>> can human genes be patented and owned? george contrary stack -- tackles that sentence. sunday, the professor tells a story of the 2013 supreme court chase that challenged biotech company's rights to patent human genes. >> i didn't think the case had a huge chance of success when it was first brought, but as it rolled on year after years through different appeals and machinations, it became increasingly clear there was something important going on here. by the time and got to the supreme court, i knew this was going to be a very important landmark case and one that i definitely wanted to tell the story of. >> the author of the genome defense, sunday night on q and a. you can listen to all of our q&a

and other podcasts on our c-span now a -- app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with our spotlight on podcast segment and today we have conservative political commentator michael knowles, the host of the the michael knowles show at the daily wire. he is here today with us to talk about his podcast and take us through the news of the day. good morning. guest: it's wonderful to be with you. thanks for having me. host: first of all, tell us about your podcast. what is it about and where can people find it? guest: i actually have three podcasts at the moment. it seems like everybody has a podcast these days so i am doing three of them. i have the michael knowles daily wire, i have a weekly show, then i have a book club, month -- monthly show

divorce from politics and we talk about great books people should be reading. the michael knowles show takes on news and politics and culture from a conservative perspective. there are a lot of shows like that. i think what differentiates my show is that i focus on not just owning the libs or the problems of the biden administration or democratic party or leftist movement or generally, it also where i think conservatives have gone wrong. i think a lot of what is presented today as a conservative voice is really more the brit terry and where it it -- libritarian, and what i offer is an alternative to that. i will spend a fair bit of time criticizing my fellow conservatives if i believe they're not on the right foot. the book i came out with this past year spends probably most

of the time criticizing what i think have and failures among conservatives to offer people a choice rather than echo then the prevailing liberal establishments. that delves into everything, politics, culture, and religion too. though a lot of people want to deny it these days, all political questions ultimately come back to religious and moral principles. so we dig into that as well. host: tell us where people can find your michael knowles show. guest: you can get it at the daily wire, the easiest way to do it. it is the best way to do it if you do not want censorship from the big tech platforms. if you want a cheap ad and do not want to subscribe with your while they, you can head over to youtube. you can go to spotify, apple podcast, google play, anywhere you get your podcast you can subscribe for free. that is five days a week and it is broadcast on terrestrial radio.

i don't have the list of the stations right now. the shortest way to get it, go to subscribe in your podcast. host: he got into this earlier but described for us what your politics are. you say you'd are taking on -- say you are taking on everybody, conservatives, liberals, independents. describe what you say your politics are. guest: i would say my politics are slightly to the right of genghis khan. before that scares off viewers who are may be democrats or liberals or independent or whatever, i think that when one has a clear review of one's politics, it makes not only for a more interesting show but for a much more fruitful discussion about politics. so often i hear from democrats and republicans that it feels we are just trapped in this game where the left has its talking points in the right has its talking points, and you elect democrats and republicans, and

somehow the political system never seems to get anywhere. [laughter] there never seems to be any productive conversation or policy to come out of that. i think that is in part because our political system is something of a rigged game where both sides are really helping one another to maintain the status quo. what i try to offer is a view that is i think a little more authentically conservative. it does not share the premises of the dominant liberal establishment, and it tries to avoid what i think far too many conservatives and republicans fall into, which is they end up being nothing more than the court gestures in the kingdom of liberalism. they do nothing more than putting up some meek, mild show of opposition that's really merely justifies and legitimizes the dominant liberal regime. two seconds later, they adopt the talking points that there leftist talking opponent told a few years prior.

we want to get back to principles, why do we believe what we believe? the men that built our country, what did they believe? what does the history of our country look like? how do we get back to a more flourishing, prosperous, equitable, just country? host:host: your show is based out of -- is not based out of washington. what are the benefits? guest: reduces my heart -- we fled california last year. a lot of people are fleeing the state, not just conservative republicans but a lot of people who want to flee the taxes and onerous regulations and perpetual lockdowns. being in nashville i think is a wonderful opportunity because nashville is a blue city. you are surrounded by democratic

views and policies, lots of eccentric people of all political stripes. it is in red states where you get strong protections for not just business but for a more normal, traditional way of life, protections against some of the politicians who have upended our way of life, especially over the past two years. and you are close to washington. i fly into d.c. frequently. it's an hour or hour and a half lie. i host a podcast with senator cruz. we go there, i get my fill of three to four hours of washington, d.c., the madness going out, then i return to real america. host: since you brought him up, senator ted cruz has been in the news lately about his interview with tucker carlsen on fox news and january 6. talk to us a little bit about what your perspectives are of the january 6 anniversary in washington, and the controversy

that senator cruz seems to have stepped into. guest: i will start with january 6 first before i get to senator cruz. i think that the january 6 celebrations, the commemorations, the national handling is a lot of political theater. i think the democrats are taking what is in the grand scheme of american politics a relatively trivial political event and trying to turn it into the most sacred and somber day in our liberal calendar. not only was january 6 not the worst insurrection in american history, it wasn't even the worst insurrection of the year. that title would go to the blm and nt for rides. whatever you think january 6, it is a fact the capitol riot tears did not kill anybody. blm killed dozens of people. the january 6 capital event

lasted for couple hours and mostly amounted to a man dancing around the capitol rotunda and a smiley florida man trying to steal nancy pelosi lecture. the blm brides persisted for eight months in city after safety -- city. they attacked temples of our democracy we are now supposed to call them. i do not think it's comparable that the handling over january 6 is disingenuous for people like nancy pelosi and joe biden. so much of what we were told that day that police officers were killed, that aoc was nearly raped and attacked, it was a lie. even the new york times had that. that is where we begin on this issue. i think it was really ugly political theater. i think kamala harris comparing it to september 11 is not only absurd but deeply offensive to those of us who died in the terrorist attack. to compare a horned man dancing

around the capitol where the rioters did not kill anybody to an attack that killed three dozen americans is disgusting and kamala harris should be ashamed of herself. then you bring on my friend senator cruz. i have not talked to him since he made his comments and there was this whole hullabaloo about it. i'm sure we will be talking about it on our next episode of this podcast. it seems to me what happens is he made a dumb comment, he recognized it was a dumb comment, and he acknowledged it was a dumb comment. that seems to me the sort of thing that people should do when they make a mistake. that seems perfectly right. i know tensions are high on this now and senator cruz said it might not survive for some people but i think it is important to look not just for one event or one headline or one twitter trend but to look at someone's career. it is simply the case, and i say this not only because the man is a friend of mine but i say this as a long-standing member of the

conservative movement that senator cruz has been one of if not the most stall word conservative republican senator we have gods. he stood up on difficult, important issues, including objecting to the irregularities of the 2020 presidential election when most of his colleagues would not. he has a good record on that. i judge a man by his actions more than his work and i judge a man by patterns and behavior more than one or two events. if a guy will admit he did something wrong, i'm willing to extend grace on that. as a practical matter, even if you do not like the guy, if conservatives are going to throw their senators and their leaders underneath the bus every time they say something wrong and admit it, we will not get anything done in the conservative movement. if that is the new standard, you will not be able to effectively organize. i thing more than ever it is

urgent for conservatives to close rank, organize, and push back against the liberal establishment. i would recommend as a general rule but specifically this instance a little grace. host: sticking with january 6, there was criticism from former vice president dick cheney of republicans not showing up for the january 6 commemoration inside of the capital. we have a tweet from representative liz cheney where she quotes her father saying "i am deeply disappointed at the failure of many members of my party to recognize the grave nature of the january 6 attack and ongoing threats to our nation." that quote comes from former vice president dick cheney. is there a rift happening in the republican over january 6, or are they the outliers, out there by themselves with their appearance and the comment? guest: i think you can look at

the numbers. there are only two republicans on the january 6 committee that would be -- committee, and both of whom have been exiled from the party. liz cheney was voted out of the party by her own state. they have no support among conservatives and republicans. feeling news networks they gone our left-wing news networks. the only political activity they seem to undertake these days is defend democrats and attack republicans. i mentioned earlier there is a phenomenon on the american right of the court jester conservatives, people who pretend to be republican and maybe they vote the right way. but on crucial matters, they always side with the prevailing liberal establishment. that i think sums up liz cheney 280. i hope she enjoys her msnbc gig she gets after congress.

it's understandable dick cheney wants to support his daughter but it is disingenuous. after a year of blm and nt for rides that were less than forget encouraged and some cases funded by top members of the democrat party, including staffers for joe biden and kamala harris herself yelled out rioters, raised money to bail out rioters for blm after an actual insurrection which went on for months and months, where some of the rioters declared autonomous zones within the country. let's not forget the capitol hill autonomies on the said we are separating ourselves from the country. it is simply absurd. it is to the point of being clearly disingenuous to say that the riot that took place at the capitol was some grave threat to democracy.

it wasn't even close, especially compared to the events that preceded by a few months. host: one lax question getting to our caller, former president trump had planned a news conference for january 6 and then canceled it. was that the right call for him? guest: it was absolutely the right call. this is the important thing. donald trump, whatever you think of the man, he knows a lot about politics and perhaps more about stagecraft. but he recognized was january 6 was a loser for conservatives and republicans. there is no way to get a political win out of focusing on january 6. this is why i object to the liberals who lament january 6 as the worst day in american history. but i also object to conservatives who spend all of their time defending the capitol riot. either way, you are granting the liberals premise january 6 is

some extraordinarily important day, that the horn had guy dancing around the capital was world significance when it was not. in the grand scheme of history, it does not matter. it may end up matter because the liberals are doing everything they can to enshrine that day in myth, so they are inventing certain details about the day such as the idea officer brian sicknick was killed by the rioters, fabricated. they are suggesting members of congress were almost raped, made up. they are suggesting the government nearly fell, not even close. the rioters could declared a new government and they did not. they took some photos and went to prison in many cases are went home. the left is trying to focus on this, and i think the best strategy for conservatives is ignore it on focus -- and focus on events that matter to american history. trump i -- trunk on that

right and i think it was wise to cancel oppressor. host: let's let our viewers take part in the discussion. democrats lines are (202) 748-8000. republicans, your lines are (202) 748-8001. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading on social media, on twitter @cspanwj and on facebook, facebook.com/cspan. let's start with james calling from aberdeen, south dakota on the republican line. james, good morning. caller: how are you doing? thanks for having me. i will only had one question for him. can you define what the difference is between the constitutional republican democracy? that's all i have to say. guest: i can, but we might be

here all day because while there is a distinction to be had, it is a little confusing. the founding fathers made a point, especially in the federalist papers come on distinguishing between a republican democracy. the confusing is the ancient examples they cite. it is not exactly a neat distinction. the way our government is supposed to work is that we the people elect our representatives and the states have their own representatives, or they use to before the 17th amendment, and they go to washington, d.c. and participate in the federal government. there is a difference between the federal government, state government, and local government, separation of powers between the legislature, executive, and judiciary. there are different rights for each. a direct democracy would be where all the people go in and vote on every issue. the way our government is increasingly run is closer to an

oligarchy where a ruling class that finds itself in government but also private business but also in nonprofits but also in the media, they all kind of work together to say nothing of the unaccountable bureaucrats that work in the administrative state. they work together but you don't see it in the constitution but that is the way the government is run. this leads to something the ancients recognized as the cycle of regimes. such that one regime will decay and turn into another and they will transform over time. so you can see democracy decay into mob rule, sort of like democracy but really bad version of it. you can see democracy decay into oligarchy. there is a good version of oligarchy which is aristocracy. there have been fine aristocracies in history and there have been find monarchies. there is a bad version of that which is a tear and. regimes change over time and

they decay with the ability of the people to govern themselves or ability of the people to preserve their way of life. when john adams says our constitution is built for morally religious people, it is not fit to the governments of any kind of other people. he is not being a bible thumper or superstitious, far from it. he is stating a fact about how our government is set up. it is inevitable our form of government is going to change. i think looking around us, most of us would have to agree it has not changed for the better. host: in what ways do you see our government has changed in the last 20, 50, 100, 250 years? guest: i will give you an even nearer description, i will describe the way our government has changed in the past two years. today, the most powerful politician in america is not joe biden.

the most powerful politician is not chuck schumer or nancy pelosi. we all know who it is, it is dr. fauci. he is ailing man who cannot be fired. [laughter] joe biden was asked will you ever -- is there any sort of situation in which she would fire dr. fauci and he said no, dr. fauci is the highest paid member of the federal government. and dr. fauci has been crafting national, frankly international policy, based on his own whims and caprices, many of which contradict her child there -- contradict each other, over the past years. it was set up a long time where the early progressives such as woodrow wilson crafted what would become the administrative state. fdr enshrines that. you have unelected technocrats crafting most of our policy. today, congress is not really passing most of our laws. i know we were taught in schoolhouse rock that i'm a bill on capitol hill, but that is not

really the way our laws are made. most of the laws that affect our lives are crafted by the unaccountable bureaucrats in selected agents. if you like that or if you hate that and you want to change that, either way, you have got to acknowledge that is the way our government works now. seven presidents have come a long, six of them have gone. dr. fauci remains. it is not just about the man, though he is an important figure, it is about the way our government is structured. host: to be clear, are you saying dr. fauci cannot be fired or he will not be fired? are you saying he is in a position where no one in the government can fire him if they want to? guest: while the only person who would fire him would be joe biden and he said he will not. host: so that is little difference between can't three fired and will not be fired. guest: perhaps. i think the reason that joe biden says he won't fire dr. fauci is politically he knows he cannot. donald trump to the same thing.

donald trump has no love for dr. fauci or vice versa yet dr. fauci was able to amass an extraordinary amount of power, even what would have been during a hostile administration. i grant your point that theoretically the man could be fired, but in terms of practical politics, kind of what we are talking about, in terms of not just the way the country is supposed to work on paper but the way it works in practice, i do not see any world in which dr. fauci is fired. host: let's go to jail calling from woodward, iowa on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. and have a great day today. my big question is, i resent him using the word trivial related to january 6 i don't think if you are talking to brian six nick -- brian sicknick's family would not be using the word trivial. guest: i think i would. caller: and there are injuries including ptsd's for the capitol

police officer, that is trivial? guest: i will use your first example because i think it highlights the huge disconnect between americans on this issue of january 6. you said you were talking to the parents of brian sicknick, the officer allegedly killed by the capital rioters. you would not be able to call it trivial. the idea the capital rioters killed officer brian sicknick is a complete live. it was totally made up. even the left-wing newspaper such as the new york times had to admit that. it did not happen. the capital rioters did not kill anybody. there was one person killed in the violence of january 6. her name was ashli babbitt, one of the capital rioters, killed by a trigger-happy cop. i don't mean to obscure your motives or many americans who are clutching their pearls and believe the capitol riot was the worst attack in our nations history. it simply was not. you have been fed propaganda

that even many of the propagandists have corrected but they run the story brian sicknick was killed by the capital rioters on page one of the newspaper and then they run the retraction on page 1000 so no one sees that. especially if you are only tuned into cnn or msnbc or reading left-wing papers. this is why i would say that. this is why i bring up the comparison of blm. you don't need to look back at the many other attacks on the u.s. capitol. almost all of which have been more significant than the january 6 capital ride. you don't even have to go that far back. you can go back to the blm riots when propagandists from the less when cable news outlets were saying that buildings on fire were mostly peaceful protests. last time i checked, when you are firebombing buildings, that is not mostly peaceful. if you compare the numbers, capital riots killed nobody and blm kills dozens. it is quite clear that the blm

insurrection, if you want to use that because they were attacking federal buildings, led to far more policy changes and was defended by actual elected democrats. now people who are the vice president and president of the united states. that will not only matter in itself but it will have a much longer-term effect on american history. where is the significance of the january 6 capital ride is only going to matter in the mythology that the left creates about it and already has created about it to justify further incursions into our way of life and liberty erie the clearest example of that would be the democrats in washington right now trying to federalize elections, take elections away from states and local governments, have it run directly out of congress. they're using their mythology about january 6 as an excuse. that would be a major overhaul of the way the democracy works. host: i'm going to assume you

would disagree with u.s. capitol police and their descriptions of what happened to officer brian sicknick. i will read with u.s. capitol police have said about his death. the u.s. capitol police excepts the finding from the district of columbia's office of the chief medical examiner that officer brian sicknick died of natural causes. this does not change the fact that officer sicknick died in the line of duty courageously defending congress and the capital. the department continues to mourn the loss of our colleague, the attack on our officers including brian was an attack on our democracy. do you disagree with the with that statement? guest: obviously not because the u.s. capitol police admitted the medical examiner said he died of natural causes. so we agree on that. furthermore, we agree officer brian sicknick was a good, faithful servant and defended his country and that is a wonderful thing and ought to be applauded. the owning place i would disagree is the notion that the capitol riot was some sort of

singular attack on democracy when you've seen far more agrees as attacks from the left, from elected -- not just people in horn has but who are now the vice president and president of the united states, maxine waters saying get up in the face of republicans and go to their homes where their children sleep and push back on them and say you are not welcome here. 2% and that is not an assault -- to pretend that is not an assault on democracy by someone cracking a coors light in the capitol rotunda, that nearly took down the constitution. give me a break. host: let's go to jace calling on the independent line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. mr. knowles, i listen to you quite often. guest: thank you. caller: i believe you are right on point. when it comes to the january 6 deal, the left loves to preach

how bad of a situation it was. i'm 63 years old. i've seen a lot of things happened in this country. january 6 was nowhere near as bad as what is happening in this country. we got a lot more years left in this country to see what really happens. what i believe will be a whole lot worse than when january 6 ever was. my question is, what was nancy pelosi doing? what was chuck schumer doing? people who are supposed to be in the top echelons of our government and supposed to be protecting us, what were they

doing that did not prevent january 6 from happening? guest: i think you've raised the central question here, which is over the nature of this event. the way the left presents the capitol riot was our government was nearly toppled and lots of people were killed and this was armed violent insurrection or terrorists that went in. as the details of january 6 come out, that was obviously not the case. what you really find is all of the political benefits of the capitol riot has gone to the left. it has justified their attempts to take more power, notably through the federal takeover of elections they have been pushing, as hr one, the first priority they took up in the new

congress. it has created this idea that anyone to the right of hillary clinton is a terrorist that hates this country and it is whitewashed the blm and anti-for riots that took place for months at a time. i don't want to read the mind of nancy pelosi or chuck schumer but i would imagine as a political matter, they are grateful for the capitol riot, because nobody was killed, other than ashli babbitt killed by a cop. nobody on their side of things was killed. it was over within a few hours. i suspect nancy pelosi got her electorate back and it provided the excuse to take a lot more power. as mr. emanuel famously popularized the phrase, never let a crisis go to waste. host: let's call from stephen calling on the republican line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call.

i'm so excited. three things. one, how come topics that have been ignored, and to me that says a lot especially with biden being president, they have held back billions of dollars. a similar situation when you have an impeachment of the president and this topic is done by the wayside. the next topic i think they would talk about -- i wish they would talk about is voter fraud. we have been door-to-door knocking and they found 465 fraudulent votes in manatee county. this is just in a few days. there is no reason to do it. we are testing to see how legitimate our voting is. we have discovered that there are problems. the election is over. trump won hands down but we are

still checking our own systems and we are finding out there's a lot of fraud going on. i would like to hear what you have to say and what are we going to do about the propaganda stations. they are not held accountable for their lies and that is the quickest way to have socialism. host: michael before you answer and, stephen, tell us how are you checking voting after the election was over? how did you find this fraud you are talking about? and who was doing this? caller: there are groups that get the registration records and they go door-to-door to find out how many people live there. let's say for example you knocked on the door in a community and you have 10 people living in a residence and only one person has ever been there living in 20 years in the property is for sale. how did 10 people vote from that location? that is a brief example. go ahead and ansell, michael.

-- and answer, michael. guest: there are few points in there so i will focus first on the voter fraud. in terms of election fraud, we know it happens. i will take you back not just to follow 2020 but to 1948, 1948 lbj is running for a senate seat in texas and he wins the senate seat. how? because he stole it. there were a lot of corrupt election officials any stuffed the ballot box in texas and won this race by something like i think 200 ballots. everyone knew he stole it. lbj had been stealing elections since he was in college. the case made it to the supreme court and the supreme court did not want to deal with deciding a senate race in texas. lbj becomes senator. lbj becomes the vice president of the united states, kennedy's killed and he becomes one of the president of the united states and he becomes one of the most transformative presidents. and then later on, his

definitive biographer lays out the case an undeniable detail that lbj stole the sea. it didn't matter because lbj had his entire political career. after he had lost an election, fdr told him that he forgot to set on the ballot box. he did a good job of stuffing the ballot box but he forgot to sit on it. this is why we have poll watchers on election day. one day to further erode election integrity is extend electioneering, an election week or month, have all sorts of unsupervised ballot drop boxes all over the place, unsolicited widespread mail-in ballots where people who do not request a ballot received one. many of my friends who left california moved to tennessee still receive ballots from california. even friends who requested the ballots not be sent out.

even barack obama, six or seven years ago, was describing how these sorts of election measures can erode voter integrity. now we are not even permitted to request people prove they are who they say they are before they cast a vote. you need to show your entire medical history before you can have a beer at a bar but you are not required to prove you are a citizen of the united states before you going cast a vote. that is a big problem. the extent to which that occurred in 2020 is being debated but there were extraordinary irregularities. just in pennsylvania. the state constitution prohibits the use of widespread mail-in ballots. the supreme court of pennsylvania overruled that the election was conducted in an obviously unconstitutional way. that is just one issue. the fact the ballots cannot be counted within a day or two but it dragged on for days and days and weeks and weeks, the fact you saw double counting in certain audits. those were big problems that will be debated for a long time

to come. are we going to go back in 50 years and decide actually we found a, we proved joe biden didn't win? fine, he will be long gone by then. i think we need to do is focus on what we need to do to ensure election integrity is the law the land. because don't forget, for the democrats now who are claiming republicans want to suppress the vote and they usually attribute some racial motive to this because they call republicans racist every time they blow their nose, let's not forget when someone casts a vote, illegitimately, that suppresses a vote from an eligible voter. democrats have been all but open about their desire for an eligible to vote. he saw this in hr one and s1, we are calling the corrupt politicians act, the federal takeover of elections. in that law, they are saying there is no way illegal aliens are going to vote as a result of

the selection takeover, but in the same breath, they give immunity to illegal aliens to vote because they will be registered because of the law. it is disingenuous and the left thinks they can win elections like lbj did by stuffing the ballot box. it is incumbent upon us, regardless of what we litigate about 2020, it is more important to focus on how to stop that moving forward. host: you live in tennessee so you know the south as well as i do. how do you differentiate between poll watching and pole intimidation, especially since we know how elections used to happen in the south where minority voters were encouraged and threatened not to vote? how do you differentiate between the two? guest: there is election intimidation or voter intimidation that goes on every single year. in some eras american history it is worse but it has happened recently. in the obama administration, you

had the new black panther party showing up to paul's with guns strapped to their chest. a clear example of voter intimidation. that is awful. that is why we have systems in this country for campaigns through organized process to send their watches to the post to make sure there is no funny business. one of the big issues in 2020 was there were reports of poll watchers not being permitted to oversee accounting a ballots. ticket lily because the way the election was going to be conducted was changed dramatically in the weeks and months before that election. there were so much chaos and so much confusion, that if you had the further problem of poll watchers not being able to see the count happen, you would lose all sorts of ability. this is a problem not just for republicans are people that think trump one but a problem for the whole country because while it is true there are a good number of republicans that do not believe the results of

the 2020 election, there is a higher portion of democrats who do not believe the 26 a let -- 26 election. there are still people that don't accept the bush race. there was one asked if bush lost in 2000 and he refused to answer the question in the affirmative. so i like to spare the sanctimony that we are hearing from people like nancy pelosi and joe biden. furthermore, i want people to recognize that not having faith in our elections as a bipartisan issue right now. the only way the country is going to improve and we will be able to stabilize this government is if both sides can agree to some very basic election integrity measures. otherwise, no matter who wins the election, the problem of political discord and illegitimacy will only get worse. host: let's talk to larry

calling from 29 palms, california on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i served 20 years in the united states marine corps. january 6 will go down in history. the problem was we sign on tv. i know you're not a patriotic person. you are like tron, talk out both sides of your mouth, never served this country. he bowed down to russia, the congressman, the senators, the governors, they all want their seats on the same ballots. trump made a full -- guest: can i ask a question? how did trump bow down to russia? caller: yeah, he bowed down to russia. guest: how? caller: used january 6 to make russia be happy. guest: how would january 6 make russia be happy? caller: right people are not from america. here from europe, asia, england.

guest: white people are not from america? what? host: he hung up, so go ahead and respond. guest: those the most interesting call i have had in a long time. thank you for your service though. this is something really difficult because the caller calls and says i served in the marine corps, which is a wonderful thing, thanks for doing that. but then to use that and to say as a result half of this country is traitorous and treasonous, that is a really ugly thing. we are not going to be able to have a good, flourishing, stable country of one half thinks the other side is a bunch of traitors and terrorist to want to be expelled to the outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. it is not a good way to start a political dialogue. host: one thing you talk about on your show is getting covid. how are you?

guest: i recovered, thankfully. it is not as bad as some people said it would be but i do not want to downplay it. it is a deeply upsetting virus. my family got it. my baby got it worse than any of us. he was fine and did not have to go to the doctor but it was unpleasant. that said, for us, we are relatively young, healthy people , it was on the order of a moderate to severe cold or flu, so the question becomes should we lock down the whole country to prevent people from getting something with those symptoms? there are horrible, negative effects you see in terms of drug overdose, depression, other public health issues. for a lot of americans getting

covid now, who have gotten covid in the past, they are recognizing that maybe the response does not fit the sickness itself, but i'm glad to say we are recovered and feeling good. host: you answered my question without me even having to ask it. we have to stop there. we would like to thank michael knoll, the host of the michael knoll show, editor of the daily wire, for being here. guest: my pleasure. thank you. host: we would like to thank our viewers and callers for another great edition of washington journal. wash your hands and stay safe. see you tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. have a great saturday, everyone. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] ♪

>> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband. ♪ buckeye broadband supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ c-span's washington journal. every day, we are taking your calls live on the air on the news of the day and we will discuss policy issues that impact you. coming up sunday morning, former georgia republican congressman doug collins discusses the gop

and partisan divisions in congress. university of baltimore law professor kimberly whaley talks about the january 6 investigation and efforts to reform the electoral process and voting rights. watch washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern sunday morning on c-span, c-span.org or c-span now, our new mobile app. join the discussion with calls, text messages and tweets. >> can human genes be patented and owned? george contreras tackles this in his book. sunday on q&a, he tells the story of a supreme court case relating to the right to patent human genes. >> i did not think the case had a huge chance of success, but as it rolled on.

different appeals and machinations, it became apparent there was something important going on here, and by the time he got to the supreme court, i knew that this was going to be a very important, landmark case, and one that i definitely wanted to tell the story of. >> george contreras, author of the genome defense, sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. >> health and communications expert testified on telehealth access before a senate subcommittee. witnesses talked about the need for expanding access to quality broadband, which would lead to better health services, especially in rural areas. this is two hours, 45 minutes.