very well informed about what's going on. this is a really big problem with the american economy. the supply chain problem we were talking about earlier. talk to any small businessman or restaurant owner. they will tell you they cannot get the workers back because the government is paying them so much in welfare benefits.

we should have a welfare program in a safety net. the idea of a safety net is to get people back into work. not sitting on the couch watching netflix. we have had to use now for people have not been working. a lot of people aren't even being counted. there collect thing welfare benefits. it's not fair to the people working 40 or 50 hours a week and then they have to pay taxes to people sitting on the couch. every single welfare program should require work or training or education. we did this under bill clinton. we had welfare reform. we got half the people will on welfare into work. now we are moving in the opposite direction.

host: calvin in new york. caller: your president who you worked under has the biggest tax fraud going ever. were you a party to this? guest: he had the biggest what? caller: former president trump is accused of being one of the tax -- biggest tax frauds in the city of new york. are you helping him escape these tax benefits? guest: i don't know anything about donald trump's personal tax situation so i can't comment on that. this is the reason we need a very simple tax code that requires everyone to pay their fair share. everyone has to pay it if you make 10 times more money than i do, you pay 10 times more taxes. you've got all these special interest provisions, that is

something joe biden is right about. get rid of all the deductions, loopholes that make our tax system look like a slice of swiss cheese. host: joanne in nevada. caller: good morning steve. it's good to talk to you. i listen all the time. i've got to say, trump saved me $800 a year. i'm at the bottom of the wrong here. i'm fixed on 10% is my tax rate that i pay. but i physically write the check to my county for property tax. i physically write the check to irs four times a year to both of them. but i'm not getting my money's worth. trump saved me $800 a year on my

taxes. it was when he deregulated. we are so plugged up with democrats -- like the unions in california. you can't move in that state. it's the crappy estate. that's why i left there and went to nevada. now they are moving over here. we have to do something about keeping these democrats out. i don't mind listening to them but jiminy christmas, they've just got a bad way of going right now. guest: this is an interesting point. people think raising tax rates is a successful policy. somebody's got to explain why everybody is moving out of california, new york, leaving michigan and where are they moving. to florida, texas, tennessee.

utah, montana and idaho. explained to me why everybody is moving out of the high tax, high spending, high regulation blue states and moving to free states like florida. ron desantis was saying everybody talks about how bad florida is and everybody's moving to florida. those are the states that are really proving, make your state really productive. keep your taxes low. you don't have a heavy regulation or a heavy regulation or mandatory union requirements. and if you do those kinds of things, you are going to have a lot of prosperity. host: we saw president trump take much credit about the state of the stock market. forbes magazine tells us the s&p 500 is at an all-time high. does mr. biden get the credit for that?

>> he does. the stock market is going gangbusters. i worry that it's all funny money right now. it is massive amounts of money that is causing inflation and it's going to devalue the dollar. i worry about having a crash. remember what happened when we built up that bubble. when it crashed, it was so painful. i hope i'm wrong about this. . we are not doing a single favor to our children and grandchildren when we add $10 trillion to our national debt. we know we can do it with a free market system. host: david moore, an economist at freedomworks.

former advisor to president trump. happy new year to you. guest: happy new year to all the great colors and viewers of c-span. host: we will hear from a.c. thompson on his documentary film, american insurrection and what he sees as the rising threat of far right violence in america. until then, open forum. those calls coming up when washington journal continues. >> at least six presidents recorded conversations while in office. here many of those on c-span's

new podcast. >> season one focuses on the presidency of lyndon johnson. you'll hear about the civil rights act. the gulf of tonkin incident, the march on selma in the war in vietnam. not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> certainly johnson's secretaries new because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. they made sure they were taped as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and theirs. >> i want a report on the number of people that signed to kennedy the day he died. if mine are not less, i want them less. if i can't go to the bathroom -- i will stay right behind these

black dates. -- gates. >> washington post remembers the january 6 attack on the u.s. capital with the former chief of security. that's life today at 1:00 a.m. on c-span, online at c-span.org or the c-span now video app. >> browse our latest collection of c-span products, apparel, books, home decor and accessories. every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at c-span shop.org.

washington journal continues. host: if you want to text us during this open forum, you can do that at (202) 748-8003. you can post on our facebook or twitter. the senate periodicals twitter feed since the senate will convene at 10:00 today to vote at noon on the confirmation of gabriel sanchez. the senate will recess for tuesday party caucus meetings. the house still on break until next week. the hill reporting that senate democrats are putting president biden's climate and social spending packet on the back burner as they plan to debate voting rights legislation. democrats say the legislation

the white house has negotiated with centrist senators may have to be completely overhauled. the senate majority leader said the senate will turn immediately to voting rights legislation. that was alexander bolton posting that piece this morning at the hill website. you can comment on the status of that and other things when comes to issues of politics on this open forum. we'll start with james in chicago. caller: hello. every politician and speaker that comes on c-span, all of them talk about we should be hard on china. nobody likes china, but every major corporation in america has their business in china included

president trump. he had his suits, ties and shirts and everything made in china. by having this pandemic and all these shortages, shouldn't we start building something in america? if pedro takes his cup and turns it over, he will see that it wasn't made in the united states. host: i have coffee in it so i can't right now. got your point. republican line. hi. caller: thanks for having me. i'm just trying to understand. i understand the whole january 6 thing, people are upset about donald trump and i can understand that. where could he have gone wrong meaning -- there's never been any proof that he was promoting voter fraud. but he can believe whatever he

wants and if she doesn't actually -- just because people got wild, does he actually have to calm the crowd down? where the legal problem? -- where is the legal problem? even if he's wrong for what he did. where is the legal problem. he can claim what he wants. there's nothing wrong with doing that legally. i could believe in the craziest conspiracies. host: stephen in connecticut. independent line. caller: i would like to talk about the rise of political violence. i don't think we have gotten to the 1968 level with assassinations and stuff.

people in congress threatening each other. i'm not a christian, but can we be a little bit nicer to each other this year? instead of like degrading aoc or former president trump, can't we say nice things about each other? we don't have to have a perfect world. i don't know why there has to be so much anger. it's disturbing me because i see it going up a little bit every year. host: go ahead and finish your thought. caller: i just want to express myself that people who are listening to me now, can we try to be nicer to each other? host: if the wall street journal has a piece in today's paper looking at threat towards lawmakers. it quotes the head of the u.s. capitol police.

the 1800 member police force was on pace to see more than 9000 cases of threats against lawmakers by the end of 2021. that continues a sharp increase from fewer than 4000 in 2017 to just over 8600 and 2020. not all incidents rose to the level of criminal threat. reflect the increased level of threatening discourse. we had a segment on this yesterday with natalie andrews of the wall street journal. we invite you to go to the website at c-span.org. we provide some real-time viewing and short-term archiving. we will hear from bill in

michigan. caller: i don't care. host: bill in michigan. one more chance. caller: hello. host: you are on. please turn down your television. caller: i was just wondering why we are still dumping garbage in the oceans and why nobody ever talks about it or says anything about it and why don't we stop dumping garbage in the ocean? host: this is richard. independent line. hello. caller: hello. happy new year to everybody. i would just like to know, this is more a question for the last guy that was on. for years, one side wants to help. the other side doesn't want to

help. nobody wants to help the poor and downtrodden. everybody says we can't, we don't have the money. but we have $100 million for all sorts of things to do if they want. is there anything out there that anybody has? what can we do to help the poor and downtrodden? host: you mean you personally or the federal government? caller: anybody. what can we do to help them? for the last 30 years the only thing i can come up with is just -- and that's wrong. nobody wants to help me -- help these people. the last guy on said they were all losers. we are a capitalist country. maybe we should start. if they can't take care of

themselves, get rid of them. we pay for everything anyways. host: berry in new york on the independent line. caller: good morning pedro. for every action there is a reaction and i know that you are having a guests in half an hour talking about the right wing extremists. i think this is in direct reaction to what the left wing is doing in this country. the democratic party has been seized by these radical left-wing ideas and they are pushing this craziness onto the people of this country. this is just a natural outcome to what's going on. people are not going to take it and people will stand up to it. the more they push these radical ideas, the more radical people on the right are going to get. i think we need someone in the middle to speak out about this.

host: are the actions of either side justifiable in your mind? caller: it's not that it's justifiable, but it's natural. you could take recent history in syria. syria had a sea of sunni and shieh. a tiny pressure group called the yellow whites took over. same thing in iraq. it was a country filled with shieh, but a tiny group led by a secular sunni took over that country because they used pressure and discipline. and people are worried about that in this country. the same type of thing is going to happen. the left-wing is pushing all kinds of radical ideas and it's taking over everywhere. this is just the natural outcome of what's going to happen. the more they push, the more reaction you're going to get on the right host: ok. that's barry in new york.

the wall street journal's front-page story talks about that pfizer booster for ages 12 to 15. jared hopkins writing that the fda also said that anyone who initially received the pfizer vaccine and was eligible for a booster can now receive any available 15 months after the last check instead of the six months previously set. that's the wall street journal when it comes to issues of schools and closings. of the 20 largest school district, just one said it's going to conduct classes remotely. officials said the classes will be remote through january 15.

2700 53 schools closed for in person classes this week. the vast majority of them offering virtual lessons. richard is next, democrat line. caller: our forefathers developed a good government here we think but there's a cancer in it. the second amendment is probably going to kill the nation when everybody starts getting a gun and kills each other over there politics. another thing is our democrat senators will go down in history on the revolution.

if a rich little boy loses an election have to feel sorry for him. grow up people. host: minnesota republican line. caller: how are you? host: i'm well thanks. caller: it's cold in minnesota. a storm is on the way but i would like to talk but nancy pelosi and why she is not giving out information to the american people. she is not releasing any of her phone records, she never testified. that's puzzling me. host: information about what? caller: about january 6. host: what information do you think she had? caller: the phone records we asked for her to release them. she's not. she didn't release most of the film of the days. i just don't understand why she

is holding back the information we need to know. host: what do you think that information will tell us? caller: well why she didn't have the proper security there when she is the one in control of it. host: that's denise in minnesota talking about the events of january 6. representative steny hoyer has a piecing usa today talking about the events of january 6 and a call for americans to lower flags on that day. the headline saying for democracy and heroes. on thursday asking for americans to learn -- lower the flag at half staff. and raise them again to falstaff six hours later. the full-time when the senate reconvened to complete the breeze -- the certification. our determination of protecting remains unassailable.

this is a lesson i hope you will remember and a lesson that will be repeated every january 6 for years to come. many events set to take place this coming thursday. that anniversary in the house and senate side. stay close to c-span for those events. we gave you a bit of what's going on. house members will gather to talk about the events of that day. our c-span now video app. also in the afternoon, those of the platforms you can see that vigil play out. the president and vice president expected make comments on that day. former president trump expected to hold a news conference on that day to give his perspective of what happened on january 6. jerry is in new jersey, republican line. caller: about january 6, i know

the two women died that day and when george floyd was murdered the whole world knew about it. these two women that were killed by the police, i think the d.c. police but it's been so secretive that they just won't let us know. the two women who died. one got shot in the neck or back and the other one who knows. but two women died. why aren't they investigating that? with 1400 hrs of video why aren't they releasing it. host: the events concerning a least one of the women which has been thoroughly investigated and talked about. caller: well not thoroughly. finally the cop came out because everybody was saying. the other woman that was beaten to death, who did that.

how did that happen? host: what is her name? caller: that's just it, i don't even know her name but i know two women were killed that day. babbitt was one of them paid who was the other? how did she die? what happened? i know they say the police were involved. in 1400 hrs of video why don't they just released the 1400 hrs? they spent $10 million on this investigation but -- $40 million trying to get rid of trump. $50 million has now been investigated in trump. host: again just to show you the headline as far as roseann, the other woman i think you've talked about in the new york times died and lost consciousness in the crush of that mob surge against police. i think that's the other one you're talking about but it's

been widely reported as well. we will go to judy in pennsylvania. democrats line. one more time for judy. ok we will go to blake in leland, mississippi. caller: good morning. i'm a veteran of this country, i love this country. i'm from chicago and i live in mississippi now. how about paying the slaves that built the capital behind you. you gave over $2 billion -- 2 million acres to noncitizens to put us in a situation, you allowed because slavery to go on

for another 100 years and we're supposed to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and compete with people that could enslave us and work us. reparations are necessary. you are benefiting off of all the slaves tragedy. host: how would you pay out reparations in this day and age? caller: you can start by offering free education. everything doesn't have to be a financial benefit. but i think there's a concerted effort but democrats and republicans to keep black people on the bottom. host: who do you pay it out to specifically then? caller: if people can prove that they have ancestors who were

slaves i think they should get education, at least three generations. slavery existed for so many more generations than has been not. you can just sit back and have a government that's put its foot on their neck. host: blake you made your point. we will go to elizabeth in delaware, democrats line. caller: good morning and happy new year. i'm almost 80 years old and i can tell you -- cannot tell you how many times i've been to washington dc protesting whether it's the vietnam war, civil rights. i'm talking about millions of people there. never ever did one of us ever think about attacking the capital. it's not in our mindset. i have difficulty wrapping my head around how these trump

supporters believe it was ok to do that. it's trump that was supposed to be calling in the guard not nancy pelosi. and he sat there for three hours and did nothing while that capital was attacked. he and those followers of his need to be punished not by few months in prison, they need to go for years. it will take us 20 or 30 years to get back to a true democracy if we ever get it back. host: let's hear from senator pat lahey on the floor of the senate talking about the anniversary of january 6. [video clip] >> i've never seen such a total abuse of our democracy.

not in the 40 years i've been here. after 17,000 votes of preserving our democracy. the people who stormed the capital had no sense of what democracy is. no sense of the importance of the senate and house of representatives. no sense of the importance of having both political parties protect the constitution and our country. it was a disgraceful time i hope never to be repeated. host: that was in the senate side. you will hear more of the sentiments this thursday. many activity set to take place outside of washington as well. we take your calls on the events

of january 6 the 2021. caller: i was wondering why you didn't give any pushback to the woman that just spoke. it is nancy pelosi who controls the security at the capitol. we need dialogue to find out what happened and that means releasing the 14,000. that means getting everyone's phone records. that means finding out why she died. what you wrote from the -- read from the times union this wasn't even close. there's video her. you have to ask for the good of america what happened that day. host: there are several people looking into this matter. including a select committee. don't you think between all

those people investigating the events that that information? caller: there's people who said there weren't riots on the streets, the same people who said there weren't riots across the country all last year. that was a myth, something we were told didn't happen. i live in new york and that did happen. until they start telling the truth on both sides we will never hear. we need to heal and the media needs to stop lying and selectively telling the truth. host: we are not engaged in that i will just point that out. let's go to annette in pennsylvania. caller: good morning. that was a little violent there. i just have one simple question to all the people who call in and make silly comments about january 6, kamala harris and mr. biden and everybody is so negative.

all i want to ask them is how many of you, the stimulus checks you received, how many of you sent them back and said we don't want your money? host: what's the point of that? what is the point of you asking the question. caller: because everybody is so negative and saying -- calling him names and all the signs around here saying he so negative and nasty, how many of them took that check and spent it. if he is doing such a bad job, you then you would want nothing to do with him. host: ok. finishing off this portion of open forum. thank you for those who per dissipating. pro-public a correspondent ac thompson up next. a newly updated documentary looking at the events of january

6. what was found out a new interviews per we will have the conversation next on washington journal. ♪ >> this week on c-span. wednesday the senate rules committee holds a hearing on the u.s. capitol police since the january 6 attack. live coverage begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern. thursday we will have coverage marking the one-year anniversary of the attack. friday the supreme court theaters oral argument in two cases dealing with the biden administration's vaccine mandate for health-care care workers and the vaccine mandate for larger private companies pay live coverage beginning at 10:00 a.m.. the house and senate returning january before the start of the second session of the 117th congress. the senate takes on the president's climate and social spending plan despite west

virginia democrat joe manchin's announced opposition to the bill. senate democrat leadership also hopes to take up voting rights legislation which may require changing filibuster rules. there's also a february 18 deadline for chambers of congress to pass federal spending legislation to avoid a government shutdown. or you can watch full coverage on c-span now on mobile video app. you can head to c-span.org for scheduling information or video. ♪ >> how exactly did america get up to its neck in debt? >> we are striving to provide equal opportunity. arc of the video documentary

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for competition rules, tutorials or how to get started, visit our website. >> "washington journal" continuous. host: tonight the pbs frontline series airs a documentary american insurrection looking at the events of january 6. the corresponded behind that is ac thompson. mr. thompson, thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me on. host: this documentary has been out before, has been revised per is new? guest: what we want to do a year after the insurrection is talk to people on the hill, talking to law enforcement, be out in the world at rallies seeing what

people are talking about and what people are interested in and what we really found is if you go to arizona, michigan, if you go to wisconsin, georgia, you go to rallies now, there is a massive interest within the republican base in so-called election integrity issues and there's a very widespread belief that's animating people on the ground that the 2020 election was a historic fraud and that democracy has been usurped and the joe biden is an illegitimate president and that was to me the most interesting and disturbing aspect of our new reporting. this sort of fringe extremist conspiracy theories have absolutely migrated to the mainstream. host: we further sentiments before leading out of the election. what did you learn differently about what you just said? guest: here is the thing.

i thought after january 6 700 people getting arrested, all of that that you would see a decrease in this sort of sentiment. that it would be people would be saying maybe we were wrong, maybe we don't want more people to die storming the capital and i don't think that's happened at all. what we see is in many places republican leaders do not want to embrace these conspiracy theory issues but the republican base are driving them and in some cases what's interesting is the sort of ideas people articulating on the ground borrow from earlier sort of progressive and left-leaning ideas about election reform and are now being applied to today. ideas like no voting machines,

paper ballots only, one day voting. some of which were articulated earlier by people who lean left. host: you had a chance to talk with the current chair of the january 6 select committee. what were you hoping to get from that interview? guest: what was so interesting to me about talking to chair thompson and also we talked to adam schiff as well. is it's clear their interests are not just in the mechanics of what happened and what transpired in the halls. that they are interested in the broader context, the culture of disinformation and mapping the links as far as possible to the trump receipt -- regime and the trump circle. that was an interesting thing

that they found very concerned about how to stem the flow of misinformation and disinformation without trampling on people's free expression. host: we will show you a little bit of that interview. this from the pbs frontline series american insurrection. [video clip] >> people who i talked to on a daily basis who actually tell me that what i saw and experienced on january 6 really didn't happen. >> people, do you and say january 6 didn't happen. >> they say it was the black lives matter folk, it was antifa dressed up as trump people. in addition to that we have millions of folks out there who are convinced that those

individuals who broke into the united states capital there were some of the greatest patriots. >> they say these are heroes. but people like you are the enemy. >> absolutely. that's why this committee is so important. host: can you elaborate on that portion of the discussion? guest: one of the things i found was there's this persistent belief and i heard this from elected officials in states around the country that january 6 was in some way false flag, that it was a psion that was engineered to make the trump movement look bad and then perhaps it was on -- antifa who was behind it, but that what happened that day and what's been reported is not actually what happened. that's another thing that was a

notion that's more widespread than i understood. host: he is with pro-public and a corresponded from frontline series american insurrection. democrats, 202-748-8000, republicans 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. of the events he went to, what were those events, who did you talk to specifically? guest: i was at the release of the audit in arizona, looked at the maricopa county ballot in 2020. i went to election integrity events in the state of michigan and a gop county fundraiser outside of detroit in lansing. i went to the trump rally in perry, georgia. i went to other events in atlanta around this issue.

i met a bunch of these people including many of the people running for office either for secretary of state or governor or other state offices. host: that's where you learned the sentiments you initially thought would subside strengthened over the course of time. guest: absolutely. at the trump rally in georgia there were tens of thousands of people there. the former president spends a good chunk of his speech bashing immigrants, bashing refugees from afghanistan saying they will ruin the country, bashing the media, bashing so-called radical left marxist democrats and then he spends a lot of time bashing so-called rinos and blaming members of his own party

for helping to conspire to steal the election in 2020. he spent a long time talking about these elaborate election conspiracy -- election fraud conspiracy theories. you see people throughout the audience who are wearing shirts and holding signs and saying things to indicate they believe joe biden is not a legitimate president of this country and this is not a small crowd. this is what i'm finding around the country. host: tony is in fort lauderdale, florida, independent line. good morning and go ahead. caller: good morning and a happy new year to you all. sometimes people say the quiet part out loud and general milley mentioned this was our reichstag moment. i went back into history.

february of 1933. the reichstag building was burned down. just like our capital attacked, horrible event. the big fear i have is that what the government did in 1933 exploited that just like they are exploiting with the witting or unwitting help of the media. to crush dissent and pass laws that accumulate more and more centralized power and this is my fear. we have fbi, hundreds of people arrested and hopefully they will go to jail for a long time. what is congress doing trying to investigate when congress should be trying to legislate.

they are trying to find -- all i hear from them and from you always insurrection, insurrection, insurrection. let's get trump trump is gone, he is not coming back. he may have his dead enders that he is not coming back. get over it. host: that's tony in florida pride -- in florida. guest: i think all of us have reasons to be skeptical of congress at various times. the fact-finding and investigative process we are seeing their has been some of the most useful information and excavation we've seen so far. what the senate did to understand this security breakdown was quite useful. i think what will end up coming out of the house select committee will probably be quite

illuminating simply because they have subpoena power and a broader mandate than the fbi does. the fbi is going in a very close and confidential way to find criminal wrongdoing and that's not necessarily the mandate of the select committee and i think that's an important fact-finding process that we should be looking forward to. it would be great if it looked more like 9/11 commission and was more bipartisan, but i don't think that's necessarily the fault of the committee for how it's turned out that way. >> six democrats, two republicans. did any members of the committee express any concerns about politics interfering with the work of what the committee intends to do? guest: not to me. what they did sort of -- i was speaking with them shortly after the wall street journal released the facebook files and i think that was an ongoing sub current

was how do we deal with this world where information is what you get from your social media sources and you get through your filter and you think you're talking to people -- and you are talking to people who only agree with you. host: debra in maryland, democrats line. caller: good morning and thanks for taking my call. i think journalists bear a lot of the responsibility for this, the belief by so many republicans that the election was stolen. whenever the topic comes up you just go that's crazy. why not answer specifically line by line what they are alleging and put out the proof. i know the proof is there. in pennsylvania i keep hearing they didn't follow their own procedures and so forth. but the one case out of the 62 that the republicans won was when justice alito said they

couldn't use those votes that came in after election day, they had to segregate them and not count them and they didn't and there were only about 10,000 or so anyway. be specific. i don't understand why someone doesn't put out a book going through line by line these allegations and explaining why they are not true. i've even been tempted to write a book. journalists should be on this and put out a book. host: that's deborah there in maryland. caller: i think there's a good point -- guest: i think there's a good point there paired when i was in arizona for the release of the audit, the mainstream media and the right-wing media interpreted the audit in totally different ways. the headline you got in mainstream sources was arizona audit confirms joe biden won the

election. what the right-wing sources highlighted were questions that the audit raised about potential irregularities in the voting and they took a totally different message from it. those irregularities have been shown to not be so irregular that i think that sofas level take -- surface level take from the media was not helpful. it would've been useful to have a deeper exploration of the issues. host: does your documentary look at say if antifa was involved as some would claim and take a look at that and debunk it specifically? guest: no. maybe we should have. maybe we should have gotten deeper into that, but that is one we took at face value is not

being true and we have multiple people rebutting that. it wasn't a thing we felt like we felt like we need to dive deep on because we had multiple people saying i was there, of the evidence is this and that's not what happened. host: can you elaborate on that? guest: it was a note i got from one of my bosses in the edit that was like you guys raised this three times. do you think that's too much. host: al joins us from massachusetts, republican line. caller: how are you doing. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: i have a few comments. can you tell me when the democratic party has ever been censored in the united states of america in the media, on social media, on the news, that would

be one question. when has the democratic party ever been censored. number two, how, the national guard wasn't there and all this stuff is not being allowed to be seen now that it's being taken off the air so we can see everything that happened because we know there was somebody from the fbi was there waving people in because it was planned, the whole thing january 6 so trump's people would look bad. they shouldn't have fallen for the trick but they did. and number three is you know that in america, i know you are a socialist, it's knocking to work. we are not going for communism. host: caller. i want to talk to you by your second point you said it was planned.

he hung up. go ahead. guest: i love coming on your show and every time i do i get branded a socialist or a lackey for george soros. which is always hilarious to me and if i was destined -- that notion is pretty rampant is this had to be a false flag, that this had to be some sort of plot against the republican party rather than a plot by members of the republican party or supporters. that is a very widespread notion and there are no facts that have come out to support that. no facts have come out that i've seen. we have had 700 plus arrests and nothing in those court documents, nothing in for example the fbi interrogation videos which we've seen that would indicate there was -- that

this was a conspiracy by the left to make republicans and the trump movement look bad. host: to the caller's point, does your documentary look at security issues of that day and who is responsible? guest: no. we do not. we added about 10 or 12 minutes and that's honestly an entirely -- it could be its own film and probably should be. host: paul is in massachusetts, democrats line. caller: thank you for your work. i did see the first program you did and it was with great alarm. my question to you is related to the psychology of these people. after 9/11 there were two interesting professors speaking about a condition called narcissistic injury which

basically is where people become grandiose and want to have a greater cause, it fit the terrorists but also to me fits the kind of this mass hysteria with the rise in nazi germany or fascism, which these people are very close to in terms of my perception of them. did any of that come up in your research or discussions with experts in the fbi or anywhere else? i guess people just believe what they want to believe about the election. i wondered if that was something you touched upon. guest: i was on the phone with a january 6 inmate yesterday and i think one thing that's worth thinking about and i think you touch upon this is when you talk to people who were there and allegedly involved in the

insurrection, they are not motivated many of them buy worse intentions, they are motivated by what they believe to be best intentions. they believe that democracy was being destroyed, that the electoral process had been disrupted, that trump was the rightful president and that what was going on by certifying the vote was this effectively some sort of elaborate coup. and so to them as you suggested, this is a heroic mandate to go and save the republic and this valorous action is for the good of the country and that is a hard thing to grapple with and a hard thing to wrap your head around. there were people in that group who were ultranationalist, white supremacist, folks of different very ill extremism, but there

were a huge number of people that felt like i'm being told my country is being destroyed. this is what donald trump is telling me, what right-wing media is telling me. this is what my facebook pages telling me. and everyone around me thinks this so i want to go save the country. i want to do the right thing and they see themselves in the same way as the architects of the american revolution. 1776 is a term thrown around all the time in these circles. grappling with peoples best intentions rather than their worst and understanding what does that mean and understanding how do you deprogram people who absolutely believe they are operating from a place of love and heroism. i do not know. host: you said to -- you spoke to someone currently in prison because of the events?

how would he describe his experience. some people calling in talking about how they are being treated. did he express any of that to you? guest: yes. here's a fascinating thing. the january 6 inmate's a lot of them call the lockup they are in as d.c. gitmo and they like to compare their conditions to those prisoners who are held indefinitely by this government under questionable productions. it's interesting because these are guys who are not leftists, human rights activists who are concerned about those folks who are being held at guantanamo before and they draw the comparison.

their concerns about the treatment they've received are absolutely worth investigating. i think they are absolutely concerning. despite the severity and severely seriousness of the crimes which they are confused -- accused, you have to preserve basic human rights and basic standards in any car sorrel situation and i think that's absolutely a thing that is worth exploring further. i would say i'm concerned about the things i'm hearing out of those facilities. host: give me an example. guest: specifically lack of proper nutrition, lack of medical care. the fact that when the marshals service came in which the marshals service is the entity which contracts with local lockups to house federal prisoners while they are

awaiting trial. they came in and did an inspection and moved a bunch of presenters out of the d.c. jail and then closed a bunch themselves that are there and labeled them uninhabitable. there are concerns about the quality of the standard within that facility. another thing i will say, as a journalist who's trying to reach out to prisoners and talk to about what we did in this film. we interviewed someone is facing charges of being involved in the plot to kidnap the michigan governor gretchen whitmer. it is often very hard to even locate federal prisoners awaiting trial. there's not a transparent system to do that. unlike local prisoners, you

can't even figure out where these guys are. with the d.c. prisoners from january 6 they are not getting video visits, you cannot communicate with them through video. there's a lot of different issues. if i'm going to be sympathetic to the human rights concerns of prisoners it's going to extend january 6 prisoners, prisoners accused of basic run of the mill crimes. all of them have human rights that need to be per -- respected. host: todd in massachusetts on our republican line. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking the call. the only comment i would make, it sounds to me like the gentleman on has a pretty good heart and he looks like he is trying to follow things, trying to share time on both sides of the issue. i guess what i would like to point out is he indicated, i

don't know if that's the producers or where it came from that he wasn't able to or chose not to spend time on things like antifa and the security issues that were obviously a huge problem with respect to that day . i guess my comment would be folks on the left wonder why people that look at things from the right side, why they are skeptical as they are and i guess it would say it's probably a lot of room for that. this institutional bias on a lot of this reporting. i think your guest whether he did it intentionally or not pointed that out to you on air. host: that's todd in massachusetts. mr. thompson, go ahead. guest: the point was that we had spent a lot of time on the film addressing the conspiracy

theories about antifa being involved or it being a false flag operation. we may be didn't debunk them in the depth that we could have, but we do hit on it repeatedly. for us, to understand what we did with this film is it is a portrait of the movements on the far right leading up to january 6. the original film takes you to january 6 and stops there. because of that, we did not spend a ton of time analyzing the failures of the capitol police, the failures of intelligence leading up to january 6. like i said, we probably could and should and that is a great film to make. it's just not the film we made. predominantly the work we did was before january 6. would we want to do in the

update is fast-forward and think about what comes next and for a lot of people the people involved in january 6 are out of sight, out of mind, if that's overpaid this is the biden aronow. things will be different. we wanted to say maybe it won't be that different and maybe this is a persistent movement and belief set that is not going to go away. >> the film introduces us to a gentleman. who is he? guest: he is the guy who is a -- he is a u.s. air force airman, a special securities attachment in the air force. he is accused of killing two law-enforcement figures. one a federal protective services officer in california, the other a deputy sheriff.

he was a member of the far right uber libertarian movement called the boogaloo boys which migrated from online into the real world in 2020 and was tied to a series of fairly spectacular acts of political violence. host: here is that interview. [video clip] >> it's about people who love freedom, liberty and they are unhappy with the level of control that the government takes over our lives. being free to do what you want as long as you don't hurt anyone else. >> aren't you accused of hurting someone? >> that's what i'm accused of. back to the example, that's what i wanted to get to.

the freedom of choice, the freedom of expression. >> he pled not guilty and would not answer questions about the shootings. >> did you find it hard to get them to actually -- >> he would just deny and start every question. >> how did you come to this? because you said you didn't read a lot before. >> basically through friends. the air force, once i joined the air force. i traveled around the world, i met people from all over the world just talking to people changed my whole view. >> do you think he's saying he found these radical ideas in the military? >> yes. i think mainly from my conversations with him he was definitely radicalized by the air force. >> i love my country.

there's not a day that goes by that i don't miss putting on the uniform, the air force uniform and going to work and doing my part. >> justice after charlottesville i was seeing an extremist inside the military. and based on the berkeley teams reporting, he was far from alone. caller: mr. thompson -- host: mr. thompson, put some context of that how it goes to the point of january 6 and the focus of your film. guest: this has been an enduring problem in the u.s. military which is there has been a small minority of servicemembers over decades who have been drawn to extremist viewpoints and extremist activity and we have seen this with members of the military involved in neo-nazi skinhead gangs in the 90's and

2000. we saw this with the shooter in wisconsin who was a former servicemember who then committed a massacre -- racially motivated massacre. and we sought with the boogaloo movement which the professed aim of the movement is to overthrow the u.s. government. i identified around 20 current or former service members who were involved in the movement. my colleagues at uc berkeley found even more online supporting these ideas. when you bring it to january 6 what you see is there were concerning numbers of particularly veterans who were involved in reaching the capital that -- preaching the capital that day. that finally caught the attention of the pentagon. what you've seen since then is more concerted action to deal with extremist currents in the

service then we've seen in decades. host: the producer and director of the film american insurrection which you can see on pbs tonight. jack in iowa, democrats line. caller: good morning. i am a bona fide democrat. i registered democrat, i voted democrat, i voted absentee. our county auditor is a democrat. something i don't want to go into depth because i have a question. i got five requests for a ballot , but i got the ballot before i even requested it. what's interesting is our auditor resigned from office, that's kind of fishy. here's the thing about your documentary. there's a picture -- we all know

what happened at st. john's with trump. in my research, nixon ringed the white house with two rings of buzzers and he stationed machine guns in the white house because he was afraid of being overwhelmed. mr. thompson, would you consider putting together a documentary comparing richard nixon and protection of the white house versus what i'm get a think is the slipshod protection of the capitol building by nancy pelosi. guest: my next film is going to go deep into these election issues, so doing the mechanics of the intelligence and policing failures that day is not what i'm going to do what i do think somebody should and i think the absolute legitimate questions to ask.

in the months leading up to january 6 that we saw in d.c. was very professional, very sophisticated policing the metropolitan police department with the stop the steal protests. they were professional, humane and they generally deserve -- i think what you see when you look back at january 6 is that handoff from the metropolitan police who are policing the rally to the capitol police who are defending the capitol building that things go very badly when the capitol police have to step up. host: independent blind, good. caller: thanks for letting me speak. my number one thing is nancy pelosi, when she was ripping up that stated the union address,

there were a lot of consequences for those actions and that was partly -- i don't know. went right up to that building. i could tell you -- the stolen election, i could tell you how it happened. the dnc registering these illegal immigrants and it happens in maryland and when you register, the real id and all of that associated with that, they register you to vote. that's how the steel just happened that's only one person and he was very honest in what he just said and also this congress were january 6, this is a third impeachment pretty much. host: to your second point as far as the dmv being involved, where did you hear that? guest: my own -- caller: my own

experience. you are registered to vote. i was surprised that they -- the real id came about because in -- maryland one of the states they registered illegal aliens. they give them an idea and say bring me back your id and a lot of them did not do that and that's why the real id you have to get the mom with a star. host: then how do you directly relate that to the conversation about january 6? caller: i was just saying this is -- that was a part of the stolen election and these people really do have a point per eight i understand it clearly. nobody connected that, but that's what i believe. host: mr. thompson, from what you heard from him, you can respond.

guest: you get all different variations on this theory and there's all different types of angles that people take. the big one people talk and the president took on january 6 in his speech is the notion that the dominion voting machines which were used in many of the swing states that they were somehow wirelessly hacked by secret teams of hackers we've never identified to this day using a secret algorithm to switch votes from trump to biden. that's on the more lurid end of conspiracy theories. the version we are hearing today is something that goes back to earlier notions around voter integrity and issues explored by an earlier wave of republican

activists. i've seen reports on that exact issue and have never found totally compelling evidence that that is happening, that illegal immigrants -- undocumented immigrants are being registered to vote. i have seen the stuff debunking it in the stuff for and i've never seen it on -- convincing on a wide scale. caller: good to talk to you. i've been watching frontline for many years and have always seen it as omitting a lot of information. i find it amazing -- are you familiar with a guy named barney apps? guest: no. caller: he's an unindicted co-conspirator and he can be

seen all over the footage rousing people and telling them to march into the buildings and it's also interesting to me that you didn't focus on president trump offering the national guard to nancy pelosi and her refusing it. host: to go back to your first point caller do you mean ray apps? caller: yes. host: go ahead and finish. caller: nancy pelosi refusing the president's offer for assistance from the national guard. the information -- omission of information on frontline is a major problem. i hope if you do another episode on this you get into some of that. this ray epps guy would be a

great interview. host: you can respond if you want. guest: we can move on. host: as far as the follow-up to this i know this interview has been revived, what still lingers? guest: i think there's a lot that still worth exploring and will be explored. people like john eastman, to the president, to the group gathered at the willard hotel. people who end up in the building. that's what i'm hoping will come in the coming months. i think the intelligence failures of that day have not been entirely understood.

how various different intelligence agencies gathered information, and those were not -- when you look at the reporting the senate has done, we understand better that the capitol police were really not prepared for this day. there are questions about why that wasn't the case. and lacked the proper riot control needed. some of that we do understand to take a softer posture from, fred -- rational leadership who are obviously indirect communication with the sergeant at arms. some of those questions still remain. host: the pbs frontline film airs tonight at 10:00 eastern time on pbs.

mr. thompson, thank you for your time and happy new year. guest: thank you so much. host: that's it for our program today. we will see you then. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including cox. >> cox is committed to providing eligible families with affordable internet.

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