columnist, a utah-based conservative radio show host, and an opinion editor. join the discussion with phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. ♪ host: good morning. it is monday, july 4, 2022, independence day. on this fourth of july, we will spend our morning taking your calls. on this show current patriot men pride in america. a recent poll found fewer than 10 adults -- then four in 10 adults today say they are proud to be an american. are you proud to be an american? give us a call. the phone line is split regionally this morning. in the eastern or central time zones, (202) 748-8000.

if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. you can also send us a text this morning. that number, (202) 748-8003. if you do, please include your name and where you are from. otherwise, catch up with us on social media. on twitter, it is @cspanwj. on facebook, it is facebook.com/cspan. a very good fourth of july to you. you can start calling in on this question. are you proud to be an american? that gallup poll we told you at the top came out just a couple days ago. 38% of adults said they were extremely proud to be an american, the lowest ever measured by gallup, who has been asking this question since 2001. charts show the numbers going back to 2001, showing the average in those years, 55% of americans saying they are extremely proud to be an american.

before 2015, it was never lower than 55% of those saying they were extremely proud to be an american. today, it is just 38%. asking you your thoughts on those numbers and if you are proud to be an american. in the eastern or central time zones, it is (202) 748-8000. in the mountain or pacific time zones, it is (202) 748-8001. as you are calling in, a good day for local papers and local opinion columns. that is where we will begin. we will head to massachusetts to the martha's vineyard's times. abigail rosen says it is hard to be patriotic this independence day. she writes in that column that the declaration of independence challenge the king of great britain for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury and that he has ravaged our coast and burned our towns

and destroy the lives of our people, sentiments that even now americans can relate to with concern for the u.s. government. she said recent united states supreme court actions, the reversing of roe v. wade and efforts to hinder climate change mitigation add to local conversations such as refusal to raise the juneteenth flag and symbols of african-american independence. she says current affairs add weight to the already troubled, solemn history between the united states and the indigenous and black communities and triggers some americans to rethink the meaning of patriotism. some, she writes, inclining to celebrate independence day altogether. if you want to read more from that column, the martha's vineyard times is where you can find that. and one more, this one from northeast alabama, a community newspaper there. john floyd is a contributor.

this is what he writes this fourth of july holiday. regardless of the hateful desecration's of the american flag by those who have never lived under another flag, patriotism lives in this country's heartland. patriotism is evident in small cities and towns like southside and rainbow city, just to name a few. all the towns listed are in alabama, he writes, but patriot on clubs -- enclaves are spread through america. he writes crosses and flags represent all branches of the military, army, air force, coast guard, and merchant marines. he goes on to end that column by writing, the crosses and flags that line u.s. 431 in glencoe are beautiful, but what they imply is even more beautiful.

the flag represents valor and honor and courage and determination and power and security, especially to americans living or visiting in foreign countries. i know because i have been there. on this day of recognizing another anniversary of our young nation's independence, may god continue to bless the united states. john floyd writing in the gadsden times. speaking of those who served in the military, an announcement yesterday about one veteran who is no longer with us. he will lie and honor in the united states capital sometime in the weeks and months to come. house speaker nancy pelosi, senate majority leader chuck schumer announced yesterday that woody williams would lie in honor, honoring the marine corps retired chief foreign officer who served in world war two, the last surviving world war two medal of honor recipient serving

in the united states marine corps, fighting in the pacific theater, best known for his valiant service at the battle of iwo jima. he was awarded the military's highest decoration for combat service. nancy pelosi said he embodied the best of america, living a life of duty, honor, and courage. he helps power in american victory over fascism in the second world war and earned a deeply deserved medal of honor. when he lies and honor under the capitol dome, it will be with immense gratitude for his service that congress will pay tribute to this legendary hero and all the patriots who fought for our nation and world war two. that announcement coming from the speaker's office yesterday. this july 4, asking, are you proud to be an american? that is the topic we are taking on for all three hours of the washington journal. we will be joined from columnists by local papers and

radio stations on this topic, but we mostly want to hear from you. we have slipped the phone lines regionally. in the eastern or central time zone, (202) 748-8000. in the mountain or pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. jenae is up first out of illinois. caller: thanks for having me. i am very proud to be an american. my parents came from ireland and made a life for themselves here and my children are raised here and all the other people i have met in my life from different cultures. america is a melting pot of a lot of personalities and heritage, and i think all of us are proud today on july 4 to be living in this country, this great country. host: when did your parents come over? caller: i was born in 1957.

they came over and probably 1935 from ireland to england to canada and then at that time you were able to immigrate in if someone sign for you. they worked hard. my mother was a nurse. my dad was an ironworker. it is a great country. host: you talk about the idea of a melting pot. did your parents ever talk to you about how after -- how soon after they came here they consider themselves americans and how that process went? caller: when we were growing up, my father, coming from ireland, there was some discrimination. but he never saw caller. that is how we were raised. he had great respect, probably

because they were immigrants, and my on ted sign for him. we went to new york and saw her name at ellis island when she came in. that is how we were raised. host: when you say you saw her name at ellis island, is that the wall of names outside? caller: very powerful, yes. i have seen the history of people that came in and how hard it was for them when they first came to the country and look at the success they have. look at our own supreme court justice that we have now. this is a great country. i see some other countries that do not have a democracy and how their people are treated, and it just breaks my heart. host: thanks for the call. happy fourth. out of nashville, tennessee, you are next.

caller: i am very proud to be an american. i was a paratrooper in the u.s. army, a college graduate, worked my way through college. you can do anything you want in this country. that is why the whole world is trying to come here. basically if you go to other countries you realize how they do not even know. even just locally you could go to mexico, canada, and realized these countries, they need help. in this country, the level of freedom is unbelievable. the level of wealth is unbelievable. you can go to europe and other places. the whole world is trying to come here. i am very proud to be an american. i will tell you my folks go back to virginia and got a

relationship or related to meriwether lewis, the explorer. to me, what they did in the lewis and clark expedition was better than going to the moon and back, but times are different. today people -- this country demands a lot of you. you pay a lot in income tax. i still work. i am almost 74 years old. it is a country were all you have to do is look at everybody who is trying to get here. that is the acid test. it is not like i think i will immigrate to nigeria. i am not interested in that. i think i will move to tuscany, italy. i'm not interested in that. nobody works very hard. the french almost went on strike the other day because they were

going to up the social security age. that is ludicrous. the social security age should be 75 in this country. everybody should work until they are 75 and then slow down. i am very proud to be an american and july 4 is a great day. i was watching something before you came on about the smashing of the monuments. i think that rewriting the history is the most soviet inspired, communist inspired thing i have ever seen in my life. what has happened has happened and it is all part of our dna host: you said you were a paratrooper. did you know who woody williams was? caller: woody williams? host: the marine who served in iwo jima. caller: absolutely. he was the last medal of honor, the guy who passed away at from world war two. he was a real american.

host: thanks for the call. woody williams set to lie in state sometime in the weeks to come after his recent passing. three different videos in the c-span video archive if you want to learn more about woody williams, his oral history interview from 2006, remembrances of the battle view which ima from 2020 -- battle of iwo jima. larry, eugene, oregon. you are next. caller: good morning. my relationship with this country has become complicated over the years. i separate my feeling about my fellow americans. there is a lot to like about them. there are great people here. my problem is with the institutions of the country,

especially at the federal level. beginning with the vietnam war and the incredible lies we were all told by our government, our military, and onto the invasion of iraq, more lies, more wasted treasure, more wasted lives. so i have come to the point where i have had more or less an emotional divorce, a great concert from family counseling, where a person tries to love their family but cannot stop the feelings of alienation. that is where i am now.

i cannot be proud of the institutions in my country. what the supreme court has been doing is horrible. so mixed feelings. i really like my fellow americans. i have had it with my government. the country is obviously coming apart. it is very sad. i am doing my best to hang in here. it is the fourth of july, but i think we had a decent start to this country and they have pretty much blown it. thanks for your time. host: larry out of oregon. this is ken in south carolina. caller: i love to be american but america is getting complicated. we invaded vietnam and we do not even call that a war. it is a conflict. america has done terrible stuff.

let's talk about our current government. we are getting screwed and we are not fighting back. think about the current situation. we are been flooded with illegals. inflation is high. they are blaming it on ukraine, predicting more virus to come. i am a fan of america but we are moving into a new world order, just try to cut them off completely. they are trying to cut us off from oil and gas and electric. it is not that easy. this is the greatest country, but the way it is headed now, in 20 or 30 years we will not even recognize it. america in the future, the people will move happy. the american dream is almost

dead. host: this is tony out of bradenton, florida. caller: i am not proud that our country makes insane laws like jim crow laws and voter suppression. other countries are doing the opposite. they see with this country is doing in america is an example, like roe v. wade. they see what we do here and they reinforce their loss. in other words, women and other countries have more rights, like france, israel. england. germany. the list goes on and on. same thing with gun control, the same thing. so this country is great.

we are supposed to give a good example, but with the gop or whatever you want to call it, they are radicals. host: are you proud to be -- are you proud to be a floridian? caller: yes. i was born in texas. i came here to florida because of a work opportunity. i am from san antonio. you see the killing in move all day -- uvalde. that is what i said earlier about gun control. the gop, whatever you want to call it, those radical republicans, they say i want to protect children -- babies. i want to protect babies.

but they do not give a damn when babies are killed in our schools . host: the reason i ask about proud to be a floridian is because a new ad is running today funded by the campaign of the governor of california, gavin newsom my encouraging floridians to move to california . it is a six-figure add described as an attack ad on governor ron desantis of florida. here is the ad that is running today. [video clip] >> freedom is under attack in your state. your republican leaders are banning books, making it harder to vote them out restricting speech in classrooms, criminalizing women and doctors. i urge all of you living in florida to join the fight or

join us in california, where we believe in freedom of speech, freedom from hate, and freedom to love. do not let them take your freedom. host: that ad from california governor gavin newsom. one note about it, this is similar to new york city mayor eric adams's campaign back in the spring in which he placed no boards across florida opposing the state's so-called don't say gay law and encouraging floridians to move to new york city. that ad is now out today. back to our phone call. the question, are you proud to be an american? as a californian, what you think of the ad we just played before we get to the question? [video clip] -- caller: i am a lifelong democrat, but gavin newsom is somebody i do not like.

the problem with america's leadership. it has just gone downhill. both parties are so corrupt and it is hard to have any pride in america. we are around the world starting these wars and waste money like it is going out of style. we have joe biden now, who saying we need to defend taiwan. so we are about to have another bloodbath in taiwan. is that the next thing we are going to have on top of ukraine and afghanistan? is insanity. joe biden has to go. if there's any decency left in the democratic party, please go to him and say do not run for another term. they're kind of leadership, we do not need it. we do not need republicans, but we definitely do not need guys like joe biden who was an institutionalist. host: what democrat would you

like to see ron? caller: that is the problem. there are no younger people in the party. we need new leadership. we need somebody young and intelligent who can lead this country and put financial responsibility back in government instead of throwing money away all the time. host: you do not think your former senator, vice president harris, would do that or is that younger figure that could step in? caller: not only do i not think so, but she ran in the primary and got 1% of the boat when she ran for president. the people looked at her and said, we do not want her. now she is probably going to follow bite into the top of the ticket. you might as will hand the next election to the republicans if you run those two clowns. it will be a disaster. host: this is richard out of

fredericksburg, virginia. caller: i am proud to be an american, but i'm not proud of america. the reason why is my life experiences. i'm emotional now because i am a 64-year-old american, african american man that grew up in a place called come spring, virginia, where i went to seven different elementary schools in six years because they did not want the little white kids from alexandria the neighborhood. fast, i'm a veteran, a united states navy veteran. i am a combat veteran. i launched planes on aircraft carriers. i saw planes leave with munitions and come back empty.

directly, i was involved with probably war toward other people that do not have anything to do with my struggle. your first two callers showed me that there are a lot of people who are not in touch with what is going on in america. you heard i am from fredericksburg, virginia. on a daily basis, i deal with racism right in my face. the other day kai went to sonic. i saw three confederate bumper stickers and one person wearing a confederate t-shirt just in the parking lot. to me, i feel like i'm friend when i see that. and it hurts me because this is a great country, but we do not

have equality. i believe we are in a deeper problem than what we really know. i believe people want weapons because they are ready to go to war. there have been many instances of people -- this is a great country. i love this country. i am a black man. i could never be a racist because i love people. i have good friends and bad friends, black and white. i treat every person as an individual. we have not come nowhere near as far as where we were. host: you talk about your struggle and equality. a big debate in this country in recent years is equality in policing, especially when it comes to the use of deadly force. i do not know if you have seen stories from the past couple

days, this from the washington post. police released body camera footage sunday of officers firing dozens of rounds at a black man who left his car during a traffic stop a week ago. the police chief said he did not know exactly in the number of rounds fired into jayland walker, 25 years old, but added the medical examiner report indicates more than 60 wounds in his body. i do not know if you have been following that story. caller: i watched that video last night. it hurt because i feel, and i'm not a racist. i do not have racial influence, but i feel if that was a white man that would not have happened. i truly feel that. as a black man, i do not feel safe. i have never owned a firearm until recently when i went out and purchased three, not for any

other reason than not feeling safe. i am not trained to make this political, and thank you for the time, but i drive to church every sunday and i see the sign and it says trump 2024, if not sooner. that saddens me. it does not have anything to do with the political part. it has to do with the fact that people are just -- they do not care. host: where do you see that sign? is that in a argue pass -- a yard that you pass? caller: it is on route 17 heading north. it is a fairly big sign. and that saddens me because to me that a showing you have treasonous views. it hurts because we are a better country than this.

host: thanks for the call this morning. michael and virginia as well, sterling, virginia. you are next. caller: thank you for taking my call. that last caller, shout out to you and fredericksburg. amen. the reason why i called is because -- richard talked about being proud to be an american but not proud of america. the reason why i'm calling is to drill into that a little bit. i noticed that c-span kind of conflated the term proud with patriotism and i want to say the thing richard was talking about is the difference between pride

and patriotism. this is what i want to share. patriotism is about commitment to the promise of america and that is what i am proud of, that america stands for something great. but as far as pride goes, that is complicated. there are things i'm proud of and things i'm somewhat ashamed of, that the united states is involved with. obviously we have good and bad people in government. we have good and bad people living on the street. i am not too -- i do not have a lot to share. i really wanted to say that, that pride does not have to be a component of patriotism.

i'm a patriot to the marrow, but my pride waivers depending on what is going on. host: what is that promise of america? you talked about america stands for something. what is the promise? caller: i think it is well stated in the declaration of independence. i could not have said it better. how successful are we at fulfilling that promise? that is up for debate. i am not going to argue that with people, but that is what makes me proud is we have the dream of having democratic access, equal access to all the goodness that our society and culture can provide. do we achieve that? ? no. richard is a good example of that. nonetheless, it is important to

recognize we can be good patriots without being proud. it is better to be honest and clear about what is going on. thank you. host: this is ryan out of san bernardino, california. caller: it is my first time calling in. thank you. i will illustrate real quick a couple short things. if you years ago, i was -- a few years ago i was studying to be a schoolteacher in california, and when i was doing so, and this was well before some later radicalizing things came into my head regarding the environment,

i -- even as a student teacher -- turned away from the flag and bowed my head in prayer for the millions of people that we had killed. and as my faith and politics have changed over time i came to realize that as much as being a warrior and being a person willing to give your life for a cause is good, the empire itself and civilization itself is just -- it has been a mistake. that is 12,000 years of history. america is a great experiment, and i respect the spread of democracy and things like that,

but i would rather have lived in the era of confederacy or been a nomad on the planes who had a good experiment and it worked out well. when it comes to the incan's, aztec, romans, turks, persians, greeks, america being the latest, it just has not worked. host: you think this country has been more of a force for bad than good? caller: i would not say that. it would depend on what group you are in and whether you are one where things are being taken. i would say empires in general,

not just america, and it does not matter whether it is socialist, communist, democratic, capitalist. even barter and trade. i do not think any of that is possible. host: that is ryan out of california, first time caller on this program. phone lines if you want to join this conversation at the question we are asking is are you proud to be an american on this fourth of july. in the eastern or central time zone, call in at (202) 748-8000. in the mountain or pacific time zones, it is (202) 748-8001. it is our conversation through all three hours of the washington journal this morning. we are going to be joined through the morning by some opinion columnists from local newspapers, local radio stations , and get their opinions as well.

from the philadelphia inquirer, and national opinion columnists being the first of four that will join us in about 25 minutes , so we will continue to hear from you all morning on this question, pondering this question. this is terry out of new jersey. good morning. go ahead. caller: i am bursting with pride to be an american. the question is are you proud to be of america or of its leaders? that is what people are confusing it with. i am not proud of american leaders all the time because america is a gift from god. i believe that. it is up to us what we do with it. who leads them sometimes messes it all up and there is lots of corruption in this world. america is the light on the shining hill, the hope that we

still have. our founding fathers were the most brilliant men god put on this earth. what they said we have to uphold. our constitution is what we have to uphold. we have to love this country. it is good at its core and people are good at its core. we have to get up and fight for what is right in this country. my father fought in world war ii and taught me to love this country and i really do. host: who was the last american leader you were proud of? caller: trump. he loves this country. that is what matters. he truly loved this country. just because he was not a politician -- a lot of politicians lie. they are corrupt. most people laugh at the words political and politicians.

trump was a good man who loved this country and had country first. he did many good things for this country. he brought back pride from the world. the world was spitting on us and laughing at us and he made them respect us. that is what we deserve. we deserve respect. we have to make a commitment to keep this country high. host: that is terry out of columbia, new jersey. you mentioned comments from politicians. here are a few tweets heading into the july for holiday, with several republican members focused on the high price of goods this fourth of july. a senator from indiana with a tweet about the most expensive fourth of july ever, saying, with record high prices the

biden administration war on american independence day has made this independence day the most expensive for hoosiers. the conference chair for house republicans showing a chart comparing prices of various goods from 2021 today, noting the percentage increase, the 37% increase in the cost of hotdogs, 28% increase in the cost of chicken breasts, ice cream up 14%. she writes there is a reason this fourth of july is so expensive and it is joe biden's failed policies that are to blame. this is florence out of south carolina. caller: good morning. good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i called and to say

this. i am 66 years old, and i never seen the world, only america. the flag set of schools -- we used to go to school and learn that by heart. we had to do that by heart. all that is away from american people. because we are not putting in america what we need to be proud of. i take out $50 every week of my hard earned money and feed the homeless because i look upon my brother man. he is american and just because he out on the street homeless that means he is going to lose out. stop looking at the price of

hotdogs. feed the homeless. move the mountain. the only way the mountain is going to move -- stop blaming other people. who are we in this situation? or biden. that man got 20 things going on. but we got one thing to do, look where we are for our neighbor. it ain't going to be good all the time, but stay in america. be proud of america. we all need help. we all need to help each other. talking a police reform, we have one police in our state and that police did one thing.

why did they worry about no gun when he don't have no gun? now we got guns. stop blaming each other and blame yourself. host: this is matt out of west plains, missouri. you are next. caller: very proud to be an american. i am not proud of the ministration we have in office now. i watched may arcus come on tv yesterday and say the border was being run correctly. we had 60 migrants died last week, but it is being run correctly. everything is great at the border. you have a war in ukraine that should not be going on. it is biden's incompetence.

the last day president trump was in office, gas in my county was $1.70 a gallon. it is $4.29 a gallon now. i spent over $200 more a week to feed my family. we and my wife do well. we do well. in this economy, with the way this man is running this economy , we barely make ends meet. it is sad, what biden has done to america. also not proud of the media. the media is culpable for this. you have jake sullivan, who is the national security director. he was part of the clinton campaign. 33,000 emails gone. he was part of that. why is he in this administration? being part of that lie.

and the lie the media perpetuated. that is what we get you have a democratic party. that is what happens. we need to get back to be americans, to what matters in this country. go back to be energy independent. you bring down the cost of everything. gas is what runs everything. it cost four dollars to ship something five miles and then you jump that price up to $10. what do you think they are going to that product? it is going to go up. if you bring down the cost of gas, you bring down the cost of everything. i understand green energy is needed. we need to transition to green energy. if biden wants to do what he wants to do, wait to see the rolling blackouts this year. do you think we have the energy to actually propel 170 million

electric cars right now? do you think this country can produce that much electricity? we could not even get texas through a winter storm. host: matt in missouri this morning. he started by talking about the homeland security secretary on cbs's face the nation yesterday. here's a little what he had to say when asked about the threats federal authorities have had to deal with on the u.s.-mexico border. [video clip] >> what we have seen has been this back-and-forth between state and federal law enforcement regarding security to supreme court justices. does the threat go beyond picketing? is it specific and credible? >> we have seen a heightened threat environment over a number of different, volatile issues that galvanize people on different sides of each issue. we in the department of homeland security have become involved

when there is connectivity between the opposition to a particular view or ideology of hate, of false narrative, and violence. it is that can activity to violence when we engage and are mindful that the supreme court decision in reversing and overturning roe v. wade has heightened the threat environment. we have deployed resources to ensure the safety and security of the supreme court and justices. >> up in boston, a white supremacist group marched through that city. they plant riots in idaho. -- planned riots in idaho. how concerned are you right now about these malicious?

-- militias? >> i have said and this has been could by the director of the fbi that domestic violent extremism is one of the greatest terrorism related threats we face in the homeland today. individuals spurred by ideologies of hate, false narratives, personal grievances. it is that violence we respond to and seek to prevent. we are in a heightened threat environment. host: alejandra mayorkas on cbs's face the nation on the various threats homeland security is seeing in this country now. if you want to watch that interview, he also talked about border interviews -- border issues. susie in georgia. we are asking this morning, are you proud to be an american? how do you respond? caller: i am very proud to be an

american. i listened to everybody this morning. i would like to offer two angles of consideration. when our government was formed, it was formed for the people to govern themselves. the closer to home the government is, the easier it is to control the government. our founders, human nature, people are going to take advantage. if you can come at do. our member my mama when i was growing up -- i remember my mama when i was growing up telling me to are those that if you give them an inch they will take a mile. that is so prevalent today. we try to bend over backwards for people and let them have that little inch.

before we can turn around, we are destroyed because of that inch we gave them. that is human nature. our government wanted to be big. our government is supposed to be closer to home. the federal government only had a handful of items to do for all those states. they started with 13 and now we have 50. that does make a difference. i would like to let people know -- i read reports that said everybody wants to come to america. why? one of the simple things is here in america you can start out at the lowest rung and with all the

opportunities -- you have to do the work, but the opportunities that are available, you can rise to the very top 1%. you could even be president in this country and start off as an orphan if you wish with just very bottom of the money scale. i will say it that way. that report said there is no other country in the world where that can occur. host: here is a more recent report on whether americans believe the u.s. is the greatest or one of the greatest nations in the world. the question that often gets asked is the question we have asked on occasion here on the washington journal.

in a july 2021 survey, 52% of americans said the u.s. is one of the greatest countries in the world along with some others. 23% said the u.s. stands above all other countries and 23% said there are other countries that are better than the united states. those 65 and older were most likely to say the u.s. stands above all other countries. adults 18 to 29 were the least likely to say that. among republicans and independents who lean toward the republican party, 20% compared to just 12% of democrats. democrats ages 18 to 29 were especially likely to say other countries are better than the u.s.. 55% of them expressing that view. this is jesse out of vermont. good morning. caller: i am very proud to be an

american. i have driven to all the states except nevada and oklahoma. this is the most beautiful country. i have not seen another country. i hope to someday, but i have seen the most beautiful people, most finally people, and most amazing sights. i recommend anybody to get out and get on the road and see some places if you have not. i live in vermont. it is pretty different than anywhere else. i can basically feed myself with outdoor animals and vegetables and stuff like that and i am very thankful. host: where is the most beautiful place you have seen in your travels? caller: the most beautiful -- it is impossible to choose. host: give me three or four. caller: i would say yellowstone,

the redwoods, and i really love miami, too, florida, south florida. there is just so many. i stayed in the back of my truck. i turned it into a camper, so i stayed in all these states. host: when are you going to get to nevada and oklahoma? caller: me and my brother almost made to vada. we were 100 miles last year from vegas during the heat bubble. i hope to someday, if gas ever goes back down. i would be out there this summer, but i am staying at my parents' camp all summer. host: where would you have gone this summer if you were able to? caller: nevada, sir. host: thanks for the call. caller: can i say one more thing? i think a lot of people are not history buffs.

i am a history buff and i watch all the amazing stuff america has done in the past. that is what really makes me proud. host: this is bernie in pennsylvania. caller: all of us are proud to be americans but we have to remember this is independence day. what does that mean? the 13 colonies that started the usa rebelled against the authority of the british empire. we had no representation. we had enough and revolted. americans today forget this, that our independence is about self-determination and the right to have represented of government.

our politicians are not representative anymore. most of them are promoting what should take place to make the planet in their vision perfect and they have abandoned our country. they are not nationalists anymore. americans have a short memory. 2020 and 2021, they told us to wear masks and then to have a job or go to a social event you had to be vaccinated and show proof of vaccination. this dave independence, we have to remember what our own authority has imposed on us. they did it once. they can do it again. so reminisce about how america was in the past but we are not

living in the past anymore. they are pushing us to a new world order, which means there will be no liberty, no freedom of choice, and you will not have any representation because it will be a hostile authority. guest: 200 -- host: 246 years ago the past, here's what is some of what was written, some of what was proclaimed. we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as shall seem most likely to effect their

safety and happiness. this is done in missouri. you are next. -- dawn in missouri appeared you are next. caller: as a child, i learned of our principles. i learned i was a child of the pilgrims of the soldiers of the revolution. i was proud and eventually joined the army and served, but we do not choose who we become. we are just born into this world. we are what we are. people of other nations are just as proud to be who they are as we can be. but i learned over a while participating in politics that our politics has been given over

to the wealthy. the lady said you can build yourself up from your bootstraps , but it is not so easy for everyone to do that. our politics have been given over to those who have money and can get money and now that capital behind you, it is bribes, corruption, and what happened to the last presidential election? it was stolen. by the democratic party. so the whole thing is tumbling down like a house of cards. i am not so proud of that. but i do fly a flag outside my home. right now, it is upside down to represent a nation in distress. host: this is kevin in albany,

georgia. caller: yes. happy fourth. i am proud to be an american. i'm proud to be an african-american. i just wanted to say to the lady from new jersey, she needs to check herself into a mental hospital if she supports donald trump for this country. i just wanted to say i'm proud to be an american. i have two american flags in front of my apartment. host: we are losing you but i think we got your point. let me get richard in san francisco. go ahead.

caller: i am proud to be an american, definitely. my family has been here since 1630. i am not proud of a major part of america. there is one major point i want to make addressing gas prices and a lot of other things. the main factor involved in all of that is greed. it has nothing to do with biden or the democrats. they cannot do anything to control the price of gas. it is greed by the oil companies , who we gave trillions of dollars in subsidies to. here is a big thing they are not talking about. it is going to be a huge wave of foreclosures because the moratorium during covid has ended. it is going to be a huge wage of evictions -- wave of evictions. greed comes in bad. mortgage companies would rather take my house that have a program pay what i/o -- i owe.

that is my family home. i'm probably going to have to use bankruptcy. that is pure greed and it is common. that is another major thing that is going to come this year on top of other things. it is not biden's fault. a lot host: we got your point. it's 8:00 a.m. on the east coast and we are one hour into our "washington journal" program on this july 4. our question we been asking all morning long -- are you proud to be an american jekyll keep calling in and -- are you proud to be american? we have the philadelphia inquirer colonist -- columnist with us. good morning to you. guest: thanks much for having

me. host: joining us from philadelphia, do you think this grand experiment that began in your home city there 240 six years ago? is it still working today? guest: no, not really but it's working very poorly. in the last week, we saw the supreme court of the united states make a number of decisions that are not supported by the majority of people. these are justices, the majority of these justices were appointed by the president and didn't get a majority of the popular vote and were referred by senators who don't represent a majority of the american people. we really have a problem but the

biggest problem in this country is the checks and balances that the founders in philadelphia built into the constitution when they drafted it here in 1787. there are too many opportunities for minority rule especially in some of the ways this country has developed over the past 246 years. for example, giving each state to votes in the senate, the founders could not have anticipated that rural states which had to be dominated by one party, the republican party and there would be such a huge disparity, they could never have imagined the disparity of states like wyoming and california. the wyoming vote for senate is worth 40 times what california

is. these structural laws are starting to show themselves in 2022 as unpopular decisions that are supported by the majority of people. it's why on july 4, we will see a large protest by women and others who are concerned that women have lost a fundamental human right in this dobbs decision. this is a very sad time for u.s. democracy and bubbly the most perilous time we have seen since the civil war in the 1860's. we seem to be inching toward two separate countries, red states and blue states with different laws and people will be deciding where to relocate further jobs and where they go to college based on the law and government in different states which is

similar to where america was at in the 1850's. host: what structural issues from majority rule is the power of the filibuster rule. we saw president biden throw his support to making an exception to the filibuster rule, to codify roe v wade protections. do you think that could happen? guest: it would not fix all the concerns but it would fix some of them. broadly, the american people are tired of washington's inability to tackle the problems that face people in their everyday lives. this would allow a party but it would allow for legislators to neck programs that can make a

difference and not have to require 60 votes. it's possible. i think the democrats would be wise to campaign strongly on this. would be to get more than 50 of its candidates, only 1/3, get them to sign a pledge saying they would overturn the filibuster, that there would be 52 of these people. it's kind of like the republican contract with america. a democratic contract with america that we will change the filibuster in 2023. i would like to see the limited for more than just reproductive rights and president vitamins and voting rights and i would

like to see it limited for other things like children's school lunches and children tax credits. host: will bunch is joining us from the philadelphia inquirer. you can follow him on twitter. we mentioned the city of brotherly love, the home of independence hall. how often do you go to independence square to visit independence hall? guest: i have visited a couple of times. i've spent the second half of my life here. as a longtime resident, you tend to go when family members or friends are visiting from out of town. it is starring just to be among independence hall and around the liberty bell and around these

sites. i used to work the sunday night shift at the newspaper and the only place i could find apartments but on sunday night was inside the building were thomas jefferson drafted the declaration of independence. the journal kind of inspired me. here i am upholding the first amendment as a journalist, merely -- almost a block and a half away from where the declaration of independence was drafted and i find that greatly inspiring. in this day and age, i'm covering so many issues that are important to what is democracy. i enjoy being in philadelphia more than if i were in dc or new

york. i think philadelphia is a great place to cover the future of democracy. host: we've been asking our viewers about whether they are proud to be an american. i don't know if you caught some of that but i wonder if you would mind joining us for a few of those calls. do you want to take a couple of calls? guest: i heard four or five of them and it's interesting stuff. host: dan has been waiting in mississippi. the question that we asked -- are you proud to be an american on this 246 birthday? caller: good morning to you and happy fourth of july. i am a proud american. what would make me more proud is if they prosecute the ones that were responsible for january 6. if they don't, then it's going

to happen again and it will be worse. that's what would make me proud, prosecute them, give them 10 plus years in the one at the top, he should get life. host: you are saying the former president of the united states? caller: yes, sir. because he not only committed or attempted to commit bribery, he committed treason in helsinki. everybody forgets that. host: you still with us jack? on january 6, as we reflect on this country in the future of this country, the impact of the securities we saw last month. we are expecting at least two more when congress returns in july. guest: yeah, in terms of what it

means to be an american or taking pride in this country, this notion that we sometimes -- that we realize no person is above the law. this is really a test of that. we've seen dramatic testimony in these hearings, presenting really hard evidence that crimes were committed at the highest level of government as much occurred in watergate 50 years ago. and much in the same way happened 50 years ago in watergate. these hearings are building public awareness and building support for a situation where the justice department could

justify the extreme step of bringing criminal charges and the president of the united states former president has never been only charged. we are talking about uncharted waters here. i think that's what the generally six hearings seem to be doing, rocking the foundation for this presidential situation. host: this is david from st. james, new york are you proud to be an american? caller: i am proud to be american but i'm not proud when i see the news is not reporting the truth or when i see politicians not reciting what they are supposed to say. there are many forces at war with each other. the ideologies of one rte against the other. the same thing with abortion.

you have politicians whipping of people to believe that there are no more abortions available when we know that it's been kicked down to the states and it's up to the states to decide. that's actually part of the constitution. abortions are not in the constitution. i am not proud when i see politicians whipping up people saying we have to get larger programs, larger government when that's not part of the experiment. the experiment is that the people can fend for themselves. we can make government smaller and more prosperous. i feel that's part of the experiment. when politicians feel their ideology is better than the others, that we have to divide the country and conquer, that's not part of the experiment.

host: thank you for the call from new york. will bunch? guest: that's the constant debate is what is the nature of the american experiment? you seen this play out in the supreme court in the debate in this philosophy which is what did the founders mean when they wrote the constitution in 1887 and should we interpret the law solely based on what they were thinking. it's about the constitution being a living document. personally, i think we have to adapt to modern times. i think the founders would've wants the government that wasn't

hamstrung was able to respond to the needs of the people in the things the majority of the american people desire. at the beginning of this interview, i felt -- i feel the government has been hamstrung in many of those areas. host: a couple of colors have brought up the issue that american leaders don't make them so proud while they may have pride in america. i wonder your thoughts as we close on the leaders of this country versus pride in the country itself. guest: it's fascinating but

almost every caller i've heard says yes they are proud to be an american and some have conservative viewpoints and some have progressive viewpoints but many of them are troubled by the current events happening in the country now and yet, almost all of them said yes, they were proud to be an american. i think that's because the american ideal always holds out the prospect of reinvention that if you don't like what the current leaders are doing, we have elections and we have ways to petition the government and there are ways to protest like the ones we are seeing in a number of cities today over women's rights for example. as long as we have certain liberties, we have the

opportunity to make them at her. a lot of the reason there is concern now is people are worried that basic freedoms like the idea our vote will count and will not be overturned by a legislature or some secretary somewhere, i think the idea that freedom of speech and freedom of the press might be curtailed by the current government. i think that's the ring that makes people the most worried. as long as we have those liberties that were founded in philadelphia and exercise them on behalf of all people and not just original white men but on behalf of all americans of all races and gender, as long as there is hope, there is always pride in being an american. host: that's a good place to end it and if you want to read more

by will bunch, inquire.com. -- inquirer.com. guest: enjoy the rest of your holiday. host: thank you, more syndicated talkshow host will join us later in the program and throughout this program. we want to hear from you, our viewers, on the western - are you proud to be an american? a poll shows the numbers of americans who say they are externally proud to be an american is the lowest anytime they have pulled on the question since 2001. we want to hear your thoughts this morning. gary in the constitution state, thanks for waiting.

are you with us? you've got to stay by your phone when you wait on hold, i apologize. we will go to patrick in illinois, good morning. caller: good morning, how are you today? host: how are things in the land of lincoln today? caller: they are awesome and happy birthday america. this is the greatest country in the world. i just wish we could not wait for some giant catastrophe to bring us altogether together. it's ridiculous. none of these politicians are pure as snow, none of them. it's either your cheater beat era cheater or air cheer be yours, let's make sure the cheating is taken out of the game as much as we can step it will not all be taken out but

let's all come together as americans and have a good day. thank you very much. host: patrick, you talk about not waiting for a big catastrophe to bring us together. the gallup company started pulling on this question of being proud to be american in 2001 and i believe it was after 9/11 in 2001 that the numbers in the early years after that major catastrophe were some of the highest numbers on this issue, 70% in 2003, 59% of americans said they were externally proud to be american and then those numbers fell off over the years. my question is -- if there was a giant catastrophe now, would we come together like we have in the past whether it be world war ii or 9/11 were other times in the past where this country seems to come back together? caller: mess with us and you

will see this country -- japan woke the sleeping giant. for all of our differences and everything else, each and everyone of us love this country. yeah, you don't want to mess with us. we can squabble like a family amongst ourselves. but you come after us, this country will unite. it always has and always will. host: would you say the squabbling is worse than it's been and it's threatening to rip up -- rip us apart? caller: nah, we are just others and sisters who don't like each other. we will come together. it's america, man. this is where we are at. this is what has become, the

changes it grows. we have to level the playing field a little bit. we have to make sure that our votes count and the procedures get straightened out and the people will vote. none of these guys are pure as snow. i was gonna vote for the guy but when he signed that thing for the rnc and said he would support weber won the nomination and wasn't can assign it, i said that's it. i'm not mad at nobody. happy birthday, america. host: back in the keystone state, hamburg, pennsylvania. caller: i am a very proud american. i have less rights today than i did last year on the fourth of july. and it's also my daughter's birthday.

happy birthday, nicole. i'm a social progressive. i believe in social welfare coming polity, i promote individual rights. free enterprise committee democracy. four years as a democrat, people tell me that i don't love my country because i am a communist or i am a socialist. they have been very loud and nonexhaustive about it and they do have many platforms on social media and on tv news programs. they have platforms. eing heard on talk radio shows. a lot of religious shows espouse what they say. my civic duty has always come first and foremost in my life because i have always had hope for the future for my daughter's. i have a daughter on the west coast and a daughter on the east coast and they are both teachers now. my youngest was just in her

first year of teaching which was challenging step i told them you have to have a hope that things will get better. at first, when things changed in america and a lot of people came out and there was so much hate and blame, i think that if more people would take advantage of the right to vote and would get out there and vote and how precious that right is and how necessary it is be as we don't rule the country ourselves. we elect representatives to represent our positions, what we need from the government. those representatives have failed miserably. when you say give the rights back to the states like in roe versus wade millett the states

decide. i believe in 1970's, congress passed the equal rights amendment. that would have given equal rights to everyone no discrimination based on your sex, male or female. that has never been ratified by all of the states. the women do not have an equal right. where not protected by any law that protects our equal rights. when roe versus wade goes back to the states, the states are gerrymandered. this started eight or nine years ago or before that. very gerrymandered. i believe their goal was to take the supreme court and quickly reversed some things that they don't agree with even though we had that in the law for 50 years. it's dividing us.

don't let people divide you. that's when we grow weak. if we cannot come together as a collective movement of people and not yet upset because some of the elves something for free and i will not spike myself, just imagine it build back better would have passed. we would've seen charging stations on the highways, people getting trained, eldercare and help with childcare. people say government gets too big but since ronald reagan, we have been doing it, we've kept women out of everything. we ran out of baby formula and they say is the governments fault. it's not their fault. that factory should have been cleaned and they should have been capable of backing up the production somewhere else. host: that's lori in

pennsylvania and this is michael in new kensington, pennsylvania. go ahead. caller: thank you so much for taking my call. i agree with that gentleman who said happy birthday, america. it's is a great day for america and for us as americans. i don't know that i can say that i'm proud to be american is that means i've done something -- i've never fought for this country, i'm not done some of the things other people have done for this country like run for office and things like that. i feel very blessed to be in this country. i am first generation american and my father did fight for this country and he appreciated what this country did and the opportunities and i thank my lucky stars that our forefathers had the guts to come to this country and find an opportunity for their families. as our founding fathers did,

they wrote the constitution and the declaration of independence. they were looking toward us. they were looking toward future generations and they knew the sacrifices they were giving would lead to some of the changes in the world history that we enjoy today. so many other countries enjoy this today. i think that a big part of the problem is the media today. that fellow will bunch is typical of that. they have no concept of the founding of our country. he says the supreme court has lost popular opinion. the supreme court is not about

popular opinion. it's about sticking to the constitution. host: that's michael in pennsylvania. we are taking your conch calls coming up on 8:30 a.m. we are asking if you're proud to in american on this 246 birthday of america and several of our viewers have talked about the founding fathers and what they believe and what continues to come down from our founding fathers and members of congress, tweeting out their comments as well on that subject.

this is ryan out of chicago, good morning, are you are out to be an american jekyll caller: by all means no. the woman said she hopes things get better but i don't think hope will get me or my son kept from being shot on my way to work most of there's no way you can be proud to be an american. look at ukraine, the media talks about how russia is ruthlessly

invading them but look at america, we invaded iraq in 2003 and we had no just of asian. -- we had no justification. we were going to steal iraqi oil. we will kill millions of people to protect our interests abroad . do you think all the people we killed in iraq were civilians? we droned -- we did drone strikes on schools. roe v wade was overturned and yes, it's not about popular opinion. he also mentioned, mr. buns, house -- how to states got their own vote they were small states in 1776 as well.

host: we don't appreciate that kind of language and we won't take that kind of language here. vancouver, washington, good morning. caller: yes, i'm calling about my pride in america. i like to give a little background. myself along with my family members have all served in the military dating back to the 1800s. i am very proud of what we did but there's one thing in america that i'm disgusted in and that is the education system that has developed recently in the news media and a lot of the progressives and the young blacks who have been brainwashed. i'm 75 years old. i went to an all-black school. i know racism and i've dealt

with it. i believe in equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. you got these young people nowadays and everybody's hollering that they want to while in it but they don't know what it is. equality is an equal opportunity, not necessarily eat will outcome. i don't expect a grade d person to get an advance is a grade a person. you got these phony news outlets in america, fake politicians, democrats and republicans because i am neither, and you also have blacks who have been brainwashed over the last 50 years. most of them don't realize that martin luther king was a republican stop a lot of your young blacks now want to tear down statues of abraham lincoln, he turned -- he freed the

slaves, it's ridiculous. host: this is lee lin, mississippi, good morning. go ahead. caller: america, i love america and i'm a combat that myself. let's be truthful, it's an experiment but it's a failed experiment because it was trying to see if people could live together among the races in the saying is everyone is created equal but it's all based on enslaving the african-americans. we weren't there when they were fueling the whales and making the machines and making the textiles and the textile

machines they were making, the cotton was coming from the south making the south ridge, all african-american. when the cotton gin was made, that multiplied the work of a slave 10 or 20 times. all the people it came to this country and say go back to africa, we would have built africa we weren't building this country. you like this uneven playing field because you are not doing anything about i about it. we should live like the saudi's because they honor the african-americans. host: this is mason out of charlottesville, virginia, good morning all step are you a proud to be an american? caller: i'm extremely proud,

happy birthday, america 246. i will tell you why i am proud. i have lived in different countries. i lived in a couple them for a year at a time in one of them was cuba. my friends down there that i made over time are in havana. they can't believe how people in the united states squander the education system, the ability to get ahead. they say a lot of it is due to parenting. i tend to agree with that. i wish everybody the best but we are in a turmoil with different things that people are throwing in-your-face, just to move to a different party. i wish everybody the best. host: what did you do in cuba? had a jew to living there? caller: i don't talk about that.

host: something you are not allowed to talk about jekyll caller: i will leave it at that. host: all right, we appreciate the call. mike in modesto, california, good morning. caller: i will try to be careful not to drop any f bombs this morning. host: i apologize for that. caller: anyway, i'm externally grateful to be an american, pride goes before the fall and it can be interpreted many ways. this business about let the states decide and don't let the supreme or about abortion, while we are at it, why don't the have segregation in the states.

critical race theory, they are not trying to make white kids feel bad, they didn't do it step the descendents are not responsible, the nazi children are not responsible and the white kids are not responsible for what people did stop people are no damn good. give people a chance, they will control and screw other over -- other people. that's how it is. the white people were on top and they stayed on top by doing horrible things but only because they were good christian people were not going to have it anymore in the mainstream of the white segregation and everything failed. i would like the people who feel and quit pretending.

happy fourth of july and you think about all the people who have been on this world and we got to live here? it's wonderful and crazy and sad but anyway, just do your best. host: sounds like this is bring you to the point of tears, why jekyll caller: almost. host: why is it bringing you almost to tears? caller: i just get emotional about the way we live in here we are doing the best we can step you can't pretend like things didn't happen and they will go away. god gave this land to us. ask a native american about that.

anyway, i will get off before i get stupider. host: this is marion head of groton georgia -- groveton, georgia. caller: happy birthday to this country. i love this country and i don't use the word i am a proud american because there seems to be a lack of humility in that . patrick who called in and talked about as being a family squabbling, i agree step the problem with families is when part of the family is telling the order -- other part of the family they do not love the family and they are not adriatic, that gets dangerous. one of the things that i want to say is that i am also a sad american today. anytime there is a 10-year-old child that's forced to have an abortion -- forced to carry a

child, like the 10-year-old in ohio that got raped in that state in ohio with saying no, that child cannot have an abortion and that child has to now go to to a state that does allow abortions, that's a very sad state of affairs for this country. this country is forcing 10-year-olds to carry babies to turn -- two term after being raped. i think that's a sad testament to our country today, thank you. host: this is kathy in utah, your next. caller: good morning, can you hear me? host: yes, ma'am. caller: happy birthday, america. i am calling regarding my perspective on being an american today. i am actually confused american stuff with the recent things that it transpired with their supreme court which we hold as

the highest court in our nation, they make a decision and we walk away and say that's it, we have to accept that. in 1973, the majority of republicans in the supreme court enacted roe. it was five republicans and two democrats and one each dissented. here we are 49 years later and the same thing has happened only they reversed it and they said the last 49 years, the constitutional interpretation was not correct and we have been living under a false pretense and it was correct. my confusion lies in where we will end this. what are we not living under a

true constitutional interpretation? our forefathers crafted this beautiful document. if they were here today looking at what has transpired, would they say this is not what we meant? i believe they would be scratching their heads and saying what happened here? i love america. i love my country, i love what it stands for but i think we are getting off track and those that we have voted in are not directing it very well. host: what do you fear could be next? you say you fear there could be other things that could be decided that could be reinterpreted and decided they do not comply with the constitution, what do you fear could be next check caller: that could be almost anything. that's why i am a confused american.

when we look to our supreme court, it was with respect and we walked away and accepted the law. now, anything goes. that is not what america is. that is not what we do. i hope the current supreme court justices are listening to this program today because they are not representing the constitution or the people. host: basing this conversation this morning on a gallup poll on those who said they were truly proud to be an american, that number is at a 38 year low and here is another gallop poll. it is confidence in the u.s. supreme court, asking the public how confident they are in the u.s. supreme court and it is at 25% of those who don't have a

great deal of confidence in you can see how it is the lowest number over the years going back before 1975. in the 1980's, that number approached 60% of americans are said they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the supreme court. as of june this year, that number is down to 25%. keith, richmond, virginia is next. caller: good morning. happy birthday to america and i am glad i have this opportunity you're giving me to share a couple of things as i listen to the conversation this morning. i know c-span is mostly political in its mission but i wanted to say to you this morning a couple of things about the word of god, give me a moment.

i think this would be hopeful to add to the discussion. the word confusion came up a few times today. i am proud to be american. i consider myself a patriot. this is the land of my birth as a black american. i certainly know there are a lot of places that i'm thankful i wasn't born in. but god meant me to be born his country and confusion came up because we seem to be proud to be americans and want to be patriots but we're all having a sense of confusion. the last time i looked at my dollar bill, on the back of it, it says in god we trust. as a confessed christian and jesus christ as my lord and savior, i want to take a moment to share a couple of verses from the bible.

even though this is a political program, some of us are christians and some of those believe what we want but since we have established our affirmation in jesus and god to provide the way for america, i want to look at host: give me just one verse because we have folks were waiting. caller: ok, i will go to matthew 25:25 and jesus was talking to the pharisees and he said -- jesus knew their thoughts and said unto them every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation in every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. mark three :25 -

host: in 2022, is america a house divided against itself decca caller: yes, i believe it is. if we are going to confess to christ -- we have independence and god is not going to make us go to heaven, we can go where we want to go but if we continue to be divided and what god has established, we are the people who have the individual freedom that's in our soul to be able to decide where we want to go. host: this is jim next out of tucker, georgia, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i am very proud to be an american. amen, keith, thank you for bringing that up. you mentioned the supreme court decision a moment ago.

i think that's an interesting point. the supreme court did not really legalize abortion, they just said it was a fourth amendment issue that a woman had the freedom to do that. i think the current supreme court, one of the main justices use the word abortionist which is a derogatory term. i think that's sad that we have people eat like that using derogatory terms of against our comrades, our brothers and sisters were fellow citizens. i think that is sad and i hear that a lot and i hear it unfortunately from the republican party which is very disappointing step i look at the

republican party nic a lot of division there that seems to be that they want to bring that out. i think it's unfortunate but i think america as an experiment is a very brave thing most i think our founding fathers were not just genius but their determination and their hard work to get -- to make us free and their courage to take on the british government which at the time was a world leader, that is remarkable. the people of america also -- we are kind of a victim of our own success. we have achieved so much through so much hard work and dedication and sacrifice. from here, it's so easy for us

to take all of that for granted i would hope that we could continue being hard-working, dedicated people who love their fellow citizens. i thinks that is what continues to make is great so that's my thought. host: coming up in about 10 minutes before 9:00 a.m. and we have and asking you to call in but looking for your text messages and social media post as well stop this is from folks who have been watching over the first two hours.

a couple of your thoughts this morning. you can call or text. the phone lines are split up regionally. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i think it's an interesting question regarding pride in america versus pride in his leadership. there is no question that the united states has the technological advances of more than any other country in the world stop we were the first man

on the moon and certainly have the longest living document for constitution stuff at the same time, we have is disturbing amount of hypocrisy that exists in this country like the january 6 hearings. you have domestic terrorists, they stormed the capital and we have leadership that says you didn't see what you saw step don't believe your lying eyes. these are good americans and these are patriots, people who are concerned about the election that was stolen. if this reaction had occurred in 2000 after bush v gore, the individual -- the individuals behind his instruction would more likely than not have been shot but we have the same people who the right will not accept it elections anymore. we have reached state legislatures that are trying to strip rights of voters for

minorities from people who have been imprisoned and who have served their time. that's not something to be proud of. at the end of the day, we are nearing a banana republic if we have a supreme court that on one hand says that it is up to the states to decide issues of portion, there is no implicit right to privacy for that but at the same time, the federal government will tell the state of new york that you are wrong, you don't -- you cannot carry a gun but we will tell you what to do. i think we are reaching a tipping point in these united states that we are going to either fall into the abyss were eventually we will get our act together and become a great country but right now, i don't have a lot of faith in the future with the current leadership that we have. caller: keith in littleton, colorado.

the vice chair of the january 6 panel was on the sunday shows, responding to fashions about either the committee is making a case to prosecute former president donald trump. here is a bit of that exchange. [video clip] >> these hearings demonstrate that donald trump needs to be prosecuted step >>the justice department will ultimately decide that. we may have a view on that and the committee but if you think about that from the perspective of what kind of man knows that a mob is armed and sends the mob to attack the capitol? and further insight that mob when his own vice president is under threat and the congress is on the threat. it's very chilling step+ certainly,

we will continue to present to the american people what we have found. >> the committee will or will not make a criminal recommendation? it's possible there will be a criminal referral? >> yes. the justice department does not have to wait. there could be more than one criminal referral. >> are you worried about what that means the country to see a former president prosecuted who is a likely kind -- candidate is likely to be running for president in? >> i have greater concern about what it would mean the want held accountable for what. -- for happened here. host: back to your phone calls, it's about five minutes and 9:00 a.m.. are you proud to be an american?

good morning. caller: hello check -- hello? host: are you proud to be an american? caller: i am proud to be an american because i came from a country where we didn't have anything. i came to this country with eight dollars in my pocket legally. this country gave me hope, freedom with honesty and hard work, i have good sons and one is a medical doctor and the other has a doctorate from harvard and have a wonderful wife of 45 years. we were married 45 years ago. i would like to say that we need

first of all god, we need to worship god, worship his son jesus christ our lord and savior. we need to read the bible. in the second important thing is we have forgotten our family. we need to love our family as our own self because they are part of our life. and the third is our country which gives us this opportunity and the way to do things that are important, we have heard so many things from other countries. from where i was, i still go overseas to my country and try to help people there. host: what country is that? caller: i cannot tell you that because of the situation. but i tell you something that

overseas, when i talk to my people, they tell me that nobody has the rights except the government. host: what year did you come to the united states and how old you? caller: i came to the united states in 1976. i didn't know anyone but the lord helped me that's why believe in god. there is a church where you can go and worship on every corner. he talks to us whether we are proud of this country or not. host: this is sean out of kansas city, missouri, good morning. caller: good morning, i do love america. i'm kind of disappointed in it right now. do you think more people should

be educated? donald trump's judges lost over 60 plus court cases. hello? host: i'm listening. why do you say tha? caller: they should educate themselves on how elections are.. it also goes to the justice of artman. -- it also goes to the justice department. you could call the election board to see who won the election. i don't -- i don't understand how the desha people say the election was stolen by the democrats when his own judges on the bench said he lost.

host: do you think the january 6 hearings have helped bring light to some of these issues? do you think this is been helpful in educating people on what haswhat happened in the wer the 2020 election? caller: i think the people that are watching it, yes they are educating. the people that don't want to watch it it isn't doing anything for. i'm disappointed in people not listening to it. i think they've done a great job on what they've done. host: going into this hearings, do you think there were many mines out there they were willing to be changed on what did and didn't happen? there is a large segment of society going into these things with an open mind, saying i will make my own decision after

hearing what they say? caller: maybe 5%, 10% tops may be. -- maybe. i do hear there were more republican citizens, that 25% of them believe donald trump should be charged. i'm glad to hear that he should be charged for what he did. host: that's sean duffy kansas city missouri -- sean out of kansas city, missouri. we've been asking you this question, are you proud to be an american. we have been bringing an opinion columnists and radio talkshow hosts to join this conversation on this independence day. we are joined by longtime chicago area tv and radio host joan esposito.

viewers can find her in the chicago area. chicago's local progressive talk station. joan esposito. how are you? thanks for the time on a holiday morning. are you proud to be an american today on this 246th birthday of this country? guest: absolutely and always. like one of your previous colors, i'm second-generation italian-american. my grandfather came to this country when he was 27. he got a job unloading the boats that came into ohio, lake erie. they made enough money that my father could afford to go to college. i am the embodiment of what happens when the american dream works. so yes, i love this country and

i have immense faith in what this country has done and can do again. host: i wonder your thoughts on how much time and energy we spent trying to figure out what the founding fathers of this country intended. a lot of talk about our founding fathers intends, whether it becomes guns rights or states rights in this country. so much focus right now. is that a good thing? guest: no, i don't think so. i think right now, people are picking and choosing statements, writings from the founding fathers to bolster and legitimize their beliefs. and sadly, right now what i see

is whenever anybody starts talking about the founding fathers, dollars to donuts they are going to make some statement that is subtly or overtly racist or homophobic or misogynistic. i think that maybe 20 years ago when we studied the founding fathers, we just looked at what they wrote here times they lived in. the founding fathers never meant for the constitution to be set in stone. they wanted it to be a living breathing document that changed with the times. that reflected society. when people start quoting the founding fathers, it's assigned to me that there is something from hundreds of years ago that they want to lock us into. so that's a red flag for me. people who aren't ministers or really religious quote the bible

, they are trying to find some weight usually i think legitimize a very unpopular belief. host: we introduce to you as a host on wcpt. what does it mean to be a progressive in the united states in 2022? guest: i would argue that progressive is a word that has lost a lot of its meaning. it's one of those words where you say what do you mean by progressive and 10 different people will give you 10 different definitions. we just had a primary in illinois and there were very moderate candidates calling themselves progressives. you and i have paid attention to politics long enough to know that when it first was being used it had a very specific meaning.

it meant that somebody was really ready for really substantive institutional change and want to quickly. i think now it has become kind of a meaningless label. it's almost like saying i'm hip in liberal democratic circles. i don't think it means what it used to mean. i had a listener call in a couple of years ago. they said you know, you are not really progressive. you are a liberal. i'm thinking to myself, ok. i can live with that. maybe i'm a little more moderate and middle-of-the-road than you. so i think progressive used to mean bernie sanders and aoc. let's get rid of college debt.

let's make child free. and those are great ideas and they are very different than the way we live. they wanted it to be different and they wanted it to be different quickly. now i think progressive just means that i'm not a republican maybe? i'm a democrat. that i'm more likely to vote for things that benefit society then don't. but not necessarily as much change as quickly as was originally conveyed in the term. host: you can listen to joan esposito at heartland signal .com. i was listening on friday. you said it would be fun coming on washington journal. the real fun in -- comes in taking viewer calls. guest: sure. i do it all the time.

host: maria out of san antonio, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm not proud to be an american right now. i often wake up thinking i'm lucky to have been born here and imagine being born somewhere else. but that's because i've been told how exceptional america is. i'm afraid it's turning into a theocratic state. people are using the constitution as many colors have said prior to their own ends. the constitution should be a breathing living document. it was written by men hundreds of years ago. women were thought of. african-americans weren't included. now we have a supreme court that wants to be originalist. it's frightening. i'm scared for the country. i hope people realize what's

happening and get involved and vote. if people don't vote, it's going to become more restrictive. and by the way, not everyone believes in a christian god. and people that want this country to go back to god, this is a country of multitudes and people should be free to practice and if a teacher wants to take the satanic bible into class and have their children kneel, is it going to be accepted like the coach? guest: i think she's making some excellent points. we were talking a second ago about what progressive means. the supreme court hiding behind this term that they are originalist. that's something that isn't part of our decades of scholarly

research. originalist is like a name they made up to justify them going back and picking and choosing things that they want to justify. look at alito quoting people who have written dear god in the middle ages. the men who propounded the idea that a husband can't rape his wife is the man that alito chose to quote to justify his opinion. that's cover. that's cover for people who want to take us back and she's absolutely right. when they envision one nation under god, it is a white christian nation. look what lauren boebert just said about how there shouldn't be separation between church and state. i don't think she's talking about islam or judaism. mike flynn more than a year ago said this country really should only have one religion.

maria is right to be afraid and she's right on when she says one of the biggest ways we can fight this is by really paying attention to who we vote for. not just the big senator or president but who you vote for for school board. who you vote for for your city council. who you vote for at the local level matters as much if not more than who you vote for at the federal level. host: in alexandria, virginia. this is aaron. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call and happy fourth of july. to answer the question, yes, i am very proud to be an american. despite all the things we go through. i'm originally from philadelphia. i have seen a lot of things happened to the people when law gets out of hand and people get

out of hand. remember jesus was killed by the state. that's just one thing of note. one thing i realize is that without the checks and balances of the people, we don't move forward as a country. even though we are not perfect and we understand that the founding fathers are not beyond reproach because they were slaveowners knowing full well that they did follow the bible, slavery was wrong but yet they proceeded anyway. i feel as though with the division going on in the country that we need to look at our laws and hope the lawless accountable. if someone is charged with treason, then the punishment that is outlined if they want to be originalist, they need to follow the law of what the penalty is. we do have penalties. those who rated the capital on january 6, they are out of the

bounds of the law. looking at america, we have a duty as the people to hold our electors accountable, to stand by what our principles are and realize that this country in the world is changing. the founding fathers could not perceive the impact of global change. they can't perceive cell phones when they created their document. it was not written for people that looked like me. fortunately through the blood and sacrifice of everyday people who are willing to stand up and go against what was once mainstream and sort of shaped this country into what we would like it to be, a more perfect union. then i believe we are getting closer and i'm up for helping to get there by any means necessary. host: joan esposito.

guest: erin makes absolutely wonderful points. he reflects not only what you and i have been talking about, but before the 9:00 hour i heard you play some sound from wyoming congresswoman liz cheney. somebody was asking her whether or not donald trump should be prosecuted if he is guilty of crimes. and the answer -- i'm on team aaron with this. nobody is above the law. that's what makes us the united states of america. there is no monarchy here. he's not a dictator. he's an american just like the rest of us and if he has committed crimes, which it's beginning to look more and more likely he has, yes, he should be prosecuted. absolutely. that's who we are as a people.

i you mentioned monarchy. let me give you one last question from the naked truth reporter on twitter. saying progressive recidivism -- progressivism is actually regressive. what would you say? guest: i would say that's crap. somebody trying to puff themselves up by saying a lot of provocative basically meaningless stuff. that's what i would say. host: are you on the air today? guest: i am not actually. only yours today. host: what are you going to be talking about tomorrow on your show? guest: i'm off this week because of the holiday week. what we have been focusing on are the primary elections state

by state trying to see if we can glean some kind of bigger picture about voters and where they are right now and we are going to be banging the drum on an almost daily basis to remind people that they have to get out and vote in the midterms because as you well know, sometimes excitement for a midterm election is not what it is for a presidential election and you don't get the turnout and when people don't turn out it's bad for democrats. it's bad for the people who want to write the ship. host: joan esposito, thank you for your time on this fourth of july. guest: happy fourth. host: we will continue to take your phone calls with radio hosts from around the country. we are going to be joined by

kate to dolly of the kate dolly show based out of utah. captain has been waiting out of lincoln, nebraska on the question, are you proud to be an american. caller: good morning. just to say i am proud, but i'm not an american. i am a permanent resident. i came here in 2003. but i would say i'm proud to be here in the united states. i would say it's sort of sad from my perspective coming from a third world nation, seeing how the government has changed and the president has not been held accountable. he should have been accountable for his crimes and knowing full heartedly a minute ahead for -- before anybody else that there

was an onslaught of people coming towards the capital to interfere with an election is kind of punishable by a lot of standards. on top of that i received a lot of education here but it's just as i witnessed, when my people came here to the united states i'm talking about those who are from foreign lands, they are not really fully educated on how the government works, how the fundamentals of money works. how paperwork works. it's more of a crutch that we all have sometimes when we come from another nation not knowing how electronics and technology works. in africa some of us we do come from tribal lands and we do actually live out in the jungle and some of us do actually have cities where we still flourish and everything. it is somewhat like how ms. joan

said, it may sound preposterous, but if you look at the way everything has been played out, companies that have billions of dollars usually get away with a lot of people things that an ordinary person like me, if i was to commit a crime i would be punishable at the highest account. host: what country did you come from and why did you come originally? caller: i came from liberia in 2003 and i was only a baby. i grew up in dallas texas and i always thought the united states was africa because it was so diverse. there were so many people, different ethnicities. i literally thought america was africa until i grew up and was told america was america. america was beautiful in my eyes. there are so many diverse people here, they called it the mixing pot. the first place we landed was in chicago.

the only memories i can say about the united states when we first landed here was the smell of the gas and fumes in the bright lights of the city and how i just saw different types of people. so i thought it was africa. host: that's captain out of nebraska this morning. sandra is next out of missouri. thanks for waiting. caller: first i want to say i'm just really grateful for c-span. i haven't been listening for a long time, but i enjoy the perspective gives of people you have on. what triggered me to call this morning about whether or not i feel proud to be an american is the african-american man that i heard call in. he got emotional and he cried and he was just talking about

his experience. he made me emotional for him and for my own thoughts that were similar to his and the concerns from my perspective. i was grateful for the man who followed him who was probably what we call wide. i personally don't think there is such a thing as white as -- white and black. i think people have a country of origin tied to their designation. i like to see when people show concern for other people who might not have as positive of an experience and not put them down or dismiss them or act like you know everything only from their perspective. i feel concerned. i live around the corner from ferguson, missouri where michael brown was killed years ago. i just wanted to say that.

but i think i would feel more proud to be an american once there is some package of reparations. the slaveholders, they were paid money when things changed over time historically for the profits that they lost when they no longer had enslaved men, women and children to make money for them. but the enslaved people never got any reparations and reparations needs to be something that needs to be done. monetarily, forgiveness of student loans, it home loan forgiveness. something. because when people say pull yourself up by your bootstraps, i just wonder about how much

people know about this country and when we use terms like founding fathers. to me this is stolen land and i know that was the long time ago but just like we should never forget the holocaust and people don't forget things in the past, i just feel like i question a lot and i wonder how much people know about the doctrine of discovery and the papal bulls from 1452 that gave permission to enslaved people in this land. host: sandra, we will end at their -- it there. other colors trying to get in this morning. here's kate dolly out of the kate dolly show. national syndicated radio host. good morning to you. guest: hi there. i'm so glad to join you. host: the question we have been

wrestling with this morning stems from a gallup poll that shows that a record low number of americans in this country are extremely proud to be an american. it's the lowest number in 21 years of pulling by gallup. -- pulling by gallup -- polling by gallup. why do you think it's at record lows? guest: i think it's hard to identify what an american is right now. i know that while we are watching fireworks tonight, i am going to be thinking about the biggest story that should ever be told is somehow someway everybody voted for biden and we have this president and this was the underdog story of the year and so it even kicked obama out of the spotlight and really overcame all of these barriers to have a president that somehow everybody even though he didn't

even campaign went and voted for. and when i look at the situation in this country right now, i am thinking this is the underdog story. as we are watching our fireworks that probably are shortened due to the cost of the fireworks this year and we are going to the pump when joe biden said inflation is our strength, i think right now americans are trying to go to the store, they are trying to afford to go out to you to they are trying to afford life. i think are obvious strengths in our unity of being poor together. here we are in this unity of poverty and we are watching probably the shortened firework shows tonight and we are seeing around us this country, it's hard to recognize anymore. i really do think that our hearts and minds were changed obviously. he had the entire black community, all the republicans seemed to jump ship and go to

biden for a vote and here we are sitting in a country where we've got this president that after 45 years of a career, not so stellar. kind of the butt of all jokes and everything else. all of a sudden without even campaign. i didn't even hear the speeches he gave. here we are, hearts and minds change in america and we are all voting for joe biden. it's surprising. it's amazing. i know that i have a big yard sign that says joe on it. i'm excited about this country. i think most americans are probably feeling like i am where we are just a little confused about where we landed after these two years. i'm happy, but how did this happen? i'm surprised spielberg has not made a movie about this. this is just the biggest win of all time history. the most votes ever cast in america. here we are. and i'm sitting here at the pump

with no money thinking, it is our strength as a nation and here we are and we will blame russia for it, but here we are. most americans are probably feeling as excited as i am about the inflation. i think that's probably part of why the polls are so low. it's super hard to gauge where americans are really at right now because we are fighting to survive, truly. in my red state of utah, that is how we feel here. host: provokes seeing you for the first time, what do you do on your show? guest: i talk about politics and lifestyle things and family and parenting. all the culture change in america. we talk about gun laws like the bipartisan safer communities act where they are passing the red flag law and giving money to each state so you can go and report on a neighbor and they go in and no due process and take

your guns. i know i have my list already. like 15 names of people i would like to annihilate and make sure they have no due process. it's things like that we talk about on the air with the media didn't really pick up on the bipartisan communities act because we were talking about roe v. wade. this is the red flag. people should be pretty pumped about turning in their neighbor and honestly -- neighbor anonymously. it's a great way to get back at an enemy. you can just call on them and the police arrive and take their firearms. that's a big deal and the feds are giving a lot of cash for that to each state. so we talk about just about everything you can imagine and we have about 350 guests a year. host: viewers will find that you often start your show with

either an interview or possibly a song or movie quote. i think it was friday that you did a quote from without reservations from 1946, the john wayne movie. i want you to talk about why you picked this one. rusty, the character that john wayne plays says, have you heard of some fellows who just came over to this country? they found a howling wilderness. did they have insurance for their old age? they did not. they looked at the land and then they looked at the sky and said thanks god, we will take it from here. guest: i love it. at the end it says, these are men. i love that. this is truly how america was founded and we did not have to deal with all the things we are dealing with right now. america was founded on the principles of religious freedom.

in fact the skin country of ours was the young country that in just a few to years performed the biggest miracle ever known to history and that was to end slavery after centuries of slavery was happening to all kinds. white, purple, black, you name it. our country set forth from the beginning and the inception of that constitution and declaration of independence. it only took 80 years for white quakers and escaped slaves to form a nut underground railroad and they came together to do it. what a miracle that is. in 80 years we helped to solve world slavery because all the other constitutions then reflected that. that is an amazing feat for a young country. so i look back on our founding and that's why i play that john wayne clip. because i wanted to remember what it was like when we were truly with all of that freedom in the beginning of that new country with all that promise

and the people of this country really took that to task to make that declaration of independence something very real and something that was tangible that we were going to prove to the rest of the world that we were that country that in just 80 years we were going to do that. and we did. i'm so grateful for this country and for the founding. as i'm watching fireworks tonight, i am thinking about that. i think a lot of people are still marveling at what happened in 2020. i'm thinking about roe v. wade and 49 years the states had the rights. they had those rights for 49 years and i wish the states would have exercised their rights like they should have with their sovereignty to say, this is how we feel about abortion. scotus, the supreme court cannot pass federal law. they are not emperors. they can only pass an opinion.

they cannot pass a ruling. when they did roe v. wade, that was a texas case. there was never a federal law. it was always with the states. people need to remember that. that's why we had the heartbeat bill. state sovereignty is very important especially to the founding of our country because the states need to stand up against the feds and tell them what's what and as we start to learn our power and we have to push these governors to exercise that power, the feds do not hold all the cards. and in the inception of this country, they did not hold the cards. this is an important lesson i think for america. for 49 years we had the ability to pass laws state-by-state so to say that they just gave power last friday to the states remarkably deceptive. we have had the power. there are so many things we need to know about our founding.

host: we only have about 15 minutes with you. are you up for taking a couple phone calls? guest: sure. host: william waiting on the line to respond. elizabethtown, tennessee. caller: yes, i am proud to be an american. i served in the navy, two tours of vietnam on different ships. on the princeton, i worked recovery and on the uss iwo jima on the recovery of apollo 13. i would like to say, what place in the world could no country boy from the mountains of tennessee be able to say that. guest: amen. caller: i'm proud of the american people for allowing me to.

guest: thank you so much for that and that is exactly why people come here from all over the world is to experience that american dream. you can jump class. you can do anything you want. it was very hard to jump classes. we had the ability to come to this country and make something of ourselves. this is what's so important and i never want that to go away. our country is important to people around the world. there's no place else to go if we lose these freedoms. so i'm constantly reminding people, look at that enormous underdog win where we had biden who was just sort of detested in the country and all of a sudden hearts and minds obviously changed. all of a sudden joe biden is our president and people were scratching their heads and thinking, this many people voted for him. most votes in history. that needs to be questioned. that needs to be looked at,

investigated. why are they not making a lifetime special out of this. they need to be saying this is how you do it. you don't even need to campaign and you can get in in america. we have a problem of education in this country. that's kind of what separates us. and an understanding of the constitution that we need to bring back. we also need to fight for those very freedoms that he spent in the military fighting for and that is to make sure people realize how to keep america america. this is important. we need this country and we need back. host: -- palm bay, florida. caller: thank you for being here. i am very grateful to my god and his son that i was born in milwaukee wisconsin as an american citizen.

and when it comes to being a proud american, that depends on the issues and stuff. like you said, and the true thing about america as i can stand up for the things i'm proud of and try to encourage peacefully to my side and listen to the other side and not yell at them and listen to the other side because we can learn from each other. i believe everybody is a racist. if you look in the mirror and say you are not a racist, that is not true. everybody judges. it's the acknowledgment and that -- of that and what your actions are. any race can be a racist. if you're a human being, it's a primeval thing that was for survival that your group was the best. my dad was born in 1910. i was adopted. at 31 years old, the week after

pearl harbor, he enlisted in the army. he was called pops all the way through. he was a front line cook in germany on tors. he also went to korea. he spent 23 years. he met my mom that was born in germany and raised her during the nazi regime. people don't understand, they really have no idea what was happening in that country and stuff. my brother enlisted and thank god right before he got income of the vietnam war ended. i didn't mind during the peace time in iran. i don't know, our country is being so separated by issues but we don't want to listen to each other. social media we seem to be hiding behind phones and saying things that we wouldn't say to a person in their face. host: let me let kate dolly pick

up on that point. guest: i don't think we are racist. i think that you can be a little may be judgmental toward people of like-minded values or things you find in common with people, but racist is a pretty harsh word. i don't even know a single racist. i have family in the south and all over the united states. i don't know anyone that's a racist. hard-core racist. i think we get told that a lot, but i don't think that's the truth. when was the last time you saw a brawl have been in an airport or on an airline? over race? when was the last time you saw a real brault break out because of race? this isn't happening all the time. we are not a racist country, but we are. we are a real melting pot and it actually worked pretty well. i go into the journals of americans that came over here and i am telling you that we are a good people. we are good nation.

and don't always believe what the media is constantly feeding us as far as who we are and what we are. when we have things like roe v. wade, i swear i think california oregon and washington their new slogan should be welcome to california. the only thing birthing here is a career. so we are truly a nation that has its issues. we have a lot of differences in how we perceive issues and our education level on issues. but we are a kind nation. people are generally kind all over the united states. it's when you get into these issues, california oregon and washington literally fighting to do an abortion. like i said, the only births that happen here are going to be careers. that is so true about these three states now. those are the divisions i. i see us as a good really tolerant nice people across the

united states. i traveled the united states. it's an amazing place. we need to understand that and keep that. host: how do viewers see more from you? guest: kate dally radio.com and every live show every single day is turned into a podcast and you can listen by topic and we cover everything from education on the constitution of the various subjects i brought us today to our bewilderment at our love affair with joe biden. suddenly and after 45 years and basically talking about the red flag laws, all the issues of the day. i appreciate you checking it out. i hope you have a fantastic independence day. host: same to you. kate dally joining us on this holiday. we will have one more guest coming up in just a minute or two.

until then, your calls. are you proud to be an american. cheryl out of irving texas. good morning. caller: thank you, i am very happy to call in and say yes, i am proud to be an american. first i would like to say happy fourth to all the veterans. and all the children, adults and others of veterans. my reason for being proud is that my dad, a strategic air command mechanic, aircraft mechanic for 20 years, he now passed away, married my mother when she was pregnant with me from someone else. so i was born on an air force installation. and moved and traveled around everywhere from anchorage alaska to limestone maine.

i had friends of all nationalities and it's just a fabulous living. so i'm a little disappointed of course like a lot of people right now in what's going on in america. but that doesn't stop me from being proud to be an american. and i just wanted to tell you that. host: thanks for the call from irving texas this morning. we are going to stay in the lone star state. formerly of the dallas morning news, he has been the opinion editor of the fort worth star-telegram. good morning to you. guest: good morning. host: we have been wrestling with this question, are you proud to be an american. how would you answer this question? guest: i would say for myself

absolutely unequivocally. i still think america is the beacon in the world. we are still the proof of self-government and self-determination. we do have some problems. i think america right now is in a place of frustration and change and some of it is for good and some of it is for bad. the underlying fundamentals are still there. as bill clinton used to say, there is nothing wrong with america that can't be fixed with what's right with america. host: a place of frustration. more so than in the past? and frustration over what? guest: certainly the economic issues are huge for people. it's the kind of thing that we haven't seen in a long time. the threat of recession and high inflation and possibly to follow with unemployment. thankfully the job market is

pretty good. i think there's also a general frustration that our institutions and leaders don't work the way that we wish they would and regrettably i think we are frustrated with each other in the sense that we tend to focus on a lot of things that are happening in a lot of places that are in our own communities and if we focused more on our own communities we would still have these arguments and fights, but we would have a lot more ability to control them or reckoned with them. a lot of people focus on what happens in washington or they focus about things and other state that they consider wacky and they get frustrated and don't spend enough time focusing on their own communities. host: focusing on your own community, in your role as the opinion editor of the star-telegram, what do you focus on?

how do you craft and opinion page? what will viewers find if they go there today? guest: we try to focus primarily on local issues. obviously that doesn't preclude all of the things that affect our readers lives nationally and at the state level. we do generally try to figure out if we are writing or talking about an issue, what does it mean for texans. texans in every part of texas tend to care about other parts of texas, which is what makes us great. we are in an interesting position in fort worth. it is a democratic leaning city in a red to purplish county. we are not in some of the extremes that others are. so we get a real crosswind of opinions from readers and policymakers in this area so we have a pretty rich vein of discussion. we tend to tap into all the

major issues of the day. host: how would you describe the state of texas? is it a deep red state still? guest: it probably will be this year given all the fundamentals. i expect democrats to have an uphill battle. it's clearly closer than it used to be. we definitely have some full-blown democratic cities and they are large. houston, dallas, san antonio, fort worth is trending that way. people forget that five of the top 12 cities in terms of population are in texas. it is an urban and suburban state. but we have a ton of rural voters. we have seen a little bit more success for democrats. joe biden won the county where

fort worth is for the first time for a democrat in 50 years. we don't know how much of that was a trump effect and how much of that was changing underlying demographics. we will find out in the next couple cycles. host: ryan roosa of the fort worth star-telegram. are you up for taking some calls with us? maria. thanks for waiting. caller: i'm not proud to be in america because they always say it's the greatest country but there's no free health care, no free education, minimum wage seven dollars. as far as the economic and -- i've been hearing about this since i was born in the world. at least in my community. the last thing i would like to say is i may not live to see it,

but i will be glad to see the day where they shred with the founding fathers wrote. i will be glad when it's gone. that's how i feel about america. thank you. host: when you say you will be glad when it's gone, are you talking about the constitution? caller: absolutely. i hear people all the time, our founding fathers. they were racist. what was so great about them? i don't get it. what is so great about their founding fathers? because they had nothing to do with us. when you write stuff like that everybody should be a part of it. we may have been around serving tea and crackers. i will be glad when that is gone because it's a bunch of crap. guest: i think maria is voicing some of those frustrations that i discussed earlier. certainly on issues like health

care and wages and the economy. i would say you have a different perspective from her on the founding. i believe the founders were not perfect men by any such means and we should know their faults and factor those into how we use what we produced, but they created a framework for a perfectible union and we have been working on that every day for 240 some years. they are not there yet. we don't always get it right. sometimes we take some steps back even as we move forward. i believe the framework they created to protect individual rights and allow for a perfectible union is the most stable thing that we have seen yet and it allowed the united states to become what it is. host: san marcos california. this is greg. are you proud to be an american? are you with us? you have to stick by your phone.

we'll go to k in washington, d.c., good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i am proud to be an american. i'm very proud to be an american. and i'm also proud of my western european ancestry. i think that they accomplished wonderful things. to bring us to where we are today. so i'm proud of my ancestry, i am proud to be an american. i'm also proud of the families of others and the women behind them at a time when women didn't even have the right to vote. they were very influential. i'm sure the wives and daughters and the mistresses and whatever

of the founding fathers also had a big role in bringing this country to where it is today and i think that we are in good shape regardless of what people say. i did think part of the problem today is that many people are not very well educated or they are not informed and they just rely on the news media or entertainment more than information. i don't think news is supposed to be entertaining. host: as someone who has worked in the news business for several

decades, the role of the media and concerns about the media. and whether it's contributing to a divide in this country. what do you think? guest: first you have to specify what you are talking about. the media is a pretty broad topic. what c-span does, what fox news does, what i do, what the entertainment media do, netflix are all very different things. if you are talking about the traditional mainstream news media, obviously we have had some challenges recently with economics on the local level, but it's important to focus on our communities and what our local governments and officials are doing. that's where you see fights about your property taxes and what's happening in schools. even the health care that's available under your county system, things like that. i think the media can always

strive to improve to present more voices to get closer to the heart of facts, to tell better stories. i don't think there's anything wrong with entertainment in terms of making news consumable and interesting. i think that's part of our job. it shouldn't be a sideshow, certainly. there's plenty of venues for that. but there's nothing wrong that -- with nudes that -- news that includes a little bit of flavor. host: how did you become an opinion editor? guest: i did politics coverage for years so i'm familiar with a lot of texas issues and local issues and just sort of the timing of the job worked out to where i moved across the metroplex back to fort worth where i actually grew up. and i've been sort of tapping my expertise such as it is on those

issues and writing about taxes and politics. we are happy to help. host: how do you go about editing other people's opinions? guest: i try to make sure whatever i'm doing is helping them express whatever it is they want to express. i try to focus on building in a variety of voices, getting some different perspectives, some interesting perspectives that may be we haven't heard before. as an editor your job is to help channel that person, not to make what they have done your own. it's your job to help them. host: is it hard to edit an opinion that you don't agree with? guest: know, sometimes it's more interesting because it forces me to put myself in a position that maybe i'm not naturally in and i

think it helps the writer because maybe i have a different perspective or i can help them anticipate some arguments against what they are writing and help them sharpen that up. host: do you do that? do you game out some of the arguments against what you have submitted? guest: a little bit. if i see a strong point against something they've written, i try to say here is a way you might be able to anticipate that. you don't want to do too much of that because you don't want an opinion piece to sound defensive. i will sometimes say i know this issue other people will say xyz, how do you want to anticipate or try to respond to that. host: ryan is with us and we will keep him until we say goodbye at the end of our program at 10:00 a.m. eastern. martin in chicago. thanks for waiting.

caller: i just want to say that i think there are some antidemocratic institutions that we have in our democracy, for instance gerrymandering, the way campaigns are financed. and i think these are destructive to our democracy. the basic attitude is to see how much you can get away with for as long as you can get away with and to dominate the scene. and there's no sense of coming together and working with other people will or other group. it's adversarial and it seems to me that over the decades, this has just gotten worse and worse.

i think it threatens our democracy. host: what do you think? guest: i think there's a good point about the gerrymandering. in texas we have 38 congressional districts and most of those will be completely uncompetitive in the fall. i think also what that contributes to it as an institution where people who should be talking to each other are often just talking to themselves and their voters in congress. i think we have a lot of work to do to improve our congress and i think that as we are seeing -- it becomes more important what power is invested in congress and what we asked congress versus the executive branch to do that we need a better mix of people and people who have to be accountable to more voters than just the voters who come out in their primaries. we see a lot of that in texas where the primary is absolutely

the election that determines which party wins in the fall. that has long been the case. it used to be the democratic party was the only election in texas. we have gotten to where candidates are able to speak to a slice of voters and would be better off if they had to pitch themselves to a wider audience. host: what are you working on this week at the fort worth star-telegram? guest: we continue to follow the fallout of the roe v. wade decision. here in texas we have a trigger lock so abortions will soon be almost entirely illegal and we will continue to follow the political fallout of that and locally it's a little quiet right now. cities and counties are taking a summer break but they will soon be writing budgets and it's an

interesting time for that because of the uncertainty in the economy. we will be doing our best to help the taxpayers keep an eye on their dollars. host: the fort worth star-telegram. i appreciate your time this morning. happy fourth of july. that's going to do it for our program today on the washington journal. we will be back tomorrow morning 7:00 a.m. eastern, 4:00 a.m. pacific. in the meantime, happy independence day. ♪ >> been is your unfiltered view

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host: good morning. it is monday, july 4, 2022, independence day. on this fourth of july, we will spend our morning taking your calls. on this show current patriot men pride in america. a recent poll found fewer than 10 adults -- then four in 10 adults today say they are proud to be an american. are you proud to be an american? give us a call. the phone line is split regionally this morning. in the eastern or central time zones, (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. you can also send us a text this morning. that number, (202) 748-8003. if you do, please include your name and where you are from. otherwise, catch up with us on social media. on twitter, it is @cspanwj. on facebook, it is facebook.com/cspan.