tv Washington Journal 05052022 CSPAN May 5, 2022 6:59am-10:02am EDT
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journal," we discuss the state of the media. then we talk about the federal reserve's interest rate increase . ♪ host: good morning, it is may 5, 2022. the house continues to be on a district work. to -- a district work period. president biden yesterday offered a stinging assessment of what he called the maga republicans and the maga agenda. we are taking time to focus on that slogan former president trump popularized. we want to know what it means today and how would you identify
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the maggot agenda -- the maga agenda. democrats can call 202-748-8000. republicans call 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. you can also send us a text to 202-748-8003. include your name and where you are from. on twitter it is @cspanwj. on facebook, facebook.com/c-span. a very good thursday morning to you. you can start calling in now. we are talking about the maga agenda. this following president biden's remarks is today which he calls the maga crowd the most extreme lyrical group in macon history. this is after the supreme court looking to settle the mississippi abortion case this
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is president biden yesterday. [video clip] pres. biden: this is more than just abortion this remind me of the debate with rob work. he believed the only reason you had any inherent rights is because the government gave them to you. if you look at the opening comments, i said i believe i have the rights i have not because the government gave them to me, which you believe, but because i am a child of god, i exist. i delegate some rights i have to the government for social good. the idea that somehow there is the inherent right that there is no right of privacy. we had a debate about griswold versus connecticut.
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there was a law saying a married couple could not purchase birth control in their own home and use it. that was struck down. what happens if you have states change the law saying that children who are lgbtq cannot be in classrooms with other children? is that legit under the way the decision is written? what are the next things that are going to be attacked? this mag a -- this maga is the most a stream political organization that has existed in rigid history. host says that host: that was president biden from the white house. he mentioned the maga agenda several times yesterday. plenty of reaction from the press and social media.
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this from the new york post calling it "biden's most extreme maga malarkey." "as for the term "most extreme" how did biden ignore the wing of his own party that was to defund the police as racist and the abolish ice crowd. also, the end of all fossil fuel emissions without having any alternatives." biden's bid to paint it is the first salvo in a host cell remaking of america is a desperate attempt to change the subject from soaring inflation, a virtually open border, advising crime. the editorial board from new york post, their reaction calling it 202-748-8002 -- calling it maga malarkey. we want to know what maga means to you. what is the maga agenda?
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it is 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8002, independents. christian, you are up first. caller: the maga agenda is simply putting america first. that is what donald trump said he was going to do before he got into office when he was campaigning in 2015 into 2016. if you watched his generate 20th of 2017 speech, he literally said, "from now on it is going to be america first. america first." that has been the focus. whether you are talking about the border or parental rights or
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jobs or training for american workers, prioritizing american workers first. whether you are talking about trade with the second amendment -- about trade or the second amendment, that is putting america first. the first amendment is also a very integral part of that. it is a focus on american citizens. that is what has been missing year after year and decade after decade. before donald trump, we did not have that. now the republican party is growing more than it ever has been before because we have a strong leader who has taken a stance. we did not have that with the bushes and the cheneys.
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those people were not america first, but now we have that. host: from charleston, south carolina, the line for democrats. how do you define maga? caller: racism. that is all it is. how can you have a person in charge who has criminal tendencies? you know? i don't understand where these people are coming from. you want him take over the government. he believe in philistines, things that are not in reality.
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the problem with america is that maga is being misguided. they know it. it is just, that is their mentality. of course, america first, but who in america? we are not talking about people who want to strive and progress in life and live to the fullness of their creator. these people are confused. host: rich out of long island, republican. what does maga mean to you? caller: how are you doing? host: good. caller: it means putting america first. strong military, a good economic
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situation, energy dependent, just being a leader in this world, not allowing america to be the world's piggy bank. that is what is happening on this current administration. as far as the last caller, he is confused. the ones that are racist and playing the race card are the democrats and liberals. they keep plane to the right -- they keep saying to the right. whatever the left tells you that the right is doing is what the left is doing. that goes down to the russian collusion with hillary clinton. it is unbelievable. host: you said it is putting america first. president biden's comments came after she was asked a question about the abortion debate in this country.
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what is the putting america first position when it comes to the abortion debate? caller: the supreme court was overturning roe v. wade so the states could determine what rights people have her particular state -- have her particular state -- per particular state. we know the clerk who late to politico was a leftist. host: we are not sure the clerk has been identified yet. the court-martial who is taking up that investigation, but we appreciate the call. you talked about returning it to the states and the people of the states, this graphic from the new york times taking a look at the public opinion polling on those who support legal abortion and those who don't support legal abortion.
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the green states are states where support for legal abortion is plus 10 points in polling. you can see where those green states are her to the states that don't support legalized abortion. the orange states on that map are where those fall in at least 10 points or more on that category. janice is next out of benton harbor, michigan. what does maga mean to you? caller: exactly what it says, make america great again. i believe that was happening under president trump. with this new president we have, we become so ununited.
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it is terrible. that is about it. what's you're saying before about this abortion bill, i don't understand why people are getting so upset. all it is going back to the state. host: this is cap, line for immigrants -- line for immigrants. -- line for democrats. caller: he started stoking fear into people. he talked horrible about, starte kept videoing where racist comments were being said. saying, go back to mexico. and then down by the order, he created a children's genocide
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down by the border. there were children dying. he did not care. how dare he rip them from their parents. are you kidding me? the woman for formic talking about how we have never been so divided, really? after he was in office, this country was horrifying. i want to forgive those people marching. my daughter called me and she was terrified, she had never seen anything like that. maga to me is hatred, division, it is no good. host: kathleen in new york. looking at your comments on social media for this question, what does maga mean to you. "it targets those who cannot think for themselves."
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another viewer from twitter calling the maga agenda "killing people what freedom they can have." another saying "to the rhetorical intent, one has to define what exactly those positioning the phrase believe america was great." this from helen saying, "the best is to ask if it is a slogan from a past campaign or -- taking your tweets and phone calls, having this conversation today because president biden brought up the maga agenda, the maga crowd, referring to it several times and remarks from the roosevelt room, talking about economic issues.
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here is more from president biden yesterday. [video clip] pres. biden: the senator of florida is leading the national senate to a campaign committee called what he calls the ultra maga agenda. let me tell you about this ultra maga agenda. it is extreme, as most maga things are. it will raise taxes on 75 million american families over 95% of whom make less than $100,000 a year. among the hardest hit are working families, folks with kids. imagine you don't make enough money to pay federal taxes. you don't make enough money to pay them. you pay your taxes but you don't make enough heard under this new tax plan, the ultra maga agenda, while billionaires will pay nothing more, the working class folk are going to pay more.
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it goes further than that aired this action agenda calls for congress -- goes further than that. this action calls for congress -- it calls for a vote if it would pass and congress would have to vote to reinstate or eliminate social security, medicare, and medicaid. social security, something seniors have paid into four their whole life and it has to be reauthorized? it has to be reauthorized every five years? again, it is hard to make this up. but again, it is a maga agenda. host: president biden yesterday from the white house. he was referring to senator rick scott from florida, the head of the national republican senatorial committee. it was rick scott who was on fox news not long after those comments by the president
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responding to those comments. [video clip] >> he never talked about inflation. since he has been in office, and fishing has been up here we had a negative gdp. you see people struggling all across this country. there is a difference between my view of the world and his view. i am the biggest tax cutter in the senate right now. since joe biden got into politics, taxes have gone up on americans constantly. the debt went from under $1 trillion -- went to $30 trillion. this would take the country to $45 trillion and has massive tax increases on everybody. my plan is to reduce taxes but get everybody back to work. with regard to medicaid and medicare and social security, when i was governor of florida, on top of cutting taxes and
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reducing the debt of the state by one third, what i also did was fix a pension plan. joe biden since he has been around has made sure whether it is social security or medicare are in worse position every year. democrats don't want to fix it. social security goes bankrupt in 12 years. i want to have a conversation. let's fix these programs. people paid into social security. for the democrats are doing that joe biden is doing, he keeps passing the buck and watching these plans to go bankrupt. he will wait for the next senate to try to fix these things. what she just it was a complete lie. go to rescueamerica.com to see what i believe. we have got to rescue this country and not take it down joe biden's path. host: rick scott yesterday on fox news. another comment from former congresswoman tulsi gabbard, her
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reaction to president biden's statement. "biden sank the maga crowd the most extreme political organization is outrageous. no matter our political affiliation, we must condemn biden's effort to threaten those who oppose him into silence." this is one of the headlines from breitbart, "unity president goes scorched-earth warning about the maga movement." from townhall, "joe biden makes statement about trump supporter." talking about the reaction of joe biden talking about the maga crowd. we are asking you this morning, what does maga mean to you? from houston texas, what do you think? caller: i am a little upset
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about the concept of maga. making america great again is disturbing. i feel this country has always been amazing and has always showed resilience, innovation. it is because we are an immigrant population, a lot of what maga sources from is information that is demographic. we are looking at there will be more brown people than white people in the country. there are good people on both sides. i love this country very much. it saddens me to see the kind of thing that creates division for division's sick.
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-- division's sake. we stand together as americans. when we had the snowpocalypse and people were freezing to death, we came together as texans and as people. that is what it is all about in this country. i would take a minute to go off task and say george washington in his final address warned us about a two party nation and that admonishment has been ignored. i would encourage people who venerate george washington to go back and read his words. he did not tweet it. it is not a speech way rally. -- it was not a speech or a rally, he wrote a letter and it was published. host: carl on the line for democrats out of l.a., good
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morning. what does maga mean to do? caller: the last person stole my thunder, i agree with everything he said. it is any old slogan will look it up in the 50's -- the 1950's. according to rick scott, it is ridiculous. this guy was accused of stealing from medicaid. look it up. before he was anything in politics, he was ripping off. you are steering the conversation towards making us great fox news and all of these stations -- it is amazing. i have been watching this since the conception of this program, it is going downhill. i don't know what happened to mimi, this is ridiculous. i appreciate this program but it is going in the right direct--in the wrong direction.
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i love america. host: carl in california. this is ken in astoria. good morning. caller: good morning. i am part of maga nation. i absolutely love donald trump for what she did for the four years he was in under such extreme opticals -- extreme obstacles. i forded -- i voted for him twice and i hope to be voting for him three times. i think he was the greatest thing that ever happened to this country. host: edward, columbia station, ohio. what does maga mean to you? caller: the history of this
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country, no civics. i am 63. worked for intel for several years. i would still fight for this country today if we are being invaded. we know our history, we know the good and bad. the democrat party is the biggest divider. my commander-in-chief stands on stage yesterday, live for the whole country, and assess lies. the media is complicit with it. the guy is taxing everybody all across the country. we are going into recession. this guy lasted a year and destroyed this country and the democratic party. they doubled down on every losing policy they have had since day one. they want say they are wrong. there is more -- there are more kids killed on the border every
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day then there were with president trump. he puts the worst people in power positions. he won't fire anybody or get rid of them. host: that is edward out of ohio. we are talking about the maga agenda, what does maga mean to you? it is the slogan popularized by donald trump. donald trump in this midterm election cycle playing a role, endorsing candidates, especially in high-profile races, the senate race in ohio to replace rob portman, the republican primary. it was a closely watched one. to see the level of influence that donald trump maintains in his party. his candidate, j.d. vance, winning on tuesday night. this is j.d. vance talking about donald trump's endorsement.
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[video clip] >> i absolutely have got to think the 45th president of the united states, president donald j. trump. one example of what could be in this country. remember 2019 when wages were going up and not down? for member 2019 when workers were doing well in this country manon struggling? thanks to the president for everything for endorsing me. a lot of the fake news media, and there are some good ones and some bad ones, they wanted to write a story that this campaign would be the death of donald trump's america first agenda. this is not the death of the america first agenda. host: j.d. vance, they now republican senate candidate in ohio as the republican nomination going to the general
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election in november. a different republican view on donald trump and his role in the gop also from tuesday night, ireland governor larry hogan, the republican was at the reagan library and a california and he was talking about the future of the republican party. this is what larry hogan had to say. [video clip] >> i have always been a guy who tells it like it is. let me give it to you straight. a party that lost the popular vote in seven out of the eight last presidential elections and could not even beat joe biden is desperately in need of a course correction. the truth is, the last election was not rigged. it was not stolen. we simply did not offer the majority of voters what they were looking for. january 6 was not enthusiastic
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tourists is behaving, it was an outrageous attack on our democracy and cited by the losing candidates and inflammatory false rhetoric. the last four years with the worst four years for the gop since the 1930's. even worse than after watergate when ronald reagan had to rebuild the party from the ashes. we lost the white house, the senate, the house. we lost governor's seats and state legislative buddies. -- legislative bodies. i am tired of our party losing. as reagan understood, successful politics is the beneficiary of multiplication. we have been doing too much dividing and subtracting. ronald reagan was not afraid to criticize our party.
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he said don't be afraid to see what we see. reagan knew a major course correction was essential. if we were point to get back to winning elections and governing again. we all already know what must be done to return the republican party to a successful governing majority. we need to take on the powerful and entrenched democratic monopoly and when -- and win. we need to stand against the extremes and for the majority of americans. we need a hopeful, positive vision for america and a message that appeals to a broader group of voters. we need to convince voters we have the best ids -- steepest ideas and solutions. host: larry hogan, the republican of maryland, a speech at the reagan library. if you want to watch that in its entirety, you can do that on
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c-span.org. our question this morning, what does maga mean to you? having this conversation in the wake of president biden talking about the maga crowd and the maga agenda yesterday during his remarks. we want to know what you think the maga agenda is. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. from missouri, good morning. caller: i believe maga is about bringing back on and truth and the voice and power back to the people instead of the operations, cash instead of the -- instead of the corporations. i believe it means relying on the constitution for law is that of mob rule.
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we need to remove the hidden hand and allow ourselves to think for ourselves and be heard. the parties are a farce. the history of this country needs to be revisited. we need to look at what happened to the indigenous people and look at all aspects of migration. we are being told how to think about it, not being allowed to think about it. i believe donald trump and the maga movement is giving us that opportunity. i don't know if that is real or not, it could just be another ring in the onion. host: this is betty in the yellow hammer state. good morning. caller: i am in alabama. host: yes ma'am, in birmingham. caller: yes. what we are missing is that america don't know god.
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grifter tells us what is going on. it says that many will be deceived, many will believe a lie. they say what is right will be wrong, what is wrong will be right. america is the last nation to get it right. ungodly men will rule the nation, the nation will fall. that is what we have crime, inflation. many will believe a lie before they believe the truth. the book of revelation, everything is right there. this scripture, we never talk about god. one nation under god. satan is the prince of the earth. host: this is terry in cleveland, tennessee. what is the maga agenda? caller: he is just trying to
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cover-up the mistakes and failures he has been doing. we cannot keep going on like that because we are losing our self and we cannot keep sending money to these other countries. we are going to run out of even paper to print it on if you don't stop -- if he don't stop. host: tim in rochester, new york. democrat. good morning. caller: how are you doing? i am -- host: i am doing well. caller: the two time impeached president who lost his second term. his son-in-law got $2 billion from saudi arabia. you tell me what it is. it is crookedness. and it is kind of racism to me. make america great again, we are all immigrants. the only buddy who has -- the
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only people who have claim are native americans. it is crazy to me that the country would be like this. from the guy earlier -- it is what it is. host: now to the west coast, libya, washington. -- olympia, washington. kenneth, what does maga mean to you? caller: in america, we are so angry and so disappointed. it is easy to lump people into groups and say they are all like that. not every publican is part of the maga movement, not every maga person is racist. i think it is just a movement where people are angry. we want to try to do better right now. our wages are stagnant, everything else is going --
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if you have a decent job, it is difficult to get by paying rent and paying for gas and all that good stuff. i think we need to take a step back and tried to with each other. as an american and a veteran, i feel we all have a lot more in common than we disagree with. host: you say not every republican is part of the maga movement, how would you guess it would breakdown among your party? do you consider yourself art of the maga -- part of the maga movement? caller: i consider myself an american and a republican. i don't want to be in these groups. i think a lot of people being lumped into these groups are not maga people, they are just
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republicans and people who want to be better. host: do you think that group people are lumped into, does the group represent a majority of the republican party or no? caller: i don't. i totally disagree with that. i am out west and it is mostly to its but i talked to some republican people and some are upset and some love this move, some love donald trump. at the end of the day, a lot of us are really angry and trying to do something. not every republican, not anyone i know is lumped into this group. some are extreme. even ones who say they are part of the maga movement, it does not mean they are extreme or racist. i was just talking to one earlier today who had a maga hat on and it donald trump -- and a
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donald trump t-shirt. he was upset about the supreme court leak. host: what was he upset about particularly? caller: they thought they were trying to overturn roe v. wade decisions, something that has been there about 50 years. the people who did not like it learned to live with it. like i said, once it is there, it is difficult to change these laws once people get used to them. host: that is kenneth in washington. what does maga mean to you? phone lines for democrats and republicans, as usual. a reference to maga in a new book getting attention "this will not pass" by jonathan martin.
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it reveals which the white house was in the arm of the political campaign. the huffington post writes, "the former president kept a room next to the oval office filled with maga murch. you would take anything you would like. governor phil murphy quoted in that book. trump showed him the maga gift shop adjoining the oval office and he expected governors who wanted help with the pandemic to give him something in return." that is a story from the huffington post reporting from that book "this will not pass." michael in oklahoma city, oklahoma. democrat. good morning. what does maga mean to you? caller: that is a meaningless phrase.
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it looks like to me they just want to radicalize a minority of the republic which they have to. when i mean radicalize, i mean ready to use violence if they don't win an election. they are ready to use violence. another aspect of this abortion issue is that they want to send vigilantes to uphold their law. that is just not law and order. if republicans get into office, we are going to have two years of the hunter biden show. it will be impeach this person, impeached that. they have no agenda. their agenda is to radicalize
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this small minority. it is because they have this fear that they are becoming a minority. this is what christians -- this is white christians and they have perverted what jesus had to say to the world. host: we will head out to honolulu, hawaii. joe, good morning. republican. caller: my name is joe graves and i am a retired command sergeant from the u.s. army. i will keep my comments short and to the point. i think our biggest problem is our national debt of $30 trillion. nobody talks about it, congress does not discuss it. with that, today's my birthday and i am 63 years old. host: happy birthday, joe. caller: i will address this from my age forward. for social security, medicare,
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medicaid, there is going to be a line drawn and somebody on one side will get something and somebody on the others will get something else. host: so how does that fit into this idea of the maga agenda and how you view the maga agenda? host: i am a caller: -- i am a republican-- caller: i am a republican. i don't go into phrases, i go into what we do. i see the prices up, gas and inflation. that is democratic policy and i don't agree with that. i think we need to get our budget under control. we better decide how we are going to spend our money. neither party is doing that right now. thank you for your time. thank you very much. host: that is joe in the rainbow state. this is kevin in windsor, connecticut. caller: i think the biggest
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problem this country has is losing our democracy. i am surprised the guy from hawaii did not say that. these radical people want to take people's rights away, voting rights and abortion rights. the country is moving backwards into a dark place. you have these maga politicians, mccarthy and greene. they don't care about the country. that is about all i have to say. host: on maga politicians, it was paul gosar from arizona with this tweet saying "the establishment is working hard to tear down ultra maga loyalists like madison cawthorn, matt gaetz, and marjorie taylor greene because they are the people of the regime fears the most."
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bill, winnsboro, pennsylvania. what does maga mean to you "-- mean to you? caller: it means leaning towards the old through right-wing. i am referring to people who believe we should be all white christians, whether we are muslim or whatever we happen to be. maga means you are led by donald trump. no matter what, he is practically a god. i don't believe all republicans go along with all of this. sadly, the republican leadership is dominated by donald trump. host: you don't think it is all republicans? you think it is the majority of republicans? caller: it is not all republicans, i don't know about the majority.
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it is too many republicans. i think maga means -- a friend and i attended an anti-trump rally in the parking lot where trump gave a rally in hershey, pa. people screamed out there. we were instructed by our organizers to not react to the people. people cursed at us. i will never forget one woman got in my face, gave me both fingers and screamed obscenities at me. this is why i say these people are mean-spirited. they want to win at any cost. host: who were the organizers of
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that rally and why did you feel that was important to go to? caller: i could not really tell you who the organizers were. i just heard about it and i went. it was very small. my reason for going was that i wanted to publicly express that not everyone is falling behind donald trump, the new hitter. -- the new hitler. host: this is pam. good morning. what does maga mean to you? caller: it does not mean donald trump, it means policy to me. host: what policy specifically? caller: policies as far as immigration, legal immigration, the budget, our deficit, working
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on things that benefit the american taxpayer citizens. everybody that wants the country to be great again won't connect to that with donald trump. they just have a heartfelt feeling they want to see their country go back to the constitution and walk that out. host: that is pam in michigan on the economic issues. the federal reserve in their attempt to conquer inflation ok'd the biggest rate hike since the year 2000. the story from usa today, "the federal reserve raising its interest rate by half a percentage point, the largest since 2000 signaling bigger moves may be ahead as officials scramble to restore -- to ease
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spikes in inflation." this is chairman powell yesterday. [video clip] >> i would like to take this opportunity to speak directly to the american people. inflation is much too high and we understand the hardship it is causing. we are working to bring it back down. we have the tools we need and the resolve we need to restore price stability on behalf of american families and businesses. the economy and the country have been through a lot and have proved resilient. it is essential we bring inflation down if we are to have a sustained period of labor market positions that benefit all. from the standpoint of our congressional mandate to promote price stability, the current picture is plain to see. the labor market is extremity tight and inflation is too high. against this backdrop, the fomc raised its policy interest rate
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by half a percentage point anticipates ongoing increases will be appropriate. caller: -- host: chairman jerome powell yesterday with that announcement. stocks rallying after his comments. the dow jones covering -- closing 932 points higher, making it the largest one-day gain since november 2020. we will watch what happens on the stock markets today. back to your phone calls, what does maga mean to you? that is our question in light of comments from president biden about maga. this is terry in ocean island beach, north carolina. caller: it meant make america great again. that is what president donald trump was doing until he got cheated out of the last election.
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now we have the swamp creatures throwing us down again, high inflation, gas, food prices. all caused by joe biden. i cannot call him president. he is a creep. nancy pelosi and chuck schumer, we have to drain them all out. host: this is robert in falls church, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. the maga crowd is hilarious. they are overflowing with narcissism and sociopathy. they talk about make america great again which is hilarious because if you are not losing in life on your own, you would realize america was doing great. they talk about going back to the constitution but trump violated so many constitutional policies, profited off of the office. you want to talk about draining the swamp, there has never been
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a darker, murkier swamp then went president trump was in office. the hypocrisy is unbelievable. these are the lowest common denominator of american citizens. they are unintelligent, emotionally fragile -- host: are you describing the entire republican party this way when you talk about the maga crowd? is it a small minority? a majority of the party? argue directing your comments at every publican in america? caller: i would say everything is a sliding scale, there is little pure black or pure white. there are shades of gray. the more you are into maga, the worse you are. there are republicans who have ideology differences. that is fine.
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if you can come to a table and discuss i think we should have this policy over that policy, if you can have an actual conversation, you are not the lowest common denominator. when you talk about lock them up and hang them high and all of this wild west cowboy nonsense, this false fantasy of going back to a time when the united states was not great -- pre-civil rights protections and free clean air act? -- and free -- pre-clean air act? host: what does maga mean to you? caller: good morning, how are you? host: doing well, sir. caller: i wanted to call in and add my comments to this. the caller from michigan, pam,
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she hit the nail on the head as far as issues bring priority when it comes to republicans. not necessarily social issues, but things like infringing on the liberties promised to us people here. this movement, when it came along, i have been a republican all my life and going back some 40 years. this movement came along and it had issues i agreed with. it is something a lot of republicans adopt it -- republicans adopted because it meant preserving liberties and things like freedom of speech.
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we have this new bureaucracy despite an administration -- we have this new your accuracy i guess, and administration of truth. it is nothing -- we were all on board for energy independence. the american people have been talking about that for years. donald trump made it happen and now we are going back to relying on other nations. my last comment and then i will let you go, president biden when the plane went down in shanksville, president biden was making a comment that democratic
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policy was not the way to go. putin and president she -- president xi jinping said authoritarian government is the way to go. host: when you talk about the ministry of truth, i think you're talking about the disinformation governance board being created at the department of homeland security. it was alejandra mayorkas who was on capitol hill yesterday and senator james lankford questioning him about the disinformation governance board. >> we have a practical question here -- [video clip] >> we have a practical question here. we don't have a definition of what it does. the fbi already does this and the person you tapped to lead the campaign has been outspoken on tiktok and twitter with disinformation, especially on election issues.
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we are responding to something unknown and what we do know is disinformation. why should we not have suspicions? >> i will say two things. senator, you mentioned the department of state and the fbi already do this work. so does the department of homeland security. the department of homeland security has been doing this work for years, addressing disinformation that poses a threat to the security of our homeland. whether it is rusher in the cyber domain, disinformation with respect to the resources fema provides to the most vulnerable people in the wake of a natural disaster. whether it is addressing smuggling organizations and their disinformation to vulnerable migrants who received disinformation and are goaded into coming to the border under
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false pretenses. that work has been underway for years and years. what this group is to do is ensure that work is performed in a way consistent with the law. it does not infringe on freedom of speech, right to privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. it is going to establish what should have been established years ago, standards, definitions, guidelines, and policies. host: that is alejandra mayorkas yesterday on capitol hill. if you want to watch that hearing, you can do so on our website. a few minutes left in this segment. we have been asking in the wake of president biden's comments about the maga agenda, what it means to you. this is elaine saying "i did not
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know what it was until i expressed what it meant to me. it is people who are pragmatic." "the maga agenda is responsible for the scotus circus act. president biden expressed hope to bring america together, 1.5 years later his strategy of yours to be unfolding into a campaign of fear and loathing." mary in cincinnati with this message, open boat maga is a plan foisted on american people manufactured by the truck organization to final power into their interests. it is a troubling social orientation feeding populist and nationalistic agendas." tom saying, " maga means the freedom to speak without being attacked and not having unconstitutional mandates forced on us."
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stephanie said "maga means white nationalism." time for a couple more of your calls. is it sammy in michigan? caller: it is shammy. host: go ahead. caller: what maga means to me -- the insanity we have been put through the last four or five years, it means the january 6 is a wreck, the attack on the capital. it means make americans grieve again, period. by the way, president biden, his cabinet, they are all a class act. they are all qualified people and they are trying to fix the last four years of the living hell that a tv entertainer put
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us through. everybody open up their eyes, start watching c-span to, watch your congressman in action and your senators in action. if you truly want to know what is being pushed through our government, watch them in action. then you will know who is deciding our policies, who is pushing for the people. otherwise, make america grieve again. that is what it meant to me. host: this is bob in broken bow, oklahoma. independent. good morning. host: we will go today no -- dana, rainbow city, alabama. we got 30 seconds. caller: it means going back to
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america where people were free. if you came here illegally, you got send back. you didn't have a government trying to tell you what kind of car you are going to drive, how much your cows could fart or bur p, and not taxing you on things you can't afford. host: dana, our last caller in this segment of "washington journal." later today, over the course of the next hour and a half, two views on the state of the u.s. media. up first, joined by accuracy in media president adam guillette. later, we chat with media matters for america president and ceo, angelo carusone. stick around, we will be right back. ♪
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>> sunday on q and a. the discussion about the life and career of first lady jill biden with associated press white house reporter, darlene super bill, co-author of "jill : a autobiography of the first lady." she gives insight into her personality. >> last year, she took a trip. i do not renumber where she went. on the flight home to washington, d.c., she left her seat, disappeared for a while, and out came a woman dressed like a flight attendant with a wig. she walked through the cabin handing out ice cream bars. when she was finished, she revealed herself to be jill biden. apparently, no one recognized it was her. i am not sure how the staff had known she was missing from her
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seat to distribute these bars, but that is an example of one of the practical jokes she likes to play. saturday night at 8:00 eastern on q and a. you can listen to all of q and a and all of our podcasts on our free c-span app. ♪ >> now available in the c-span shop, c-span's 2022 congressional directory. go there today to order a copy of the congressional directory. this spiral-bound book as your guide to the federal government, with contact information with -- forever remember of congress, also contact information for state governors and the biden administration cabinet. order your copy today at cspanshop.org.
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>> "washington journal" continues. host: a conversation with adam why let, he serves as the president of accuracy in media. remind viewers with what you do at accuracy in media and how your group is funded. guest: we put frowns on the faces of bad people. we are a charitable organization, we use hidden camera investigation journalism and citizen activism to expose bad politicians, fraud and abuse during like many center-right organizations, we are funded by generous -- a generous group of individual donors and philanthropic organizations. host: the bad actors, mostly from liberal groups, liberal politicians, liberal media? guest: we don't know their ideology. we don't check their voter registration card. what we have been doing with our
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hidden camera investigation journalism with critical race theory has been explosive, i don't know the ideological beliefs of anyone we talked to. we don't assign beliefs to them. we allow them to speak their minds and allow the american people to hear what they have to say. i have made an entire career of going after people of all political parties, republicans and democratic who are doing bad things. i have probably spent more of my life going after bad republicans than anything else. host: one to get to critical race theory investigation. the big media story of the week, and of the year so far, that leaked draft opinion from the supreme court. i want to get your thoughts on what you are seeing in the media, any concerns about bias in this is how it is being reported or talked about? host: we see from so many in the media, this and buzzfeed and invests in bc -- msnbc.
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they team up to make this seem like it is an apocalyptic situation, and the world is coming to an end for people. you see gavin newsom talking about the threat to abortion rights. as if this will in any way, shape or form affect abortion in california. that is what i would expect the media to report honestly on these things, regardless if you are pro-life or pro-choice, you deserve to get an accurate depiction of events happening. what -- when politicians are allowed to say things that are single for chewing to their base, the media should call them out for it. the detail works with them hand in hand. host: one of your taglines is, you are concerned about cultural activists in the news media. what makes a person a cultural activist? guest: a journalist would interview both sides. a cultural activist pushes one
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point of view. a journalist, you can tell the difference between their talking points and those of politicians. cultural activists are one in the same. we saw a tremendous rise in that under the trump administration, where many in the media realize you can get more clicks for your stories by, instead of reporting accurately, simply telling your audience want -- what they wanted to hear. many journalists are happy to ride the trump bump, where they wrote trump fan stories about how horrible trump was. regardless of your ideology, that is bad. host: the state of u.s. media. how would you describe the state of u.s. media right now? guest: in many ways, it reminds me of the era of yellow journalism, sensationalist, click bait headlines before there was click bait. rather than news outlets that report on the facts, allowing you to educate yourself, i feel
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like the more you read, the less you actually know. with this fractured media landscape, a lot of attention goes to some of the players who are less damaging. some of the most damaging players are those of buzzfeed and now this, even teen vogue. outlets that build a massive following with stuff unrelated to the news. once they built that following up, they pivot and start to ill up far left propaganda. that is what was feed built their brand on, it is morally outrageous. host: adam guillette is our guest. talk about the state of u.s. media. phone lines are open to call in. democratic, (202) 748-8000 -- democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002.
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how did you conduct the critical race theory investigation? guest: we went to school districts where -- critical race theory was banned. we asked, how have these critical race theory bands affected you? they tell us, no. they change the wording and keep teaching what they want to teach. many of them write to us that they don't let politicians tell them what they want to do. i do not want to live in a world in which politicians micromanage educators. i do not think politicians are experts at education. the notion that administrative officials in public schools are unaccountable to the law, do not care about the law, when they bragged to us about how they change the name and use deceptive tactics to trick parents, their words, not mine. when i see things like that, it makes me terrified about the currency of public education in
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america. that is why investigative journalism is important. host: a big part, the use of hidden cameras. i want to show viewers a minute of hidden camera footage that you found. this from your investigation in the state of iowa. [video clip] >> 8:02. it does not stop us from talking about [indiscernible] it does not stop us from talking about privilege and how it shows up in classroom, when teachers need to be reflective. in all of our building surrounding that. we've still got a lot more to do. >> so you can still discuss systemic racism? can we teach them systemic racism as inherent capitalism? >> absolutely. it is based in fact. we can research that. host: that hidden camera
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investigation, you can find it on accuracy in media's website. adam guillette, you were talking about concern about deceptive tactics by teachers and administrators. when is it ok to use the tactic of hidden cameras when you are a journalist? guest: i think investigative journalism is perhaps the most honest form of journalism. as a result, the most essential form of journalism. anybody who has been interviewed by a reporter, always afterwards, feels like, that wasn't what i said. or, maybe they got that quote wrong. or, i was talking about this, but they took this with what wasn't consistent with what i said. everybody feels that way when they are interviewed by a reporter. what we do is take people's own words, captured them on video and put them in a longform, proper context, so you can see what people have to say. i love that police officers where body cameras. i think it is better for them, i
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think it is better for the public. i would love it if politicians were body cameras. the next best thing we can do is use hidden camera investigation using -- with public officials. host: brian is in maryland, the line for republicans. good morning. caller: thanks for having me. i guess my question about the investigative journalism is, how do you feel about the reports coming out about the senators taxing one another about their -- texting one another about their january 6 outcome, and what they were saying publicly? i know you referred to the crt stuff, but if -- investigative journalism has the truth told during the coronavirus, when they knew it was airborne and
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coming in january. they didn't release that information until february or march. isn't that stuff [indiscernible] host: we might have lost brian. go ahead, adam. guest: he makes a good point. the covid-19 pandemic, perhaps the biggest story of our lifetime, where were the investigative journalists at the washington post and new york times customer can imagine having the resources of jeff bezos and rather than empowering investigative journalism and putting resources into uncovering the truth behind what caused the pandemic, instead, the washington post put out silly fanfiction, telling people what they wanted to hear, slamming trump, not ever going after the real causes of covid-19. and what people suggested leaked out of a lab, instead of investigating that, the mainstream media dismissed that
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idea until we had to admit that it turns out, it was a possibility. the more people who read these news outlets rather than being more informed, they are less informed. to his first statement about politicians texting, they might be different from what they say publicly. that is why they are politicians. host: do you know the conversation, the caught on tape conversation of kevin mccarthy and top republicans talking about how president trump on january 6, in that book, this will not pass customer by those new york times reporters, guest: i am interested in hearing opposing viewpoints. interesting viewpoints. i think the january 6 was an incredibly conflicting situation with politicians saying one thing publicly and another thing privately. we are looking to get fully
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informed, the new york times isn't the first thing on my list. host: crystal, democrat. good morning. caller: i would like to know which republicans the accuracy in media has called out. it seems like everything you're saying is negative towards democratic stations, that is in bc. -- nothing about fox, sean hannity, laura ingraham, nothing about those people? guest: fox's viewing audience in prime time is so massive, they have more democrat viewers than cnn does. people think fox is only preaching to the choir, they are not just the biggest cable news channel, they are the biggest channel in all of cable. it is a bipartisan audience, unlike any other news channel. to that point, there are plenty
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of people going after fox every day. how many people are going after buzzfeed? how many people are going after teen vogue? you turn on fox, you expect sean hannity to tell you conservative talking points. teen vogue, the magazine for young woman, has an ongoing series called bread and roses that pushes marxism to young girls. that is not hyperbole. they push marxism to young girls. that to me is far more dangerous than sean hannity talking about conservative ideas to an audience that is largely conservatives but has democrats. host: gina out of mississippi, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to thank you for coming on today and speaking truth. absolute truth. i am a political junkie. i have followed politics for 25
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years. i have watched what the liberal media did to donald trump before he even got in office. this man was harassed, degraded by so many people, and by the liberal media. they have turned him into a monster, it is all a lie. all the tv stations, including washington journal, which i do love washington journal, but there is so much misinformation and lies on this show daily that it is sickening. once again, i would like to thank you for coming on this show. guest: i appreciate your kind words. the only thing i would say that i think is important for all of
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us trimmer, especially for this who follow politics closely, do not get caught up with the personalities. whether the big politician of the day is your bogeyman or your hero, politicians are tools to be used and disposed of once they are no longer useful. they are merely vessels to advance the ideas that we are passionate about. it is the ideas that matter, not the players. do not get caught up in the personality, whether it is a personality you hate or love. ideas last, politicians don't. host: how long has accuracy in media been around? how did you get your start? guest: we were funded in 1969, a time when media was dramatically ms. representing events in -- misrepresenting events in vietnam. we founded this organization to expose the lies and mistruths, when they found her passed away, the obituary credited him or
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blamed him for causing mainstream americans to have an inherent mistrust in the media. i love that. we should be more skeptical towards what we hear from news outlets, whether they are telling us things we disagree with or love. we should have a healthy skepticism towards the media. host: how did you get into this line of work? guest: i have been an activist my entire life. i was a kid tape-recording rush limbaugh and listening to him when i got home from school. my ideology has changed a bit. i am liberty oriented, small government oriented. i thought the culture was the most important thing for politics. as andrew breitbart said, politics is downstream from culture. the leftists understand that well. they have gone for hollywood, k-12 education, spend their time -- the right spends their time writing legislation. i thought it would be helpful
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for us to go after cultural targets, because they are the most influential voices in america politics today. host: remind viewers what project veritas is, and has it had influence on what you do? guest: i was the vice president of development for project veritas, a non-developed -- a nonprofit organization that exposes fraud within public policy. we need to see that throughout our country. that is the best way to shed light on what is happening in our society. they left off and uses it against their enemies. i think we need to see more journalists of all stripes using hidden camera investigative journalism to exposing bad things in our society. host: port charlotte, florida. independent. good morning. caller: i have a couple questions. you mentioned you were an activist. are you still an activist, or
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are you a journalist? if you are a journalist, where did you get your degree from? you mentioned that you are funded by -- nonprofit funded. who pays your salary? you mentioned personality. that seems to be -- there seems to be a lot of personality along the maggot people. host: you asked a lot of questions. guest: i lost my notepad. i appreciate the questions. as a nonprofit organization, we don't disclose individual donors. our foundation donors are legally required to be disclosed, they are available on our irs 994. you can check it out on our website. we believe in transparency. host: activist versus
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journalist. guest: am i an activist or a journalist? i do not know. i do not have a journalist degree. a lot of people active in journalism do not have a journalism degree. i wouldn't -- i would want my had -- i would want my doctor to have a degree, but not everyone in political science is required to have a degree. host: good morning. caller: i am upset with c-span for having somebody like this on, saying that sitting in front of a sign saying accuracy in media. he is financed by financial think tanks from the right wing, he started off by saying he doesn't check people's registration cards when he does investigations of them, which clearly, he is pro right wing.
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you can check google if you want, you will find out the things about this gentleman and his organization, that they were against the agent orange claims by soldiers for vietnam war. i can go on and on. it is reprehensible letting somebody like this on without having somebody challenge him. right now, and in real time. i do not have much to say. host: isn't that what you are doing right now? caller: i am, but you need to have somebody professional, maybe somebody from pull of facts, snoops -- politifacts, snoops. host: do you like media matters
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for america? caller: i don't think you should have anybody on without some sort of challenge, somebody in real time. if he comes on and says his piece, he will convince people because it says accuracy in media behind him, when that is not the fact at all. you should have somebody to challenge. c-span isn't doing that. i have been watching since juan has been hosting. it was a much more civilized show back then. it was because it was before rush limbaugh, before fox news. you are doing serious damage to yourself and c-span by entertaining these kinds of people. host: i appreciate your thoughts.
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albany, new york. anything you want to add? guest: i appreciate him challenging me. i think there is nothing more fun than having a discussion with different ideas. you sound like you read our wikipedia page, i can't personally attest to the details of everything that happened in a 52-year-old organization when things were done before i was born. i can't personally be held accountable or speak to or assuage him, in terms of what every accuracy in media did. he is right. who knows what was going on back then. i was not alive. that being said, we are a freedom oriented organization we believe in small government. i am very passionate about those ideas. we are not funded by think tanks. i do not think think tanks fund organizations. we are funded by donors who probably funded think tanks. we are a freedom oriented
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organization. i am a small government minded individual. if you google me, when i was 19, i ran for mayor of gainesville, florida, going after a republican. when i was in my 20's, i thought massive tax increases. after that, i went against republicans. i don't care about the letter next to somebody's name. when we do these critical race theory investigations, i have no idea what the political affiliation is of the people we meet with. i assume they are not libertarians, but i do not know if they are democrats, independents, the partisan labels are not important. host: about 15 minutes left with adam guillette as we talk about the state of u.s. media. what are your thoughts about elon musk porch racing -- purchasing twitter? guest: when it first happened, i was convinced it was in elon musk pr stunt. it looks like it is happening.
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never have i been more delighted to be wrong. it has been funny, we are told when twitter was caught with hidden camera investigative journalism, shadow banning conservatives, when facebook was caught d boosting conservatives and republican viewpoints on their platform, everyone shouted from the heavens, these are private companies. do what they want. if you don't like it, start your own social network. elon musk comes in, purchases a social network, these are private companies, they can do what they want. that went out the window. all these people never seem to complain with jeff -- when jeff bezos bought the washington post. the hypocrisy is outstanding. caller: good morning. i have a question for adam. you talk about accuracy in
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media. i see a lot of non-accountability from everything, from the russian hoax two things that aren't talked about. i hear other callers talk about trump and gaining from the presidency, they have a committee that checks into this. he was him solved -- absolved of profiting from the presidency. i don't see anything from the media of stuff like this. i am wondering about the accuracy in the media. who takes care of that? guest: trump is the gift that kept on giving for the left-wing media. to his credit, trump took advantage of that on his own. he wouldn't have won those primaries if he didn't know how to play the media so well. it is amazing how there is that love-hate relationship between trump and the media, because the
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left-wing media outlets wrote it to record high ratings, and trump wrote it to the presidency. we wouldn't expect them to report positive things on trump to their audience. this is a time of a fractured media landscape. ratings are dwindling, subscriber ships are dwindling. rather than reporting the news, outlets like the new york times focused on telling their audience what they wanted to hear. if it is a positive trump story, they weren't going to report on it. if it was a story about how trump is going to be impeached, that is going to generate clicks. you've got to look at the motivations of these outlets. that applies to all outlets. the left-wing outlets under trump benefited financially from him being around. host: to illinois, thomas, independent. good morning. caller: i saw in the news
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yesterday that they are starting to put fences up around the supreme court. i am just wondering if they are getting ready for an insurrection, and if people start climbing over the fence, attempted to, maybe they make it, maybe they don't, would that be considered an insurrection? the media coverage as an insurrection, or would they say it is a protest? i would like your thoughts on that. guest: that is a great point. we remember when people were opposed to brent cavanaugh took over the senate office building. i never heard about that being referred to as an insurrection. it is amazing how things get spun differently by the media. willie mares and the weatherman in the 1970's set off a bomb in congress. how come that never gets talk about? rather than rotting in jail, willie mares gets paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak on college campuses. your tax dollars are paying for
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honorariums for a guy that was a terrorist. they set off a bomb in the new york city police headquarters and in congress. all these people that were outrageous from the bad behavior on january 6, they do not seem to remember or care about what was done previously, which is all i need to know. for them, it is a partisan opportunity to go after people they do not like, rather than truly being morally outraged. host: california, jennifer, democrat. guest: i was wondering, what are your thoughts on it happened on january 6? caller: guest: i am not for physical violence at any point in protests. i'm not for property damage in protests. the people going in there, breaking windows, stuff like that, that is horrible. they should be prosecuted.
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they should be held accountable. when you watch on tv that these supposedly writers, many of them were walking between velvet ropes, staying on the walkway, going into doors that were unlocked and open and walking inside a building that was supposed to be a government aldean, walking inside peacefully. i do not think people should be rotting in jail for that. i think it is a conflicting story. i think the media should be reporting on it honestly, but instead, what we get is, these are people insurrectionists set out to overturn our democracy. there were crazy coop not jobs that broke windows and should be arrested for it. there were peaceful protesters who walked between velvet ropes in peaceful protest. i would hardly call those people terrorists. caller: you don't believe in the peaceful pants -- transfer of power? guest: that is not what i said. host: to concord, with carolina.
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guest: thank you for running this, thank you, adam, for doing what you are doing. that is it. host: baton rouge, louisiana. good morning. caller: i am disappointed in c-span for bringing someone on like this man. he is using talking points. he is a right-wing activist. he is not honest with what he is saying. he is saying the insurrection was ok. he is praising a candidate who won ohio. the guy said we shouldn't help ukraine. you are a right-wing, republican.
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admit it. guest: we haven't even talked about ukraine. i don't remember the name of the guy who won the ohio primary. i wish i was professional enough to have talking points that i could read off of. i imagine for your opinion, these are thoughts coming out of my head. i love hearing people with different viewpoints. i love engaging with friends of mine who have different viewpoints. but it should be done openly and honestly. we can agree to disagree, we should be able to have a beer and chat about it. there is no need for anybody, guard list of your beliefs, there is no need to make up things. we haven't discussed ukraine or ohio. come on, man. as biden would say. we are coming off of the white house correspondent steered -- dinner. i'm wondering your view of those events. guest: i enjoy a good roast.
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i think that is the best way to handle something like that. i think it is frustrating we get the same slate of left-wing comics every year. i suppose we could argue that trump could've tried to use it as an opportunity to get a different comic. why can't we mix it up? why can't we have it hosted by adam corolla? somebody like that? i would like to not just be these same sorts of comics that, people say i am an activist aspirating as a journalist. what is trevor noah? has he ever pulled a joke that is funny? some of my favorite comedians are hard left comics. you have these up and coming comics that are after applause more than laughter. i would rather have an event where we could get a comic that can makes fun of both sides, everybody laughs at themselves, and we go home happy. instead of it being the same old thing. credit to biden for telling self-deprecating jokes and
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laughing at himself. i think that is fantastic. host: this out yesterday on fox news. hunter biden laptop repair man sues shift cnn, politico and the daily beast. the laptop whistleblower suing them and more for accusing him of russian disinformation. guest: can you imagine being a news outlet that was trying to report on one of the guest stories of the election, and instead of real journalists, all of the resources that the washington post and jeff bezos have, instead of them uncovering what we know was a real story, they were actively suppressing it and accusing it of being a russian hoax. you cannot tell the difference between the russians and the left-wing, mainstream media at times, because they both seek to overstate the power of russia. even putin does not seem to brag on his power as much as the left-wing media does when they say, oh, trump colluded and
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russia changed the 2016 election. the hunter biden story is a russian hoax. i would imagine and is laughing his you know what off over how funny it is that these american journalists claimed that russia is that powerful. we can -- we didn't create it by the way. a quiz you can do online, russia or buzzfeed, we have got quotes and you guess whether it is from a buzzfeed journalist or a russian propagandist. host: a couple more calls with adam guillette of accuracy in media. this is cory out of davidson, maryland. independent. caller: i have three quick points to bring up. when does investigative journalism come to private entities like brightest,
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crossing a line on private non--- private citizens? secondly, when you have a concentric, conservative or liberal view that is in the extreme, but pushed, you are leaving out a lot of moderate independence like myself from the national spotlight. thirdly, address those two points if you will. i will stick with those two. guest: scott adams makes a great point when he says, we need to stop defining the other side by the worst 1% over there. republicans should stop defining the left by the most radical marxists, and stop assuming that makes the majority of the left. the left should stop assuming the right is the worst 1%. we end up in these discussions getting caught up talking about those things.
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he makes it -- a great point. that is not the average republican. that is not the average democrat. there is very little that separates us. unfortunately, i think there is very little ideologically that ends up separating our politicians. trump increased federal spending with bailouts. republicans get mad when biden did it, but they didn't win trump did. obama deported more people than trump did. we get caught up with these things without realizing that we are closer together ideologically then we realize, and unfortunately, the politicians are closer together at times then we realize. i am not for private spying on citizens. i do not know what that is. that sounds creepy and terrifying. i am after going -- i am after going after public officials. we are not for going after private individuals. i guess, we haven't done
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anything with the hunter biden tape. that would be the line. he was playing on his dad's name and peddling influence, so i think that makes him ok as a target. i am not for going after people who weren't directly involved in public policy or working for the government. host: adam guillette is president of accuracy in media. you can find him on twitter @accuracyinmedia. guest: thank you for having me. host: up next, we continued this discussion on the state of u.s. media. we chat with media adders for america president and ceo, angelo carusone. stick around for that discussion. we will be right back. ♪
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♪ >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span two, exploring the people and events that tells the american story. at 2:00 p.m. eastern, on the presidency. we look back on the presidency of harry truman, including the first nuclear bomb, with his book, "the trials of harry s truman." at 8:00 p.m., a college professor teaches a class about the mexican-american war during the late 1840's. professor vin yaro is the author of "manifest acquisition."
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exploring the american story. watch american history tv saturday on c-span2. find a full schedule on your program guide, or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> recorded conversations while in office here many of those conversations on c-span's new podcast, presidential recordings. >> season one focuses on the presidency of lyndon johnson. you hear about the 1964 presidential candidate -- campaign, the arch on selma, the war on vietnam. not everyone knew they were being recorded. >> certainly, johnson's secretaries knew. they were tasked with transcribing many of those conversations. they were the ones that make
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sure these conversations were taped, as johnson would signal to them through an open door between his office and theirs. >> you will hear blunt talk. >> how do i report the number of people who assigned to kennedy the day he died? if i can't ever go to the bathroom, i won't go. i will stay right behind these pigs. >> presidential recordings, find it on the c-span now mobile app, or wherever you get your part casts. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: angelo carusone, president and ceo for media matters for america, remind us what the mission is. guest: we focus on addressing
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the problem of conservative misinformation, whether it is active distribution of it or enabling of it by media. we identify, respond to it and point out when there is gaps in coverage. we do studies or underscore it. these days, we do a lot of work with social media platforms, because the information landscape is changing. one of the things we have seen is the rise of disinformation. platforms are enabling it. we got a lot of work in identifying the challenge of the problem and is zeroing in on a solution that platforms can do to prevent it or solve it. that is a broad mission. we live monitor 16,000 hours of tv, radio and our a year. we archive and analyze more. that is what we do. we try to slightly improve the conversation or improve value. host: how long have you been
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with media matters? guest: since 2010. i was there as part of a campaign. it was about getting them to stop being disruptive, or get fired. that was the objective. i came there to continue the work. that is how it started. i continue to do campaign and advocacy work. i work my way up. host: let's talk about media story of the week, month and year so far. the leaked draft opinion from the supreme court and mississippi abortion case. what conservative this information have been looking at? what gaps in coverage. guest: we have been looking at this for a while. if you look at broadly speaking, the coverage of reproductive health and abortion, it has been dominated by the right wing.
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when the texas law went into effect, there was only three mentions of it on cable news. over the first week it was enacted. it wasn't discussed. the alarm bell wasn't wrong for most people that thing about politics or civic engagement. they never appreciated what was happening. even before then, journalists were echoing a lot of right-wing misinformation we were hearing. one of the things that catalyzed the momentum towards these pushes was describing it, restrictions as heartbeat bills. there is no fetal heartbeat. that was made up. that was made up by antichoice extremists. it had better messaging. one of the challenges, journalists echo that right away. a lot of the coverage that we are seeing right now as a
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consequence of gaps in coverage that have been lusting for a few years, which is exceeding the ground for -- the right wing pedia is focused on a leak. -- the right-wing media is focused on a leak. it does not mean abortion is legal. it means it is going back to the states. they are shying away from celebrating the thing you would expect. the realize most people are disturbed by the implication of this. there is no discussion about the
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obligations of the media itself. what matters is the outcome of the case. that is what is significant and newsworthy. when they find the leaker, when they have a story to tell, there is something newsworthy. at this moment, there should be the substance of the leak. there are plenty of leaks, that is what journalism is. you get a leak, you publish it. that is what journalists do. that is an important part of our civic discussion. if you look at major leaks that have created significant events, it is rare for the conversation to be focused on the leaker itself. there is noise curiosities, but it is weird for that to be the dominant narrative, and not to
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discuss the actual substance of the case. that is weird. host: you noted on one of your stories this week, the focus in the mainstream media is on the process and optics. have us an example. guest: one of the things they point out, is this going to help the election? that is where the rest of the news media becomes a problem. i expect conservative and ideological media to focus on the leaker. they have an agenda. when i look at actual journalists, their focus is on to assess the political impact of this. that is part of it. not everything can be seen in the lens of horserace politics. this is not going to have -- this is not going to begin and end in november. the focus is on the people. if they were to focus on instead, people that it been
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prosecuted, put in jail, sometimes accidental or contrary to the law, these are crazy examples that have not been lifted up. that is a problem with journalism right now. as a consequence of narrowing the frame of the discussion, what they actually do is enable misinformation by not putting good information out there. i would say the emphasis on the horserace coverage and how this affects democrats as a big part. the second part, if you look at the discussion itself, almost all of that conversation has a problem with it. the focus then, what are democrats going to do? that is a question. the foot said -- the flip of this. what you never hear is, what about republicans who have to think about this, who are acting contrary to what the popular is say? when they narrow the frame to politics, they almost concede that republicans are not
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responsible or shouldn't be engaging in governing. there is an acknowledgment in some way, we can't expect them to do anything about this challenge because they have this agenda. i think that is a problem with narrow coverage around the horserace stuff. host: for viewers to join the conversation with angelo carusone, free democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independence, (202) 748-8002. one story, on why the process and leaker story might be important to this larger issue. he writes, the court has long occupied a sacred and mythic place in the national consciousness and conducts its work under a veil and depends on the press to fetishize the mistress of the temple. the political -- political exclusive did a service of taking a look at the courts
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decision making process. the story was warranted because if we had a viable congress, they would've sorted out the legality of the abortion by now -- of abortion by now. views from that angle, the politico scoop has left an intrusion into the supreme court's sanctified main that it is an investigation into a piece of evolving legislation. guest: jack has the ability to be a contrarian. that is how jack engages. i expect that to be a part of it. i have no problem with politico doing this. that is journalism. that is what we are supposed to do is journalists, get information, validate it, it is a profession and we should respect it and treat it as such. there are a series of standards. it matters.
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there is a process politico went through, they didn't just throw that out there because they had something. that matters. on the other hand, that is romantic. i am familiar with the courts. i went to law school. this is not some piece of evolving legislation that is kicked back to congress. this is some law. this is what the courts do. they made a determination about a constitutional right. the same landmark decision. the right has been chipping away at that constitutional protection for quite some time. to pretend and masquerade that this is a federal -- federal legislative issue is inaccurate. that is a problem with the framing. to make it something about democrats versus republicans. row was not decided a year ago. this is been the law for decades.
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the assessment, how far states can go, this is a reversal of what is considered to be a right. setting aside a leak draft opinion that is now been confirmed as authentic by the court, your view on leak tapes, our last guest was talking about hidden camera organizations. the role of those investigations and leak tapes like we have seen from the new york times, reporting on kevin mccarthy and his discussions post january 6 with top house republican officials. the role that plays in journalism right now. when i would point out is, we should have a conversation about things reporters are doing with withholding information for a book. that doesn't feel like journalism to me. withholding information that is not timely in order to get it
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out, that is fine,. during watergate, they published it because it was newsworthy and timely. the information on these tapes, they are timely. we have seen leaks or reports that are timely, some are new, some they have been sitting on. that is not ok. you shouldn't sit on things that are newsworthy and timely. leaks are a part of journalism as long as there is a process for validating the information, releasing the information. i think we should trust newsrooms when they demonstrate they have standards. they build the public trust. what i would point out is, media matters was born out of this. what the right wing has done, and i think what journalists and news media have failed to do for decades, and that is why they
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are under assault, there was a coordinated and orchestrated effort beginning in the early 1990's to weaponize the trust that individuals had in journalism. they masquerade like newsrooms that use the benefit that people have and trust in newsrooms and are -- were publishing things they knew were at fault, or like some groups that pop up now, they do sting operations. they release either heavily edited, absurd versions of what they had. the right-wing echo chamber echoes it. when you dig into it, it turns out they overhyped it or the reports aren't there. that is not journalism. that is a problem. as long as it has standards, people will immediately say, who makes the standards?
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they do it for plumbers, electricians. i am a critic. that is my job. i have plenty of things to criticize journalists for, even things i agree with them with. there -- this is a profession. it is not people popping off. the challenge we have, this is the challenge journalists have had, too. because they cared about the trust they have, one of the things that took place as a result of these concert -- disconcerted attack, even though the evidence doesn't back that up, oftentimes, they and r. kelly themselves against the critiques that they are bias or in the tanks. up until recently, had a policy that if they took an op-ed that if they had climate science
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misinformation, they must provide an op-ed on climate skepticism. they do that to inoculate themselves against the idea that they are in the tank for the liberal climate change agenda. that is not engaging in using professional standards. editors are not just doing grammar checks. they are saying, that is not an opinion, that is why people gripe about their editors. they are asking hard questions. a take out things that might do well on twitter or social media. they do not have the goods to back it up. sarah -- host: sarah, washington, d.c. guest: if it wasn't for leaks, where we would be with watergate?
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with the mining of the harbor in nicaragua? a lot of these things need to come out. thank god we have a free and open press. it is in the constitution. democrats, republicans, deal with it. thank you. guest: i agree. this is why i think -- newsrooms get leaks. a lot of times, they say, we are not publishing it because it is not in the public interest. it is not substantiated enough. the leak is a leak. not all private information is necessarily in the public interest or -- interest. that is why there are completing -- competing outlets. the ones that are able to strike the balance between trust and good reporting will tend to get better scoops, which will get them more attention. as long as they adhere to
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standards and don't lose credibility and trust, in theory, their reputations will grow. leaks are a part of this. i think it is good there is a little filter of professionals that are trying to balance out, is this worth the risks of publishing this information? host: doug, independent. good morning. caller: first question, we are a pro-choice country, but individuals have varying opinions about abortion and individuals make that choice. i don't understand the comment that we are a pro-choice country.
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there are millions of people in this country who would say that abortion is wrong and do not feel we are a "pro-choice" country. i'm curious what the basis is of that question. guest: we are america. even people that don't like abortion do not like government telling them that they cannot and can do things. that is part of what makes us american, people wearing masks was a challenge. they don't like the idea that people were interfering with them. at its core, there was something unsettling for most americans. guest: we are america.
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we are definitely a poor -- a pro-choice country. even people who don't like abortion do not like government telling them what they can and cannot do. that is why wearing a mask was such a challenge because they didn't like the idea of people interfering. at its core, that is something deeply unsettling for abortion. even if they don't agree with abortion personally, they do not like the state would get so deep --. if you know america, you know that. number two, every bit of research data back that up. every single data point demonstrates that other than having modest gun reform, some basic safety checks, access to reproductive health and privacy around that is the second most
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universally accepted thing. by and large, overwhelmingly, america is a pro-choice company -- a pro-choice country. host: on april 24 to 28, the question was, do you think the supreme court should uphold roe v. wade or overturn it? over 54%, overturn. just one of those data points you referred to. guest: if you asked the question in different ways, you will get different results but at its core, people want the poseidon -- the privacy and number two, they do not want the government involving themselves that deeply and alive. even people who don't like abortion, what they don't like more is government.
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there are millions of americans deeply oppose were a variety of reasons. if the media choate -- told that story more and didn't treat it like it was a balance equation, you would get real feelings and opinions about this. host: good morning. caller: i have spent -- the federal communication commission stated that anytime a journalist or a reporter askew the news that it was not a bad act
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against the public, it was a heinous act against the public. i agree with this. sir, i find that when you're talking today, you are skewing your opinion into the news. americans are independent thinkers. we are able to decide about an issue without it being republican, democrat, independent or anything else. i think that is why you find that most americans right now don't trust the media. because in essence, the skewing of the news to support an opinion is actually an attempt to control the public opinion. i don't think you are going to be able to do that in america. host: we will take your point, before you jump in on that. another data point from the pew research. the percentage of americans who
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say they have a lot or some trust in news organizations from 2016 to 2020 one, dipping by five percentage points among democrats, among republicans, dipping among 35% at that time. guest: that is the point. it is not to say one is better than the other but it is a reflection of the lyrical strategy. donald trump began his administration and during the campaign by using media against people. if you are some one may be lying or trying to distort things, you have to go after the check. that data, that drop alone, strength reinforcement that it was a collaborative political strategy.
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if you really care about skewing, it is about skewing. not in journalism itself, but in the consequence of political strategy. those national trends are a problem. most people continuously not trusting media as a whole. people still trust local media a lot. that is a really big difference when you go from generic news media. when you start to trickle down, there is a deep trust relationship there. host: among local news organizations, americans say there are a lot or some trust to come from the local news. back in 2018, democrats said they had a lot or some. $.84 -- 84% in 2021. it was down to 66% among national news organizations. guest: that is critical. that cost the point that -- you
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they funded the same feeding frenzy. we talk about this with the abortion stuff, have taken the dominant lands when we think about -- we saw that play out a lot would trump. he presented irresistible temptation for especially cable news to not just take the bait but for themselves become combat's the arena. they didn't do themselves any favor, not by the reporting but trying to capitalize on the attention that trump could provide by engaging. it is great attention to get
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into a dust up with donald trump online and have him are you, but it is not helpful if it undermines people's trust in why you are doing the things you're saying as a reporter. it is a disservice in context. shifting so much of their coverage through a political lens. host: george, republican. the morning. caller: i admire your organization. you do very well. i got one question for you, would you be willing to go talk to tucker carlsen? guest: number one, tucker wouldn't do it.
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the only time fox would have us on is pretaped. that is an -- an indication of what their intentions are for. there is a real fear there. one of the few places out there that is able to hold foxx accountable. we are able to pack a pretty good punch. number two, i wouldn't. not because i'm scared. he will come -- he could come to me. tucker is not just a missing former. the new york times confirmed this, tucker carlsen is enabler of --. the guy is mainlining. they did an enormous amount of research to quantify how deeply connected he is to real white supremacist. actual white supremacist groups that embrace the term because that is what they believe. his connections to it, they
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quantify just how much of that content he is reflecting on to his programming and all of the relationships there. i wouldn't do it because i do not want to help foxx and i don't want to pretend that is a legitimate conversation. if tucker were to renounce all the nationalism and change his tune, i might consider it. but i think that fox news is a partisan political operation and probably the single most distraught force in the country. i don't think beatty -- i don't think anybody should enable it or validate it. that applies to democratic leaders, politicians, corporate leaders. i think anyone who goes on fox news at this point is enabling true disinformation and extremism. host: the role of advertiser pressure campaigns in today's media landscape? guest: i love them and hate them. there is they perception if you don't like something, you automatically get to burn
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something down to the ground. that is what they have done. because they provide a source of power. in a world where we get so much feels fuel, at the legislative level, the policy level, we are a capitalist society and most of our news as are politically driven. the advertisers are the lifeline. you don't go after the advertisers. advertisers say -- play a role in this. if the goal is to lie, to misinform, if the goal is to not just say something controversial but to be controversial in order to get the attention to commercialized and harming marginalized people, that is the business model. that is not somebody making a mistake.
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we need to dial this down to one offs, we try to do that. but the other -- if you commercialize that, they are making the investments. millions of dollars to buy ads on these spaces and they are getting pitch. they know they are doing. you have to have a product to sell. it is totally reasonable for people to say, i buy your brand, i like your brand, you are trying to sell to me but you are doing things to hurt me, i do not like that. the business model is destructive or deliberately deceptive, the only way to get them to change or rethink what works is to go over their head to the thing that is funding it. most news sources care about their reputation, most care if you them evidence. they might not validate your
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feelings but they will say, at least we will stop doing it. if the business model is disruptive, it is reasonable and important to make sure the advertisers are engaged. not doing anything makes it more likely to happen. i promise everybody if there was an advertiser campaign to push -- off the air on fox news in 2011, -- will be on the air. because -- was highly profitable for the network. it was skidding through much more attention. had there not been some line in the sand, there would have been a lot more pushback. host: carrollton, ohio. dean, democrat. caller: your last guest talked about people walking into the capital through open doors and no police protection, i would
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like to know where i can go to see videos of that. i watch all the news channels. maybe you can tell me where i could go to research to see a film of that. thank you. guest: i am not trying to over personalize this, but the last group, they do not have standards. they are purely not rational. they are blinded by the ideology. the caller is interested in finding act, it doesn't exist. it is a right wing myth being pushed by the larger upper chamber. you can hear descriptions of the video echoed on talk radio to tens of millions of people. you can hear it at night. but no, you won't see that. because it wasn't just a casual stroll like they were doing a tour. they were smashing indoors, you can find videos of cops getting overrun and characterized them as casually walking in.
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you won't find the video description that the previous guest just describe because they don't exist. caller: good morning, in terms of media criticism, -- journalist doesn't speak out for the freedom -- disgraced in their own profession. he is in the morn journalist in the world right now. guest: a couple of things there. one, they take broad information and distribute it to the country without -- who it can be affected by, that is not journalism.
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the problem is the acquisition of leaks, back in the day before it became deeply aligned with russia and another partisan player. going through information that is critical and then filtering it so that you are not providing and harming things, that is journalism. taking documents and just throwing it up there because you have an agenda, that is not journalism. it could be in portable -- it could be important sometimes and justifiable but that is not journalism. you cannot be a leaker and a journalist at the same time. whistleblowers do something and they understand their consequences were. sometimes we say, hey we should not hold that person accountable because what they did was important. i don't want to muddy the waters too much with a lot of details, but it is a over supplication --
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simplification. i do not want to distort the reality that leaking is important, whistle broke -- whistleblowers are brave, or can be. that is why there is so much internal stress with wiki leaks. host: jackson louisiana -- jackson, louisiana. betty, republican. caller: thank you for having me on. i would like to ask your guest about what is going on with the whole biden thing? the media absolutely hid that. they said it was disinformation. you are talking about reporters reporting. you could have investigated that. the fact the president's son is stealing paintings for $500,000,
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he has no expertise. there is no investigation about who is paying for that and what are they paying work. are they paying for the painting or paying for the influence of the united states? guest: i will take the signal. there are two different things happening at the same time. i do not care about investigating, that is what journalism does. that is what journalism should do, you should ask those questions. those are reasonable things to ask. there is no reasonable suspicion behind it or evidence to back it up, but that is what journalists do. i think that will be a story worth investigating. on the hunter biden story itself, this is where our conversation comes full circle. even people that are deep advocates for the narrative around hunter biden, they really seem to miss the genesis. for a lot of people who are not super invested in right wing media, when people talk about that, they are referring to the fact that in october of 2020, a
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new york post article was published that twitter decided you cannot distribute the links to on twitter. consistent with the policies of leaked information that was not verified. the right wing went nuts about it as evidence of a conspiracy. let's go back in time here. the genesis and the reason why is a new york post article did not meet any minimum editorial standards. they did not provide any evidence, they did not verify anything that they were reporting. their principal spoke person was -- rudy giuliani and were not credible. and the talk all was that the wall street journal used the same substance and declined it. most people in this phase think the wall street journal is a very reliable and consistent --. they said, we cannot publish this. the same night we went to fox news and fox news said, you
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cannot publish this. this does not meet our basic editorial standards. the same outlet that has no trouble lying past on the story. it ended up in the post. the way you treat people going in and out of hotels. the issue there is a didn't provide any editorial guidance. they violated a basic story. we are talking about it. it is not like it was suppressed. i will. from engaging indiscretion on twitter. that one story as it existed should not, we are not going to allow that to be distributed because it violates our leaked policy. i would like to point out, there were claims in their that had been dropped. it was not like the story itself , the original story had not held water. part of it has been a laptop
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that have not been cloned. there has never been a verification or event of the material in there. if they really care, they should have been more concerned about the reputation in the past. host: you mentioned twitter. i imagine you have thoughts on elon musk and twitter. guest: this is a nightmare. it is another example of a billionaire coming in and borrowing a lot of money in order to buy something that he wants for ideological reasons. even if you don't use twitter, the reality is, twitter has massive influence. a lot of journalist, influential people, decision-makers, corporate people are on twitter so that it's going to shape their lands. because it is smaller, one of the things that twitter has done is that they have been a little
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bit of a vanguard in addressing, people can fight about individual substance imposed and whether they should be taken down. what they have done is pretty significant. in 2019, twitter was the first company that said a totally synthetic video that is made up but looks real and masquerades as being real, we are not going to let those exist on our platform. no social media policy -- no social review platform had a policy against that. once they put that out, a lot of platforms took a stand against deepfakes. you had all these deepfake videos proliferating around the internet. that was the prevention of mass distribution of misinformation. twitter has been a little bit of a vanguard when it comes to addressing threats.
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some privacy, they have played an important role that has had an effect on our users on other platforms. one thing elon musk is going to do is gently not bad. secondly, he makes that she wants to make it a free for all. a free for all makes it harder to engage in free speech. i like twitter. i use twitter, a lot of people use it. it is fun. it is not fun if the meanest people are privileged on twitter. host: in plainfield, wisconsin, deborah good morning. caller: fox news is like the national enquirer to me. the guy they had on before, adam -- what can you say about the --
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and the funding for aim? guest: it is shadowing. that is the nature of nonprofits. to some extent, that is typically ok. that is what the rules are. it is a little bit shadowy. in most cases, the money matters. in their case, we know with the ideology is. they have an agenda to make some points and hope they can shift the narrative a little bit. host: you talk about holding up the mirror. i wonder your thoughts about this forum we try to conduct your on this program here? guest: c-span is a little different. the idea is not to be described
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as a form. that is the most important part. one thing is you treat as democrats and independents. that is not going to last long. that is a partisan land. there are plenty of republicans that are deeply concerned about a transfer of political power, wealth, corporate power. one of the challenges, because we have these partisan boxes is it treat us like teams. we have to carry water for the things we may not agree on. that compartmentalization may not work. second thing, media are not two sides of the same coin. watchdog, we claim to be the same thing, but look at these chinese ages, we are a credible source. even conservators that disagree with us, they always
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acknowledge, at least our data is correct. they always acknowledge, -- they never say that we live. they never say that we made something up. when we do a study that the study is wrong. they just say it doesn't have the significance that we think it does. fine, there is a different set of opinion. we are a research operation. if i participated by myself, it wouldn't be ok because it would seem like your bias. sometimes there are not two sides. host: who comes the closest? guest: probably some rogue people on twitter trying to make a strong argument of people doing a news article.
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that is a part of the challenge. there are plenty of things that are purely partisan. we have an ideology but we are not partisan. which is a little bit of a challenge that we are treated that way because that is the lands in which we think about things. sometimes there are two sides and washington journal still pertains like it has to be. sometimes there are not. that is not the individual gas, but that is about the topic. you are a forum so you have to have that. but it is great the you have a wide range of callers and i think that is important. sometimes i think it is great to make the call. host: angelo carusone is the ceo of america -- media matters for america.
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any political issue you want to talk about, any state issue, phone lines are yours. phone numbers are on the screen. go ahead and start calling it now. we will be right back. >> book tv every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors featuring men nonfiction books. steamboat institute conference, debate on climate change. the author of fossil future. why global human -- requires more oil, not gas. in the author of farce alarm. how panic change cost us trillions, hurts the poor and
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>> now available in the c-span shop. c-span's 2022 congressional directory. go there today to order a copy of the congressional directory. this compact spiral-bound book is your guide to the federal government with contact information for every member of congress. including bios and committee assignments. also contact information for state government -- state governors and the bond administration. order your copy today at c-span.org or scan the cold -- scanned the code with your smartphone. host: -- >> washington journal continues. host: our open forum, ending our program as we often do leading you lead. any political issue you want to discuss. (202) 748-8000, for democrats.
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(202) 748-8001, republicans. (202) 748-8002, independents. chief economics correspondent joining us via zoom. nick -- take us through what this means and what happened at the fed. guest: two things happen at the fed. you know they raised interest rates. usually when they do raise interest rates, they do it in quarter percentage. second, the fed has added a large number of assets to its security portfolio over the last two years. now it is waiting to provide extra stimulus. when they get to zero, the weights provide more stimulus is
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-- and mortgage-backed security. they announced yesterday they were going to let more of those securities go off their balance sheet. shrinking the balance sheet is another way to tight monetary policy. and the third thing that happened yesterday was the federal reserve chairman jay powell said it was very likely buy into meetings. at what that means for americans is it is going to be more expensive to borrow. it is going to be more expensive to get a car loan, to pay off credit card interest rates. those are all going up. the fed normally raises interest rates in quarter point increments. they haven't raised interest rates at consecutive policy and they haven't raised interest rates since 2006. they haven't raised interest
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rates since 2000. now the fed is talking about raising rates at half point increments at consecutive policy meetings in the spring and summer. that is a very aggressive pace of policy timing in recent history for the fed, going back the last 25, 30 years. inflation is at a 40 year high. that is why more aggressive and more desperate economic situation for the fed we are controlling inflation is calling for more aggressive measures. host: coming back to your above the pole lead story, the chart that goes along with your worry. sharing the major index performance in the stock market yesterday after that announcement by federal reserve acting chair jerome check -- jerome powell. getting a positive charge of them market? why? guest: you would see a very
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aggressive policy moved by the fed and the markets having relief. that was a relief rally. it was just after 2:30 p.m. when he was asked if the fed would consider an even larger increase of 3.4% rather than the already large half percentage point increase. he ruled it out for now. she doesn't say -- what happened is over the last six or seven weeks since the last meeting, investors have begun to think the fed had become far more aggressive. some in the market are calling them a little bit ahead of themselves. market expectations are really important for monetary policy. it is not just with the fed does , it is what people think the fed is going to do. for example, mortgage rates have grown up two percentage points
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in the start of the year. the fed has only raise interest rates by three quarters of a percentage rate and until yesterday, they only raged -- they only raise percentage points a quarter of a percentage point. one of the main ways you would get that move is that if investors thought the fed was going to raise rates a lot more than the percentage point this year. that is exactly what they have been saying they were going to do. markets have been listening. heading on a three quarters -- jay powell took that on the table. he said we are not doing that right now. it looks like we are going to do half increases over the next two years. you saw equity markets, stock market took off. host: a change -- still a lot of change in the market in a short.
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of time. what are the risks of all this happen? guest: the risk is you get some sort of very sharp market correction. the fed right now wants to see -- go down. they want to see the stock market weekend. , they need to see bond yields go up. that is the way they slow economic growth. the fed operates through financial markets and what they are trying to do when they raise interest rates is something that we refer to is tightening financial conditions. what that means is you are making it more expensive to borrow, you are making asset values go down. that is going to dampen investment. it will increase saving and it will slow demand in the economy. the reason inflation is high right now is because supply and demand are out of balance.
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the fed cannot do anything without supply. they cannot create more oil, but they can limit demand. that is what administrations are trying to do. that is what is going on here. the fed is engaged in a dance with financial markets and they want to see gains slow down but i don't want to have such a sharp, abrupt correction that you're talking about complete dysfunction. training doesn't work and markets. something like the black monday crash in 1927. they are trying to avoid all that. to slow things down, methodically over time and not have massive volatility where you are bracing a lot of things. host: the rate increases are always the moves that get the headlines when this happens.
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rate decreases like we were talking a couple of years ago. the shrinking of the asset portfolio, what are these assets? where do they go when the fed rolls them off their portfolio? guest: the fed purchases treasures securities and mortgage securities in the open market and they do that through about two dozen banks call primary dealers. they purchased the asset and they credit the bank with a deposit, they are creating money electronically. what is going to happen now is when a two-year treasures security matures, the fed are going to replace it. that is what they have been doing now. they are going to let it run off their balance sheet. u.s. government is going to have to issue another security to summon in the private sector. what does the fed do with the money they get back?
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the principle that matures? that essentially disappears. they erase it. it was created electronically, it will disappear electronically. it is forcing a private investor to purchase the security. it could tightening financial positions. we don't know the asset portfolio, the shrinking of the balance sheet, what effect it is going to have. it depends on the funding needs of the government. the government doesn't need to raise as much money, the fed has disappeared from the market, it may not have as much is in effect. host: policy speak into plain english. you can follow him on twitter. thanks for your time this morning. guest: host: thanks, john. host: about 20 minutes left. as we promised, a open form of
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-- an open forum. caller: good morning. i thought very deeply about the abortion issue and i agree that it is murder. but who is going to take care of the unwanted children? i said for a long time, they will protect a baby in the womb but once it is out, you are on your own, infant. also, i call war, i do not call it war, i killed -- i call it the killing of babies and their families. if people call it that, it will be more cautious and just a fruit letter word. host: republican, good morning. caller: when angelo said he needed a researcher because he had seen any of the videos of
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police inviting people into the capital, i have seen dozens of videos. you can just google it. he spent all this time attacking and trying to censor and get people fired of the conservative media, and calling taxpayers, american taxpayers, white supremacists. what would he call the blacks and hispanics? borrowing our tax money to build of america and american people. what would he call them? i never thought much about the abortion thing until they started going overboard and wanting, even after a baby was born, like the x governor of virginia said, the baby will be born, they will be comfortable and we decide what is going to do with it, that is not abortion, that is murder. host: carrie in oklahoma. this is terry in indiana.
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good morning. caller: i have a simple question for the last guy that was on, angelo, my question is, is he correct on everything he says? does he have the mentality to go ahead and -- his feelings on every subject? science changes frequently. with propaganda, everything changes. i just want to know what his expertise is as a journalist. thank you. host: kathleen, middletown, connecticut, good morning. caller: good morning. about this abortion situation, i feel like i myself would not
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have it, however, i have my believe. we all are entitled as citizens of the united states to have your own belief. i do not think people can make an adjustment so many. president biden has been so instrumental in so many ways. unfortunately, the propaganda has been weak minded and feeble, which he is not. i do not think it is easy to be the backseat driver. you have a president that overtly looks at the camera and forgets what he was talking about. i also think the republicans
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that are so against abortion, but they still kill people in prison, but murder is murder. and they still have the death sentence. i think it should all go into one big great basket. i am a nurse, -- told me her story about abortion. there are so many stories out there. i just wish people would understand with their head and their heart we are all on this planet. we are here to choose the way we raise our children, and people i talked to, -- this is president trump once said, they were so
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under the gun. host: that is kathleen in connecticut. coming up just after 9:45 on the east coast. about 15 minutes left in our open form. a reminder on the schedule today, coming up in about half an hour, a hearing that you might be interested in. immigration and border security challenges being discuss with officials from department of human services, homeland security and governmental affairs committee. it begins at 10:15 a.m. eastern and we are going to be showing it to you here on c-span, c-span.org, you can watch it on the c-span video app, over on c-span two, the senate is set to come in at 11:00 a.m. eastern today. we are also expecting a press briefing from the white house from the white house press secretary jen psaki. that is expected around 2:00
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p.m. eastern today. stick with the c-span networks throughout your day. jay in pleasant view, tennessee, good morning. caller: good morning morning. i have a comment and a little bit of information not i could maybe get out. i found out who took her carlsen the other night that senator mcconnell has direct ties to the communist china and does business with the chinese. i think every senator and congressman should put it out there if they are doing any business with the chinese. as far as this mega, what is wrong with make america great again these are people that are tired of the constant propaganda . host: that is j intimacy.
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this is caleb in texas. caller: hey, good morning. my name is caleb vela. i think everything going on in the wake of the entire ukraine situation has turned all of our energy and oil. companies with regard to those. the problem is, democrats stand off because they cannot agree with some of these issues. i think this is a wonderful opportunity to start thinking about ukraine. in beefing up our medical industry. we were the only ones able to produce the vaccine and we did it first. host: marks, las vegas, nevada. good morning. mark, are you with us this morning? we will go to robert in indiana.
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a republican. good morning. caller: i am talking about the abortion thing. at the last guy you had on their was talking about a fetus does not have a brain or a heart. without a heart and a brain, -- if a baby is born and see, that is god's hands that is what we need to get. these people that do not believe in god. god is the creator of life and death. if people cannot see that, they are stupid. host: on the abortion issue, from the new york times today, the graphic going with their story on what happens if that draft opinion is eventually how
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the supreme court rules on the mississippi abortion case, if roe v. wade is overturned. take a look at the chart on the right with the states that have abortion bands designed to be activated, trigger laws if roe is overturned, 13 states with those laws on the books. idaho, utah, wyoming, north dakota, south dakota, texas, mississippi, kentucky. the chart on the left showing the support and opposition when it comes to abortion. the states in green on that chart, states that have 10 percentage point or more support among residents for legal abortions. the chart -- the states in orange where it is 10 percentage points of more -- 10 percentage points or more who don't support abortion. this is shirley in iowa, good morning. caller: i can't imagine the
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american people even going along with this. that is the highest court in the land. and that was just draft. that wasn't wrote in stone. it is just like january 6, that was wrong. but it is something like that one, they open up those doors -- and then they get them for trespassing. if i am understanding, if i am hearing the news right, -- the
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whole system are curating right now is totally ridiculous. host: noreen, democrat. good morning. caller: i want to remind those ladies out there, they mentioned that abortion is not mentioned in the constitution. but how about this ladies, you aren't either. don't forget, we still have to all after all these years, you better get out there and vote. ok, thank you. host: tulsa, oklahoma, tom good morning. caller: thank you. good morning. on the abortion, why don't we go back to the beginning and do the
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morality thing, we made six convenient, yes, there is mistakes, there is certain situations, but we have made it so broad. think about it. 750,000 babies dying. i we have that many situations in this country for that, or has it became a market for convenience? i just think, start at the beginning. i was taught that. people consider their body a lot more precious than to go out and have casual sex on a friday night or whatever. host: this is ramen in denver, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning.
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there are two issues i would like to talk about. the first one is the mega crowd. i think it is a subconscious ideology permeating those people. that believe donald trump is the savior. the people subconsciously think they are losing white privilege. and the other issue i would like to talk about is the abortion issue. jesus christ was crucified by romans. the roman empire, if you study your history, was the most oppressive and most brutal to women and their kids. throwing them into open lien pits. one more thing i would like to say, if you go to the old testament and look at joshua, joshua went into the land, by god, to destroy 12,000 people, women, children and babies. host: in colorado, on the abortion issue and in the wake of that leak.
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focus on where that leak came from, the new york times say look at the leak investigation and supreme court justice roberts has announced an official investigation. -- washington been as eager to unmask a leaker. but while the city's lobbyist, journalist and political operatives trait theories over encrypted messages in social media, -- rooting out the truth and what chief justice john roberts called --. his legal work took her from the united states to germany and afghanistan.
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the chief security officer services facilitator of --. she manages about 250 employees including the police force. that is because she is someone who says at the beginning, or is , or yes, oy he, all people have before the honorable -- is now sitting in this honorable state. there is a picture of colonel curley. dan, new york city, good morning. caller: good morning. i am really glad they mentioned that about -- because it is all the coverage i have been missing. the motive for why this person would leak this many -- this memo under heavy scrutiny. i would like to know more about
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that for my press coverage. just for the producers of the show, i think you missed an opportunity by not featuring the presenters of media matters in accuracy side-by-side. this day and age, it is more important than ever to see two experts having a conversation about an issue in which they would be diametrically opposed. on live television. it seems very hard to have a conversation with someone in the spanish. i would like to say not all abortions are performed under the same circumstances. maybe it will be a good idea if the court is going to make this impactful of a decision, something could be worked upon by your government to provide
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social services and counseling to these women who may have to get abortions. thank you for taking my call. host: dave is next. rochester, new york. the morning. caller: my question is a two-parter. why isn't c-span aired in high death -- high-definition? and is there a chance you will in the future? host: check with your cable provider to make sure you are getting that. because i get it on high definition on my television at home. sorry i cannot answer that specifically for you david, and rochester. greg in illinois, independent, good morning. caller:hi, my name is greg. my comment is i think this country has become way too divided.
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there is some much extremist on both sides. i am pro-life but i don't think they should be overturning the positions of the way the court has established the law at this point. i think too many people -- i cannot believe that gentleman called a little while ago and said he was happy because the war was going on in ukraine because of how it would benefit our country. instead of how it is impacting the individual will lives of those people, they are dying ukraine right now. looking into how it is going to
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benefit individuals based on oil or construction. there is too much division, this country needs --. thank you. host: johnny, mississippi. glendora, mississippi, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i am here to save the 16 commission should be the beginning of the president's -- and hopefully with that, we would remember that woman, god and baby. why are we taking away from the woman? it should be the woman. host: that >> coming up, look at order security in light of proposed order restrictions and officials
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from health and human services and the state department and homeland security will testify in 15 minutes here on c-span. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government, we are funded by these television companies and more including charter communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment, that's why charter has invested billions, building infrastructure, updating technology and investing in communities big and small. charter is communicating -- charter is connecting is all. >> charter is communicating c-span along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> sunday q&a, a discussion about the life and career of first lady jill biden with associated press white house reporter darlene superville.
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she talks about dr. biden's involvement in joe biden's lyrical career, her role as a teacher and insight into her personality. >> last year, she took a trip, i don't remember where exactly she went, but on the flight home back to washington, d.c., she apparently left her seat, disappear for a while and then out came a woman dressed like a flight attendant with a dark-haired wig and she walked through the cabin handing out ice cream bars. and when she was finished, she revealed her self to be jill biden and apparently no one on the plane recognized it was her. i'm not sure how the step didn't realize she had been missing from her seat for the amount of time it took her to walk up and down the aisle and distribute these ice cream bars but that's one example of the kind of practical joke she likes to play. >> darlene superville sunday night on q&a
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