-- including media,. >> mediacom was ready. we never slowed down. schools and businesses when virtual and we powered a new reality. because we are built to keep you ahead. >> mediacom support c-span is a public service along with republican congresswoman marjorie taylor greene testifies on the challenge to her candidacy for her district. watch live today at 9:00 central l. eugene o'donnell talks about gun violence in the u.s. and the

recent rise in mass shootings. white house reporter joins us to talk about the climate agenda. you can join the conversation by phone, facebook and twitter. washington journal is next. host: good morning it is friday, april 20 second. we will begin our conversation with the news out of florida yesterday. this is cbs reporting, they gave final passage that would dissolve walt disney world private government. giving the governor of victory in his feud over the entertainment giant over the "don't say gay, co-law.

," law. florida residents, your number this morning is (202) 748-8003. all of us can text us or go to facebook and you can send us a tweet http://twitter.com/cspanwj . start dialing in, texting, posting. i want to begin with the front page of the wall street journal on the story out of florida. the gop led house passed the bill after the senate approved it 23-16. governor desantis asked them to take up the measure in a special session.

stripping disney of the key operating advantage represents one of the most high profile backlashes against the company for a political stance. they have faced pressure from employees on hot button social issues but have rarely faced such appointed center for doing so. here is the florida governor reacting to disney's opposition to what they call the parental rights in education law. >> when we signed the bill, disney's said governor desantis signed bill to prohibit instruction in sexual identity in some grades. some grades? why would they not say k-three.

for disney to come out and put his statement and say that the bill should have never passed and that they are going to actively work to repeal it, i think it was fundamentally dishonest and across the line. the florida governor there. the special district is called reidy creek. unique in florida, the reidy creek district in the orlando area shields it from local taxes which could be worth 240 million per year. it could also have one billion in liabilities that could be transferred to taxpayers if this district is dissolved. what is florida special

district? this is from the orlando website. a local government that is created for a special purpose as opposed to a general purpose which has jurisdiction to operate within a boundary, there are many more special districts in florida. disney has one of them. what is your reaction to this news? first we have kirk. caller: i think it is complete lunacy to rob the innocence of children through grooming and indoctrinating them to wicked doctrines of tender your gender

through chemical castration. it is child abuse. it is completely illegal for anyone to do it so to even consider having children be taught this at these tender ages of kindergarten and elementary school is insane. host: listen to the white house view on this from the democratic presidents spoke person. >> you have heard the president speak passionately that a bill like this, a bill that discriminates against families, kids, puts these kids in a position of not getting the support they need at a time where this is what they need. this is a form of bullying. it is terrific. the president has spoken to that. in terms of his views and comments for 25 years ago,

why are florida's leaders finding it necessary to discriminate against kids? is it to have kids have a more difficult time in school? >> wasn't that the policy when we were in school in the 90's? >> it is important to note how outspoken the president has been against discrimination and what we are looking at is a bill that would propagate hateful policies and impact children. maybe you can pose that question to some of the leaders in florida and i will look forward to having a conversation with you. host: the white house press secretary on this between the back and forth between the governor and disney. in the washington times, new

polling says that talks of race and sex in school. americans lean toward expanding towards conversation of race and sexuality. still, the pole shows stark differences between republicans and democrats who want to see schools make adjustments. about four out of 10 republicans say they discuss issues of sexuality too much. only one out of 10 say too little. among democrats, those numbers are reversed. in clearwater, florida. what do you think of the move from your governor? caller: i moved from indiana to be in florida. i support him 100%.

i think the democrats use everything. host: what do you mean everything? caller: they use covid, race, sexuality. why are our schools behind other countries? they teach the basics. our schools are a social experiment. host: did you move from indiana to florida because of governor desantis? caller: a hundred percent i did. i have met hundreds of people who have done the same thing. host: byron from tampa, florida, and independent. what do you think of this feud between your governor and disney? caller: it basically comes down to money. because they are not donating to

desantis'campaign to be president. i think he was banking on that cash from disney and other corporations in the state who felt it would benefit them for him to move to a higher level. his party, and the fight against this policy, they are lashing back with if you do not support me i won't support you. a corporation has to look out for its shareholders. i believe that disney has interest in helping shareholders and its business and if it did not take aside on this huge issue that has gone global. they were going to look like they were complicit and what

governor desantis is doing in florida. desantis is doing it for his pocketbook and is hoping that disney's competitors will back him and disney is doing it for its shareholders. both sides are looking at the cash. host: from a local level, what are you hearing, what is the news reporting like on the impact this will have on the districts of that area, the counties that will have to pick up the tab and the taxes for this area? caller: the funny thing is, you are absolutely right. there is so much money to be made in this area by theme parks , i think universal and other parks are thinking we are not making a ton of money.

if conservatives leave disney and come to see us, they are willing to pay more taxes in the area. host: the taxpayers of those counties, they get the tax revenue but they are responsible for the liabilities, the debts that disney has. caller: surrounding disney is so many wealthy people. there are billionaires that surround that area. imagine the queen of versailles with her $90 million home. they don't care because desantis will give them a kickback on their taxes to cover it anyway. the people who will have to pay are those higher fees and the taxes will have to go up on other things.

the poor people pay more in taxes here than anywhere else in the country and the wealthy get away with murder. this will be passed on to the tourists. they will fleece them out of a couple of percentage points, sales tax that sort of a deal. they will get their money from somewhere. disney can't lose in this thing. they are just going to make billions of dollars on this thing. host: let's show us what the ceo had to say to his employees about this. as we have seen tom again, statements have done little to change minds they are usually used by one side or another -- i

do not want anyone to mistake a lack of a statement for lack of support. we all share the same goal, a more tolerant world. because the struggle is much bigger than any bill, the best way a company is to bring about change is from the content we produce, and the organizations we support. sandy from germantown, a democratic caller. caller: desantis has ruined florida just as much as rabbit has ruined texas. all the trump people, go down to texas and live there. host: mark in maryland, a

republican. caller: i found it telling, here we are in 2022 talking about disney. a huge corporation which is acting as a proponent for sexualizing kids and he is talking about the tax burden. that is the only time democrats only want to talk about numbers. where have we come to now about the sexualizing of children is the democratic parties latest marxist racket. they have done the sum with raise. the same with climate change, essentially my guess is that when the smoke has cleared, 20

years from now they will be telling kids that it was the republican trying to sexualize kids the same way they tried to blame slavery on the republican party. host: from newberry, florida you. caller: i am a democrat. the republican, desantis thing is manufactured. none of that, never once did it occur in any classroom in any school that i have worked in. host: what grades did you teach? caller: i taught fifth grade

through 12th grade. host: how many years? caller: about 40. host: and all in florida? caller: and not that you are aware of. have you talked to other teachers? caller: any teacher that allows politics, or sexual orientation two, in a teacher led discussion , that is totally wrong. it never happened in my class. i would have been aware of it if it had happened in other classes. it is just a lie. it is a great big republican lie. host: if you have dialed in, we will get to your calls. those of you who are thinking

about the conversation. you can do it by calling in, texting us, or go to twitter and we will read that as well. jeffrey is joining us from florida. let's begin with the history of disney special status. how did it come about and what do they get with the status? guest: thanks for having me on. this goes back to 1967 when walt disney was looking for property to build the second theme park that did not have municipal or county control. he wanted to build the kind of projects he wanted to build

without going through local zoning and provided a mechanism for them to raise money to build infrastructure. they wanted to work independently without having to depend on orlando. orlando was not the city it is today and would not be without disney. the governor, he approved the special district into law. it is still on the books today. it allows them to create and operate like a county government. they have their own board of governors. they have their own taxes and

they use those taxes to run the water, sewer, maintained roads, pay firefighters. they collect about $163 million a year from reading creek. they are operating about $10 million in the red each year in because disney world earns about $19 million a day, they can spend 10 million to cover that gap. by dissolving the district, they will have a $1 billion debt load

that will be passed on to orange in osceola county residents. they will have to raise property taxes or find some way to cover that debt. host: what does this mean for the taxpayers of those two counties? guest: it means a tax increase essentially. we are still reporting a lot as we find out exactly how this will unfold. the dissolution date is june 1, 2023. republican lawmakers are pushing this thing on behalf of governor desantis. they will have to decide how to reconstitute and repeal this in the next legislative session

which will be in march 2023. they will have time before that deadline to negotiate on how they want to reconstitute the district. they keep saying that under this district, in 1967 we did not see power plants the same way we do today and disney has shown no interest in building a new power plant which will be used to fuel this new project.

a lot of what it is in the books has not come to fruition. they may be willing to negotiate. we are willing to change our charter. but the big impact will be on orange and osceola county residents and there is one point 5 million people living in those counties. there is about a billion dollars in debt that will be passed on to those property owners because they don't have income tax, we have property tax. if they levy that billion dollars on each property owner it would be $580 per person.

host: does the special status or this repeal of it only applied to disney? how many other entities have the special status? guest: reedy creek, we are seeing from disney how this will affect their bottom line. this affects 133 special districts in florida. the legislature bill only focuses on six, reedy creek and

five others. the others are small. they are small, one of them is in broward county. again, it is a question of what happens to the employees of those, the services and the cost of doing business. the bill says that all assets and liabilities would transfer to the local county government. it is the case of the counties that will be picking up a tax burden for these services of the special districts which they already apply and have a way to raise money to pay for them.

they will need to levy a tax to pay for these services. i had to do a little research, they are supposed to file financial statements every year. reedy creek has never been found out of compliance and its 50-60 year history. the question that democratic lawmakers have, if we have a problem with the special districts, let's get a study group and have our legislative staff analyze all these questions we are asking.

there are zero statements on the financial or economic impact. this special session was supposed to be just about redistricting. the governor announced the removal of the special district on the morning the session supposed to -- was supposed to start. this has been in the works. host: for our viewers, they can follow you and your reporting on orlando sentinel.com. thank you for that back story. caller: appreciate it. host: what do you think of all

of this? this debate of florida? caller: this mess could have been avoided if disney stayed out of sexualizing kids. it was unnecessary. for a couple of employees there, all of this turmoil. it absolutely is being taught in schools. maybe the previous collar saw no evidence of it but in new jersey they will started for second graders. back in my day, disney portrayed babies being delivered by the story. it is nothing about hating gays, it is about them being too

young. they are too young to understand this. there is plenty of time, if i had a dime for every tomboy who turned into an ultra feminine girl i would be rich. they want to start them early with puberty blockers because it is easier to transition. puberty blockers are used for children who go into early puberty. they were never meant to be used this way. it has not been fda approved. we don't know the effects of this. how many lawsuits will there be when children grow up and they realize they have made a mistake? host: now we have edward in

florida a democratic caller. caller: i grew up in orlando. i am very familiar with the development of disney. there are two issues here. one is the issue of taxing status of reedy creek. the other issue is the social issue. the main thing is that what we have here is that governor desantis is trying to make a political point which is not the right thing.

whether or not the physical plant is located. there is so much under assessed property it will under said the liability. that can all be restructured. i am not worried about the economic liability to orange county taxpayers. i am more worried about desantis taking this issue for his political gain. the only good thing would be if this could not tromp out of being the next republican nominated.

i think your reporter gave a good synopsis of that there. whether or not orange county or osceola county should be in charge of the county. host: let me leave it there. we will go to another florida resident, beth. a republican. caller: how many years was it that republicans fought overreach? this is nothing but politics. it is not over the "don't say again" bill. it is about disney not donating

to the republicans over this. that is why they are mad. it is that he is not going to get any money from them anymore politically. host: stephen in baltimore, a democratic caller. caller: i agree with that last caller about desantis getting his donations from the corporations. even more so, this is a frightening turn for the politics of this whole country. it seems like we are heading down a road of fascism. if you disagree with the state, the state brings its power to

call, to inconvenience your business or company. i do agree with age appropriateness. that is commonsense. my thing is, what if you are a little kid and you do have two dads or two moms? are you going to have to silence yourself? in this country, both democrats and republicans are responsible for slavery. host: the national review out with their opinion and they criticize him, using the state

to reward friends and punish enemies with something conservatives excoriated as gangster governments. they should be neutral to those who agree or disagree with the government. to split those into friends and enemies should also recognize that they can also end up as enemies of the state. the wall street journal, saying that revoking disney's, if they are trying to impose cultural values they risk losing republicans on things like trade, labor law, showing gop

hostility to business. if good tax policy cannot pass congress because republicans are furious -- the disney lesson for ceo is to stay out of political fights. from miami, go ahead. caller: i live in miami, florida. i have seven grandchildren. two of them are too little to go to school. i believe that the companies have no right to impose their views on the rest of us. this is horrible.

the people are picking on the governor because they know he is popular and he will be reelected and this thing with the lgbtq is getting out of hand. we are going to shove it down your throats no matter what. in kindergarten from third grade they are too young for that. teachers have no right to try to give it to them like that. my grandchildren will never be going to public school. the others all went to catholic school. host: more of your calls coming up. first, for those who have misted

, the news yesterday from the leadership in the republican party blasting former president trump for what happened on january 6. they privately blasted president trump about january 6. the reporters of that peas have written a book called "this may not pass". senator mccarthy denied this story in the new york times. the two reporters released this audio. >> there is a question when we were talking about the 25th amendment resolution, you asked if he gets that after he is god? is there any news that he may resign.

>> i have had a few discussions. my gut tells me no. i am having a conversation with him tonight, i have not spoken to him in a couple of days. do you think he would have back away? what i think i will do is call him. this is what i think, there's a chance that it will pass the house, i think there's a chance it will pass the senate. i think there are a lot of ramifications for that. this is one personal fear that i have, i do not want to get into any conversation about the heads

of the party. but i think this will pass. that would be my advice but i don't think he will take it. host: that is from jonathan martin and alexander burns from their new book. they said there is more audio to come. kevin mccarthy put out this statement, the reporting on me is false and wrong. it comes as no surprise that the media is obsessed with furthering is liberal agenda. if the reporters were interested in truth why would they ask for a comment? the corporate media is more concerned from profiting off of

intrigue. they have failed from their democratic one-party rule. back to our conversation with all of you about governor ron desantis encouraging and winning approval from the gop led legislator to revoke disney's special tax status. disney's stock tumbles after the controversy. mary, from louisville, kentucky. rolando, from fort lauderdale. a democratic caller. caller: i was calling because i feel very torn as a floridian, disney has a significant impact on floridians.

it is more of a cultural thing. as a democrat, i stand by the values that disney advocated. i think the governor is exercising his power and i think he is gearing up for a presidential run in this is one exercise of what he can do with the support of the legislative branch. caller: i agree with governor ron's -- about the classroom. parents decide what goes on in

the classroom. the highest person in the world is jesus. he is going to be coming back. i hope i am in the lines with no democrats. host: on twitter, it is all for show. it has a 13th month delay and would remove governmental costs to surrounding counties. jim and franklin, pennsylvania. caller: this rhetoric about desantis and disney is off to station of the issue. the issue is that the cdc is putting this stuff in the

schools. it is evil. it is absolutely evil. if you want to understand it read the first chapter in the book of romans. anybody that would put that on children deserves the worst that can happen. host: david in orlando sends a text saying that ron desantis will attack everything. his views are hypocritical. he uses politics to promote his agenda not the rights of all people. steve and virginia, a republican. what do you think? caller: i want to say that nike, coca-cola disney should stay out of politics.

i just want to say about january 6, nancy pelosi's text messages are out of the committee. host: the front page of the washington post noted the previous companies that have become involved in the cultural wars. six years ago, mike pence tried to change his religious freedom bill because corporate america objected. apple opposed the bill which allowed businesses to discriminate against gay employees. indiana said the law was entirely unnecessary. the republican controlled statehouse clarified that it could not refuse service based on sexual orientation.

the fight between two allies, companies and republicans was then over. caller: i just heard the same analysis on npr. i think mr. desantis is shooting himself in the foot. as a taxpayer i would be really upset if our governor decided to sign a bill and then all of a sudden i have to pay $500 more in taxes. what i find interesting is that after the supreme court appealed the right for companies as

individuals, as individuals they could have independence. what do republicans want? you can't let corporations have the right to make their own opinions to a political party, i think it is all political. i think it is all money. host: john, good morning to you, independent. caller: i am not sure why disney and the democrats want to talk to kids about sex. i hear a lot of people talking about disney refusing to donate. this is not about donations at all. these pedophiles are trying to rape kids. some people seem to think that

is ok. they need to stop and think about what they are doing. host: molly, and keystone heights, florida. a republican. caller: i have been listening to everyone this morning. if everyone wouldst stop arguing and read the bill. it has nothing to do with gay and transgender. i have a gay nephew. i have a gay brother-in-law and it does not bother me at all. i love them to death. this bill is only about parental rights. i have great ran children starting school. it is up to my grandchildren to teach them about the birds and the bees, gays and transgender's. that is what this bill is about.

it is not about gays and transgender. it is about parental rights. read the bill and quit acting like idiots. host: monique in washington dc, a democratic caller. caller: all of this is about political tripe. they said they will not donate any more money to republicans. i am sick and tired of republicans sticking to three topics: immigration, gays and whatever is popular at the time. the ignorance that comes out of, not all republicans, but when

you call in with only the stuff you are reading on fox. i respect the republicans that colin with facts and they know how to balance their answer out with information. kudos to them. some democrats, you have to pull away from believing that money always solves the problems of the poor. everybody has to pull themselves up from their bootstraps and work hard for what they want. a lot of social programs are hindering people in america. what is going on in florida, i feel bad for disney because those surrounding counties, those taxes will be heavy.

i feel sorry for them. you cannot play politics with taxes. host: president biden announced more aid to ukraine with its battle with russia. here's what the president had to say. >> today i am announcing another package that includes heavy artillery packages and rounds of ammunition, it includes more tactical drones. in the past two months we have moved equipment to ukraine and record speed. we have sent helicopters, machine guns, radar systems. more than 50 rounds of ammunition has been sent. anti-armor systems with a 10 to

one ratio. we are sharing intelligence with ukraine to help defend them against russian aggression. on top of this, these contributions from the united states, we are facilitating weapons and systems to ukraine from other partners around the world, like long-range aircraft systems from sue macchia. we will not always be able to advertise everything that our partners are doing to support ukraine. to modernize teddy roosevelt advise, sometimes we will walk softly and send in a large javelin. we are not sitting on the finding that congress has provided to ukraine.

we are sending it to the front line of freedom and the skilled fighters standing in the breach. the resolve that this country is showing, not just the military but it's average citizens, with the sustained support from the international community led by the united states is a significant reason why ukraine will stop russia from taking over the country. host: president biden yesterday. you can find it all on our website c-span.org. we will have coverage on marjorie taylor greene and her challenge in the georgia congressional district. you can watch it here on c-span, online at c-span.org or on our

app. jn in arizona, a republican. what do you think about the dustup between the governor and disney? caller: i think you need to read the bill. let's send it to china and see what china does with disneyland. do you think they would let this go on? do you think coca-cola says anything to china, but they can put all of this horrible stuff in our country. if you don't like florida, go to california. look at how ignorant the kids are in baltimore, maryland, chicago, do you want are kids to have schooling like them?

i think it is absolutely pathetic that you take one side of this. host: how did i do that? caller: the guy from orlando, do you think he was a true reporter? check him out. host: have you checked him out? caller: he is a democratic reporter. i liked it when you had two people on when it was back-and-forth and not one-sided like you do anymore. host: we like to do that too. we certainly try. caller: the way we treat illegals, we are told on our local news. they tell us not to go across the border for spring break because it is so full of covid. why don't you check into that? this is a state department that

told arizona not to go across the border for spring break. host: we will leave it there and get back to our topic. lily, from california, republican. caller: good morning. i have a comment but i am not really sure what the topic is but i want to share what i believe is the truth. i believe that god is the one that created the universe. i believe he set down certain roles, i.e. don't be a homosexual. if you disobey me you will get certain consequences if you obey me everything will be great. since we cannot physically see

god, we are deciding that he can't do anything. we go on what feels good to us. is there really a god who is going to punish me? host: we are going to georgia, on the democrat line. caller: i am concerned about this world. first thing, god says judgment is mine. it does not belong to the people. everybody is going around talking about the children and teaching children about sexuality in first grade, third grade. i am 77 years old and i have never heard -- they are not doing that. i don't know what the republicans are trying to do.

they are not trying to fix problems but they create problems. it is a nightmare. they are taking books out of the school, we did not learn the lessons of the holocaust or anything. we are trying to create the same problems we had before and these are old people. host: jerry and broadway, virginia, a republican. caller: good morning. 10 years ago, if a parent would have been caught teaching that stuff to their children they would've been locked up for child abuse. are you still listening? host: we are listening. caller: are there any catholics out there? do they teach this in catholic school now? and these lying hypocrites and

dcn the white house, they claim to be devout catholics. do they want to teach this to our children? host: we will leave the conversation there. when we come back from a break, we will look at the mass shootings in the united states with eugene o'donnell. an white house reporter scott waldman talks about the efforts the biden administration is doing to counteract climate change. we will be right back. >> republican congressman, margery taylor green talks about a challenge towatch at nin at c-span, online or full coverage on our free video app, c-span now. >> book tv every sunday on

c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 2:00 p.m. we will feature the annapolis book festival with jamie raskin and his book " unthinkable: trauma, truth and the trial of american democracy." and "madam speaker: nancy pelosi and the lessons of power." on afterwords we talk about georgia turning purple and the significance in future in-state national elections. he is interviewed by eugene scott. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2, and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at book tv.org. >> american history tv,

saturdays on c-span2, exploring the people and events that tell the american stories. at 2:00 p.m. eastern, the final episode of our eight part series "first ladies in their own words." we will look at the first ladies , their time in the white house. this week we will feature lonnie a trump. -- melania trump. >> i am very excited, and thank you for sharing your stories and thoughts about your struggles. i want to help children everywhere to be there. so, we are going to keep pressing on. >> a discussion about hollywood's take on history with historians at the movies jason herbert and the jamestown /yorktown historic or direct --

historical director. watch american history tv saturday on c-span2, and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. c-span has unfiltered coverage of the u.s. response to russia's invasion of ukraine, bringing you the latest from the president and other officials, pentagon, state department, and congress. we have international perspectives from the united nations and statements from foreign leaders on the c-span networks, the c-span noun mobile app and c-span.org/ukraine, our web resorts page where you can watch the latest videos on demand and follow tweets from journalists on the ground. notice c-span.org/ukraine. >> "washington journal" continues. host: eugene o'donnell is a

former new york police department officer serving from 1984 and a lecturer at the john jay college of criminal justice joining us from san diego to talk about the increase in gun violence and mass shootings in the united states, and i want to begin with the numbers, but we have seen. if you go back to 2017, we were looking at 348. you can see it increased and 2021 to 693. what do you think is going on? guest: a lot of things are going on, but the game changer is the sidelining of the police in urban america. police have become conflict avoidance, and that is coupled with the rise of prosecutors who do not prosecute. those are two major issues and there are a lot of major issues, that we have a pandemic and the too ready availability of guns.

police officers all over the united states interdicted guns and new that they saved lives and that no longer happens in a lot of states. host: why, what has changed? guest: you have a climate now where taking action is worse than not taking action, that is politically true and true and the police world. why would a police officer engage somebody in a situation that could end up with the officer not only physically being subjected to violence, officers take that for granted, but the new dynamic where there will be demonized and possibly prosecuted for what? you see the election of mayors and public officials and da's who themselves are saying that crime is not a significant issue and are not pursuing these cases. with the incident in brooklyn the other day, the feds took the case and it was eventually taken

to the feds, one wonders what the local prosecutor will do there? they are almost allergic to taking cases and they do not know what to do with the violent crime cases because they are so ideologically blinded and captured by these advocates who control the dialogue. we have a very bleak picture. elective officials have gone missing. rural officials and legislatures do not have an interest in urban america or do not have an agenda for urban america so we have a bleak picture. host: what sort of criminal is filling this void? guest: people who believe that there is no risk or low risk, and they have reason to believe that whether you are talking about gun violence, which is the leading indicator. the real indicator is the erosion of the rule of law and the feeling that things are off of the rails. you are seeing this in poll after poll, they know that

police have been neutralized. a leader instantly -- in philly said that nobody goes to the police because they are not responsive and they do not have power to do a lot of things, so people that keep score and carry guns know that it is a low risk enterprise and chances are, i mean we have this pipe -- this perverse dynamic where everybody seems to be on the side of the offender in the courtroom, the judge and the legislature created these laws and the da on the side of the offender and the victims have been silence. in public opinion polls communities are being asked what they think and 75 percent of people believe that public safety is the biggest issue. african-americans in a pew poll taken are the top 20% in a long list of issues, public safety has become the number one issue. host: i mean you are at the john jay college of criminal justice and you are looking at the information and data is coming

in. what is the evidence that police have been sidelined, what do you look at to come to that determination? guest: i do not think anybody really seriously doubts that. the levels of enforcement and interaction stop and frisk, a city like new york where you had police officers putting their lives on the line, saving the lives of strangers, that was shot down by mayor de blasio and we had one homage -- 100 some odd more homicides. the question we need to be asking is how many lives could have been saved if the police were able to do their job. contextualized you need community support and elected officials doing the hard work, but the evidence in city after city is that the agencies are in collapse. police jeeps -- chiefs do not lead, they are political figures and shortages everywhere in patrol and investigations.

ultimately this comes down to disarming people and the risks are enormous and you have these absurd formulations by this advocacy think take capture that american policing could be like the u.k., if we had the dynamic in the u.k. and that there is no going violence there at all. we have more gun violence there in a day then they would in a decade. host: why do they have less? guest: there are a lot of factors. certainly the amounts of guns in our country is shameful and marks us out in the industrial world. but inequality and there is a whole laundry list of factors. the root cause, we have done this for five years, thousands of people have lost their lives while people have stood up and talked about root causes and allowed slaughter in the streets of these communities, young and powerless kids. we talked about the direct victims of this, the entire community is victimized when

there is no rule of law and when young people have to worry about navigating the community and if they feel unsafe, everything from sleep patterns, the investment of business is, retail theft being off the hook were forced immunity's are suffering and dollar stores and pharmacies are does investing -- disinvesting and the perception is that police cannot do the work that in even if they were to do the work. the police are ordered not to chase people or make physical force arrests, this is how insane it has become. even if they were to do that and break the rules, that forbid them from taking action, you prosecutors being the first people into court making excuses on behalf of the offenders. host: we are taking comments and questions about the rise and gun violence and mass shootings. in the eastern and central part of the country, 202-748-8000. mountain and pacific, 202-748-8001.

you can text as including first name, city, and state to 202-748-8003. facebook.com/c-span and join the conversation they or on twitter @c-spanwj. what about the availability of illegal guns and why, what are the causes of that? guest: i mean we have had the issue of ghost guns, it is a real issue in part of the equation, growing the idea that people can manufacture their own guns without serial numbers and you also have guns where the serial numbers are defaced, that is a piece of the puzzle. there a lot of pieces which makes our country way more lethal than most of the western world with that. host: what to do about it? how could you crackdown on the number of illegal guns? what needs to be done? guest: we need a third wave of criminal justice.

we had a mindless build up and now we are having a mindless tear down. both parties are at fault because we need both parties to come forward in a bipartisan way. they did it with criminal justice reform but the problem is that they undid a lot of things that they were not working that there was no comp be -- there was no plan b or plan for the country, locality should be required. written public safety plans, what is it that you are doing and what risks are they willing to engage in. there should be comprehensive, in-depth public safety plans. if we are not using incarceration, what ways can we approach this? incarceration should be a last issue. is there some way to incapacitate kids at risk who are at risk to themselves, is there some sort of funding we can do? the buildup was insane, arresting people for trivial stuff occurred over and over again without due regard to the

history of the country, that this is also pretty much and some of this reform is warranted and both parties deserve credit for that. but this mindless tear down. it is not a progressive move or a way forward, that is simply to put people under some sort of supervision onto the streets and subways. anyone who rides mass transit nla, they did that -- in l.a. transit, it is incredible what has been created on the ground where you have -- where you do not have criminal justice supervision, so that has a flaw. you also have the introduction of taking over these d.a. races where they are living in compounds with security dictating these policies disconnected. billionaires are taking over the newspapers in "the l.a. times" and "the washington post" while they are so distorted --

disconnected. their safety and security is paramount that their indifference is cavalier to the people in poor communities. host: joe in new orleans, you are up first. welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you. your guest has dance all around the question, the increase in gun violence and mass shootings. he has not talked about the manufacture and the distribution of illegal guns, and how the company that is in favor of people owning guns, and not registering them, and how they are so involved in the political aspect of nonviolence and the illegal use of guns. host: are you referencing the nra? i am not sure. caller: yes, the nra.

how the power of the nra has overpowered -- has overpowered the politics of the united states, and the money involved in all of that. that is the problem, yet the guns off of the street. host: let us get a response. guest: no disagreement. the country is awash in guns and it is shameful that now you have this underground economy almost of people making their own guns that are out of the reach of lawn forests -- enforcement. in our country, this big urban and rural divide is a political divide. you actually see decreasing numbers of people supporting more gun control, unfortunately i think because we need to have more gun control. the issue going forward is what can be done by both parties to limit this and the current hot

issue is ghost guns. at the end of the day it has to be a comprehensive strategy and disarming people and interdicting those guns into communities has to be reckoned with. if you are not going to do it you do not have to do it that we have had five years that have not -- where it has not been done. the country has half billion guns and these guns not only destroy our peace of mind. countries like jamaica, american guns have been picked up in killings outside of our country. host: i want to play for you and our viewers president biden last week on the problem of ghost guns in america. take a listen. [video clip] >> folks, terrorists and domestic abusers can go from a gun kit to a gun in as little as 30 minutes, buyers are not required to pass background checks because these guns have no serial numbers and when they shop at the crime scene they

cannot be traced. it is harder to find to peru -- who use them. you cannot connect the gun to the shooter, and hold them accountable. in fact, they have been able to face -- to trace less than 1% of ghost guns reported by law enforcement. so, it makes sense that police across the country are increasingly finding ghost guns at crime scenes. by the way, they can be "rifles" and assault weapons as well. this is one version of a kit that you can buy. last year alone law enforcement reported 20,000 suspected ghost guns to the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives, a tenfold increase from 2016. tenfold in five years. these guns are weapons of choice

for many criminals. we are going to do everything we can to deprive them of the choice. and when we find them put them in jail for a long time. [end video clip] host: your reaction to president biden and what he had to say. guest: totally legitimate and the executive branch has invoked a lot of rules to limit this issue. the fear here is that post 9/11 and post-pandemic the country has become numb to these events, mass shootings did not get the press that they once did and there might be a tendency to underestimate the amount of carnage that firearms can do. they can be weapons of mass destruction in the hands of one or more people and anybody who wants to look at that does not need to look further than the vents in las vegas where 60 people were killed and people were wounded with an extraordinary level of violence with firearms. they can be weapons that snuff out maximum -- mass numbers of

lives. we have that issue and the potential for terrorists to get their hands on these guns. we have the daily unreported carnage that goes on in order -- in urban america day in and out. host: maria, in atlanta. go ahead. caller: good morning. i would like to address the current issue, you will never get rid of guns in america. i would like to know why we cannot be like other countries and do not have any guns. and then the crime rate will decrease. you know that and i know that, why cannot we get -- why we can get rid of guns? host: let us take that point. guest: i agree with that but that is not the culture that we have in hand. and -- inherited. the more troubling issue is in the last few years it has tapered off, but the surge in gun buying.

sidelining law enforcement and the police is encouraging atmosphere in which people want to do. the rich have that which is why they can be so smug about the conditions of people who do not. we have had a surge of gun sales and it is very worrying that people feel perhaps that they will take this upon themselves to do their own safety and civil -- security and fill a gap that has been filled with the collapse of law enforcement in many parts of the country. host: allison in arizona. caller: hello, i just want to ask the man why gullett -- gun violence went up during the trump administration? host: did you hear that? guest: yes. there are horrible days enough, but if you go back to near to 500 homicides last year and even

back in the 90's they had 2200, we have to keep this in perspective. i would be more concerned and i would broaden the outlook not just on guns but on public safety generally on a crime and disorder generally and on whether people, and they should be committee driven -- driven and if you listen to the community is about what they have to say about this. there is a concern that things are off the rails and there is not any reliable security that they can depend on, people are not reporting crimes so the think tanks are trying to tell us because reporting numbers are down we are safer. the fact of the matter is that there was a long-term trend towards decline in homicides we nearly got to a record low and then there has been this bike and some cities now are having historic increases. host: don in california, your turn. caller: hello. my opinion on gun violence and

guns and ghost guns is this. first, ghost guns, they do not exist. a ghost gun is a construct of gun haters. you have unregistered guns, but your average person cannot make a gun barrel in their garage. they cannot make the chamber that holds 50,000 pounds per square inch of pressure made out of -- you cannot make it out of plastic on a 3d printer. this is nothing but a straw man. nothing but a straw man. there is no such thing as a ghost gun. there are unregistered guns, and all you can do with a registered gun is trace it back to its last legal owner. ok? that is a waste of time right there. host: respond. guest: i would draw your attention to the atf website dedicated to this conversation,

people are getting component parts of guns and manufacturing them and assembling them and those guns do not require serialization and they can be put out to the public. host: anthony in new york. caller: good morning. i grew up in new york city and i live upstate and my brother was an nypd for over 20 years before he retired. part of the reason he retired was because he felt that the rank and file were not getting supported by the top brass and i was wondering what your feelings are about that, how do the rank-and-file cops feel regarding the top brass. are they just helping the politicians are supporting cops on the street? about the guns, my wife is four foot 10 and i was diagnosed with a medical illness which left me very weak. how is my four foot 10 life

supposed to protect yourself against an average 20-year-old attacker without a firearm? i cannot do that even their white -- either right now. a lot of people are talking about taking guns away but they serve a practical purpose. you know john publish something between 200000 and 2 million self-defense gun users occur every year but nobody ever talks about those things, and i will take my answer off of the air. guest: thank you -- thank your brother for his service, nypd saved a lot of lives. on that issue i am unapologetic and i hope that he is enjoying his retirement. you can hear the divide. there is a major divide in the country and the question is how to reconcile that in terms of people who believe that gun ownership is a fundamental right and people who would like to see

guns wiped from the face of the earth. host: here is a tweet from a viewer. "how does the guest explain the fact that crime is rising everywhere, not just cities? and simply cities run by democrats? his thesis is that police have been barred from june -- from doing their job, is that happening everywhere? guest: there are 70,000 police departments, but these reforms -- it was depicted as reform but it paralyzed the police. so california today, interestingly, the legislature roughed -- rushed out and repealed a jaywalking wall -- law on the premise that it was a nuisance. governor newsom to his credit actually vetoed that bill because he is realistic. if you standdown a jaywalking law, people will die. if he is a governor he is acting like a responsible adult. fewer people will have to get

called in the middle of the night to say that their brother, sister, or child has been run down by 70 driving. this conversation needs to be in-depth and holistic, and everything has to be on the table. we are talking about gun violence, but road issues, road safety, speeding issues and things like that are epidemic. noise issues are epidemic. you go to every community and you hear the same story about un-muffled noise going to the streets and they cannot sleep at night. a lot of what has happened is the takeover of the conversation by people who are disconnected by communities and those communities have been incredibly -- it is a incredible story -- they have been silenced and the media has been totally ignoring the policing dimension of this. "the washington post" attacked the police for five years and

written 100 -- hundreds of stories that were not factual, just not talking about urban violence, and now they and others in the media are blaming the plant -- the pandemic for this. we need a bipartisan approach on just as reform, and we need a third wave, a new dimension, how do you protect the country and how do you leverage technology, science, what is the forward thinking plan. you will have fewer police, recruitment will collapse and police -- and people will not put on in urban uniform in -- a uniform in urban america. that i agree, policing is about conflict, but most policing is not controversial, it is not objectionable. most people embrace what the police do. it is a popular institution, to take a few incidents and blow them out of proportion and do nothing but spend thousands of hours talking about those

incidents without pulling into conversation has had a devastating impact. it also, to ignore the racial inequalities and the unfairness of the system, the flesh and blood people who were locked up with criminal records for nonsense, that is not right either. host: mark in seattle. caller: thank you for c-span and thank you, sir, for your service. i was actually in the u.s. army during your time as a combat medic, but i did not have to fire a shot but i knew how to handle an end 16. -- m-16. you called -- you touched on a major pot problem. i call cease fire and whoever holds -- whoever violates that will be fined and jailed. that is just in our country, we

really cannot do that against putin, but i will take your comments off of the air. thank you so much. guest: unfortunately, because of the availability of guns, we have an arms raised in which people are carrying guns illegally and legally and other people have guns and you have self-defense issues, you have gun sometimes being used. it is important to say that local gun owners do not buy in large get involved in crimes. there are exceptions. it would be excite -- a safer country if you do not have guns, but there are historic reasons and reasons that people cite that at least probably something like half the country agree with, the idea that you can just wash away guns is not on the agenda. host: fred in new jersey.

question or comments. caller: i live a short distance from philadelphia, i used to go there regularly and i do not anymore, partly because of the crime. partly because of the district attorney who i think is pretty awful. he is more interested in prosecuting police officers then criminals sometimes, it seems. just yesterday he decided to prosecute another officer for something that happened a year and a half ago. and when i think about the police i think about the woman in minnesota who served the community for over 20 years, putting her life on the line every day she put on the uniform, and then she made a mistake, pulled her gun instead of a taser, and now she is in prison. and it seems like if something like that could happen, why

would anyone want to be a police officer? so it seems to me that the prosecutors in our country, a lot of them are more interested in prosecuting police then criminals. i think that is bad. host: what about recruitment of police officers? is there an impact? guest: there is an intact and a time where we need -- there is an impact and at a time where we need better people and rounded people at higher levels of education the reverse is happening. this is shameful and they have not said anything about this. we have seen a steady decline in the work. we have cops that are dead on their feet working double shifts and places and working all times of overtime because you cannot fill the jobs, which is a hazard , which puts people at risk. in a perfect world, you would have a great large selection of people, we will continue to need policing which is the problem

with the abolitionist stuff. it caused irreparable damage because people are not going to seek the work. i want to sites that and there other reasons where police work is not a popular choice before in the last five years, but one way to minimize the stakes is to obviously be as selective as possible and get the largest pool of people, representative pool of people. it is important to say, because we have advocacy groups who just will not stop because they will not acknowledge that there has been any improvement. in many or -- urban cities you have a d.a. which is a minority person, a police chief who is a minority person and majority minority police departments and advocacy groups continuing to pretend that police and that american policing you have the stand out, you do not see videos of police abuse because there is no engagement and they are still

fighting this battle, the idea that the police is a sinister threat to people which is disconnected. if you go to l.a., you would be hard-pressed to find a black-and-white car in l.a., much less one with the window rolled down where police person is engaging people. host: let us hear from syracuse, new york. ray, good morning. caller: good morning. i really interesting discussion. it is pretty clear where the problem is with gun violence, it is with the people holding the guns that are using them illegally. it is not people exercising their god-given and constitutionally protected rights to keep and bear arms. so, for any government entity, including the police, to disparage legal gun owners,

responsible gun owners. i never met an irresponsible gunman owner, any adults that is, and it is clear that the violence always comes from violent perpetrators. so, the issue of policing is it is too political and often the people doing the most damage with the guns are layout the same day and the people who are constitutional believers, like me, we get caught up in things that have nothing to do with us. i have never done any violence in any point in my entire life, why should i have to suffer and lose any part of my constitutionally and god-given protected right because there is a political goal to make guns look bad and they do not care

they who -- who they used to do that. that is what is going on. we have to point at where the problem is. the problem is the criminals and a man with a gun is the best thing to have around when you have a criminal with a gun. host: eugene o'donnell. guest: something like ghost guns i think most americans will line up with the idea that you should not be able to build a gun that is not traceable in your house. there would be exceptions to that as well. most law enforcement people will not mess around with that that there is a legitimate question of how it is that teenagers and young people who are really bearing the brunt of this, how do they get access to these guns. i think there is common ground. most people would support reasonable ways to try and stop guns from getting into the hands of youngsters who make one impulsive decision and ruin their lives in the lives of other people.

maybe it is a brother's keeper analogy, but that is one good outcome of perimeter -- criminal justice reform was that humanizing this. these are our people caught up in these situations and desperate situations. urban poverty, which is growing. if there is not public safety, that will not be conducive to reducing poverty where people feel that they are not safe. so, the issue here is common ground. how much can we come together on this. it is shocking that a 19-year-old kid can so easily access a lethal firearm, i think most people would agree that we could do whatever we can to reduce that opportunity. host: eugene o'donnell is our guest, former nypd officer and lecturer at the john jay college of criminal justice talking about the increase in gun violence and mass shootings in the country. linda in ogden, utah.

we go to you next. caller: good morning, i have the greatest respect for the police force. my feelings are that they are not paid as well as they should be. we are asking people to put their lives on the line and they are not making what they should be paid, and therefore we cannot get quality people, and we cannot keep the quality people because the pay is so low. i appreciate everything that they do and i thank you. i believe that we really should need to mention how lope they are paid. thank you. guest: i would know philadelphia, we are talking a lot about philadelphia. they are offering $10,000 bonuses to get more police people. and other departments are doing similar things. it is something to be a big ask.

the soul of policing are the people who did it. and a lot of people feel that not know most literal sense, a lot of cops will do that job for free, and that is gone now. there are some people left but most of that is gone. most people look at the job and danger and the potential for being reputation lee damaged, criminalized -- reputationally damaged and criminalized. we are using -- losing a lot of valuable time, maybe the country is not because of the pandemic or 9/11, but we need to reckon with these issues and we have lost a lot of ground, there has not been affirmative conversation about going into poor neighborhoods and protecting those communities and there has been a privatization of the security. the less the police are involved you see the privatization of security. it looks like every other person in the street is a security guard at this point and now you

see tussles with the big bust -- big box stores you see a lot of tensions and things under lock and key, stores that are closing, even up in alaska i am hearing that walmart almost close a store because $1 million of theft in a short period of time. the stores are falling more and more anti--- are installing more antitheft devices. host: john -- dana in flint michigan, you are next. caller: good morning. i am not a professional, so -- but i am sincerely concerned about criminal justice in this country. i do not put anything past putin putting his little agents, so to speak on our land to introduce weapons to our community, both

through the internet, and on the street and on the ground. we can also offer an incentive for college students to donate two or three years to their life to help lower their student loan debt by volunteering to be paid police officers with a living wage for two years, three years and encourage people in their communities to become police officers. and as far as these guns that are being offered to our community is through the internet, i think that foreign entities have something to do with that as well, making those weapons available to our youth. the money is coming from somewhere, we need to track that down and really have a heart-to-heart talk to ourselves and communities about our souls because we are in a war. and if we can get that together and encourage people to become police officers for two to three

years to help with their employment situation for a while and then get back into their education as far as pursuing education to have a paid living wage, 15, 10 to $1215 living wage. in new york and california the cost of living, people will need a little bit more money. concentrate on history, civics, social studies within our communities, if not at the middle school or junior high school level, certainly at the college level and understand we need to teach our communities to be smarter people. host: eugene o'donnell? guest: that is a great comment and a lot to pick up on. with civics i think a lot of the undermining the police is based

on a lack of civic knowledge and education. she also reference the idea that threats come at all potentials and all sizes and places that we can for see and places that we cannot. police have been an insurance policy for that. nobody saw the pandemic, most everybody did not see the pandemic coming and 9/11 came out of the blue. what is the next catastrophic event and it is unfortunate to think along those lines. we have never seen a broader threat environment than what we have seen today whether it is biological threats or terrorism threats. that is a lot to chew on. like john jay college of criminal justice, it was developed in the 1960's with the idea of having college-educated police people. regrettably we are in a position where no police department can require a college degree, they would not get anybody to sign up if they do. host: dale in annapolis. good morning.

caller: good morning to mr. o'donnell and c-span. i have a question. i know that police have a terrible high-risk job, and i know they are drastically underpaid. but when i see a situation like in michigan where the officer shot the gentleman and -- that he had on the ground in the back of his head, you have to ask yourself how does something like that escalate to where he is actually executing someone? also remember that this is just to me a gun crazed nation. we were founded by the gun. if you look on tv, every movie you see, it is either some type of automatic weapon or some type of weapon. it is bad. i am a responsible gun owner,

but also, sometimes you do not want to be stuck up in your house and worried if someone will break in or you step out in the street to pay bill and somebody is going to rob you. i think the politicians need to actually grow a pair and get some nerve up against the nra. because i look at the school shooting i think it was up at massachusetts where all of those little kids got killed. and if you are not going to do anything about that, you are not gonna help us at all. guest: thank you. i would just add, listen, we have 800,000 police officers and a lot of people are not cut out for the work, so you will have difficulty. a serious conversation is where you get the people from. at the same time we have to be honest about this. i have never seen the community not get this.

the community gets this. it is the elitists that took the conversation over. the police traverse the most dangerous street. i have seen 10 to 20 people cut down in the street. and then police people are in that environment and that does not excuse their abuse. and then in places that are totally in safety deal with shootings. you have a shameful level of violence and that involves -- and it bears speeding -- repeating that it targets african-american to -- african american kids and people and they are more than 6% of the homicides. the community has always been responsive and understanding, but we have this advocacy thing and this think tank takeover,

this distorted messaging that suggests that the united states can be like sweden. we could be if we did not have -- just looking at senator booker who took some unfair shots at the police. he represented a city where one hospital had 6000 shooting victims in 10 years but he tried to use the police as a foil and there were other elected officials that did that. it would be helpful if he and his colleagues would join the conversation going on right now and we just heard people talking about how to build back and create from the bottom up the safety infrastructure and maybe incentivizing college people to get into the police business and trying to create technological approaches to protect the poorest and most vulnerable people. host: william in hydro, oklahoma. caller: i am a little bit concerned in this situation with

trust with the police. the relationship between citizens and the police. it seems as though that police are able to lie to the citizen, but it is illegal for a citizen to lie to the police. that is a breach of integrity. yes, the citizen should never lie to the police, but it should not be possible or legal for an investigator, a cop on the beat or whoever to lie to the citizen to obtain a certain objective. like debate them into -- to bait them into a statement to use against them by lying to anybody, and so i am very concerned about that. it should be illegal for any law enforcement officer to lie to the citizen. regardless of what they believe being -- the end justifies the means.

i will take my comments off of the air. guest: lying is a device that police use when investigating serious crime. they have had the tools in their toolbox taken away and it is a shortsighted measure by elected officials to grandstand. but that has done is caused more insecurity in communities and at the end of the day, if political system does, the police are going to fall into line. yes, there are terrible homicides in which to get to the truth police in some cases lie to people, not to get innocent people to incapacitate themselves. there are exceptional cases that get highlighted by that but it is a case to get the truly guilty to get held accountable. what one of the byproducts of this conversation about policing is and police risk is that you

see clearance rates going lower and lower and there are some cities that virtually clear no homicides at all, not only to the police have to notify that there -- people that their loved ones have been killed that there is no chance that that person will be brought to justice. you can do a victory lap with which looks like the innocence project getting outside attention for a relatively small number of provable false convictions, but the biggest problem in the country is the unsolved, horrible crimes that take place against people where there is absolutely no potential that anybody will be brought to justice. host: eugene o'donnell, thank you for the conversation with our viewers. guest: thank you. host: we will take a short break and when we come back we will turn our attention to climate change. we will talk with any news white house reporter scott waldman. we'll be right back. ♪

>> sunday on q&a we talk about "the right: the 100 year war for american conservatism." >> you see a through line of figures who have a popular -- populism that is negatively charged that is conspiratorial, that is pointing to scapegoats, and that often can lead to places where they are arguing not only against the left, they begin arguing against america itself, that is the danger for the right. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen to all of our

podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> in jeffrey frank's recent book called "the trials of harry s. truman" at his low point he was 16% popular. 70 years later he was ranked sixth most effective of the 46 u.s. presidents according to the latest c-span survey. jeffrey frank's career includes professional years at "the washington post" has written the furl's -- the first full account of the treatment presidency. the subtitle reflects the theme of the biography "the extraordinary presidency of an ordinary man 1945 to 1953." >> author jeffrey frank on book notes+ available on the c-span

app or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ this mother's day give mom the gift of c-span during our annual mother's day sale going on right now at c-spanshop.org. save 30% on home decor, accessories and apparel. there is something for every fan and every purchase helps our operations. c-span's mother's day sale going on at c-span-- c-spanshop.org. scan the code to get shopping. >> "washington journal" continues. host: with us is scott waldman the white house reporter with e&e news to talk about the biden administration's climate change agenda. let us begin with president biden today, where will he be and what will he be announcing? guest: he is in seattle,

washington and the big initiative that he is rolling out is to protect old-growth forests. they are phenomenal carbon sinks, they store carbon dioxide and put out oxygen. they are a natural tool. he wants to use mother nature to fight climate change and protecting old-growth forests are a of that. force account for 10% of the carbon uptake, about 10% of our emissions so they are an important way. they are one two in the arsenal. host: how much land are we talking about? guest: they have not given the exact acreage and there is a sticking point over the definition and exactly what that means. the logging industry has a lot of sensitivity and a call with reporters the white house told us that they expect to make the definition itself first before they put all of the mechanisms in place to put that plan and that can take months to define what they mean when they say

old-growth forests and then after that they will conduct a survey to determine how many we have. within a year we will know how much old-growth we have in the country. host: do you expect the logging industry to fight this? guest: yes. anytime you talk about old-growth the logging industry will talk about economic hit. obviously we have seen a significant shortage in lumber in this country which is actually partially due to climate change, a lot of the lumber from western canada has been affected by a type of beetle -- moving northwards because of climate change as well as drought. that is one of the reason that lumber prices are high. host: not all of it is due to the pandemic? guest: there are multiple factors, the pandemic cut supply chains, i was putting a deck on my house and i had to keep going back to the store to get to the pressure treated lumber because a lot of those facilities -- which is slow down because a lot

of those facilities closed. host: leading up to the earth day announcement what has the administration done by executive order? guest: when biden claimant to office -- claim into office he issued a climate change executive order. he blocked the keystone pipeline which would bring crude oil across the u.s. to the southern coast for refinement, and that was one of the biggest things he has done. they put in restrictions to reduce methane in the oil and gas sector. one of the most notable things that the administration has done is expand offshore wind. we are going to have a boom in offshore wind in this country. we are so far behind europe in the sense and this will bring us over many years into more parity with europe. host: earlier this week, he reversed the trump administration's striking of environmental impact in any

government decision. previously they had to look at the environmental impacts and that is right? guest: the national environmental protection act, trump rolled that back, that shows you have to do some environmental study before you build a highway or something like that. now the biden administration is putting those protections back in place, and in other words when the government, local or federal, wants to build a new bridger road they have to consider the climate and how might the future climate affect the project and that needs to be part of the planning. it makes sense from a planning perspective, it is good planning, accounting for climate change. if we are putting a road on a coastline in florida we would like to know that it will be there in 30 years rather than spending of billions of dollars to put it in right now. host: it is a cost to businesses. guest: there is and it has been slow to get these environmental studies and assessment on

oftentimes takes years for projects. businesses have long been very frustrated by that. certainly there is vast room for improvement when it comes to streamlining the projects. host: on the infrastructure bill and the white house and climate change, their included provisions, 50 billion for climate resilience and weatherization, $60 billion for great advancements. $55 billion to expand access to clean drinking water. $21 billion to clean up sites and cap orphaned oil and gas wells. how long will it take to get these proposals in place? guest: the money is starting to flow out the door now, we are already seeing a rapid deployment of the electrical vehicle charging stations which is an important part of the infrastructure we need to build in order to expand clean

vehicles in this country. other parts of the bipartisan infrastructure law, the funding is slower to get out the door. it will certainly be meaningful amounts of money spent in the next four years that are going to make a difference. overall the package will not get us to what biden's goal was when he first came to office, which was to cut and decarbonized and to cut emissions in half by 2050. those are ambitious, but right now we are not on the track. host: what we get the united states on the track? guest: the biggest taking point is the $500 billion and $555 billion in clean energy tax credits that were included as part of the build back better plan which is now dead, but they are hoping that at least that one provision can be

resurrected, and i think joe manchin indicated that he will. that money will make a huge difference in terms of getting us to net zero grid in 2035 or at least towards the 2050 emissions reduction goal of cutting it in half, just because it makes it on the local level and individual person it makes it easier for you to buy a car if you are getting a $10,000 tax credit. ev's are out of reach for most people. if you are going for a car, prices are already high, do i want to pay $20,000 additional for an electric vehicle? that market is geared towards luxury cars at this is the way it becomes something the average person can afford. vehicles and transportation accounts for a chunk of our admission -- re: emissions. if we can roll out more ev's we can make a cut. host: 550 million in the build back better? consider that number with the first numbers that we read, 50

billion for climate resilience, what does that mean? guest: that is for individual homes, i have a 100-year-old home and i think it is pretty common for there are gaps between your windows and between the old doors as the floor settle and that kind of stuff. weatherizing your home is maybe getting new windows, at their addicts sealed so you are not losing heat or air conditioning. energy efficiency has been an important climate strategy and weatherization is part of that strategy. host: companies as well? guest: commercial buildings especially especially. this is a kind of thing where you go to a place like d.c. or wherever there is a lot of tall buildings, they cost millions to retrofit one of the older buildings, they could also say tremendous amounts of energy as well. host: 65 billion dollars for

clean energy and grid related investments. guest: that is an important part of the infrastructure. transmission does not get talked about enough when we talk about our future and how we have to bring more clean energy online. it is the first step in the highway for the electricity to flow and there is not even close to being enough of it and right now it is really expensive to build, it is not a sexy thing for politicians to say i helped fund these huge lines that go across the mountains that connect whatever, the solar grid over here to this community over here, but it is important to our future, and that is just a drop in the bucket in terms of what we need. host: a caller from democratic -- from north carolina. caller: i wish to speak to this gentleman and the gentleman will listen. mother earth is the most important thing in the world, you should not be cutting down any more trees, you should not

be putting krapp all over this earth in this continent, in the united states, you call for five to 10 centuries and handed you a great present when you took it from us, and you polluted it to death, you are poisoning the people of the world. please understand that. host: let's talk about recycling in this country. the trash in this country, and the amount of plastic used in this country. is there any effort from the obama -- from the bided administration on that front? guest: the administration is definitely leading towards increasing recycling and this is something that has always been of interest to democratic presidents. even in the trump administration they wanted to expand recycling.

right now the economics are challenging. we are shipping a lot overseas. china put a lot of tariffs on it became untenable for china to buy our old plastic and aluminum. right now is the main barrier to recycling. a lot of cities collect recycling and it goes into the dump rather than being recycled. the world market, it has been a dirty little secret of recycling that we ship it to china or india and they might stick it away and fill themselves. they have different standards when it comes to reusing that material. host: elizabeth, in maryland, independent. caller: there are no buses where i live. i live in a small town in maryland. i need electric buses for transportation where i live so badly. biden is doing a great job with

the climate. i wish he would shore up the national parks. there needs to be more electric buses in small towns and rural areas in america. guest: that color is right. i'm from northern baltimore county. i know that area well. with electric vehicles and electric buses there are hundreds of millions of dollars for electric buses. it will probably start in larger cities. we will see more electric school buses. buses use diesel and that is a tremendous pollution source. host: let's go to georgia. david, democratic color. -- democratic caller. caller: i would like to know --

the practices that they use. i know there's a lot they cannot cut within several feet of a live tree. we had some timber cut -- we had some come in does two years ago and they cut all of these. i asked them, why are you cutting all of those. all of these types are scattered everywhere. host: i think we heard your point. guest: that is a constant back and forth with any presidential administration. i know president trump wanted to rollback a lot of restrictions, bided once to put them back in. -- biden wants to put them back

in. georgia is ground zero for lopping for wood pellets and a lot of that goes to europe. i think we will see further crackdowns on the industry in the u.s. on cutting forest to produce wood pellets. host: texas, thomas, and independent. caller: i know how the lady feels. in houston if you go out of town there are no buses. i do not know why the united states does not have high-speed rail to take thousands of cars off the freeway. what i wanted to ask, why don't you have direct payments to the citizens so they do not have to worry about the grid as much, even though it is very important. just give them the money.

give it directly to the citizens. thank you. guest: that is part of the biden administration strategy that people would have the money available to them. it is fairly substantial, particularly in places like washington, d.c. some cities have added additional tax credits on top of that. where you live it is important to see if you qualify for local federal tax credits. first they have to get the $550 billion through congress. host: pennsylvania, nicholas, democrat. welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you for c-span. this issue of renewable energy, i am 50 some years old. i remember when jimmy carter was in the presidency and he put the

solar panels up on the white house, it was the oil issue. i am sick of this oil issue. i do not know why we are not on renewable power by now. we subsidize these oil companies . they built an electric car in the 1970's. people love the car, chrysler took it off the market. we are still going to war for oil. i am sick of it. now you have joe biden. i am a liberal democrat. i do not understand why is it he has a bad taste in his mouth when it comes to mentioning elon musk and tesla. he gave a speech about electric cars that ford chrysler will be putting out in elon musk has built tesla in america, he supports american workers and american products, but for some

reason the democrats are not supporting him. he has created space-x so now we can have our own space program to send our astronauts up into space, and i do not understand. this guy is doing a lot of positive things for our country, so we cannot support him, but we support your oil companies. host: where are we with renewables? guest: to go to his point about oil and gas companies and why we are not on renewables back to the days of jimmy carter, there has been tremendous investment by the oil and gas companies into fighting against any sort of expansion of renewable energy , including up to today. they tremendous logging in washington and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to weaken any sort of clean energy policy. that is a primary obstacle to why we do not have it right now. you can look at congress, joe

manchin has stood in the way of the build back better plan. he personally killed it. he went on fox news and killed it, and he has raked in donations from the oil and gas industry ever since he took this more aggressive stance, as well as from the mining industry. host: kathy in new york, republican. caller: good morning. i live in the hills of western new york and i can see windmills in every direction and i saw a big wind farm when it was being built. i've a quiet road, mostly farm traffic. when they were building them they had to widen the roads, make access roads, traffic all the time, one blade on a huge tractor-trailer. i am wondering, they are up late -- they are ugly. i do not think we are ready -- we cannot make a new windmill from the windmill. we cannot have factories. when we crushed all of those cars, was just a waste because

you had to build all new cars and did not change much. the grid is not efficient. our cars more efficient than the grid? we are pushing all of pirates -- we are pushing all this money into this stuff? are we going to have to close our factories? i remember in the 1970's windmills were not an acceptable thing. the problems have not been solved. you have to dig transmission lines, you lose farmlands and trees in their off-line all the time. we are not even getting the electricity here. i want to know if we are ready -- we want to make the change, but we have the technology or do we need to get the drawing block ? everyone has a furnace, everyone has a car, all the farm equipment runs on gas, all of the equipment needed to

transport everything to build the windmill. you cannot use huge trucks on electric. i'm wondering if we are ready. thank you so much. guest: this is not a thing we can turn off using fossil fuels tomorrow or next year or even five years, but we can move in that direction. i know western new york was in the wind turbines. i covered energy in new york for years. the wind turbines will always be controversial, just like the gas fracking wells. new york block fracking years ago but wet with wind turbines in western new york -- if there were not wind turbines in western new york in southern new york there would be fracking wells everywhere. all kinds of challenges with that industry. wind turbines have gone through leaps and bounds in terms of technology and how much more efficient and how much better they are.

no one wants them in their backyard is why the u.s. is trying to put them offshore, when they would not be visible. that is an untapped potential for this country, which the biden administration is rolling out. that may be one of the biggest climate achievements if i didn't leaves office in three years or seven years. host: james in missouri, democratic caller. caller: as far as the climate agenda i see so much good in terms of job creation. back on the fossil fuels, that is the thing. the greed of the oil companies do not want to change because this will hit them in the pocket. it is so clear to see it is good. if you have corrupt people they're are trying to line their pockets with what is available now instead of dealing with what

is good futuristic late, there is a problem. host: let's talk about jobs. what is the evidence? guest: it does. there is a huge part of the bided administration selling -- but huge part of the biden administration selling plan. we manufacture wind turbines in the u.s. but we are importing a lot of parts. there are opportunities to expand those factories. there is a gold rush in terms of electric vehicles and expanding those factories into multiple states there will be mining needed to get lithium and other materials needed to bring the batteries for ev's. they're all kinds of new jobs that do not currently exist or exist in limited numbers that we will need in the future. also installation of wind turbines as well as solar panels. host: what happens to the batteries? guest: battery recycling is a

huge question that needs to be answered. it is possible to recycle them, just like when you turn your old iphone in, they strip out some of the critical minerals and rare earth materials used. there are parts that are recyclable. to use energy, there will be infrastructure somewhere, which nobody really wants in their backyard. there is pollution when you make a solar panel. nothing in comparison to the pollution when it blows up off the coast of florida and the gulf of mexico and causes a massive oil week that lasts for weeks and months. host: doug, republicans. good morning. caller: doug smith. i was just curious about the lithium, the impact of mining lithium and the limited amount of resources and the fact that

batteries only last six years. i buy a car now, most of my cars last 10 or 15 years, but with these batteries only lasting seven or eight years, i have to replace the car a lot sooner than i expected. i was just wondering what they are thinking about that. guest: the battery technology is rapidly improving. it is not true that the batteries in ev's die in six or seven years. almost all of the materials for these batteries come from overseas, especially from china, also from russia. recycling -- it is not that your

car is dead in your battery ends up in a landfill. it is worth a lot of money to recycle that battery and it will be part of our supply chain going forward. host: nick in phoenix, arizona. independent. caller: i want to bring up our water emergency. i am concerned because there is no set of limiting the usage of water for everyday usage. you do not see any commercials. it is like we are living in the farland and we are in a serious drought and our gop are too busy pointing fingers and trying to jury rig our voting situation than do any legislating and

changing the shortage of water we will be having. it is pretty bad. host: when you say rationing or eliminate water use for individuals, what about agriculture? caller: that is exactly why. you know how many guards are artificial? they have grass, which is not indigenous to the phoenix area. we live in a desert so you should have a desert landscape, low water usage. everyone waters their bonds and you see water spilling -- everyone waters their lawns, is a huge waste. guest: i empathize. i do not see any viable long-term plan emerging. no politician wants to be the one who made everyone get rid of their lawns. if you look at lake powell it is alarming to see those images.

i remember going there 20 years ago it was this lush landscape, you cannot imagine it would be at the level it is now and it will be worse next year. politicians in the southwest need to have some sort of viable long-term plan. i do not see it. politicians often live for the next election cycle, not what might be worthwhile 10 to 20 years from now. if that policy is put in place today, i'm not sure what the future is for that region. the expansion of nevada and las vegas, phoenix is expanding tremendously, i do not know what the plan is. host: you are referencing the colorado water basin which is impacting all of the states you just mentioned. host: martin in new jersey, democratic caller. caller: i wanted to find out, is it true there are hydrogen fuel cells that could be beneficial?

guest: yes. those breakthroughs are substantial. here is another opportunity for the oil and gas industry. there are different ways to make hydrogen gas. right now the most widely used hydrogen is made with fossil fuels. you're going to see a lot of talk around hydrogen, and if you look at someone like joe manchin who has had a lot of opposition to climate policy, he leans in the hydrogen. he is trying to establish a hydrogen hub in west virginia. he wants coal to manufacture the power of the hydrogen. the administration is trying to ramp up green hydrogen. it is not produced in scale but made using renewable energy at the most fuel-efficient and most environmentally friendly version of hydrogen. we will have a future where cars are running on hydrogen. is that a future where cars are

running on hydrogen produced from fossil fuels? that is the direction we are heading now. green hydrogen, the technology needs to be developed for it be deployed at scale. this is also an important window and every time i write about hydrogen i get somebody from the oil and gas industry reaching out to talk about how promising it is and they are talking about a different thing that i think joe biden is when he talks about hydrogen. host: oregon, republican. caller: i am calling because i live in an area where there is an old hydro dam, right up the road that is decommissioned for the last 30 years we have lived here. we used to get all of our power from that dam. just a little dam on the little creek, does not take anything to run it.

i don't understand why nobody talks about hydro as far as water use, water power of electricity. the other thought i have is why can't we have pipelines of water instead of pipelines of oil? thank you. guest: those are good questions. to go to the hydro dams, there are tons of unused hydro capacity in this country come and recommissioning some of those dams or converting smaller ones is absolutely an important climate strategy. i have not heard a lot of talk of it from this white house, but i know they are looking at that. it is hard to build a new dam, you have to secure significant property rights in the environmental cost of building a new dam is substantial. i think there is tremendous capacity for reusing the underutilized hydro in this country. host: let's go to dave in ohio.

independent. what is your question or comment on the biden administration's climate change agenda? caller: i think they got off to a bad start by giving up our ability to be energy independent. i believe there could have been a gradual transfer into renewable energy. the shutdown of the oil pipelines and importing oil from iran and places we do not want to have to deal with was a mistake. my main question today was -- wind farms are known to be destroying a lot of birds. if democratic administrations are so obsessed with environmental pollution control

-- which i'm ok with, i think we need to keep the climate clean and keep the environment clean. are they willing to start sacrificing thousands and thousands of birds across the country? i have read recently some eagles have been killed. guest: that is one of the challenges of wind power, certainly. just look at the oil spill from bp from years ago. how many birds died from that, hominy fish, how may dolphins? the costs are staggering. the same thing when an oil pipeline ruptures, which happens regularly. it is a terrible cost, losing eagles to wind turbines. it pales in comparison to our almost total reliance on fossil fuels right now. host: stephanie in north dakota. we have a few minutes left. go ahead.

caller: i would like to discuss the possibilities of hemp. i did not hear anyone go that way on the program today. it benefits farmers, it benefits carbon capture, it benefits the society altogether. i would like to know what your take is on it. lagos is going to him. it can produce plastics, it is stronger than cement, it is a better insulator. why aren't we going that way? guest: is a good point. there is certainly tremendous potential. at scale it is not a climate solution but it is certainly good for the environment to replace plastic with hemp. i imagine the issue is cost. plastic is made from fossil fuels.

compared to how much does a lego cost from hemp. growing hemp at a wider scale would bring those costs down. host: colorado, sean, republican. good morning. caller:. colorado we are ranchers and callow vehicle, do you think electric vehicle will be able to plow snow, pull cattle? we are getting killed with the diesel prices and the bite administration is in the pocket of china. this china thing is a hoax -- this climate thing is a hoax. guest: the fossil fuel industry has spent a lot of money confusing people about the causes of climate change. they have done it for decades. climate change is real. it is not a hoax. the folks that say that are not scientists where they are scientists that have received funding from the industry and work for a think tank that works against environmental

regulations. it is a good point to talk about how a farmer might use an electric vehicle. the ford f1 50, the electric version, the lightning, i think they thought they were going to sell 50,000, they already have 200,000 orders. it has the same amount of torque as the regular f-150. i do not know if you have driven and f-150, but their estimate is potential. there is a long way to go, but using electric vehicles as work trucks is part of the future and a good way to save yourself money on distal -- on diesel. we are seeing amazon investing in its truck fleet, heavy trucks that are ev's that will be hauling goods to our houses. there is a huge market for electric work vehicles and trucks. host: reading, pennsylvania. mark, democratic caller. caller: i would like to say, for

those remember their school days , the earth is basically a terrarium. we are living in a self-contained bubble in the cosmos. whatever we pump into the atmosphere, into the water, there is no vent, there is no escape hatch to let the bad stuff out. god gave us a beautiful earth and he would not be happy with how we are trashing it in order to make money. also recently i read an article concerning a project in michigan where they were pumping water uphill to a higher elevation and letting it float downhill to turn turbines. why can't more money be spent on something like that? i think biden is trying his best and i think mostly the democratic party is behind environmental controls to keep the climate from changing so rapidly. host: will take your point. guest: is a good point.

we are rapidly increasing this planet, we are rapidly heating up this planet with the burning of fossil fuels and it is causing tremendous damage around the globe. we have seen villages in alaska get relocated because of rising seas, we have seen people in louisiana, entire communities wiped out. that is just the very beginning. host: ron in kentucky, republican. caller: thank you. your program is great. i have a question. obviously pollution is a big concern that everyone is talking about, carbon emissions. i know we are presumably responsible for most of it. the question i have is, with science, why can't we get the scientists to do and create machinery that can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen in the same way our trees do it?

the other question i had is if we are responsible for climate change and have been aggravating it but we are not the primary cause. if someone can explain to me why all of the glaciers across the north american continent melted many thousands of years ago, then i will say, that was long before henry ford built a car. host: i will leave it there because -- we want to thank you for the conversations this morning. we will end. sorry to do it abruptly, but happening in georgia is marginally taylor green testifying about a challenge to her candidacy for reelection in george's seventh congressional district. the judges in the chair so i want to go there now. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]