phone calls, comments, and tweets. next, on washington journal. host: good morning. it is monday, february 21. it is president's day in the amended states. on this federal holiday that honors the history of the american presidency, a question about all three branches of government. we want to know if you think the executive, legislative, judicial branches are coequal today when it comes to their power and influence. you can do though -- do so by political party.

republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. on social media, twitter and facebook, a very good monday morning to you. you can start calling and now on this question we are asking, are the three branches of government coequal. asking this question this morning as president biden will perform a key function of the executive branch this week. he will announce his supreme court nominee to fill the seat of stephen breyer by the end of this month. it was recently on the floor of the u.s. senate that john cornyn it, the republican from texas, talked about the upcoming supreme court nomination and

confirmation battle. he talked about the coequal role the judiciary plays in the american system of government. >> we all know the supreme court is a third and coequal branch of government. we know the role of a judge is far different from that of a legislator. legislators are elected in order to represent their constituents and make public policy proposals that hopefully will become law, which will improve their lot in life. a supreme court -- any judge for that matter -- is not supposed to start with a desired result in work backwards from there. the supreme court is not a substitute for working together to pass legislation in the executive branch with a signoff by the executive branch.

the supreme court or any court is not a failsafe that can be used to deliver results that can't be secured through the legislative process. judges should not be legislators in black robes. they shouldn't advocate for any particular policy outcome or promote a specific agenda. our democracy and the rule of law depends on justices embracing personal politics, not beliefs, not a preference for a particular result in a case. the key to our constitutional republic is a judge that calls balls and strikes, who decides each case based on the facts on the law. it's important because every time a judge acts as an activist and takes away an issue that should be decided by the political branches, he shrinks

the capacity of the american people to make their own choices at the ballot box when they elect members of the legislature and executive branch. that's the reason why the constitution gives judges lifetime tenure, so they will be insulated from politics, not so they can use that tenure in order to impose their political preferences without retribution by the voters. conversely, those of us in congress are precisely elected by political elections for policy purposes. the fact is we either listen to our constituents and are guided by their desires or they replace us and retire us at the ballot box. that's why our founders gave courts jurisdiction to interpret the law, not to make the law up

as they go along. senator john cornyn on the floor of the senate. host: also recently at the end of last year during the debate on the house floor over the protecting our democracy act, and acted specifics to limit the role of the president. nancy pelosi talked about the coequal roles of the legislative and executive ranches. it was a bill that passed the house with one republican vote. this is nancy pelosi from the end of december. >> the last administration saw our democracy and crisis with a rogue president who trampled over the guardrails protecting our republic. now, congress has the responsibility, the opportunity to safeguard our democracy, ensuring past abuses can never be perpetrated by any president of any party.

this package is sweeping and future focused. it is designed to restate the rule of on now and for generations to come. our chairs have crafted a reform package that can stand up to and prevent attempts to undermine our democracy, including the abuse of pardon power, personal enrichment, the solicitation of foreign assistance in our elections, attacks on us blowers and inspectors general, contempt of congress's oversight power on behalf of the american people, including our subpoena power and the power of the purse. this ensures no one, not even a president, is above the law. during the constitutional convention, gorged mason asked shall any man be above justice,

he can commit the most extensive injustice? in his wisdom, doorjamb mason new the injustice erodes the rule of law, the notion, the idea of fair justice, which is the bedrock of our democracy. if we allow a president to be above the law, we do so at the peril of our republic. this goes to the very heart of our democracy. we are a democracy. three coequal branches of government, each a check and balance on the other that cannot be undermined, otherwise we are a monarchy. host: that is a recent debate on the floor of the house and senate. that is our question, are the

three branches of government coequal in their powers and duties. it is (202) 748-8001 four republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. interestingly, the word coequal does not appear in the u.s. constitution. nor does the specific phrase checks and balances. what is in the constitution provides specific duties through the separation of powers. it was a syndicated columnist writing last year around the time of the second trump impeachment, the power of the branches of government. the headline was they are not coequal. this is part of what he wrote. we will come back to this a couple of times. he wrote back then:

jonah goldberg writing in his column, that's from the baltimore sun. a little bit more from his column on this issue of co-equality. he wrote:

it brings up this topic we are talking about this morning. do you think the three branches of government are equal. our phone lines are split on this president's day as usual. we invite you all to colin this morning and we will start on the independent line with carol. you are up first. caller: thank you so much for taking my call. i don't believe we do have a coequal government all. i believe unfortunately -- first

of all, both sides spend too much money. i believe the new supreme court justice, whoever he or she is, must understand the constitution, the bill of rights, the declaration of independence. that must be a must. sometimes judges what -- want international law. that is not their job, to look at international law. their job is to read the constitution, swear they will uphold the constitution as well as the bill of rights and the declaration of independence. host: we are expecting it will be a sheet. president biden vowing to nominate the first black woman to serve on the supreme court. he has said that will happen by the end of this month. we are creeping closer toward that. the deadline does extend until

sunday, the 28th. robert is in massachusetts. your thoughts on this question of whether the three branches of government are coequal. caller: of course they are not equal. today's washington, jefferson, john adams, hamilton, they've got to be rolling in their graves to see what this country became. i like john mccain. , i'm a democrat. i liked ted kennedy and i miss tip o'neill. all politics is local. our country got so infected all the way down through local politics at the school board. how can we recover from that? i miss john boehner. i'm a democrat.

that man had enough sense to deal with democrats. i missed john mccain. rumor when he took his thumb and he capped -- kept our rights for medicine. he was a he was a hero to me. host: that was robert in massachusetts. you talked about some of the earliest presidents of the country. on this president's day, i should note the new presidents website, c-span's new american president homepage you can find on our website at c-span.org. it is your one-stop shop for all of our commanders in chief, from george washington to joe biden. there are video resources, facts, images that tell the stories of their lives. this is all in one easy to browse website. that is where you can go to

begin exploring that catalog available today on this president's day. to this question, are the three branches of government equal? greg in north carolina. what do you think? caller: i believe they could be equal if they are respected and the roles are carried out. right now, there is a lot of dysfunction in congress, especially in the legislative branch. we desperately need term limits. it was never the intention for them to make a career out of serving in congress. that is part of the dysfunction. the executive branch has taken on too much power. these executive orders that presidents now do are not constitutional. if you tweak it here or there,

they could be equal. the problem is they carry things that are beyond the constitution. i will say this one more time, we need term limits in congress desperately. host: do you think the dysfunction of the legislative ranch has allowed for increased power in the executive branch? caller: that's exactly right. host: when was the last time you think the legislative branch was functional? when did they have that balance correct? caller: it would be hard to say. i would go back to the early years. it's hard to pinpoint a particular time. you would have to go back 50 years when the legislative branch was actually exercising the way it was supposed to. there is so much money involved.

they are too worried about getting reelected. that's the problem. they are making decisions based on whether they get reelected. host: betty is in south carolina. what the you think about this question? caller: no. that woman that was on first, she hit it right on the nail. the republicans -- the democrats , i don't believe nothing they say. not nothing. host: not speaking about political parties, do you think the presidency, the congress, the courts have equal standing in our country today? equal abilities? caller: i don't think they are equal. no.

host: that was betty in south carolina. this is been. caller: thank you for having me on. to be honest, i think we have some other players to go along with the three branches that are very influential. i will name them. our media. our media plays a huge role in what the people think. i would say they play such an influence that they have a very big impact on who supports these two parties. media, i would say. another one i would say is the

republican and democratic parties themselves. they are not in the constitution. what we have is a two-party system and it controls everything. it is really screen us up. i think the major player outside of the three party power system, we've got the media, the political parties, we have the deep state. during this covid and during the trump presidency, i don't know how any american that pays a little bit of attention cannot see how the deep state treated our civilian elected president last term. and how he was treated by the deep state who was collaborating with the democrat party. in the past, they don't care

which party they are working with. there is a bunch of people that have been in d.c. forever that are running roughshod over everything. they cling to whoever supports them at the time. we have several parties happening in d.c., not just three. we've got the media, and the d state -- deep state pushing against our legitimate branches of government. host: edwin on twitter writing this: this is a brutus saying they are not equal:

one more from frank: taking this question until 8:00 eastern, are the free -- three branches of government equal? there is a separation of powers. is it truly a coequal branch of government? we want to know on the phone lines. for republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. i talked about that jonah goldberg column, noting that congress was designed to be more powerful. more on that. this is from the cato institute.

this was an event in december. it was about war powers and declaring war and how that power evolved over the years. he also spoke about congress role. this is what he had to say. >> senators and congressmen talking about recapturing congresses constitutional 30. we are a coequal branch, like appear. -- a peer. it always seems to me that phrase sells congress short. in the physical architecture of this city i design, the capitol building looms over the presidents house. the constitutional architecture has a similar design. congress comes first in article one.

the legislative authority necessarily predominates. on paper, especially when it comes to constitutional powers over war and national emergencies, congress is dominant. virtually every war and military power you can find in the constitution belongs to congress. the congress makes rules for army use, provides for the militia to execute the laws of the union, to declare war. what does the president get? according to the first sentence of article two, he gets the executive power. presidential partisans have tried to give the president the power to launch wars. that is now the executive powers

, the power to safely execute the law, to enact, to make concrete policy decisions that congress has already made. the president is commander-in-chief of the army and navy. this is another clause that executive power enthusiast have seized upon. as hamilton explained in federalist 69, it just makes the president the first general and admiral of u.s. armed forces. generals and admirals have an important role. they don't get to decide whether, when, with whom we go to war. host: that was the cato institute in a recent discussion on war powers. here is a shot of the capital this morning. it will look a little bit

different in the days to come. security officials are planning to ready the fence back up around the capitol grounds again in this coming week. that is in preparation for the state of the union that will take place march 1. back to your phone calls on this question on the three branches of government. do you believe they are equal in power and influence. this is madeleine in pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. i would just like to say i've been listening and i agree with many people who've already called in. my observation is a general lack of respect for one another in the workplace towards each other. that lack of respect is all over the media daily.

there should be term limits. they demonstrate a lack of respect for our founding fathers. i think consequently, we don't appear united. they don't accomplish anything. that's my comment. thank you. host: that was madeleine in pennsylvania. this is richard in virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: what are your thoughts? caller: the three branches have become equal. they ought not be. it appears that certain measures , congress has allowed the executive and judicial branches to create their own rules, which allow each to protect themselves from any serious effect that

congress has to control any actions they can evoke for violating the rights of the people. for instance, it appears to me that judges are allowed to interpret the laws that congress rights. my position is that a judge should not be able to take with the congress rights and interpret it. the congress should in their laws interpret what they mean. the judges should stick by with the congress wrote, not read into it. i think that is one instance where the judicial side of the government has gone too far. it allows a judge to make laws from the bench. host: is it congress seating

those powers? are they actively trying to grab additional power? is it somewhere in between? caller: over time, congress has passed laws or just allow it to happen. it is something -- for whatever reason, they believe they can confiscate the congress. i think congress has done something to give the idea to the executive and judicial branch that they can around the will of the people. host: hang on the line for just one second. here is one of the moments where that might have happened, at

least according to russ feingold of wisconsin. he was writing a column last summer on the issue of national security. this is what he wrote:

richard, what are your thoughts on that? national security being a place where congress has given up the ground. caller: i believe it is spot on. congress has delegated its power to the executive and judicial to do what they feel is necessary. again, they delegate that power.

they need to take it back. that's what they are therefore. -- there for. host: this is charlie in st. petersburg, florida. caller: how are you doing this morning? host: your thoughts on the three branches being equal? caller: i don't think they are equal. you've got some republicans up there in washington who are trying to censor other republicans from speaking out about what is going on in the branches of government. every time you hear the news, you are looking at we are going to be censoring so-and-so because of their comments. why are you censoring them? the american people elected them

to speak on our behalf. they are turning around and censoring them for speaking the truth about it. you've got branches of government that are spending so much money and nobody is looking at that. the other branches of government, all three are spending money like crazy. it's not showing up for the american people. host: that was charlie down and sort. this is kim in chicago. caller: i get the sense that a lot of people don't really understand the question. most of your colors don't seem to get it. i would just say -- some people do. a lot of people are talking about what they are upset about

in general and it doesn't relate to the question you are asking. host: what do you say? is there one branson has more power? what do you think? caller: i think the executor branches taken on way more power than they were envisioned to have. the president -- someone talked about executive orders. the president is usurping congressional prerogatives. declarations of war, ever since kennedy, presidents have been declaring war on their own without getting a declaration of war. host: in terms of where this started, i want to come back to that goldberg column. he was writing around the time of trump's second impeachment. he points out that coequal is

not in the constitution. it's not referring to the three branches of government being coequal. this is what he wrote about the history. caller: that's an interesting point. i hadn't realized that. i assumed the branches were intended to be equal. that sounds like he's making a pretty good argument that congress was meant to be the superior branch. they didn't mean for the executive to be the superior branch. that has really been an issue since truman started it and eisenhower rolled it back. the executive branch has been getting more and more powerful. i think that's a big mistake.

host: what about the caller who said there are other estates like the media that have increasing influence on the branches of government? the caller was concerned about long-term bureaucrats working in the government. just the politics, the idea of separation of powers? caller: those are problems, some of them. i think the deep state issue is overstated. i don't think those relate to the specific conversation about separation of powers. it doesn't seem -- it's an interesting discussion. it doesn't seem that relevant to what you are talking about.

host: it's the fun part of these open-ended questions. we can explore different aspects. thanks for the call from chicago. i hope you have a good president's day. nick is in florida. you are next. caller: good morning. the first comment i would like to make is the branches of government were never intended to be coequal. it has to be reiterated, that shows the egner and of the american people on issues like this. about 80% of the people don't even know there are three branches of government. as far as nancy pelosi, you played a clip from her. we do not live in a democracy. it is a constitutional republic. i don't get to vote on legislation. i'm not really sure why nancy

pelosi thinks we live in a democracy. she votes on legislation. i don't get to. we elect people to vote on legislation and represent us. that is a system we live under. the second point i want to make, people are talking about term limits. term limits are a ruse. the only term limits that i is a voter need is i look at who i vote for. if they are no good, i vote against them. people need term limits to protect them from making the stupid decisions that they make over and over again. if you have a congressman, a senator, if there is a president, you can vote against them according to the constitution with they are up for reelection. the fact that aoc, whatever her

name is, is a representative from a new york district is a reflection on the voters of her district. her representation of that district shows how dumb the voters in that district are. it's simple. also, you mentioned at the state of unit they will be putting fencing up around the capital. have you or anyone else at c-span gotten any inside information about an fbi trying it they are planning for march 1? host: i have not heard about that. caller: you have not? host: is that something you have heard about? caller: i'm wondering why they are the fencing back up around the capital. maybe justin trudeau would like

to bring his nazi storm troopers down and protect the congressmen and senators. why are they putting fencing backup around the capital? are they planning another right like he did january 6. host: alright. that snake in florida. -- that is nick in florida. asking whether you think they are equal in their influence and power. we are taking your phone calls. we are split on the phone lines by political party. we ask you all to call in. updating you on the latest from russia and ukraine, ongoing tensions over there. we are trying to stay on top of the situation that continues to develop. president biden will meet with vladimir putin unless russia attacks ukraine.

it was that willingness announced by the biden administration yesterday. the press secretary said the two leaders agreed to high stake talks, only if the invasion hasn't happened. we are always ready for diplomacy. we are ready for swift and severe consequences should russia choose war. they are continuing preparations for a full-scale assault on ukraine. the president would meet after that meeting between the secretary of state and his russian counterpart. they convene their meeting on thursday. that's the latest from the white house. there could be a meeting later this week. back to your phone calls on this issue of the three branches of government. this is maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for reading that article.

i did think there were three coequal ranches of government until the article point of that. it is heartening to know that congress has more mount -- power than i thought. given that, that means mitch mcconnell is the most powerful person in the world and not the president. we have seen that. he stole a supreme court justice from the democrats playing fast and loose with the law. i have also noticed modern conspiracy theorists are still calling in and being angry. i wish we could keep that at day and talk about what the mock receipt really is. thank you for talking about democracy again. are we a democracy or a republic? the people want america to be a republic is so the people who live in montana have the same number of senators as the 38 million people in california.

that doesn't seem fair to me. host: jim is in south carolina. you are next. caller: thanks for taking my call. there have been a lot of enlightened points, people talking about executive orders and executive memorandums. the wall is probably going up in fear of the truckers taking off. the role of our government since the beginning was to protect individual rights. also, to do things for us we couldn't do for ourselves. the main thing has been to protect our individual rights.

i find a lot of points are coming through irony, like the article you set about three cobra ranches and and. it's a shame they're not putting as much emphasis on all the activity before the last president. trying to get an investigation opened up and hearings for that. the main thing i think we need to get back to is the federal government is trying to -- we can use our representatives to enact public policy. there has been a big push in the protect the vote bill, which is another irony due to the ignore and's of our populace that we use words to distract.

we are trying to get away from the legislative role of the legislature and how they determine their voting situation. if we just stick with the constitution, it's one of the greatest roadmaps there ever was for individual rights and the protection of individual rights. thank you for taking my call. host: a great place to explore the -- explore the constitution, it is a searchable database with notes and various facts and historical notes. it is a resource we use often here when we are putting together these segments when we talk about the constitution. this is san francisco, david. good morning.

caller: it's john? good morning. since you are talking about it in reference to president's day, a couple of days ago was lincoln's birthday. if you noticed, not many of the republican chapters honored lincoln anymore. they used to have lincoln day and celebrate lincoln. ever since richard nixon and his southern strategy, basically the clan, the nazis, the aristocrats moved over to the republican party. it is clear the republican party is a bait and switch party. they don't believe in lincoln anymore. all three branches of government have been subverted by that. the republican party has been losing membership for years. they are down to slightly over

20% of the american population. the democrats are around 35%. independent voters make up 40 something percent. the idea that republicans demand 50% of the electorate, 50% of the carving up of the congressional districts, that's preposterous. it is pretty clear that if you look at the system of government, it is now a balancing act of ability to make america better. if you know the legal phrase duty to care, when a person gets elected to office, they swear their oath of office. they swear and allegiance to america and a duty to care for america, to do good for america. it is clear that the nazis, the

clan it, the aristocrats don't care about that. they want theirs. host: your point about party affiliation, we did talk about this when it came out. this is from gallup. this was at the beginning of the year. there was a shift in party identification among americans over 2021. back in the first quarter of 2021, the percentage of americans who identified as democrats or leaned, 49%. 40% said they were republican. those numbers changed over the course of 2021. at the start of this year, the number of americans who identify as republicans is up to 47%, the

percentage of americans who identify with democrats is down to 42%. those numbers are from the gallup organization. this is sophia out of york city. good morning. -- new york city. good morning. caller: i was about to have a conversation with the person who answered the phone. i want to say happy presidents' day with the exception of the president, president trump made me cry for four years. now, he's been crying. that's all i want to say to tell you the truth. host: this is north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing.

hearing all these people: about new york -- calling in about new york districts, you can say the same thing about their districts. here in north carolina, gerrymandering and all of this. host: what about this question? the three branches of government. caller: i don't think it's fair. you see what happened in -- with mitch mcconnell and what he did with obama's supreme court nominee? mr. trump, he's an ex-president. i don't think it's fair. i really don't. host: the supreme court, this was a text message from

illinois. that is one of those text messages that came in. that number is (202) 748-8003. that has been our text message number four a while. chris is in virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i don't think they are equal. i think the senate chamber should be abolished. the senators like joe manchin can stop joe biden who was

elected by 81 million people. it's not fair. when two senators representing 600,000 people can stop others. that's not fair. from the person who said we are dumb for talking about term limits, we all know incumbents have more money, they can advertise more, they can market more. that's what marketing is. that doesn't mean they are dumb. the senate has too much power. i don't think it's equal. we have a problem. we have finance reform in order

to relet -- elect the right people. the senate chamber should be abolished. host: we mentioned a couple of times the word co-week will does not appear in the constitution. it does appear in the federalist papers, not in relation to the idea of the relationship between the branches of the federal government to each other. one of the times it does is in relationship between the house and senate. the federalist papers mentioning the word coequal. tony is in new mexico. good morning. caller: good morning. when you went to school or when i did, it was all coequal branches.

you are supposed to have two branches watching the third branch. each branch watching each other. as far back in the late 1990's, with the abolishment of the league of women voters, doing the presidential debates. both parties thought they asked to hard questions. then we jumped to this different occasion. citizens united is a political decision. it's not based on the constitution. people claimed it had anything to do with the constitution have never read the constitution. it says we the people. it doesn't say we the corporations. they have been corrupted by the two political parties. it's up to the and dependence in this country which outnumber

both republicans and democrats combined to elect independent candidates and get rid of these corrupt political parties. they corrupted the courts, they corrupted the congress, they corrupted the executive branch. host: this is melvin on twitter: new hampshire, did morning. you are next. caller: good morning. the gentleman from new mexico, when he went to school i was taught the three branches are equal. i think the executive branch with all of these executive orders has grown more powerful than it should be.

we've been involved in wars that were never gone through congress -- the last declared war was world war ii. another point about representation, the lobbyists are the problem. we elect people to congress to represent us. they vote the way the lobbyists want them to vote. they don't represent us. that is my thinking. host: we've been talking a lot about the constitution. we will go to connecticut. good morning. caller: are you there? host: go ahead. caller: we really have a shadow government. the people out there running our

government, did you ever hear of the george soros foundation. all the time we are out voting, he is putting billions of dollars into the elections. he's going against what we're doing. you see the crime in new york? he's putting in these prosecutors who do not go by the books. he's been thrown out of hungary. he's been thrown out of the u.k. host: do you agree that money in politics is the big problem right now that is keeping the branches from being equal? caller: he is running our quest -- country. host: that was patty in connecticut. we have the phone lines split by political party. democrats, (202) 748-8000. publicans, (202) 748-8001.

we have had a couple of colors from illinois. this speaks to the idea of coequal treatment, specifically when it comes to shining a light on the activities of state branches of government. this is a story out of illinois on efforts to apply more light to the judicial ranch in illinois. the courts in illinois notes they are allowed to operate outside the eyes of the press and public because of the freedom of information act which does not apply to the courts.

transparency being a coequal issue as well. that is a state issue. we've been talking about the federal branches of government. we have time for one or two more phone calls as we ask if the branches are equal in their influence. we've been talking a lot about the president's on president's day. we have a focus on the presidential historians survey, our latest survey coming out in 2021, ranking the presidents on various qualities of leadership. we will go through that survey, talk about the rankings from 2021. we want to hear from you, who is the greatest president of all

time on this presidents' day. we have time for a few more of your phone calls. edward is in ohio. to think the federal judiciary, executive ranches are coequal today? caller: since trump became president, the executive branch turned the legislative blanch -- branch into menus. they fear him. it's not a true representation. it is leading by power and not representation. along with mitch mcconnell, he placed supreme court justices in their that have more power. i think the executive -- i think the judicial branch and the executive branch are way too

powerful for the legislative branch. it needs to start working and representing the country. thank you very much. host: bobby on twitter saying: that conversation will continue down the road. it's a topic we often come back to here on washington journal, on the three branches of government and their influence. stick around. up next, we will talk about that c-span historians survey of presidential leadership. we will be joined by historians. later, the wall street journal critic at large will discuss the history andjoin us to discuss ty and role of presidential

libraries. we will be right back. ♪ >> i can report to the nation, america is on the move again. >> live tuesday, march 1, the state of the union. president biden addresses a joint session of congress, reflecting on his first year in office and laying out his agenda for the year ahead. live coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern, followed by the republican response and we will take your phone calls and social media reaction. the state of the union address, live on march 1 on c-span, c-span.org or the c-span now video app. >> the head of -- the head of the national talking to keeshan's industry testified about increasing access to broadband in the u.s. watch this house subcommittee meeting on c-span, online at c-span.org or full coverage on c-span now, our free video app.

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in fact they were the ones who made sure the conversations were taped, as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and there's. >> he will also hear some blunt talk. >> i want a report of the number of people assigned to kennedy and me on the day he died. if mine are not less, i want it less right quick. if i can't go to the bathroom, i won't go. i promise i won't go anywhere. i will stay behind these black gates. >> president shall recordings. find it -- presidential recordings. find it on the c-span now app, or wherever you get your podcasts. >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. browse through a collection of c-span products, apparel, books, home decor and accessories. there is something for every c-span fan and every purchase

helps support our nonprofit operations. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we have asked historians and professional observers of the presidency to participate in our c-span presidential historians survey. the latest one came out in july, and this presidents' day, we will be talking about it. joined by two members of our team of historian advisers who had to oversee the latest survey. we are joined from austin by professor douglas brinkley. he is a historian and author. amity shlaes joins us as well. douglas brinkley, beginning with you. why do we do this and how do we do this? douglas: for starters, today is

presidents' day and if we don't open it up to a discussion of the presidents, what is the point of the holiday? schools are off, so they are not talking about presidents today. luckily at c-span, we take it seriously and as an opportunity. you look at the executive branch but also have some fun on the nonscientific polling of presidents. i always love in a travel around and meet people who are fans of c-span. sometimes it is talks of abraham lincoln or george washington or fdr, the top three in the ranking that people will mention. but often we say something that might encourage somebody to learn about zachary taylor or grover cleveland or gerald ford, presidents that don't get as much love as others. it is endlessly fascinating. it is like a presidents club. we have fun and we take this poll really seriously. we cast a large net out of over

100 top scholars of the presidency. we try to be nonpartisan as best as we can, and we are very proud of the way that we divide these topics where you can vote on presidents on issues of race or commit acacia and, foreign affairs, it is broken down. -- or communications, foreign affairs. it is broken down. host: the individual leadership characteristics that we ask our historians to rank all the past presidents on our public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relationship, relations with congress, vision and setting an agenda, whether they pursued equal justice and their

performance within the context of their times. asking our historians to rank all of the presidents on those characteristics and then coming up with a ranking. the top 10 of the latest rankings, and the highest rankings rarely move in the four times we've done this. lincoln's number one, washington is number two, fdr's number three, teddy roosevelt number four, eisenhower five, truman six, jefferson seven, kennedy eight, reagan nine and barack obama in the 10th spot. amity shlaes, doug brinkley was talking about this frozen moment in time, talking about the context of the times. what is useful about making a comparison of the issues the presidents faced, the challenges they faced and how they performed, hundreds of years apart? what can we learn by doing that? amity: americans do think about the president's all the time --

the presidents all the time, whether they like him or dislike him, or one day her. america is the country that stands on its past, and if we only have voter polls, we know how we feel now, including about the past. what about people who work on the past? what added value can they bring? it is also a poll of the state of the academy. what have we discovered about woodrow wilson that took him down in our estimation? what have we discovered about calvin coolidge? that is why this poll is a lot of fun, it is not just what we think, there is data. in history, you know the famous saying of wayne gretzky, in states where the puck is going to be.

you skate to where the puck once might have been. where you suspect the puck was. we are all working all the time and discovering new things about presidents and of course this reflects that. host: i expect the great one would be happy to know his phrase is being used by historians. doug brinkley, the great one in these surveys every time we have done them, the past four times. abraham lincoln always ranks number one in these surveys. george washington always two except for the first survey. when it comes to the greatest of the greats, why does lincoln rate ahead of the man whose birthday we celebrate today, on presidents' day? douglas: because no badly how a

-- because no matter how badly a president had it in the white house, lincoln had it worse. 1860, he wasn't even on the ballot in seven states. they couldn't even vote for him. suddenly he is the president of this new party. he has to travel from illinois to washington, d.c. with a body double, assassins looking everywhere. it was theodore roosevelt who names the white house back in the 19th century, the exact dimension. there is lincoln sitting in the mansion -- the executive mansion. there is lincoln sitting in the mansion with the country -- with half of the country putting up confederate flags and breaking away from the union. the first battle of the civil war is basically where dulles airport is at. the confederates won the first battle of bull run. that is how close they were to lincoln. the odds that lincoln was going to persevere seemed very dark,

that he would be able to keep the union together, and the union army had a very slow start. it is not until later in the war when euless is grant -- when ulysses s grant took over. lincoln provides no less than four new foundational documents for our country. by foundational documents i mean we have the declaration of independence, the constitution, the bill of rights, maybe the northwest ordinance or the louisiana purchase, and a few others. but lincoln gives us his first inaugural, his second inaugural, the gettysburg address, and the emancipation proclamation. the freedom of people, the rebirth of the american ideal. we live in an age of lincoln. i think history neatly divides

itself re-slavery and proslavery, and -- pre-slavery and proslavery, and lincoln was shot and murdered by john wilkes booth. at that exact time, all the confederate and union soldiers were dropping weapons and marching home. the great american homecoming, right well the casket of -- right while the casket of lincoln's heading to be buried in illinois soil. it is a dramatic moment, a dramatic presidency. if you ask barack obama who his favorite president is right now, he would say abraham lincoln. if you asked george w. bush, he would say abraham lincoln. he is every president's favorite president because there is nothing quite like him. i don't suspect he will ever be shaken from that number one in our poll. host: it goes from one to 44. james buchanan, 44th in our latest survey. donald trump and his first

appearance in the survey coming in at 41. we noted that barack obama entering the top 10 according to that survey. the fun part is hearing from you, our viewers. what presidents do you want to talk about on this presidents' day? phone lines split by republican party. republicans, (202)-748-8001. -- the lines spit by -- split by political party. republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. amity shlaes, you literally written the book on calvert school -- on calvin coolidge. how do you feel about calvin coolidge being ranked right in the middle at 24? amity: that is just fine. we don't push our own book, when we are surveying or helping to work with others. i am personally very happy about calvin. he moved to 24 from 27.

president coolidge can be explained with a bigger story, that includes other presidents. that would be president obama, president eisenhower. the country seems to be showing some respect for introverts. as doug has said before on this program, it is the 20th century, about the active presidency. theodore roosevelt, active man. franklin roosevelt. we have a history of president as preside or and administrator, largely before the 20th century but still largely in our dna. that presidency can be more favorable. what coolidge embodies, so did president obama to a degree. both president bushs's,

certainly ike. coolidge did a lot but did not want to be seen is doing a lot. it was not hypocrisy but out of respect for our institutions. the counter side is that andrew jackson would go down, he did go down, not just because president trump liked him. andrew jackson was an action man, george washington was less of an action man. there is a theme here, which is we also like preside or presidents and sometimes more than autocratic presidents, a group that would include fdr. host: going down in our survey, from the previous survey to the latest that came out in 2021, the previous one coming out in 2017, noting andrew jackson falling quite a bit in that

latest survey from number 13 in 2017's number 22. grover cleveland down from 17 to 25. taylor down from 28 to 35. james polk down from 12 to 18. richard nixon down as well, 25 to 31. you can see how these surveys change over time, they are living documents and the best part is hearing from our viewers about which president you want to talk about. we will turn the phones over to you, to hear your thoughts. our first caller, jeff on the republican line. caller: i am kind of curious to know how much the democrat and republican historians or whatever party they belong to, how much -- because now that we know the last four years of

trump were under investigation, was a farce, and it was all a lie and how all that plays into it, are they going to take what he said he did or are they just going to play along as if nothing ever happened? that he was cheated? host: doug brinkley on how these surveys are put together and if you want to talk about president trump. douglas: we had to decide to even include president trump or any -- or even president obama, that shortly after their presidency. we like to say in the presidential business that we wait for the freedom of information act to kick in so people like the caller and myself can get access to the documents and that takes about 25 to 30 years until you will get to see what transpired fully

in the trump white house and to let some of the partisan buzz taper down a little bit. in the end, we live in a speedy time and everything is kind of a nano second and we decided to include all presidents, as long as they were not in office. trump came in and you -- and the double impeachment may be had an influence on why trump is so low in the polling come of people looking at him and saying president twice impeached, and maybe from a distance, do documentation comes out and it looks as if trump was under a democratic hit squad and media melee where they were holding him accountable for something he

didn't do. he might be able to find room to rise. he might also arise if he runs again and gets reelected because like grover or cleveland -- like grover cleveland, he is a two-term president and people start looking at our times as an age of trump. i never believed that impeachment is a badge of honor. bill continues to say that -- bill clinton used to say that. johnson was hurt so much by impeachment he went to tennessee and ran for senate. donald trump was obviously wounded by the impeached twice. it is premature to get our handle on trump and even his biggest admirers will admit he was quite an explosive and at times chaotic president, who kind of turned the apple card of

presidential history upside down and it will take people a while to sort out what he was all about. was it about self-aggrandizement of his own brand? was it about being a dis-uniter, or was it fundamentally altering american politics in a new populist order, because a sort of elitism had creep so much and our government it was time for someone to change things up? he is an open book, but he is ranked very low in the current poll. host: doug brinkley, to put a visual to some of what you are saying, presidents who enter these surveys in general, the numbers tend to go up as more time passes, so bill clinton is the president during our first survey, the president that just left office. he entered the survey at ranked

21 and as of the most recent moved up to 19. george w. bush enters in the 36 pot and moves up quite a bit, to 29 in the latest survey. barack obama entered at 12 and is at 10 now in the latest survey. donald trump in this first survey after he served, entering at 41. bill in michigan, independent. caller: i would like to know who creates the presidential libraries, and who decides what goes in them, and specifically, i was wondering if trump would have a library and if the library would be fact checked or if they would make sure that the information in it was accurate. host: we have a whole segment on that coming up that you will enjoy in about a half-hour. we will talk about presidential

libraries. but amity shlaes, maybe you can speak to some of those questions considering your background. amity: thank you for that question. it is very important in the modern present a library. the government pays for the library set up, which is a major obligation of the government, but the president does his part by finding the land or raising the money for the land. it is a cooperation. it is often political. there was controversy about president obama's library on the south side of chicago. these are a wonderful source for all of us. roosevelt started the culture of the tradition, with his beautiful situation in hyde park. not all presidents wanted libraries. coolidge knew they were coming.

he thought the government is spending money on former presidents, that's not right. the president shouldn't be on the -- from the government and the coolidge foundation built up a private-sector version of his library. wilson and tr, same thing. not under the federal umbrella because coolidge wouldn't have liked that, but they had nonprofit privately funded by small donors institutions. there is some question, some controversy about whether these libraries are worth the millions. a lot of us think they are but a lot of us have respect for those presidents who might have funded in another way. host: the 15 official presidential libraries overseen by the national archives are the herbert hoover library, franklin

d roosevelt, harry s truman, dwight d. eisenhower, john f. kennedy, lbj, richard nixon, gerald ford, jimmy carter, ronald reagan, george bush, bill clinton, george w. bush, barack obama, and now the donald j. trump library. we will be talking a lot more about presidential libraries in about half an hour on this program. for now, a conversation about presidential rankings and which presidents you want to talk about. phone lines split by political party. this is mark out of florida, a democrat. caller: hello, good morning and happy day before washington's birthday to you. what generated my call, i was going to stick by and just

listen to the information. your first caller showed how politicized this all is. the first thing he wanted was to fight about how the world has been against donald trump. i thought this would be a good opportunity, miss shlaes was so eloquent in supporting her organization's patron, which she knew was often not well-liked by the general public. so eloquent in supporting andrew jackson, who at this time in history epitomized everything that the quote, woke culture does not like about our past. i would not hear -- i would not mind hearing from mr. brinkley. please defend donald trump's presidency and tell us why he shouldn't be at the very bottom,

considering all the stuff we have learned and knew about him. amity: interesting points. that is not my job. i am a historian now, not a journalist. a point that could be made was president trump had strong economic policy. the u.s. economy was doing very well under president trump, right up to covid. i think if you are looking to rank him up, you would look at operation warp speed, and his concern about getting past the challenges of the red tape, to get america a vaccine fast, which happened partially because of president trump, and due to something he believed in which is the private sector. our vaccines didn't come from the fda. they came from companies that worked on the vaccines and develop them.

many of those companies did not support president trump. i will decline to rate. it is no problem president trump is at the bottom of this poll. that gives him a benchmark. every president deserves a benchmark, and had we not included him, he wouldn't have that benchmark. we will look and see what happens. host: i just wanted to note, in the historians rankings, the three rankings were president trump performed the best according to those who participated in the poll, in the areas of public persuasion, economic management and division and setting an agenda. doug brinkley, go ahead. douglas: on that vision and setting an agenda, that was getting three supreme court justices in. no small feat. some of that was luck, fate, timing. nevertheless he was able to get

three conservative justices through. for some of the people looking clear ride at that, that is a powerful impact a president has, when they're able to do such a thing. we've got a lot of mail that said how could donald trump not be the bottom? how could there be a president worse than him? it looks like james buchanan is seen as worse than donald trump. the point is these things will change and rise like a river. trump is in the midstream right now and we will have to see what happens. the fact of the matter is, the impeachments are real, but may be the documentation will show that they want justified, which could be an enhancer, and operation warp speed might be his best foot forward, because

it returned to the sense of american can doism. like kennedy saying we will put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. fdr starting industrial mobilization. president trump's ability to mobilize and get a vaccine in a record time. that is something that could enhance it down the line. everybody votes differently. this is not groupthink. these are scholars. we collect them. we really try hard to find balanced scholars that don't have a chip on their shoulder toward any president. i think the most impressive ex-president i have seen since doing this has been barack obama, managing to break into the top 10. i think it is important to be a

two-term president. trump is a one term meaning the voters said we don't want any more of you. obama or eisenhower, the public voted on them twice, doubling down on their policies. bill clinton, doubling down. you have a better chance of rising if you have two good terms. richard nixon, who accomplished so much -- wrote a wonderful book called watergate: a new history, looking at nixon. all 50 years of watergate, 50 years of nixon. his greatest moment at his worst moments happening in 1972. you think sometimes nixon could rise but he has these tapes that are filled with such vile anti-semitic, antiblack language that when you listen to them, you cringe and you feel his

moral authority numbers start sinking like a stone, and it makes it very hard for nixon to have rehabilitation. i suppose jimmy carter in his 90's, still with us ranked in a middling way but he may rise when he passes, when people reflect. carter may not have been a great president. a lot of the things he did do seem to have stuck. the panama canal treaty, camp david peace accord between egypt and israel. it was carter who officially recognized china, who saved so much land in alaska, who created fema, the department of energy. suddenly carter might look better as a one termer, the way george h w bush did. when our country focuses on them intensely, when they are no longer with us. host: that book, watergate: a new history.

the author joined this program last week on every 16th, the day after his book came out, to talk about that book if you want to go back and watch it. you can do -- you eat -- if you want to watch it, you can do so in its entirety on c-span.org. this is ron on our line for republicans. caller: i have two comments, one for miss shlaes and one for doug brinkley. i just want to thank doug brinkley for his incredible body of work on the history of our country. i don't know why -- i may show my own ignorance by not knowing if he has received the medal of freedom or not but he certainly should for all the work he has done so far. the thing that brings me most hope out of this survey is the fact that all of those

presidents in the top 10 brought our country together. they all had one thing in common. they brought our country together, across the lines. i think that is the reason why if you look at the so-called bad presidents, they were all divisive. andrew jackson gets a pass because of this manifest destiny that we had, where he sent davy crockett to get texas on our side. a lot of underground stuff was going on on top of his trail of tears and killing all the cherokees. that is obviously a problem. one last thing, please. miss shlaes. my wife and i had the great opportunity to go visit the coolidge presidential library in vermont.

i encourage every person to go see that compound. we went in the middle of winter, but it was superb. we never realized what great beauty misses coolidge had and what a great trendsetter she was for that whole process. thank you both, for a wonderful job. thank you very much. host: thank you for the call. miss shlaes, anything you want to jump in, and i don't know her name off the top of my head, calvin coolidge's life. amity: grace coolidge was a beautiful woman. she did not look modern because she did not wear makeup, but she looked good in any color, and more importantly, where does that grace come from? she was a thoughtful spouse, she got a ba at the university of

vermont which was rare for that period. this was the 1920's when women's suffrage is are just -- women's suffrage is just occurring. she trained as a teacher of the deaf. that was a factor because calvin was a silent man, an introvert. she brought him out, just the way she brought out her students. their marriage was a traditional one. she took care of their sons and he did the work. sometimes that was difficult, particularly because they were trying to clean up the presidency after the harding scandals. they had to live a model life in the white house. when they retired from washington, went back to northampton, massachusetts where president coolidge gave for the

most amazing marital gift. he got all of his friends to raise money the way presidents use in those days, for a library, and he gave the money, millions to grace's favorite charity, the clark school for the deaf, where she had effectively gone to graduate school and got her training. that was a tremendous marital tribute. "i want my wife to be comfortable and lead in her area, since i had an opportunity to lead in mine." it teaches us a lot about marriage. i studied the coolidge marriage as the model and commend that on president's day. who they are married to matters. host: we always learn something new. doug brinkley, do you want to

jump in? douglas: the make -- i want to comment on the amazing job lady bird johnson did. austin was the 11th city in the country -- 11th largest city in the country. -- like a central park in the middle of the city where you do canoeing and hiking and outdoor recreation. it is where austin city limits music festival is at. she created a whole trail system and made austin a green outdoors city. as first lady, she grabbed that issue of saving our national parks. without her, we would not have redwood dorsch -- redwood national park in northern california, or the north cascades in washington, or guadalupe national park in texas. she would go actively run rivers with the interior secretary. she would go to big bend and go on a raft trip down the rio

grande, or the snake river, all the time talking about seeing america first. go really enjoy the beautiful bounty of our national and state parks and wildlife refuges. it interests me because she took one issue like that and made it her own and put such a big stamp on it. my estimation of her, as i studied first ladies tends to rise all the time. she was pitch perfect in -- even with lyndon johnson, with the vietnam war and deep problems set in his white house. host: let me get one more phone call before you have to run, out of the hawkeye state. this is bonnie, republican. caller: good morning. i can agree with doug that -- park is lovely because i've been there. here is my comment.

we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unusable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. taking those rights in reverse order, and the presidents in chronological order, by that benchmark, here are three great presidents. george washington led the fight for the pursuit of happiness against unreasonable taxation from a king across the sea. that made him a great president. abraham lincoln freed the slaves with the emancipation proclamation. he recognized long before it was politically correct, that slavery was an abomination. the last great president chronologically looked at the issue of life and in principles and in words repeatedly defended the right to life, which no president before had done and certainly not the one after him

of all americans born and unborn. at his state of union address while republicans applauded and stood, democrats sat and scowled as he repeated these words that he had said before at mount rushmore the previous july. all children, born and unborn are created in the holy image of god. for that reason, donald trump was a great president. host: doug brinkley, i will give you the minute or so before you have to run. douglas: that is an issue that has been contentious with roe v. wade, and if one is looking at the abortion issue, really the fact that it occurred on the watch of the nixon years, republican and then donald trump really galvanizing the right to life movement, forming the core of what his constituency is.

there is no doubt about it. i found it interesting to follow catholics because i am one and how catholics have navigated the issue of abortion. it is the vatican opposed to it but you often find catholic presidents like joe biden sticking by roe v. wade. it is still a hot button and contentious issue with biden on one side of the equation, trump on the others. we will have to see what the supreme court does, now that it tends to tilt more to the conservative side. we will see how they deal with that in the coming weeks and months. host: doug brinkley, i'm sure we will have you back on in the coming weeks and days. thank you for spending part of your presidents' day with us. we will stay on here with amity shlaes, as we continue to talk

about this survey and the presidents you want to talk about. a few minutes left for you to call in. republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. amity shlaes, this is shirley out of new york city. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i called in about our former president, donald j. trump. i think he was the worst president that we had, and i remember the debates between him and hillary, when hillary called donald trump a puppet, and when trump was warned by president obama to watch out for putin, what did trump do? he invited the russians, he said they couldn't do anything wrong.

in theory, putin played trump like a puppet. look at all the corruption. look at russia and ukraine. host: we have talked a bit about former president trump. amity shlaes, president trump ranking ahead of three other presidents in this survey. franklin pierce, andrew johnson, james buchanan. which of those three do you want to talk about, and there ranking? guest: i want to talk about the issue of foreign policy, which shirley brought up, and point out a trend in the poll. this is a presidents weekend but also the anniversary of president nixon's trips to china. nixon opened china. that is what the schoolbooks say. we generally praise nixon for that but one of the benefits of history is we do find out things

that happened in the past later, whether because of foia or more research. one reason nixon did worse in this poll, and actually woodrow wilson, another great diplomat, what historians found is that the policy -- is that diplomacy isn't always what it is cracked up to be, including that trip to china. for example, a writer wrote a book about mao in which he revealed the chinese side of this historic nixon trip, whose anniversary remark this month. we were always taught that nixon was so skilled with henry kissinger to get a reluctant china to open up. but we have learned now that mao was dying from relations with the u.s. he was in a rift with the soviet union and he would have done

just about anything to make up -- to make friends with us. the diplomat assigned to make nice, to get an agreement with henry kissinger had bladder cancer and mao withheld treatment from that diplomat on condition he get the agreement. history is different from what we thought, especially related to diplomacy and all the documents shirley is asking about, those will come out and history will decide. we learned a lot about nixon and china recently and i hope this topic is discussed next week and the following week. host: we talked about presidents moving over time over the course of these surveys. we do these after a president leaves office and we update these rankings. richard nixon back in 2000 debuts at 26 in our survey.

by 2021, he has fallen down the rankings to 31 in this latest survey. all of this is available on our website, c-span.org if you want to go through these rankings. click on the various aspects of leadership that we asked historians to rank the presidents on. just a few minutes left to take your calls on it with amity shlaes. this is clayton out of indiana, good morning. caller: good morning. in 2016, obama went on national television twice and said -- 2013 when he went on national television and said he was going to give weapons to isis and he didn't go on national television in 2016 and admit that. those of three counts of treason. then in 2014, he had mine and every other federal employee's phones illegally bugged. how is he in the top 10 on that list? host: amity shlaes on barack obama. guest: clearly civil rights is

an american issue right now. if we talk about history and think about what our children get in schools, they get heavy civil rights discussions throughout. the presidents who stand for civil rights, whether lincoln at the top or president obama or u.s. grant, who rose significantly. he was corrupt and he got in trouble. he was really corrupt, more than harding. but his civil rights side, his efforts in that very difficult postwar period trumped that -- to use the verb -- with the american populace. president obama really did stand for civil rights. many of us are proud to have had an african-american president. that is how president obama

could rise legitimately. host: in these surveys, we tend to focus on the top three or the bottom three. we rarely get to number four before we start bouncing around but since we have you, i wonder your thoughts on teddy roosevelt, consistently over the course of these surveys being ranked the fourth greatest president. guest: it is sort of the rushmore phenomenon. we want presidents to be great. we have a need for it, a genetic need for great leaders. with tr, we had a happy bouncy warrior, a happy president who loved the people, who understood the greatness of the united states, and of course he goes on rushmore. at the time he was a new model. presidents were supposed to be in the background. as doug said, tr divides

americans. some republicans like him. others less because his policies were not policies they would support. for example, economically, in the case of tr, he was a trust buster. today we are debating trust busting and that may not have been the best way to make the economy benefit more americans. but it was a good show trial. tr was the man of that. he was definitely a strong president model. he called the president position a bully pulpit, meaning a great pulpit. you can trace tr, fdr and certainly donald trump in the chain and tradition of the big presidency of the united states. host: our next caller out of

north carolina. caller: good morning. i'm sorry that dr. brinkley had to go from the program, but i wanted to commend him for making statements. he gave all the reasons why president carter should be in the top 10, in terms of the panama canal, the peace treaty between israel and egypt. the first environmental president. the department of energy, headed up by dr. steven chu, a nobel laureate. i would like to say, regarding the comments about the former president, and why people think he should be rated higher, let's not forget that he inherited the obama-biden economy. what i would like to also encourage, both older and particularly younger individuals, my top eight

historians, and i'm so thankful for the likes of dr. brinkley, doris kearns goodwin, david mccullough, john beauchamp, ron sure now, if angel philbrick -- nathaniel philbrick. these are my top historians and i'm encouraging all americans to read their works. i'm sorry i don't know miss shlaes's writings. i guess i will have to look into what she has said about calvin coolidge. but we need to be informed and on this presidents' day, let's read about the historians that have devoted their scholarship, so that we can know more about our leaders. host: amity shlaes, can't pass up an opportunity for a caller who wants to know what you have written about. guest: thank you for the complement to our trade. we really do try to endeavor and strive and bend our energies.

i have written a history of the great depression called forgotten man and a history of the great society called rate society and i am a anti-presidential president of historian. in those books i tend to emphasize more the policies than the men. lyndon johnson was a lovable man. he had some outrageous telephone calls, right up there with richard nixon, which came out on tape. he was an active president, very active. again to my theme that activism isn't always praise. johnson slipped down a bit. his economic policies weren't so awesome. he set the stage for the inflation that we had and subsequent presidents had to correct. i tried to get at that ingrate society.

-- get at that in great society. one of the most interesting chapters for me to write was apropos today, the way lbj and nixon, two different parties, same dynamic, thought with the fed and tried to get the fed to lower interest rates because that made the presidency easier. the fed didn't want to always do that because they knew if interest rates were too low, later inflation would come. in my books, i tried to capture the dynamic and make clear the important work that non-presidents do, the allies of presidents, the other branches of government. host: a viewer on twitter wants to know where this ranking is, that we have been talking about. pretty easy to find. c-span.org/presidentssurvey2021. there is a new one up today. the new american president's homepage.

that when you can find at c-span.org/presidents. it is your one-stop guide for our nation's commanders in chief, from george washington to joe biden. biography, videos, resources that tell the stories of their lives and presidencies. that is up today. c-span.org/presidents. about to run out of time. we will spend some time talking about president or libraries. i want to give you the final minute or two here, for any other thoughts on provincial libraries. -- presidential libraries. guest: we need them. one of the wonderful things about now is that any man or woman can research and find out for him or herself. the younger generation of historians has a distinct

advantage over older historians because of the access to data through at home proquest or other databases like your library for present to libraries -- for presidential libraries. george w. bush built his library in dallas by smu and there is an exhibit there about the tough decisions president bush had to make and it was packed from the day it opened and that is because americans are curious and they have a right to know and learn. that is what libraries do. coolidge, we don't take government money for our library functions, so we have a virtual library and we are putting everything coolidge ever wrote online. he chatted quite a bit, and we are inviting citizens, including c-span viewers, to edit those speeches and write their comments on them because when you put something online, there

are typos and transcription is tricky. we invite you to do that, to comment on what you think about the speech coolidge gave. host: a good place to start is coolidgefoundation.org. amity shlaes is the chair of the board of trustees of the calvin coolidge presidential foundation. thank you for joining us on this presidents' day. guest: thank you. host: up next, we continue this discussion on the topic of presidents. we turn to presidential libraries and to do that, we are joined by wall street journal's editor at large, edward rothstein. ♪ >> at least six presidents recorded conversations while in office. hear many of those conversations on c-span's new podcast, presidential recordings. >> season one focuses on lyndon

johnson. you will hear about the civil rights act, the presidential campaign, the gulf of tonkin incident, the march on selma and the war in vietnam. not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> certainly johnson's secretaries knew because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. they were the ones who made sure the conversations were taped, as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and there's. -- and theirs. >> you will also hear some blunt talk. >> i want a report on the number of people assigned to kennedy and me the day he died. if minor not less, i want them less right quick. if i can't ever go to the bathroom, i won't go. i will just a right behind these black gates. >> presidential recordings. find it on the c-span now app or wherever you get your podcasts.

>> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington, live and on demand. keep up with the day's biggest events with hearings from the u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more, all at your fingertips. you can also stay current with the stepped out -- latest episodes of "washington journal ," and find scheduling for c-span's tv networks plus a variety of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available on the apple store, and google play. download it for free today. c-span now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere.

♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: a conversation on presidential libraries with a man who knows his way around the world of libraries and museums, edward rothstein, wall street journal critic at large. he has reviewed many. good morning to you. explain first why we have presidential libraries. what purpose do they serve? guest: good morning, and thanks for having me on. presidential libraries, in

essence, they were developed almost accidentally. or they were not ever envisioned as a part of the structure of succession of presidencies. all presidential papers were considered the property of the presidents, you could pack up your trunk in the white house and take it all back home with you. the atmosphere changed actually in 1939 because fdr, for a variety of reasons, decided that his papers on the already one of the most important and influential sort of presidential rains in the 20th century -- reigns in the 20th century, decided his papers would be

imported for scholars, and he established his home at hyde park, his estate, as a home for the fdr presidential library, which became even more important as world war ii became another major event in the history of the united states and the world. but these paper were of major historical significance because they actually shaped the world in the late 20th century, and his domestic policies are still shaping the world of the 21st century. so this was a sort of quite unusual move, deciding that these papers would be completely open and have a specific place to be seen. and for a while, fdr actually worked in his presidential library. his office can still be seen there behind plexiglas now, but

this was a very unusual thing. there may have been other reasons involved, and that could be something like in england where you have these tremendous estates of great families who can no longer afford to keep them up or taxes were an issue, so they were donated to the national trust to make them public places. this is a little bit different in that the library is run by a private foundation connected to fdr and his family. but it was extremely influential as an example. and the next one to sort of arise was truman's in 1950. truman had a much shorter lifespan as a president, but also, in the late 1940's as the cold war was taking shape and

the atom bomb became an issue and domestic policies were shifting and international relations were overturned, i think truman was reluctant but his perspective was that this should be a place where the public can come and see and learn something about the history of the presidency and its importance, aside from the particular issues during his years in power. so these sort of examples set up an expectation that this would continue, but presidential libraries were not set up legally until 1955 when the

presidential libraries act was passed establishing presidential libraries. but there is this very strange character that they have because they are partly private institutions, they were, and this went on until very recently, completely funded and established by -- from private sources. by the time -- as they evolved, and i will skip over -- host: i think we are having a little bit of trouble with mr. rothstein's zoom feed. as we get him back, we are asking you to call in about your favorite presidential library. have you been to a library, and if so, what do you like and what don't you like? what is a good presidential

library? phone lines are split regionally. (202) 748-8000 if you are in the eastern or central time zones. and (202) 748-8001 if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones. 15 presidential libraries now officially overseen by the office of presidential libraries , national archives administration, and those libraries, herbert hoover, franklin d roosevelt, harry truman, dwight eisenhower, john f. kennedy, lyndon johnson, richard nixon, gerald ford, jimmy carter, ronald reagan, george bush, william jefferson clinton, george w. bush, barack obama, and donald j. trump presidential library has a site online that you can go, not a physical building yet, and the obama presidential library is being built, as well. we talked about the truman library being the second one,

which edward rothstein was talking about. i think we have you back, mr. rothstein. glad to have you back. guest: i do not know exactly what happened. host: that is quite all right. we will continue with the discussion and have invited the viewers to call in. you have written about the idea of ego versus truth when it comes to presidential libraries. i wonder your thoughts on whether these libraries are monuments to the individual or are these places for history and pure historical research? how should we look at these museums and libraries? guest: it is a difficult and complicated issue, and it varies from library to library and is changing quite a bit with what we know about president obama's plan for his library. but the establishment of the museum was a completely private sort of activity. it's design, the kind of story

it would tell was essentially created by the president and his foundation. all documents and papers and objects related to the presidency were declared part of it, were considered public, taken over by the national archives. so every presidential library until now has been partly public, partly private. as a result, the shaping of the history, at least the initial shaping of the history presented in the library, was entirely from the perspective of the president involved. so these are self-created monuments. they often are self-justifying, and one of the difficulties is that when they become a little bit more complicated as the

extended sort of first family passes, so right now the fdr library in hyde park, new york, is essentially a museum where you will get quite a bit of different historical perspectives sort of on the events during his presidency. similarly, the truman library actually has extensive exhibits where you are asked to sort of examine some of the most controversial issues that faced the truman administration and examine the sort of pros and cons and how you would react, and this actually includes a controversy over the dropping of the atomic bomb on japan. but in more recent libraries, the more they are explicitly just for the president. the clinton library, which

opened in 2004, i believe, was at that time the most expensive and largest presidential library established. the exhibition was almost completely a justification of every act, decision made by the white house, and it becomes almost a -- you get the feeling of a campaign sort of atmosphere. there is no statistic -- no graph of a statistic that ever goes down unless it is something bad. but this is obviously not history. the nixon library was a very peculiar and interesting example in this respect because the national archives took over the presidential documents when president nixon declared his desire to take them, and

presumably it was the immediate postwar decayed years, presumably -- post-watergate years, presumably to destroy some of the taped recordings that existed. whether or not that was fully the case, what happened is that the library ended up being established in the 1990's as essentially an attempt to rehabilitate the image of richard nixon. it was only later, maybe 15, almost 20 years later, that there was an attempt to take a larger historical view, but one director that was actually fired for creating an exhibitionist -- exhibition about watergate at the nixon museum, and now if you go to the nixon museum and presidential library, you will see a quite extensive and very interesting historical presentation of his presidency.

there is -- in a sense, nixon's scars and flaws sort of become public knowledge, part of our understanding of this presidency. and now they are integrated into the exhibition. but it is still -- i would not say, if you have a past objective, a historical museum presenting an exhibition, without any of these presidencies, that you would get what you see when you visit. host: i want to pause and bring in some calls. tell us about the presidential museums you have visited. what makes one successful or a next -- or unsuccessful? cindy in hampton, new hampshire, is up first. thanks for calling. you are on with edward rothstein. caller: yeah, hi. i have not been able to visit in the libraries, but i would like to talk about, why can't we

start thinking about having a national library where it features all the presidents and whatever we have been able to document through history and have like a whole tour through all the presidencies? that would be cool to me, because i was always called a jfk baby, born in 1964, so after jfk was assassinated, there was a baby boom. and then i was born in august, august 8, so on my birthday when nixon resigned, i was like he spoiled my birthday party. [laughs] i think i was eight. host: how do you think the presidents would feel about that idea you bring out, about having one museum of presidents, and them having to share the limelight with each other in this museum? caller: well, some of them would

feel great, especially like jimmy carter, because he was like my favorite. i was going to bring him up because i had to write a report, i think i was in fourth or fifth grade, and it was a presidential election. they said, who do you want, and i was reading all through and picked jimmy carter. so when i wrote the report and he won, i thought i elected him president. [laughs] host: edward rothstein, i will let you jump in. guest: to a certain extent, the smithsonian and american history museum should be doing something like that, presenting american history in detail. but this does not completely eliminate the problem that i am talking about, because then you still have, especially today and with intellectually-driven

issues, you still have a situation where there is going to be controversies over assessments, importance, influence. it is something that, even at the smithsonian, is a regular issue for debate and sometimes scandal. so in a way, it is a difficult problem, certainly a problem that these institutions have developed, essentially self-created monuments. and one of the values of them is that you get a certain sense of there is information and understanding about how a president wants to be conceived -- perceived and what kind of legacy that president wants to be thought of have been -- having left behind. so that is kind of interesting in itself. but the problem of these institutions is not completely solved by having a sort of national news him either.

-- national museum either. because it depends very much on the curators and the various views, and you can get hybrid exhibitions that do not clarify much also. and i have seen exhibitions like this at the smithsonian and other museums. so it is a very difficult problem. i think there is an institutional issue that still has to be clarified as far as the presidential museums are concerned, especially because they are partly public, partly private. and in the case for the plans for the new obama presidential library, which will not actually be a library -- all the archives will be handled by the national archive and will not be stored at the library. in fact, it is essentially a private building, a set of buildings that will be built in chicago, and it sort of demonstrate president obama's

vision of american history and community involvement. and he has cleared he wants to make a break from the tradition of presidential libraries. so open about what it will become. but it will still be a tremendous institution devoted to the ideological points of a particular individual, and it is being built on public land. so it becomes a very complex situation. host: about half an hour left with edward rothstein. on twitter, izzy enough to find, -- easy enough to find, @ed rothstein. you can find him on the wall street journal website and the new york time, his works on presidential museums and libraries. alan is at fort pierce, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you, c-span. this is such a wonderful program.

i like so many programs on c-span, and especially the ones about the presidents. a couple of comments. i think the portrait gallery is a wonderful place to see the portraits of the presidents. i was a little bit surprised that there was only one small photograph of julia dent grant in the portrait gallery, and i do not know why that is. i do not know if there are other portraits or pictures of her at the grand presidential library. maybe mr. rothstein, you could talk about that? another comment, i have read so much about hyde park that i would definitely like to get up there to see that. and most recently -- i live in florida, and to the south in the palm beaches where the kennedys used to spend some time in the winters, and there is a place that is being restored in the

lake worth lagoon that was a bunker that was built for kennedy should there be any kind of problem or disaster, and now there is a group that is trying to restore the bunker on a place called pnet island -- peanut island there. host: thanks for the call. guest: it is interesting, truman had a secondary white house in key west, florida, which is actually still there and give stores. but i did not know about the kennedy situation. i wish i could help you about grant. i don't -- there is no library that i know of of grant. the libraries, the most retroactive is going back to hoover. i understand amity shlaes was talking about this a little while ago, you can visit calvin

coolidge's home, but it is not a presidential library, in a sense. i think it is a phenomenon in the post-world war ii era and has become more and more gargantuan in the sort of presidential presentations. host: we talk about the purpose and the collections themselves. i want to talk about who visits these libraries and why. to do that, this has been the harry s truman library and museum, a series of interviews that they put together and conducted with harry truman talking about his library and his work there. on their website, you can find all of these audio interviews. he was asked about the people who come to the harry s truman

library and museum. this is part of the conversation. [video clip] >> what kinds of people come to the library? >> all kinds, all kinds, mostly youngsters who are interested in the history of the country. i usually have a room full of them down here once a week. and after they have been through, i talked to them and they can ask me questions. and the questions they ask, i always tell them they are much more intelligent then the press conference questions and newspapermen ask me, because the youngsters ask for information and the newspapermen are after headlines, and that is all. >> are there other kinds of people who visit the library and who come see you? if so, would you tell us about some of them? >> oh, all kinds of people come here. and very often officials of states, cities, and counties come.

i always talk to them. >> like yesterday, for instance, the four semester general? >> yes, nearly always united states officials stop in, postmaster general was here yesterday. i had the attorney general and several others here. oh, a great many people, the governors of various states come, and i always talk to them whenever they want me to. host: from the harry s truman library and museum, interviews available on the website. edward rothstein, interesting that he goes to the kids and then the dignitaries, the two groups he focuses on in that question. guest: also great to listen to him because the sort of ordinary

man speaking to ordinary men and women. this is part of his persona, and it seems quite authentic. the fact he was actually doing work in the library while these tours was being given is quite different. how things are different, but you do have organized school visits. i don't know when the library was first set up what kind of memorabilia it had, but now no presidential library is without a presidential limousine on display, a full-sized or nearly full-sized replica of the oval office it once was. host: maybe even air force one, like at the reagan library. guest: right, which was not even

reagan's, it had been used long before reagan. so those aspects of the library, partly it is something to increase visitor ship by having something for everybody. in that way, presidential libraries have become more like museums, seeking visitation statistics. but it also would measure internally and probably as far as reagan was concerned, some sense of the library. the reagan library is really interesting. the time i visited there, the actual basic narrative of the president's life, which is also a feature of the presidential library i have been to, is a beginning and a sort of lovely

spanish colonial type house on a mountaintop. today i visited, it was packed with tourists, and judging from license plates, other california residents. then it some point, you go into this amazing sort of huge hangar where air force one is, and it is an entirely different kind of place. so it is sort of bifurcated very strange. i do not know the statistics about tourism, but any time i have been at a library, there have been people from out of town who come specifically to see it. so that is certainly an aspect of it. and it makes certain places a sort of must-see if you want to go see a presidential library. host: to the land of lincoln, jane is waiting. good morning. you are on with edward rothstein. caller: good morning.

i am a senior citizen, and my husband and i have visited over 50 presidential libraries, museums, and homes. we started in 2010, and my motivation was kind of simple. my husband was the president of a small company, and i wondered what it took to be a president. i was curious about that. so we started this venture, and 2010 -- i am looking at all my notes here, kept a log, looks like we started when we were on a golf trip in virginia, wilson's original home there. then we continued on. i think we were surprised about a few of these places, like april 2014 we visited harding's

home, which was one of the best. i am looking at my different notes here. host: jane, you say -- caller: i have a lot of notes because we were just so hit -- interested in the history of our country. we remember a lot of the presidents. and jimmy carter, we went down there. polk. host: do you mind me asking, you mentioned some of your favorites. of those 50, did you have a least favorite, when you are not impressed by? caller: you know, i cannot say that. i cannot say that we weren't. we did not get to all of them, of course. i think the one we were most surprised about was poor old herbert hoover's site in iowa. he was more accomplished than we expected, and that was interesting.

eisenhower in abilene, kansas, my gosh. the library and then they museum and he is buried there. it is in the middle of nowhere. guest: they recently redid that one. yeah. host: jane, i was going to ask edward rothstein this question, but what is the one think that you found in 50 of these you have been to, libraries, museums, and presidential homes, what makes it a successful museum? what is one feature or aspect that makes its assessed --makes it successful? caller: i think when you get the human aspect of who these guys were, human beings, and the little touches. i remember one where we went to one place, i think it was taylor, and they had the scissors there, you could hear the scissors, a reenactment of that. but i think it would be

wonderful if americans would pursue this. it would give us an appreciation of the job they have done. incidentally, i think biden is going to be right up there with fdr, because he came into such a mess. i really feel that, and i will not live to see his library and museum. and of course, obama is building something here in chicago, and we are only 60 miles from chicago. host: jane, thank you so much for calling in and sharing your notes with us. sounds like a good several years worth of work. edward rothstein, to her comment and the question about what makes one of these libraries and museums successful? guest: that is really an interesting and important part because the sort of narrative biography as part of these museums. you really do get, in many of them, a sense of this. in most cases, sort of ordinary

persons who overcomes tremendous adversity and ends up where he ended up. in the johnson library, you get a sense of this sort of hardscrabble life of the family, a poorly performing form. the eisenhower library has his family home on the premises. the nixon home, childhood home, is only land where the nixon library is. but even aside from that, in the exhibitions themselves, you do get a sense of the person. this varies, the success of this varies, and there are exceptions. with fdr, with jfk, very different sort of childhood backgrounds to present.

but it is really fascinating to see the sort of human material out of what so many presidents have had. host: frank out of new york, you are next. caller: hi, i just would like to ask if you know why grant's home wound up -- grant's tomb wound up in new york city? also, do you know the site where trump will be building his library? guest: i don't. host: i do not know if that has been announced yet. i know they have a website available was some documents on it, but i do not know if that has been announced yet. caller: as to the tomb, i

confess -- guest: as to the tomb, i will look it up. host: you mentioned jfk a little while ago. we talked about your work at the wall street journal and before that at the new york times. i want to go back to a new york times piece you wrote about the jfk library and-- the headline,g kennedy's death or life." at the library, how much do they focus on the assassination and how much should a focus on that versus his life and work as president? guest: i don't know if anything has changed since i was there six or seven years ago. the permanent exhibition at the time had one that gallery about the assassination.

there was no sort of attempt to cast a shadow backward from that event onto the narrative or presentation, which dealt with life in the white house, his own life, and the accomplishments in his short presidency. there are actually some tremendous videos of him delivering speeches. as a rhetorician and speaker he was phenomenal. the assassination, it was a deliberate sort of decision, clearly, tune -- to omit the assassination part of the narrative and not give it as much importance as far as we understand the presidency of jfk. in my visit there i made a visit to a really terrific museum, six floor museum where, which is right housed in the book

depository for oswald took the shots at the president's car as it went by. that is of course mainly focused on the events around the assassination. i found it really interesting to combine the two visits. the thing about the jfk library i think is also that part of the intention was to create, i mean i think i thought of it as a sort of, a little bit of nostalgic utopianism about the jfk presidency. when you emerge from the exhibits, this tremendous atrium that looks out on boston harbor, you don't pay attention to the sort of individual in a sense. you are in all of this place and

this institutional grandeur. that is the impression i think you were supposed to be left with. in the jfk library as i remember it, the main exhibition, the intention was quite deliberate to say ok, in a sense we all know what happened. but we are taking a look at this time that came before it. this is what we are looking back on. host: just about five or 10 units left here with edward rothstein. if you want to call into talk about your favorite presidential museum or library and your questions about how or why these institutions developed, jodey on twitter a little while ago sent this, and your comments about the architecture of the jfk library fits into this as well. jody says that the clinton library was just six dollars and we took the chance to visit

coming home from a rolling stones show and that it looked like a trailer house parked over the arkansas river to me. -- me." on the design of these museums and libraries and how they changed from what we have seen of the original, the fdr, the hyde park home to more familiar ideas of what a library should look like to some of these more modern designs, mr. rothstein? guest: i think when president clinton was chided with that observation about the building, he actually referred to this idea of a trailer park. it is meant to be a sort of industrial building that sort of reclaims this little used area and in a sense reflect his views about development and it cantilevers out over a river and

there is a metaphor about a bridge involved in the design that is in some sense, clinton wanted to say my administration was an unfinished bridge where others have to complete the work. that's a generous spin on it. it actually is a fairly unattractive. but the action inside of the main exhibition in the clinton library, according to, it was president clinton's instructions, sort of echoes or recalls the library at trinity college, where president clinton had spent time. so, this is a very sort of wood paneling with immense stacks, which were actually accessible boxes for papers that went up to a very high ceiling.

but the deliberate sort of contradiction between this yes, trailer park thing that is suspended over the border to this evocation of the trinity library, in many ways it sort of gives a sort of interesting picture of, besides president clinton -- the sides of president clinton as well and how he presented himself. the architecture is not -- the designs that i have seen of the obama presidential establishment are even more immense than any i have seen yet in existence. i think the clinton library costs something like 106 he 5 million to build. trumans was much less than 10% of that.

so, and i don't know the costs of -- i don't know the costs, it would be interesting to sort of compare how this has changed over time, but there is definitely in a sort of sense of grandiosity and issue here. aside from the issue -- a problem, aside from the problem that is mostly self presentation . president trump, who is immensely practiced at self-promotion is one of the few presidents who has also been a builder. one can imagine from looking at other structures that have borne his name how he might want to conceive of a presidential library presentation. it's a very, i don't, i think that the structure is very problematic in many ways, both in terms of content and the idea that a president presents

himself. i don't have a solution to this. i just think that as this phenomena has developed without any systematic examination of all these different issues, but certainly developing these institutions that have been developing since 1940, let's say, no one has sort of stepped back to say wait a minute, let's think about what's going on here and what should be done. host: let me get one last call in. brenda has been waiting out of montgomery, alabama. go ahead. caller: i was wondering, they keep ringing all this stuff up against trump and they don't never do anything to him about it and when he was running he said well, if i got, if i shot somebody on fifth avenue in new york city they would not arrest me. they don't seem to know matter what he does. he's awful person and it seems

to me an ordinary person if they do something, they put them in jail. why is he -- host: brenda, we are running short on time, do you have a question about presidential libraries or museums? caller: i don't think trump should have one, everything he has ever built he is always going bankrupt. that's all i have to say about that. caller: -- guest: in a sense as the institution has developed, one can make such decisions about who is deserving and who isn't. should there be a presidential library given the short space of time that ford was running the country? i mean if there was some sort of overseeing curator, many different decisions would be made. we have a system that has evolved in a place where every president gets to do this, establishes a foundation, raises

private funds that, incidentally, have in at least well-known case led to accusations of corruption. but these are partly public, partly private, and it's a very complicated and difficult situation. host: edward rothstein is the critic at large for "the wall street journal," and on twitter you can give him a follow. do appreciate the time. guest: thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. host: about 20 minutes left in our program this morning. on this president's day we will often do this, turning the phone lines over to you, open forum, what public policy, political, or state issues do you want to talk about? the phone lines are yours to do so. the numbers are on the screen, go ahead and start calling in now and we will get to your

calls right after the break. ♪ >> at least six presidents report -- recorded conversations while in office. hear them on our new podcast, presidential recordings. >> season one focusing on lyndon johnson. you will hear about the civil rights act, the presidential campaign, gulf of tonkin, arch on selma, and the war in vietnam. not everyone knew that they were being recorded. >> certainly johnson's secretaries new because they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. they were in fact the ones who make sure the conversations were taped, as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and there's. >> you will also hear some blunt talk. >> i want a report of the number of people that were assigned to

kennedy the day he died and if minor not less i want them less right quick. i promise you i won't go anywhere to go to the bathroom. >> presidential recordings, find them on the c-span now app or where ever you get your podcasts. >> i can report to the nation that america is on the move again. >> live tuesday, march 1, the state of the union, president biden addresses a joint session of congress and the nation reflecting on his first year in office and laying out his agenda for the year ahead. the president speaks at 9:00, followed by the republican response. then we take your phone calls and reactions. the state of the union address, 8 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or the c-span now video app.

>> following the biden historic pick for the next supreme court justice, nomination announcement through the confirmation process, on c-span, c-span.org, or download the free c-span now app. "washington journal" continues. host: we end this president's day in open forum. what public policy or political issues we want to talk about? it's (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you are welcome to chat about any of the topics we have talked about on this president's day. the historical rankings of presidential libraries and museums and the questions we had this morning on what's coequal.

this is the latest out of russia and ukraine, finding out from the white house yesterday that president haydn will be set to meet president putin of russia unless russia attacks ukraine this week. that statement from jen psaki yesterday afternoon saying that the two leaders agreed to the high stakes talk in principle but only if the invasion hasn't happened before that. "we are always ready for diplomacy but also ready for swift incident beer consequences should russia choose war." currently russia appears to be continuing preparations for a full-scale you -- full-scale assault on ukraine very soon host: your phone calls now in our open forum. this is lee out of rockville, maryland. good morning to you.

caller: good morning, john. happy president's day. host: same to you. caller: i would like to alert your listeners and viewers to the plans for a trump library. there is a website that has that information. www.djtrumplibrary.com. that's www.djtrumplibrary.com. host: you can also get it at trumplibrary.gov, that the official site there. the donald j. trump presidential library there. ok, i guess that is what the viewer wanted to mention. pat is in putnam valley, new york, republican. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call.

i have to make a comment, doing a little reading on this. these president, they get donations for these libraries. let's not make them all out be saint -- say. -- saints. clintons, they had a cousin whose husband they pardoned and they donated money. i'm sure president obama get money from other sources. i'm sure mr. biden leaves office and china makes a big donation to him. thank you very much. host: these combinations of private ventures and also the national archives overseeing the administration of records at these presidential libraries because of the presidential records act of 1978. this information from the national archives website on some of the history here and again, our last guest went through it a little bit. it wasn't until 1978, or it

wasn't until 1978 that presidents, scholars, and legal professionals held the view dating back to george washington that the records created by the president or his staff in office remain the personal property of the president and were his to take with him and he left office . the first presidential libraries were built upon that concept. the presidential records act of 19 78 established that presidential records that documented constitutional, statutory, and ceremonial duties of the president are the property of the u.s. government and after the president leaves office the archivist of the u.s. obtains custody under the act for them as repositories for presidential records. a story recently that you might have seen on that front, efforts to obtain documents from former president trump from the usa

today from earlier this month back on february 9, the national archives in january obtaining 15 boxes of the records that were being stored at former president donald trump's mar-a-lago club, keeping the boxes they are violating the presidential records act that required the government to keep all forms, documents, and communications related to the president or vice president's official duties as required by the presidential records act, they should have been transferred to the national archives from the white house at the end of the trump administration back in january of 2021. that statement coming from the national archives records administration in relation to those efforts. that story from back in the beginning of this month you may have seen. anthony in buffalo, new york, democrat, good morning. caller: hey, good morning. my biggest issue would probably be that we in america don't fall

for the canard that is like this trucker strike that happened and the blockade in canada? not just in auto walk, but some of the bridges that, you know are literally there for freedom. freedom of moving commerce. in the name of freedom, i'm afraid that the american electorate is going to fall once again and do the wrong thing, which is come to either the nation's capital or just of the capitals of all 50 states and block commerce and just be kind of ridiculous in the sense that just because maybe you lost elections you are going to like tear down the country. once again, wrap yourself in the flag, you know, the flag and get it wrong. that kind of thinking has really

-- is really retrograde. host: that was anthony in new york. republican line, tennessee, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. we only get to talk once a month, so please let me speak uninterrupted. you are talking about the different branches of government . there are really not three branches of government anymore. they all swear allegiance to the new world order. they have done their level best to hide that broke -- hide build back better was crafted at the world economic forum. they have cement homes ready to mass-produce. high gas is intentional. they are invested in electric cars. rationing of meat is intentional. they own the patents on printers to print stakes at local schools to eradicate morals and they

want robots to replace police. host: all right, think we got your point. betty, waukegan. caller: sometime ago, c-span had a contest of why you watch c-span. i ended -- i entered the contest. brian lamb sent me a book of the presidents and what stood out to me most was the presidents that died from pneumonia, and the other one, the president's wife that died while they were in office. thank you so much and happy presidents' day. host: brian, cedar rapids, iowa. caller: where with the documents from a presidential administration be designated, depending on if they go to the national archives or the

library, and how is that decided? host: appreciate the question. i don't have the answer to that west and. i know that the national archives is the designated federal repository and of the agreements of the presidential libraries act and presidential records act allow the documents to be held there. you are asking which specific ones would appear at the archives and d.c. versus what goes to the museums, i don't know if that is something that gets worked out individually by the folks who oversee the museums are not, but i appreciate the question, brian. caller: thank you. host: amherst, massachusetts. caller: just a general comment. having lived for a while in new zealand, which has a similar history two hours, drawing on common law, two principles dominate, fairness and freedom.

in new zealand they didn't forsake fairness. in america we have made a fair -- a fetish of freedom at the expense of fairness. tragic. host: that was bud in massachusetts. this is brian, west union, ohio, republican, good morning. caller: i just wanted to make a statement in the open forum that you know, with our government talk about the convoys in canada blockading and all that, they are just standing for freedom. in our country we have the same sense and goal. we just want our freedoms. you know? we are getting invite -- invaded from our southern border. the doj don't want to. they can't answer questions. they don't have the numbers. you ever watch the senate hearings? i'm sure c-span covers them all. they can never answer questions that pertain to our economy.

our, our, our borders. the numbers, you know, it's saddening. so you know, i stand behind of the freedom movement. host: we should note that on this presidents' day the launch of the new c-span american presidents homepage is available at c-span.org/presidents. that's your one-stop guide to our commanders in chief, george washington to joe biden. images that tell the stories of their lives and their presidencies, all in one easy to browse c-span website. c-span.org/presidents is where you can explore and that was released today. terry and dixon. democratic line, good morning.

caller: i would like to talk about the records taken to florida that violate the presidential act. it has now been reported that there was national security and top-secret information and that. i wonder, i understand he's the president, he can declassify, but if he can classify, things that he classified should be made public and if not, we need a special prosecutor appointed and let's investigate. why did the president take top-secret national security information out of the white house down to florida? we need to get to the bottom of this. host: more from that statement from earlier in the month on that story the caller referred to. the statement from the national archives on how these records were returned back to the national archives. throughout the course of last year, 2021, the national archives obtained the

cooperation of the trump representatives to locate what hadn't been transferred to the national archives at the end of the trump administration when a representative informed the archives in december of last year that they had located some of the records and the archives arranged for them to be securely transported to washington, d.c. from mar-a-lago, adding that those officials did not visit or raid the mar-a-lago property. time for just a couple of your phone calls left in this open forum on this president's day. frederick in new york, republican line, go ahead. caller: yes, this is frederick decker from camden, new york. i am calling because of the minimum wage, the $15 per hour they are striving to get to? my daughter got a raise a couple of years ago. it was great then, here we are a few years later, she's right back, living from

paycheck-to-paycheck. the worst part of this whole thing is that the raises and the people that get them are leaving social security in a ditch. any time things get boosted up, we don't get an incremental increase to compensate for the higher cost-of-living. it has gone up by 15, 20% and we don't get that money in our social security checks. so, here we are. passing us by. the rent goes up, the food goes up and we are still trying to live on the money we got when we retired years ago. so you know, who isn't looking at this? why are they doing a reality check on what the heck is happening here? host: frederick in new york. this is mike out of laguna woods, california, independent, good morning. caller: my comment is on what

president eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address. the military-industrial complex. the u.s. is spending three times second place china in order to police the world. apparently unaware that people in countries, any country, resent foreigners, in this case we are the foreigners, policing their country. at any rate, this is a repudiation of the wisest president in my lifetime, dwight eisenhower. host: last call today, bernadine out of indiana. go ahead. caller: two comments when president trump was debating. someone asked him a question. they were talking about war. he made the comment very casually, i love war.

everybody was kind of stunned. and then somebody said to him, what about nuclear. he kind of smirked and he shrugged his shoulders. my other comment was during the debates, when former president trump went to the cleveland clinic in cleveland ohio for the debates, cleveland clinic asked the family to where masks. they refused. that was unbelievable. i absolutely could not believe it. who in the heck do they think they are? host: bernadine, our last call her today, but we will of course you back here today tomorrow -- be back here tomorrow at 4 a.m. pacific, 7 a.m. eastern. in the meantime, have a great president's day holiday.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] >> c-span's washington journal. we get your calls live on the air and discuss policy issues. tuesday morning, the latest developments in the russia-ukraine crisis and a look at the synthetic opioid crisis with bryce pardo. watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern tuesday morning on c-span or c-span now. join with calls, facebook messages, text messages, and tweets.

>> today is presidents' day. congress not in session. president biden, with rising tensions with russia and ukraine, is still at the white house. the white house saying the president has agreed to a proposal for a meeting with the russian president, but only if russia has not taken the terry reaction against ukraine. -- military reaction against ukraine. >> test of this testimony about increasing access to broadband in the u.s. watch tonight. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these companies and