tv Washington Journal Washington Journal CSPAN June 19, 2022 10:03am-1:06pm EDT
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three, c-span now, or anytime online at c-span.org. you can visit our website to watch previous hearings and other videos related to the day. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." president joe biden is not doing well in the polls right now as americans are fighting inflation come arising gas prices, gun violence, and a continuation of covid-19. with midterm elections coming up, biden's popularity can affect many races. many of the white house next say the country -- cynics say the
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country is going in the wrong direction and blame the president. that is our question for you this morning. how do you rate president joe biden's performance? we will open up our regular lines. that means republicans, want to hear from you at (202) 748-8001. democrats, your line is (202) 748-8000. independents, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8002. keep in mind you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always on social media, facebook, on twitter, and you can always follow us on instagram. once again, the president's poll numbers are not looking good right now, following behind all the issues the country is going through right now. usa today has today, saying what president biden's approval is.
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usa today says president biden's approval rating is at 39% and with 47% of americans strongly disapproving what is happening with the president. i will read a couple of paragraphs from their story to you. president joe biden said thursday americans were really down. he is right about that. a new usa today poll shows the country in a funk and one that is a problematic political landscape or democrats in the november elections that are approaching fast. only 39% of americans approve of the job biden is doing as president 47% strongly disapprove. just 16% strongly approve. academic studies have shown presidents's approval is one of the most reliable predictors of what happens in the midterm elections and a rating this low traditionally signaled significant losses for the president's party. more than seven in 10, 71
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percent, say the united states is on the wrong track. 16% say it is headed in the right direction. even most democrats say the country is on the wrong track. 46% to 30%. three of four independents and nearly every republican agrees." president biden on tuesday went to talk to the afl-cio national convention to defend himself and his economic records. here is what president biden had to say. [video clip] >> we brought down, deaths by 90%. we opened at schools and businesses that were shuttered. we created the greatest job recovery in american history. people i want to talk about these days but it is true, since i have become president, we have created 8.7 million jobs in 16 months, an all-time record. even last month, 390,000 jobs.
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600,000 new manufacturing jobs. they said manufacturing is dead in america. look, folks, our unappointed rate is near historic lows. 3.7%. millions of americans, i love these guys talking about why this guy left my employment and went to another job, because he got paid more. [applause] isn't that awful? this is that a shame they have to compete for labor? better paying jobs, for better jobs for them and their families. it is happening now. and it is working. host: let's talk to kenneth, who is calling from buffalo, new york, on the democratic line. kenneth, good morning. caller: yes. i think joe biden is doing just
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fine. the price of gas cannot be blamed on him. that is the cost of the war in ukraine. but i just wanted to read you something out of the dictionary, which is the definition of treason. the offense of attempting to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender holds allegiance. and the a traitor is a person who commits treason. i think we should pay attention to that. that is an important thing, more important than the price of gas. host: so what grade would you give president biden so far a year and a half into his administration? would you give him an a, b, c,
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d, or f? caller: i would give him an a. i think he has done as well as he could with the crisis he has been handed, the war in ukraine, the inflation which resulted from that, and the price of gas, which is not his fault. it is based on the market, the world market. people blame him because they just blame him because he is the scapegoat, but i think he has done very well and that is what i would say. i think the choice between him and republicans is obvious. we better get busy prosecuting the former president. host: let's go to tyrone, who is calling from new york city. tyrone, good morning. caller: thanks for taking my
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call. i give joe biden an i, incomplete. he has been in office for just a year and a half. because most americans have this infantile mentality, not even up to juvenile, the idea where we want what we want and we want it now. not right now, we want it now. because it is not as fast as we wanted, that means he is the worst president ever. because he is not doing what we want when we want it. we need to grow up. we are not even at a juvenile state. we are at an infantile state. because infants act like that. because they don't get what they want. we are adults. we need to grow up in this country and understand things don't happen when we want it every time we want it. host: now, tyrone, you said you would give president biden an
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i. at what point can we grade his performance? caller: well, we find out a lot about presidents after they get out of office. we find out all of the stuff they did or did not do. and i think that once this next election in 2024 comes up, we have more of an idea of where we are at as a country. because right now, there is a whole lot of stuff that is going on that he has to clean up. that is what we need. that is what we need to concentrate on, cleaning up this country and getting it better for all americans. host: how can we wait until after a president's administration to decide whether we should reelect that president or not? caller: well, you are talking about reelection. that is something that we make snap decisions on, how to maintain this whole election process. but as far as the situation going along and as far as us finding out how we are going to
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deal with the next president, yeah, we have to go on what we find out about. but if we don't pay attention to the fact that this country is going crazy with all of the stuff we have to deal with, we are going to continue to have this problem. we have to learn from our mistakes. host: ok, so tyrone, snap decision, how is the president doing? caller: i think it is incomplete. we haven't really gone through the changes that we are going through. we still got a hearing going on. you know, we still got a hearing going on. we still got a bunch of stuff going on. we have to find out where we are at. host: all right. let's go to john, who is calling from connecticut on the independent line. john, good morning. caller: good morning. this country is going through a lot right now, like how you started the morning off about
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inflation, but the country is on the verge of losing democracy too. right now, we have freedom with joe biden. all of these states, you have politician talking about where the boots are going to go. that is not freedom. it is not my opinion. host: so what rating would you give the current president, a, b, c, d, or f? caller: i would give him a b. he is trying his best. like fox news is imposing their views on their viewers. they create this division across this country. we are not too far really if you think about it. i would like to close off the border. we got to come together. we are not too far from the middle. host: all right. let's go to tim, who is coming from cleveland, ohio. tim, good morning on the republican line. good morning.
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caller: you know, you hear all these people talking about joe biden is doing this and doing that. what about the border? what about the people, the low income people that cannot afford to even eat right now? udo, you are asking what kind of grade he gets? the great i give him is an f. when trump was in office, the country was doing good. i am a business owner in cleveland, ohio. anybody that doesn't see what is going on has the blackest eye. as far as fox news goes, fox news is telling the truth. people need to wake up. it is all i can say. you really need to wake up and look at what is going on around you. host: well, house minority leader steve scalise took aim at the biden administration and the problems the country has at a news conference last week. here is what representative steve scalise had to say. [video clip] >> president biden's inflation increasing agenda is crushing
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the american dream for millions of families across the country. we have heard some of the stories. families are already talking about canceling their summer vacation. not just because of the inflation, but because they can't even afford to fill their gas tank because gas prices are so high. more than double where they were when joe biden took the oath of office. if you look at all of the different crises we have been talking about for the last year and a half that have been added onto and created by this president from inflation to high gas prices, to the border crisis , to crime that is running rampant throughout our country, let alone the foreign policy debacles that we have seen over and over again, it is costing families thousands of dollars more. host: let's see what our social media followers are saying about president biden's job performance so far. here is one tweet that says, i am his biggest fan because he is so thoughtful and presidential. he is doing great.
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here is another tweet that says, i have a hard time excusing president biden for ukraine with his failure in afghanistan and a failure to employ effective diplomacy. have had is asterisk consequent as for our economy and standard of living. a tweet that says, how can we expect republicans to give president biden a fair shake? they tried to kill his administration before it even started. another tweet that says, how would you like to be president after an insurrection? this is an open door to berate biden. i am glad he is president because at least there are regulations back on the right wing. he gets an a from me. once again, we want to know from you, how would you rate president joe biden's performance? republicans your number is (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000.
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independents, your line is (202) 748-8002. keep in mind you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. 538 has gotten together a bunch of puzzles from around the united states. and on an average to find out how popular or unpopular president joe biden is. 538 averaging of poles says more than half of the country, 54%, disapprove of the job that joe biden is doing right now. 39.8 percent, almost 40% of the country, approve of the work joe biden is doing. but more than half of the country, according to this averaging of polls by 538.com, says 58.2% of america -- 54.2% of america disapproves. what rating would you give the
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president?let's go back to our phone lines and talk to martha, who is calling from richmond, virginia, on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. of course, i love me some joe biden. i think he does not deserve an a-. the only reason i give him an a-, he does not directly have reasons for the gas prices going haywire. but also, my thing is all of these republicans that i have heard on this line this morning, they are praising trump. yet they treat january 6, that hearing, and i tell you, i am so glad. and god knows we don't need that crazy man in office another term. i talk to everybody that even looks like a democrat. we all have to vote. you all have a good morning. host: let's talk to sandy, who
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is calling from seattle, washington, on the republican line. sandy, good morning. caller: yeah. you know, this thing about this january 6 deal is a bunch of crap because they never bring up the fact that trump, he called nancy pelosi and said "i will send in the national guard so nothing will happen" on january 6, and she said no. she is the one that should be prosecuted and investigated. she had the power to stop this thing from happening. host: sandy, how would you rate the job performance of president biden? caller: i would say an e_, because look what he is doing. the people at the border, he is giving them everything, coming in without being tested for vaccines at all that stuff. at this stuff about the gasoline is meeting a bunch of crap because he shut off our gas lines.
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and then he lies about putin, saying it is putin's fault for getting him and the green new deal and all of garbage. trump was the best president we ever had. we need him now to clean up all this garbage, especially it is horrible what they are doing to him. they hate him so bad they don't know why, but everything was much better when he was in office. host: let's go to eddie, who is calling from georgia on the democratic line. eddie, good morning. caller: good morning. you know what? i get biden an a -- i give biden an a, because when we put biden in office, we did not put a magic wand in his hand. he is the only when i can clean up our state and our mess. everybody should be in this together. the problem is everyone wants to listen to the republicans.
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they want to complain about what biden does. they wanted trump in office. you know what? one trump was in office, the four years, you know how much i had in my account? $1000. when biden got in there, my account is looking good. host: what grade would you give president biden so far? caller:caller: i would give him in a -- an a. you know what? if republicans would stop crying and help the man, he says please let's come together, everybody come together, the whole world come together. the gas would not be high. the gas was high when trump was in office. it is just when, you know, they did not give obama no credit. trump was a sorry president that i ever know.
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i would vote for a monkey before i put him back in office. host: let's go to michael, who is calling from south dartmouth, massachusetts, on the independent line. michael, good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. yeah. i would say that president biden is doing a horrible job. i think you should not just be looking at president biden. you should look at the entire democrat party. they are just the communist party these days. the union is in control of our government. they have their roots in the communist party. basically, what they do is they cobble together groups of people that will give them power. the democrat party, they get their power from the people who are dependent on the government. he definitely gets an f in my
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opinion. host: all right. let's go to david, who is calling from little neck, new york, on the republican line. david, good morning. caller: good morning. good morning. thank you for having me on today. i think that joe biden has been a complete failure. i can't blame him completely, but i think that he has been the most corrupted president i have ever seen in my life. he just sounds like -- winces and sounds like he can barely read the cue cards. he is blaming cutin. from day one, he stopped the keystone pipeline. everything that we do in this economy is people based. our other culture -- our agriculture, energy, industry.
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of course, that is going to curtail production and costs are going to go up. i think this man has been a complete failure. and i am really sorry that people are so blinded by the fact that the parties in politics get ahead of their rational thinking. thank you very much. host: last week on "washington journal," steve moore, who also served as a trump economic task force member in 2020, blamed president biden for the current rising inflation rates. here is what steve had to say. [video clip] >> all of this passing the buck by the administration. let me give you one example. when donald trump left office in january of 2021, these are just facts, the inflation rate was about 1.5%. 1.5%. nearly 15 months later, the inflation rate has gone from 1.5% to 8.5%. does anybody think that is a
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coincidence? this is a direct result of the biden policies. the fed has something to do with it too, but we cannot continue to massively spend and borrow trillions and trillions of dollars. i don't care if you are democrat, republican, you know it is wrong. you know what we are doing it washington is long and has had a harmful effect. for the president to blame the oil companies and companies, chicken producers, it is always somebody else, putin. this is something i find unattractive about this president. he refuses to be like harry truman, one of my favorite presidents, who had a neck with him on his desk, the buck stops here. what that meant is i am the ceo, the president. i take responsibility for what is happening here. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about president joe biden's job performance. here is one tweet that says, biden is performing circles around his predecessor. you cannot see the
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progress. he is facing the same blockade by the right that plagued obama. we don't have to stagnate. here is another tweet that says, joe biden has most of a whole party working against him. i see people doing what they have always done for good people are going on vacation. people are spending money like crazy. yes, i know gas prices are high and food prices are high, but i just don't see it. another tweet that says to him i would get biden a b. he inherited a mess from trump and is doing the best he can without congress. trump inherited a good government from obama and trump put this country in more debt and would this country by trying to be a racist dictator. i give trump an f. another tweet that says the biden does not deserve the low approval rating he currently has. besides the campaign of characterization, the right associates have been fueling the high inflation that have been
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draining everyday americans, and they blame biden. that is bs. and one last week that says, i rate biden a meh. he is doing well as expected given the economic dilemma and the russia-ukraine war. if anybody thinks trump was president and would have made all of these things miraculous is ignorant. once again, we want to know how you write president joe biden's job performance. let's go to cindy, who is calling from inglewood, new jersey, on the democrat line. cindy, good morning. caller: good morning. i would rate president biden and a. republicans, don't you get when trump took office, obama straightened out everything? i would like to know what the republicans are going to do? this whole insurrection is something that donald trump did because he is a sore loser. he is our president and we need to give him some respect.
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republicans, what are you guys doing? have a nice father's day. take care. host: let's go to henry, who is coming from south carolina on the independent line. henry, good morning. caller: good morning everyone, and happy father's day. i would give joe biden a progress in action. america has such a short memory. president biden started off in the hole. this is reality. president trump did something that was on president. he would not meet with biden to allow him to easily take over, what other presidents have done in the past, kind of like running a relay race. and trump would not even meet with biden to give them a fair start. and then when we look at the gas prices, you must understand that these energy companies, exxon and mobil, make record profits. record profits. to top it all off, the senate,
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which is doing the same thing they did during the obama years, which mitch mcconnell said will be a one term president, not working with him, they are not approving any of the president's cabinet appointees. when you look at it, this man is doing the best he can, could do with what he inherited from the previous president. thank you. bye-bye. host: let's go to odyssey, who is calling from allegany, oregon, on the democratic line. odyssey, good morning. odyssey come are you there? caller: yeah, i am here most definitely. good morning. how are you doing this morning? host: i am fine. go ahead. caller: i am odyssey color from eugene, oregon, a democrat from portland, oregon. i give him an a. he is doing the best he can with all of the trials into relations going on across the world today.
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i believe all he needs is us to go to his support, as long as our democrat export stay strong, i believe we can overcome anything we want to. the inflation as well as the gas prices. i believe all of this will fix itself in due time. we have to stay strong and democrats get behind the president and let's go united states of america. world peace. let's go. host: let's go to rick, who is coming from los angeles, louisiana, on the republican line. rick, good morning. caller: los angeles, louisiana? host: i was kind of surprised at that too. so are you in the centralist, california -- so are you from los angeles, california? caller: i know you are not from the south like the last caller from georgia and south carolina. i used to be a democrat. but when obama legalized sodomy, i woke up and jumped the party. host: all right.
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i guess that is all rick has to say. let's go to kathleen, who is calling from greenville, indiana, on the independent line. kathleen, good morning. caller: good morning, sir. i would like to say i would not give a b plus two biden -- to biden. when he went in there, he had to dig the country out of the hole that mr. trump put us there. with all the millions of people that we lost due to the pandemic , in the end we have to understand the way our country, the united states of america, operates. the former president talked with the incoming administration, which is president joe biden.
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we've got to give him a chance. he can't do this overnight. and i just want to say thank you, mr. biden. you are doing the best you can. some things are just out of your control at this moment. but i think he got a handle on it. and we, the people of the united states, need to come together and stay united. we have done this for years through war after war, no matter what. we have always come together. host: on tuesday, president biden was speaking to the afl-cio convention, and he acknowledged the challenges that americans are going through with high inflation right now.
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here is what president joe biden had to say. [video clip] >> i am very proud that the american economy made extraordinary progress and put america in a position to tackle a worldwide problem that is worse everywhere but here, inflation. it is sapping the strength of a lot of families. i grew up in a household not far from here in wilmington. for the price of a gallon of gas, it was the conversation at a dinner table. it mattered. it mattered in my working family. it mattere, the price of food went up -- it mattered the price of food went up. the problem is republicans encompass are doing everything they can to stop my plans to bring down costs for ordinary families. that is why my plan is not finished and why the results are not finished either. jobs are back. prices are still too high. covid is down, but gas prices are up. our work is not done. but here is the deal.
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america still has a choice to make. a choice between a government by the few for the few or a government for all of us. democracy for all of us. an the economy were all of us have a fair shot and a chance to earn our place in the economy. my plan is simple. first, i am doing everything in my power to block putin's gas price hike. just since he invaded ukraine, it has gone up a dollar $.74 a gallon -- $1.74 a gallon. because of nothing else but that. so i have a plan to bring down the cost of gas and food. it is going to take time. but let the world coordinate what i will be able to do. the largest release of oil from the global fund in history. a million barrels a day.
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and 240 million barrels to boost global supply that i convinced other nations to join us. keep prices from rising even more. host: yahoo.com has a poll that shows joe biden is in the worship of his presidency. and in the poll, more americans said they would still vote for president trump. i will read a couple paragraphs from that story to you. "as inflation keeps rising and inflation fears loom, a new yahoo! news poll shows that joe biden is currently in the worst shape of his presidency. the survey of 1541 u.s. adults, which was conducted from june 10 through 13, asked if another presidential election was held today, more registered voters say they would cast ballots for donald trump than for biden. even though the house january 6 committee has spent the last week linking trump to what was
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called seditious conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and lay the groundwork for possible criminal prosecution. since biden took office, no previous yahoo! news poll has shown him trailing trump. biden most regionally has been within the margin of error like this for trump. when you ago, biden led trump by nine percentage points. in 2020, biden won the white house by more than 7 million votes. yet biden's job approval has been atrophying for most of the last year and the new poll survey shows it has never been weaker. once again, that is coming from yahoo! news. the polls saying their polls show more registered voters would cast ballots for donald trump than they would for joe biden right now. once again, how are you raiding president biden's job performance? let's go to chuck, who is calling from neptune, new jersey, on the republican line. chuck, good morning. caller: good morning.
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good morning, america. i would give him an f because if you look over the history, 63 years old, when trump left office, we were paying a little over two dollars a gallon for gas. everything wasn't so high. all these lies coming out of the democratic party. nancy pelosi ripping up his speech on national tv. nobody says nothing about that. nobody says nothing about the four years of lies, that he was in collusion with russia. what is he, sweeping all of that under the rug? i don't understand this. i don't we are a united country. we are still the greatest country inthe whole world. the last president i voted for democrat was clinton. you know what he did? he signed into law a nafta. my job went to mexico. i was making $13 an hour then. the guy that got my job made $1.75 an hour.
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we need to take care of this country first, then we can help other countries. host: let's go to herbert, who is: from romulus, michigan, on the independent line. herbert, good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, i would just like to say every time the republicans get in charge of running the country in the ditch, democrats have to pull us out. people need to look. they blame joe biden for inflation, spending too much money. look how much trump and the republicans spent in 2020. that did not cause inflation? look at trump's tariffs. it raised the price of every product in this country. the other thing is he subsidized big oil. oil price went up and gas when to over three dollars a gallon in 2017. subsidized the price of foods.
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all the small independent farms went out of business and the independent oil companies went out of business, hundreds of them. and we ask ourselves, why is gas so high? they are ripping us off. and biden is taking the blame for it. the republicans need to wake up. host: let's go to someone calling from michigan on the democratic line. thomas, good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i have to agree with the last person. biden inherited as far as i am concerned. and also, i will tell you, i have never seen a corrupt office since nixon was in there with watergate. been watching the hearings for the last week. president biden is doing his best. he is fighting an uphill battle because republicans are sitting on their hands. if you watch c-span every day
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like i do, you can see. they are not making any who headway because the republicans slow a rock right in the path and democrats are trying to come back, trying to unite america. it is not being united. thank you. host: let's talk to george, who is calling from el paso, texas, on the republican line. george, good morning. caller: yeah, i get biden and f -- an f just because he overspent on causing prices to go up. wages were forced to go up, which put small businesses other. and everything out there is totally expensive. while trump was there, we could buy stuff. we had low gas prices. it did not affect anyone's lives. now that biden is in there, it is affecting everyone daily. i feel like he had something to do with this war that happened. either a personal vendetta with
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putin or something because he was good friends in cahoots with these people from ukraine. i feel like he was going to get them into nato and that is why putin went into war. he felt like it was a territorial issue. should have denied the president of ukraine from the beginning. deny, deny, deny to get into nato. this would have never happened. host: senate republican leader mitch mcconnell sent out to the senate floor on wednesday and said it was democrats and president joe biden and the spending that caused the runaway inflation. here is what senator mitch mcconnell had to say. [video clip] >> american families are being crushed by giant back door inflation tax. and there has been in large part to democrats's huge mistakes. month after month to my families pick up the newspaper, flipped on the television, and here the
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democrats's inflation is setting new forty-year records. month after month, families find themselves shelling out hundreds upon hundreds of extra dollars per month just to actually tread water. forget about saving and getting ahead. in this democrat run economy, working americans have to shell out hundreds of extra dollars every month just to remain standing still. even when you thought the nominal pay raises workers have earned, the average american worker got a 3.9% pay cut last year due to democrats's inflation. according to the economic committee, inflation costs the average american household $635 last month alone. $635 in one month. host: how would you rate
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president joe biden's job performance? let's talk to alan, who is calling from ohio, on the independent line. alan, good morning. caller: oh, good morning. thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak. i think joe biden is a good guy. he is a guy i would not mind hanging out with him. i know some people like joe biden. he should not be president. i don't think the president always has control of everything. when i hear him talk about how they demonize the corporations, we just have fun laughing at it. i don't believe any of this stuff. to me it is somebody who is like a local leader rooting for a certain cause. you put them in the presidency and like, oh good grief, we love you all the local level but not on the national level. i really think he should resign. i like him a lot.
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but he needs to resign. the demonizing the corporations and everything, stuff like that. drill for oil, baby. drill, drill, drill. host: what grade would you give him? you say you like him but don't like him. caller: i think there are a lot of things that go on that we cannot always blame the president for. but if you have to look at how he talks about things and the things the news media is bringing up. of course, if you watch one news media, there are certain topics they talk about, and the other media, they want to go overboard on accentuating something. i would give an f- myself. i know this is not a campaign show, but let's election, let's look into byron donalds of florida. this is a great man, a talented man. he would be great as president. host: let's go to gary, who is
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coming from albany, georgia, on the democratic line. gary, good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: five. caller: hey, how are you doing? that guy really think there is no corruption? first of all, when trump was up there, he gave people a tax cut, the rich people. businesses and all. what you think they are going to do now? they are going to make biden look as bad as he can. i want you all to know that. they are going to make all the democrats look bad. they want the country to look real bad because corporations will stick by trump. he paid them off. i give him an a plus for effort because he does try to reach over the aisle and we need to try to get the country back together. unite america. we need to unite together again. quit having one side that doesn't want to agree on nothing from the other side. we are try to get together. if we can come together, we can make things happen and
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accomplish things. voters, get out there and remember not to look at the picture now because they want it to look real bad for democrats. they want to make biden look real bad. take about a. thank you. host: let's go to bob, who is calling from wisconsin on the republican line. bob, good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for the line. i would give biden a solid f. a lot of these callers this morning, i would give biden an a because trump is bad. it is not really grading biden, is it? it is grading trump. i thought most of you all would be done with that. the man has been out of office for a you might have already. but having said that, i look around at two simple things. how are me and my family doing, and how are the people in my community doing? we are paying more.
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i was no fan of the last guy either, the last president. having said that, i pay a ton more today. i drive a truck for a living. it is costing $12 a day in fuel for diesel. those are serious economic issues that aren't being addressed. every time i see biden on tv, it is putin's fault. host: i think bob was having a bit of connection issues there. let's go to mike, who is calling from stockton, california, on the independent line. mike, good morning. caller: hello. i will turn the tv down. so i would give biden an a. can you hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: sorry about that. all of these different people calling in, some of them i wish
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they would hold their peace and not talk in such a crucial time in america. we don't know what trump did in closed doors. the president there years after office, we don't know what they did. the january 6 talking about the patriots and all of that. how come they got caught, the laptop, trying to sell it to undercover cia agents? they try to sell it to russians. say they are patriots but they do the most unpatriotic things. how many people in the administration went to prison, to jail? how many people in the administration went to jail?
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but the cocaine into the black neighborhoods. he was the worst president, just like donald trump. and they want their kids to be like donald trump, to put his hands on someone coming to shoot somebody on fifth avenue, and nobody would stand up to him? he would hold the bible upside down, go across the street, and pretend like he is doing a picture of the country. you are just doing a follow-up. you want not doing anything. bill barr comes up with insurrection for the first time. they did insurrection. black lives matter insurrection. it was not an insurrection. but the insurrection that really happened, they are saying you did not happen on january 6. host: let's go to caroline, who is calling from euless, texas, on the republican line. caroline, good morning. caller: hi there. i am ashamed. i will be 82 next week.
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i am ashamed to say i voted for biden. i can't believe what he has done to this country in such a short time. i honestly think he has dementia. his wife is supposedly very bright. she is a phd. i would think she would help try to guide him. but i think he is ruining this country. i can't believe it. i have a fixed income. i have had to cut so many corners. i don't drive very far anymore. most things are very close to me. i just think he is so out of touch. i seriously think he has mental problems. and i am not trying to be ugly. i pray that i don't. thank you for listening to me. host: well, history professor
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julian points out that having a bad poll number now does not mean that a president and be reelected for a second term. and i want to read to you what he said on cnn. "numerous presidents have suffered difficult second years and poor first midterms only to go on to reelection. we have seen this over the decades. president ronald reagan went on to win reelection after the 1982 recession while another president when i second term after democrats suffered major losses in the 1994 midterms. as did president barack obama after his party suffered a big midterm defeat in 2010. the notion that a rough waters at this moment somehow doomed to incumbent failure does not match the historical record." that is from a professor of history and public affairs at princeton university and a new
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american fellow who says the bad poll numbers that biden sees this not preclude him from possibly winning reelection. once again, what rating would you give president joe biden? let's talk to ron, who is calling from missouri on the democratic line. ron, good morning. go ahead. caller: home of sam greg's. happy father's day. yes, i would have to give him a c minus. however, i want to go back to the gentleman from new jersey and bill clinton. bill clinton, if not for frequent was about come up bill clinton would still be our president. his congress was republican. senate and the house. i just had to address that. they will be in lbj moment.
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and it will come after the midterms. that is my prediction. host: ok. let's go to mildred, who is calling from delray beach, florida, on the republican line. mildred, good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: we can. go ahead. caller: yes. hi. i think biden is doing a great job of destroying the greatest country in the world. he has from day one started destroying this country. i cannot believe what he is getting away with. the republican party is not finding him tooth and nail on everything. you have people, thousands and thousands of people crossing the border without being checked for covid, for guns, gangsters. and yet you take the americans, you are taking all of their rights away. the poor people and middle-class
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class are suffering so much now because of biden. and stop blaming truck for everything, please. they have this january 6 insurrection instead of dealing with what is causing the problems and trying to solve them. all they are doing with these eight meetings to brainwash the people that trump should be in jail when biden, his son, and everybody else is getting away. and hillary is getting away with all they have done. there is a double standard in this country today, and it is very, very sad. host: let's go to stephanie, who is calling from north dakota on the democrat line. stephanie, good morning. caller: yeah, i am one of the few democrats in north dakota, in the middle of oil country. and everybody seems to have forgotten rex tillerson, who is
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the person who started this mess in oil. and these pipelines that are coming from canada to the u.s. are owned by china. biden did not start this. if you look up and see who is the owner of the deal finds it is china. if you look to see who wanted all of this oil coming from canada, from the tar sands, it is the republican party here in north dakota. they are responsible for these extremely high energy prices. there is no reason for this extreme high in energy prices other than they know that their last hurrah is now.
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the possibilities are endless. if we would have only developed solar energy and other energies, wind energy, back when we first started it. that was way back with carter putting solar panels on the white house. when we stop evolving and stopping particular things in the world to develop clean energies, this is what we have come to. host: let's go to vernon, who is calling from wilson, north dakota, on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. happy father's day. i am just sitting here laughing and kind of mad at the same time, listening to many of the
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previous callers. the democratic person that was on just prior to me, talking about all the energy and things like that -- ok, let me get back to biden first. you cannot rate the guy in my opinion. he is way down the line in the alphabet to me. from all of the policies carried out since day one. that being said, the lady prior was talking about wind energy and solar and such and china and this and that. the biden administration shut down our oil industry. they are doing everything they can to get us off of fossil fuels right now. if you look at history, we did not go from horses right to jet planes. it took a while. so we have to transition. and oil is the thing we are using right now.
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for hundreds of years, the used horses and then steam power and then rain trail combustion engine. it takes a wild we have to work within our means -- while. we have to work within our means right now. it would be great to go to electrical. nuclear power is a great source. but talking about wind, electric, solar energy, we have no baseline. our baseline is in gas powered and coal powered and nuclear power right now for baseline power. that is why you will start seeing all of these blackouts and things i see coming. host: let's go to kevin, who is calling from maine on the republican line. kevin, good morning. kevin, are you there? all right. let's go to joe, who is calling from pennsylvania.
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kevin, are you there? caller: i'm here. host: go ahead, kevin. caller: yeah. i just was watching your show and asked how to rate biden. in my opinion, i am 60 and he is the worst president i have ever seen. oil is going to be between six dollars to seven dollars a gallon. explain to people how you expect them to survive while you are running your policy rampant. people are going to be freezing to death this winter. in my opinion, he is probably the worst thing i have ever seen. have to see what goes on. host: all right. now let's go to joe, who is calling from pennsylvania on the democrat line. joe, good morning. caller: ok. good morning. i would give a b plus two biden.
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look what he was left. he was left afghanistan. he was left rich people, mostly republicans, one all the things trump gave them -- want all the things trump gave them. he gave them money, uncontrollable amount of money. we are actually suffering what trump put into place. we are not suffering anything from biden yet. biden is doing the best he can with what he was left. host: let's go to kelly, who is calling from oshkosh, wisconsin, on the independent line. kelly, good morning. caller: hi. thank you so much for taking my call. i appreciate it. i think right now i have to give
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president biden an f grade. but i want to give him some credit for one thing he is doing right, which is his cancer initiative for nicotine and cigarettes. he is going to announce an initiative this week for lowering the nicotine content and cigarettes, which i think is a definite positive. and the menthol ban on cigarettes. i appreciate that so much because so many people are touched by that. my f grade, i cannot afford gas. it is really hard on us up here. we were paying one dollar 87 when trump was president -- $1.87 when trump was president and now we are almost at five dollars in wisconsin. it is getting worse. sticker shock at the grocery store is just amazing. we can't even afford to buy meat here.
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inflation is just killing us right now. host: we would like to thank all of our collars and our social media followers for the first segment. coming up next, wall street journal deputy editor matthew hennessy with the -- will be here to discuss his new book "invisible hand." and later, we will review the very busy week and politics with the washington post editorial page enter ruth marcus. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> in the united states expansion west, the civil war and other events. firearms played an important role. tonight, a former baltimore sun reporter john bainbridge junior talks about firearms inventors
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cult, smith & wesson, winchester and remington on the role they played in establishing modern gun culture. >> once again we are seeing the slaughter of innocents. and once again there's talk about the second amendment and individual rights to the united states. my book doesn't even the mention the second amendment. the individual freedom and the i guess devotion of the early colonists and the early revolutionaries comes through in the book and whatever steps the country takes in its effort to control firearms, a knowledge of the past, a knowledge of the early history of the country and its relationship with firearms is important. >> john bainbridge junior tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen on the c-span now
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app. >> c-span brings you an unfiltered view of government. our newsletter recaps the day for you from the halls of conference to daily press briefing to remarks from the president. scan the qr code at the right hand at the bottom to stay up to date for everything happening each day. subscribe using the qr code or visit c-span.org/connect to subscribe any time. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back and joined by wall street journal deputy op-ed editor matthew hennessey who is here to discuss his book on the value of free markets, a wealth of notions on the miracle of the markets. good morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: explain to us why you
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wrote this book and what this book is about. guest: the book is two things. a primer on base seeking a can -- basic economics for people who don't think they like economics. i was one of those people for a long time. a lot of people under the impression it has something to do with math or money and did some cases is those things but very frequently is not. i managed to miss this all in high school and college so i wanted to write a book for people who somehow managed to miss economics. in the book without charts and graphs, without a lot of numbers so it's aimed at people who think they don't like economics but i submit that they might. secondly it's kind of a three cheers for capitalism. i work with the opinion pages of the wall street journal so it won't surprise anyone to know
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that i'm a fan of free markets and the prosperity and quality of life they provided. there is a strain of that as well. host: is the title invisible hand the allusion to the invisible hand, the economic theory described by adam smith in his book that some regard as the base for laissez-faire economics. guest: it very much is. people who don't know anything about economics know one thing, it's the notion of the invisible hand that adam smith very casually referenced once in his massive 1776 book the wealth of nations. a lot of scholars have been in touch to let me know that wasn't the only time he mentioned it, that in his writing in the letters he broached the subject a lot.
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so my contention is while there are invisible forces at work in the market, many of their effects are quite visible to us and if we think we can see or understand them, my contention is they are quite intuitive and that most people have a handle on this without even really realizing it. so i tried to sort of break it down into the language everybody can understand, it's a bit of a difficult left for 21st-century readers, so this is something of an update of our wouldn't be bold as to say i'm rewriting the wealth of nations. host: explain for our audience what you call economics. for some people it could mean a lot of different things. it could mean the global economics, your household budget. what are we talking about when we talk about economics? guest: both of those things
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obviously. the way i'm treating it is the study of choice which is to say the study of human behavior. economics of its anything is about how people make choices and what economists like to call an economy of scarcity. this is where we have our very first fork in the road. we can go off into jargon and numbers and we can keep it simple. an environment of scarcity just means we can have everything we want, but that we have to make difficult trade-offs and if we want something of value, we want to acquire something of value, we have to often give up something of value to get it. an understanding how that process works, how we make those decisions which we do all day long. from the minute we are born to the day we die we make these types of decisions. we are very intuitive
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economists. naturally my contention is if you just put a little bit of thought into it you have an easier time and you go through life feeling a little less mystified by those larger economic questions you hinted at. the stock market or financial economy or international trade. that are happening in a realm of the news that we watch and we tune out. i was very much the person that would tune out any time they talk about markets. this could be a first step in terms of helping you realize things are not nearly as complex or complicated as you might think. guest: it's father's day and in your book you draw upon the experience of your father and his career. tell us about that and how it relates to economics? guest: my father was like me,
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not that interested in economics. we didn't really discuss these kinds of things. my parents very much considered the business of making money and providing this a separate realm from things that mattered. they liked art and music and conversation, and so a certain point he'd worked as a teacher, he'd worked as a social worker and he found himself out of a job suddenly with teenagers getting ready to go to college and he scraped together a few dollars and bought a local bar. he was 50 years old, never taking a course in business management, how to make a payroll, how to order inventory. had to pay taxes four times a year of your small business. within the span of a decade, may a little less he turned into a very successful business and he
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ran it for 30 years until he was his 80's when he sold it for a nice chunk of change. the place became a real moneymaker. it allowed my parents to live the kind of life. by the end of my mother's life she was able to do things like go to hawaii or go to scotland and wales, of things that her own parents and grandparents never could dream possible in terms of travel and vacation. my point is this. capitalism, the intuitive kind that we see all around us every time we go out for a loaf of bread is not that different from what general electric does what general motors does or with the oil market does. it's all around us and we
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celebrate it because it's a source of our prosperity both in terms of our home economics, but in terms of our national wealth as well. i refer to my parents business success from time to time to illustrate a few concepts. guest: what -- host: what don't most people know or understand? are there assumptions we can say are false? guest: on the extreme left and the extreme right there is the sense that economics is an overlay, as i'm suggesting my parents sort of fell early on that economics is a kind of choice, you pick a system and tried on the gay suit of clothes and if it fits great, and if it doesn't, you make some adjustments.
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it could be a totally free system, totally command-and-control type of system. i don't do it that way at all. i think what adam smith was noting in the wealth of nations is the forces, of the invisible forces of supply and demand are not unlike the invisibles -- forces of gravity. they exist whether or not you choose to accept they exist. they govern our behavior, they guide our choices. we live in that world, we swim in that water whether we believe we do are not. so on the extreme left and the extreme right is the sort of hubris that we can change the laws of gravity and we really can't. i think among young people especially teenagers, there's an awful lot of confusion about prices. what prices are, why they are set at the level that they are. as a general sense among people
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who are undergraduates of prices are arbitrary and set solely for the purpose of -- purpose of excluding you consumption possibilities, of the things that you want out of reach for no good reason in terms of the price. so i go into very heavily and it's the basics of supply and demand that really form the heart of classical economics. host: let me take a section here to advise our viewers to join the conversation. we will open up our regular lines. republicans can call 202-748-8001. democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. independents, your line will be 202-748-8002. keep in mind you can always text us questions that 202-748-8003. we are always reading on social media on twitter and c-span --
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at c-span wj and on facebook. let's get into some of the burning questions i'm already seeing showing up on our twitter feed. define for us what a free market is an tell us is it inherently linked to capitalism? guest: i will put capitalism aside for a second. free market is a market in which individual agents, whether they are people or corporations, voluntary associations, are able to transact free from coercion in the manner that they see fit. capitalism according to my definition is simply what capitalism should do. not unlike other isms you can think of.
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capitalists save and invest money for the purpose of making more money. they scraped together a few bucks, they invested in this business which was an investment in themselves and they managed to make it profitable -- make it profitable. that profit they made enables other enterprises to profit as well. so they saved money and they invested money and they spend money. they spend money to hire people to clean the place, to work behind the bar, they had suppliers. it was a whole ecosystem that they were a part of by virtue of their profit and their decision to risk capital in the first place. that's what capitalism is and what capitalists do. host: so a lot of our social media followers are talking
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about economic issues but currently affect their lives right now and i'll read you a couple of questions immediately. here is one person who says i have a simple question for mr. hennessey, is there a free market for petroleum? guest: i don't know. my answer would be is more free than some markets i can think of, but i want to stress heavily that it's not quite pitched in that direction. i understand people are concerned about gas prices. i talk about inflation and very basic terms in my book. the question is is the oil markets or petroleum free, i think it's pretty free in the sense that the price very often is responsive to inputs that we tend to find.
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like all markets -- like many markets, it's also influenced by expectations which is where things can get really complicated in gray and hard to predict. i'm trying to keep things a little more simple than that. the oil market is something people spend their entire lives on. host: one of the things we do talk about when you talk about the book is capitalism and the free market. some people who are proponents of capitalism and the free market argue that it benefits those who work hardest and are business owners, towards a meritocracy. do you agree with that? guest: i agree that her rewards people who work hard mostly. there is an element of chance in all human endeavors. we all are familiar with people
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who work very hard and deserve success but it didn't come to them. my contentious -- contention is in a command-and-control economy , people who want to work hard, people have the ambition to create something i never given the chance, all of society suffers in ways that are hard to measure. there's a lot of economic inc. that's been spilled on this notion of the scene and the unseen. so investments that aren't made in the potential that isn't realized all being prepared along investments that are being made and do pay off. of course free markets will reward people who work hard most of the time, but markets are not everything in life and my contention is you are better off living in a free market than an unfree market. host: ok. you write in your book about
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this about the price of labor. i want to read this from your book. wages and salaries are the price of labor, when an employer must pay a higher price than the market clearing wage or risk breaking the law he will reduce supply of the very thing the low skilled employees are in the market by, low-wage jobs. explain to our audience the concept of supply and demand as it relates to the free market wages and jobs. guest: it's very simple. with one little twist. it is supply and demand in the same way supply and demand for potato chips or anything else works. with the exception we are used to thinking of supply being the person providing the potato chips being a company, being a corporation and the demand for the potato chip coming from
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people, individuals. in the labor market it splits. people, individuals are supplying their labor to corporations and companies that demanded it. that's the only difference. everything else was almost exactly the same. you look for a price to sell your goods at a price that makes sense to you, that is the supply side. an corp. -- the corporation or company is looking to buy the goods with the service at a price that works for them so long as the transaction is voluntary, meaning you come to it freely in the company comes to it freely, it's wrong to say anyone's being exploited or ripped off. a market that is mature enough to provide a lot of different suppliers and a lot of different demand. so if you have options. you supply your labor to one company or to another. in a command-and-control
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economy, deciding who is allowed to hire and at what price you get extortions that will ensure people are not coming to these transactions voluntarily and therefore in common parlance we would say they are getting exploited for their labor. in a truly free market there's no possibility of exploitation for your labor because if the price isn't one that you consider acceptable you don't enter into the bargain. that's what's going on with supply and demand. host: is that what we are seeing now? we keep hearing talks with his great resignation. as i will we are seeing now, low-wage workers saying this isn't worth the money you are going to pay me for what will find another job. guest: is an element of fact. the last two years if at a lot of government programs so that some component of it. the great resignation or not entirely sure how to define it.
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my sense of it from reading stories in the wall street journal is that it's more of a phenomenon not so much a phenomenon of the low-wage worker, but a phenomenon of the highly or maybe overly educated upper-middle-class worker who is holding out for a slightly richer set of perks in addition to the labor so the work from home revolution has allowed many college graduates in the early part of their career to call more of the shots in terms of how they work and where they work and when they work than they used to. there's obviously a lot of factors involved in that. i can refer you to my previous book, zero hour for gen x. host: we love books on the show.
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let's get our viewers involved in the conversation. let's start with joseph calling from new york city on the republican line. caller: thank you very much for taking my call. this is an interesting conversation. i was very pleased to hear the name smith. i have been through a great deal of pain and difficulty in my life and i chose a career that essentially failed, but i always am interested to see how people -- it is the command-and-control economy that my family left in eastern europe to save their lives to be able to live freely.
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very often we tend to go along with the-isms and hate rich people come up with those of the same people that provide us our jobs, they are our bosses and that's part of what we do and who we are. we make money in the purest expression of this is frankly a free economy when supply and demand are active factors. i don't know, it seems to me that success comes from obedience to these simple factors and terror comes from disobedience, the idea that a small group of people must command-and-control when in fact
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the invisible hand really works. when people act in their self-interest, invariably other people rise with the tide and that has been the experience of my life. guest: i agree very much with the -- with what he was just saying. when he was first talking i was thinking about the very human tendency towards resentment and envy of which of course we are all susceptible to. i have a lot of resentment -- resentments myself. i work for good bosses and bad bosses. if market economics or free market economists are bad at anything and they might be batted a couple of things, one of them is predicting the kind of irrational -- let's just say
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accounting for what could be described as irrational behavior but which in fact are very human and are obviously very -- things we understand and share. the economics of pure rationality where people are purely acting to maximize returns on investments and things may be is a bit of a caricature because all economists are human as well. they get a bad rap in the sense that they get bogged down i think a lot of times in data and statistics which it starts to feel cold and robotic and starts to meld in the minds of people such as i was describing at the beginning who don't have a lot of economics in their minds with
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this notion that it's all a rigged game and the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the society we live in simply rewards the greedy and not the rest of us. so there are a lot of very human elements at work but free market economists especially have difficulty putting a pin on. host: let's talk to george who was calling from louisville, kentucky on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. when adam smith said when the legislature settles -- calling the captains of industry on the behalf what's fair and just because the -- we see this with the amalgamation of corporate
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power shaping commerce, the national association of manufacturers, business roundtable, people seeking employment or vulnerable to that level of power and you don't choose your employer like you choose a candy bar out of the vending machine. the corporate bosses have rule and power over lives whether we like it or not. there is a difference between self-interest in this acquisition or you can gobble up more wages. wealth resolves itself and the wages, profits and risks. it's almost a zero-sum game anyway you want to look at it. when you have a deep pockets investor class against consumers or workers, we were still the most vulnerable you chose to work there but were less likely
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to settle -- tele-consumer you chose to shop there. the deep-pocketed investor class, a company would never say you could move your money elsewhere. the workers the most vulnerable of all three. we hold people with the most vulnerability more accountable than the people with the most power, we glorify them. host: you can respond, matthew. guest: i lost the thread a little bit there. i'm not sure i agree with much of what he said. i do think we choose an employer like we choose a candy out of a vending machine. it depends on where you live of course, but you have some choice in that as well. i understand it can be -- it's not easy to move or retrain for a job, it's not easy to do anything in life, but you do have the option in the united
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states of america and the 21st-century. you do have that option. there've been other places in the world at other times in history where the option is very much not available to you. there are places like that in the world now. so i don't agree with that viewpoint that everyone is stuck in their job and i would disagree with the characterization of workers and consumers as being vulnerable. i think they have more power in the american worker and american consumer in the 21st-century than almost anyone who's ever walked the earth economically speaking and politically speaking for that matter. so it's not about the perfect world we can create might look like. adam smith was in no way suggesting that there was -- i don't read adam smith as being a prescriptive writer, i view adam
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smith as being more like a reporter telling everyone here the truth about how we behave, but how we do what we do, why, in our commercial lives in the way we trade, but also in other areas as well. a very exhaustive bitter reporting in the wealth of nations. so to simply say will adam smith has this idea that the ruling class lords over the vulnerable and everyone was kind of on their own and if you didn't cut you are out of luck, that is not how i read it and it's also not how i read the world we live in right now today. host: speaking of other host: let's talk a little bit about socialism. i want to read a paragraph you wrote about socialism in the book and then talk about how it affects the free market. "a socialist economy is a system for sure. the government, not private
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actors, decide how to invest and what to build. participation for the most part is not voluntary. socialism is what socialists do. they make plans. it must be monitored and regulated to function, barton swaim notes. how does socialism fall short when compared to the free market? it does the free market have a role in socialism? guest: i appreciate the question, but the answer seems so historically obvious to me that i am not sure what i can add to it. the experiment has been run many times at this point. i'm not sure why we need to run it again to learn that socialism will be a failure. i was glad to hear you mention the name of my colleague, barton
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swaim, from whom i borrowed the idea that the free market is not a system. it might be more true to refer to the capitalist system, but that is splitting hairs. the free-market is not a system. this is the heart of my book. the forces of the market exist, like gravity exists. you can try to fight them just like you can try to fight gravity, just like you can climb to the top of a diving board and say this time, i'm not going to go down, i'm going to go up, but that is not what is going to happen. if you try to fight the forces of the market, you will lose. some experiments have been better funded and more ideologically committed than others historically and been able to sustain the experiment over decades, but most of the time, it fails quickly because
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it cannot provide the prosperity and political freedom, not only cannot provide it, but it cannot exist. the two things will not grow in the same place. it cannot do it capitalism do, which is to make people's lives better, all the people. yes, some will do better than others, but it cannot make all peoples lives better the way capitalism can, so it is doomed to failure. host: let's call from bill calling from windham, connecticut, on the independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. clearly, the point is being made that people have choices. it seems to me that societies
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have choices about the kind of economic system they are going to incorporate in their system. while the point is being made by the guest that what he is talking about really is not a system, or it is lacking of a system, i'm not a republican or democrat, i get concerns at times about republicans belittling liberals as communists or socialists, as dirty words. the guest just stated socialism
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goes not work, ok? i guess there must be some link because there are many socialist types of societies, especially in western europe and other places, linked with democratic values. i get concerned about some of the belittling of the ideas of liberals because they seem to be socialist or communist. it seems to me there are examples in new york city of communism. i think of central park. i think of the use of subways or other things that are forms of socialism within a democratic society. host: go ahead and respond, matthew. guest: i don't know what to say.
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the idea that the workers collective guilt the new york city subways or provided the capital to do that i don't think is historically accurate. i think the gentleman proves his own point by saying i am insulted that you call me a socialist, but every good thing i see in the world is a product of socialism. i want to point out that there are communists on the right in the united states now. there is an emerging bloc on the far right. they call themselves, good conservatives. they are a product of the political right. they are very much socialist in their outlook. they want to use state power to affect economic outcomes. they want to use the power of the tax code and the constitution to produce what
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they refer to as a common good. i view this as a socialist project. they happen to be pro-life. many of them are catholic. they sort of get away with calling themselves conservatives , although less and less are they interested in that it seems to me. when i say socialism does not work, you don't have to take my word for it, there is plenty of evidence for that. you just need to go to the library. host: in a review of your book, casey chalk rights that you do not take into account those who live in countries like china which is a communist country with free-market principles. he says the assessment of the free-market is too simplistic pretty argues free markets were all their fault and beat the pants off of unfree markets and
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repeats conventional pro-free-market data points on the billions of people. those people live in countries that are not just political rivals but military ones." guest: i say in the book that i'm trying to simplify things. i am breaking things down for people who have never encountered economic support. people say let's talk about the chinese system or the long-term impact of trade on the manufacturing base in the american heartland. that is not what this is. i did not promise it and i have not delivered it.
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people sometimes review books they want you to have written. i try not to do that. i try to review the book the author did right. host: let's go to robert calling from georgia on the democratic line. caller: good morning. i'm probably intending to be more independent on these topics. i am presuming your guest is aware of the theories of behavioral finance or behavioral economics which suggest adam smith's idea that we all act perfectly rationally is not the case. to the extent he has not done so, i would suggest books like "full by randomness -- "fooled by randomness" or "predictably
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irrational." that is point number one. point number two is i believe in capitalism but i believe capitalism needs to have some breaks put on by reasonable regulation. i think it is pretty clear that unfettered capitalism often has no regard for health, safety, environmental concerns, and it to concentrations of power that i am presuming our guest would be concerned that concentration leads to the loss of freedom. we can argue around the edges of regulation of this or that and whether it is a good idea. things like regulation of financial markets so investors can feel they are not being lied to and being taken advantage of,
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regulation of environmental pollution and things like that, i believe strengthen the economy rather than let folks run amok under claims that i am free to do anything i want. host: a response before we run out of time? guest: i never argue people are free to do what they want. i agree in certain corners of the economy that regulation is not only necessary but essential. i prefer the regulation be limited in principle and irrational as well and subject to some democratic process and oversight. to the first point, i guess time will tell whether people are still reading the ones you mentioned in 300 years, whether they have offered something to the debate that negates adam
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smith or supersedes it. my is they won't. i certainly will not be around to find out. host: let's go to nashville on the independent line. richard, can you give us a quick question or comment? caller: free markets and the economy. we look at free markets around the world, socialist governments, capitalism, and all that. we understand a lot of your pension funds, a lot of everything that comes through the marketplace, is funded. what if weekend america stop funding pension funds -- weekend america stop funding pension funds and get out of the stock market? what would happen to the free market and these companies? i believe a lot of these companies would go broke.
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happy father's day. host: go ahead respond, matthew. guest: what would happen if people stopped investing in their pension funds? i'm not entirely sure how to answer that. presumably, you invest in a pension fund because you want to or your company wants to provide you with that benefit in retirement, so those are questions for individuals and individual companies. it is hard for me to imagine a scenario where the retirement fund industry disappears. i agree if it did, it would be kind of a disaster for everybody. there is a lot of money sloshing around in there and it does a lot of things. final point to put a cherry on this. pension funds, large reservoirs of money, i think the casual or less educated reader of economics might think there's
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just a pile of money sitting out there. we know that is not how it works. the money saved in pension funds flushes through the economy to fund investments in other areas to keep the juices flowing. financial economics is not a sponge to take money out of the economy. it is a pump that keeps people like my father's business in motion. host: if he still in business? guest: enforcement, he died but he sold it after 30 years. there is no longer an irish bar there. it is a tapas bar no. -- now. host: not sure if we would call that progress bid we want to thank matthew hennessy for being here and talking us through the free market and economy. thank you for being here. next, we will review a busy week in politics with ruth marcus.
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stick with us. we will be right back. >> the january 6 committee interstate four of public hearings as they continue disclosing evidence gathered in their investigation. watched live tuesday on c-span3, the mobile app, or anytime online. you can watch previous hearings and other videos related to that day. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> weekends bring you book tv featuring authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
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lisa miller looks at the entry of a.o.c. on politics and what impact she is having as a member of congress. on "afterwards," the author offers her thoughts on sexual consent and societal attitudes toward sex in the 21st century. watch tv and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime. >> now available in the c-span shop, c-span's 2022 congressional directory. this compact book is your guide to the federal government with contact information for every member of congress including bios and committee assignments. also, contact information for state governors and the biden
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administration cabinet. order yours today. every purchase helps support c-span's nonprofit operations. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with "washington post" deputy editor ruth marcus here to discuss the political news of the week including the january 6 committee hearings and the midterms paid good morning. guest: good morning. nice to be with you. host: what have you learned from the january 6 committee hearings so far? guest: my biggest takeaway so far is what a close call we had for american democracy. as we were also watching on january 6, it was horrifying. what we did not know is how
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close we came. i mean that literally and figuratively, how close that mob came to the vice president about whom they had been chanting to hang him. how close the structure of our democracy came to standing up against the relentless public and private pressure of the president to interfere with the orderly transition of power. it was a close call. that is my takeaway. host: what is the most important political issue that showed up from a january 6 hearing? like you said, we found out how close we came to losing our current form of government. what is the most important political thing? guest: i guess the most
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important political question is, was the republican party in legitimate -- what are the leaders of the republican party going to do about it? that is at best an open question. host: i want to play a clip from liz cheney, committee vice chair, who does a quick overview of last thursday's hearing, and then get you to respond to it. >> here is how the former vice president raised it in a speech before the federalist society, a group of conservative lawyers. >> this week, president trump set i had the right to overtime
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the election. president trump is wrong. i had no right to overturn the election. the presidency belongs to the american people and american people alone. frankly, there is no idea more un-american than the notion that any person could choose the american president. >> what the president wanted the vice president to do was not just wrong, it was illegal and unconstitutional. we will hear many details in today's hearing, but please consider these points. first, president was told repeatedly that mike pence lacked the constitutional and legal authority to do what president trump was demanding that he do. this is testimony from the vice president apart yes chief of staff who served in the trump administration in multiple positions over four years. >> was it your impression the
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vice president directly conveyed his position on the issues to the president, not just to the world, but directly to president trump 20? --trump? >> many times. >> president trump plotted to pressure pence to do so anyway. a federal court has explained that based on the evidence, the court finds it is more likely than not that president trump and dr. eastman dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of congress on january 6, 2021. host: i think you said earlier, you wondered what republicans are going to do with this information. we just learned -- heard from three republicans. does that mean there is a split in the republican party when it
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comes to january 6? guest: at best, a few have been honest and from the point of their republican colleagues reviled voices speaking the same true vice president pence has said, that he had no power to do this. as liz cheney has said repeatedly, and others, the president was lying or deluded when he kept insisting the election had been stolen from him. where are the other voices of the party standing up saying president trump lost the election fair and square? it would have been a disaster for democracy if vice president pence had done his bidding. we cannot tolerate that. you're not hearing that from
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most elected officials in the united states. we are hearing the opposite and seeing any number of people elected to important offices who are echoing trump's view that the election was somehow rigged against him. host: "the hill" is reporting a group of democrats want the committee to issue criminal referrals against former president trump. during his term, there was an argument over whether a president can be indicted. is there a question over whether a former president can be indicted? guest: there's not much question at all whether a former president can be indicted. by the way, this has never been decided by a court. we have a serious of hearings -- we have attorneys general saying
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during his time in office, a president cannot be criminally tried. this little bit of a question about whether the president can be indicted. there is no such immunity for a president when he leaves office. questions about whether certain things are within the scope of his powers. you asked me about the political questions facing the country. i think it is what republicans are going to do. the question facing the justice department is, does the information assembled by the january 6 committee and justice department rise to the level of a criminal conspiracy headed by the president?
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we have never seen an indictment like that before. it would be a major step for attorney general merrick garland to take and one he would not take lightly at all. host: that matter whether the committee offers a criminal referral to the justice department? won't the department be making the decision on its own anyway? guest: it does not matter. it might make them or others feel better. it might underline the importance of this. it is not necessary. it could backfire a bit in the public about whether another effort to politicize what is kind of inherently a political issue, the justice department will make its own decision. the committee -- the justice
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department has been saying we need the transcripts of your interviews. we need to know what we are dealing with with the witnesses. the committee has somehow been reluctant to give that to the justice department. i think the referral debate is a red herring in this otherwise important question of how and whether justice will proceed. host: we are going to open up our regular lines for republicans, democrats, independents. keep in mind, you can always text us and we are always reading on social media on
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twitter and facebook. this was a "washington post" exclusive. i want to get your opinions. more than 100 gop primary winners backed president trump's false fraud claims. can you gauge the influence former president trump will have on the midterms? guest: the fact that many people espousing that position tells you about the persistence and power of the big lie. i guess i want to give these officials the benefit of the doubt which is they are just doing what they believed to be in their political interest as opposed to signing onto the dangerous notion of the election
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having been stolen. we have seen remarkable percentage of the gop electorate believes they lied. in terms of the impact on elections and what we can discern from the primaries, it is a mixed bag in terms of the continuing power of the president. former president. he wins some and lose his son. -- he wins some and loses some. i think we will have to tally it up at the end of the day. from my point of view, any waning power of the former president to influence elections and hijack the party which is
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supposed to be the conservative party is alarming. host: former president trump is continuing to talk about what he calls fraud in the 2020 election and he is now attacking the january 6 committee hearing. he spoke yesterday in nashville. here is what he had to say. >> remember, in the end, they are not after me, they are after you create they are after everything we stand for. it is your freedom, your rights, your values come your prosperity, and your country. they are trying to take it all away. these people are crazy. the reason they are attacking me so relentlessly and making up lies like the story about mike pence, send it to michigan,
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pennsylvania, arizona, look at the report the attorney general in arizona came up with. massive fraud! the papers don't want to write about it because they are complicit. they are every bit as guilty as the radical left democrats. [applause] every bit as guilty. host: obviously, former president trump will continue to use his same talking points as we get toward the midterm elections. do you expect to see other republicans strongly push those same topics? guest: i think it is less a question of whether they are obviously pushing it because it is so deranged but a question of whether they will stand up and say this is wrong, this is not true, he is, to put it politely,
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misguided, we need to move on and talk about what we stand for as a political party and do it in a reality-based way. we are seeing at best mixed evidence of that. host: before we get into calls from viewers, let's shift to another ongoing political topic. do you think what the senate committee has come up with will have a chance of passing? there is no assault weapons ban in the compromise. does it even matter if they pass the bill? guest: i grappled with that last question a lot. i am a glass half-full person. i'm but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good person.
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i understand and empathize with all of the gun groups, democrats , and reasonable republican lawmakers saying this is not everything we could do but a good first step. i have been watching the gun debates for a very long time, so my reaction is a little cynical. i think republicans are giving the bare minimum necessary. i am worried about the fineprint of all of these things. if they close the boyfriend loophole to stop people in relationships from getting guns, will the loophole be closed far enough? will red flag laws be funded and
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enforced in a rigorous way? they are good changes but nowhere near adequate. my fear is not that this is a first step thought that it will be the only step. things like limiting the amount of ammunition a gunman can bring into a school or church is a really important and significant step being left out. really expanding and enforcing background checks is a significant step being left out. we talk about it at closing the gun show loophole. i worry that we will take tiny baby steps and use that as an excuse to take no more steps for many years to come. host: let's let our viewers take
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part in the conversation. let's start with cj on the democrat line. good morning. caller: happy juneteenth. happy father's day to all the fathers. it is an honor to speak with ms. marcus. i am a big fan of your writing. two quick questions. do you think there is any validity -- i think about the infighting between the select committee and the doj. i am not a government guy, i never had a government job in my life. but could it be they just don't trust some of the trump appointees? people get to choose whomever they want to put in their
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positions wherever. but trump appointees tend to be from my point of view more bizarre, but that is just me. why would we share information with the likes of them won some of them are probably guilty of the nefarious actions that took place on january 6? a broader personal question to you. you read about companies like gannett, they are going to tear apart their editorial pages, do you see that coming in papers like your own and "the wall street journal"? guest: two great questions.
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happy juneteenth and father's day to you as well. thank you for reading. on the justice department, i think what is going on is probably not a fear of moles burrowed into the institution of the justice department. i covered the justice department once upon a time. it is a wonderful institution populated largely by career lawyers who are dedicated to the rule of law. i think each branch safeguards its own institutional interests and is much more worried if we give you this, will this mess up our investigation? that goes both ways. in the days of oliver north and the iran contra committee, the committee giving immunity to colonel north made it more
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difficult for the justice department to prosecute him. they sound bureaucratic but they are important for both sides and probably a much more compelling explanation of what is going on behind the scenes than a real fear that justice is populated by a bunch of trumpian moles. on the question of the future of editorial pages and opinion sections, that is something i have been thinking about quite a lot. i was disheartened and sad that gillnet -- gillnet -- gannett has made this decision. we have two ways we communicate opinions to our readers. we give an editorial which is the consensus of the editorial board which i am part of.
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i think in an age of celebrities and branding and everything else, i understand an unsigned editorial might not have the cachet of a signed piece by a celebrity, but i think it is an important way for us to explain. the editorial page makes arguments to the administration who we like to think do read us at their breakfast table every morning. i know when we make an endorsement in a local race for take a lawmaker to task for their opinion on something, we hear from them and our readers about it. i think that is a really important role for a newspaper to have and continue.
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i have watched with some degree of dismay as others have pulled back on editorials. i disagree respectfully with that decision because i think it is an important way to communicate. the other way we communicate with readers is to make sure we have in our signed open you as strong and provocative and thoughtful an array of opinion positions as we can deliver to people. i have been thinking a lot about the future of abortion rights. we have run pieces, including by myself, lamenting the potential demise of a constitutionally protected right to abortion. we have had people writing equally passionately that it
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will not go far enough. i have edited those pieces even though i disagree strongly because i believe we are entitled to an array of views. that is the way we think we can best serve our readers, to give them this broad spectrum of opinion. not everybody agrees. i get a lot of emails, and probably by saying this, i will get even more from people saying, why do you run this, this is wrong, i disagree with it. i write them back and always say the same thing. if there is something factually incorrect, let us know and we will look into it and try to fix it. but if it is something you disagree with, we can't force you to read it but we want to give you that option. i think to the degree those options are being closed off to the readers of other newspapers and news organizations across the country that is very sad.
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how can you be informed if you don't hear all of the arguments across the spectrum? host: i have to follow up that comment with a question. with all of the 24 hour networks having commentators on television and social media where anybody can put an opinion out at any time, are editorial pages becoming passé and old-school now that anyone can put their opinion out? guest: some people probably think so. i'm going to insist on the argument they are not. i think the considered judgment of the "washington post," we are not bullying you and telling you
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what to think, we are telling you and your group about people with a wide array of experience and we are giving you our best judgment. i have experienced time after time that if i write something under my name, maybe it will convince people, but if you save the same thing in the institutional voice of the "washington post," it has a lot more power and punch. maybe it should not, but it does. why would we give up that potential to influence policy and politics in the direction we think is correct? host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to robert calling from virginia on the independent line.
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good morning. caller: good morning. ruth marcus, january 6 was a false flag operation by antifa, which is part of the democrat party. the reason i know this, and you can put the video above of the people breaking the windows out, they had hammers, shields, weapons, and they were filmed by someone called bgonthescene.com. bg happened to be in seattle, and when they shot up wisconsin, and they happened to know exactly when the windows would be broken out at the capitol. this operation you think is
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saving the country is destroying the country. host: please respond. guest: the january 6 an insurrection was not a false flag operation. there is no convincing evidence of that. there have been hundreds of prosecutions of people involved in the january 6 insurrection. none of them have been linked to being members of antifa. i don't understand how anyone who has looked at the evidence can come to the conclusion you just offered. host: let's talk to norman calling from georgetown, texas, on the republican line. are you there?
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all right, let's go to pete calling from des moines, iowa, on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. happy father's day to everybody. i would like to make a comment on the january 6 committee as it references criminal referrals. the justice department already mentioned they are watching these hearings. the committee does not have to make criminal referrals. all they have to do this kind out what crimes were committed and present the evidence to back it up, which is what they are doing, and the justice department will do their job. they have no power to prosecute
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anybody anyway. only in reference to subpoenas. thank you for letting me make my comment. guest: i agree with your analysis. with the slight exception that while they can refer people like steve bannon, peter navarro, mark meadows, and others to the justice department for prosecution, it remains up to the justice department, a kind of underscores your point, to decide whether to proceed with the prosecutions. justice is going forward with two against peter navarro but not others, much to the consternation of the committee. host: you wrote an op-ed that talks about the upcoming supreme court ruling which is a
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challenge to new york's long requiring people to seek a license to carry a concealed handgun and requires them to show proper cause. why is this case significant? guest: this case is significant not just because of the new york concealed carry law. i can understand and sympathize with arguments against the concealed carry law. about seven states including new york have laws that say if you want a concealed carry permit, you have to show why you need it. not why you want to have a weapon, but why you have a need that would be beyond my need or your need to have this license.
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that gives a lot of power to the individuals entrusted with making decisions about these licenses. what is really important about this case is not whether these seven state laws are called into question but what the court says about gun rights in general. in hello versus district of columbia, they said for the first time a dozen years ago that the second amendment was an individual constitutional right, even though there is the introductory clause about the militia, individuals possess the individual right to have handguns for self-defense in the home. a few years later, they said that is an individual right that precludes state and local governments from infringing that
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light. because it was district of columbia, it was the federal constitution against u.s. government officials. the court said in heller that the right is not limited. felons had not been permitted to have weapons. certain types of weapons that were so powerful will cap -- were kept out of public use. but it has not been clear in the 12 years since the heller decision how they are supposed to apply it. the court did not take the new york case to constrict the reach of second amendment rights. it took it at the least to clarify them and probably expand
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them. the heller decision was 5-4. the majority was a much less conservative majority than we have now on the court. that is why i am nervous about it. host: the supreme court is likely to make a decision soon on whether roe v. wade is going to be overturned. how do you think the supreme court is going to rule? we have seen the draft opinion from samuel alito. guest: i am sighing because we have seen almost literally the writing on the wall with the unfortunately of the draft opinion -- unfortunate leak of the draft opinion that tells us it is very likely there are five justices at least willing to say
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the constitution does not protect the right to abortion. it is possible, and i have been in the supreme court chamber before in 1992 when everybody gathered on the day the court decided planned parenthood of pennsylvania. we did not have a leaked opinion, but all signs were there were five votes to overrule roe. three justices backed away from doing that. whether this will be another moment when one of the justices, the chief justice seems reluctant to go that far even though he is not a fan of that decision, to maybe back away.
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we have never had clearer signs the court is about to do away with the constitutional right to abortion. host: let's talk to rick from idaho on the republican line. caller: good morning. i am a retired marine from idaho. i have two references i would like to bring to light which will exonerate trump. you better write it down. social security cost-of-living adjustments 1975 to 2019. you will see 43 pages of posts. the second reference will bring everything to light. the crs report, go to the last
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three pages and you will see 71 years of points. i added up what president trump spent. i added his to george bush, clinton's, and george bush iv. here is the punchline. joe biden and obama spent more. trump spent less than truman. biden obama exceeded .1% of the gdp in eight years. i don't expect you to a door ball of this right now.
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please pull it, you will see it. you guys are walking on water. thank you very much. host: any response because he was talking very fast? guest: jesse may be walking on water but i don't think i am. the house and senate pass budgets and determine proper parameters for spending in those years. the spending done was done at the behest and instruction of congress. number two, i did not totally follow the argument, but however much one president or another spent this not really go to the fundamental question of whether a president, whether it be president nixon with the watergate break-in and cover up, or president trump with the effort to resist the peaceful transition of power, whether the
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president misused his office and broke the law. host: going back to roe v. wade, you have recently written a piece about the myths of justice alito's draft opinion. guest: one was that overturning roe would get the courts out of the business of deciding abortion cases. i don't believe it will. there will be a lot of activity in state courts to decide with their constitutions protect abortion rights. we saw last week the iowa supreme court reversing itself and saying the state constitution did not protect abortion rights. we are going to see a lot of continuing litigation in the federal courts about what can then be done.
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if abortion laws going forward are only subject to what justice alito because a rational basis test, what is rational? is it rational to have abortion laws that do not provide exceptions for the health of the mother or the life of the mother? what can states do if they prohibit abortion but want to stop citizens of their states from traveling to obtain abortions or from getting medications to induce abortions in their state? there are a lot of complicated cases. abortion is not going to disappear from the federal court docket anytime soon. if i am remembering correctly, the second was that this was the end of the argument, that we could leave it to the states to decide for themselves. that is not going to be true.
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i mentioned an op-ed earlier on this. assuming the court says there is no individual right to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy, we will see a new argument brought by people who deeply believe that the 14th amendment and the right to life includes the fetus and extends constitutional protections to the fetus from the moment of conception. we will see arguments about whether congress can pass a law extending that protection to fetuses or whether the court itself should say the 14th amendment protects unborn fetal life. we will see pushing not just to
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allow states to prohibit abortion but effectively to require them to prohibit abortion. host: let's talk to david calling from georgia on the independent line. caller: good morning, jesse. miss ruth, i appreciate you coming on. i will try to be specific and quick. i'm going to make a couple of comments about two hot button issues. one of them is, who causes abortions? we don't ever get any answers for that. it is a simple thing. man because all of this mess. -- men cause all this mess. america is not doing anything to correct it. the second thing is guns. they are not what is killing
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people. it is the bullet casings from the ammunition that has never been debated as far as the concerns of the second amendment. i will try and leave it there. i have one other thing to say. the conservative caller that called in on the independent line, that was a false flag call in itself. the two main things, who causes abortions and bullets do the killing. host: go ahead and respond before we run out of time. guest: agree on boat parade the best way to reduce abortions is to increase -- i agree on both. the best way to reduce abortions. on the second, one of the best things that could be done to reduce gun violence is to increase the cost of ammunition but also to limit the capacity
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of ammunition. from my research, that would have a significant impact in some mass shooting situations. host: we would like to thank ruth marcus, the deputy editorial page editor from "the washington post" for walking us through the political news of the moment. thank you so much. guest: thank you so much and thank you to c-span which provides an important public service every day. host: next, we are going to take your phone calls. we are going to go to our open forum segment where you can talk about your most important topic of the day. we are waiting for your call. we will be right back. >> c-span has unfiltered
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coverage of the january 6 committee hearings. go to our web resource page to watch the latest videos of the hearing and all of our coverage on the attack and investigation since january 6, 2021. we will also have as well as journalists and authors talking about the investigation. codices to c-span.org/january 6 for a fast and easy way to watch when you can see it live. >> c is the weekly podcast brings you audio recordings from our video library comparing the events of the past two today. on this episode, watergate and g gordon liddy. >> the watergate break-in happened, police arrested burglars of the, democratic national committee headquarters at the watergate complex. we remember g gordon liddy in
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this episode. he helped with the watergate break-in, went to jail because of it and then he reinvented himself as a radio talkshow host. he used his radio show to offer provocative history and memories of watergate. >> it occurred to me they might have me assassinated and i didn't want some amateur doing it with a shotgun on a sunday morning into a kitchen window. so i said if they wanted to go that route that i would just go stand on some remote street corner where we would get it done without harming any of the taxpayers. dean's comment about we haven't gotten to that point yet. >> you can find the weekly on our mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back and we are in
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our open forum segment where you can call in and talk about your most important political topics. we are opening up our regular lines. republicans you can call 202-748-8001. democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. independents, you can call 202-748-8002. keep in mind you can always text your opinion to 202-748-8003. we are always reading on social media, on twitter @cspanwj and on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. let's start with dennis from washington on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i was going to the last woman but i'll just take a statement here. i'll give you the definition of treason, of the crime of
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betraying one's country especially by attending to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government -- government. when i went into the army, i took an oath to defend the constitution, nothing has changed. i still honor the oath. attacking congress clearly breaks the oath. presidents take the same oath. charge and prosecute the perpetrators, it's what would have been done for me or you if you took the oath. there was a full-blown war when i went into the army. i honored the oath then as did my compatriots, who like me were --. host: let's go to douglas who
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was calling from wyoming on the defendant -- the independent line. caller: good morning. 1950 to 2020 the population of the united states more than doubled, increasing by 118 million, 751,000, 920 by an average exceeding 2,582,000 a year because of the total extent of american borders excluded the shorelines of the great lakes exceeds the 19,957 miles, it appears to me likely that there will always be ways for people to enter the country illegally that any projections by the census bureau are seriously -- scarcely credible and unless there's a catastrophe the population will never stop increasing. at the curious to hear what
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america's conservationists and government planners can do to prepare the country for the day one billion people -- host: let's go to davis on the democrat line -- david on the democrat line. caller: good morning. good -- good morning and happy father's day. i was calling because of a massive c-span follower. i have to say for all the republicans who are acting as of the january 6 thing is nothing, if obama had a huge rally on january 6 and sent his followers to go to the capital and then allowed his vice president to almost be murdered he sat there for 187 minutes and put together a plan like this, that's just crazy. and then also the path he was looking -- that means kamala
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harris could easily undo votes on a state-by-state basis. that's crazy talk and so all these republicans acting as if this is nothing, it is massive and can be used against them as well. host: let's go to james calling from oklahoma on the independent line. good morning. caller: i'd like to talk to the people listening out there. this whole thing has been going on in the last five years has been the biggest hoax of this country and people don't wake up they will lose their country, thank you very much. host: the washington post has a story that talks about how the economy might be turning in how americans are beginning to pull back on some of the purchases
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they are making. we drew a couple paragraphs from that story. more americans are beginning to hold off on booking flights, getting haircuts, replacing old roofs. it's assigned to consumer engines of the u.s. economic growth could be losing steam. over the past several weeks, households have cut back on purchases because of soaring prices. but in a worrisome twist, data suggests consumers are beginning breaks on dining out, vacation plans or even routine services like manicures, haircuts and home cleaning appointments. a rise in prices, dwindling savings and concerns of a sour economy are taking a toll on household spending decisions. this coming from the washington post saying americans are starting to pull back on spending. what is your most important
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political topic? this is our open forum segment. republicans we want to hear from you at 202-748-8000 --202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents 202-748-8002. you can always text us at 202-748-8003. we are always reading on twitter and on facebook. i want to remind you coming up this week the january 6 committee will be meeting again and you can watch it here live on c-span. the next public hearing from the january 6 committee will start on tuesday at 1:00 p.m. eastern. we will have live coverage on c-span3. you can also watch it on our free video app, c-span now and you can watch it all the time on
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c-span.org, our website. let's go back to the phone lines and see what roman from mclean, virginia has to say on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you so much for c-span. there's just nothing else like it and it we what you do. i'm calling because i heard a lot in the last few weeks about saving democracy. but there is an argument i'd be interesting to hear what other callers think that really one of the greatest threats to democracy we are facing right now is the threat that one party or another will pack the supreme court and turn the court from an independent court into one this just a puppet of politicians in washington and there's been an enormous amount of attention given to the 50 or so democrats
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who advocate expanding the size of the court and packing it with their allies. but there's been almost no attention given to the 200 members of congress who support something called the keep nine amendment to the constitution which says the supreme court of the united states should be composed of nine justices. people say constitutional limits are possible. we had one to give women the right to vote, we had one that opposed presidential term limits and polling that i've seen showed that overwhelmingly voters would support an amendment that preserves nine justices. so i would be interested in what people think about the idea of the keep nine amendment to preserve nine justices. it was first introduced by a democrat in congress and polling shows a majority of democrats would support it. host: let's go to brett from
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seattle on the democrats line. caller: good morning. i just have to say this is common sense. we watched trump and we watched the insurrection. this is very simple. and unfortunately we don't have the checks and balances we need in america right now. but our country is at a breaking point and something really needs to be done at this point. thank you for your time. host: let's talk to eric was calling from st. joseph, missouri on the independent line. ♪ good morning, -- caller: good morning, a great to be on c-span, love the show. i was calling to share my
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thought, curious what other listeners thing about some of the reason trump and the make america great again campaign resonates with people despite the clear lack of logical consistency and disinformation. i know those are strong words, but i think if you watch the january 6 hearing, there is some truth to that. he uses emotion and what's called the payphones to resonate at a deeper level than what they consciously realize is logical. i think that was part of the covid-19 disinformation in the anti-vaccine campaign and i hope people who want to fight against that realize that the intellectual rhetorical
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discourse is not being fought on a logical level. i thank liz cheney first service on the january 6 committee for making sure that partisanship does not determine what history remembers happens on january 6. >> let's go to steve was calling from new york on the republican line. steve, pronounce the name of your town for me. >> i'm from the finger lakes region. the community i live in, it's one of the famed finger lakes here. i'm calling because basically about where we are at with the economy. i feel like we are reliving the late 70's again with the high inflation not only with gas prices but also with food prices , of the choices we are now
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being limited on what we can do with their quality of life and i feel like the walls are closing in on everybody. i just really am disheartened over the state of this economy right now. normally i'm an optimistic individual, but i feel very pessimistic right now because i just don't see leadership coming out of washington and indeed here in albany. i guess all i can say is just remember in november and vote accordingly. host: we have a comment if it came in from one of our viewers who texted us and they say liz cheney is wrong. washington post is wrong. mike pence did have the authority and obligation to object to the unconstitutional
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slate of electors. the democrats must argue the opposite to justify borrowing trump from running again. you look back the 2016 election to see a lot of dams objecting to electors. but if they face any opposition to the cheating illegals. you can always text in. we are talking about your most important political topics of the day. let's go to eva was calling from daly city, california. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to talk about january 6, for sure trump wanted to put a dictatorship in america. i came to this country after we put a dictatorship, i was born -- working and they want to --
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today is father's day. my dad brought me up not to do harm to anyone if i don't want to done to me. work hard when you're young. take care -- they need us. speak out when you see unjust things happen when. i follow his rules, god bless his soul and let's keep democracy alive in america. host: let's talk to nick was calling from rockaway park, new york. good morning. caller: first of all i'd like to thank the capitol police and the metro police for how heroic they were and are to this very day.
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i might have a little bit of a suggestion for c-span. everybody has moderators. twitter, facebook, and they banned donald trump. yet i've seen him speak his speeches on c-span, is there a moderation, to c-span of a moderation policy that lives like the election was stolen, which has been disproven and that the hearings are all about this. why does c-span allow the former president to continue -- to cover his events. they can do that on fox or oann and newsmax. i would really like an answer to why c-span does not have a moderation policy. thank you very much. host: let's go to david calling from ohio on the republican line. good morning.
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caller: i'd like to say i go on the last call said we need to remember in november making the economy better and i believe things are going down a bad slope right now but it can be righted. that's it. >> let's go to wilbur on the democrats line. good morning. >> i have a two-part thing i'd like to say. i think the democrats in congress should pass stimulus checks for gas for the american people to help out the american people across this country and make the republicans vote against it.
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the second part is i was so upset when the democrat had a chance in the past the bill last week for security for the supreme court justice. that's ok to do that but they should've forced another bill where they could have tv cameras inside the courtroom for the american people and catch both of them together with the american people can see what's going on inside our supreme court. thank you. host: let's go to ed calling on the independent line. good morning. are you there? caller: yes. happy father's day to everybody and thank you for taking my call. this is going to sound a little bit outrageous, but the united
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states owns the hope diamond and it sits in the smithsonian and i would like everybody to google it and check the history out of it and come up with their own conclusions because it carries with it a curse and this could be the source of all troubles in the united states of america with the racism and the guns and the violence and all that. that's my spiel. it's hard to separate religion and politics even though we say we do but it's very difficult because your religion reflects your politics. thank you. host: our problems blamed on the hope diamond. let's hear from jonathan is calling from ohio on the democrats line.
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caller: good morning, c-span. i hope everyone is doing well. i hope everyone is in good spirits this morning. one question first. i heard on msnbc one night right after biden had gotten elected that the census information was put out wrong. i think if you look back in the 70's, growing up life was good for african-americans. the only company that stayed was -- and they were republican. so i think this is the new shift that way, they can come out like
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they did and bomb nobody. they can just outright kill a president. so this is the new systematic way for racism in america. anybody in their right mind would know but what happened on january 6 even what happened with the people walk through the city killed that girl and talked about white power, it's just interesting people aren't really talking about the real facts of the matter of the real undercurrent issues. host: a caller earlier asked why we continue to cover former president trump and i want to point all of our viewers to our website where you can go to
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c-span.org where you can see about and it will show you the mission of c-span. president trump is a former president with a huge pool of the gop so air in his speeches as part of our mission which is to provide officials and others who would provide public policy a direct conduit to the audience without filtering or otherwise distorting their points of view. if you are interested in our mission here at c-span and why we do the things that we do, feel free to go to our website, c-span.org, you can go to about and our mission and it will tell you why we do the things the way we do. let's talk to rich whose calling from seaside, oregon on the independent line. good morning. caller: happy father's day. i'm calling because the red states seem to be hanging up this gun control.
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when we go back to the constitution, of gun control measure by our constitution did not have mass destruction weapons, they were invented by hitler's. we didn't have those yet. anybody that thinks that they're weapons of mass destruction is covered by the second amendment should guess again. trump gets paid a half million to talk to people and that's not out of the ordinary, but we are talking about mass destruction weapons last week and i never thought to call lynn about that and i wanted to. the second part of this is the oil. oil is high.
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the second or third year of donald trump's presidency, i drove to san diego on the west coast and paid $4.50 a gallon. people don't remember that. so i don't know if it's going to get better or not. host: let's go to donald who was calling from indiana on the democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to see some quick things about the gas situation. there's a lot of blame to go around both for the consumers in production, the people who produce gas. for example. we do need a slow transition to elect tracy -- electric cars. we can do it overnight. not everybody needs a gas guzzling suv.
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you need to buy a sensible car that gets good gas mileage and the people that produce the gas, i understand if you got hit bad during covid because demand was down, but you have to help us out here and please do what you can to increase production to bring the price down. host: let's go to david calling from wisconsin on the republican line. caller: good morning. one of your callers earlier said the country was at a breaking point. if you look at the democrats, that's what caused it. i feel that ron desantis would be a great next president to straighten things out, thank you. host: let's go to steve calling
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from pennsylvania on the independent line. good morning. caller: i would like to make a few comments about january the sixth. the first thing i want to say about that, liz cheney. the democrats have hated her father since i started breathing air and now she is their champion. i found that a little ironic. she is absolutely what we refer to as the swamp, a part of that and now she's a holy and graced and loved by the democrats. january 6, everybody calls it an insurrection. no one has been charged with insurrection yet. everything that i've seen as far as video on television i want to talk about a young man wearing a red maga hat. he was an african-american. i saw a video of that guy in front of the white house several
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weeks before that with a microphone, he was definitely of the nt for type ilk. he was there acting on other people to bash the window in. then there's the little cop who removed the bike barricade and waved the people towards the capital. there is video of it. why doesn't anybody ever talk about that. he encouraged them in. once you see inside the capital there's three or four cops standing there right in front of the window where ashli babbitt was shot through the neck, an unarmed woman. she was shot right through the neck and three or four cops are standing there and they are getting ready, they wanted to come through. the cops just walked away and let them come through. it's almost like somebody had a microphone in the cops year and said they told us to leave so they left and they broke the
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window and she was dead for 30 seconds later. host: let's talk to daniel from tennessee on the democrat line. good morning morning. are you there? caller: good morning. a privilege to speak with you once again. can you hear me? host: let's go with donna calling from lewisburg, tennessee on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. yes i have a question about the man who made the comment about the gas guzzling suv. i'm a cattle farmer. how do you think i'm supposed to get my cattle to market, you need a truck and trailer to pull it. this is all biden's fault.
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host: all right. we would like to thank all of our guests in social media followers and all of our viewers for another gray washington journal. happy father's day to my father and i would like to say happy juneteenth to everyone out there. continue to wash her hands and stay safe. everyone have a great sunday. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] >> c-span's washington journal. every day we take your calls
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live on air and discuss policy issues that impact you. monday morning, the resident scholar at the school for urban renewal william b allen discusses his group's latest publication. then, the history of juneteenth and the significance of its recognition as a federal holiday for the first time. watch washington journal live at 7:00 easter monday morning or on c-span now our free mobile video app. join the discussion was phone calls, facebook comments, texts, and tweets. c-span is your unfiltered view of government sponsored by these television companies and more. charter has invested billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small.
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charter is connecting us. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat democracy. -- two democracy. >> oversight officials from the justice department, the secret service, and the small business administration testified about fraud detection for covid-19 relief programs. they talked about identity theft issues and modernizing federal systems to prevent future fraud. this hearing is two hours. ittee will come to order. [gavel bangs] without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at anytime. i now recognize myself for an opening statement. if -- the coronavirus
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