for gun reform legislation and david: on the movement for gun control. washington journal is next with your calls and tweets on the news of the day. ♪ host: this is "washington journal" for june 11. one of the themes for the midterm election is crime. san francisco's district attorney was outed because he was liberal and others are showing they are tough on crime. we want to get your thoughts on what party you trust when it comes to fighting crime overall. here is how you can let us know. (202)-748-8001 for republicans,

(202)-748-8000 four democrats, an independents (202)-748-8002. if you are in law enforcement and you want to give your thoughts, (202)-748-8003 is how you can do that. you can use that same number to text us your thoughts. you can post on facebook and twitter and follow the show on instagram. "the washington post" looks at how democrats running for reelection are facing this crime . in this article it goes to san francisco and the primary that took place this week. it fears democrats losing ground or compounded by the primary, in which it included the recall of san francisco district attorney, whom voters saw as overly lenient toward criminals. and los angeles mayors' race, rick caruso, a former republican

who campaigned on improving quality of life, is projected to go to a runoff with karen bass. it was too the results of the primary that even president biden while in california referenced them and talked about the larger issue of crime. "the hill" picks up that story saying the president said tuesday the primary results in california and mississippi and other states sent the message that voters want leaders who will take a tough stance on crime. the president again traveling for the summit of the americas in california, but made those comments earlier this week. here's president biden from earlier this week. [video clip] >> i think the voters sent a clear message last night. both parties have to step up and do something about crime as well as gun violence. and, as you recall, billions of

dollars are encouraging to be used to reform the police department. very few have done it. in addition to that, i sent the congress a request for $300 million in this year budget to retraining cops and make sure they are adequately dispersed around the community. it is time to move. it is time the state a locality spend the money they have to deal with crime, as well as retrain police officers. as well as provide more community policing. it is time to get on with doing that and that is what i think the message last night from the american public was in all of the primaries. host: you can see more of that on our website at c-span.org. when it comes to fighting crime,

which party do you trust to do that? (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8000 four democrats, an independents (202)-748-8002. cnn picks up a scene looking at the crime and how it plays out in election related issues. they start with last year say new york city's electorate chose the now mayor, eric adams, running the most forceful tough on crime campaign. they highlight los angeles. rick caruso came out of nowhere. in chicago, mayor lori lightfoot, who is up for reelection last year, has infuriated progressives and keep in mind that president joe biden won all these cities by at least 53 points. the story also looks at statistics when it comes to specific crimes across the

united states. they highlight that larceny theft is up 20% from last year in san francisco, the same in the three most populated cities. it is up 51% in new york and 43% los angeles. other theft categories have shown a 16% rise and theft is up 66% year-over-year in chicago. you can give us some of where crime is where you live and what party do you trust when it comes to fighting crime? the numbers are on the screen. you can text us at (202)-748-8003. we start with dirk in minneapolis, minnesota, democrats' line. do you trust one party over the other when it comes to fighting crime? caller: yes. it is not that the republicans are insincere, but i believe the

democrats have a better idea on gun control, how to limit guns. i have one slightly off-topic -- host: let's stick to the topic. when it comes to other crimes, do you think the democratic party has a better approach on fighting crime overall? caller: except for the radicals, yes. i believe the police should be funded more, not less, and that they should be given better equipment for fighting crimes, especially school sites. they got locked out of their own classrooms at robb elementary. i believe they have to have the equipment to deal with their own reinforcements. host: that was dirk in minneapolis.

let's hear from dee in ohio, lucasville, independent line. caller: i don't see why they don't give the border police the wall to keep the drugs out because the drugs are few willing -- fueling crimes. they can still bring in as many illegals in as they want. host: so which party -- tell me, which party do trust on crime? which party do you trust more? dee, tell us what party you trust more on fighting crime? caller: to help them keep the drugs out. host: ron in maryland, democrats' line. caller: hello. host: you are on.

caller: thank you for c-span. i think if you would step these republicans stopping these guns from invading the cities, that is the base problem. about two months ago a 13-year-old boy shot and killed somebody in maryland. how does a 13-year-old get enough money to buy a gun? and all of these guns are coming in from virginia, new york, all of these major cities. these republicans own all these gun shops and they are sending the guns into the major cities. host: when it comes to other crime, do you trust the democratic party more on that? caller: do i do what? host: do you trust the democratic party more in fighting crime versus the republican party?

caller: i think so. when we have this election coming up in november, if the voters do not do one thing, if they vote the democratic parties in, we can get these guns out of the community. host: aside from gun crime, what other crime do you think the democrat party does better at fighting? caller: i think all of this is tied together. host: why do you say that? caller: people are out robbing people and doing all this stuff, they have guns doing this. host: that is ron in maryland. this is thomas in humboldt, texas, independent line. caller: you have where it is democratic or republican. you are trying to say which party is great for it, but that makes no sense.

what method is best for it? host: which party has the best method then? caller: you have not asked that. do you have any numbers saying how many crimes have increased since 1990 or decreased? we all know there is a drug epidemic. when you need drugs, you spill, that's it. until you get people help, they are going to be stealing more often. when you have no place to live, you steal. you steal her food, clothing -- you steal for food, clothing, things like that. host: are you saying neither party has a good approach of fighting crime? caller: no, they don't.

the logical problem is homelessness and people without. people do not steal just because. they steal because they need something. evidently, they need health care, they need food, they need money. thank you. host: that was thomas in texas. we set aside a line for those of you in law enforcement. this is robert in clearwater, florida, republican identified and law enforcement. go ahead. caller: this is ridiculous. people make excuses. that is why we need law enforcement to get drugs off the roads. they are attacking people, killing people -- host: let us start with a couple of questions. are you in law enforcement yourself? caller: my family is. host: we are setting aside the

line for law enforcement as far as those in law enforcement. that said, which party has a better approach at fighting crime? caller: law enforcement. i think they are the best at fighting crime and the have to change the politicians. you have to go back to all republicans if you ask me. host: that is robert in florida. you heard the president talk about the use of the american rescue plan funds for help in fighting crime when he was in california. statement or press release from the white house on how the funds are being used. $6.5 billion, $1 billion for public safety workers, over $2 billion to ease the burden on police, including community violence intervention, crisis responders and substance use disorder and mental health services, and then over $350

million set aside to help formerly car serrated individuals reenter society and provide at risk teens and adults with opportunities in the summer and during the year. it also sets aside $450 million in new police cars and upgraded radio systems, and $600 million to support victims of crime. when it comes to the topic of fighting crime, asking you which party do you trust to do that? you can call and give your thoughts and text just this morning at (202)-748-8003. this is dan in santa barbara, california, independent line. caller: when it comes to our political parties, i don't trust either one. they have both been taken over by extremism's within their own -- extremists within their own

ranks. the republicans have been hijacked by authoritarians and fascists and i do not trust them. on the other hand, the democrats have extremists in their own ranks and we saw that during the george floyd protests. what happened with the chopped zone, what happened in portland with antifa and the jails trying to get burned down. it is frankly depressing to see how our political establishment is basically just giving in to the loudest voices in the room. host:host: if it is not either of those parties, what is the best approach? caller: just hoping the center holds and we have voices of moderation and reason get back into the mix. right now, all you see is

extremism on both sides. host: what does that mean as far as fighting crimes, these voices of moderation? caller: i hope they are in some cities but on the left with what is going on in san francisco and l.a., it is a joke. if you look at how the right is treating the january 6 hearings, it is frightening. i don't know where the moderate, normal, reasonable people are, but i do not see them in the media anymore. host: that is dan in santa barbara. he referenced san francisco, the ousting of the district attorney. megan mcardle picks up on the events of crime when it comes to politics in a column that talked about san francisco. she also writes in a column this morning saying, progressives talk about addressing the root causes of crime that they forget one of the most important is human nature. we are selfish and greedy beings and of crime is rewarding or

disorder tolerated, people will engage in antisocial behavior even if all material needs are met. it is the job of the criminal justice system to deter that. she also says it progressives are wrong about the problem, conservatives are wrong about the solution. too often they try to solve crime through harsher punishment. this is often because of underlying mental illness or substance abuse problems. you can find that online at "the washington post." this is bonnie in modesto, independent line. caller: i don't trust either side. i am more drawn toward the democrats. they have gone too far in the right. they are crazy.

there is no consequences. if they do a crime, they get away with it. as an older person, i do not feel safe even walking in the street because they are getting bolder and bolder because the democrats have the laws way too lenient. you have committed a crime, we are going to slap you on the hand to let you go because it is really not your fault. it is kind of scary because here in california, your cars are not safe because they will take the catalytic converters. you cannot even have ornaments in your yard because they will steal them. host: what is the police presence like in modesto?

caller: they do what they can do but there is not enough of it. host: ok. that is bonnie in california talking about her experiences living in california. let's hear from ted, cleveland, on the republican line. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: the reason why this began, i will say this, in the early 1990's during the clinton administration, you had people wanting to take the 10 commandments out of schools. and one of them says "thou shalt not kill." if that was instilled in that 18-year-old man, he would not have killed.

aegon is an inanimate object -- a gone is an inanimate object -- a gun is an inanimate object. host: why is that? caller: when ronald reagan had an attempt on his life, he came out and said many things. host: that is ted in cleveland, ohio. across the united states today, there will be march for our lives rallies looking at gun violence. one will be scheduled in washington, d.c. you can see that live starting at noon on c-span, our app, and watch alongside on the website at c-span.org. and the january 6 commission

held its first public hearing this week. there is another scheduled for monday at 10:00 in the morning. you can view that on c-span, the app, and the website, featuring more of what you saw on thursday night. you can follow along and see the hearings archived on our website at c-span.org. which party do you trust more when it comes to the issue of fighting crime? rich in danvers, massachusetts. caller: how are you? host: good. caller: i will be basic. right now, we do not have a president. we would be better off -- [indiscernible] host: to the topic of the party best on fighting crime, what do you think? caller: neither one but i would go with republicans. one of the reasons is --

[indiscernible] host: i apologize, you're breaking up awfully. if you wanted call back and try again, you are breaking up really bad. rebecca in vermont. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. hello? host: go ahead. caller: i live in a democrat run state and there is actually a lot of crime here. i live in the queen city and a lot of stabbings go on as well as, the past two years, shootings and stuff. people running around a vehicle at a mobil station. we had a young lady sitting on the pavement eating food last fall. she did not even know the guy. he walked up with the

skateboard, smashed during the phase. he drew back a second time -- this is on camera -- he busted her nose. the police never caught up with him. then next week a man on main street stabbed two people. we had a stabbing in front of ben & jerry's where the person ended up dying. it is really terrible. it is a democrat run state and they let them practically go on horrible things and people walk away with ice cream as a treat. host: when you say that they let them go, how do you determine that? caller: when somebody is on camera, you see the man's face and you don't catch him? and the guy that stabbed two people on main street was never caught.

and when they do get caught up with it seems like nothing is being done. they are not allowing the public to even know. you can abuse your animals, cut your pet rat's tail off, doused it with gasoline, lit it on fire and set it running into the brush. host: that is rebecca in vermont talking about her experiences. let's hear from fortuna, california, independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning. i am concerned with the entire nature of the question from this regard. crime was a problem long before political parties and will be long after political parties. and it seems to me political parties spend a greater chance of not solving crime then a society without political parties. look at the crime being

generated because of sectariani sm. host: why do you think that is the best approach and why do you think that will work? caller: we are all humans. we all intrinsically want the same things. bob marley said "an angry man is a hungry man." let's not worry about political parties which do not solve everything. let's sit down and solve crime as humans with a little love. host: that is a caller from fortuna, california. one of the people getting their thoughts on crime or several republican senators and one of those featured was iowa republican chuck grassley. he talked about republican efforts over all to reduce violent crime and compared that to democratic efforts. here senator grassley from last month. [video clip] >> violent crime is very much on the rise. homelessness is up 30%.

carjackings doubled and tripled in some cities and those are only a couple of statistics of many different statistics we get. violence is up in the blue cities. this is due to de-policing, progressive prosecutors, and failed reforms. can you imagine prosecutors saying, we are not going to prosecute this crime or that crime? we know there has to be prosecutor discretion, but you don't tell people which crimes you are not going to punish or you get a big rise in those crimes in those cities in america. with the rising crime in larger cities, democrats blame that on violence and in red states with

higher crime rates. but it shows that blue states because the crime, so set aside blue cities and red states are much safer. law enforcement is under attack at an alarming rate. more law enforcement officers were killed in 2021 then any year since the disaster of 9/11. iowa in 2021 had nine law enforcement officers dying. the biden crime plan is, as you know, gun control. that will not reduce crime. we also have this fentanyl problem. democrats are fighting the schedule of fentanyl and why?

74,000 died because of drug overdose. we must back the blue and take crime more seriously than this administration. host: that was senator grassley. that took place last month and if you want to see it, you can go to our website, c-span.org, to do so. brian in grand rapids texting saying, neither is better for fighting crime. our elected leaders have to get together to help people rather than casting blame. jeff a massachusetts saying, i think it is more effective in dealing with crime. the democrats have so greatly failed. scott also sending us a tweet this morning saying, while the democrats new york city, seattle, chicago, los angeles, etc. are doing a good job. viewer in chicago this is joy on

the independent line. caller: i absolutely agree with the california guy. i am from chicago and i could not sleep last night because my husband has to go and pick up my stepdaughter in an area where a gang banger was shot last night. we don't go into chicago anymore but it does not matter where we are. we have grand theft auto, we have the purge. i have not trusted a politician since paul simon and he was buried in a pine casket. they have been taking so much money from the nra and nobody attempts to tackle the issue of drugs. we declare war on so many different countries, but what about the countries funneling so many of the drugs inside the country?

is that not a margin of issue? all of these drugs are coming into our communities and why is that not an issue? but oil is an issue. but it does not matter -- i am more conservative and i am a black female -- but it does not matter because we are so against each other. i think it really matters when they get together and stop taking the campaign contributions and have it shut down. host: that is joy in chicago. ed in akron, ohio, republican line. caller: i think the republicans could do a better job just from the democrats' messages right now. they don't even follow the laws. take the january 6 investigation, that is an illegal investigation that is one-sided.

it is the witchhunt, which there are no witches. host: why do you think republicans are better on crime? caller: i think they will enforce the laws instead of just picking and choosing which laws they want to enforce. when you have the vice president of the united states raising money to get people out of jail that she think should not be there, that is not enough. let's reform bail rights. nobody has to pay bail. let them all out. that is what the democrats are doing. they don't prosecute what they don't want to. they follow their own laws. it is illegal to come across the southern border, but they ignore that completely. host: let's hear from richard in north carolina, independent line. caller: until we start holding our government responsible for their crimes, nothing is going

to get better. host: what do you mean by that? caller: let's see, we have hunter, we have russiangate, we have people poring over the borders. this would be treason on the democrats' side. host: how does that associate with the local level? caller: look at the riots during the summer. they were bailing them out of jail. until you start holding these people responsible, nothing is going to get better. host: that is richard in north carolina. gallup poll in looking at issues related to crime and samples of poland from over the years -- polling from over the years. in march they asked, how much do you worry about crime and

violence? 53% saying it was a great deal they worry about it. 27% only a little. 14% and 42% in march of 2020 said a great deal. about the nation's policies to reduce or control crime? if they were satisfied or not. 2022, only 6% ever stand ins said they were satisfied about the nation's policies. they do not specify which ones. 18% said they were somewhat satisfied. 30% they were somewhat dissatisfied. and 42% were very dissatisfied. more of that at gallup.com if you want to see those samples. when it comes to political

parties that have the best policy of fighting crime, that is what we are asking. (202)-748-8001 for republicans, (202)-748-8000 for democrats, (202)-748-8002 for independents. you can also text us on (202)-748-8003 and post on facebook and twitter. lori in flint, michigan, republican line. caller: the republicans are not doing a good job. let them not mislead us. republican voters, vote democrat. host: are you a republican? caller: yes. host: why do you say republicans are not doing a good job? caller: because we have seen it. they have not prosecuted trump for what they did. they let him go. they have taken money from putin. they probably spend it on these big-ticket items and they will not give the money back. follow the money.

putin has gone after rich people in other countries and taking their stuff. you don't think he will not come here? host: you have identified yourself as republican -- caller: i am being self-critical. host: if the democratic party has a better approach, what is it? caller: incentivize people to turn in people who do bad things. put cameras on the street. encourage our people to take better care of themselves, eat right, supply the brain. host: why do you think those approaches are best? caller: because they do not cost you anything. it reduces crime. people who are in prison unlawfully should be let go. teach the young ones in our communities how to resolve issues because they have been in the prisons. they have learned some things they can share, positive things they can share with the

communities. host: let's hear from beth in louisiana, the line for independents. caller: hi. host: you are on. go ahead. caller: my main concern is the municipalities and he goes to both parties. the democrats are a little bit better. i agree with the woman who just called, but the problem is special improvement districts. you are young -- let's say all people in normal middle-class. they want a roof over their head and if you keep putting in big chains in every single town and you do not have little stores anymore -- i know in my town the man that used to have a local shop is working at home depot. nobody is allowed to have their own store. the special improvement

districts take away the ability for the regular people to make decisions about their town and they choose who is going to be mayor. and now we have big chains everywhere taking over. host: but how do you connect that specifically to crime? caller: because you have people trying to get ahead using power through a gun or stealing. young men have no ability to have power. they have the ability to go work for a chain or work for a huge corporation. that is not the way this country was built. everybody could have an opportunity. now everybody has to go global. you cannot have the person that makes good cupcakes and great spaghetti sauce, they cannot go global. what are we training who come

out of college to do? work for a chain? host: let's hear from michael in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. thank you for c-span. i think the republican party is better because you can see the things that biden did nothing to stop the crime in the cities during the riots. harris actually condoned the violence and let people out of jail, as the one caller said. trump has supported law enforcement where biden has done nothing but blame law enforcement, which has resulted in so many of these problems. host: but what does the republican party offer when it comes to fighting crime? caller: they supported law enforcement. president trump was big on law

enforcement and they would not have condoned this in the cities. look what he did -- you talk about the hearings recently and nobody pointed out the democratic party, certainly not the democratic party, pointed out that trump asked for protection before the riots on january 2. january 2 is when he told pelosi they should bring police in, the national guard into protect the city. host: let's stick to the topic at hand as far as crime when it comes to party fighting. but he brings up january 6. that monday hearing you can watch is going to be at 10:00 and you can see it on this network, c-span, on the c-span now app, and c-span.org. if you want to see the hearing

from thursday night, you are welcome to go to our website, c-span.org, to see that whole hearing in its entirety. let's hear from red wha -- redwood city, california. this is joann. caller: biden wanted billions of dollars -- trump wanted billions of dollars for state and local police. he wanted money for the atf to help their budgets. he wanted to hire another 300 agents of the atf to help with all of these gun crimes that are happening which the gop refused to do anything about. host: they also talked about the american rescue plan and how many was set aside but it has not been used yet.

money is already been set aside. do you think that is not going to make an impact? caller: i think it will if the republicans will ever go along with anything. they don't do anything to protect us. why would we expect them to protect us with the police? joe biden has plans he wants to enact in the gop will not vote for any of them and that is why the crime is going up. the gop will not do anything. they are the party of "no." host: the ousting of the district attorney in san francisco, what do you think about that? caller: the gop have been doing this. this is the second recall they have done. they did gavin newsom and they did boudean. this has nothing to do with

anybody's feelings. that is what people need to understand. these recalls are being financed by wealthy gop donors. host: but if the voters were the ones in the process of voting him out, what do you think about that? caller: i live in the bay area. i saw how many ads they put out. and has to do with how much marketing they did. they spent a lot of money in advertising for that stuff. host: that was lorraine in redwood city. one of the people commenting on the ousting of the district attorney was the san francisco mayor london breed. she talked about the recall and what it means for the future of criminal justice efforts in san francisco. here is a portion of that. [video clip] >> criminal justice reform in san francisco is not going anywhere. it does not mean there will be, all of a sudden, a significant

setback. we have to make sure they never get to a point where those lines are crossed. but we also have to be realistic. when those lines are crossed there is a decision that has to be made and there has to be accountability. to be clear, sometimes accountability means rehab. sometimes accountability means community service. it is not just about law and order and tough on crime and locking people up and throwing away the key. that is not what this is about. it is about accountability when lines are crossed and coming to a reasonable conclusion around justice and what that really means. in some cases, not just for the perpetrator, but for the people who fall victim to those crimes. host: that is in san francisco. if you move to the democratic runoff currently taking place in los angeles, it features the current representative karen bass, who

is running for that position, and real estate mogul rick caruso. both of them talking about crime in their advertising. here is karen bass. [video clip] >> there was no time to hesitate during the pandemic. we had to act to save lives. that is the urgency i brought as assembly speaker, making tough decisions to save our economy and helping people behind the numbers. i am now running for mayor to meet today's challenges. i am karen bass and i always run toward a crisis to get the job done for you. host: that is one of the people running to become the next mayor of los angeles on the democratic side. the other rick caruso, republican turned independent term democrat. here is a reason out of his. [video clip] >> nearly 1500 shooting victims,

a wave of property crimes, there is one candidate for mayor who can turn it around, rick caruso. as police commission president he took on city hall politicians and cut crime 30%. as mayor he will not defund the police, he will invest in making l.a. safer with 1500 new officers, increase youth crime prevention, and crackdown on illegal crimes. rick caruso can clean up l.a. host: we have been asking which party you think is better to fight crime. you can let us know about the party. you may think neither party as some of you have expressed. (202)-748-8001 for republicans, democrats (202)-748-8000, independents (202)-748-8002. joe is in new orleans, democrats line. caller: good morning. i think neither party is doing a very good job and that is because they do not work together.

in fact, money has corrupted our political process. i can remember when it was voted corporations work individuals and could contribute money to political entities and that president obama, at the state of the union, told how that was going to corrupt politics. host: let's get back to the topic of crime. you said people were not working together is the reason why. why do you say that when it comes to crime? caller: crime and everything, nothing is being done because of money and wanting to stay in power. doing whatever is needed to stay in power. forget about people. forget about their constituents. it is what their money

contributors want. host: dan in kansas, independent line. caller: thank you for having me on. i believe the answer would be to vote for candidates who would represent full disclosure so we know who is leaving the money on the dressers. and accountability -- host: how does that relate to fighting crime? caller: because if you eliminate the money or expose it, the people that are allowing themselves to be bought off will be exposed and they will be voted out. host: give me an example. caller: well, this whole thing with the russian money floating around. if enough people understood how much of that was being used in

politics, they certainly would not put up with it. host: how does that relate to crime? caller: well, you would not have the people voting out or not voting on gun related problems because of the money being used to sway their votes. there has been a problem with the border since i was born and i am 72 years old. it has become a political football. there is no real solution between anybody. neither party has ever taken a strong, honest solution of it because they profit too much off of the conflicts. host: let's hear from kathy in ohio, democrats' line.

caller: hello? host: hello, you are on. caller: what a loaded question. i live in ohio. we are a republican state. they have done away with any laws -- they actually made it legal -- to sell guns on the streets during demonstrations and protests in a cordoned off area. that was the republicans. they don't want to stop 18-year-olds from by automatic weapons. they should not even be selling them. i say it is the republicans. host: which republicans are responsible for that in ohio? caller: all of them get together, the senate and the house, and they passed spell about selling guns on the street in a cordoned off area during protests and peace marches. host: was this a state bill? caller: yeahcaller:. host: which bill is that?

caller: for the state, not the city. host: which bill was that? caller: i should've looked up the number before i called. there is a bill where they can sell guns on the street in a cordoned off area. host: let's go to bob in santa rosa, california, republican line. caller: i say the states have been getting bad since 1960. in 1960 in california there was a group of people that decided to get rid of all people that had green cards. they wanted them out of the country. what they were doing was they wanted illegals to come in and take the job and wages were $1.25 an hour at the time. hey, can you go to work for us? i cannot have outsiders here. all of the ranchers up here in

bonoma county -- [indiscernible] host: as far as the party fighting crime versus another, how does that relate? caller: i will tell you how it relates. i found out it was a guy named ray pelosi. i did not know he was nancy pelosi's husband. i do not think he was back then. but they threaten people with their lives. i saw people beat. host: and how does that relate as far as which party is best on crime? caller: this be the democratic party and i have been up here and for four weeks these events went on. finally, they got rid of the

legal workers and illegal workers took over the work in sonoma. host: steve on the independent line in massachusetts. caller: good morning. the democrats use common sense. once you kill the morale of a police force, you are done. you concede in san francisco, l.a., where they made it legal to steal $4000. my wife always says it is the first broken window. we need to use common sense. i think you are born with common sense. you are just done in this country is going down with people who have no common sense whatsoever. host: that was stephen massachusetts on the independent line giving us his thoughts on

this idea of which party is best at fighting crime. you can call and the remaining minutes we have or send us a text at (202)-748-8003. it was after the ousting of the district attorney in san francisco that "the sacramento beat" wrote, they were right not to seek the death penalty because capital punishment is unjust and does nothing to deter crime. it causes 70% more to try a capital case. he was right not to try juveniles as adults because to do otherwise is not only merciless, but ignorant of what we know about brain development. we also know voting is based on emotion more than facts. san franciscans are not wrong to feel their city is less beautiful. they are not wrong to feel their streets are scarier, as in the case across america, but they could elect a younger rudy

giuliani and that would not matter. you can read that in the pages of "the sacramento beat." victoria is from texas, republican line, identifies as a member of law enforcement. caller: good morning "washington journal." neither party is doing anything to protect us from crime. the reason why i called on the law enforcement line, i did have an issue. i reported it to my representatives. a lot of the problems i see is with the court matters. this was a law enforcement matter where i had property that was sold illegally for $585,000. i reported the county to the dallas county da. he refused to bring charges

against the people who sold my house illegally. i reported it to the fbi, i reported it to the state judicial conduct commissioners. the law enforcement are not enforcing the laws, but neither party is supporting crime. host: that is victoria in texas. that line for members of law enforcement. if you are going to call that line, make sure that is properly representing you. prescott in washington, d.c., democrats' line. caller: how are you doing? longtime time listener, first time caller. i think neither party and here is why. both parties over rely on incarceration. the country has 25% of the world's imprisoned population. 25% and it makes no meaningful difference on crime. incarcerating people in a small cage without rehabilitative

services for as long as possible is not helping with crime. all of the argument about common sense, lock them up, throw away the key, we need to incarcerate more people and longer and as much as possible makes no sense. neither party is trying to change that. host: sheila in california, republican line. caller: hi. i think the republican party has more respect for the constitution and for the law. at the same token as all the other callers said, both parties are not doing what they should be doing and that is respect for the law, respect for the constitution and respect for the people they represent. because they are not really doing it. host: sheila in california.

given her thoughts this morning. "the wall street journal" looked at the events from earlier this week and they wrote, the prosecutor had ridden into office as a champion of criminal justice reform which turned out to be no prosecution for crimes for drug abuse, vagrancy, homelessness, assault on the innocent. the recall is a de facto endorsement by the left of center voters of broken windows policing. failing to prosecute minor crimes leads to larger disorder and lawlessness. that worked wonders in new york and other cities in the 1990's and 2000, but progressives insist -- that is the insight that failing to prosecute minor crimes leads to larger culture

of disorder and lawlessness. progressives dismissed it as crime rates fell in voters became complacent. caller: like the summer of 2020. the riots and everything like that, that was really bad. democrats did not try to stop that too good. and this thing about trump, that is never going nowhere. and it is all going to be based on the economy. poor people are getting poorer, the middle class is getting run out. the poorer people get, the more crime there is going to be. they should never try to defund the police. host: virginia, democrats' line, this is betty. caller: i don't believe either of the parties are doing what they can do. everybody is serving his own personal agenda.

but the main reason is that people, the poorer people, are going to suffer as far as crime is concerned. you have people like trump who can do illegal things and get away with it. and it is simply not a good system. we are not following the constitution at all. neither party. and if it serves any party, it will be taken as moving that party forward if the people like it. host: betty finishing off this hour. your calls taking a look at issues around crime. we will talk about other topics

during the morning. peter morici will join us in recent reports about inflation and stagflation. we will have that conversation next. we will hear from david cullen author of "parkland: birth of a movement." those conversations coming up on "washington journal." ♪ ♪ >> march for our lives owns a gun violence rally on the national mall on washington. our coverage starts on new eastern today on c-span. also on c-span now or online at c-span.org. >> next week on the c-span networks.

the senate will continue work on a bill that will expand health care and disability event of -- veterans exposed to toxic chemicals. the gym -- the january 6 committee continues with three public hearings, the first is monday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, the next one wednesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3 and thursday on the mobile video app at 1:00 p.m. eastern. we will have coverage on other committees throughout the week. tuesday the director of fema appears before the homeland security committee at 10:00 a.m. eastern live on c-span3. we :00 p.m. eastern, dennis mcdonough appears before the senate veterans affairs committee. thursday at 9:30 a.m. eastern and also live on c-span now and c-span.org, rochelle walensky,

dr. anthony fell -- anthony fauci and the other members of the covid-19 response team testify before the senate health committee. head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or stream video live or on-demand at any time. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪ american history tv exploring the people and events that tell the american story. join us for our coverage of the american political history conference from purdue university as historians and authors discuss the past, present, and future of democracy with an array of topics like energy politics, presidential scandals, the history of redlining and public housing. bob stock and a former speechwriter and epa administer for george bush talks about the epa's origins and the politics

and policies of the 1970's. exploring the american story, watch american history tv and find a full schedule on your program grant -- program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> washington journal continues. host: our first guest is peter morici, a publicist in the " washington times" and professor emeritus at the university of maryland. as far as inflation, news about the 8.6% figure, what does that number tell you with inflation itself? guest: it is worse than we thought, very widespread and permeates most aspects of the economy. the measures that we have taken so far are inadequate. they will not get the job done, and even with that we should be clear that we are not going to go back to than the last decade or no matter what the government did the inflation was less than 2%. this will be like after paul

volcker broke the last inflation when we hovered around 4%. host: how long until 8.6 to 4%, what happens? guest: there has to be a greater realization of the set of the challenges and realism at the white house. we cannot run economic policy like it is a blackboard harbored -- at harvard. i will give you one example. we are making a transition to electric vehicles but constrained by the availability of batteries. no matter what we do the majority of vehicles on the road will be gas powered for the next decade, it will be a declining share. in that context we need gasoline so shutting down or curtailing leasing and so forth and encouraging oil companies to shut their refineries is not a good idea, it is not a good idea at all, and we have a similar set of problems over and the food sector. even without the war we were

facing difficulties, and now the matter in which we are handrailing -- handling the embargoes and so forth compounds that. that does not seem to be much appreciation and they are still behaving like this is a short-term problem or as if it is the work of monopolists. let us face it the same folks were running the chicken industry when barack obama and donald trump were president. i do not think it is them. i do not think it is greedy monopolists out there, but yet they keep talking that line. either mr. biden gets new economists where he sends them back to school. host: the president spoke about the new numbers that came out yesterday and offered his own thoughts of what was happening. i want to play a little bit of that and get your response. [video clip] >> i understand that inflation is a real challenge to american families. today's report confirmed what americans already know, putin's

price hike is hitting america hard. gas prices at the pump and energy and food prices account for half of the price increase since may. inflation outside of energy and food, core inflation moderated the last two months, not enough but it has come down and we needed to come down quickly. my administration will continue everything we can to lower the prices for the american people and the congress have to act. one of the key ways to fight inflation is by lowering the cost of moving goods through the supply chain. when i first started talking about the supply chain when i came here a year ago the american people understandably wandered supply chain, that is not a usual part of the jargon every day, but they understand fully, they understand it. if you cannot get the material needed to build the product you are building whether it is an automobile or whatever, it makes it difficult to be able to move,

and that is called the supply chain. that is why a been focused on ports. last fall ports were congested due to disruption caused by the pandemic. we brought together port operators, shipping companies and labor and to ease the bottlenecks. as a result, over the holidays, 90% of all packages were delivered on time and on shelves when you went christmas shopping. remember, we were not going to have anything. you all did it. not a joke. you did it, on time with minimal delays. delivery times where quicker than they were before the pandemic. and today there are -- there are 40% fewer containers clogging the docs for long. of time -- long periods of time then last november. [end video clip] host: he starts deploying things to vladimir putin, how would you respond to that? guest: i do. think let mayor putin had much to do with shutting down america's oil

industry. it is ludicrous to tell the europeans to find natural gas somewhere else because we have ready supplies. the europeans have substantial natural gas on -- at fields that they are shutting down. but just energy, imports, the last i heard baby formula comes from michigan and rent is jumping through the ceiling. and by the way, that enters the consumer price index with a lag. the worst on that is yet to come. one third of the consumer price index is housing or shelter. and that is just one example. another is travel and airfare. energy permeates the entire economy. oil permeates the entire economy. there are good uses for oil but do not contribute to global warming. are you we going to make our personal computers and keyboards out of glass? think about everyplace that you

find plastic, that comes from an oil well. when you have an ideological approach from the left or right as we have had from both administrations, eventually it culminates in trouble and the pendulum has swung widely one way and then the other, and now we are in a fix. if i were to give joint responsibility for this mess to anyone, it would be to donald trump and joe biden much more than vladimir putin. if this war had not happened we would still be in a fix. host: our guest is with us until 8:45. you can call 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. independents 202-748-8002. or text us at 202-748-8003. economic spending because you pointed to both presidents, pandemic spending from the previous administration and this one including the american rescue plan, how much of that is a contributing factor? guest: let us look at how it was financed. it is kinda complex and i do not

want to play professor. when the government decides to spend money that it does not raise in taxes, it sells bonds. the bonds never really got far because the federal reserve turned around and purchased them and purchased them by printing money. most of that money did not get spent. enough of it did to cause the inflation, about half of it. the fed printed $4.5 trillion. an advanced $5 trillion worth of stimulus and we still have 2.5 trillion dollars sitting in checkbooks. so raising interest rates half a point and ringing the rate to say on mortgages to 5% when inflation is 8% or 9%, it is just silly. when paul volker was chairman and inherited a situation like this which came off of a commodity squeeze in oil as well, he raised interest rates a full percentage point every

month. and he took them all away in the end to 17 or 18%. and frankly, that is the kind of response we have to have now. maybe 17 or 18%, because he was dealing with 12% certainly 10%. at the same time i would like our viewers to consider when was the last time that someone from the national economic council or council of economic advisers who had the ear of the president said something other than b putin and monopolists -- vladimir putin and monopolists. there are different problems going on. one is the transition to electric vehicles and the lack of batteries and the other one is climate change and the agricultural market. we will be having problems in the market without those problems, but when you go around trying to blame people, people you do not like you will have problems. so the republicans are in, the

unions are the problem. when the democrats are in, big business is a problem. maybe the problem is right behind us. i know that is very rough talk, consider how much thoughtful discussion we have had on capitol hill about these inflationary pressures as opposed to posturing. we are now in a situation where basically we are campaigning all the time, not addressing the problems and every solution we get just wants to spend a lot more money. host: for the congressional approach thing, what is the best way to counteract? is it cutting spending? guest: we need to look at how we spend our money. let us take the military, i will be a good democrat for a moment which is a rare experience. we spent well more than what china and russia do together. yet they have hypersonic missiles and we do not. they have the capacity to knock out our satellites, we do not. letter mayor putin has tactical new -- vladimir putin has

tactical nuclear weapons we do not. the president is afraid and we are starting to get in the situation where america is being cowarded. to provide a naval located to get the ukrainian wheat out, that would be very useful and it would not directly confront -- confront the russians. they would have to decide whether to confront us but everyone is trembling in this town that vladimir putin will push the button. the reality is that he has buttons we do not have and we spend much more than they do and are defense secretary whenever an important strategic issue is raised, strikes another committee that delivers its report late and then we pave a new airstrip in guam. i think we should dedicate parking lots, it will be cheaper. host: formerly of the university of maryland and columnist for several publications. the first call is from derek in tallahassee, florida. republican line.

go ahead. guest: good -- caller: good morning i think that joe biden has been the worst presidents of my lifetime, and i just want to say that he should fire janet yellen, he should fire the secretary blinken and where is the accountability on the democratic side? they do not take responsibility for their policies that they have put in place that have caused this problem. i will give donald trump his credit and i criticism -- and i criticize him for some of the things he did under covid. the reality is that the democrats have caused the crisis and they need to take responsibility for it. guest: certainly the to trillion dollar stimulus package passed shortly after joe biden became president illustrates that. when he was campaigning he said that milton friedman is not

going to run the economy so instead he embraced this new monetary theory, this modern monetary theory that says that the federal government can finance itself by borrowing and printing money. if some inflation emerged because we had supply constraints which is what we have right now, more than man than supply, the fed could raise interest rates. we are seeing a fantastic real-world experiment in this. this is all conjecture and hypothesis, but joe biden did it, so joe biden is responsible, and to blame that on vladimir putin reminds me is when president obama was president, something like three years into his administration he was blaming george bush. there is a fair amount to that that i would also point out to my republican friend that it seems as though every democrat that comes along is the worst president ever in the eyes of republicans and that is silly. in terms of his presentation

yesterday, at least joe biden showed something that donald trump did not, a great deal of empathy for the american people. i would have to say that the president is poorly advised, i think he probably lacks energy, which is unfortunate, but i do not doubt his sincerity or his commitment and empathy for the american people. and i think that is important in a chief executive. what i would like to know is what will the republicans offered to replace him? i have not seen anyone come forward that articulated an understanding of these problems and instead the republicans are content to refight the last election. host: new jersey, democrats line. hello. caller: i was wondering why isn't there more being done to reduce the cost for mass transit ? first subway mass transit, bus fare, just to ease up on the amount of costs that you have to

pay because of inflation, and i am also wondering why isn't biden concentrating on the oil reserves in latin and south america instead of going to saudi arabia? guest: we have some of the same problems in venezuela and mexico that we have in saudi arabia, authoritarian governments and left-leaning governments that are hard to deal with. venezuela is not a nice place in the question is who are we going to a courage, iran, saudi arabia or venezuela? can -- at least saudi arabia has strategic importance. my feeling is that we have not seen what we need to see which is an understanding of where ordinary people spend their money. mass transit is an example. however work at home is starting to entrench and the states have been given a great deal of extra money, and some of that money is getting spent on sports facilities and they and that out of the stimulus. perhaps maybe some of that

should be used for mass transportation. i know there are situations where it has, but not many. and so that is a valid point. i want to come back to one thing i said before, can you tell me what the republican campaign fact -- platform is for the midterm elections? senator scott went off and said some silly things in president biden takes to keep pointing at it. to be fair he will point at anything to get your mind off of the inflation, but what is the republican platform for bringing this under control? the answer is they have decided not to have a platform and run-on discontent with the president. in a world like that leadership ping-pong was between the two parties. -- ping-pongs between the two parties. someone needs to come forward other than donald trump who is blazek pat -- basic platform was i am donald trump. host: what should be the platform?

guest: we need to look at electric vehicles and develop a timeline for the conversion recognizing the shortages of minerals like lithium which are necessary for battery making, how long it takes to open mines, availability and locations in the other important metals. and this is a timeline we can pull out all over -- we can pull out all of the corks and then pull out all of the corks and then you feel out -- figure out how much oil you will need and make a pact saying that we will taper down, but let us make sure that we have that and get more for here at home because it is available. joe biden recently raised the royalties that oil companies pay by 50%. how is making it more expensive to take american oil from the ground to put in your gas tank an anti-inflation policy? it was insensitive and done by an energy and interior secretary

that are pursuing their own ideological agendas. host: wasn't one of the arguments that the oil companies would take the leases and do nothing with them? guest: that is silly. oil companies in this environment will space out how they use their leases, they will not use them today because i do not know when they will get anymore or when they will get another republican in the white house without ideologues running energy policy. if you give them more leases they will drill more oil and we have to remember that the russians were running refineries that were producing diesel and gasoline one or 2 million barrels a day. that is gone now. we have more refineries, but why should shell, exxon and some of the independent companies whose names you do not see on gas pumps make more and they are afraid of becoming a bullseye

for environmentalists and the president is handing out arrows. they will not do it. you do not kick a guy in the shins and then run a sprint for you. host: from massachusetts, independent line. mark, go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you. guest: this is just the way a.m.. you should've seen me when i was young. caller: now that the inflation is so high, i like what you said about the electric cars and i would like to bring up toyota specifically because i think they have hesitated in putting out all electric and them being the largest automaker in the world, there is a reason why like audi and all of these and tesla and whatever, and also to the ports, you look at how the port of los angeles and how they have stalemated automation and

leveraged improvements because they are way behind. host: thank caller. guest: with regard to electric vehicles i would ask you to go to new york city and do not go to manhattan the problem is press and go to queens where ordinary people is and ask yourself how all of those folks will plug in their vehicles or go to montana, it will be a nice trip and it is a pretty place and ask yourself how people with pickup trucks are being able to survive with vehicles that have a range of 250 miles with the kinds of distances that they have. the answer is difficult, and those are the concerns that toyota had. i would also ask you this, every so often we have i-95 in washington and in january we get a blizzard and something happens and vehicles are backed up for five hours or five miles, and people are on electric batteries? what happens when all of those batteries run out?

how do we get them out of there? we do not bring electricity and gas cans. i asked my wife, my daughter lives in a condo complex south of alexandria and i live in a row house in alexandria and she follows a local news very closely and i has said did they put anything about plugs outside the houses like little parking meter so we can have electric cars? no, none of that has been touched, nor have there been any measures about the necessity. he talks about putting the charging stations along the interstate, that is great. folks are not gonna spend three or four hours a night sitting at a charging station and what there be enough of them to charge up there electric vehicles? toyota was focused on that. however let us not focus on poor toyota. general motors hardly produced an electric vehicle because his dedication to mediocrity gave us the volt which caught fire in

people's garages and the only safe place to park it was across the street from a fire station. there was his guidance, do not park this near your house. they have not been producing passenger cars. the big three are very happy to sell you something that cost $50,000 that you have to wait on line four for six months to get. but they are not putting passenger vehicles out there, so there is some culpability. right now electric vehicles are very fashionable, so they are going to people who live in big houses in the suburbs that have garages that they can put in charging stations of their own. no one has explained to me what the plan is at the white house are charging stations for that mass of people who live in cities, rowhouses, and apartments do not have a garage. most important, they do not have a dedicated parking space. so you cannot put a meter out there are for them to use where they know they can go at night

to plug in. host: the headline about five dollar gasoline in ". the wall street journal." what is the long-term economic impact? will people drive less or spend differently? guest: it depends on who you are. you can divide the american economy into those -- two segments, those above and below the median income. overall the average wage in america is going up at half the rate of inflation. and most of that pain is concentrated if you are not in the hotel and hospitality sector where wages have taken a big jump, most of that is concentrated among low income workers. so my feeling is if you are in a place in california where it has reached $10 a gallon and you need 50 gallons a week to get back and forth to work, all of a sudden it is $150 a week on an income of $50,000 a year, which

is less than $1000 a week, or even if you earn a little more which is 7770 -- $70,000 or $75 and after taxes you are making nine, $150 a week, i do not think that brian has ever done this math or he would not be blaming monopolists. that is a terrible burden. i saw in the 70's growing up working-class what it did to my parents. and it is a shame. no one is really highlighting what it is doing to ordinary working people. as for the ports, we have a problem, it is not just at the ports. certainly with union contracts it is hard talk -- hard to automate that we had in m.i.t. professor quoted in "the wall street urinal" and "-- the wall street journal" or bloomberg

that said robots will create unemployment which is like saying we should still be pulling sleds on mule -- sleds with mules. every single technological innovation destroyed's and creates jobs. what is developing out there is sort of this mythology that somehow technology that improves our circumstances makes us worse off. if that were the case we would be using land lines or smoke signals. now how did this guy get tenure at m.i.t., i do not know. these days tenure is given out for the state -- for the strange region including being intolerant. host: a columnist on several fronts including "the washington times" and professor at the university of maryland. mike in stockton, california, independent line. caller: hello, i am really taken aback by some of your comments.

you started out, i thought you were on the right track when you talked about the federal reserve. and, isn't this just a continuation of what we saw in 2007, and 2008 and we got all of the congress people doing insider trading. we have derivatives out the wild zoo, and what you said and focused on is a problem is that they printed out $4.5 trillion and those moneys did not go into productive uses, they went into for example stock buybacks, very low cost to all of the corporate crooks, goldman sachs, jamie dimon, all of these people who took advantage of the cheap money policies to feather their own desks and executive compensation and you talked about wages.

we have 1000 to 2000 times workers wage being paid to executives. what is scary about your dissertation so far is that you know, i do not know if you are asking for an australia -- an austerity program which is not equitable to laborers and people in our country have worked for an honest wage and have not caused this. host: we will leave it there. guest: let us be clear with the purpose of the pandemic relief money was and where it went. it went to businesses and individuals, it did not go to jamie dimon. for the purposes of keeping them going while we turned the switch off on the economy. and then what joe biden did was that there was more relief to get people going as we put the switchback on. so both presidents, the attendant -- the intentions were good and the fact that 2.5 trillion dollars are in the checking accounts that did not exist before of individuals and

nonprofits, mostly individuals but the data is amalgamated, indicates that jamie dimon did not get that money. it is much more difficult to make economic policy in a rational way and talk about the contributions that large contributions can play when the ceo of apple decides he should get $1 billion this year. or when jamie dimon decides he should get $400 million, but we have corporate boards where they serve on each other's boards and feather each other's nests. if there is a monopoly in this country, it is probably corporate boards but that is not the sort of thing that the monopoly laws cover. so, there is a lot of irrational behavior on wall street, a lot of unseemly behavior. i do not think that they are being very wise about rewarding themselves so lavishly. host: 390,000 payrolls rising

from that much. do you see a trend as far as jobs being added to the economy? i know inflation plays into these things? guest: i think the jobs market is slowing down. it is past the peak on that and i know it is very dangerous for an economist to say past the peak. people are writing it down and they will be calling you up next week or next month when i am wrong. i think the employment market slows with a lag, and i think that is happening. one of the reasons is that tech companies are not printing money by issuing their own stock. their stock prices are down relative to everybody so they are cutting back on hiring or what have you. the automobile companies, i think are exercising a conscious policy the way the airlines did after their crises of making less cars, it is not just chips. we are looking at a world where there will be fewer automotive jobs.

electric cars take 60% fewer parts and they tell you that 60% of the parts they just deploy fewer people so i think that the jobs market is slowing down, it is still overheated, but maybe the temperature is at 250 degrees but instead it is at 230 but still below the boiling point. host: i want to talk about a recent column of yours talking about stagflation. what is it? guest: it is when you grow slow and are but deb by inflation. i think we are headed there and some of the policies are taking us there. let me give you an example, the combination of a policy that says we will all get into electric cars tomorrow morning and we need to shut down oil wells gives you people he -- either working or spending on automobiles and gas. one of the problems that we have in this great transition, and i saw it as a boy. we heated with coal in new york city when i was a boy, i

remember my father banging the coals at night. we are in the process of a great transition, just as we went from wood to coal and coal to natural gas and oil. to electricity. if you try to manage it out of the white house, or through brian's office where there is contempt for oil companies or out of the department of energy where there is contempt for oil companies what you do not get is the oil that you need in the transition, and with that you get a lot of inflation. more than that you miss a lot of growth. remember every barrel of oil we import from saudi arabia that we do not produce here is lost growth, and it basically puts money into the pockets of people who do not like us very well anyway. so, it is kind of silly. and that kind of behavior repeats. there are a lot of real and substantive things that we could do and i have written about it in the west.

they will help with the problems of water shortage but we have very poor land use policies and what you -- and we lose water in the distribution system. that is not being addressed by the white house and if it was addressed agricultural production would be better. i will give you an example that people do not think about but it shows how endemic this problem is. most people do not realize that the fifth largest producer of wheat is france, and france's harvest is down because of dry conditions. the reality is that american cattle ranchers have been suffering from dry conditions for several decades. now when you talk about helping them, the organized left will say they are grazing on free public land, we should be taxing them, what will you do by taxing the cattle ranchers? you will basically hurt the little guy and raise the price of hamburger at mcdonald's. host: philip in ohio, republican

line. you are on, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. on this economy i called in when barack obama was in and every time the government wants to print more useless money i have suggested that every federal appointed employee, senate, house, and president and all of these cabinets, every time you raise $1 trillion they have to take a $10,000 pay cut and after three or $4 trillion they will start working together and get this spending under control because this runaway spending is causing runaway inflation. i will take your answer off of the air. guest: two things, the people in washington are not paid lavish salaries, even the president of the united states is not. and i think it is silly to start talking about cranking down

there pay. if you could see the personal sacrifices that judge kavanaugh has made -- justice kavanaugh has made to become a supreme court justice by divorcing -- devoting his life to the judiciary as opposed to the kind of money he could make as a loss to graduate. i had a son who went to cornell and he is five years out and earning more than a supreme court justice which is common. so i think that kind -- that is demagoguery. i have a tax reform proposal, you want to get the taxes simplified, have you ever noticed that april 15 is as far from election day as you can have? and everyone is pulling out their hair around april 2, third, fourth, or if it? i think tax return day should be halloween, it would be appropriate. it scares the heck out of everybody. so, if we had to deal with those

very complex taxes which are borderline us -- absurd and unnecessary, the absurdity and complexity a week or so below -- before the election wouldn't that provide an incentive -- but it will never change. i am not surprised we do not have taxes every other year so we do it on april 15 an odd number years so it is really far from an election. so i do not know that taking on -- picking on these poor people is a problem. folks enjoy all of this and they like watching fox and cnbc and so forth and having people say crazy things. it has become a form of entertainment. at the time of the revolution, you know it was one of the best-selling books that people could read in north america? "wealth of nations." i do not think we have that level of literacy anymore. people do not spend time informing themselves.

instead they listen to talking points and jargon. and it becomes sort of -- what do they call it, a hall of mirrors between the politicians and electorate. host: virginia and maryland, democrat's line. guest: how are you -- caller: how are you, i just have a quick question. you have addressed just about everything other than the housing market. instead of raising the interest rates, they basically have written off middle america. if your average income is $50,000 a year you cannot possibly afford a $200,000 home at 5% or 10% which is what you are suggesting and how are we supposed to live? how can anybody in middle america buy a home? guest: let me say this, why not addressing inflation sharply and with great force, interest rates over the next 10 years and

inflation will be much higher than they would be. if we took our medicine quickly, raise interest rates a lot got inflation down and then gut the inflation rates again. we also have to alter our expectations about housing whether you make $50,000 or 50,000 -- or $500,000. because the suburbs were based on cheap land and cheap energy. those days are over. even without vladimir putin, they are over. we have used up all of the close by land and we are going to have to change how we live. prosperous people, the 1890's through the 1930's lived in cities, closer together, and i think we are going to need to return to that for everyone. if we are going to have adequate housing. there isn't a large constituency out there for a congressman to

say i do not think we need the suburbs. i think the congressman would be spending all of his time permanently where he came from because he would not be sent back to washington. we have expectations about housing which are inconsistent with the resources available. host: a fannie mac economist says that u.s. could see a significant contraction of housing. guest: well when you raise interest rates a lot, you will not have a contraction in the number of houses but you build fewer houses for a while and that is happening. that is how monetary policy works and that is one of the wrongheaded things about the federal reserve. unfortunately we have an attorney who thinks that if he can convince the bond market that inflation is coming down it will come down. he spent the last part of two years saying inflation is temporary and pointed to the bond market. bond traders do not focus on these things the way economists do. my feeling is that we are going to be seeing a period

warehousing is not constructed at the same rate, and as a consequence it will make it scarcer when we come out. rents will be rising for a long time, and the only way we will deal with that is unfortunately living in less spacious accommodations. host: let us hear from mike, texas. republican line. caller: a great segment. thanks. i wanted to mention what a whiplash and life experience and quality of life we are in compared to where we were three years ago. it is unbelievable and i respect her comments. but it is total whiplash. i heard this past week from a gentleman from the manhattan institute that 95% of goods and people moved by way of fossil fuels. and when you think about that and think about another whiplash approach to policy of

diminishing the opportunity of extracting oil and so forth and energy from the united states and being energy independence and then deferring to countries that are overseas and venezuela and saudi arabia. those are the places that survive and thrive by turmoil. the moratorium oil in the world allowed russia, -- the more turmoil in the world a la russia, the more money they make. that is our singular source of income. guest: i think we have clearly established what russia is, but what about saudi arabia? where were they before 9/11 that trained the people or educated the people that pulled off 9/11? and the crown prince that is effectively running the country thinks it is ok to assassinate journalists outside his own borders when he does not like what they say. i addressed this earlier and said that our energy policy

causes us to enrich folks that do not like us very well and create problems in the world. you know, by not doing a naval convoy to get the grain out, by not addressing vladimir putin more forcefully than we have permitted the ukrainians to do, we are exacerbating our problems. host: this is peter received, -- peter moore ec. let us -- morici. let us go to clyde from oklahoma. democrat line. caller: does anybody even know that? guest: well, we are going to go through a crisis. someone mentioned the whiplash and it reminded me of the quote "grandpa how do you go bankrupt? an bankrupt said -- and grandpa said a little bit of a tot -- at

a time and then all at once." unfortunately when when they get presidents they bring a lot with them into the white house. they do not change what they think when they get there because it is such a kaleidoscope and it is like going down in a roller scope -- roller coaster. they do not have time to change what they do. course corrections are tough unless you are as brilliant as bill clinton. he was a very smart guy. my feeling is that this does not get fixed until we get a new president, even if it is a democrat. we need a new gang at the white house. we simply do not have a competent crew. host: you can read his post -- his work in the "washington times" and a former economist professor at the university of maryland. guest: i am an emeritus professor. it is in the cattle dog -- in the catalog. host: thank you very much. we will go to open for them.

202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats and 202-748-8002 for independents. we will see more of the gun violence rally in d.c. when washington journal continues. ♪ >> march for our lives holds a gun violence rally on the mall in washington. -- also on c-span now or online at c-span.org. ♪ >> book tv, every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. 8:00 a.m. eastern, we talked about the book "leader" where it

gives a behind-the-scenes account during congress in the 1990's. 10:00 p.m. eastern, kellyanne conway talks about the 2016 campaign. and her time in the trump administration with her memoir " here's the deal" and she is interviewed by the interim chair donna brazil. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2, and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktb.org. -- looktv -- booktv.org. the january 6 committee continues its public hearings. tune in monday as the committee examines former president donald trump's role in the assault on the u.s. capitol with previously unseen material and witness testimony.

watch live monday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, or anytime online at c-span.org. you can also visit our website, c-span.org/januarysix to watch hearings and other videos related to that day. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪ >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and on-demand. keep up with the biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the u.s. congress, white house events, the court, campaigns and more from the world of politics at your fingertips. you can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for the tv networks and radio. plus a variety of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available on the

apple store and google play. c-span now, the front row seat to washington anytime and anywhere. >> washington journal continues. host: again this is open forum until 915. 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. independents, 202-748-8002. and then you can text us at 202-748-8003. . monday is next public hearing of the january 6 commission this is at 10:00 and you can watch it on c-span and follow along on c-span now and our website at c-span.org. the wall street journal reports that the committee when it reconvenes monday will focus on the first part of the plan to overturn the election that mr. trump engaged in a massive -- in a massive effort to spread fraudulent information to the public claiming the election was stolen according to the document. the committee will present

evidence that mr. trump and his advisors were well aware that the election was good but they pressed forward with hearings of threat and they offered recorded testimony to their effect from the former attorney general william barr and that is what you can expect as a hearings take place. you can watch on this network uninterrupted as a progress over the next several weeks. that next hearing is on monday, 10:00 on c-span and c-span now on our web app and our website at c-span.org. in washington today, it is the march for our lives rally, a gun violence rally that will take place in several cities including washington, d.c.. you can see events play out on the national mall starting at noon. you can see it on c-span, c-span now and c-span.org. among the participants is david hogg, the co-founder. you will hear from cori bush, becky pringle, and also a guns

violence survivor and activist with march for our lives. mr. brown joins us now via zoom. thank you for joining us on washington journal. guest: good morning and thank you for having me. i am excited to represent gun violence survivors and people who want to be safe. host: how did you get involved? guest: my stepfather was killed in 2018 and i had a teammate killed the year before. growing up black in america i grew up with a fear of guns and gun violence in america. i wanted to do this right. host: as far as the events, what is the message to the crowd and because you are in washington, what is the message to lawmakers on capitol hill. guest: i want to talk to lawmakers and to the people of d.c., there are so many mothers and fathers who have lost children, 18, 14, and 15 years old and there are so many young

people who have lost their parents to gun violence. i want to tell everyone, use more love and that is it. if we do that our nation will look exactly as how we desire it to look. host: how does that philosophy translate into issues like gun violence and making changes? guest: there are immediate changes that we could make. we have been talking about raising the age to buy assault weapons and universal background checks. things like that can help us. we are not looking for short-term long-term growth and long-term peace, long-term safety in our country. that will require for me as a constituent to allow my politicians to do their jobs but i want them to do something that they do not do, to use love in their work. host: when you talk to the people today, you will want to talk to politicians on the larger front. we have seen efforts on capitol hill shortly after parkland and sandy hook. as far as the talk on capitol

hill, do you see the change in the passive gun policy, is the chain -- is a town different than the past. guest: certainly, i think america feels that two. i think people are willing to work together and there are people standing up and speaking that never have. the reason that that is happening is that people are realizing this could be them. we have seen that the capitol is not safe, the schools, and the streets are not safe. we imagines that some of the schools were not safe and certainly the streets are not safe or is not -- so as long as you are not in those you are good. and that is not true anymore and that can happen to anyone anywhere. host: when you talk to people on these issues, i assume you talk to many people who agree to your position. what would you say to the gun owner or the one who is concerned that rights will be taken away? guest: i will say keep your gun. you bought it for a reason but i want you to use it to serve people, not to hurt people.

and so if there is anything that will cause it to use -- to destroy your community or people around you do not use it. we came to america to live, they came to america to live, we were brought here, but now we want to live, and since we want to live, do not use guns to hurt anybody. host: have you had a chance to talk to those who advocate and done right -- for gun rights and one of those conversations been had? guest: sometimes they are hostile because people assume we are coming to take their guns but i want to pivot to remind people we are not here to take your guns but to make sure that you are safe and that we are safe. i do not care if you are pro-or anti-gun, that is not my job and i am not the regulator of policies. what i do want all people to do is to diffuse love, which will require care and responsibility and respect from both parties in order for us to come together. america is supposed to be a

melting pot and all of the ingredients are not melting. host: you mentioned love and your co-founder of something called love wore and love -- love one and love 100. guest: love one is my clothing line where i take the proceeds and give that to communities that are impacted by gun violence and that is important because they do not have the resources that they need to bury these people. love 100 teaches people in underserved communities to have love in their lives. host: where'd do you go from here. the rally is today, but in your advocacy in the light of the last couple of weeks, where do you go from here? guest: me, david and all of the young people are working hard daily and we have done the work so far on what happens post today because we know that the momentum can shift and because there are so many other american politics going on but we will not stop the fight and we want

to march every year and lobby every year and make sure that we are heard. i want people to go to usemorelove.com and make it the center of their live because that is from 100 years from now our nation is different. host: he is a member of the march for life youth congress, what is that? guest: it is a place where gun violence survivors are talking about what america looks like for gun violence survivors and what we can do about it. we have been able to come up with beautiful solutions and this is how things like this are started, and how they are maintained for four or five years. i am grateful to work alongside people like david, and mariah who are super awesome and they help us stay grounded and have the most amazing ideas. host: you will hear more from him at the march for our lives rally, but for now, thank you for giving us your time, we appreciate it. guest: thank you guys. host: the rally will be broadcasted live on c-span and

it will start at new and you can see it on c-span, c-span now on the app or at c-span.org. it is open for until 9:15. this is george in michigan on the independent line to start us off. good morning. caller: hello, how are you doing? host: i am well. go ahead. caller: you know, i was kind of confused on the last guest, you know he was all over the map about whose problem or what issue it was with inflation and the price of gas, but when you have a 10% tariff on 80% of the stuff that you buy from china and then you take 10 to 15, or maybe 20% of the oil from iran off of the world market and then you have a war going on, and then you had a pandemic i would

have liked to see bill clinton or anybody, any president that we ever had, what they would have done in this situation with these issues that are completely overwhelming and with no deep discussion on why the prices are the way they are, how the oil is distributed, we are the number one oil producer in the world but any excess oil goes outside of the country. so i just do not get it. we do not build refineries. it is not because we told them not to, it seems to me if you have a bottleneck and you make a ton of money, that is the way to go, i guess. host: let us hear from stephen, texas. democrats line. caller: hello, am i on the line? host: you are, go ahead.

caller: well, it takes a long time to bring a piece to bring it to discovery and production. the supply versus demand is what makes the price of oil volatile, and we know that we have a lot of gas and we have a lot of oil, but there is also a price associated with getting it out of the ground and it is not just an economic price, there is an environmental cost and a human cost. and we had -- at deepwater, we had the horizon event. and we had the tragedy of that, not just the loss of 11 lives, but also very serious pollution

that destroyed people's lives. and these are the realities of the oil industry. also coal, the man mentioned that he loved seeing his father bank the coals in his home. but we have mercury pollution in the ocean at levels that make it to where we cannot even eat the fish and it comes from coal. the mercury comes out of burning coal, and we have polluted the ocean now to the point that it is polluted with mercury. host: ok. brian in california, independent line. caller: yes, i was calling like on the weapons as far as that is concerned. if you look in the past and the history of passing laws by governments on people in regards to weapons, they get their weapons taken away from them and they get put to death by the

government. that is what happens when you take away weapons from people, and that is why we need to have our weapons. host: missouri, dallas on our independent line. go ahead. caller: i am 84 years of age. in the early 1960's i was an nco in the u.s. army. host: ok. caller: before world war ii the army issued pistol was a six shot revolver and the rifle was a five or six shot bolt action with a bayonet attachment on the end of the barrel. both of these firearms were loaded, one shell at a time in a closed quarter fire site there was not time to reload the rifle so the baronet was fixed to the rifle barrel and the soldier used the baron -- the bayonet to

fight the enemy which was also carrying an empty rifle with a fixed better -- for expanded. during world war ii the pistol was redesigned and then issued to anyone who might need it. it was a magazine loaded semiautomatic .45. also, during world war ii, the rifle was redesigned and issued to the combat soldiers. host: what is the point? caller: no american citizen needs an automatic, semi automatic magazine loaded rifle or pistol to protect their self in a close quarter combat situation. host: ernest, columbus, georgia,

republican. caller: i want to make a comment about mr. brown. crime advocacy with young people being killed. i wish him a lot of luck. i think he is in the right place. the love thing is ok. we don't put criminals away. as long as we let people go in the streets that committed major crimes, love ain't going to change these people. when are we going to learn we have to put some people in jail and throw away the key? my ward would have so many people that get, we have to quit feeling sorry for criminals. i'm sorry i'm hard about it but there are some people you cannot change. we have to be a little stronger about it and enforce the law and throw away the key.

host: a lot of speakers, including mr. brown at the march for our lives rally, starting at noon on c-span, c-span now and www.c-span.org. to tell you about that second hearing on the january 6 committee, monday morning 10:00, part 2, so to speak of what you saw thursday night. the main network is how you can be that. our app, download, the c-span now app, www.c-span.org, you can watch it. president biden in california yesterday talked about the proceedings of the january 6 committee. here are some thoughts from california. [video clip] >> the insurrection on january 6, one of the darkest chapters in our nations history, a brutal assault on our democracy, a brutal attack on law

enforcement, some losing their lives. we heard last night again, it is important american people understand what truly happened and to understand the same forces that led january 6 remain at work today. it is about our democracy itself. we have to protect our democracy. i know it sounds corny. democracy, every generation has to protect it. i admit i never thought it would be this straightforward a challenge before. the rule of law matters in democracies. we are seeing how the battle for the soul of america has been far from one -- won. we can unite and defend this america, democrat and republican. allowed no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy. that is what those hearings are about. host: january 6 congressional

hearing, monday at 10:00 starting on the main network c-span. william, idaho, republican. caller: hello. two things. electric cars. there is not enough power generating capacity in the u.s., if everyone switched to an electric car. secondly, the tower grid wouldn't handle it anyway. unless you want to build the grid and build new power plants, it is not going to work. half the power in this country comes from fossil fuel plants. every time you use an electric car or try to charge one up, that is coal, oil, natural gas. that is half of what you're doing. there is no such thing. if you're looking at what the cars putting out, you are moving pollution from one place to another. the second thing has to do with solar power.

i recently watched al gore's inconvenient truth again. he was talking about how sunlight, the polarized caps, sunlight bounces back into space and once the ice caps have melted, the ocean will absorb all that radiation and generate heat. the democrat solution seems to be cover the earth with black radiation absorbing panels that produce electricity but also produce heat. host: ok. paul, kansas city, missouri, democrat. caller: i would like to know why the police did not pull their guns and tried to protect themselves against this insurrection but they pull their guns on innocent black men and women and shoot them in the back of the head, shoot kids? answer that! host: jim, florida, republican. caller: the gentleman, the

instructor, the college economic guy, said he was all over the place. he was not all over the place. he was on. president biden created the problem we have right now with electricity, with inflation. when he came into office and closed down oil production because he put his banker department and energy department up against the oil companies, they stopped producing. he is restricting them now even though he keeps saying they have free leases. now, turning around asking saudi arabia to produce oil, which is going to be dirty oil, more polluted than we ever had. we are sending our money to

saudi arabia. after raising our economy. host: washington post reporting yesterday the wife of clarence thomas asked 27 state lawmakers in arizona to set aside president biden's popular vote victory and choose electorates. those emails were sent in december 2020, urging them to help overturn the election. she sent the messages using an online platform to multiple elected officials. more that story on politico, as of yesterday afternoon. they have a story taking a look at mike pence, thing the day

before the electoral college certification, then vice president pence's legal team laid out they found most of the trump campaign's assertion of election fraud minor or unverifiable. according to a previously unseen memo, the legal team didn't just track the barrage of wild legal arguments from former president donald trump's lawyers and allies but meticulously monitored mismanagement, specifically including charges leveled by the trump campaign. if you want to read more, find them online. wisconsin, tom, republican. caller: hello. host: high. -- hi, you are on. caller: they are investigating this january 6 deal. why aren't they investigating the riots before the election? i'm sure the democrat started all that. it sure as hell ended after

biden was victorious. host: ok. stephen, illinois, independent. caller: i'm just saying our economy is in such a bad shape, it is pathetic. the president can change things. he can go ahead and make oil cheaper. he can deregulate all the policies they need to put in place. it is killing the poor people. especially african-american people. and lower poverty white people. they better hurry. when you live in the city and you have to pay seven dollars for a gallon of gas compared to

the people who live in the country and pay five dollars a gallon progress -- for gas, it is totally different. you guys keep on voting the same people in. it doesn't make any sense. host: john, ohio, democrat. caller: good morning. there was a lady who called a while back about selling guns in the state. yes, our state is republican. the bills he is talking about, bill 25 -- monday, this monday it is easier for you to go in a gunshot in our state, without a background check and get a gun. our governor signed this bill. the republicans signed it. the democrats tried to fight. now you can buy a gun in our state without a background check.

it goes into effect this monday. that bill, i live right in downtown columbus, ohio. i see politicians. it is a bill where it is much easier to get access to guns. even though you could be 18 years old, you could walk in and purchase a gun without a background check. it is a dirty bill in the state. nobody likes it. our police union does not like this bill that the republicans put up. it is a bad bill. if you ever see it, look it up. this is a bad bill. the governor and republicans signed it. host: st. louis, missouri, jack, independent. caller: hi. calling about the solar and

electric car comments. wanted to point out nobody is talking about electric vehicles. suddenly everyone owning them all at once. the growth and outlets would come solely with cars but in the long run, all those drawbacks of electric power would be overcome by hydrogen powered cars. that is something that could use more attention. bringing up the point about how solar cells absorb sunlight and that generates heat, that is true. the thing is, all use of energy creates waste heat. that is the underlying problem -- overpopulation. to suggest all democrats care about is solar renewables is just a big smear.

a lot of us support nuclear. i am an independent but people on both sides support nuclear which is not getting enough attention. host: jack. this is from local news wlwt in cincinnati. they report on the gun laws both colors have brought up this morning saying the constitutional carry measure signed into law by the governor goes into effect in 13th, making a concealed weapons permit optional for anyone legally allowed to carry a gun. officials still encourage applying for permanent at the local sheriff's office, since those outside jurisdiction need a valid license. the new law eliminates the need to inform an officer you are carrying a concealed handgun unless an officer asks if you are. officers are recommended to routinely ask if persons are

carrying. if you want to read more about those efforts, wlwt. pages of the hill report former president trump claimed friday he would be backing out on katie britt against mo brooks, republican in alabama, gop primary runoff. three months after withdrawing his endorsement from the congressman, and a statement issued through the save america pac, he doubled down on rhetoric, calling mo brooks "woke." that is from the hill. rick, pennsylvania, republican line. caller: ever since day one, they have been after trump. trying to impeach and everything else. now he is out of office. they are still after him.

why don't they get on the train check and get on the right track and go after the so-called president, since day one bringing our country down the drain? why it they doing something about that? host: jason, minnesota, democrat line. caller: good morning america. good comments out here today. i love these forums. click things. you go after a person who is a criminal, they need to be put in prison. that is where president trump needs to go. after january 6, that made everything perfectly clear. i cannot wait for the next five to see what is going on. i keep bringing this up to my friends. we talk about what is going on. 9/11 was the worst thing that happened to america.

my thing is republicans putting in donald trump is the worst thing that happened to america. 9/11, they tried to divide us. it united us. we banded together. trump comes in and that is all he tried to do and my god he did a fantastic job of pitting red state against blue state. we are americans. we have so much more in common together than what is dividing us. what is dividing us is lies, rhetoric, all this crab that came out of that for years. he took over america. he came in and everyone was blaming the pandemic. it is a hoax. host: cornelius, republican line. caller: i am an african-american, i happen to be a republican. my dad was a democrat. he voted for trump. i support more guns.

john used to be on your show. he said more guns, less problems. i was a correctional officer. inmates would tell me these democrats want to take your guns and stuff and we will take over the community. that is why believe african-americans and women's are buying guns by the bushel load. i think more guns, less problems. host: cornelius finishing off this open forum. david cullen, author of the book, parkland, birth of a movement. he also wrote a book about columbine. he joins us next on washington journal when we return. ♪ announcer: march for our lives holds a gun violence rally on

the national mall in washington. live coverage at noon eastern on c-span, also on our free mobile app, c-span now or online at www.c-span.org. announcer: next week on the c-span networks, the senate will continue work on a bill that would expand health care and disability benefits for veterans exposed to toxic chemicals. the house takes up a senate passed bill to address supply chain issues. the january 6 committee continues their work with three public hearings about the attack on the capital, the first monday at 10 a.m. eastern live on c-span. wednesday at 10 a.m. eastern, live on c-span3, and thursday at 1 p.m. eastern on the c-span now mobile video app and www.c-span.org. c-span will have coverage of other committees throughout the week. on tuesday, the director of fema appears before the house homeland security committee, 10 eastern live on c-span3. at 3 p.m. eastern, veterans affairs secretary dennis

mcdonough appears before the senate committee. you can watch that on the mobile video app and that www.c-span.org. thursday at 9:30 a.m. eastern, live on c-span now and c-span.org, cdc director, dr. anthony fauci and other members of the covid-19 response team testify before the senate health committee. head to www.c-span.org for scheduling information or stream video live or on-demand anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪ announcer: sunday on q&a, a look at recent advancements in space exploration, on the image of the sagittarius a star, a supermassive black hole at the center of the milky way. >> we are in orbit around that blackhole as surely as we are in orbit around the sun. it is something very moving to

see it. also, the entire globe paused together to look at this image. announcer: a geochemistry professor on the progress made by nasa's perseverance rover in its search for life on mars. >> there are very important implications if we do find life on mars. if life is the same age on both planets, there are implications possibly all life on earth came from mars. earthlings are actually martians and vice versa. announcer: sunday night, 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen to q&a and all podcast on our free c-span now app. announcer: washington journal continues. host: joining us on the program now is david cullen, the author of columbine and parkland, birth of a movement.

a contributor to vanity fair, thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: because of your background looking at mass shootings and her writings about schools, how did you get into this line? guest: completely by chance. i live in denver. when columbine started, it hit the local news before noon. i got in my car and went out there and i was one of the early reporters on the scene. i didn't expect it to change my life but it did. host: part of that writing, your authorship looking at the events at schools and what happened politically after that, i am sure you have seen a lot of congressional reaction over the years of these types of shootings. compare and contrast what you saw then as far as efforts from congress to do something on gun control and what you are seeing now in light of the recent shootings we have had. guest: i have seen a lot of

congressional inaction. i have been working on a piece about the history of the gun-control movement and the safety movement and the disaster of gun-control. in the 1970's and early 1980's, the nra and republican party aligned. since then, it has made it really difficult to pass anything. the republicans have joined a team. essentially, don't really care about what is brought up. the strategy the nra has never given an, don't pass anything. [indiscernible] as long as they have any power in washington, their intention is to block everything. that is what they have done. host: even in the last couple

days on the senate sidem several republicans joining democrats. how would you describe that? guest: no no. you love them for trying and scrounging some crumbs. chris murphy did an amazing job. but the stuff on the table is just tiny little things. laws might get past. at the margins. very marginal improvements. some states have done it. [indiscernible] they are talking about table scraps. host: as far as activism is concerned, the march for our lives rally taking place across the u.s. in washington dc, in a piece or vanity fair you talked

about this movement and wrote "the game has changed. a big bill out of congress is nowhere on the horizon. it could be a very long month. i am thrilled it is so radically altered, infuriated by congress's refusal to do anything." what do you mean by that? guest: things changed after sandy hook, after nearly 50 years of the nra wiping out 130 years of on safety legislation. if you think gun-control is a modern movement, aimed against gun controllers, i was shocked to learn the most stringent gun safety legislation in our history was particularly in the wild west, in the western and southern states. in most towns, it was illegal to carry a gun in town.

you had to turn your gone over to the marshall. the most famous shootout in history, the ok corral, was wyatt earp and his team and forcing their gun safety regulations that you could not carry a gun into town. we have a great history of that. 130 years, thousands of different laws, most of which, the nra wiped out in the 1980's and 1990's. we had 50 years of failure of the gun-control movement. after sandy hook, things really changed. there has been one team on the field until then. the nra, extremely well mobilized, very powerful. a minority, a well oiled political militia, had a party aligned with them. on the other there was nothing. the democrats were terrified bringing up gun safety.

the activist movement petered out. there was not that much to begin with. it was disorganized. there was a brady campaign, a small organization. [indiscernible] after sandy hook, two things happened. two people rose. that day, shannon watts started a facebook group, moms demand action, which went viral quickly. then a year later, she merged with bloomberg's group. two weeks after sandy hook, gabby giffords was energized and started an organization with her husband, mark kelly, which later evolved. now we have two groups on that side. either one is really comparable to the nra. together they are much larger and more powerful.

they have been out fundraising the nra, beating them in-state battles. moms demand action. i just talked to shannon a week ago. the figure she quoted was 8 million people. 8 million people is larger than the 5 million the nra claimed. there has never been anything remotely like the size. with a million. this is unprecedented. the democrats have now also joined the fight. there are now comparable forces on either side. the republicans and the nra and most of the democrats aligned with courage in every town, these powerful forces now at a draw politically. the problem for the gun safety people is a draw in the current political climate is a win for

the status quo. there is a huge bias toward the status quo, particularly the filibuster. you need both houses and the president, then you need a super majority in the senate. it makes it difficult to change. if you wiped out 130 years of progress and won everything and then held to a draw, that is a win. that is where we are at. we finally have comparability. the parkland kids played a key role in that. the organizations since sandy hook were growing. 2018, there were plans to be the pivotal year in the midterms where they would get a lot of politicians on their side in fighting for these things. they were doing well recruiting. the midterms, early february, then valentine's day parkland happened. the march for our lives kids

stood up and energized the country and gave people hope. that was a rocket. moms demand action went from 2 million to 6 million within the year and now are at 8 million. they really transformed the movement to comparability. that is where era. two sides, relatively equal. the status quo being heavily favored of the nra. host: david cullen joins us until 10:00. if you want to call and ask him questions, we divided the lines differently. if you support gun reform efforts, call (202)-748-8000. perhaps you are undecided, (202)-748-8002. if you support guns, call (202)-748-8001. we talked about the senate and the current negotiations. earlier this week, it was a lead

negotiator on the republican side john the convocations of coming to an agreement. i want to play a little bit of what he had to say. [video clip] >> i do not believe law-abiding, mentally well gun owners are going to commit mass shootings or are a threat to public safety. i know within the senate we have a number of people who enjoy target shooting, who believe that they need to exercise their second amendment rights to protect their families and homes. they are not a threat. prohibitions against those law-abiding citizens who are not a threat to public safety strikes as overreach. we are not talking

discretionary. we are talking a constitutional right. i believe the second amendment and sound public policy are not mutually exclusive. that is the needle we are trying to thread. host: mr. cullen, that was senator cornyn's comments. go ahead. guest: most law-abiding drivers are not going to crash their car or do anything reckless, so why is there in overreach of imposing speed limits on everyone? that is overreach. that is the exact argument he is advancing. most gun owners are law-abiding people and are not a threat as he says. i want to be clear on a couple things. most gun owners want sensible

gun safety. most of these things on the table, most gun owners and most nra members agree with it. it is their leadership and people like senator john cornyn standing in the way. most people are law-abiding. no one from the gun safety movement wants to attack them, which is a change. in the 1970's and 1980's, some people did have a problem with guns and were anti-gun and were condescending towards them. we have a lot of damage and trust to rebuild. it is important to understand that the nra has a lot of conmen who are out for themselves who have hijacked a movement for their own purposes. the nra is part of the problem.

its members and gun owners are not. it is important and difficult to separate them. i understand when you attack the nra, some gun owners feel attacked and like you are targeting them. it is important. i don't know if i do it well enough to make it clear i do not have a problem with you. i was an army infantry man. i have wielded an m-16. i am fine with guns. i am comfortable with them. they taught us how to kill communists. they are weapons designed to kill people. i don't feel civilians should have weapons of war. getting off the point. this is a huge difference, and i

am fine with gun owners, but everybody has to give a little to public safety. with cars we have accepted we have to have seatbelts. speed limits are reasonable, especially in a school zone. in a world without that -- of course, these are reasonable and constitutional things we all have to do for the public good to keep our kids safe. host: let's introduce you to some callers. this is pat in pennsylvania. you are on with david cullen. go ahead. caller: it is stunning to see the narrative that is continually used any time of these mass shootings takes place. there is a common factor when it

comes to these mass shootings, and that is that our children are being brainwashed by a government that does one thing, creating war. they see war on top of war on top of more war. the ridiculous presumption that the law-abiding citizenry of this nation are going to surrender their second rights will never take place. i don't care what they do. i don't care what price he sees -- what crises they create. it is never going to happen. you can keep whittling away at the second amendment, and i am a democrat. this democratic party is unrecognizable to the people of this nation. alan dershowitz was spot on when he said that. what we are witnessing is the wholesale destruction of the constitution, the bill of rights

, and the erecting of a dystopian dictatorship like china. host: mr. cullen, go ahead. guest: i don't know where to start. i don't have any -- my only dog in this fight is when i see children die, i am horrified. i don't have anything to gain by this. i spent the first 15 years or so while writing columbine and afterwards steering clear of this fight and not discussing this because i just wanted a historical record of columbine. after a certain amount of time with kids dying, i felt the need to speak up and dig into what was going. i don't have any reasons -- i

don't know what he thinks my agenda is. i have no idea what he is talking about. yes, america has been in quite a few wars with both parties supporting them. i have no idea what he was talking about. it seems like an antigovernment rent. no one is trying to take away the second amendment. people do have a right. i have been in the u.s. army. no one is trying to take away the second amendment. we are trying to reach common ground with most gun owners want to do something. most of them support most of these measures. where can we find the agreement that both sides agree on and get some politicians to do the

things that their own constituents want? host: on our undecided line, raymond, texas. caller: good morning. i think both sides of this debate are going to have to make some hard decisions based on what is happening in society. it one child -- if one child can be saved by a measure that is going to allow him or her to have a life as an american, that is something we need to focus on. i think the misconception that democrats are not going owners -- gun owners, we are. we support the second amendment. there are commonsense measures that we have enacted that need to be considered, worked on,

defined, whatever it takes if we could prevent mass shootings at any level. no one is going to say we are going to come in and take your guns. i am in austin, texas. we carry guns. that rhetoric is so inflammatory. i think there are things we need to do as a society and gun owners and as proponents of gun owners, safety, that prevent someone from being hurt. host: thank you. guest: i agree with raymond. that is an important point that there are a lot of democrats who are gun owners. we need to hear from more them. it is true that there is an

urban-rural divide and that a lot of democrats, probably most, are not. people in the cities and suburbs, quite a bit of them, gun ownership is much lower. a lot of places in america, urban places, most people do not own guns and don't go hunting. [coughing] excuse me. i am just getting over covid. don't necessarily understand people who do. that has been a big part of the gap is understanding each other. sandy hook, we have a lot of people in the gun safety movement who own guns. gabby giffords is one of the two big leaders, and gabby is a

cowgirl. i called her gabby oakley. she grew up on a ranch outside of tucson. she took her first riding seven or eight years old, got her first job shoveling horse stables. she grew up hunting. she married an astronaut, also a gun lover. guns are a big part of their lives. we have people come and she has built a movement of gun owners who love guns and want to do something different. she was shot in the head. several people did die in her shooting. she is a survivor. the movement has changed in the last 10 years to include people like raymond who own guns and

understand it and try to open the conversation to be more inclusive. there has been a lot of damage done. for a few decades, the gun-control side was not doing that very well. i understand when a lot of people from the right, from republicans, do not trust the gun-control people because they heard a lot of crap from those people for decades. it is going to take a while. i don't expect them to start believing immediately one day and trust the other side. it is going to take some time. maybe start listening again. look at people like gabby giffords, listen to what they are saying. she helped developing gun owners for gun safety groups in several

states out west. ryan duffy wrote a great book this year. spent decades on that side of the fight when he decided we need to do something about guns and safety. he is a gun loving guy from montana that lives out there. check out his book and see what it sounds like from people who love guns who also want to do something sensible. the last thing they want to do is get rid of guns. cap giffords has a gun. she owns an assault weapon. she was shot with a glock. the reason she owns a gun is because she is a gun aficionado. she was not going to get rid of it just because someone shot her in the head.

she cannot even speak today in more than fragments. she was paralyzed on one side of her body. she can walk with a cane. her life changed by being shot. she still owns a gun because she loves guns. this is who the new leaders of the movement, so if you have not tuned in in 10 years, take a look at what people are saying. host: you will hear some of these thoughts later on today at that march for our lives rally in washington, d.c., starting at noon, watch on c-span now and c-span.org. san antonio, texas, our support line. hello. caller: hello. i think one of the major problems with regulating guns is the difference between euphemisms and metaphors.

by euphemisms, i mean red and blue states and conservative, liberal. then you get into metaphors, and people talk about the second amendment was designed for people to bear arms against a taranto government. that does not work out because taranto governments are usually very organized. -- taranto governments are usually very organized. maybe they shoot 1% or two people -- one person or two people. i was in vietnam. i had an m-16. from what i understand about that technology is the ammunition is the biggest problem in terms of when it enters a human body.

i don't know if it is a combination of the rifle and ammunition or what, but it has a tendency to destroy all soft tissue that it encounters. host: go ahead. guest: it is a combination. the m-16 fires at such an incredible rate and does do a lot of damage. those weapons will inflict much more damage than a pistol. some of the other problems are the large capacity rounds. you probably have the exact same magazines, i think it was 20 rounds, 20 or 30. it has been a wild. now you can get a 100 round magazine. really get off a lot of shots.

the moment of vulnerability for these mass shooters is when they have to reload. for instance gabby giffords. if you can just limit the damage that way. once they are shooting, it is too late. at least if you can limit the damage to 20 rounds versus 100, that is a huge difference. i will take it. i think it makes sense to work on all of these elements. no one hunting needs 100 rounds. you are not going to shoot more than 100 rounds into a deer. you do not need an m-16 to kill a deer. you should be able to hunt freely for whatever you are shooting. weapons of war and massive

magazines and ammunition designed to tear through the soft tissue and so forth, that is really not necessary. that is not protected by the second amendment. all the amendments allow sensible choices. it does not mean you can say anything. we have to look at these things and make sensible choices. host: there has been an argument going about since the uvalde shooting about the possibility of showing photos or videos of those who have died, one of those made today in the new york times. what do you make of that argument? guest: i am conflicted on that. at this point, i am willing to try anything. i am not against it.

i doubt that it will work. there is a lot of comparison to the emmett till moment in getting people to understand how awful it is and to get that outrage. i think we understand. one of the differences is in that moment, a lot of white america did not get it or believe it. that was a moment of reckoning. i will compare it to matthew shepard in the gay rights movement. there have been stories for decades of gay bashing. i think a lot of straight america did not take those seriously. once he was on the cover of time magazine and on that fence, that was an eye-opener.

people really are beating up these gay guys. they are killing them. it was an eye-opening moment. i think america completely gets it. i think when huge numbers of little kids are killed at uvalde or sandy hook or all these high schools, we get that. adding more to the horror i don't think is what is necessary. it is finding a will through the political battles and the tactics. i think there is a lot of defeatism. a lot of people on the gun safety side have thrown up their hands because they keep failing. one of the most effective things the nra did was rack up 50 years of victories and cause despair

on the other. when it seems hopeless, we need leadership. more outrage i don't think will move the needle at all. at this point, i am open to creative solutions. i heard a more interesting idea in the atlantic a week ago that proposed kids refused to go back to school in the fall and take the summer to organize and figure out how to do it and building on the idea after parkland where there were two national school walkouts where kids walked out for several minutes where the rest of the school day, building on that idea. host: you sent a tweet supporting that idea. guest: i think it is a creative idea. if it is not that particular

one, then ideas along those lines. a tactic that i think would get america's attention. that might do something. i am more in favor of the gun safety side being creative tactically. in chicago, there was a group that shut down the dan ryan expressway in 2018 because they were pushing for regulations of intercity violence. that was their wake-up call to people. people are dying in our neighborhoods. we need help. we need funding. i think people have given up. they had a wake-up call moment. it was not to stop traffic forever. it was one morning.

to get attention. host: a few more minutes with our guest. this is marvin on the undecided line. caller: i had a comment on guns. i think you are going through mental masturbation. the horse has left the barn. the bad guys have the guns. the bad guys are out within 12 hours. they feel it is worth the risks. it is the attorney general's that let the bad guys out. there is your problem. not guns. you have to lock them up. guest: i am not an expert in criminal justice. we have a constitution that gives criminals rights, too. my brother is a prosecutor. they are doing the best they can.

i have no idea how to reform that system. i feel like that is a different problem that we cannot solve here. we should do what we can to improve that system, but that is a different thing. host: go ahead. guest: the idea that bad guys have guns and good guys have guns -- i don't agree with the defeatist attitude that it is impossible. the horse has left the barn, the most effective gun legislation we had came in the 1930's, federal legislation, which was because of the huge fear at the time of the tommy gun machine gun used by gangsters.

they did pass legislation to rei n those in. they got those out of civilian society. when is the last time you heard about a problem with a problem with the machine gun? they not only got rid of those, but they held them at bay for nearly a century. the primary tactic to use at the time is a tax. they did not prohibit the tommy gun. they prohibited certain things, but the primary weapon they used was a tax, a $200 tax. i believe that is equal to $4300 right now, on a gun that cost a fraction of that. they made it more expensive to own. was people felt like what do i

need a tommy gun for anyway? they also required them to be registered. very quickly, they got rid of the tommy gun. this has been done before. also, australia after the port arthur shooting famously did a program. they had a comparable number of guns per capita to us. they got rid of most of their guns. i don't think the defeatist attitude is true. host: this is from jill in new hampshire supporting gun control. caller: looking and hearing about how the united states compares to other european and other countries is absolutely

disgraceful. we are about 300%. they have killings within the same period. any proud american would not want their country to look like that. i am in favor of a ban on -- host: i think we got your point. thank you. guest: the famous onion headline , which i am going to mangle, which is something like no way to stop this says only country in the world where this keeps happening. they have replayed that after every mass shooting. they keep doing so because they nailed it. the idea that there is no way to

stop this, every other country on the planet has stopped this and figured out how. it is not hard. we just need to do it. host: our guest has written several books on the topic of school shootings, columbine one of them. any other books planned or takes on this topic? guest: no, after uvalde, that night i got really depressed personally and could not even turn on the television. the first thing i have to do in my job is turn on the television to prepare to be on television. that is my job. that night i could not. i was too depressed. about 9:00 that night, i shifted

suddenly back into anger and frustration. we have to do something. i turned to the smartest person i know about this, which is gabby giffords. i could not do a traditional interview with her. i reached out to her, and she agreed to do an email interview. we did that over three or four days. that featured in vanity fair about a week ago. i did a podcast just yesterday for vanity fair talking much more about this. i am working on a piece for another national magazine about the history of this and some of the things we talked about about how we have the strongest gun safety legislation in our country during the so-called wild west era.

gun loving people who understood also we needed to do something sensible. west. that is actually the model those people -- and think back, that is what it should be, that is what we need to emulate, those people also thought we needed to do something about this. so think about why gun control failed so miserably. we have a big piece about that so watch about that desk to watch out for that. host: thank you for your time. that is it for our program today. at noon today, the march for our lives gun violence rally. you can watch that on c-span, c-span go and c-span.org and, monday at 10:00, the next congressional hearing on the capital riot. that is it for washington journal and another