there are other issues, as the caller alluded to. it can be people who are angry. they believe they have a right to take some of these actions. labeling these issues as mental health issues is a problem. as we have talked today, we know we have a mental health crisis. we know when these issues happen in communities, it has a profound impact on our children. if parents need help, one of the things we do at the american psychological association is put information up about how you can talk here children at apa.org.

there are resources for educators, parents, students, i'm on how you can better deal with these issues -- around how you can better deal with these issues. i hope as a nation we can focus on this and have public policy to provide the support we need and that all of us can be more literate on these issues so we can create an environment that will promote the mental wellness of our children and prevent as many of them as possible from having more significant problems. host: arthur evans, ceo of the american psychological association, thank you so much for joining us today. coming up, it is our saturday spotlight on podcasts. the "heartland pod" podcast co-hosts will discuss their podcast and politics from a midwestern perspective. we will be right back.

>> book tv every sunday on c-span features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. he will discuss immigration issues, the drug epidemic, and his latest book. at 10:00 eastern, dave rubin shares his thoughts on how to revive the american dream and call out woke culture. much book tv -- watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 or watch online anytime.

>> after months of closed-door investigations, the house january 6 committee is set to go public. tune in as committee members question key witnesses about what transpired and why during the assault on the u.s. capitol. watch live coverage beginning thursday at 8:00 eastern on c-span, c-span now app, or any time online at c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. c-span's podcast brings you over 40 years of audio comparing events of the past two today. on this week's episode. >> why are we here, if not to

make sure that fewer schools and communities go through what sandy hook has gone through, what uvalde is going through? our hearts break for these families. every ounce of love, thought, and prayers we can send, we are sending. >> that was senator chris murphy may 22 shortly after the shooting at robb elementary in uvalde, texas. the next day, senator murphy was quoted in "the new york times" saying our job is not to sin thoughts and prayers, our job is to pass laws. in this episode, we hear what senate and house chaplains told congress in their prayers in the days after students and teachers were killed in mass school shootings. >> bless the families of all whose lives were cut short with peace and consolation.

help us all to have hope and a time of great desolation. >> you can find "the weekly" on c-span now, our free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back two "washington journal." it is our saturday spotlight on podcasts. today's podcast is called "heartland pod." i have three co-hosts with me. rachel parker, adam sommer, and sean diller are with me. welcome to all of you. viewers can feel free to call in on the line for republicans, democrats, and independents. adam, let me start with you.

tell us about the podcast. when did it start? what is it about? adam: thanks for having us. the podcast started in the summer of 2020. sean and i had gotten together to do some nonprofit work. we were getting to do all of that, and in covid hit. we were trying to figure out something to do. we pivoted to trying to do a video thing. that is a lot of work. we decided to try audio. we did that in july of 2020 and put some episodes out and told ourselves if we get some listeners, we will keep doing it. we got some listeners and met up with rachel. she was a listener who contacted us. we put that together. the last year or so, we have been growing and finding a stride. we want to look at politics from a middle out approach.

obviously, we are on a show that is the "washington journal." there are a ton of shows looking at politics. let's talk about what it is like to be in the heartland or the midwest. we are in that area, from that area, so we want to talk about politics not just about the region but from the region. we will still talk about national stories. we are looking at it from that particular lens. it is a little bit different angle looking at politics. on top of that, we use the phrase a lot, "change the conversation." i am in missouri. if you are in missouri and turn the radio dial and look for political talk, there's approximately two to 14 doesn't conservative radio shows -- doesn't consist -- dozen

conservative radio shows. we thought it would be something worth looking at. we come at things from a more progressive angle. we are trying to look at that angle on politics from the middle out approach. host: rachel, what would you say is unique about politics from the heartland? rachel: thank you for having us. it is a great privilege to be here. when you think about midwestern politics, you mostly think about hot red states. i know a lot of conservative politicians from missouri like to call it cherry red or bright red. without having a nuanced conversation from a more progressive perspective, those voices often do not get heard. we try to talk about things from a more pragmatic level. we are not necessarily died in the wool democrats. we are looking to elevate the voices of politicians and

stakeholders from this part of the country doing the work to amplify actions we think are our popular in this region then it would appear by those in the state house and washington. host: drill down on popular misconceptions and politics in the heartland, flyover states, just being bright red. any other misconceptions? sean: yeah, yeah, lots. not just republican but uneducated. i think politics in the midwest gets covered once in a while on east coast and west coast political shows.

when it comes to a big, powerful seat like the united states senate seat, missouri has an open seat and there are wild primaries on both sides. a race that might get covered once or twice on something like "huffington post" or "new york times," we will talk about it all the time. people following the race and know about the disgraced ex -governor in the gop primary, it is a super compelling story that people do not talk about on other outlets. host: adam, what are other topics you talk about on the podcast beside the elections going on? adam: sorry, mimi, i called you michelle. host: that's all right. adam: we will cover anything we

think is worthy of talking about. we try to stay away from the broader -- we do not talk about donald trump on the podcast unless we think it will directly impact what is going on in the region on a day today. we will probably talk about the january 6 hearings, but we do not cover it on a constant basis. we are looking at the senate race in missouri. one of the candidates is the attorney general in missouri. he thinks his path is to sue his weight to getting his name out there. he sued a bunch of schools for mask mandates. most of those have been dropped. i didn't episode where i took one of his lawsuits. i am an attorney in missouri. i like to say i am all the things josh hawley likes to talk about being. i took one of those lawsuits and

broke it down. i went through line by line and talked about the merits of it, why it is written this way, why the first page and a half does not make sense, and broke it down. we will do that. i have had interviews with school board candidates. we will talk about anything that impacts what is going on here. we try to be very broad but tie it back into what is going on regionally. we have multiple shows including the friday show called "the flyover review" where we will pull together news stories that will not be covered on headline news and maybe not the nightly news -- local nightly news, but they are statehouse stories, and we will bring that together on a friday show and highlight those

stories, in part to show that everybody thinks their state is really different from all the other states. the reality is there's a lot of stuff going on in missouri that is going on in texas. there's a lot of stuff in texas going on in iowa. sowing those connections and how those subjects are bubbling up at the same time. sean: in showing strong progressives are winning there. -- and showing strong progressives are winning there. there's a long tradition of progressive populism. like someone said, raise less corn and more hell. host: i want to give a programming note to viewers that the january 6 hearings in

congress will be on thursday, june 9. those have been months of closed-door investigations. the house is set to go public on that. starting june 9, you can tune in and listen to all that happened and hear the witnesses. you can watch that live on c-span starting thursday, june 9, on c-span, c-span now, the free mobile video out, or anytime online at c-span.org. i wonder how much the events of january 6 resonate in your part of the country. adam: i can tell you that i expect it to be a very popular topic when the hearings start. there are a lot of folks running that i have interviewed. i always ask folks, how did you get into politics? or, why did you decide to run?

the answer has been very consistent which is either the 2020 election or the events on january 6. at least, the most recent candidates. a lot of folks running in 20 would say the 2016 election. now, it is the january 6 event. northern missouri and southern iowa are hard to tell the difference unless you know where the state line is. that area has one commerce person that covers 80 counties. it is massive. there are three people in the democratic primary running against a republican incumbent. that incumbent supported the january 6 insurrection and has been extremely vocal about supporting it. all three of those candidates are running against that as an issue. it is enough to get three folks

off the sideline to run in a contested primary that last went about 65% to the republican candidate. host: our viewers can give us a call until the end of the program at 10:00 eastern on the lines for republicans, democrats, and independents. you can also text us at 202-748-8003. be sure to give us your first name, city, and state. rachel, one of the episodes you talked about on the podcast was obstructionism and the difference between that and things just not getting done in washington. tell us more about that. rachel: i was thinking about that in the car on my way over, how missouri lawmakers figure into the greater conversation. you can look at someone like roy

blunt whose policies i will not agree with very often who made barack obama's life difficult and was for the impeachment of bill clinton but is also a rational human being on some levels that you can compromise with. he actually voted for the bipartisan infrastructure deal. roy blunt has it in him to compromise. i think this new wave of conservatives in the senate and house are purely focused on stopping any mechanic agenda -- democratic agenda. it does not matter what it is. there policy is no. there is an attorney general in kansas running. his campaign platform is that if he wins, his entire platform policy would be to block joe biden's agenda.

he will just sue the biden administration for whatever reasons they can possibly come up with. obstruction has gone from a tactic to an actual campaign strategy which is extremely problematic when you are talking about voters. voters ultimately want government to function even if they do not follow politics to the extent we do. voters want things to be better in their own lives even if they are more partisan in the way they vote. i think you are seeing a party willing to alienate a good deal of the american population just for the sake of being able to score points and have something to say on their social media platform. host: you are calling it a campaign tactic. do you expect those candidates to lose? rachel: it is hard to say. i don't know where the kansas

voters are right now. he has lost other elections before. it is not working for eric schmitt. he is trailing in the polls even behind someone not popular with the missouri republican party. i don't think he is popular with missouri voters. he has name recognition. the fact he is telegenic is probably helping his campaign more than anything. there has been no consequence to senator hawley from january 6. in the immediate aftermath, there were some cries he should be stripped of his committee assignments. none of those things happened. if you're looking at the greater picture, will it work? i don't know. it might work in missouri on down ticket races.

i think that is an ongoing question. when you look across primary campaigns, they are still using it as a major communication tactic for sure. host: adam, your comments on that? adam: in missouri, we talk about it as a microcosm of what you see on the national level. we are not unique in saying that. part of the things that got me off the sidelines was sarah mckenzie based out of st. louis and she wrote the book, "the view from flyover country." if you look at the missouri senate which mucks folks don't watch but i watch closely, the missouri senate is quietly controlled by the republican party and yet they could not get anything done because there is a portion of the republican party

that has become so obstructionist for very tiny issues. they will take one tiny issue and turn it into days of filibuster. they will kill anything that makes sense. for example, in missouri right now, you will not be able to place a wager on a sporting event in the state of missouri, but you can go to iowa and kansas and illinois. you can go to almost any state that touches our borders and go play. if you are surrounded by the legality of that issue, from a pragmatic standpoint, like rachel said, we look at everything that way, why wouldn't you make that legal in your own state to keep that revenue here? there's going to be a ton of revenue. the kansas city chiefs are talking about changing states. i bet they will like the fact it is legal to gamble in kansas from a revenue standpoint. you can put it on top of d.c., and you see the same thing.

josh hawley is the one we talk about most because we are in that state. but that kind of behavior, grievance politics that is not about any particular policy, it is more just about feeling justified for the way you feel. justification for feelings versus policies that can help somebody. i'm often there was anything josh hawley has done that benefits the people of missouri from a policy standpoint. if you drive across the state of missouri on i-70, they are building a massive new bridge across the river. it will be the roy blunt bridge because he made sure the money came to missouri. josh hawley opposed every penny of it. that is where you can see those things playing out in the same light. --same way. host: let's talk to some viewers. let's start on the democrat

line. caller: thanks for taking my call and thanks for being here. i appreciate you bringing up the piece about obstructionists within the republican party. i enjoyed hearing that. i wonder if you could comment on the urban-rural divide in your state. i observe frequently in politics in minnesota. i will hang up and listen. host: who would like to take that one? sean: i would. "flyover country" has a lot of states that are straight up blue states like colorado. we have the urban-rural divide. many of the others. same in minneapolis. senator amy klobuchar talks about that and positive strategies for getting past that. it has been interesting to see here that it has resulted in

republicans working with democrats to get things passed. the democrats have a couple boats majority in the senate here but they have all the statewide offices, so we have seen good cooperation on mental health, funding education. all the states have all this money. they have been able to get the money out. it has been good to see folks work together and see the dysfunction in others. rachel: jason cantor put this in my head on our podcast last year . what i like to term it is not so much the urban-rural divide, it is the suburban-everyone else divide. a lot of extremist candidates in missouri call themselves the conservative caucus. they are not all from rural missouri.

some of them are from urban missouri. i think a lot of suburban representatives in missouri are the ones that introduce the most obstructionist bills and bills that relate to abortion. we passed an extremely venal gun law last year. that was sponsored by suburban st. louis officials. i could talk a lot about the economics of that and where that comes from. i don't want to impugn rural representation or rural voters. i think rural voters are more complex than portrayed. if you look at the way people vote on issues in missouri, and we can see that clearly because we are allowed to vote on direct

laws, and missouri voters vote for progressive things. i think they will legalize medical marijuana the next election cycle. i am sorry to call it -- starting to call it the suburban divide. we pretty much agree on the same things. adam: the reality is there is an economic disconnect. suburban areas, the problems they are dealing with are significantly different. if you are in an urban area in missouri, in downtown st. louis or in a rural area where i am, i can drive about two minutes and be on some seriously rural roads. tell the difference between the urban roads and rural roads, the

only difference is one has buildings. otherwise, they are both in shambles. the motivation for the more rural representation is not that different from the motivation for the urban representation. it is really more economic based. like rachel is saying, the suburban ones, the preservation act, there was nothing to be preserved. this was just a way to say we have done something on the second amendment to so we really love guns. it is just a cultural bill. the majority of law enforcement in our state disagrees with the bill and did not want it in the first place. that is bubbling up from the suburbs. i think i heard the term "cul-de-sac libertarianism." we see a lot of that around the state of missouri. it is interesting to watch that dynamic. host: let's talk to greg in

plymouth, michigan, on the independent line. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, good morning -- caller: good morning. this may be a little off-topic. i wanted to ask about the insurrection on january 6 in d.c. when they voted on right to work, the capitol building was occupied for five weeks. it was not called civil disobedience but just normal protest. host: who would like to talk about that one? sean: the insurrectionists were trying to steal the presidency for themselves. civil disobedience is different. i guess that is all i have. adam: i think that is a pretty easy distinction of the difference between going someplace literally to make a point to be there as opposed to

the violence we saw on january 6. nothing about january 6 to me was a problem until there was violence. if you want to have a rally or even say hyperbolic things at a political rally, that is not new. that is happening. you don't have to be a republican or democrat or in any political party to say hyperbolic things at a rally and people mostly agree with you. that will happen. when you see someone caring and american flag beating a cop, that is a big distinction between those things. that is where the line for me was crossed. when we got past that -- and we have heard from the people whether it is the plea-bargain's happening, there are all kinds of recordings from that day from folks taking video as they were going through the capital, some journalists had gotten into the crowd and taking video. we know what the intention was.

we know the intention was violent, a violent overthrow of the government in that moment in time. we will be covering the committee hearing for the january sex insurrection starting on thursday, june 9. it will be live here on c-span. we will have more information for you. it will also be on our website and on our video app. let's talk to rick on the republican line. from council bluffs iowa. good morning. i'm wondering if with the people in your podcast, they called to complain about everything with groceries or anything else. given the january 6 girl was shot. she was -- they didn't get her.

she was good to be prosecuted for murder. guest: guest: guest: guest: host: guest: host: guest: guest: guest: guest: for my part, and campaign, strategy, what they are doing, they have said repeatedly that it doesn't seem as though president biden has a good answer for gas prices. it is definitely what most people are concerned about, but yes. we don't really do live stuff with the podcast. it is not a lot of colons, but absolutely, the point on inflation and gas is that it is a fair point, and something that will need to be addressed read i think it is more complex than anyone wants it to be. i think both parties want to be the other party's fault. we know there is a lot more to market forces than with the

president dozen office. the price of gasoline, and there is more to it than that. but specifically in the january 6 comments, all i know is what i've seen on video. the audio on the video, i've seen it give good commands, and we hear a lot from when officers shoot somebody, that is the first thing we hear about. they give a command in the first person follows the command. this may surprise some of the viewers, but i am a prosecutor. i do municipal level prosecution work, and i work with officers every day, and i have a lot of respect for what they do. when they have to make that decision, it is not a life decision. if it is done after command in an awful way, it is part of what they are able to do. they are the armed portion of the government, and they have the ability to do that.

whether or not that was the person they were giving a command to, whether that was someone who should have been shot, i think we can talk in circles about that. but the reality is, those in that moment in time, there was a violent mob of folks, and being able to parse out one piece of that is pretty hard to do. i think there is a lot different from we have police shootings in kansas city, and there is a video of it, and that bear has come out to say this person has a gun in their hand, they were not following instructions prior to the officer taking a shot. there is video of that exact thing happening. i think that one person with a gun with officers is a lot different from somebody who is in a violent crowd while people are trying to keep the chambers to the house closed. those are different things. i think it would be awed to prosecute an officer for murder

for that particular type of incident. host: teresa is calling from new jersey. hello. caller: i have a question about your interface. if you haven't average our way to instruct or enlighten the listening audience to the legislative processes, in your state, and how they can contact or interface with their lawmakers, in the legislature, and ultimately, the representatives in the house and senate in the government, and

the federal government. it just seems like that might be something that would be neutral for the various listening audiences in the state. host: that is useful for everybody. who wants to take that? guest: we don't do that in every episode. call your legislator. issues have come up, and we talk about that, as well as urban and rural issues where there is an issue that is the same. in missouri, specifically, the state legislature is working hard to make it so the county can't do anything about their own clean water. the reason is to make it easier for industrial scale, agricultural operations to produce manure to be in the community.

when there was a rule change, and it was wonky, like the environmental department was in the executive branch of the missouri government, the agencies were going to do a rule change, and it seemed as though it was confusing to people. most environmental issues are, and there was one person with one email who is in charge of taking those comments, just like at the federal level. people can comment on those rules. we had thousands of people around the country on well water. there is not really anyone touching the water. -- testing the water. we let people know that there is a way that people want to hear from them. legislators listen to their constituents. also, my perspective as a -- working on a campaign, it is the most effective thing you can do, doorknocking. he went to make sure that is happening as much as possible, and if you want to make a

difference, we let people know those avenues and things that people can do to get involved. for sure. host: let's talk to doug in alaska on the republican line. hello. caller: hello. i was just wondering what the guests think on impeachment. i am a moderate republican, what -- but i didn't like the impeachment of president trump. it seems like it might be putting restrictions on parties because they don't like a president. let's impeach him. that is my opinion. guest: let's give that to rachel. guest: i knew it. first, let's talk about the fact that the impeachment of bill

clinton was a long time ago, and the minute that he -- it was the birth of the modern republican party. the congress at that time hired a prosecutor named ken starr to do nothing else other than find something on bill clinton. that was his mandate at desk. . they found professional misconduct, and he was impeached for lying under a. -- undergrowth. donald trump tried to overthrow the united states government for sure. he definitely tried to do a quid pro quo with a democratically elected leader who is now fighting the russian government against an invasion of his country. both of those situations, as much as it may -- the bill

clinton impeachment was a partisan exercise. i am not a big fan of bill clinton, and i think he probably tarnished the office as using it as a dating opportunity, which is something a lot of us believe. but there is a justifiable reason to impeach a president for not following the rule of law, which donald trump did many times. it just happened to be two times where the house of representatives decided that would be the issue that he really crossed the line on. i am very disappointed that we never had an impeachment hearing in the senate for donald trump or either of his impeachment indictments, unlike bill clinton, who had to basically forgo 13 months of his last term to just focus on impeachment that was made mostly about an extramarital affair. that is the way i look at it. i don't necessarily think, for

example, i don't think joe biden is focusing on a potential to be in peace. -- impeached. there is an impeachment flag in missouri where i live. that is where i draw the line. donald trump broke the law. and the only rule of recourse we have in the constitution is impeachment. i hope that answers your question. guest: there is a difference between the first impeachment of donald trump and the second impeachment. the first is murkier, and there are better arguments or what he did, simply being a stylistic approach to how he negotiated with people. i don't necessarily agree with that, but i think there is a reasonable argument to be made. he wasn't trying to necessarily subvert law. he was trying to show some ability to have a back-and-forth with another world leader.

whether you believe that or not is up to you, but the distinction between that and january 6 are different. i do think the ukrainian impeachment did make the january 6 impeachment -- it watered it down. had they not been impeached, had it gone forward, i think there is a reasonable chance it would have been tried in the senate and he would have been convicted based on the things mitch mcconnell said in the immediate aftermath. it very much favored removal from office, but once you have been on that path, it is easier to make a political argument, but i think there is a vast distinction between the impeachment of bill clinton and donald trump. guest: i am with the caller. i obviously believe he deserves to be impeached, but i get frustrated with politics. just who's in power, and i would

rather people be talking about clean water. folks are in office and talking about lives. that's what i would like to see. host: let's talk to don on the republican line from washington. caller: good morning. i enjoyed talking to you. you are not smug as the others. you. i think everyone appreciates you for that. i have a couple of comments and one question for your guests. i will be quick read bill clinton was impeached because we know why. what he did. he could have gone anywhere and he chose to do it in the oval office. as for the impeachment on trump, that was a scam, and i am glad he beat that. my question for you since i just said myself, what do you think about 2000 mules? i am curious to hear from all

three of you. thank you. god bless. guest: i am happy to jump on that. i will just say that as far as the impeachment being a scam, he did not beat them. he was impeached twice. as far as the 2000 mule things goes? good for him. he knows how to make a buck. if i could put out a movie that i could sell one million tickets to and fund my ability to do only this kind of work instead of having to work a real day job, i would probably do it as well. i will not besmirch him that. i would encourage folks to understand how editing works, and they use a lot of the same material, over and over again. they don't have a lot of context. they are using basic parlor tricks of production to make a point. it is a piece of propaganda, plain and simple. it is designed to be entertaining to folks who agree with it, and that is all i will

say about it. host: any comments on that? i am not familiar with that. it looks like a comment but i don't know what it is. it is about the 2020 election and making the claim that it was a stolen election. >> the election was not stolen. host: mitchell is next on the republican line. caller: hello. how are you? i am very thankful for c-span. i was with you 15 minutes ago, and i don't know if you talked about this issue yet, but i find it appalling that republicans in kansas, legislators, would not repeal the food tax.

they saw it as an advantage for our governor during her reelection. how do you deal with those kinds of idiots. they refused to make responsible policies. i grew up in california. there is no food tax. i am sure that in the vast majority of states, there is no food tax. that tax effect the poorest the most. and, it is just on definable. guest: there is a sale tax on groceries? we have that in missouri. it is a stupid tax, because if you have 100 people, and 10 people have $1 million, and the other 90 people do not, and

everyone pays the same tax, it doesn't make sense. i am on the western side of missouri, so i get kansas commercials in my television when i watch sports. i have seen the governor commercials, and they just put one out. it is the exact issue. they put out an issue against the governor that shows a broken down road, and how she voted against tax cuts. as if cutting taxes will fix the road. she voted against that and vetoed tax cut after tax cut, and they had 20 of them. they passed them so they would veto them so they would have a commercial to attacker. she signed this tax cut. it is a really smart tax cut. they are not going to touch that issue. they will not say that the grocery tax will be done because she pushed it and signed it.

so, it is a very interesting issue because they want to attacker for not cutting taxes, but if she cut an important tax that affects everyone's pocketbook, she will get no credit for. -- for it. guest: that's a good point. the question is what can you do. if i was in kansas and i was forced to have a governor like laura kelly who is a moderate democrat, certainly, i can point to think she is done recently that look like she is trying to compromise with, as you mentioned, a very similar legislator. my advice is to do whatever you can to keep her in office. it is a very uphill battle for her. it will be tougher to win in an off election year when there isn't the same kind of backlash to the republican governor or republican president as there will be to the democratic president.

the chances of reelection are slimmer. if i were you, i would donate money to her campaign. i would text and volunteer. whatever you feel comfortable with. i would reach out to her campaign in your area. i would find out what their immediate needs are, so the message is about what is good for kansas. it actually gets voters. like shawn said, it is a very difficult thing. most people don't pay attention until the day before they vote if they decide to vote. that would be one thing i would say you can do to support the reelection effort. >> i hope that helps. host: andy is next on the independent line in seminole, florida. good morning. caller: i was asking a question that was divergent, but to the people grasping ideas that are contradictory, and contradictory to the facts, we are seeing that

on the insurrection attack on the capital, and there being so many desires to let the van -- ban of the 1950's. as a programmer, i used the pages in the 1990's before they were big, and i thought, they are being moderated and it will be ok. i was wrong. i did work in that outside arena, but we used it to get information to and from each other. what do you think are the chances of them being able to bring people who have gone down a mispronunciation of a word. it is where a rat builds its nest. instead of a rabbit hole which is too nice.

what is the chance of bringing people back? are we going to have to do get out for the next 10 years and god knows what happens to this country? host: who would like to take that? guest: i was going to say. if we were on a podcast, i would ask that question first and i would make him let me go. guest: that is part of why i use the phrase change the conversation, and just this past week, and the week before, i do an opening statement on monday episodes, and rachel did one recently. everyone can get excited for a day or a week or a month, and maybe will show up at a rally or something like that, but can you do it for one year? you do it for two years or five years? you do it for 10 years? real structural change -- rachel

alluded to the modern republican party starting with the impeachment of bill clinton, and that is a flashpoint, almost like a solidification of the modern republican party, but it begins its primordial state sometime in the late 1970's or early 1980's. it is finding its way, and it took a long time for a lot of those ideas that were small ideas to bubble up and become sort of the mainstream of what they are talking about. the democratic party to me, one of my biggest complaints with the democratic party is that there is no real cohesion of ideas, and so the ability to have a message that can cut through is very hard because you have a whole but -- bunch of smart folks who want to run the messages, but not one clear-cut thing is happening. do i think that the folks who believe, for example, the people who believe that q exists, the

folks who believe that john f. kennedy is going to come back, those types of beliefs, i think the idea that you are going to change the belief of someone like that is very difficult. mostly because they want to believe that, and there is a pretty good chance that they will move on to something that is just as fantastical as that moment -- sort of thing. there are a lot of rational folks who don't believe that but might believe donald trump was a good president for whatever reason. we can have rational conversations with each other. that is part of what we want to do on the show. there are a lot of independent callers, and i love that. while our shows progressive in nature, we want to model conversation that isn't necessarily one-sided. but you also can do that by not saying that just because you have an opinion, it doesn't make it a good opinion. we've allowed this idea that because somebody has an opinion, they have a valid opinion.

that's not true. some opinions are bad. they are not based on reality. we have to get better at just saying that to each other and saying i disagree with that, and here is why i disagree with that. being willing to live with a little bit of confrontation. we become so adjusted to go on and get along in society that we have forgotten what it is like to say i disagree with you, and here's why. that is ok. host: rachel? or was that sean? guest: i think it is like gasoline on the fire. a fire of misinformation like you said. it bubbled up from the internet in the 90's. i was the same as you. i thought this would be great. a marketplace of ideas. if anyone can work perfectly, it is this. we have seen what happens. it adds to citizens united and dark money. it is an unlimited ability to spew misinformation that plays on the worst impulses that we

have. hate, fear. i think it is such a long struggle that will never really end. we just have to keep putting one in front of the other. we are talking about things that we do agree on. compassion, community, civics, education. it is a long road. guest: i don't know that i have anything for it i worked also in the technology space for a long time. i watched the rise of social networks while i was doing a lot of consulting for start ups when i lived in los angeles for many years. during the advent, i worked in the.com space. we still called it that. it looked like we are being liberated from media giants. that's what it felt like. suddenly, young tech upstarts were freeing us from the shackles of gatekeepers, and i still like to believe that there

is so much good that comes from these open-source marketplaces where it is very cheap and easy to put together your own platform, and we were an example of that. i don't want to impugn that, saying it brought me to a literal conversation right now. i think the hard part is that we are dealing with networks that still allow for algorithms that bottle up conversations that are purely based on disagreement. my hope is that that might change. i don't think we can sit back and hope that facebook and meadow will go away. twitter will become less popular. now we have tiktok, which is far more popular than any of the other platforms combined. i think we need to have some sensible regulatory conversation about how these platforms can exist, and i think, speaking of amy klobuchar, i think the

antitrust legislation that she -- credit where credit is due, it would certainly help present another facebook from happening, or prevent another youtube -- is hugely problematic. i think youtube is incredibly problematic. tiktok could be incredibly problematic. they are getting ahead of the moderation conversation better than any network as before, but demanding transparency from those networks, and i agree with adam. if someone is that far gone and they believe the election was stolen, and they believe that the covid is a hoax. there are people in my family believe both of those things. if that's where they sit ideologically, there is probably very little that you can say or do to convince them to come back to reason. the only thing you can do is look on the horizon and ask how to prevent this level of misinformation from becoming

this widespread again in the future. the answer is, stop companies from becoming so vastly large that they control a great deal of the market is in the future. host: let's talk to paul in the republican line. host: thank you for taking my call. i have a comment in question. if you think that the channel has become a channel for the republican party. you are talking about gun control every morning. the country is in a mess. look at gas and inflation. nobody's talking about that. [indiscernible] the other thing is january 6 -- can you tell me how many people died on january 6? how many people went to the white house smart i was upset. the election was stolen.

don't give me all of these things that are emotional. that is my comment. thank you. guest: that is a very good example of when somebody -- i don't know that callers opinion is based on everything that he is looked at, and what he has thought about. i am not here to talk about him as a person, but that opinion is requiring me to say, here are all the facts you want. when you put your opinion is a question like that, that is something we have seen. tucker carlsen's famous by behaving that way. when you put it as a? at the end of an opinion and say you cannot provide me information and everything you say is wrong, it is not a reasonable form of argument, and i don't care what side of the isle you are on, it doesn't hold any value.

host: any other comments on that? guest: tucker carlsen, the communicators out there, ted cruz -- the idea that you cannot prove a negative. you can't actually prove that your tv is not propaganda. it is insidious these days. i don't know. host: that will be our last call. i want to remind people that if you like podcasts, c-span also has podcasts, so check them out on c-span.org and our free video app, c-span now. adam summer is from warrensburg, missouri. rachel parker, from sailors. sean is from denver. the cohosts of heartland pond. thank you for being on. thank you so much. guest: thank you. host: a programming note --

after months of closed-door hearings, the house on january 6 is set to go public, and we will have that for you life on c-span , starting thursday, june 9. you can hear directly from committee members from when this is about what happened and why during the assault on the u.s. capital beginning thursday, june 9, c-span, c-span now and on c-span.org. thank you for watching and for the calls. back again tomorrow morning. have a great saturday.

>> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband. buckeye broadband support c-span , giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> sunday on q&a, an iraq war veteran offers -- discusses the impact of the wars in afghanistan and iraq on american society and the chasm between those who serve and the rest of