with brian blais, a former ercot administration advisor. later, bob keep -- washington, wall street and economic value to save our planet. washington journal is next. ♪ host: good morning. it is tuesday, july 5, 2022 and we begin with contemplating high-profile shootings. two shootings mark yesterday with the first at the independence day parade in chicago where six were killed and dozens injured. in philadelphia, two police officers were shot. they were later released from the hospital. we are once again asking for your solutions when it comes to gun violence in this country. give us a call on phone lines

split by political party. democrats can call at (202)-748-8000, republicans (202)-748-8001, independents (202)-748-8002. you can also send us a text, (202)-748-8003. if you do, include your name and where you are from. catch up on social media, twitter @cspanwj and facebook at facebook.com/c-span. you can start calling in as we ask for your ideas on reducing gun violence in this country. to the chicago tribune, here is there a story at the fourth of july parade. on an idyllic summer morning, from a rooftop above the highland park parade, a gunman aimed at the float and lawn chairs and strollers and opened fire. a high school marching band member sprinted for their life, carrying flutes and saxophones, bystanders scooped up children.

six were killed and dozens injured either from gunfire or the stampede. victims ranged in age from eight to 85. highland park became the latest community to be terrorized by mass shooting. it goes on to note, monday evening after an hours long search police arrested a suspect of interest. he was ultimately arrested without incident in lake forest. he was taken to highland park as the investigation continued. that is from the chicago tribune. from the front page of the philadelphia inquirer, here is their story on the shooting in that city. two officers were shot and injured in front of the art museum at the parade. it caused stampede's of people watching fireworks to flee what they believed was an active shooter. investigators were still seeking where the shots were fired, how many were fired, and if they

were intentionally fired toward police. nobody else was shot in the incident. that is some of the scenes from yesterday across this country. asking you for your ideas on reducing gun violence in the united states. statement from president biden yesterday in the wake of that chicago shooting. this is what the president had to say, jill and i are shocked by the senseless gun violence that has brought grief to a community this independence day. i recently signed the bipartisan gun legislature. that includes actions that would save lives but there is more work to do and i am not going to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence. president biden with a few more words yesterday during a white house event honoring veterans and their family members. this is what the president had to say. [video clip] pres. biden: before i left for

europe i signed the first gun safety law in 30 years. [applause] and things will get better still, but not without more hard work together. you all heard what happened, y'all heard what happened today. but each day we are reminded, there is nothing guaranteed about our democracy. nothing guaranteed about our way of life. we have to fight for it, defend it, and earn it by voting. host: president biden yesterday from the white house, the law that he signed last month, the bipartisan safer communities act as he noted in his statement, one of the first major gun reform legislation in almost 30 years. that now law expands background checks for buyers between 18 and 21, provides

access to previously sealed juvenile records, grants that can apply to read flag laws, criminal statutes banning straw purchasing, clarifies who need to register as a firearms dealer, closes the boyfriend loophole for those convicted of domestic abuse from owning a gun, and allows other provisions aimed at reducing gun violence. that is some of what was in the law but we are asked you this morning in the wake of what happened this morning, what are your thoughts on gun violence? what are your thoughts for reducing that violence? randall is first in washington, d.c. caller: you have two areas. you have the general area where guns are being sold illegally because, unfortunately, a great number of republicans are in the pockets of business and that is

what is funding the nra and stuff like that. companies that have made weapons of war have warned us of the industrial complex. i think this is a situation where the military shows conflict of interest in order to remain viable when they are not at war. the other area is the legal sale --illegal sale of guns. no amount of police -- they are taking reports after the fact, responding after the fact. the only way to slow this down

is to control how guns move through this country. host: that was randall right here in d.c. eric in tucson, arizona. caller: good morning. i am an air force veteran of 20 years and been around the world and back and back again. i have seen in other countries things that need to be done that they do. in the united states, we have no deterrent. in other words, a situation where you got to make examples of people. you have clowns already in prison. you need to be out there and they need to be caned. when their friends see them crying on tv, they might get the

idea. host: mike is next, republican. caller: i would like to give my condolences to the fallen officers gunned down needlessly and the families of everybody in chicago, and outside chicago, especially at the fourth of july parade. once again, the protected democrats known as antifa can just gone down a parade like they did in buffalo and that was protected as well. people said, he is a republican. in his own words -- i would like to read you something -- from the buffalo shooter, i am an eco-fascist, left-wing extremist. that was in the dossier that was reported by nobody but fox news. host: what do we do today? caller: what do we do today?

get rid of guns in cities. period. if you live in a city, i'm sorry to say, especially black violence. host: mike in north carolina. alexander is in brooklyn, new york, democrat. caller: good morning. i would like to reply to mike that just called. this is for all republicans. i live in new york city and we had really good strong gun laws. because of the second amendment and republicans thinking it is an overreach for there to be laws that prevent situations like this, we do have mass shootings. to think because you have the second amendment allows you to have these extremely powerful weapons out on the streets everywhere and not expect there to be crimes like this and

horrific scenes like this, it is absurd. there is no other place in the world, republicans, no other place in the world where there are destructive situations like this. this is american exceptionalism and here we are, how many times call length? having this absurd conversation. i am calling to all republicans, this is nothing first time and it will not be the last. none of your excuses will change the fact that until we change the laws and allow people to have access in this capacity, young men that go out into the world and feel destroying and killing people is the solution is ever going to change. host: are you still with us? i think we lost alexander but you mentioned the second amendment.

it is the subject of michael's political cartoon in the washington post. the body outline on the ground, the flags, markings where the bullet cases, and celebrating independence in the second amendment. that from the washington post. marsha, north carolina, independent. your thoughts on this question. caller: good morning. i hope everybody had a good 4th except for the ones that are fallen, god bless them. i want to say this is another example of people wanting their guns. i raised two sons. none of them were outshooting and i am a single mother. they want to blame mothers with fatherless households.

i was married. we were divorced and he had nothing to do with his children. and they also want to blame republicans. this is not a republican or democrat or independent issue. this issue goes to the prosecuting attorneys and the defense attorneys and our administration. these guys probably have rap sheets a mile-long and they are out on the streets shooting people. although, we also have antifa and we have other organizations that were paid to do what they do. not by the republicans and the independents. host: marcia in north carolina. it is marjorie taylor greene,

the councilman from georgia, republican congresswoman with several tweets yesterday calling on more information to be released about the shooter out of chicago, saying, while they are researching history on the scum that kill people at the parade, they should permanently delete his name. but we should demand his records to be released, arrest record, hospitalization history, drug prescriptions, psychological, psychiatric and child abuse. is this another story were some crazy manifesto will be found? are we going to be told the amount of ammo he bought, yet not his prescription drug history? who are the people he talked to in law enforcement or fbi? if they knew about him, why? we want the records, is with the congresswoman said. other members of congress tweeting their thoughts

including illinois senator tammy duckworth calling it terrifying. families from all oversee this time honored tradition and many found them souls running for their lives. every community deserves to be safe from gun violence. nancy pelosi say, let us renew our vow to never relent until all of our children can live free from gun violence. america's hearts are broken by the violence in highland park as innocent families were celebrating. we pray for all of those who have lost loved ones and for the community ever scarred by the shooting. some of the comments from members of congress today. later today, vice president harris will be speaking at the national education association meeting in chicago. yesterday, after learning the news of the shooting, she spoke a little bit about the idea of gun violence in this country and what she can be talking about

the teachers today. [video clip] v.p. harris: i will be traveling to chicago to discuss with the ama. i was hearing from our local firefighters that part of what -- sadly i was preparing this before -- but it was a little section on what our teachers go through. they go to school to learn how to teach our children, inspire their ambition, create the future generation of leaders, and our teachers are also in training to deal with an active shooter. our teachers are learning how to put a tourniquet on a kid if they have been shot. when we look at the issue of gun violence and when we look at the dangers that it presents to communities, it ranges and is something we should take seriously. the president recently signed bipartisan legislation to address gun violence

but we have more to do. host: she will be speaking from chicago today at the nea meeting. rory in california on the line for republicans. caller: good morning. basically, there are already too many guns in america. a few years ago i heard there were three guns for every man, woman and child in america. it is too late for that. the only thing that ever happened is if you have a gun in your house, and i am not talking about walking the streets, if somebody breaks in, you shoot them. society has to live with the fact that is going to happen and those who shoot people in the streets, i hope they do not have arrests and release for those groups. no bail for them at all.

anybody who uses a gun stays in jail, no matter the law. that is it. goodbye. host: the estimate according to an article from bloomberg and the debate over gun violence in this country leading up to that bipartisan law that was enacted. the number is 393.3 million weapons according to a 2018 report by a small arms survey. that is how many guns they estimate in the united states, higher than our population of 330 million. bob in illinois, democrat. caller: hello, c-span. a common sense standpoint, when an 18-year-old shoots down some

people, 19 to 20, you automatically end assault weapons. not on people like marjorie taylor greene. you automatically get rid of the assault weapons and you need a gun on a regular basis if you are attacked. you should have a gun here or there, but it is aggravating. like this recent law. the biggest thing republicans have is the fact that a good gun will stop a bad gun. that did not happen when those 18 kids got killed. so, make a law.

stop acting like store brats. host: richard out of myrtle beach, republican. caller: good morning. how are you today? host: doing good. caller: i have been in law enforcement over 20 years and been carrying guns. the problem here we have is the mental health laws. we need to get stronger background checks and check these people because it is not the guns killing people, it is the people. you could lay a gun on a table and it will not kill anybody. you just said the numbers of guns that are out there is quite a lot. but we need to look into all these children doing this and they all seem to have some type of mental disorder. it is a sad thing in this world. to eliminate that i think we

would also increase people's protection in schools and good arm to security would help the teachers. host: richard, do you mind if i ask you a different topic relating to your background of being in law enforcement? caller: yes. host: have you been following this story out of akron, ohio? jayland walker, 60 shots from eight officers after a foot chase. have you followed that story at all? caller: very little. late last night i was out of the house. 60 shots is a lot of shots. we had 41 shots many years ago in new york city. unfortunately, in my opinion, when the bad guy -- they are not

thinking about anything but hurting people and the police are thinking about saving people. you have different mindsets. 60 is a lot but i was not there. i do not second-guess people but i am glad they neutralized the suspect. it is a terrible thing, it definitely is, but i am sure that young man had major mental problems. host: more on the shooting in akron. the mayor declaring a state of emergency yesterday and issuing a curfew starting at 9:00 p.m. after protesters damaged property over the shooting of the 25-year-old man. it came after the release on sunday of the body camera footage that shows the officers firing dozens of times at jayland walker, who was unarmed when he was shot. the akron police chief said a lot of rounds were fired and deputies are trying to determine how many.

the incident started according to police when he fled an attempted stop monday morning last week for an undisclosed traffic and equipment violation. while unarmed when shot, the chief said he also had a gun and loaded magazine in the front and a shell casing was found near the scene where an initial gunshot was believed to be fired. that investigation ongoing. randy in wisconsin, independent. caller: good morning, john. couple of quick things. they do these background checks. i went and picked up a firearm and a background check took no time and i walked out the door with a gun. they need to do a thorough check. it takes a week to get a background check after it goes

through so many channels to get an eyeball on this guy buying this weapon. he is probably one of the best guys in the neighborhood, but still, get a background check and notified all of the people in the area, whether they be a civilian or cop, hey, this guy got a new weapon. maybe we want to keep our eyes open. wouldn't it be great if you could bring back stop and search like giuliani did in new york? seemed to me sitting out here in the midwest, that seemed to work pretty good. put them in jail and leave them in jail and fine them. let them go and cma times they will come back -- and see how many times they would come back. host: you would be ok with police notification when summary buys a gun? caller: you bet.

put a note at the sheriff's office that so many were bought at this place down the road. put it up with their names and 70 might say, wait a minute, this guy has just bought a gun. let them now. we have got to get the word out. there are people out there with mental illness and this might be one way we can help it on the little bit. host: this is john out of tulsa, oklahoma, democrat. caller: thank you for taking my call. the big ideas nothing is going to happen until you get these white christian nationalist, fascist republicans out of office. that last caller, i am sure he was republican and had an idea

about -- these fascist republicans are not going to do anything. host: can we hold off on the name-calling? caller: yeah. how are you going to solve anything without that? am i still on air? host: yes, sir. caller: nothing will happen until you vote these republicans out. host: jim in north dakota, republican. caller: hi, john. can you hear me? host: yes. caller: white fascist calling, how are you doing? there is no solution because democrats are always looking for a band-aid for a deeper wound in the culture. all we have to go back to is nam . i am 58. and most of our people that

watch the show are older. host: you would be surprised. we have a lot of people who are younger. caller: i do not believe that but the older guys would know that back in the 1950's through the 1970's -- and i was a 1970's kid -- every top 10 shows a western. you can still see them on me tv. everything that dominated the airwaves was a shoot them up. there were guns everywhere. look at the picture of your older brothers at christmas time. they all have a toy pointed at the camera. i had five older brothers, we all had guns. there was always a shotgun in our closet. shotgun shells were in my lego box when i was a kid. the gun is not the point. we took our guns to school and high school. we had guns in the back of the truck.

first day of buck shooting was the biggest day. we all had fathers, korean veterans. half of the teachers were men. the woodshop teacher would grab you by the scruff of the neck. there was fear of authority, things that were deeper issues. host: to we have gun culture now? you talk about the westerns on tv. there are callers who will point to the top movies that are out with massive shooting scenes that may say it is gun culture today that is just as prevalent. caller: yes, but the antithesis of the ideal of western manhood that was pushed by hollywood and your father's. these were exemplified by

"shane." d remember that? all of the movies, the good guy never wanted to use his gun. until he was pushed and pushed and pushed. the rifleman with chuck connors, "gunsmoke" with matt dillon. but then you move on to the africanized asian of our culture -- africanization of our culture. caller: basically if you look at me the wrong way, i will kill you. host: next democrat. caller: you have me follow that guy. that is crazy. as far as we are talking about that, i was at the edmund burke school when they had the

shooting. so long as there are guns, there will be people out there shooting. nothing you can do to stop it until we change where guns are in this world. right now, the supreme court says folks can carry guns walking through the streets. the idea that it is some quickfix or that it is some cultural thing making this happen, we are a violent country. we kill each other. we have so many guns because we like to kill each other. how do we change? i don't really know but we have got to change how we see ourselves in this world. we start talking about shooting children. we are shooting grandmas. come on, people who are not a threat and how many good guys

with guns were at these places? we had a good guy with a gun at burke. there are good guys walking with guns in the parade. host: for folks who do not recall the incident, i think it was in may that the edmund burke shooting happened. caller: april 22. host: remind folks what happened here in d.c. caller: we were at school and getting out of school and all of a sudden we had a guy start shooting at the school from high above. started really shooting up and shot over 240 rounds at the school. nobody died. god was looking out for us on that date. that was an act of god because where he shot up the place, we got one little girl that got shot, a guy got shot badly. a parent got shot picking up a kid got grazed.

the point is that this person was trying to kill children. how do you deal with that? how do you wrap around the mentality that has nobody -- when you hear the racists talking about chicago and what happened, more times than not those issues are happening because folks have beef with each other. these people in chicago were basically like, let's kill. whoever gets killed is -- host: how have we gotten to that point in this country where that happens so often, somebody wanting to kill for the sake of killing? caller: i think america was built on violence and we have never really dealt with that history. now, with what is happening in

florida, no, we cannot talk about what america is or what america has done. we have to create this romanticized history of who america actually is to fit some constructed image that needs to be put out to amplify our notions of how great we are. once we get past that and start talking about what this country is about then possibly. but so long as we are in denial about what that is, look, here is my hypothesis. all of us are going to know somebody or witness a mass shooting some point. you cannot put hardened structures around everything we do as a society and a people.

host: that was alan in washington, d.c. some other comments from members of congress in the wake of the shooting outside chicago. senator dick durbin going to highland park yesterday to thank law enforcement for their work. my heart is with the victims and their families. congressman al green, his tweet saying, if we do not pass gun safety laws and get high-capacity magazines off the streets, we will become a society where the noble idea of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is just words on paper. castro with his tweet, the tragedy is another example of the horrific violence in america. my thoughts and prayers are with the families. unless we get a senate that is willing to change this, it will never end. a few more pictures from the scene yesterday in highland park. this from the front page of usa

today. some of the items that were left as people ran for their lives after that shooting happened. bicycles, chairs tipped over, seen on the front page of the washington times shows the law enforcement efforts to search for the shooter in the hours after the shooting. one more picture from the washington post. one of the balloons left behind as people were fleeing for their lives, bobbing along the parade route saying, "god bless america " abandoned on the ground. don in california, republican. caller: yes, sir. host: go ahead. caller: i just wanted to make -- i had a question. what exactly are they saying when they say "gun violence?

" host: shootings like what happened yesterday and shooting at police officers like in philadelphia. caller: do you know what happened in wisconsin when five people were killed and 40 injured when a car went through a parade? host: i do remember. caller: why don't they call that vehicle violence? host: ok. vehicle violence and mass shootings. how to end the violence? caller: how do you end the violence has nothing to do with weapons. the reason you were able to celebrate the fourth of july yesterday is because we had an armed citizenry. they start crying about, we have to get rid of the guns because you do not need a 40 round weapon to hunt for deer. they missed the concept completely. it has nothing to do with

hunting. it has to do with your freedom. if you do not have an armed citizenry, you end up with countries like venezuela and oppressive governments that force people to do things they do not want to do. the government needs to be afraid of the armed citizenry. as far as these mass shootings go, bad things are going to happen on planet earth among humans. they always have. remember charles whitman back in the 1950's? you can research this and you can find mass shootings throughout the history of mankind. host: do you think they are happening more often these days? caller: no, i think the problem is the media guys -- i am not like you -- but this morning i am watching msnbc, cnn, and that is all they are talking about, the shooting.

yet, every weekend in chicago -- and everybody's going to say, oh, he is a racist -- but every weekend in chicago people are being slaughtered end of the cares. why is that? host: are you finished? did you want to finish? caller: that's good. i got my point across. host: keith in florida, independent. go ahead. caller: good morning. how are you doing? i agree with the last caller. it is a matter of freedom. that is why we are celebrating the fourth of july. i think we need to learn more about this criminal's background. if we can learn more about his

background, we will know where he is coming from. i think he is a left-wing terrorist and i believe the deal in akron, that was a matter of a guy shooting at the cops and the cops went after him because he shot at the cops. you do not do that. do not be shooting at the cops. the fact that they shot him 60 times, they do not know what the guy has on them. the police are defending themselves and trying to get the guy off the street. these are terrorist acts against the american public, the innocent public trying to celebrate their freedom and they are being terrorized by these individuals. that is how i feel about it. host: that was keith in florida.

this is carol in kingston, georgia. caller: good morning. listening to all the comments -- i love the show. i had a couple of things but i think the guy that spoke two callers previous about being able to overthrow your government, i think that is what is behind all these weapons things the last few years. but my comments are basically, i would like to know where all the right to lifers are when it comes to this issue? they will go out there for abortion but do all the shootings not matter? that is one of my questions. the other is, how do you put the genie back in the bottle? you have all these armed people already and i really question

how you change that as far as even if you change the laws. how do you get those guns back? my other comment is on the assault weapons. i think they should be banned. they not only kill people, they tear the body up. that is a weapon of war. host: the question that always comes up, how you define an assault weapon? caller: firing multiple times. i believe in having guns. i used to be a member of the nra and i have had so many examples of bad things with guns throughout my life and i am 79. i have had a friend who had a weapon in the house that was unsecured and her child found it and killed himself by accident. it was a toddler.

i have had other incidents where my father went hunting with his friends and one of the guys got shot, just like the cheney or the other republican who wound up shooting somebody. i believe in guns. i love shooting. i do not think we need everybody armed and all of these guns that need to fire multiple times. those are for killing people. if you got to go hunt a deer or rabbit or anything out of the country, if you need an assault weapon, that is pretty bad. host: this is john in leland, north carolina, republican. caller: good morning. how are you doing?

i am a gun owner. i have seen a lot of things happen in the world. i am a vet. these people talk about assault rifles. every gun, every knife in the drawer in your kitchen is an assault weapon of some kind. the gun does not kill, people kill. the problem that we have with the weapons comes from training. we know everybody does not have time to train and these kids get hold of weapons that have never been around them and all they see is this glorified, gangster

situation and they want to be gangsters. secondly, we -- host: should we have mandatory weapons training in this country? caller: yes, we should. yes we should. we should have weapons training class in school like we had in the 1950's and 1960's and 1970's where kids were trained how to handle guns. that being said, it is not necessarily the school's place to train, it is the family's place to train. i had a son that was a drug addict. he was in rehab several times, got out, goes claim. he did not want to deal with life and going back into being a

drug addict and he took his own life. these people who do these mass shootings are too selfish to commit suicide by themselves. they want suicide by the cops to make it look like it is 70 else's faultless happened -- somebody else's fault this happened. if that man had stopped and done with the cops had told him to do, he would not have got shot. host: sorry for your loss. nancy an independent. are you with us? caller: good morning. that last caller spoke to what i wanted to speak to. can you hear me ok? host: yes, ma'am. go-ahead, nancy. caller: i just wanted to say --

yes, i am here. host: just go ahead. caller: hello? host: we will try to get you better on the line. we will go to ruben in philadelphia, democrat. where were you last night when the shooting happened? caller: i was in my living room watching it unfold on tv. host: what it you think? -- what did you think? caller: we need to limit the amount of ammunition going to people. in a certain section of philadelphia we have a store that sells unlimited ammo. i remember when i was in basic training whenever we would leave the gun range, the sergeants would check ask and we would have to say, no ammo, no grant. even though we had the gun with us at all times it was never

loaded and we could never take ammo back to the barracks because they were scared one of us might start shooting. but they never took our guns away, they just limited the ammo. what i think they need to do is limit the amount of ammunition these people are getting. if you buy a six shooter, you should be given six bullets at the time you purchase the gun and you should be required to register. if you come back to buy more ammo, you need to prove what you did with the bullets you had. if you need to go to a gun range, they will supply you with ammo. i think we need to register because you only need one clip for a gun. if somebody comes to assault your house, you have the national guard and everyone. how much ammo and how many guns do you need to stave off attack?

are you a terrorist yourself? there are just way too many bullets, too many guns. the guns are not just killing the people, it is the ammunition killing them and you do not need that much ammo. host: thank you for the call. this is lawrence in elk grove village, illinois, republican. how close is elk grove village to highland park? caller: about 35 miles west or so. most of the people calling in, and the politicians always speak about prevention -- which is noble -- but we are forgetting one important thing about our legal system. our legal system is one of the best if not the best in the world. it is based on laws, statutes, ordinances and consequences.

everybody forgets the consequences. that is what all the new testament is based on, laws, statutes, ordinances and consequences. our legislatures do not do anything at the federal and state level about the consequences. for instance, somebody commits a crime with a gun and murders people, the consequences need to be very tough. people don't want to talk about the death penalty but that is a consequence. life in prison without parole, those are consequences. if we increased those consequences, the laws will take care of themselves as well. we forget about that in our legal system. we forget about the consequences. what do we do when we have people commit a mass shooting or individual shooting? we have programs on television. you had one guy earlier about the westerns. we have cable stations that show

back to back shootings of mass killers. no, they should be put in prison for the rest of their lives because they committed a crime using a gun. you know what? people who sell guns illegally should be held -- the consequences need to be tougher for them too. but we pay these people to make laws and follow-up the laws, they do not do their job. that is the problem. you know what? most consequences, whether life imprisonment without parole or execution, those will prevent them too. the bible says somebody commits a murder of their neighbor, they should be sent to god to answer for their crimes and people should see them being sent to god and these things will stop happening. host: lawrence in illinois. from the pages of the washington post today a story of efforts to reduce gun violence here in

washington, d.c. and in the suburbs. this is how that story begins. pushed to violence as the headline. as the band played one of their final sets, this family headed home in prince george's county with food in their hands. the mother said she attended the crime prevention and safety rally because she is tired of our babies dying from gun violence. put the guns down, she said, keep the kids safe. the our streets, our future rally brought together counseling, mentoring resources to curb gun violence and prevent crime through the community engagement efforts. though homicides have dropped 30% with this time last summer, gun recoveries are up, carjackings remain a concern.

the police have investigated 45 homicides this year. the story in the washington post about that effort if you would like to read more. one more story on a different topic from the new york times. the open pages of the new york times keeping you updated on the passing of one well-known public figure. he worked behind the scenes a landmark legislation, serving as the first black secretary of the army died at his home at 88 years old. his daughter said the cause was heart failure. he opened the doors for black officers to rise to the rank of general, including a promising young colonel named colin powell. he saw his role sec. of the army as a key extension of the civil rights movement and inaugurated

policies that were spectacularly affected in achieving his goals, said harvard professor henry louis gates. the fact of the united states military is the most integrated institution in our society can be traced to the foresight of clifford alexander. there is a picture of clifford alexander with jimmy carter in 1980. back to your phone calls. just a few minutes left in this first segment. we have been asking for your ideas on reducing gun violence, having this conversation in the wake of two more high-profile shootings during independence day celebrations. johnny in boston, independent. caller: good morning, john. host: good morning, sir. caller: i am afraid our experiment in democracy is failing to a certain degree and

i think one of the answers is that we have the technology to maybe not solve this problem, but got a good handle on it. most of the shootings we are seeing, these people want to be acknowledged so they are on the internet and basically screaming out to us even though they do not realize it. they are screaming out that they need help. if we could form some kind of group through the fbi or whatever, we have to give up a little bit of our freedom here. we could be tracking these

internet people. they are telling us what they want to do. if we gave up that little bit of freedom, we have 330 million people in the country, but this is a handful of people and it should be easy to track them down, get them help, with warrants go in and get the guns from them, and use the law to prosecute them. even though they have not done it yet, the proof is there. like this sick person that just did this yesterday. i think we can solve it and as that happens our freedoms will come back. i am so sad.

today was going to be a good day of enjoying what we did with our family this weekend and i just cannot watch it anymore. it is getting to a point where if we do not do something about this, we are not going to be able to go down the street and watch a parade. i went yesterday just to celebrate our independence. the mayor in boston had a great speech. we had a parade and everything in the first thing on my mind walking down the streets of downtown boston celebrating our independence was, all of these buildings, there is some crazy in there. i do not want to bring my grandchildren to these events anymore. if i could say one more thing? as far as our freedoms, i am an old guy, retired, but i remember

when it was just exciting to be 18 years old and be able to vote. it was such a freedom that i expressed and i pass it on with my kids how important it was. we are losing it, john. i wish i had more answers to give you. there are plenty of ways of going as far as background checks and this and that, but they are not working. we have got a problem with mental sickness and we have to zone in on that. host: thank you for the call from boston. appreciate it. bonnie in clarksville, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. like the previous caller said, consequences. there is no consequences and it has to start when children are young. there are consequences for everything.

guys doing all that shooting, killing innocent people, they ought to have public execution. hanging would be ideal. that would deter all the shooting. people would think twice before they pull the trigger on somebody. that is all i have got to say. thank you. host: sharon in glen oak, maryland. caller: how you doing today? host: i am doing well. caller: i was listening to callers that called in and what we ought to do as a country, we have got to acknowledge god. if we do not acknowledge god, he is not going to acknowledge us. we have all of these people out here keep doing these mass killings and killing adults and innocent children and innocent

elderly people and it sounds like our democracy is trying to be taken away from us. our united states, in god we trust. it is turning into a company i -- country i do not recognize. one of the callers said i do not want to take my grandchildren anywhere because i do not feel comfortable. when i go shopping, i go early in the morning. i do not go when it is crowded because i do not trust anybody, but i put my trust in god first. i have adult sons and me and my husband, we make sure we know what they do. they are good, decent men. we make sure they do the right thing and we don't have people coming into our home and stuff. we don't allow that. host: heather in louisville, georgia, independent. caller: good morning.

how are you? host: go ahead. caller: i had to call in and comment. i am in my early 30's but i agree with a lot of things people have been saying and i don't at the same time. everybody is acting like this is a new problem we are having but the first mass shooting i can remember was columbine in 1996. since 1996 there has been on average one mass shooting per day. that is thousands, 8000 mass shootings. you need to take all of these semiautomatic weapons off of the streets. these are military weapons in nobody but the military, only military should have these weapons. i was in the service myself, i was in the national guard. and at nighttime, our guns had to be locked up.

they would not let us get access to our guns. one caller said something about training, there was a trainer -- shooting on an army base. needs to be tighter restrictions. your gun needs to be registered, we have to register our cars, our cars have to be registered why not our guns? host: like the previous two callers, have you not gone someplace for fear of a mass shooting happening? caller: i haven't because i live my life on the philosophy of just live your life in if it is going to happen to me than it will happen to me but at least i am living my life.

this is supposed to be one of the greatest nations in the world. i am not supposed to walk down the street in fear. i don't let what is going on in the world restrict my happiness. but there has to be something done. there has to be. i am not saying take away guns. i believe in our right to bear arms but we also have to be able to defend ourselves. i have a situation where a good friend of mine, her young daughter was getting attacked by a man and her and her young daughter got killed. if my friend had a gun, maybe it would have gone a little differently. i truly believe that we should have a right to defend ourselves. at the same time, the types of weapons that are out here. you can go into walmart and buy

a rifle. that is insane to me. you can have joe schmoe off the street going into walmart and shooting up the street. there needs tighter restrictions and mental health evaluations. there needs to be restrictions available to the american people. there needs to be a level of compassion out there. people are being punished, the man who shot up the movie theater, he is doing life in prison. as a nation, we need to stop trying to be divided and stop finding someone to blame and work on the healing process. host: heather from georgia, we have plenty more to talk about

this morning including annette's, we will turn our attention to the future of health care in this country. we will talk with brian blase a trump economic advisor. and later, we will talk to bob keefe and talk about his book "climatenomics." the battle to save our planet. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the u.s. response to the russian invasion of ukraine. we also have international perspectives from the united nations and statements from foreign leaders. all on the c-span networks, the c-span now mobile app and c-span.org/ukraine. our web resource page where you can watch the latest videos on demand and follow tweets from journalist on the ground.

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here, or here, or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span powered by cable. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the house january 6 committee hearings investigating the attack on the capital. go to c-span.org/january 6. to watch the latest videos of the hearing, briefings and our coverage on the attack and subsequent investigation since january 6 2021. we will also have reactions from members of congress, journalists, authors talking about the investigation. though to c-span.org/january 6. for an easy way to watch when you can't watch it live. >> washington journal continues. host: for the future of health

care in this country, and economic advisor for the trump administration, for people who are not familiar with paragon what do you do there? guest: we are a new health policy research center. we focus on evaluating how government programs are working and come up with policy solutions that improve americans overall health. host: in a piece in the national review you declare that the 12-year-old affordable care act is broken and failing, how so? guest: the average deductible if you put them together for someone who does not qualify for

a subsidy is $25,000. the plans have not worked to create an affordable option for individuals who do not get insurance through the workplace and really, if you think about obamacare, it was sold as a way that was going to improve the individual market for health insurance through robust competition and that has not been the case. individual market enrollment has stagnated below expectation. if you go back to when the law passed, we have about 25 million enrollees, there is less than half of that in most of the coverage came through the aca occurred through the medicaid expansion.

because premiums and deductibles are so high, the only people who are purchasing the plans they receive large subsidies that reduce premiums, we have a proposal that would allow consumers more control over those types of subsidies host: how would that work? guest: right now the government sends insurance companies the cost-sharing reduction program for lower income enrollees in the programs. it then ensures a check and will reduce that deductible, copayment and out of pocket maximums. it gives the insurer's control. the insurers get the deductible

through the government. we think the enrollee should have the subsidy under their control so it creates new options where individuals would be able to get a monthly contribution from their insurer where the subsidy that comes through the government to their account where they would have control over where to best spend those dollars and it allows them to pay for things below the deductible as well as services that may not be covered through their health insurance plans like vision, and dental. host: how does the savings account work and how this process would be different? guest: a health savings account is the best way for consumers to control their own dollars to spend on health care.

90% of what we spend on health care comes through third-party payers, it comes through insurers or government programs. health savings accounts would be a way for people to use their own resources to spend on health care. there are significant tax advantages to do so. they can open -- they would have to have an hfa qualified plan, that is another problem that we think exists in the current policy, more people should have availability to these accounts. you can open an hsa, you don't pay taxes on the deposit, the investment grows tax-free. when you make a withdrawal for a qualified medical expense, you don't pay taxes on the withdrawal. it is a way to give people a tax

advantage to save for their health care expenses that they have in the present as well is to grow wealth over time about half of the people have less than 1000 and medical expenses in one year. this allows you to grow wealth for health care and years that you use little on medical care so you have a nice nest egg that you can then tap when you have a larger health care expense later in life. host: would there be a concern that people are not spending health care dollars for the yearly checkups that they need that could prevent a worse disease down the road, that if you are saving up because you are worried about something big down the road that you are

missing something now? guest: when you look at the literature, they do reduce the amount of medical spending. they do tend not to skip on useful care. when people are spending their own money they are pretty good at figuring out which services are worth spending their own money on and which are more questionable uses of their resources. host: brian blase is our guest, with the paragon health institute. we are speaking about the future of health care. as usual democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001 and independents (202)

748-8002, and medical professionals (202) 748-8003. let's get back to the affordable care act, it is broken and failing because that is not how former president barack obama described it at an event in the white house back in the spring celebrating the 12th birthday. this is how he described how the aca is doing in this country. [video clip] >> it was a high point of my time here because it reminded me of what is possible. but, of course, our work was not finished. republicans tried to repeal what we had done, again, and again, and again. they filed lawsuits that went all the way to the supreme court three times.

they tried to make it explicitly harder for people to sign up for coverage and it didn't help that when we rolled it out the website did not work. that was not one of my happiest moments. so given all the noise and controversy, it took a while for the american people to understand what we had done but all in all, a little later than i expected, a lot of folks including many who had initially opposed health care reform came around. and today the aca has not only survived but it is become popular. it is done what it is supposed to do, it is made a difference.

first 20 million, now 30 million people have become covered because of the aca. it prevented insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions. it's allowed young people to stay on their parents plan until they are 26, in his eliminated lifetime limits on medical care. we are incredibly proud of that work. host: to that from the former president, it does not seem to indicate that he think it has failed. guest: you would not think the lot named after him would have failed. go back to what president obama

said in 2009, 2010 when he was selling the aca. they thought it would expand choices and competition in the individual market for health insurance. what do we know? insurance the individual market, choices and competition declined for people. deductibles significantly increased, premiums when you combine it with the deductible it does not qualify for a subsidy. the part of the aca that he talks about, the individual market reforms, they fail when you compare them with the outcomes that we know 12 years in with what was said back in 2009, 2010. the most recent expansion of obamacare, there was a

significant expansion in president biden's time at the beginning of last year with the american rescue plan, it significantly increased the subsidies which were already the primary driver of getting people into the individual market. the subsidies were gener ous, even wealthy households qualify for subsidies now. if you look at the taxpayer exposure from obamacare, it is much greater than expected. president obama said he would not sign a law that increase the deficit by a dime. obamacare has significantly increased federal deficits, parts of obamacare that have been repealed were the so-called health insurance taxes, the

individual mandate tax, the excise tax on insurance plans. they spent a lot of money on individual market enrollment has barely increase from the level it was at pre-aca. if you look at the total net coverage gain, pre-pandemic, it was probably 15 million people had gain coverage. medicaid is a program that was typically for low income categories of individuals with specific health needs and

vulnerabilities like pregnant women, individuals with disabilities, children. to that program we added a lot of able-bodied adults. there are a lot of adverse effects with the medicaid expansion that have been harmful. i don't think what president obama was talking about in 2010 was a giant expansion of the medicaid program. it's so under delivered on its promises of reform and the individual health insurance market, it was really about an expansion of the medicaid program. host: how do you put these numbers into perspective? in 2014, 8 million people signed up through the aca marketplace,

by 2022, it is 14.5 million. are those numbers incorrect or you are saying that is not the expansion that was predicted? guest: when the law was passed, it was projected -- the projections right before the law was put into effect, they projected there would be 24, 25 million enrolled into the exchange by now. you are stating the sign-ups. they are always higher because you have attrition throughout the year. we look at the average number of enrollees in one year.

president obama mention a rough start with the website. in the first year you had about 8 million enrollees. there's about to percent, 3% that dropout every month. the first year there were 7 million, by 2015 we were at 10 million people, and it stayed at about 10 million to 2020. it increased in 2021 because of those expanded subsidies that joe biden signed into the american rescue plan. it made it easier for people to enroll during the course of the year. enrollment in 2022 is higher than it is ever been, they

projected it at 13 million people this year. that is about half of what was originally projected. and that is because of the expanded subsidies that joe biden signed into law that expire at the end of this year. host: we have bill from syracuse. caller: my experience with the health care system is that i went into the emergency room because my glucose level was above 400. they had somebody talk to me for about five minutes to tell me my condition was not life-threatening. i had to wait 10, 12 hours before i saw anyone. two of my doctors have gone out

of business. i now have to go 40 miles for care. is there anything your program would do to alleviate the problems of inequity in waiting rooms and health care in general? guest: i am sorry to hear about that situation. i know it is a frustrating situation that lots of people have with the medical system. our medical system has not been built through the patient. the providers are looking to maximize reimbursement from government programs or from

insurance. we hope to put the patient at the center where the health center has to be respondent to the patient. anything we can do to restore the control the patient has, it is one of the best things we can do to put the patient at the center and not third parties. host: frank from clarksburg, west virginia. caller: how are y'all doing today? host: good. caller: how many times did they tried to vote it down through congress by the republican

party? former president trump he turned it off to where you could not sign up for it. how come other countries, help their citizens and you want to help your greed. you talk about life, is in anybody's life just as important as anyone else's? guest: everyone's life is very valuable. obamacare was very unpopular when it took effect. people lost plans and doctors that they liked and they were misled by then president obama

that that would not happen. there were efforts to repeal parts of the act, some of it was repealed. i mentioned pieces like the individual mandate penalty. there was a long-term care entitlement program that was repealed. some of these repeals were signed into law by president obama. when the republicans had unified control of government and 2017, there was some effort to repeal and replace was the term. really, it was modified the aca and they were not able to get it across the finish line. i was working in the white house at the time, we took what

administrative actions we could to alleviate some of the biggest problems with the aca. one of the problems was the increased cost of small businesses and small businesses were not offering coverage. we took action to expand associated health plans which is a way that employers could join together to cover workers. we opened the alternatives to the aca that were more affordable. we also opened up ways they could reimburse employees for health -- they use it to buy an

aca plan in the market. i should mention a significant effort elsewhere, a lot of which was price transparency. if you believe in the power of consumers, there are huge price variations across health care providers. two of the rules of the trump administration, one which took effect july 1 is that insurers have to provide price information. there were a lot of efforts made at broader health reform after

the congressional efforts around reforming the aca. host: i wonder your thoughts in the usa today, hospitals has required them to post their prices for common procedures and services but more than half of u.s. hospitals have failed to meet the two main requirements under the hospital transparency law. they are not doing a great job at disclosing these prices yet. guest: it is been about 1.5 years and while it is improving, it is not where we wanted to be. hospitals and insurers don't

want price transparency. they have done well where they have kept prices hidden, and employers even though they are purchasing plans for thousands or tens of thousands of employees. they went into this kicking and screaming. the hospital association sued over price transparency, fortunately the courts decided with the administration and against those lawsuits. it will take time and these reports are helpful, these third-party groups reporting on the hospitals. they need to start holding hospitals accountable that are not providing the required pricing information. host: let's go to deborah and

west chester, ohio, a republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. my family was involved in the health care business. my grandmother started the nursing home in 1939, i look at health overall in our medical costs. if you look at our total health care costs, we spend most of our resources on trauma and disease. hundred 61 billion on copd, and

we have children born addicted to drugs. if you look at our nation, we have to focus on trauma and disease as part of our solutions for health care. one obvious simple change that can be done with diabetes, type two is almost 80%, 90% controllable. snap, there is sugary drinks and candy that is within control and we have to exclude lobbyists. we have to look at the health of our nation and our costs. those are the types of things that we have to include in any type of a health care program.

just smoking related disease alone, this will be wild, we could put $50 and if you have a smoking related disease, all of your doctors and health care with access that. we have to take out of the pharmaceutical industry the desire to deliver a drug for a smoking related disease. we need to focus on not smoking. host: let me let brian blase jump in. guest: one of paragon's initiative is on public health in american well-being and that initiative looks at sectors

outside of traditional medical care that affect our overall health and well-being. it turns out, this is one of those things that struck me from when i was in graduate school that got me interested in health policy and economics. there is so much more that is important for our health than medical care. if you look at some of the great health schemes over the past century, increased nutrition. public sanitation, is the second

main explanation why we are so much healthier and living longer lives. most recently, one of the main successes and public health has been the decline in smoking. far fewer american smoke now than they did a decade before and smoking is related to a lot of disease. the decline in smoking has been really good overall for american health and well-being. our behavior, our lifestyle, they are important and the things the average american has much more control over. we want to make sure policymakers don't forget there

are other things like social connection and having relationships with other people. it is really important for health, unfortunately a lot of government programs lead us in the opposite direction. we have what economist call moral hazards, they incentivize behavior that undermines our well-being. host: former president obama at the 12th anniversary, president biden talked about efforts that he is working on to fix the family glitch. what is the family glitch? guest: obamacare created these subsidies and they are very expensive. they needed to limit who had access to subsidies because if

every person got these subsidies it would be extremely costly for the u.s. government. individuals that have an offer of affordable coverage, that have the option of getting that coverage through their employer or spouse or parent. if there is an offer of affordable coverage, that individual is not eligible for a tax credit. the law is written that affordability is linked to a self only plan. that means that some dependents and families, they have coverage that exceeds what the threshold for affordability would be if it

was based on family coverage not self coverage. this is referred to as a family glitch. it is not a glitch in my reading. affordability is based on self only coverage and i have been critical. president obama was at the white house when president biden announced a proposed rule to fix the family glitch and move affordability to the more expansive definition -- linking it to family coverage which increases the number of people who qualify for subsidies what i think is illegal as well as poor

public policy. host: we have about five, 10 more minutes. deborah from massachusetts, and independent. caller: good morning, how are you. thank you for having me on. i wanted to say that i benefited from obamacare, i live in massachusetts so maybe it was romney care. i found myself in kind of a pickle. i was an educated person, working, ran out of cobra and there i was in my early 60's. my spouse being retired, going onto to the american care act was helpful until i was

able to get on medicare. going on there, it is very complex and unless you are an educated person and understand all of the paperwork and all of the things you have to put together, file, get to the state. all of your tax returns and everything else, i think all poor people are not using the system because they don't know how. it is something that i was thinking about, and south dakota , they decided not to have medicaid, the expansion of medicaid which i thought was wrong. obviously, obamacare allowed for the expansion of medicaid. but those governors said i don't care about my people. i will not expand medicaid. a friend of mine brother-

host: i'm good at throw a map from the kaiser family foundation that shows medicaid expansion just to give you some visuals. go ahead and initiate question. caller: so anyway, there they are and south dakota, my friend's brother is having a lot of medical problems. he is not working, all of the other family has money. what are we going to do with him? he needs teeth attention, medical attention. the family had to come together to help pay for that. that to me just shows how unequal the states are. people talk about their right to life, but when it comes to health care, no one seems to care about living people. host: i just want to give him a

chance to respond. guest: i agree with you the system is very complex. i think one of the reasons it has become complex is because how large the administrative needs of the state is. ideally for the unpredictable, high expense, when you run everything through insurance. there are lots of issues there. i will say something about medicaid expansion. i myself have been exposed to medicaid expansion. the economics involved has led

to poor policy results. under obamacare, states received an enormous -- it is traditionally been reserved for lower income, pregnant women, children, those with disabilities and seniors. the federal government will refund 50% of those cause. the federal government pays a much higher rate the first three years they paid 100% of the cost of the expansion it is now at 90%. in part, the federal government is providing states incentive to over provide for care for these able-bodied, adult population

and under provide services for those traditional medicaid enrollees. it is also led to a surgeon spending in these programs. there were $100 billion a year, almost one in four dollars spent in medicaid is now improper and there are a lot of bad incentives at every level with how the medicaid program is structured. i have written a lot about how fundamental medicaid and health care reform is. host: yaya is waiting on the line. caller: i have been a nurse for 17 years, there is a lot of misinformation coming from mr.

blase. obamacare has always included a hardship. second, it is a lot cheaper, fiscally responsible to prevent catastrophic illness than it is to pay for treatment of a catastrophic illness. it is much cheaper to prevent a stroke, it is much cheaper to prevent a heart attack. it is much cheaper to prevent asthma exacerbation. it is cheaper to have people on preventative programs than it is to pay for catastrophic medical events because they have not been able to treat. finally, we had a mass shooting here, do you know how much it cost to treat a person with gunshot wounds?

hundreds of thousands of dollars. it is much cheaper for someone to pay a yearly premium and percentage of a deductible then it is to treat gunshot wounds. host: i will give you the final couple of moments here. guest: on the individual mandate penalty, what congress did was eliminate the penalty. it was said to be $700 or 2.5% of income, whichever was greater. many people were paying it, millions of people were paying it. it was hitting lower and middle income families. the elimination of the individual mandate helped.

there were hardship exemptions, but they were difficult to get and people were paying individual mandate penalties. on prevention, it is a valid point. the first thing i will say here is there are still a lot of studies looking at the cost-benefits of preventative services. some preventative services do save money. they detect conditions earlier and they get treated and prevent services in the long run. most preventative services don't save money in the long run. i certainly think it is imperative that we focus on health outcomes. one of the things that is disturbing to me is that

american life expectancies are declining. if you look at the first six years, the aca took effect in 2014, american life expectancy was lower in 2019 then it was in 2014. part of that is due to the opioid crisis and social isolation but there are a lot of things that have happened over the past decade that have been detrimental for american health. we want americans to have healthier lifestyles and overall better health and economic well being. that is something that paragon wants, that health care programs are best serving patients. to point out where health programs are failing and factors

outside of health care that can improve americans health and well-being. host: the paragon health institute can be found online at con health.org. i appreciate your time this morning, come back on to talk to us again. guest: thank you so much. host: coming up later we will be joined by bob keefe, we will talk about his book "climatenomics." it is time for our open forum. any topic of conversation, any political issue. the phone lines are yours. the numbers are on your screen. we will get to your calls right after the break. >> listening to program on

c-span or c-span radio just got easier. tell years marked speaker -- smart speaker listen to c-span. weekdays at 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. catch washington today. listen to c-span anytime just tell your smart speaker play c-span. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the house january 6 committee hearing investigating the attack on the capital. go to c-span.org/january 6. watch the latest videos of the hearing, briefings and all of our coverage on the attack and subsequent investigation since january 6, 2021. we will have reactions from members of congress, the white house, journalists and authors

talking about the investigation. go to c-span.org/january 6. >> now available on the c-span shop, the 2022 congressional directory. this spiral-bound book is your guide to the federal government with contact information for every member of government. also contact information for state governors and the biden administration cabinet. order your copy today at c-span shop.org. every c-span shop purchase help support c-span's nonprofit organizations. >> washington journal continues. host: 25 minutes here for our open forum. any political issue, any state issue, this is where we let you

lead the discussion. for democrats (202) 748-8000, for republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002. we can talk about that shooting that killed six and injured dozens. two police officers were injured in philadelphia yesterday. protesters damaged property and demonstrations and akron over a police shooting of a 25-year-old black man. the release sunday of bodycam video showed police officers shooting dozens of time into jayland walker.

a lot of rounds were fired, they are trying to determine how many. reports are 60 or more. up here on capitol hill we found out on sunday that herschel williams, medal of honor recipient will lie and honor at the u.s. capitol. that is from speaker nancy pelosi and majority leader chuck schumer. he died on wednesday at age 98. honored in his state for his courage under fire. senator joe manchin said that he never quit giving back including raising money for goldstar families. that picture from usa today the scene in west virginia, the

scene there at the state capital. it is our open forum, we want to hear what you want to talk about. up first out of arlington, virginia, on the democrat line. caller: good morning how are you today? host: i am doing well. caller: i tried to call this morning but i could not get through. the reason i called is that people with guns and mentally ill people cannot go together. number two, why do people say you are going to kill deer? you hunt when you are hungry. that is the reason i call. host: you don't think we need guns in this country? caller: you don't need guns in

this country. when you have a gun, if you are mentally ill you kill people. if you are angry and you have a gun, you will kill people. when you are angry, you don't know what you are doing. you get angry quickly, you don't need a gun at all. host: from pennsylvania, on the republican line. caller: about this gun thing, everybody is saying -- you had one girl saying she was in the national guard. she said these are assault weapons. anyway, did they ever do a study on where these guns come from? these people who were shooting people, do they ever find out where the guns actually originated from? host: do you mean where they bought them? caller: some of them were

stolen. i want to know how many of them, cross the border. the ones that obama and holder sold to the cartel, how many of those are coming back to us? i know there was a border agent that was shot with the guns that was sold to the cartels. host: you were talking about that investigation -- caller: the kid that do the shooting in texas, thousands of rounds of ammunition, supposedly he shot his grandma before he went to the school. where did he get all the money to buy these weapons and ammunition? you are looking it $12,000 or

more. he had thousands of rounds of ammunition. the guns he had were over 4000, the pistols four or 500 bucks. where did he get this money? host: that was ron in pennsylvania, this is gary from indiana and independent. caller: i was a democrat for some time but i turn my back on them. you asked the question, are you proud to be an american? i would like to say, there is a lot of reasons to not be so proud of it. my vote doesn't count because

when people get of elected, thanks for putting me in the position now i can do whatever i want to do. it is not about flesh and blood humanity. it is not about human rights. you might think that your vote will count, but it's not. it is a ripoff. it is a sucker deal. i would say not to vote but i wouldn't blame you if you did. host: have you ever thought running for office yourself? caller: i wish i could but i probably wouldn't qualify. there would be too much opposition. i would be one honest guy against thousands of dishonest people. america, good luck, knock on wood. god help us all. host: frank from north carolina,

a republican. caller: i am one of these people, these things about automatic weapons. it is unnecessary for people to have an automatic weapon. i am a military man, i spent 20 years in the military. i don't see any reason, i grew up in virginia. i never had an automatic weapon. i have two handguns which i have permits for. i went through the military with the weapons i knew what to do with them. i had no reason to have an automatic weapon growing up. host: are you talking about semiautomatic weapons?

caller: automatic weapons are not necessary in a civilian organization as far as i'm concerned. you have no use for them. host: gilbert in birmingham, alabama. an independent. caller: good morning of those who have been attacked by domestic terrorists. but my thing is that if you live in the -- look at the amount of ammo people can get, you cannot shoot the gun without the ammo. we have to be watching. very few people are discussing that. i would like to paint a graphic picture of america. i am a black man. for 400 years of the root of all

the problems this country has has been the black man's oppression in this country. now everybody wants to get upset and so concerned about it, but nobody was concerned about me being stepped on for 400 years. in the words of the great person at a new york, the chicken is coming home to roost. the debt is being paid in the streets of america. host: you say nobody's is talking about the ammunition. congressman al green, his tweet yesterday, the democrat from texas, talking about high-capacity magazines as one of the things we need to get off the streets commencing in his tweet if we do not pass gun safety laws against long guns with high-capacity magazines we will become a society where the

noble ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as little more than words on paper. diane in pennsylvania, good morning. caller: you are my favorite show, favorite personality but you do not have an ego to have a personality. thank you. host: thanks for the call. is that strasburg, pennsylvania? caller: i am on my way to the ocean and then to washington, d.c.. i have not been there since my son's trip in 1985. i have a comment about gun violence and i think there is only one answer front to get rid of the guns. go back to the early days with that amendment was written. they are talking about a gun. maybe if you are a farm more ranch or could have some more, in the home, not out of the home.

just cracked down on anybody using a gun in any crime on the street. you need to step up punishment and build more jails, hire more judges. get rid of the guns. that is a good start. host: according to one stat, 300 90 million guns in this country, more than one gun per person in this country. caller: i think we need to collect them and use the metal for roads and bridges. maybe that would save extra tax dollars. just get them all collected. anybody caught with a gun outside their home, it gets confiscated if you have not already given it up. host: safe travels to you as you travel up the east coast. donna is in missouri. caller: i had three things to say. first, obamacare is more popular

than ever. try to get rid of medicare or obamacare and you probably will not get reelected. in missouri, a majority voted for the expansion of medicaid. i know people whose lives were saved because they could get it. secondly, trump ran on getting cheaper medical insurance for more people and he did nothing. he did not get reelected. they at least need to lower the medicare age to 50 because that is when employers start getting rid of employees, because they do not want to pay the higher rate of insurance for older workers. lastly, we needed more than ever because we need people to keep getting vaccinated when that federal program runs out or this thing is never going to get contained. host: dodge city, kansas,

republican, good morning. caller: the reason i was calling was a couple points. joe biden says we all need electric cars. you take your electric car to work and plug it in and while you're working your eight hour shift some rotten kids come along and grab the electric cord that you are charging your electric car and unplug it. and you get off work and you come out to your car and your battery is dead. you have to wait eight hours for it to charge back up again. the other thing was that black man that was shot by the police in ohio. please get this through, black people. when a policeman turns on his lights, stop and do not carry a gun. do not carry a firearm.

host: is that advice you are only giving to african-americans or to everybody? caller: everybody. host: paulette, florida, democrats. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am concerned about the state militias being formed especially in florida. i am concerned about the election laws and the supreme court and i hear it is easier for them to overturn the election in 2024. that is the main thing that we need to be talking about, making the vote count. it is discouraging to know if you vote that they can just choose their own legislators. i do not understand a lot, but

it seems scary. they are still tuned to just trying to do it. they are still doing this agenda and think for a moment if biden wins the vote and they go ahead and choose dissent is like they are trying to do. it will be war on the streets and that is so scary. host: brad, kentucky, good morning. caller: yesterday, i got convicted thinking about julian assange here on our fourth of july yesterday. he was arrested 1180 days ago. most of those days have been spent in solitary confinement, usually more than 23 hours a day . i do not know people know, but

they have a record that he had called samaritans, a u.k. suicide hotline. he called them almost every day for a period. he has two sons now and a wife. he also has a dad and a brother. we all really -- we let this go on. trump did not do anything. his persecution started under obama. biden continues to do nothing. it looks like biden's continuing persecution by sticking to extradite him to the u.s., where he will spend 24 hours a day in solitary confinement. we are all guilty of not standing up for him and the press is, too. i have not done anything for

him. i have not written a letter to a representative or senator. have you done anything for julian assange? has anybody? is this guy going to die in prison? host: when did your interest in this case start? it sounds like something you have come to realize. how did that start? caller: about 10:00 yesterday morning. host: what triggered it? caller: i do not know. i just got to thinking about his sons and we are forcing them to grow up in a fatherless home. they have a father, but they do not get to have a father. this country is supposed to be about better things than that. he is not guilty of any crime but exposing the gross stuff the

state does. he exposed the killing of civilians in afghanistan, his biggest crime, yet here we all are. we are convicted because we know about it. we are all guilty of not holding up our end of the bargain of america and i hope we can change that soon. host: this is denise and pennsylvania, line for republicans. caller: i want to say guns have always been here, so we need to look at why the increase in all these mass shootings and -- instead of just saying it is because of guns. it is because people are angry. there are video games and movies just constantly glorifying shooting and killing people. there are too many things they

need to look at as the root cause to why people are doing this because there are more people in this country that have guns and do not do mass shootings than there are people who do mass shootings. host: in the constitution state, this is gary, an independent. caller: i want to let you know i just returned from italy. i have been planning to move there. several members of my family have become critically ill. my daughter -- i am going to have my first grandchild. it has put that off in the near future. host: congratulations and i am sorry about their illnesses. caller: i wanted to talk about free enterprise versus predatory capitalism. i am a believer in freedom. what happens when large

corporations control everything, including congress and our elected officials, we lose our freedom. teddy roosevelt, the first great progressive got recognized this when a few robber barons tried to control all the railroads in the united states. that is comparable to controlling oil in the united states today. these guys wanted to control all the railroads. they carried coal to the cities. they carried farm products, everything. they could raise or lower the price, drive people out of business. roosevelt took them to the supreme court and broke them up, just as at&t had been broken up, which was an enemy of progress. host: who is the large corporation you worry most about today? caller: several of the oil corporations that are raising the price of gas, refusing to

refine oil. this is something that should not be left in the hands of a few private individuals. the government has to become more involved, as it did with teddy roosevelt. during the coal strike, he forced robber barons to negotiate with the union they did not acknowledge. that came to a peaceful ending and ended the children working in mines and any number of other abuses. we have to look at these things again today because it is killing this country. even the medical establishment is becoming corporatized. i have had a doctor for 40 years. he is totally disgusted. he is retiring, but he is angry because they are now allowed to do more than -- not allowed to do 15 -- more than 50 men's with a patient. they do not touch the patient anymore. things have become out of

control and in the hands of just a few people. host: we are running short on time in our open phones so let me get to glenn in the natural state. caller: i have two comments. one is my concern about voter registration not being cleaned up. all these people who died from covid, the government gathered every bit of their information but these people are still on voter registration. which way are they going to vote? because they will vote. in my other is people keep talking -- and my other is people keep talking about guns and mass shootings. all that anger comes because our education system, our government, and our media teach hatred. all they do is teach hatred. hate yourself, your brother, your parents, everybody. hatred turns into killing.

host: that is glenn in arkansas, our last caller in this segment. we will be joined by bob keefe of the group environment entrepreneurs. he will talk about his book, "climatenomics." stick around. we will be back. >> c-span shop.org is c-span's store. browse through our our online collection of apparel and accessories. there is something for every c-span fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now or many times. >> c-span brings you an

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>> be up-to-date in the latest in publishing with book tv's podcasts about books and industry news and trends through insider interviews. you can find about books on our free mobile app or wherever you get your podcast. >> washington journal continues. host: bob keefe joins us now free discussion on the economics of climate change. you open your book with the events of may 26, 2021. what happened that day and what did it demonstrate to you? caller: what happened -- guest: what happened that day

was the shareholders of three of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world's decided those companies needed to do more about climate change and reducing carbon emissions, so they took action. they added new directors. shell oil was found to be guilty of harming the environment and the economy for not doing more to reduce its carbon emissions. they sent a statement to the industry that we need to clean up and do more to address climate change because it is killing our economy. host: is it an argument for the private sector to get involved when it comes to fighting climate change, that the free market can handle this problem if incentives are right? guest: the free market needs to handle this problem, but so does

government. so do all individuals. we have to do more about this. the point of the book is that climate change is no longer just an environmental issue, no longer just a social issue. it is no longer just a health issue. it is all of those things, but it is now a growing economic issue. last year alone in the united states, we had $150 billion of damage from climate-related disasters. wildfires in the west, hurricanes in the east, so many we have run out of names for them now. droughts and flooding helping drive up the price of everything from chicken to cornflakes. this is a cost hitting everybody in the pocketbook and the economic damage from climate is the tip of the iceberg. we are seeing costs go up across our economy because of climate related issues. host: cost and benefits we often

talk about on this program. the cost is easier to calculate them with the benefit could be of some future program, but where would you charge benefits when it comes to climate? guest: the benefits are getting easier to see. we are seeing the costs stack up , but we are also seeing benefits. right now, solar and wind is the cheapest power available in just about any part of the country. look at what automakers are doing. every automaker is shifting to electric vehicles. why? because it is the right thing to do but more importantly because the technology is here and available and we can get that out to the masses. and a lot of us are tired of paying 5, 6, seven dollars a barrel for gasoline. look at energy efficiency, the other fuel or of clean energy.

look at what we have done with simple things like led lighting. now we have programmable thermostats. we have high-efficiency hvac systems and hot water heaters, things like that, and better windows and doors. which is saving money for consumers and businesses every month. but we have to figure out how to get more benefits to more americans and do it more affordably and quickly. host: if we are talking electric cars, they are still expensive. these disproportionately impact people. guest: that is where policy comes in. that is why we have a piece of legislation that has been sitting in the senate since last year that would reduce the cost of electric vehicles through tax credits, expanding and extending

tax credits. we can get more solar and wind to more people by investments in clean energy and make america more competitive by investing into research and development into clean energy and hopefully position america to catch up with the rest of the world. we have unfortunately fallen behind. all of these things are important and they all have one thing in common, which is the bottom line of our country, our economy. host: the book is "climatenomics." bob keefe is the author and you can join the conversation by calling in on phone lines split as usual. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. bob keefe with us until our program ends at 10:00 eastern this morning. the house will come in for a brief pro forma session and we

will go there for coverage as usual. as folks are calling in, they will see on the screen you are also the executive director of environmental entrepreneurs. what is that? guest: it is a national nonpartisan group of business leaders who happen to care about the economy and the environment. we have about 11,000 members and supporters now that work or do business in every state in this country. across every sector of the economy, investors, real estate people, clean energy people. the one thing they have in common is they realize we cannot have a strong economy without a healthy environment and they are willing to stand up and do something about it. host: how did you get into this line of work? guest: i spent about 25 years as a journalist. one of my last jobs was covering

congress and the white house for the atlanta journal-constitution . a lot of that time in my newspaper career was spent covering business technology. one of the things i realized was business voices carry weight with lawmakers. nothing lawmakers like more than kissing babies and talking about jobs and economic growth. through clean energy, we can create a lot of jobs and drive economic growth. i wanted to be part of that. host: on jobs and lawmakers, an interesting chart i am going to show viewers from your book. breaking up the clean energy jobs in this country by various congressional districts. the republican congressional districts and democratic congressional districts charted on this screen, showing is a

fairly even split when it comes to where those jobs are. guest: those numbers are based on department of energy numbers updated last week. what we know now is about 3.2 million people work in clean energy in every state in this country. as you mentioned, there are almost as many folks that work in republican districts as in democratic districts now. what that says to me is that there is nothing political, nothing partisan -- or there should not be when it comes to addressing climate change and expanding clean energy and jobs that come with it. host: so a concrete of example -- a concrete example of that, one of the states you cite in your book is wyoming moving to more clean energy jobs from older fossil fuel jobs. guest: i'm grateful for your

reading. thank you. it is interesting to see what happened in wyoming a couple years ago. the oil and gas industry has come back some since then, but at that time in the state of wyoming workers laid down the last working drill in the state at that time. and a lot of oil and gas folks lost their jobs. at the same time that last rig was being laid down, as they say in the industry, a couple hours away there were hundreds of workers going on the job at what would be the biggest wind farm in the country so what that shows is that there is a path to transition for our energy industry. i spent about 20 years as a journalist, and technology -- we

should not discount technology. and the movement of the economy that we are seeing now in clean energy. host: i will let you chat with a few callers. this is stephen out of alexandria, virginia. you are up first in this segment. caller: good morning and thank you for this topic. i have an on formula to question here. one of the things which i think we can attribute the climate difficulties to and pollution difficulties to is the free use of carbon that can be extracted through fuel or would be extracted through fuel and then pumped into the atmosphere. there is no cost that is borne

by the people who are doing that. that is all of us. it gets channeled to oil companies. to pump greenhouse gases into the air. and an effective way of establishing a cost and then allowing price mechanisms to work is through a carbon tax. i would be interested in the author's opinion about that and maybe a little good detail or suggestion of how a carbon tax would effectively allow us to price in the cost of polluting three using greenhouse gases. guest: that is a great question. a carbon tax is something people have talked about for a long time. for me, the bottom line is that

-- i cannot remember what it is like in alexandria. i used to live there. i cannot remember with the garbage service is like, but right now i throughout more garbage than my neighbor. i have to pay extra to have mike garbage company pick that up and do something with it. we need to figure out how to do that with major emitters of carbon and how to do that so they reduce the carbon they produce before it is even made. is the answer to that a carbon tax? i think it is untenable right now for congress to consider anything that has the word tax in it, especially in the economy we are living in. so i do not know that a carbon tax is necessarily the right way to go, but we have to do something to limit the pollution we have coming out of our major polluters in this country. host: remind people what the

waxman-markey bill was and what happened with that. guest: it would have put a cap on carbon and essentially incentivized power plants to reduce carbon emissions or figure out a way to offset those through a trading system. and of course that policy did not work or did not get past. -- passed. host: in a time of "climatenomics" where people better recognize the economics of climate change, why not try it again? or was it something that could not have passed? guest: there are a lot of ways to approach the problem we are facing now. the biden administration has introduced legislation that began in congress that would

include a package of tax credits and other investments to expand clean energy and encourage power plants and electric vehicle makers and everybody else to reduce the carbon they produce. the fact is we probably need to do everything we possibly can at this point when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. host: this is mark, a republican. caller: what i'm doubtful by is i heard you say it would be untenable to work any of this stuff into a new tax, which is understandable, but at the same time before that you were talking about electric vehicles. i would like to know where you think we have the money to do that. that comes from the people.

the government does not have money. money comes from people. how are we all going to afford this? i would like to add for the last year and a half we have seen where this green a new deal is going and look what it has done to our economy already. i'm surprised you are not too embarrassed to be making a public appearance right now considering conmen in your industry have been acting like alarmists for the last 50 years, telling people the sky is falling. the fact of the matter is it could hurt third world countries that are trying to develop. they are the ones who will suffer the most through this. guest: i think there are a couple questions in there. one of them is about who pays for this. under the plan in front of congress right now, it would

increase the tax burden on the biggest corporations and use that money to expand clean energy across the country. we have to look at the cost on the others as well, and i am not being alarmist. i am not saying the sky is falling. the sky is pretty dark right now because we have had three of the most expensive wildfires we have ever had in this country in the past five years. we have had four of the most expensive hurricanes, the most expensive freeze in our nation's history in texas of all places, 200 billion dollars in property losses from that alone. the most expensive thunderstorm event, causing $7.5 million of damage. homeowner rates are up 40% and have risen for the last 17 quarters.

crop insurance that you and i pay and every taxpayer pays has added $27 billion to insurance costs that taxpayers have to foot the bill for. the military spending about $10 billion cleaning and rebuilding places like austin air force base in nebraska. $10 billion worth of damage from unprecedented hurricanes and flooding. if you want to talk about costs to taxpayers, you have to include those as well. those costs are rising dramatically. we know investments in clean energy -- you say we have not seen a lot from that, but solar and wind prices for utilities are down, now the cheapest power there is available. we have created 3 million plus jobs across the country through clean energy investments. i do not care if you like polar

bears or do not believe in science. if you drive a prehistoric pickup truck. the fact of the matter is this is expensive and we need to do something about it from an economic perspective if nothing else. host: this is jonathan come outline for democrats. good morning. -- jonathan, line for democrats. good morning. caller: you said the oil industry quite a lot of money here. how do we get republicans on board for more green energy? they voted against the gas price gouging bill. it seems hard to me. guest: the question was how you get republicans on board with climate and clean energy. there are some republicans on board. if you look at polling across

the country, the majority of americans from either party, from any party, are supportive of action on climate and federal investments in clean energy. poll after poll has shown that. unfortunately, some members of congress have not seen that or listens to constituents close enough to act like the majority of americans want them to act. but i have to say that, as the costs of climate continue to increase and continue to be felt in every part of our country, this is not just california. it is not new york. look at what is happening in florida and michigan and north carolina, south carolina, texas with his freeze last year.

these impacts are hitting every american in the pocketbook. on the flipside, as john pointed out earlier, we have almost as many clean energy jobs in republican districts as we have in democratic districts now. that is going to continue to increase because if you look where electric vehicle manufacturers and suppliers are located there are some in michigan and other parts of the midwest but it is also kentucky, tennessee, texas. so, regardless of your political party, if you are going to not recognize that this is a booming industry for some of the fastest growing jobs in the country and not recognize that these climate costs are impacting every one of us, then you are not looking at reality. host: you offer up in your book the new york senator from georgia died at the end of last

year. as a case study in the politics of "climatenomics," explain. guest: when i covered congress, i was fortunate to spend a good bit of time with centre isaacson, a republican from georgia. johnny -- senator isaacson was not a card greenpeace member who was going to march down the street in a polar bear suit. unfortunately, he followed party leadership more than he followed his convictions on some things related to climate change, but he got it. he understood it. he was very passionate about doing something about it. i think there are a lot of other folks on either side of the political aisle who know we need to do the right thing who are

perhaps being held back by some of the leadership in congress. that needs to change. that is over. the costs we are facing are too high. the opportunities we are missing are too widespread. we have to do more and do it now. host: this is diane, republican. caller: good morning. i am calling to reply on climate change. it seems like we have been through this before. we have done this before. with our jobs, we sent them overseas. they went overseas to china and polluted over there and they are still doing it. why are we paying to fix the world when the whole world don't want to fix itself. that is the only thing i have to

say. unless every industrial nation gets on board and does something about it, it is fruitless. we are spinning our wheels just like we did for the last 20 years. the gas went up because of biden's policies. he shut down the pipeline. as soon as he did, russia and saudi arabia reduce production, which they knew would hit us like this. nothing gets done in washington, as usual. what we are learning today, some of us, are consequences of not paying attention to who you vote for. guest: thank you for that question. the fact is every country in the

world or every major developing country in the world for sure is doing a lot more on climate change. every country in the world came together essentially with the paris climate agreement back in 2015. the united states took a huge setback when we decided we wanted to pull out of that agreement. in the time of the setback, other countries have excelled. china and india are increasing their investments in clean energy. the u.k., countries of europe are all moving forward a lot faster than we are and reaping the benefits of this along the way. so there was a study that came out a couple weeks ago that

showed about six years ago the united states ring to a 15th in the world for moving forward -- ranked about 15 in the world for moving forward on climate legislation. today we are about 101. we are moving in the wrong direction. host: the book again, "climatenomics." tom steyer writes the forward in your book. guest: tom has known my organization and we have known him for a long time. a lot of people think of him as a democratic presidential candidate from 2016, but he is also a very successful investor. one of the things i learned over the years as a journalist covering part of the country is

we should not discount technology. i remember sitting in a room with steve jobs and steve jobs telling us someday you are going to have phones in your pocket and you are going to be taking pictures with your cell phone. we wrote that down as skeptical journalists and said, ok, whatever. i remember sitting with jeff bezos in seattle. at the time he was running a struggling online bookstore that sold books and nothing else. and he said to us someday you are going to be able to order anything and everything you can imagine off my website. we wrote that down. sure, that will happen someday. i remember the google guys saying the same thing about being able to find anything on the internet. look how quickly those technology events have to radically changed our world and changed our lives. i'm convinced that solar, wind,

renewable energy generally, battery storage, electric vehicles, those technologies are all where those things were when i was covering that as a reporter. the solar of today is not jimmy carter's solar panels that he put on the white house and thought everybody would take up the electric vehicles of today are not the ones that had a short life in the 1990's. the technology is with us now. we need our policymakers in washington to make these things more affordable were available to more americans. host: how long do you think it will be before electricity generation from renewable sources catches up to generation from fossil fuels? guest: the short answer is not quick enough. if you look at what is happening

in different parts of the country cannot look at iowa. it gets 40 plus percent, probably more than that now. this heat we just experienced nationwide cut texas got something like 35% of his energy from a new a balls. california, there are days when california gets 100% of its energy from renewable energy. that is the biggest state in the country and biggest economy in the world. the real answer is how quickly our lawmakers going to act in washington so folks in ohio and michigan and other parts of the country can also benefit from this? host: an interesting time to get a caller from arkansas. tim, an independent. caller: thank you for taking my call.

the climate propagandists would have us believe the technology is there. is the technology there to mind -- mine lithium without using fossil fuels to dig it up out of? the ground -- out of the ground? the amount of fossil fuels used to get this out of the ground costs more than just having clean energy produced in our own country. you talk about the price -- the cost. it is all artificially risen by the federal government picking and choosing winners. starting with the clean energy. how clean is it with the window wears out in 10 years and you have to stick a windmill in a landfill? how clean is it when you load up the grid with everybody's electric cars, so much so it breaks down in california? the wires burst at it causes fires.

this is all fantasy and it is all about controlling. they controlled us with the virus and shut us down. are they going to shut down the economy. how are people going to eat? are there electric tillers so you can grow food? guest: there is a lot in there and i appreciate that. starting with what we do with the wind turbines and batteries. we need to figure that out and the technology. we need to figure out the solutions of those problems. the fact is the problem of too much carbon being produced from -- from fossil fuels is the most

existential problem we have right now and it is killing our economy. when it comes to what we have out of the investments out of the obama era and clean energy, what we got was investments in about 100,000 clean energy projects around the country that brought the price down for solar and wind, the most affordable power any utility can produce in the country. it helped create those 3 million plus clean energy jobs and solar, wind, but also an electric vehicles now and battery technology and energy efficiency, companies that are swapping out lighting systems to make them more efficient. companies that are swiping out hvac systems to make them more efficient. we also weatherized 100 million

homes in this country, saving consumers money with every monthly power bill. but the fact is the technology is here for clean energy now. we can deploy this, but we need the policy to make more of it available in more places to more americans. host: you mentioned the problems that perhaps more research and develop and can solve. what about the problems that are more on the political side? today's wall street journal, this is the headline, saying biden has to choose climate change or human rights in china. electric car batteries and solar panels rely on raw materials produced with forced and child labor. guest: we need to do more to figure how to produce batteries without child and forced labor. right now there's a project in

california that would use saltwater to create lithium and other types of heavy metals used in batteries. in the book i mentioned that on an island there is a project underway to figure out how to essentially use plants that can mind nickel. this is the type of technology we are talking about. then we can use those to create some of the metal we need for batteries. so the technology -- do not underestimate technology and american innovation because we will lose if we do. in terms of the political problems, as i mentioned, lawmakers need to understand this is not a red state, blue

state thing. these climate disasters are hitting every single part of our nation and these clean energy jobs are being created in every part of our nation. it is hard to do in washington, d.c., but we have to put politics aside and look at the economics of this. host: less than 10 minutes before the house comes in for a pro forma session today. bob keefe is our guest. the book is "climatenomics." this is jan out of columbus, georgia. caller: i found mr. keefe very informative with all the information he has given us this morning. being from georgia, i wanted to say how we look at this in southern terminology. host: we heard you.

caller: i just saw you moving your mouth. i apologized me put this in a southern term. we would tell you we are the only people who actually pee in our own well. we tend to pollute everything we need to sustain us as a species. we really have no problem destroying what we have that is going to keep us alive. one of the things i read yesterday was from bill nine saying recycling is great. i need you to vote. voting is what is going to change the outlook of what we have in terms of clean energy, and everybody needs to do that. vote for the people that are going to support everything mr. keefe says. guest: thanks for that. i would definitely vote against peeing in our own well.

but you are right. we all need to do our part and realize that we cannot do it ourselves as individuals. we cannot do it as businesses. we cannot leave this problem to businesses or government. we have to do it together. host: ohio, james, republican. caller: it is north camden, ohio. the lady closed last in saying democrat, republican on board. i would say this as a devout republican. the democrats need to prove to the republicans and american people by way of possibly a satellite at the four corners of the united states that detect the pollution coming in from countries around us, across our

country mixing with the pollution we may already have. then we start with our own technologies. we had gas, oil, propane. we have dirty coal. then let's work with coal companies to get a cleaning system to clean it. i would say our electric technology is probably 30, 40 years off now, maybe 50. we have windmills in california. we have solar panels. we have scientists that tell the american people they cannot even light up all of california with the flooded market of windmill and solar, let alone the state next to it. are we supposed to take our farmland where we grow food and put solar panels and windmills and no room to even go outside our doors just to power of each state?

we have never had it like that. i would say let's use the technology we have now, the resources we have now, and let's go with elon musk and the billionaires that are on board to find these resources and the scientists who proved to the american people we need to go to solar and electric. let's do the research. let's prove to the republicans versus the democrats and the american people that we have that strong of a need for it. host: -- guest: james brings up some great points. the idea that other countries are not doing their part or that they are causing the problems we are living through now is something we have been saying for a long time. we have blamed these issues on other countries. we have set other countries

should step up, forget about american leadership in this world. we cannot continue to blame this on other countries or say other countries need to do their part will be do not do our part. we have been saying this is something we could do in the future or that we just need to figure out how to better clean coal or fossil fuels. we need to do all of that, but we are at the point now where we have to do more. we have been putting this off. we have been saying there is some fantasy in the future, that we can use our same technology and nothing is going to change. we are paying the cost for that now. every taxpayer is paying the cost for that in climate damage. not to mention all the other costs for homeowners insurance that has gone up, crop insurance that has gone up because of

climate related disasters. all of these things, food prices that go up when corn gets mowed down by storms in iowa and indiana or chickens afloat dead by the millions in a place like north carolina after the hurricanes of 2018 or what happened in kansas last week or two weeks ago when we had thousands of cows that died from heat stroke. costing farmers something like $4 million. so we can continue to say that we need to monitor what other countries are doing and can't do this as americans and cannot do it with american innovation, or we can act now, which is what we need to do. host: can you make it quick? caller: i will make it really quick. thank you, mr. keefe.

i appreciate you coming on. i do not want to be an antagonist, but i do question whether any of the militaries of the world are giving up their use of fossil fuels, aircraft carriers, and whether it is democratic to use it for that. i think there is a problem. i do not think we have the capability. host: let me end it there. guest: the fact is the u.s. military has led on clean energy in this country for a long time like it led on communications, on health care innovations, on so many areas of our economy. right now, the biden administration has directed the department of defense to move non-tactical vehicles to electric's. we know army bases and navy bases around the world are

shifting to cleaner energy. that not only helps reduce carbon pollution but is cheaper and unties us from foreign oil dictators around the world. it is common sense from a national security perspective. host: do you miss being up here on capitol hill? guest: depends on what day it is. i miss the passion and drive of some people in congress. and just wish they would do more and i wish they would do it more quickly when it comes to climate change. host: for folks interested in learning more about your group and your book, it is "climatenomics -- is climatenomicsbook.com. guest: you can go to e2.org and find out more about our members and chapters around the country. if you are a business person and

want to get engaged with telling your business story and telling the economic story of climate and clean energy, we would love to have you consider being part of our organization. host: bob keefe is the author of "climatenomics." appreciate the time this morning. that is going to do it for us this morning on the washington journal. we now take you live to the floor of the house of the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms,