>> the house is out this week for work. the senate returns at 3:00 eastern. they will vote to extend government funding through march 11 to avoid a shutdown on friday. members will vote on legislation to reform the u.s. postal service and on the confirmation of the fda. watch live coverage of the senate on c-span 2, online, or on-air c-span now video app. >> president biden addresses the nation. the state of the union address, march 1 at 8:00 eastern. >> washington unfiltered.

c-span in your pocket. download c-span now today. host: good morning. it is sunday, february 13, super bowl sunday. we begin with your thoughts on sports betting after the supreme court in 2018 the federal ban on sports wagering. it is illegal in 33 states and washington, d.c. according to nbc, 90% is happening online. online sports gambling, do you support or oppose? if you agree, (202)-748-8000. if you are opposed, (202)-748-8001. you can also text as with your first name, city and state at (202)-748-8003. join the conversation on

facebook.com/c-span or tell is your thoughts in a tweet @ cspanwj. we want your thoughts on online sports gambling. we begin with this piece in the washington post by bill. the headline, place your bets, america, it is super sunday. he writes a record 31.5 million americans are expected to bet on the big game. americans bet some $50 billion last year, doubled the amount in 2020. in new york state, they bet $1.6 billion on mobile devices in the first 23 days from january 8 of this year when mobile betting became legal. that pushed the empire state ahead of the garden state in sports wagering. you can now bet on the outcomes of professional and college games in 30 states and d.c. with

more on the way as governments compete for the tax revenue attached to gambling. one of those states debating whether or not to allow online sports gambling is the state of north carolina. listen to democratic governor roy cooper when he was asked about the efforts to legalize it in his state in a recent podcast. [video clip] >> it is here whether we like it or not and the issue is will north carolina try to be on the cutting edge and the employment it will create, and be able to get state taxpayers their cut, or are we going to let it happen all around us? i think it is time for us to step up and do it. the legislation that is being considered, you know, i think

there needs to be more state tax dollars involved in this, a bigger cut for the people. and it is complicated but i think there needs to be a free and open debate. we need to do what is best for the people of north carolina and i support the move toward it. clearly there are people that get addicted and it causes some significant harm to families, but i think that is already happening and we need to make sure people can get the treatment they need. i think it is time for north carolina to step up and do this. host: the governor of north carolina roy cooper in a recent podcast. back to the opinion piece we shared at the top. this is what bill writes about the nfl. the nfl is against -- nfl's bet

against betting is off. they have deals with seven betting shops that could generate $1 billion in income. it will peak the super bowl week when an $7.61 billion will go up for grabs, a 78% increase. you heard the governor talk about concerns many people have. maybe some of you have them as well with addiction. there is a recent webinar from stop predatory gambling on the dangers of legalized gambling. [video clip] >> it wasn't even recognized until 1980 when it was deemed an impulse control disorder. the medical community caught up in 2013 and recognized it as an addictive product. in 2018 was the game changer.

from a nonsensical perspective i would suggest we are right now -- from a non-cynical perspective i would suggest we are right now in the right place to get involved. this is a public harm issue. other countries have looked at public harm and commercialized gambling and found with independent research approximately 16% of the general public is harmed on an annual basis by commercialized gambling. we never had an independent study in america. there have been proposals and the gambling establishment shut them down. if the numbers are consistent in america, and one would suggest they would be larger because of the growth of online betting in america and media attention, if

they are 16%, we are talking upwards of 55 million people a year in america being harmed. when that becomes the public health model the surgeon general, the cdc, will be required to get involved. host: your concerns, your thoughts on online sports betting. do you support or oppose? that as our conversation with you this morning. look at the legal sports betting landscape in america from yahoo! finance. the states in red are legalized and launched with online sports betting. most of it online. and the states in yellow are legalized and pending launch. michael in ashburn, virginia, you are opposed. tell us why. caller: i am opposed because it gives you easier access to

gamble on your phone or computer. if you are going to gamble, it is almost -- let's say you are going to drink. some say it is safer at home but if the alcohol is not there, you are not going to do it. gambling is an addiction. i have seen a lot of people lose just about everything gambling and it is very destructive. making it easier for people to do for tax dollars, it is a disservice for people. sometimes people don't realize the addiction they have until it is too late. host: what have you seen? friends, family? caller: friends, you know, just spending everything they have. you hear it all the time and i have seen it firsthand.

they pretty much lose everything and it is just like a drug. you want to do it, you need to do it, you start asking other people for money and either you are going to support their habit or turn them away and they will do whatever they can to do it. making it easier to access is very destructive. host: chris in since ville, kentucky -- simpsonville, kentucky. caller: we raised horses. my mother would adopt horses off churchill downs. i am 30 miles east of louisville. it is a big employment opportunity. i realize a lot of people gamble too much but it is a big, economical development for a lot of places. host: what has it meant for your community around all that? caller: jobs.

it is unbelievable how much money they spend in construction and jobs. it creates a lot of jobs around here in louisville. can i tell you about a terrible waste of money? my mom is from northwest tennessee and my dad is from kentucky. we had a guy in tennessee chasing around people with a drone that cost half $1 million a day. host: we will stick to online sports gambling this morning. ron in missouri, tell us why you support it. caller: good morning, greta. host: good morning. caller: the genie is out of the bottle. the guy you had on earlier, the cdc? i wish the cdc would get as health care in this country. that is what we should worry about. gambling is here.

it is like the casinos back in the early 1990's and they are here to stay. you're going to be gambling on your phone. i have been gambling on my phone 10 years and that is the way it is. host: is there a way to control it or make it more profitable? caller: look, online -- i did not used to get taxed but now i have to pay the state tax. they are going to figure out a way to tax. that is why drugs are legal and that is why we got casinos. host: this is the sports best mechanism is designed to give sports fans -- get sports fans hooked on gambling while a few operators enjoy the riches. almost nothing or little is going to arizona state to fund resident's needs. arizona sports book took in $777

million in bets winning 70 million in the first two months of operation. that was a new monthly record for sports betting. but the professional sports teams and native american tribes who got the licenses to operate the in person and mobile betting sites are keeping most of that cash. ron, back to you. what about making it so the taxpayers actually get a good chunk of this money? caller: good luck with that. silicon valley is in the pocket of the government and a few cronies. they are going to make sure they get whomever. they are weaseling their way through. people are going to get rich and because of the nefarious nature of lobbying and gambling and everything else in this country

that is controlled not by you but by lobbyists and big-money industry. thank you, greta. host: in december the nfl released the first league psa for television. [video clip] ♪ >> that's the game plan. stick to it. ♪ host: that is nfl's psa on online sports gambling. we are asking do you support or oppose on the super bowl sunday? we were having this discussion with one caller about the taxes

you have to pay if you are gambling online. you pay state tax now that it has become legal in 30 states and washington, d.c. this is by legalsports report.com. here are the total handle revenue, hold in tax revenue collected from those that have legal gambling. handle is what is widget over the time, revenue is kept by the sports books, and hold is how much the sports books keep. the taxes and state revenue. let's look at the state of arizona. $1.2 billion in handling, that is how much gambling was happening. taxes and jurisdiction revenue

was $4 million. thea in hawaii, opposed. good morning. caller: good morning. host: what do you think? caller: i was shocked when i first saw it, up in the different sports i was watching -- come up in the different sports i was watching. i said, what the heck? i lived out in the dakotas where they have casinos and the reason putting those casinos on tribal land is it was going to help the native american people. it is right that they keep the money. sports betting or any kind of betting is not going to benefit whoever they say. it is not because i have seen

it. they keep it all. but the native american people are still struggling whereas these people that own the casinos, they are benefiting from it, not the native american people. sports betting or any kind of bedding, doing it on your phone or whatever, it is not beneficial to people in the long run. there may be some that will not be addicted but it is a very addictive thing to do and to give anybody like the kids access to that kind of vice is not good. host: thank you for sharing your thoughts.

betty is opposed as well in richardson, texas. tell us why. betty, good morning. caller: good morning. host: why are you opposed to online gambling? caller: because i was married to a compulsive gambler who would have ruined my life if i did not make my escape with my three sons. host: so the idea -- caller: he was involved with legal and illegal. we lived in las vegas and it was at that point he was doing dishonest things and he had to go away for my family, my three sons and me, which was my opportunity to leave and i packed up and left.

my car broke down in dallas. i had been traveling 5000 miles with a 15-year-old and five-year-old twins. my car broke down in dallas and this is where we remained and my sons are all successful, doing well. he passed away and my life changed. host: what did you tell your sons about gambling? caller: they make an innocent bet. they are not compulsive gamblers, they are businessmen. host: what did you tell them about it growing up? how did you warn them? caller: well, they were not stupid kids. they knew. there was fighting and arguing over money and it was a dangerous time. now we are all successful, happy, and doing well.

host: happy for you. caller: he died around 20 years ago. he had cancer and got very sick and the boys ended up taking care of him here in dallas and the rest is history. host: betty in richardson, texas. david in dallas, texas you support. tell us why. caller: good morning. i support legalized gambling because it is like anything else in the world. people are going to be opposed to drugs, i'm talking marijuana, prostitution. it happens. gambling has been going on since the beginning of the world. gambling can hurt people but gambling will generate revenue, gambling will generate jobs. take the illegal element out with regard to organized gangs, etc. at the end of the day there is

no idea in the world that is going to be 100% for or opposed. gambling has its negative benefits like the lady in richardson was talking about but it is just like alcohol. alcohol is legal. it is nice to have a drink and relax after work. it is bad to have people's lives destroyed by alcohol when they turn into alcoholics. same with gambling. it is all right to make the occasional bet and have fun at a football game, that on the ncaa championship, the nfl championship. it is going to happen. all these people running around talking about how bad gambling is or how it destroys lives, there are so many things in this world that destroys lives. look at guns for example. it is ok to collect guns. it is bad to use them to shoot

people. everything has to be taken in perspective. stop putting a blanket on any one particular thing like it is all bad because it is not. host: david, thank you. 31 million americans to bet on super bowl sunday today. that is the headline with the associated press. carl in durham, north carolina. it is your turn. caller: thank you for having me on. host: morning. caller: morning. i agree with a lot with david said. it is not fair to put a blanket on everybody because it goes back to prohibition. you make alcohol illegal, people are going to find a way to get what they want whether it is alcohol, drugs or gambling. it is an addictive thing but for a handful of people that get addicted you cannot take it away from everybody, you know? it is just not right.

you cannot just make it one way for everybody. i agree with david. i do not think it is fair to blanket everybody. host: carl from the new york times writing in january, new york launched mobile betting last week. batters in three states including ohio should place wagers this year, joining 29 states where sports betting is legal. florida continues to iron out legal wrinkles efforts by lawmakers in georgia, north carolina and massachusetts are expected to heat up. the matter could finally go before california voters by the end of the year. that is the state of online sports gambling across the country. 30 states and district of columbia allow it. nbc says 90% of it is happening online. this follows the supreme court decision in 2018 to rescind a federal ban on sports betting.

this morning, do you support it or are you opposed? let's go to jim in west virginia. share your thoughts with us. caller: good morning. i am involved with thoroughbred racing. host: ok. caller: jockeys and trainers go to prison for fixing races. you have got announcers wanting teams to tie the game. the object of football is to win the game. people bet their money. you can't plan for a tie. back in the 1960's or 1970's the new england patriots brought out a snowblower to clear the way for a field goal. would they have gone to prison today? that is my only statement. that's it. people are being cheated. thank you. host: gyms concerns in western

virginia -- jim's concerning western virginia. caller: i like it to only be where the state can benefit, not the draft teams. high think the actual states should benefit from the gambling that is done in their state. host: how do you do that, rick? caller: you legalize it in the pari-mutuel's only. you knock out the indians. you vote yes in the pari-mutuels so it is regulated through them and not the indian reservations. host: take a look at the detroit news reporting on what is happening in their state. internet casinos generated $1.4 billion in revenue in 2021, the

first year online gambling was operational. internet casino gaming generated $1.1 billion while internet sports produced $292.2 million. bettors waged $3.7 billion at online sports books last year. they write online gambling operators paid over $201 million in taxes and fees to the state of michigan and $7.27 million in taxes and fees. detroit's three casinos paid over $59 million in taxes and minutes of pull service fees for 2021 and tribal operators across the state reported making $22.39 million in payment to governing bodies. for online casino games and poker mgm had the highest

revenue with over $417 million. the leader in 2021 was operator fan dual with more than $993 million in bets. in december gambling operators reported $156.5 million, down 23% from november. december brought a monthly record and revenue tied to internet gaming. just to give you an idea of what is happening in michigan. rick, do you have any thoughts? caller: if it was not legalized, think about the money that would be missed out on. it would go overseas rather than to the state of michigan. at least michigan got something out of it correct? host: james, myrtle beach, south carolina. what do you think?

caller: i oppose it because the people in this state will not benefit from the tax revenue that it creates because there is so much corruption in the state of south carolina. all the way from my local and federal politicians. we will never benefit from one penny of that. our laundry had not been installed for six months before they started stealing money. fortunately they caught them all but that is what will happen if gambling is passed. we cannot even pass -- host: go ahead. caller: they do not even want to pass hate crime in south carolina. i won't go into why but that is how crooked these people are in

columbia. that's it. host: charles in ohio, good morning to you. you support it. caller: good morning. host: morning. go ahead. caller: there is no point in the mafia making millions of dollars and controlling gambling and the public benefiting nothing from it. if there is tax involved that can be garnered for public use, and as far as people being hooked on gambling, that is individual responsibility just like with drinking or smoking or anything else. it is up to the individual. that is one of the great things about america, we have individual freedom. that is all i got. host: will you be watching the

super bowl tonight? we lost charles. tony in tampa, florida. hi, tony. caller: how you doing today? host: morninghost:. caller: statistics show how most of the money goes back to the casinos and the big time gambling pros. we are a country that is $880 billion in welfare a year, $800 billion in credit card debt, and i think it is irresponsible. it shows that the rich do not bet and the upper-middle-class do not bet. it is going to be the ones getting the welfare and stuff like that. they are going to take that money and that with it -- bet with it. that is not fair to the taxpayers. even the nfl how greedy they are

they want a cut of this. it is unbelievable. i think it is a bad precedent for a country that is trillions of dollars in debt to legalize gambling. host: these online gambling sites spending a lot of money on advertising. they plan to do so during tonight's super bowl as well. this is from the atlantic, sports betting is ruining more than your bank account. in this piece they write people will continue to enjoy betting on sports but i worry my digital woes are going to become more familiar. according to the information, sports betting companies spent $1.2 billion on advertising in 2021. that is projected to nearly double as more states legal is betting and integrates with the live broadcast and leagues themselves. although the nfl limited the number of sports betting ads to

six per game, with the super bowl coming up we are hitting the inflection point if we have not hit it already. james in chapel hill, north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i am doing well. turn down your television if you don't mind and then tell us why you support online sports gambling. caller: because i think it will help with the revenue in north carolina just like the education lottery. it will be a good thing to complete construction on the highways which is much-needed. host: james, tell us about the education lottery and how it helped. caller: well, it helped our kids.

host: do you know how? caller: i'm trying to think, hold on. host: that's ok. we will go on to dave in cincinnati, ohio. good morning, dave. dave, it is your turn. go ahead. caller: good morning. happy seeing you here on sunday morning. host: morning. caller: i am for online gambling. the only thing i have against it is the states are not getting a big enough cut. while they are hashing out the details they should given the states a bigger cut. arizona was like what, 1/10 of 1%? that is the only problem i have with it. not giving enough money to the state. have a good day. host: before you go, if the state got more money, or what should the state be doing with the money? what does your state need from the revenue?

caller: i am from ohio and when the lottery originally came out 40 years ago they tried to sell it by saying the bulk of the money would go to the public school system, which it didn't. you are not going to be able to control where the money goes but if you going to take a cut, a reasonable cut, i mean, 1/10 of 1%. i don't know what the other states were but i saw the stats on arizona. it is not enough. host: let me show that for anybody that missed it. the first column, $1.2 billion, is how much gambling is happening and this is the state's cut, $4.2 million. arkansas, colorado, these are in alphabetical order. look at how much gambling is happening and how much the state is getting in taxes and fees.

caller: yes. it is not a lot. even if you ignore the gross amount and look at the total revenue, it should be at least 1%. that is nothing. you are seeing a poultry cut up -- paltry cut out. some of the states are higher but not near where they should. host: rodney in austin, texas you will pose. good morning. caller: good morning. i oppose specifically because years ago there was an article that talked about gambling in states and how it is always the

poor people that usually end up spending billions and trillions and they also and up being the ones that least benefit from the gambling. i know here in texas back in the 1990's when they first started the lottery they said it would really help education in the state of texas, specifically inner-city schools. nothing has changed. mostly the inner-city schools are dilapidated, old, need to be rebuilt. the money from the lottery was supposed to help rehab the schools and make facilities better. that has never happened and i have been to other states where the same thing has occurred. my point is always poor people,

the little guys will least benefit and the vast majority of the money is probably going to come from the poor people. finally, i don't like to always quote scripture but this proves what the bible says, the love of money causes people to be stamped many times over --stabbed many times over. you have people that end up in debt having to resort to clinics where they have to be rehabbed and than their families are heard. i am very opposed to it but the numbers also prove what i am saying this morning. thank you for taking my call. host: robert in michigan. you are both. what do you mean? caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i like your programs here.

welcome, america. good morning i should say. if you cannot afford gambling or anything you get into, a habit if you want to call it, if you have to borrow or steal for it, you should not be doing it. it is that simple. like the last caller i have seen where the proceeds are going to help improve states and stuff like that. this country should be shining like a new diamond if that was the case but i don't know where that money is going to. if you cannot support your habit no matter which habit you have, you cannot be doing it. it is that simple. host: robert, do you know in the state of michigan where the money is going specifically that the state has been able to generate? caller: well, like the last

caller it was supposed to be going toward educational programs in school and. the major cities especially detroit, you do not see it. the roads are a disaster so i am not that up on where the money goes. personally i do not gamble. i cannot afford it and i do not want to get into it. my main having his fishing and snowmobiling and i live in norm northern michigan. i can barely afford the fishing and snowmobiling habit. host: we will look at how much gambling happens in the state of michigan. $4 billion is the number and the state got about $11 million in taxes and fees from that gambling. denizen cold springs, new york. good morning. why do you oppose?

caller: good morning, greta. i oppose it at many levels. i opposed bingo increases when i was working with the poor. i understand we are free to do what we can. i stop drinking 20 years ago because i had to. once you get the state involved, in new york, most of the money goes to the state. who knows for what, not education. you have got to be in it to win it. i believe creating more state jobs makes more people dependent on the state. i think we should be making things instead of creating cannabis, gambling, and other kinds of things. i know it is tough but i am opposed to it.

host: the washington post, president biden could step into the debate over the booming sports gambling industry. they write it is not the standoff over ukraine, the high covid death toll, or north korea's latest missile test but a story out of arizona caught my eye maybe ponder the uncertainty of the politics of a booming u.s. industry. sports gambling notably online. president biden could play a role in reshaping its future with potentially wide-ranging repercussions for the dozens of states that embrace the practice. others turning to it to lift public finances in the future. white house officials did not return the mail saying whether president biden should regulate at the federal level. but new jersey formally asked the justice department in june

2021 to confirm it was legal. congress looked at the matter and could still decide to act. there was even a time when god roger goodell asked regulators to protect the integrity of the sport. dennis in california, you support it. go ahead. caller: good morning, greta. after careful thought i am in support of it. it is gambling but isn't that what we are doing when we go to church and put money in the basket? how could you strip a person's faith or false faith in that they make a gamble and win that we help them out? what is wrong with that? it is kind of like the lottery. it does not sound good but if you win, you can drink for a

dollar. host: david in mitchell, south dakota you are next. caller: i am a first time caller. i really enjoy your program. host: thank you for calling in. caller: i am a sports fan. i love baseball. i have seen pete rose get kicked out of baseball for life for betting. my fear is -- like i say, i love baseball, i love sports -- but there may come a time we cannot trust -- we cannot even trust a ball game going to be right because too much big money will get involved. i am strictly against. we have casinos in south dakota like another gentleman said.

it is supposed to have went to the school system and a lot of other things. our school systems are no better now than they were 20 years or better ago. it did not go where it was supposed to go. that is just my opinion. i am against it. you mentioned roger goodell. i fear it will ruin our integrity toward the game. we will never trust what a score is going to be. thank you. host: steve in oak ridge, tennessee. caller: good morning. host: morning. caller: i have got a couple of things i want to say. i want to talk about my personal experience. i am 73 years old and when i was a little boy in the 1950's my father had a good job but he liked to drink and gamble. truth be known he was better drinking than he was gambling. anyway, we had a roof over our head, clothes, food but that was

it because the rest of the money was gambled away. he even lost the car one time in a poker game. i can see what it can do. when we moved to tennessee in 1962 he quit drinking, quit gambling, he wound up with a white-collar job, two apartments and 20 houses. i would like to mention the fact i was in the convenience store the other day and this man had a little girl probably three days old -- three years old. she was filthy, the guy was buying a pack of beer, $10 with of lottery tickets. think about that. one last thing. i taught north carolina 31 years. the teachers in north carolina have not had a raise in five years, yet we have education or north carolina has the

education lottery and they are spending less money on education now than before they have the lottery. thank you so much. host: do you have a ballpark idea about how much revenue that is lottery brings in? caller: in north carolina? i do not. i think you could probably find that on one of the charts you had but they bring in tons of money. and there has been a couple of attempts by legislatures to say, you know, call it the north carolina lottery not the education lottery because you are lying to people. they will not change it because obviously people think the money is going to education and it is not. thank you so much. host: thank you, steve, for calling in. lori in hamburg, pennsylvania.

why are you opposed? caller: i am not opposed or for it. i am opposed by the way it is put into action by lawmakers. who ever has the most money to lobby them is going to get the best benefit out of it. the taxpayers need some type of collective effort to form lobbying so they make sure the taxpayers put that money into the taxpayers' funds. in pennsylvania, maybe we could lower property taxes but we got 7.6% out of it. it is very hard to track that revenue unless you spend eight hours a day tracking where the money is going and holding lawmakers accountable. you do not have any benefit out of it. host: have you seen a lot of local reporting on where the revenue is going? caller: i just saw it on your show at 7.6%.

i know when they legalized it we were supposed to get so much money back to benefit the taxpayers. that never happened. it did not cut our taxes any. our taxes did not go down. the people need to have some type of collective effort. i have seen on the show some people blame people on welfare that are going to be spending that money. everybody will blame everybody. they give you a way to blame your fellow americans but they don't allow you to hold lawmakers accountable for what they do, what they told you they were going to do. we do not have the money to lobby them. host: 30 states and washington, d.c. have all legalized online sports gambling after the supreme court in 2018 rescinded a federal ban on sports gambling. they have sports gambling in the state and 90% of it is happening online.

that is why we are having this conversation, support or oppose? a state debating whether or not to allow sports betting is north carolina. listen to democratic governor roy cooper who was on a podcast recently talking about the efforts to legalize sports wagering in his state. [video clip] >> it is here whether we like it or not and the issue is will north carolina try to be on the cutting edge or the technology jobs and other employment that it will create, and be able to get state taxpayers there cut? or are we going to let it happen all around us? i think it is time for us to step up and do it. the legislation that is being considered, i think there

probably needs to be more state tax dollars involved in this, a bigger cut for the people. and it is complicated but i think there needs to be a free and open debate. we need to do what is best for the people of north carolina and isa poor -- and i support the move toward it. clearly there are people who get addicted and it causes some significant harm to families but i think that is probably already happening. we need to make sure people can get the treatment they need and i think it is time for north carolina to step up and do this. host: do you agree or disagree with the governor of north carolina? online sports gambling as our conversation in this first hour. more calls coming up. text from one viewer, anthony miller in new york, i oppose

economic models. games of chance our predations by nature. hence why they were made illegal and frowned upon in educated societies. what you have now is destroying the fabric of our communities. this business model will continue to destroy families. dark money in politics is at the root cause of this paradigm. paul in columbus, state regulated, legalized gambling will not generate the revenue that it promises. steve in florida supports. caller: how are you doing this morning? host: morning. caller: i support the legal gambling because i look at it the government gambles with our money every day. all you have to do is look at your paycheck every month with a take out of your taxes. they say the taxes go one place but who really knows? the government handles a lot of money and we all really know what they are doing with it.

i support it. host: so why give them more? why give the government more? caller: they get there cut off everything anyway. they get it out the social security check, they get it off everything. let them have it. they are giving it away anyway. i support it. like you said, that is the one good thing of living in america, we do have a choice. host: auburn, new york, david, you are next. caller: good morning. i have a question. you were running the numbers on the states and it showed new york at $350 milligan and they take about $4 million out of that. there is an administrative cost. there is going to be a lot of state employees in paperwork or whatever they do. i do not know what the state would not have after that. i do not think there is a hole out of my that is going to go

other two administered of cost. host: you're looking at the $4 million and wondering after you pay staff, etc. that there is not much left. caller: it does not look like it. host: should states get a bigger chunk? caller: we have had racetracks here, lottery tickets here, casinos, and all of that was supposed to pay for education or whatever. it has not done that. this is just one more thing. i think it is more for state employment. i am a skeptic about it. gambling is not a positive way to employ human energy. it would be better some other way. that is kind of my observation. thank you. host: let's hear from joe and

somerset, new jersey. caller: good morning morning, greta. how are you? first of all i support a very well. but i do think we are missing a couple of points. everybody was gambling before it was legal. where would the money be going if we were not giving it to the state? the state has two up it to 25% of revenue. and i do think even you -- and i do not mean you personally -- but c-span, and i think you showed it in the article, if they did not bring in the money, i do not think c-span would exist or other things would exist if they did not bring that money into the station so the cable networks like espn -- we would lose staff, bills would go skyrocketing without gambling. i think it is very important. i think it keeps things going

and keep things moving. if you just do it like new york and new jersey, you know how many people went across the bridge because new york did not have it when new jersey did to gamble? i think that is a big part of this whole thing is that now everybody has it. it takes away from atlanta city -- atlantic city or vegas. i think that is interesting and i think we have to get a bigger chunk of what is being paid. host: joe in new jersey. caller: thank you. host: dale in riverdale, maryland. caller: i am opposed to gambling. i do not gamble myself but i have a friend, very smart man, that i knew in high school, john kent from the university of illinois who has studied this.

what he tells me is that gambling, the real issue is the speed of gambling. in other words casinos you have to go there. but this online stuff is so fast that it can be so destructive at a huge level as what happened in australia. if you study gambling at all, you realize australia is really having serious financial issues because of this very thing. host: why though? what is the connection? why are they having financial trouble? caller: people are going broke. the issue with gambling is making money. whatever the state brings in

they end up spending to support people that develop problems with gambling. it is a wash. there is no money to be made in this except for the people that operate the gambling, the big guys. it is basically a con. look at television. television sells everything, you know that, and advertising. my channels here in maryland are just saturated with this promotion. host: advertising for these apps? caller: yes, for the online gambling like i have never seen before. host: let me show you this piece about what you are talking about. they quote a woman who said gambling completely took over her life. i would gamble on the toilet, on the school run, on the bus. the only time i was not gambling

was when i was sleeping. lisa is speaking out after a 132% rise of women in the u.k. seeking treatment for addiction. she talks about how this online platform made it far easier for her to do it around-the-clock. sometimes staying up until 3:00 in the morning. caller: exactly. and the thing about gambling unlike every other business in the world it produces nothing. it is people being fleeced out of their money. you go to las vegas, they guarantee they pay out 97% in winnings. but what they don't emphasize is they also guarantee they are going to take 3% of your money. it is a built in losing situation and people seem to disregard that sinking even

though they are telling me upfront i am going to lose at a 3% rate, i am going to get into it anyway. it just makes no sense but as humans -- i am an old guy myself -- the level of stupidity i see around me these days shocks me. host: as we have been telling you all morning this is a booming industry. the $22 billion wager draft kings and others reaching for a piece of the sports gambling prize. bookmakers have always been busy on super bowl sunday but this you will be a bonanza like never before. bettors are on track to wager $7.6 billion on the game, 78% up from last year and not because the office pool is getting bigger. legal sports betting has spread

to 30 states and d.c., home to 134 million. with the money bet on sports and counted by gambling companies has risen nearly 1000% to $57 billion. mark in iowa, good morning to you. what do you think? online sports gambling, opposed or support? caller: support narrowly but i agree mostly with the people who oppose it. i guess i do some sports gambling so i am not a hypocrite. my issue is that, at least in iowa, they legalize it for casinos. but if you have a struggling restaurant you cannot just put in a slot machine. i don't know why if you are going to legalize it you just

don't let anyone who wants a slot machine have a slot machine. host: we are going to leave it there. we will take a break and when we come back we switch gears and we will talk about the defamation lawsuit brought by sarah palin against the new york times. we talk about that lawsuit with roy gutterman, lawn communications professor at syracuse university. later the presidential records act has been in the news all week. we get a 101 from lee white from the national coalition for history. ♪ cracks to and that way will -- senator -- senators will vote on

a bill. some committees will hold virtual hearings during recess. thursday at 3:00 p.m. eastern, the doctor general of the club -- of the capitol police testifies on his review of the agency on the -- in the week of january 6. watch this week, live or on c-span now. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪ >> since the summer of 2020, roughly 214 public monuments have been taken down through official processes or by force. tonight on q1 day, aaron thompson, the author of smashing

statues, talks about the history of american monument and debates over which ones should be taken down. >> millions of americans marched to protest racial disparities, to say that black lives matter. often these valleys focused on monuments as a symbolic meeting point. >> aaron thompson with her book -- erin thompson with her book, smashing statues on q1 day. -- q&a . >> download c-span's new mobile app and stay up-to-date from live streams of the house and

senate floor and key congressional hearings to oral arguments. even our live interactive morning program, washington journal, where we hear your voices every day. download the app for free today. washington journal continues. host: joining us is a professor at syracuse university, here to talk about the type of lawsuit we have seen articles about. let's begin with explaining what liable -- libel is. >> it is the print -- guest: it is the printed form of defamation. it is -- host: what can be considered

libel? guest: it runs the gamut but it falls into a couple of categories. falsely call -- falsely calling someone a criminal, falsely saying they have an std, falsely saying that they are incompetent in their business or trade. host: what is the purpose of libel laws? guest: they had ancient roots. as human beings, we are identified by our name and reputation. nobody is going to jail in the u.s. for saying something false about somebody. we value our reputation.

we deal with false information that harms our reputation. host: what do you have to prove? guest: they have to prove that there is a false statement of fact. that it was published about then , that it caused harm to the reputation -- that is it, depending on who the plaintiff is. there is an additional burden of proof. for a private individual, it is a matter of negligence. for a public figure, that plaintiff has to prove not -- that they were published and false, but that they were published with actual malice. that is at the center of this current case. host: actual malice, the courts

have defined actual malice as knowing that a statement was false or acting in miraculous disregard as to whether a statement was true or false. this was at the heart of sarah palin's lawsuit. why? guest: she is a public official. that was never in dispute. she has to prove that they published information that was knowingly false or to such a degree of recklessness, such a degree of irresponsibility that they should have known that it was false. it is an important legal standard. it also involved the new york times. and involved a public official,

who wanted to collect damages because they published some erroneous information. the supreme court took the case and set down this rule of actual malice. host: as you have been watching this case, what are your thoughts? guest: i was lucky enough to listen to the proceedings. it was interesting. it was a case of two stories. we did publish this editorial. on the other hand, we have a prominent public figure, who found out about this false statement about her.

it was linked to political violence. it was an error and it was false. governor palin is arguing that her reputation as been damaged by this mistake that was published. host: so, what is this case centered on then? is she saying she was maligned as a private citizen? and can she do that? guest: she is arguing that it was a calculated mistake to

besmirch her reputation. that the newspaper had a agenda to besmirch her reputation. fighting this big behemoth in the world. host: what evidence did she have? guest: she had the admission that they made a mistake. that was never in dispute, but as far as how her reputation has been harmed or if she has been shunned, she really could not present any evidence on

cross-examination. host: is that a problem? guest: from a proof standpoint, it is. when we assess the harm, we have to see some kind of public rebuke. governor palin was unable to present any evidence that her reputation has been harmed and that there has been some sort of impact on her or her professional standing. host: when is it possible to win these kinds of disputes?

guest: we need to have some wiggle room or breathing space. so we do not have lawsuits aimed at silencing the price. mistakes happen in every industry. it is always a moving content. mistakes will happen. whether they should have legal consequences depends on the plaintiff. host: explain the new york times versus sullivan case. guest: the supreme court ruled on this case out of montgomery, alabama. the new york times published an

editorial that was paid for by a group of advocates trying to raise money for legal defense. the advertorial contains seven pretty innocuous mistakes or errors that escaped fact checkers and was published. they were really innocuous. because of mistakes, the times was unable to assert a truth defense. they appealed and the supreme court set down this actual rule.

it has been the law, ever since. interestingly, two current -- they had expressed dissatisfaction. justice gorsuch, in a bear -- justice gorsuch and justice thomas have written their dissatisfaction with the malice rule. justice gorsuch ruled a number of times, favoring the actual malice rule. it did come up and his

confirmation hearing. host: we are talking about libel lawsuits and defamation lawsuit sarah palin has filed against the new york times. text us and include your first name, city and state. democratic color, you are up first. welcome to the conversation. caller: i was wondering, if i were to ever see the government for mis-naming me and calling me an indian -- i was born in this nation. i do not know why they are calling me an indian, and they

are disclaiming me, saying i slaughter people when we are the ones who are all dead. guest: it is always difficult to sue the government. the specifics of this question have some difficulty, i would think. it has been off the books for some time. it is difficult to assess the specifics on that. host: in michigan, republican. caller: yes. i have to say that i am sick and

tired of all these liberals sticking up for this bad behavior. they have to write correction after correction. they say, we printed it. you know what? they did it on purpose. everybody knows it. they did what they could because they do not like politics. they might have been within their rights, but it is bs and everybody knows it. host: what does the jury in this case say to that caller?

guest: a lot of people do not like the media. the issue with opening up libel law is changing these rules to cut both ways. there is a politicized element with certain types of defamation lawsuit. as easily as it has opened up against the new york times, plaintiffs on the others could easily open it up. it cuts both ways. caller: good morning. i take issue with his opinions.

that is absolutely phony. number two, he says there is no proof of damage. this is palin was accused of voicing an opinion that was the cause of the murder of several people and the wounding of a congressman in arizona. that is a violation of a fair appraisal of her character in the business world and the social world. it is obvious that she was badly hurt and deserves to be compensated. thank you. host: what do you say?

guest: the editorial was written on deadline, following the congressional baseball practice shooting. the editorial was cranked out overnight and could it have waited a day? that is an editorial decision. they made the decision to run as quickly as possible. as far as the reputational harm goes, there could be an argument that the editorial actually enhanced certain political circles as well.

host: she said she would challenge on appeal, if she were to lose at trial. what would that look like? guest: it would look like a standard appeal. they have a lot of experience dealing with media cases. the actual malice standard was applied to deal with this kind of case from a public official. so, as sympathetic as some of the justices might be, this is

exactly the kind of case that it was designed to prevent and avoid. host: what kind of damages can be awarded in libel lawsuit? guest: in this case, governor palin's counsel did not make a huge plea for a huge sum of money. as much as a dollar, a nominal fee, that it would be a symbolic judgment. even if there is a verdict in the plaintiff's favor.

it is in the jury's hands. host: what can be awarded in these types of cases? guest: we can point to the case. it was $114 million verdict. it is not an identical case. it involved privacy claim as well. it involved a media entity that published material. host: john in fort wayne, indiana. republican. caller: what exactly did the new york times say in the editorial? am i correct?

i understand when they ran their correction, they did not refer to her by name. how do you make a correction when you do not refer to someone by name? guest: the statement that was published in the editorial links some political violence today map that they had published earlier, targeting congressional districts that republicans went back. the district went back and had graphic crosshairs. the implication was the sarah palin pack, graphic, somehow inspired or incited political

violence. it was the impetus for the congressional shooting into thousand 17 in virginia. host: and his second question? guest: the second question -- what was the second question again? host: i blanked myself. let's go ahead to julia. caller: listen. i was an avid reader of the new york times for years. i did not agree with the editorial page, but i would read it anyways. i am reading a book called bad news. you had her on a few months ago

and she is phenomenal. the new york times has shifted. how they purvey news to the public. what the editorialists do, they are not your traditional reporters. they fight an article. what they are doing is aggravating news and putting out algorithmically to target audiences. the name, what she refers to as this moral panic is just phenomenal. they have really become like a

tabloid. i was left to sub diet -- subscribe to it, and i do like the more traditional editorialists like david singer and for international news, but that is my comment today. host: we did have that author on. do you have any thoughts? guest: a lot of things go into producing news, whether it is digital, broadcast -- news is always a moving target. there are other elements that go into it, perhaps the algorithms.

regardless of how news is delivered, i do not know many journalists, who go out of their way to make mistakes, who deliberately put erroneous information in their content. i know many journalists, who lose a lot of sleep. as a former reporter, i lost a lot of sleep as well. one part of the beauty of modern media is the ability to correct a mistake almost as quickly as it happens. that is part of the beauty. host: how can you run a correction without running her name, sarah's name? guest: they referenced the editorial and they referenced the erroneous information. host: joe, independent. caller: i'm wondering -- libel

is different than slander. libel is the printed word and slander is the spoken word, as far as damages go. it is perception. host: ok. i think we got the question. guest: just like every supreme court nominee does during hearings, it is the doctrine that we uphold and respect. it is an important concept, so we have stability in our laws and president. it just takes five to change a precedent.

it is not a common thing, to overrule a case, but it is not that uncommon either. it does happen from time to time. host: we appreciate the conversation with you. guest: thank you for having me. host: when we come back, later, author rj cooper discusses his book, a most beautiful thing, about growing up in chicago. how his soy can be used as a tool. ♪ -- success can be used as a tool. -- story can be used as a tool. ♪

>> featuring leading authors. discussing the u.s. elections system, how the left changed the way you vote. the state senator on his book, where he talks about becoming a state senator at age 22 and legislation he has worked on since taking office. watch tv and find the full schedule on here program guide. >> british historian and the introduction to his most recent

book called the last king of america. it is an opus on king george the third sang the following, the portrait of a heartless, absolute sovereign is repeated almost every single day in print and online media. hardly a day passes in the u.s. without some reference to george the third, where he is still held up as an equal opportunities hate figure, and archetypal bohemian, attacked in the same measure by democrats and republicans alike. andrew roberts come over the past 30 years has also written major histories about napoleon, churchill and world war ii. >> british historian andrew roberts on book notes plus. it is available on the c-span now at or wherever you get --

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shop.org. washington journal continues. host: joining us today is levi. -- lee white. first of all, what is the group? what is your mission? guest: we are a nonprofit nonpartisan group that represents historians, are -- archivists, researches, teachers , political scientists. but we are a nonpartisan group. we are a nonprofit made up of nonprofits, basically. host: what are you advocating for? guest: more funding for agencies like national archives, but

another part of our mission is what we are talking about today, preservation of records, access to records, declassification, issues like that. what we are talking about goes to the core of our mission. host: we are talking about the presidential records act. changing legal ownership from private to public. establishing a new statutory structure to manage the records of the administration. how did this come about and why? guest: the genesis of it was president nixon. congress was afraid -- let me

backtrack one step. before the presidential past, the records of a president where his personal property. he could take them with him or do whatever he wanted with them. fdr established a precedent of creating a presidential library where all his records would go to one place, and scholars and interested citizens and students could go to this one facility and have all the records compiled in one place. each president after him established their own presidential library. eventually, they passed an act that set the rules and parameters for how this could work. fast-forward to 1978 and president nixon claims that these were his personal property

. congress thought, we do not want to have this somma -- have this. so it changed. those papers become property of the federal government. host: what role do they play? guest: they played two important roles. they advise the white house on managing records, how you are supposed to file them, where they are supposed to go, what you are supposed to do with them , and on january 20, they take physical possession of the records. it is not like they wait four years. they are taking them back to the

national archives, so it is not a giant dump of material. cereals are constantly going during the presidency, but there are archival staff. i might be getting ahead of your next question. when you go to work at the white house, you are trained on how to manage your records. you are told, this is how you deal with them. there was archival staff at the white house for different consultations. there are people there who can tell you what to do. host: how do they know what should be saved and what should not be saved? is everything part of the record? guest: it is up to them. if i send you an emails saying, let's go to lunch today, that is not really a presidential

record. they get hauled out by the archive eventually, but it is not the employee's job to say, i am going to ditch this. everything has to be preserved. that is just, when in doubt, save it, throw it out. when in doubt, throw it out, it is now, when in doubt, save it. host: we are talking about headlines in the papers like this one today. 15 boxes inside, the long trip of the classified records. what happened? guest: we do not know. that is why they have been referred to the department of justice. one of the dangerous jobs, when something like this happens is, you do not -- you do not know.

where those boxes lying in the office? are there concerns that there are a classified materials in there? who can have access to those materials? there is no chain of custody. the records are there, and nobody has responsibility for them. who knows? you do not want potentially classified information like that lying in a box. host: how will they know what is missing? guest: it is kind of like when a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there. did the tree really fall? we do not know. that is the danger of this situation. you do not know what is missing.

it is frightening because we are going through a tumultuous period, one that will be studied by historians for centuries. and i think the best way to describe it is that they need records to write accurate and a complete history. citizens are entitled to know what the government is up to you. and if the records are not there , historians cannot do their job. i do not know if this is a perfect analogy, but when they are writing a book, say that the job is building a house. the president is pulling away with a cement mixer to build the house. how can they do the work? it is a frightening situation.

it is potentially fraught with long-term implications for our country because as you can see, even with the january 6 committee, they are trying to find documents. they have sent requests over to the national archives, to find materials. this is apparently how we got confirmation that president was moving documents and people were scotch taping documents back together. it is a frightening scenario. one thing you should know is the national archives is underfunded and understaffed. it to comply with the january 6 committee request, they pull staff from other places to do this job. the same thing happened when supreme court justice kavanaugh's confirmation hearing, he worked at the white house. they had to pull people from

other places to search for those records. it is related, but they are underfunded and understaffed, and they have been for a long time. host: it requires that the white house provide all written communication and turn it over to the national archives. instead, continuing into post-presidency, documents, classified and mundane, they are governed by a similar rules and were treated with the same disregard and enveloped in the same chaos characterized in office. can somebody be held accountable for this? if so, how? guest: let me read you something very quickly. this is a letter that we sent to

mitch mcconnell, nancy pelosi and john bader. unfortunately, while the record fails to provide compliance, as historians, we believe that we need to make sure that such devastating laws will never take place. the date of that letter is september 5, 2008. still, it is not as if we did not know that this was a problem. it has been a problem for some time. as he saw, one of the issues that we found is, it's not like you can indict a sitting president for a violation of the act. i do know that the former national security advisor under

president clinton was actually prosecuted. i do not know if it was a court appearance or what he was doing, but he needed access to records. he was caught stealing documents. he was prosecuted. that is the only prosecution that i know off of the top of my head. host: begin dialing in. the lines are on your screen. the act was amended. what was changed? guest: there was some confusion. when the act was passed in 1978, nobody used email. a lot of it had to do with

bringing electronic records into the mix. and it also established -- the most important thing it established was people using their off-line accounts to conduct government business. if i am a federal employee, if i work in the white house and sending email to another person in the white house and using my gmail account to talk to them, even though it does not matter what you are using, if you are conducting federal business, that record has to go into the system. there is a requirement in the 2014 amendments that says, it does not matter what device created it on, if it is federal government business or executive branch -- branch business, it has to be saved in a particular

place. a lot of this was updated to include electronic records. i am digressing a little bit here, but one of the concerns is , somebody said to me, all of these are backed up and electronic. some of the most important things that you will see any document is -- in a document is that the participants are taking notes, in some cases. let's say that president trump is in a meeting and he is sitting there with a briefing paper in front of. he is writing notes in the margin, scribbling away. what he wrote on that piece of paper is almost as important as what is typed. you're seeing what he is thinking. if you have people in real,

taking notes and tracking what is going on, it is really important perspective later on. the electronic document is important, but a lot of what goes on, they are really important. they give real context. you see the interactions between human beings. here is what we printed out. one of the things that they found is the famous hurricane that with a sharpie was taken to mar-a-lago. that is an important piece of american history. it may seem mundane, but it is that important to later scholars because we do not think about

the fact that there will be people 30 to 40 years from now wondering, what are those people thinking back then? how can we pass that on to our children and grandchildren? they will be interested in our times. it will be hard to explain to people down the road. host: richard, what are your comments or questions on this? caller: the presidential records act means that any means that a president has with people he has working for him like barack obama. when he had a meeting, all of his papers, everything that he did visually is on record. is that correct?

guest: correct. caller: i understand. now that they have come out with the report about all the meetings that went on during the trump campaign and everything. can we get that information and find out what barack obama and his people did? host: how quickly do the people have access to the national archives? guest: the records are not open to the public, generally for 12 years. then the president claim certain exemptions. so they are open to the public for -- after 12 years, but there

are declassification issues and whatever. it is not a magic, after 12 years i can go to the library and everything will be there. presidential records after five years are subject -- you can file a request after five years, but again, they are understaffed and underfunded. it might take you years to get that request fulfilled. the answer is, i'm trying to get back to the caller's question. records are supposed to be kept. i'm not really sure which incident you are referring to, but it does not matter trump or bush. lbj was not subject, but it is

clear that records are supposed to be kept. caller: yes. do you have access to the presidential servers? john durham just released a report that president trump being spied on through his servers. do you have access to them? guest: i'm not really sure what your question is. in what way? host: does national archives have access to guest: servers at the white house? guest:absolutely. that is their job. yes. once the material is made and put into them, the national archives takes it away. like i said, technically, it does not go over until january

20 at noon, when the old president's record becomes property of the federal government, but they are taking the servers away periodically. there is limited computer space, so they are taking material over to the national archives. i hope that answers your question. caller: you know people have been fired because of the things he has done over the years? they lose their jobs. why are we paying him for assaying? -- a saying? -- a thing? host: i believe she was talking

about the former president. should the former president be held accountable for these boxes? guest: that is to be determined and that is why the national archives referred the matter to the department of justice. i will not speak to that because i do not have the details. you are not guilty until you are proven guilty, so it will be up to them to decide. as you saw during the impeachment, there is an advisory opinion that you can indict a sitting president for any time. he is a former president. it is up to the department of justice to decide what they want to do. host: omaha, nebraska.

democratic collier. caller: in your opinion, did he violate the act? guest: did he violate the records act? again, i am not a prosecutor or the department of justice. what he did is -- that is all i will say. i am not here to judge him. i'm just saying that on the surface, from what we have seen, what was done was wrong. whether it is a violation of law, i can tell you that it is a violation of the spirit of the law. that is not what you are supposed to do. it is not my job. i am a lawyer, but -- it is the doj's job to determine

whether a crime was committed, but it is clear that he violated the intent of the law. ripping things up and drawing them on the floor is just -- it is not acceptable behavior. one of the things i saw it recently in the media stories about this is that everybody is complaining that, there is no teeth in this law. somebody said, i wish i had the person's name to give them credit" them. but they said, it was a gentlemen's agreement that we assumed nobody would do this. but i guess we have seen now that gentlemen's agreement do not cut it. we need to strengthen the law and make it clearer. we need to tighten the laws.

host: executive branch employees are trained. with the president himself be trained? guest: he should be. there has been no congressional oversight of the act, which is true. they can say, may be people at the white house were not aware of how the roles operated. there is irony in this. the first two years of his term, the government operations subcommittee of the house oversight committee was chaired by mark meadows, see you can hardly think that while mark meadows was the chief of staff at the white house -- if he had jurisdiction over the national archives, he should kind of know what the rules are.

there is a certain irony in that. host: st. petersburg, florida. your turn. caller: it drives me nuts when these groups come out and say that they are net -- nonpartisan group. you know that they are partisan. i will that you a dollar to a doughnut that however joe biden leads -- leaves office, his record disappears forever. to that lady in maryland, donald trump is living rent-free in your mind, lady. guest: i would invite the caller to check out our nonprofit status. you will not see any partisan material. we are down the middle and the

people we represent our professional historians, archivists, professors and we represent a broad spectrum of people. we are in organization of professionals. host: i hope i can hold conversation with you guys this morning without getting as upset as that first democratic collier. he is doing -- caller. he avoids the direct question. anybody you see on the sunday talk show will avoid answering questions direct the, when somebody asks them. we asked this gentleman, in his opinion, has the president broken the law. he has broken numerous laws. nobody is doing anything to him. department of justice should have already formed a case the first day he was out of office.

i want to ask this gentleman, and his opinion, did the president, former president trump, has he broken the law here? guest: again, i will go as far up to that yellow line as i can and say that he has broken the spirit of the law. it is almost like he does not care. he was told multiple times that you cannot do that, you cannot do that. again, i am not avoiding the question. i am not a prosecutor. i cannot make that decision, and my heart, in my professional capacity. it appears as though he has broken the law and the things he has done are so far outside the

norm that they are unprecedented. president nixon, there were clearly crimes committed, but there was no act. he could have gone onto the lawn and set those tapes on fire. there would have been no ramifications for him whatsoever. i hope that the justice department takes this seriously. i hope that the justice department prosecutes this to the end of the law, but i will not sit here and be judge and jury. it is not my job. i am here to give you a background on this, but that is not my job. it will be plenty of shows on later today. i'm not taking a partisan spin. that's not why i'm here. host: our viewers can learn more

, if you go to history coalition.org,. guest: thanks for having me. host: when we come back, we will talk with author arshay cooper who discusses his book a most beautiful thing about his life growing up in chicago's west side in the late 1990's and how the sport of crew helped him. we will open up the >> at least six presidents

recorded conversations while in office. here many of those on c-span's new podcast, presidential recordings. >> presidency of lyndon johnson. you will hear about the 1964 civil rights act, the presidential campaign, and 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. in fact they were the ones who made sure the conversations were taped lezz johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and there's. >> you will also hear blunt talk. >> the number of people assigned to kennedy the day he died, and i want it right quick.

i promise you i will stay right behind. >> residential recordings, find it on the c-span now app. >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington, live and on demand or keep up with the biggest events from the u.s. congress, white house events, campaigns, and more from the world of politics, all at your fingers. also get the latest episode of washington journal and a variety of compelling podcasts c-span now is available at the apple store. she's been now, your first row seat to washington, anytime, anywhere. >> "washington journal"

continues. forum for the next 20 minutes. any public policy issue that's on your mind is all on the table. we'll start with the foreign policy front page of the new york times this morning. president biden tries to sway putin warning of severe costs. president biden warned president vladimir putin that invading ukraine will result in swift and severe cost to russia. the white house said on saturday as western officials made a forceful diplomatic push to dissuade mr. putin from passing -- pressing forward with an attack. one official said that the situation remained as urgent as it was on friday when the administration said russia could invade at any moment and the

president's national security advisor warned americans to leave the country in the coming days. white house officials said mr. biden discussed a range of diplomatic options with mr. putin but that it was unclear if he was persuaded to take that route. carl in west virginia, republican. open forum. good morning to you. go ahead. caller: good morning. you know, you have lies and then you have political lies. joe biden has been looking in the camera for the last two weeks saying he never was for defunding the police. i challenge you to pull up the interview with george stephanopoulos when he was running for president. question. are you for defunding the police. i'm for taking money out of their budget and putting it into other programs.

pull it up. i challenge you. if that's not defunding, but i don't know the definition of defunding. and that guy you had on right before, i wonder if he's going to keep any of the biden families crime syndicate selling influence all over the world. you've got hunter's laptop. all you have to do is get the laptop. ask a man named bob wolinsky. he was in charge of the biden family crime family when joe barton was vice president under barack obama. host: darnell in st. louis, missouri. good morning. caller: good morning. a gentleman just made a comment. i would like to make a comment

about him saying -- they keep calling the bidens a crime family. hello? host: we are listening. caller: i don't understand why everybody focuses so much attention on the bidens and how he gave his son a job. everybody that gets in any political position, it doesn't even have to be a political position. just the head of a company always make sure they take care of their family and give jobs to people and their family. i don't think anything is wrong with that. i said i wanted to ask greta a question about you always have different opinions and different sides of issues on one at a time. when can we have a forum where we have like ocasio-cortez and rand paul, any democrat and republican on at the same time where we can: as -- call in and ask them both a question. host: we have done it before. we try to do it.

it is difficult with their schedules. but we will keep trying. we try to get them at the table together. it's just not always easy. sometimes we do one after another in order to make it work. we like those roundtable discussions as well with opposing views sitting at the table answering your questions. another public policy issue is those so-called freedom convoys blocking transport and trade. the freedom convoys protesters face arrests and telling. there have been copycat versions of this in other countries. covid protest hundreds finds and dozens arrested. there is also some talk of copycat versions happening around the super bowl as well.

tom and florida. independent. caller: with regard to russia, i think vladimir is just flexing right now. i really do believe there is no real threat. it's more of we lost the cold war but we are still a force to be reckoned with and we have the chinese in our corner, too. i really think it's just vladimir putin flexing. i don't think there's a real threat. host: ok. mary in texas. caller: i was calling this morning to recognize that in this country we are in total chaos. the problem is that we give too much air to trump and we have a problem with everything biden does.

i think in america we need and should welcome joe biden any day and all of the chaos with trump. it has never shown with his family -- handcuffed and perp walked out. whereas biden it's always a problem no matter what he does. and all he's ever done and i'm a democrat is to improve our lives in this country, the whole world . and it's pretty sad because we would rather give so much air and breath to the last one but is just destroying our democracy. that's my position on it. and the guy before me and the russia not going to do anything, putin may be crazy, but he wouldn't put all those troops everywhere and not have plans to

do anything. so i am praying for that country because no one should have to go in harm's way. just lay down and give it to russia. host: coming up this week in washington, d.c., there is going to be a hearing with the u.s. capitol police inspector general on their reports that they have given to congress on the january 6 attack on the u.s. capital. might in bold -- michael bolton will testify thursday. online at c-span.org or watchful coverage on c-span now. our free video app that you can download on any mobile device. in pleasant valley new york, republican. good morning to you.

caller: i wanted to talk to the last fellow about the records keeping. obviously the damaging and with things missing didn't pertain to the obama administration when there were servers and closets and information being personally deleted by the secretary of state. the chickens are to roost because the durham report is starting to come out. the democrats and that woman from maryland that called in screaming about it, they are all going to find out the real truth that has been going on the last four years. host: all right. lewis in massachusetts, democratic color. louise. sorry. i can't read. caller: that's ok. can you hear me all right? my question was if anybody, i have not heard anybody mention a news report that came out at the

time of the meeting in helsinki when after the meeting, trump went up to the interpreter and grabbed the notes out of her hands. that to me was so shocking. of course everybody was paying attention to his comments about he couldn't figure out why the russians would interfere in the election. but the idea that he would grab the notes from the interpreter, those notes did not belong to him. those notes belong to the united states of the people, the united states of america. and i haven't heard any mention of that. i wonder if anybody else remembers hearing that news

report. my news comes from you or the npr or the washington post or the new york times. and now the boston globe, they are all reputable news agencies. so thank you. host: can in williamstown, independent. caller: i didn't vote for clinton or trump. wouldn't vote for either one of them. i think your discussions this morning and typically in regards to these top six reflect the moral morass in which the country finds itself. we justified behavior on the part of one individual by reflecting on while the previous person also did this and that was terrible and illegal. we are just going down the drain and it's very disturbing. my suggestion to the public out there, never vote for an

incumbent of any kind. host: richard in indianapolis. caller: good morning. host: we are listening. caller: i have a question i'm not quite sure. maybe someone can help me on this. because of the conflict in europe with russia and ukraine, if russia does act or not, would the ukrainian citizens be eligible to get a visa to come to america? what was the difference in afghanistan when the conflict happened there? wouldn't the state department tried to get as many people out because they will be in harm's way isn't there some sort of law ? from all the conflicts that we've had in the past were we

migrated for folks or different people will have migrated to america because of vietnam and conflict, would not that be a similar situation? and because you need workers and everything over here, would not that also suffice as far as having a new population of people to come and get jobs? so i don't know how that would work. that was my question and see if someone can answer that. host: gary in livingston, tennessee. democratic color. caller: people keep talking about inflation, but there's over 6 million people that were out of work. and look what a mess we were in when joe biden took office. we had high unemployment. i think those people were just -- we need to keep this study here.

it takes some time of how many new jobs and what they are coming in. there is jobs out here for common working people now. now that 6 billion people is back to work, inflation doesn't look that hard to them. thank you for taking my call. host: you bet. in florida, independent. caller: i wanted to bring to the attention of the american people that we need to be very skeptical about what we hear politicians say and even the media. if we look at what happened january 6, we all saw it on television. pretty soon all of that was changed and they are telling us that what we saw did not happen.

the other thing, the democrats are saying that voter id is an issue and it's going to disenfranchise people. that may be true, but when you look at the complaint that food cannot be given to people who are standing in line and that kind of thing. they are saying that political parties should not be giving food to people. anyone from the public can go ahead and do it. the issue with a photo id is they are selecting specific ids that favor the different political parties. now why should that be allowed. i think we should have a standard card that is used for every american to vote and that should be operationalized across the line so it's fair for everyone. i'm really concerned about the level of division we are seeing in the country. sometimes it's like i'm in some kind of time warp and i'm living in a completely different country from the country we have learned about.

i am an immigrant and i'm proud to be an american, but very concerned about did i come to this country at the wrong time. i don't want to hate my neighbor. we all want to take care of our kids and live in safe communities. we all want our kids to go to college and self actualize. all these things are important. let us talk about how do we help teachers instead of pushing political positions. let us all be careful and be judicious in how we respond to each other. host: in california, democratic color. caller: i just want to say i love biden. he needs to retire though. he is too old to be president. i hope he doesn't run again. he is a good person, but he doesn't need to run again. i want to give trump a bigass

bottle of milk in his baby bottle. host: ok. larry. caller: i have been waiting for someone to discuss the big lie of 2020. the big lie was that the allegations were baseless. and -- they said it a 1000 times between the election and january 6. i feel that's a big part of the reason january 6 happen. the allegations were nothing and they continued to hound people like rudy giuliani. three legs at the table cannot stand if one of the legs is missing. maybe they should have been at the supreme court instead of the congress. the judicial system abrogated the responsibility and decided not to look at the evidence. it's not that there was no evidence. i would just like for someone at

some point to at least acknowledge that because i haven't heard it back. thank you. god bless c-span. greta, you are the best. host: when we come back, we are joined by arshay cooper. how he found the sport of crew and how that changed his life and how his story can be used as a tool for social change today. we will be right back. >> this week live on the c-span network. the senate will consider the of dr. robert caleb to be head of the fda. as well as a postal service reform bill. both pieces of legislation passed the house last week before it recessed for a work period. some committees will hold virtual hearings during the recess.

the inspector general of the capitol police testifies on his review of the capitol hill law enforcement agency in the wake of january 6. watch live on the c-span networks or on c-span now. stream video live or on-demand any time. since the summer of 2020, roughly 214 public monuments have been taken down across the united states either through official processes or by force. tonight on q&a, aaron thompson, professor of art crime at the city university of new york talks about the history of american monuments and current debate over which one should be taken down. >> after the murder of george

floyd, millions of americans march to protest racial disparities, to say that black lives matter and often the israelis focused on monuments as a symbolic meeting point for showing who was -- whose life mattered and whose life did not. >> aaron johnson tonight on c-span's q&a. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our new c-span now app. c-span shop.org is c-span's online store. browse our latest collection of c-span products, apparel, books, home decor and accessories. there is something for every c-span fan and every purchase supports our nonprofit operation.

washington journal continues. host: we want to welcome to the washington journal this morning arshay cooper, author of a most beautiful thing, about his life going up on chicago's west side in the 1990's and the sport of crew and how it changed his life. why did you want to write this book? guest: i wanted to write for chicago and young people. i wanted to give people an opportunity to maybe unlearn some of the things they learned about our city and also get some clarification of the young people who grow up there. host: you talk about your life in chicago. you write, i came from the west side. at 14 years old in my neighborhood, kids had experienced what most soldiers witnessed in war. at 15 i had already run for my life, skipped over pools of

blood and witnessed to dead bodies on the street. it's hard to believe in the american dream when you walk home through streets of abandoned billion -- buildings scattered with baggies of drugs. what was happening when you were growing up? guest: i grew up in a place where talent was everywhere but access and opportunity was not. that statement was true. i heard gunshots when i slept. when you are going through those kinds of things as a 13, 14-year-old kid and you show up at school, there's no way you are going to learn what's 20% of a have or who discovered america. all these people hurting each other, stealing from each other and young people making decisions to join gangs so they can be safe.

host: is that what you want people to learn? what do you want people to know about you when you were growing up and the kids there today? >> my grandmother for example moved to chicago when a friend was hung from a tree in the south. she's in her 90's, she is still alive and well today. my mom would say she lost her mother to her trauma due to structural limitations when she moved to chicago. she couldn't get a job. there were certain things she wasn't allowed to do because of the color of her skin. my mother, my father was a victim of mass incarceration and i grew up in a home with no fathers.

the structural limitation destroyed so much unity that was once there. when my teammates said when they tore down the ymca, we ran into the streets. i remember that. that was the place where the coaches, mentors, leaders were at and they lost funding and now there's 150 kids in the street with nothing to do. he said he ran to the streets and start selling drugs. i don't care what color you are or where you are from. when there is no access or opportunities, kids get into things that are not normal. so i think those sort of things were happening all the time. here's this group of young people who love each other and have a lot of talent but just not a lot of access. that's what i want people to know. host: from your book, this is who you were as a kid. i don't know how tough it was to

be a cop. i know how tough it was to be me. i haven't even broken a plate and i still had my face pressed down in the police car numerous times. it's not fun when they stick their hands down your pants looking for drugs. once when an officer took my back pack and made me pick my books out, i had so much on my mind. i wanted to tell him the cop that i had recited the preamble to the united states constitution in front of my whole class with pride. arshay cooper, what made you you? guest: honestly it was the sport of rowing. i was in search of something. i was hurt as a kid. i didn't have a lot of hope. i saw this boat. i had no idea what rowing was. i wasn't introduced to a sport. i was introduced to wellness.

the sport of rowing is noncompetitive. it wasn't a sport that triggered triana -- triggers trauma. no one was trying to hurt me. this export of rowing completely changed my life. host: so you stumble upon a boat in the lunchroom. what happens next? guest: i remember looking at the tv screen and everyone in this boat didn't reflect the community over the world i was used to. the next day they showed up and i was given free pizza. i just tried it out. it was a diverse group of young coaches who wanted us to do something new and me in a group of guys from different gangs and different neighborhoods said yes to the sport. host: tell us what happens.

tell people what it means to be in crew. the hours, the training. >> rowing is special. there are no cheerleaders. there are no million-dollar contracts after college. but it is a sport, a privileged sport. an affluent sport. we have been given the opportunity to be the first all-black high school rowing team in the country and we were afraid of water. the cost was a lot of money. i think the sport had to offer was taken from seeing dirt and concrete every day to grass and the water. before it was a sport of competitiveness, it became a sport of meditation. people would say to us, you are

a walking storm. it gave us the opportunity to race. every competition was outside of our city. it was a lot of college visits and we began to interact with people who didn't look like us. we shared a full house with all private schools and every day seemed like an away game. it wasn't warm and welcoming. we had to show up every day. we took the bus an hour and a half a day. our mentality changed, our bodies changed. we began to take entrepreneurship classes and we just had solid mentors who gave us a shot and i wanted to write this story about it. host: for you and your friends on the team, what kept you going every day to take the hour and a half bus ride?

guest: i think it was the fact that we had goals and we had a lot of trips that we knew was going to go on. i lived on the west side five miles away from downtown. the fact that we had a moment to step out of our neighborhood was key for us. i think a lot of my parents worked two or three jobs and being able to have mentors who care and love us, and i think the college opportunities set up for us really helped. i think those were the few things we loved about the sport and changed our lives. host: what did you and your crewmates do after high school? guest: some went to college. some got a job. 90% of my teammates are

entrepreneurs who own their own companies and hire people from the neighborhood. our team wasn't just about sports. it was how do we activate the entrepreneurial mindset we already had and that's what was offered to us. one thing i would say is the therapy that came with the letter. having a social worker available to help us and see some of the things we saw. being able to be around that piece that the water brought to us really helped us be who we are today. host: we are talking about our shape cooper -- arshay cooper about his book. if you live in the eastern central part of the country, to --(202) 748-8000. central part of the country,

(202) 748-8001. you can join us on facebook.com/c-span as well. this book has become part of a documentary. the documentary crew brought your crewmates back together after a number of years. >> the west side of chicago was not a great place to go up. >> in my neighborhood the big question was what gang are you going to join. >> kind of makes you lose hope for your community. >> i walked inside the laundry room and saw this boat. we don't even swim. >> it brought guys from different neighborhoods and rival gangs together in one vote

. >> it takes your mind away from any problems that you have. >> there was something about the water that gave us peace. and we all needed that. >> 20 years later, they are back on the water. >> what are we waiting for? >> malcolm is doing this to show his son another way. alvin is raising to celebrate the fact that he is still alive. now you get an opportunity to inspire another generation. what are you going to do with it? >> we are on a mission now. >> it's going to be a remarkable moment when they come together again. >> when that flag comes down,

there is only one truth. the they are still here. host: what are you hoping the documentary does? >> i hope it gives an opportunity for people to learn about the neighborhoods that are neglected. people can get more of their time and talent to those in need. i'm hoping to get more young kids the opportunity to grow. there are so many full houses trying to diversify their program and get young kids involved. we are hoping more kids can go to college and have access to this sport. host: what was it like to get back in the boat after 20 years? guest: it hurt. we are all pushing on 40 years old. a lot of our moms, some moms

were not around. we didn't have a lot of people that supported us when we were young. and we wanted to show everyone the beauty of the sport and the city to come support the chicago program that had so much history. you can't be what you can't see and we wanted to give young black and brown kids an opportunity to know more about the sport. host: did the race happen? guest: the race happened. we did great. the city leaders were out there. chicago police department was out there. our mothers, grandmothers and kids. our schools. it was just an amazing time. host: let's go to calls. met in dallas. good morning to you. go ahead. caller: thank you for sharing your story and i look forward to

watching the documentary and probably buying the book. i wanted to ask you, we hear a lot about what's happening in the headlines in chicago. i know it must be frustrating. you are in new york city now, but i live here in dallas and a lot of people are moving to our region from chicago because of the lack of opportunities. i'm sure a lot of this will be answered in the documentary but what specifically can you do to reach out. you mentioned earlier, crew is an affluent sport. you are right. how do you tap into that to convince people with power to work with you and help prove chicago? obviously mayor rahm emanuel hasn't been able to do it and i know that mayor lori lightfoot is struggling as well. what can you do to reach out to

those people with affluence and power? >> since the film we have raised over a million dollars. speaking at schools in south dallas. i think there is a lot of money and a lot of those guys who rode are now ceos. they are embracing our work and now they are kind of seeing that every team should reflect diversity in this country. everyone should have an opportunity. so honestly they have been reaching out to us. we have worked with j.p. morgan, bank of america, nba, vanguard. everyone should have access. the history of sports tells us

none has entirely reached its goal without the power of diversity. now college coaches are reaching out to us for opportunity. in the sport of rolling, -- we are starting to pull together resources from the college level, the olympic level, the ceo, small business and make it happen city by city. host: what kind of buy-in do you need from the parents of these kids and the schools? guest: they are looking for trust, representation. we show up at every school. all we need them to do is help us motivate the kids to try something new and we do the rest of the work. we have academic support. we teach them how to swim.

we travel with them. we go into five cities a year and we are trying to expand that. host: bob in salem, ohio. good morning to you. go ahead. caller: good morning mr. cooper. i am a public school teacher. started out in special education. i'm the library and for our district since 2012. i have your book in our collection. i think it's an awesome book. i have seen your documentary more than once and i recommend it to everybody quite a bit. so my thing is and it was alluded a little bit in the last caller, starting any program to try and reach any type of students in any community. what kind of advice, because i

think that might be the hardest thing is getting it initiated and started. guest: you can't say i want to do this for the community. you have to do it with them. who are the stakeholders, who are the leaders sitting in their meetings. listening to parent coordinators, talking to them. just showing up. going to community festivals. actually building a relationship with them and doing the work with them. listening to their ideas and moving your organization with their ideas. we know what to do, we want to take your kids out and help them. let's do it with them. let's do it with the teachers. when there's media, sometimes if there is media love that you are going to get. let the parents talk about it. let the teachers talk about it.

that's what it is. but also hire folks who look like the people from that community. who already have the trust. when they see the fact that the leadership is diverse and looks like their city, i think the trust will form. host: barbara is an oak pulse, massachusetts. caller: oh my god, this is the most beautiful documentary you may ever see in your entire life. you must see this thing. i sighed when it came out. i watched it twice. it's absolutely fantastic. mr. cooper, i had no idea that you wrote a book about it. when i saw you come on this morning it completely blew my mind and here's a suggestion. if the national football league wants to try to handle its current diversity issues, i would like to suggest that they provide the seed money in every

city where they have a football team in a place where there is water to row on that they make one incredibly bold stroke and create a program called a most beautiful thing. ok? it is spectacular. you must see this video. please stay on top of this story and keep it coming. congratulations. guest: thank you. host: why is it called a most beautiful thing? guest: we all knew what it was like growing up for us growing up as her systemic obstacles we had to face. folks in our community didn't think it was a real sport. there were folks in our race who loved us and thought it isn't what we needed.

once they changed, it was the a most beautiful thing i think we ever saw and it was the brotherhood. people mention success in the sport by gold medals. everyone at some point, we culturally overcame the fear of water. these guys became a brotherhood. we were so committed. our whole team spent the summers working with third and fourth and fifth graders. when we were at the barbershop, this was the a most beautiful thing we have ever heard growing up. host: what was the original name of your book and why? guest: it was shiver water. no publishing group gave me a shot. -- sugar water. no publishing group gave me a shot. every time we went in the water, life just got sweeter for us. it just got better. and also it was a drink when you

couldn't afford soda, you put sugar in your water. that was something we all had in common growing up. when the film came out, we thought it being called the same name and having the guys all want to be part of naming that title was the reason we named it a most beautiful thing. host: you write about making life sweeter, this experience was never about rowing. it was about bridging the water. when you represent something larger than yourself and your career, real change happens. when we step into that vote -- boat in grand rapids, i want people to see people who wrote against the current of life and survived. arshay cooper? guest: thank you for that. i always say when you think of harriet tubman, you think about

the freedom she represent. when you think about gandhi, you think about the peace he brought to so many villages. when you represent something bigger in your career, i believe great things happen. if we -- ourselves which is the first thing you learn and rohan, you get where you want to be much faster and great things happen. host: this is from doug in toronto. he says that the guest elaborate on the use of the term a victim of mass incarceration in regards to your father? guest: in the book, i save my father is my stepfather. he was first locked up for something he didn't do and he spent a lot of time in jail. he got out. and couldn't get a job anywhere because he was a felon. he tried and he wanted to see his kids.

he did things the street way and that's not his story. there are so many other stories of men like him just walking down the street and something happened or maybe they lost their temper. thrown in jail. they come out and they learn and still can't find work because of that one mistake. so that's what i mean about that. host: richard is next in augusta, georgia. caller: good morning. brother cooper, you are doing a great thing. i am a veteran and i appreciate what you are doing with the ruling cloak. i substitute for 17 years. you know philadelphia has the great rowing row on the skull kyl river and they bring the regatta. i would like to see you try to

reach out especially to the folks in philadelphia because of what's happening in the high murder rate and also i just can't give up on, i do other things now politically to try to get people to realize. make sure you get those guys registered to vote, too. because we need them and we need you and your team. get into philadelphia and show them kids how good it can be to be a rover. and you can have a regatta down here in augusta, georgia. caller: thank you so much. love to speak at your school one day. we are in philadelphia and a program that is a black-owned rowing organization that's out there. not only for youth but also for

parents. the parents need that kind of wellness as well because they have seen a lot growing up so we are all about multicultural multi-generation programs in every city. host: in belleville, illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to complement mr. cooper. i am so impressed. you are like a beautiful black diamond. i want to know the detail, when can i see the documentary, where is it shown and i will be buying several copies of your book and passing it out to the young men in my family. i am not surprised this has been created by a young man like you. communities just don't get a chance to understand how to

create those opportunities for themselves. just some details so i can extend your information. guest: thank you so much. you can find the film on peacock nbc or amazon prime or anywhere books are sold -- and the book anywhere books are sold. host: arshay cooper wants to know is there a way to financially support the program? guest: you can go to my website. now it's not only at the high school. it is open to all youth and it's free for public schools. programs that we launched in different cities are free for our youth. host: ruth in wilmington, north carolina.

caller: i want to just say to arshay cooper it i'm so encouraged to hear what he's doing. his work. i was in a movement and seem to be right in that spot again. last night i attended a concert and there were two young men, two black brothers. playing the violin. they were called the black violin and they were cap like you and the piano player wore his on backwards. i went to the concert thinking i was going to hear classical but they said the same thing you said. this is not about the crew. this is not about the violin. this is about something else. finding something that you love that can take you out of the zone you are in. you are just beautiful and i

love you and i love to see you smile on this screen. keeping the work going. and i'm so happy that the color before asked for where to find the work. i do go to amazon to buy books. i just bought who is your family, who are your people by sellers. so i know i'm going to be buying your books and giving it to young people. i'm so encouraged. you are 40 years old. i love you. god bless you. guest: thank you. host: arshay cooper, what was the reaction from your mom and crewmates parents when you said we are going to do crew in high school? guest: they said no you are not. we don't do the water. it was just so unfamiliar to them. i think that all of our families are from the south. they felt like it was an

opportunity but they wasn't sure about the new space that we was going to walk into where no one looks like us because of their experience. it came from a good place when they said no, you are not doing crew. i think the fact that we had a woman, jessica. most of us were raised by women and most of our teachers were women so there was a trust with women. we had a black man who was a coach. they realized that maybe we would be protected in the space because we had someone who looked like us. i think because the leadership was so diverse, they said yes. and also every coach showed up at our place. host: they showed up at your home? guest: they showed up at our homes. some of them didn't get in.

you are not getting in here. they showed up. they wanted to build a relationship, they wanted to know who our parents was and who we were. i think that trust helped them to make a decision to say yes, my kid can do this. host: what are the rules of rowing that transformed this experience for you? guest: number one, you can't move forward alone. number two, we didn't like each other right? as an athlete, you learn very fast to get the results that you want, you have to be courageous and uncomfortable the whole time. so we also had to have uncomfortable conversations and courageous conversation to get the results we want. i think the other thing was really which helped with the discipline piece was the number

one rule, leave the house better than you found it even if you didn't make the mess. if at all of us is ok, how do we leave our team? how do we leave our city, our community, our country better than we found it even if we didn't make the mess? a lot of people say i had nothing to do with what happened 300 years ago in this country. but if we all take the responsibility to leave this place better than we found it even if we didn't make the mess, it leaves it easier for the next generation. that was the number one rule. host: genevieve in california. good morning to you. caller: good morning. i just want to say this, what he has done and what he's talking

about is tremendous. i want to say that row your boat represented that you keep going. my pastor spoke on row row row your boat. he said when you get on that boat, when you first started out it may not be how you want it to go. but you get up and keep going and row on row until you get it right. i live in california and i thought how can i reach the young people. when i run across a young person, i don't look for anything negative with that person. i encourage them and then i ask them, what would you like to be? they say this and i say that. and i say to them, yes you can. never give up. it's not how you start out. it's how you end up where you

want to go. i have so many things that i would like to say but i'm going to include this. i'm a registered nurse. i worked in very high security and they gave me a position and i thought, how do i reach them? that was my question. and i began to work on that. and do you know i reached them? i get respect from people in the streets. i got respect from the place in which i worked and i would really like to talk to you more because someone said you should write a book. i've never had a young person disrespect me. why, because i encourage them. because i told them they were somebody. i'm not biased. a lot of the people that i just come in contact with, they were people of color and it was. host: i'm going to jump in. arshay cooper, what about her

approach to young kids? guest: i love it. these kids are not making bad decisions but hard and challenging decisions. secondly, it's like a black -- it's like a bank account. you will not be able to withdraw if you don't make deposits. when you begin to make the deposits and then you ask the question, you will get the withdrawals. it's not about calling out, but calling people in. i love that approach. host: last one for you, kathleen. caller: i cannot wait to go to our new mayor mims as well as our city commission and i am going to beg and plead for them to sponsor you to come to dayton ohio and coach and talk to people. we've got five beautiful rivers and i have been concerned for years being back here that kids aren't learning how to swim.

black, white, all the pools have closed in dayton over the last 40 years. i'm going to beg them to bring you here and i'm going to encourage listening people to really consider former mayor dan whaley. host: your reaction to hearing that? guest: we will go anywhere. we are doing films in theaters for kids and adults. we will show up and help and give more access. host: tell us where people can find you. guest: you can find me at arshay cooper.com. you can find the book again on amazon, anywhere books are sold. host: the documentary, a most beautiful thing as well. arshay we are going to be back tw

morning. enjoy your day. everyday we are taking your calls live. monday morning, we discussed the week ahead in washington with bloomberg congressional reporter eric washington and washington correspondent tia mitchell.

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