: how republicans will become america's natural governing party." later, author ellis cose on his new book "race & reckoning: from founding fathers to today's disruptors." your discussions with your calls, texts, and tweets. ♪ host: by most accounts, the recent safer communities act passed by congress, signed by president biden, is the most substantive gun violence law enacted since 1994. but even yesterday's white house event showed many people are still dissatisfied with government efforts to end gun violence in their communities. good morning. tuesday, july 12, 2022 he would welcome to "washington journal." we start by asking you, how is your community impacted by gun violence? the lines are set regionally.

eastern or central time zones, (202) 748-8000. mountain and pacific, (202) 748-8001. you can send us a text at (202) 748-8003, tell us your name and where you are texting from. we are also on facebook, and you can send your thoughts on twitter and instagram, @cspanwj. we will show you some of president biden's comments at yesterday's event marking the passage of the bipartisan safer communities act. we will also hear from maryland governor larry hogan and how the recent supreme court ruling and a new york gun law has affected the state of maryland. and we will also talk about gun violence in cities. we want to hear from you, your communities, out hit -- gun violence has impacted your community. we hear a fair amount of

discussions about gun violence in cities on the campaign trails, and it becomes the subject of too much or too little media reporting, depending on who you listen to. here are the latest statistics from new york city. nypd statistics for june of 2022 on gun violence, the number of overall shooting incidents again declined in new york city compared with june 2021, continuing the downward trend in gun violence in the first half of the calendar year. citywide shooting incidents decreased by 24.2% in every borough except for queens. the number of murders declined for the month by 31.6% compared to the same time last year. the nypd reports hundred 55 gun arrests in june 2022, bringing the total number of citywide gun arrests in 2022 to 2381, a 4%

increase compared with the first six months of 2021. just some statistics from new york city on gun violence in that community. how has gun violence impacted your community. (202) 748-8000, the line for those of you in the east and central time zones. (202) 748-8001, mountain and pacific. again, the white house held an event yesterday marking the passage of the safer communities act. a number of the stories out of that are about the interruption of the president. here is one of those headlines. it is, you have to do more, parkland father interrupts biden 's gun-control speech. we will show you that interruption, but we want to give you the words of the president first on the passage of the act and what it means. [video clip] pres. biden: the take away from this is that now we are opening

to get much more done. senator murphy has said, when you look at the biggest social issues america has faced throughout our history, "success begets success," and that is when you "finally move that mountain, you can ignite a movement when you do that more progress to come to finally move that mountain, a mountain of opposition that stood in the way and stopped every effort of gun safety for 30 years in this nation. now is the time to galvanize this movement, because that is our duty to the people of this nation. that is what we owe those families in buffalo, where a grocery store became a killing field, what ryo those families in uvalde, where an elementary school became a killing field, what we owe families in highland park, where on july 4 a parade became a killing field. what we owe all those families

here today and across the country at schools, workplaces, stores, music festivals, nightclubs, and so many other big places that have turned into killing scenes. that is what we owe to families across this nation where every day tragic killings that do not make the headlines are little more than a passing mention in local news. neighborhoods and streets have been turned into killing fields, as well. host: our focus this morning here on "washington journal," how has gun violence impacted your community? the president speaking yesterday at the white house on the law that congress signed last week, the safer communities act. part of that legislation would expand background checks for prospective gun buyers between the ages of 18 and 21. it would funded grant that could apply for red flag laws,

including a statute banning gun trafficking. it would clarify who needs to register as a federal firearms dealer. it would close the so-called boyfriend loophole by couldn't -- preventing people convicted of domestic abuse to buy a gun. and gun rights could be restored under certain conditions. and it provides money to expand access to mental health, safety and training, and community-based mental health programs. it is called the safer communities act, enacted into law. (202) 748-8000, the line for eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001, mountain and pacific. headline from the "washington post" from sunday, the staggering scope of gun deaths goes far beyond mass shootings. a little what the president was talking about yesterday. let's get to your calls.

nell in waldorf, maryland. caller: good morning. i just wanted to say that if you look over the decades and the years of our presidency with the last shootings, you would notice a montage of the same words regurgitated in every speech. it is almost like they are reading off a template when it comes to gun violence. and it reminds me of the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. i am for background checks when it comes to registering for a weapon. i am a gun owner myself, and i do not have a problem at all, even being in the judicial system once upon a time in my life. but i do believe that we, as

americans, if we claim this united states, we have to see that this is a spiritual issue more than a physical issue. we praise the guns more than we pray. and that is a serious problem. we talked about the south side of chicago or the urban areas where violence is prevalent -- i live in the washington, d.c., area were gun violence is on the rise, and no one talks about us as a nation or as an neighborhood or as a school community. but we actually have to repent for our sins. this is a blood thirst, a lust no one wants to discuss about . it starts at home. the prayer starts at home. before you step out to the community or in the buildings, we have to see this is a bigger spiritual issue then physical issue and not to praise the guns more than you pray. host: to match in dallas, texas.

caller: bill, good morning. what i have seen happen here in dallas is a couple of our early popular entertainment districts are getting affected by random gun violence. as a city, i do not think we have a huge problem with gun crime. but our most popular entertainment districts now, there are people that do not want to go there because of random shootings. they happen on saturday nights, on friday nights. businesses in those districts, two in particular here have closed -- businesses, restaurants, in these entertainment districts are closed because they do not want to have to worry about what random shooting is going to happen in the future. so that is kind of what i am seeing here in dallas. overall, crime is not a huge issue, but it is the randomness of the gun violence that scares

me. one of the entertainment districts is what is called uptown, normally an upscale neighborhood, but because of random shootings happening on a sunday night out of the blue, restaurants are closing. that is kind of what i am seeing here. host: has that changed your behavior? do you avoid those places yourself? caller: yes, absolutely, and i have talked to other people who say, you know what, i will go drink out in this other area on a saturday night because i do not feel comfortable going to, you know, uptown, because i do not know when the next random shooting is going to happen. it has changed my behavior, yet. host: when you do go out to these places, do you find yourself scanning the room more, looking for where the exits are? just in case. caller: oh, yeah. no, no, normally what i will do is i will walk down the street and make sure i'm not looking at my phone.

if you are not aware of your surroundings when there's thousands of people walking on the street, if you are not aware of what is happening around you, that is where you get into trouble. yeah, normally i will pay attention to where the nearest exit is, god for bid, if i am in the middle of random gun violence. host: appreciate that, matt. this is the story from the "washington post" this morning, staggering story of u.s. gun deaths goes beyond random shootings. the shootings have riveted america, staggering number of public mass killings, but the rising number extends beyond such high-profile episodes, emerging inside homes, inside bars, and on streets in many cities. they write that the surge in gun violence comes as firearm purchases rose to record levels in 2020 and 2021, with more than

43 million guns estimated to have been purchased during that period, according to their analysis. at the same time, the rate of gun deaths in those years had the highest levels since 1995, with more than 45,000 fatalities each year. (202) 748-8000, the line for the eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001, mountain and pacific. our question for you this morning, how is your community impacted by gun violence? we will hear from the in san jose, california. caller: good -- we will hear from doug in san jose, california. caller: good morning. my community is relatively safe. i live in a liberal state and a liberal city. our community and our city do not tolerate a lot of crime. they do not tolerate violence of any kind. calling it gun violence is the

wrong way to look at it. we -- i live in a state were gun control is very tough. but if you look at cities up and down the state in california, there's a lot of violence. and a lot of this is generated by gang violence. that is generated by drug abuse. it is also generated by general collapse of societal norms over the past 40 or 50 years. you did not see this kind of violence when i was a kid. but society has begun to tolerate this and tolerate it more and more and accepted more and more and portray it more and more in general media, in video games. it is just accepted. and unless and until we get a hold of this from a societal level and make sure that people understand that violence is not acceptable and teach our young

people, in particular, that that is not the way to deal with your problems, we are going to see this over and over and over again. i think the gun is not the problem. the problem is the people. it is people violence. thanks for taking my phone call. host: next up is arizona, chris, good morning. caller: yeah, i live in a small northeast section of scottsdale, and there is really no gun violence in particular. it is all down in phoenix, typically. the other caller said, i agree, it is a people problem. i think the judges, they are letting people on the streets back-and-forth that have these huge arrest records, and they are the ones that have all these guns. host: appreciate that, chris. this is from the "washington

times," to that white house event, the passage of the gun violence legislation. headline, mass shooting victim's father interrupts the president's speech, heckling president biden at an event on monday. the president was trying to showcase new and control laws. manwell oliver, whose son died in a 2018 mass shooting at marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida, interrupted mr. biden's speech and lambasted him for not doing enough to curb nonviolence. here is a how -- here is how that happened on the white house lawn yesterday. [video clip] pres. biden: today is many things are despite the naysayers, we can make meaningful progress on gun violence. because, make no mistake -- sit down and hear what i have to say. >> [inaudible] i have been trying to tell you this for years. pres. biden: let me talk.

let me talk. ok? host: and like the "washington times," the event itself was kind of in the background. the headline is the interruption. biden event for gun law disrupted by parkland father, escorted from the event after that interruption. comments on social media and some texts on our question, how is your community impacted pop-up gun violence? this one says any law that allows the government to restrict gun ownership for unsubstantiated reasons is plainly unconstitutional. this says there is nothing extraordinary about gun violence where i live but that does not mean the ratio firearms per person here in the u.s. is normal. while there is a right to own firearms under the second amendment, that does not mean there should not be limits on weapon ownership. this one says we now have a biased law in place where folks can stand her ground and shoot someone with impunity. some laws are broken in this

country because politicians are paid off by the nra. steve says, thankfully, my community is very quiet, neighbors are friendly and respectful. we feel safe walking anytime day or night. a few miles away, gun crimes do exist. the impact gun violence on those communities makes a possible impact on our second amendment right. earl from seneca falls, new york. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i want to talk about helping to secure our schools. there are maybe tens of thousands of military, retired military police, navy, retired air police that should be trained so they can go into the schools and patrol the halls.

maybe that will help. so thank you for taking my call. host: to marjorie in westlake, ohio, good morning. you are on the air. caller: good morning. thank you. i have been trying to think of some way to make our numbers visible for people who want something done about the assault weapons. so my idea is to wear mourning bands. if someone asks me, i will say i am mourning the people who have been shot by guns. and the appearance of thousands

or millions of people wearing mourning bands will keep this fresh on our minds, as it should be, after these horrendous killings. thank you. host: are you still there with us? marjorie, how has gun violence -- is gun violence an issue where you live in westlake, ohio? marjorie? we will go to -- caller: well, in the cleveland area, of course you just heard about a young man who was shot many times by the police, but i am talking about everything. my family in colorado lives near where a superstore were 10 people were killed. i have been in that store myself . i am a retired teacher.

the school shootings i am just tragically mourning. i think we have to make some continuous visual statement about it and hold our legislators to the mark. host: the lines are (202) 748-8000 for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. and it is (202) 748-8001 for mountain and pacific. we are interested to hear from you on how gun violence has affected your community, has impacted your community. southfield, michigan, is next, tony. caller: i am a retired detroit police officer. and the frustration of all these guns just in the neighborhood, we do not know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy that has got the gun now. people buy these guns, giving

themselves a false sense of security. a lot of people leave their guns in their car. if the gun is not on their person, it is no good. in their purses. everybody just have guns, and all the bad guys know the guns are in the cars, so they are breaking into cars to get guns, and then they are out in the streets for the bad guys. host: as a police officer, do you think a citizen who does not intend to carry a -- to commit a crime is better off carrying a firearm or not? caller: i would say not, because if a gun is not second nature to you, it is no good. because when a crime happens, it is going to happen so fast, they are going to forget they even have the gun. a lot of people do not even know how to carry a gun and how to prepare themselves mentally for something to happen. they will buy the gun and it will just sit there. they think because they have a

gun, they are protected, but they are not. host: have you been involved in incidents where people have used their firearm in self-defense? caller: you know what, i try to keep a small record of it. it has happened, but more occasions guns are lost before they are used to defend themselves because they do not realize that they have it while the incident is going on because they are in shock. host: tony, thanks for your perspective. back to yesterday's white house event. this speaker lost his mother in the shooting in buffalo, new york. let's listen. [video clip] >> [reading names]

and mrs. woodfield, our mother. all of whom went to the supermarket on may 14 to pick up groceries believing that they were safe, but they were not. the devastating reality is that an individual armed with a weapon of war walked in, with cameras rolling, and massacred them in the name of a hateful ideology. my family, our families in our community, are devastated, but their intent to divide us and promulgate further violence within our community has failed miserably. for we have instead chosen to love over hate, to speak out rather than stay silent. and to stand with those courageous enough to lead us.

to the signing of the most impactful gun legislation in over 30 years, we are truly grateful for this day but know this is only the first step. this new law will undoubtedly help and in some cases prevent future tragedies, but there is much more to do. we must address white supremacy and direct domestic terrorism. host: a white house event held to recognize the passage of the safer communities act by congress, signed by the president. a new poll comes out from the pew research center about the broader issue of gun violence, which is what we're talking about this morning. broad public approval of new gun law, but it says few say it will do a lot to stem gun violence. it reports that americans are largely supportive of the new gun law passed by congress and signed by the president on june 25, nearly two thirds of u.s.

adults approve of the new gun law, 32 percent strongly proved, just 21% said they disapprove of the law, including 11% who strongly disapprove and 15% who are not sure. despite broad support for this new law, however, most americans are not optimistic it will do much to reduce gun violence in the country. 78% think the new gun law will do little at 42% or nothing at all or 36% to reduce gun violence, only 7% say the bill will do a lot, well 14% say they are not sure. roughly six in 10 adults said they would like to see congress passed another round of legislation to address gun violence, compared with 35% who do not. let's hear from you on gun violence in your community. gail in massachusetts is next. go ahead. caller: yes, good morning. thank you very much for taking my call. i have something to say.

why are people shooting animals? and why are people shooting animals for sport? that is what i would like to say here. thank you very much. host: englewood, florida, we hear from anna. how is gun violence impacting your community? good morning. caller: it is not impacting my community, but i have been watching this for about a month, on the gun violence. i approve of the gun law, but why don't they arrest the parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents of all these kids doing all this stuff? they need to get to the bottom of it instead of worrying about guns. they need to find out why these kids are doing this. i have never heard any reason why. ok, thank you. host: ok, in lenore, north

carolina, james is next. caller: yes, gun violence has not impacted our community. we took our weapons to school, grew up with weapons, and i never got hurt. they need to reinstate the death penalty and stop the madness. host: an article from the chicago 5 tv in chicago about the gun violence told there over the weekend, chicago weekend shootings, three dead and at least 37 wounded in the gun violence. just after 8:00 p.m. saturday, police responded to shots fired, discovered two men shot, one of the victims a 31-year-old hit in the face and taken to an area hospital. police say another victim in his late 20's was hit in the leg and is in serious condition.

the report from tv 5 in chicago. a call from tennessee is next, go ahead, peter. caller: thank you. i am just interested and want to comment on how the gun violence is awful, but it applies across the country. you just talked about chicago, and it brings to mind the concept -- you would like to talk about gun control, that is great, politicians like to do that. however, are you going to control the criminal element that commit gun crimes and shoot each other in places like chicago? are you going to control the miscreants and psychopaths that should not have guns? i have to wonder, the philosophy here, what is a firearm compared to the hand that wields it, the one that uses it?

the problem is not the weapon itself, it is the people using it. and you can put all the gun laws you want into effect until the background checks, but if you cannot control the criminal element, it won't help. in the psychopaths and the people who were maladjusted, you have to know it is the individuals come another gun by itself committing the violence. it is the hand that holds it. that is why we need the controls. how are you going to do that in chicago, baltimore, atlanta, memphis? i live in memphis, and they're shootings all the time, and there are criminals. how are you going to control them? i think that is something that needs to be considered. host: ok, this is a report from the "washington post" on one of the maryland counties, montgomery county, maryland, the

gun violence, police say gun violence is on the rise in the county. officials say they weigh legislative action and right that gun violence has recently shocked montgomery county this year, with nonfatal shootings nearly double what they were 12 month ago. the top officer said monday, the police chief made the remarks to reporters as county leaders discussed a proposed legislative action that would scale back the places someone could carry a handgun. he also spoke the day after dozens of gunshots were fired in shopping center parking lot in montgomery county's cheney area, sending a victim to the hospital with serious injuries and driving bullets into several businesses, "literally 60 rounds were fired in that parking lot," the police chief said, and it shows you that gun violence has become sort of the norm, which is not where we need to be. that is the police chief in montgomery county, maryland. the governor of maryland, larry hogan, on the "today" show, on

nbc, rather, "meet the press," discussing what the state has had to do in the aftermath of the supreme court decision on a new york state gun law. here is what governor hogan had to say. [video clip] >> supreme court ruling on the new york law, maryland's permit law, you will have to essentially allow it to happen. do you feel as if the supreme court has constrained your ability to fight guns? >> look, it really does not do a whole lot. maryland has got some of the toughest gun laws in the country, but it has not stopped the shootings. 99% of the gun crimes that take place are illegal guns. there are ghost guns and people stealing, trafficking, but the violent crime problem is real. and it does not have much to do with how you go about

registration or concealed carry. the repeat violent offenders do not follow the laws. >> i hear you, but look at all these mass shootings, too many of them. always, by the way, the gun was purchased legally. and you have states here with red flag laws that cannot be implemented. does that deal with it? >> look, i signed that flag law, and it does work in maryland. so we are not having some of those issues. i am for universal background checks and reasonable restrictions. but there is the right of law-abiding citizens to go through a process to be able to bear arms. we do everything we possibly can to take guns away from the mentally ill and criminals. that is a problem, our legislature keeps voting against penalties for people that shoot people with guns. host: maryland governor larry hogan. how has your community been impacted by gun violence? (202) 748-8000 for the eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001, mountain and

pacific. you can send as a text, (202) 748-8003, tell us your name and where you are. on twitter, this comment says, from crescent city, california, like much of rural america, there is very little gun violence here. criminals are now an issue in my area, that is why, after 60 years, my home now has guns for the first time. this one says, being that i live one hour away from parkland, florida, and two hours away from the pulse nightclub in orlando, i would say my came unity is very impacted. one mass shooting somewhere affects us all. back to calls, james in oxford, north carolina. go ahead. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i have several comments, but let me start with one thing, each time we have a mass shooting,

the first thing you hear is, well, the person was mentally ill. hello? host: yes. caller: mentally ill, some kind of mental issue. but i want all the callers listening to know, one of the first major bills that president trump signed was to give 750,000 individuals who had been adjudicated, that they were too ill to own a gun, he signed the legislation to give them a gun. they were too ill to even accept their social security check or their disability check. governor hogan just said, well, they are mentally ill. well, when you have that kind of attitude about mental illness,

then you realize it is just a smokescreen. one final point i want to make, we talk about guns don't kill people, a person's hands kill people. the president of new zealand, there was an ar-15 killing, and in a few weeks, they were all banned. and other civilized countries, like england and others, they take the position that we just have to get rid of them. to me, it looks like it works. but we have this idea that we prefer maintaining the second amendment over the lives of innocent children and individuals. thank you so much for taking my call. host: to his point, some reporting from the hill following yesterday's white house event, biden determined to renew assault weapons ban,

writing president biden capped off a celebration of a recently passed bipartisan gun safety law with a call to take further action, including a ban on assault weapons. ken in tampa, florida, go ahead. caller: yes, good morning. as far as down here in tampa, i mean, there is no real bad issue as of yet. just like anything, where is the next city that will be the next copycat and will be more noticeable than the next -- last one? but like the last gentleman said, it is just a fascination of guns. at the end of the day, when they talk about the mass shootings, look at if you calculate all the shootings, a mass shooting at any given time is nothing

compared to all the single shootings of people worrying about walking to the mall. people in their own home shooting and killing people more than you can imagine as a mass shooting. now just imagine if the gun silencer bill that the republicans wanted to pass had got through. where would we be with anyone walking around with a silencer on their weapon? and people continue to vote for the same people who have no concern for their issues. we need to just vote all of these people out. but you get this divide -- oh, it is a democrat, oh, it is a republican, when it is really they are all in the same boat. just like if you have a professional basketball or football player, they can be loyal to a team today, and the minute they get traded, they are

loyal to that team. and that is how all these politicians are. but these people that listen to this show, as well as i do, all they are concerned about is, oh, it is a democrat, oh, it is a republican. no, it is the people you continue to elected to office i do not care about your concerns. thank you. host: we will hear from bea calling from north carolina. how do you pronounce the name of your town? go ahead. caller: [laughs] some people can say -- [indiscernible] founded by a french man. fuque. host: somebody called from this city in recent memory, and we like to get it right, so thank you for letting us know. go ahead with your comment. what is your view of nonviolence

in your community and in the u.s.? caller: you are welcome. and actually, i have lived all over the united states. i am a registered nurse. and i would just like to say i have been attending to taking care of people that have been affected by gun violence, from infants to elderly people. and i just have a couple of quick points. i just think the people -- we should be looking at it as a country, i do not care what your political affiliation is. because we are all affected by this. and the people that really profit are the gun dealers, the representatives that are pro-gun , and morticians.

and i thank you for what c-span does, and thank you for allowing me to have my say. host: glad you called. next up is spring grove, pennsylvania. welcome. caller: hello? host: you are on the air. caller: ok, i live in a very small community. we do not really have any problems with it. but i believe you do not have to have it in your own community, you just have to turn on the tv and here it all day. i feel it is not the guns, it is the people, and the way this who le, all kids here today and people is negativity. in talking about their country, does not matter what affiliation you are politically, that needs to take -- change the narrative. having tv where there is some good news once in a while, instead of all this negativity. i think people are angry. too many people are angry, and

it is coming out in the way they treat others. host: ok, thanks for your call this morning. on her call for more good news on the networks and elsewhere, this is a report by axios, news engagement plummets as americans to out change in news engagement from 2021 to 2022, interactions on news articles down 50% cable news primetime viewers down, news media sessions down six and unique as this is on the top five news sides -- sites down 18%. engagement with news content has plunged during the first half of this year compared to the first half of 2021 per dwight it matters, they say americans are exhausted by the constant barrage of bad helen said have replaced trump crises, scandals, and tweets. they said the level of news

consumption in 2021 took a nosedive after historic highs of 2020. readers have further retrenched in 2022. back to our comments on gun violence in your community, debbie is next in las vegas, nevada. go ahead. caller: yes, i am debbie in las vegas. i have lived here many, many years. of course, we had 56 people killed who were just innocently watching a country -- at a country festival across from the mandalay bay. the guy that did that was not a young kid, mixed up kid. he was, you know, a man i think in his 50's or 60's. he was real pissed because he

was losing his fortune because he had a problem gambling. i mean, it just mainly numbed everybody because you cannot walk down the strip now without thinking about that, at least i can't. i do not want my adult children walking down the strip like it is, you know, a piece of cake now. it has become much more dangerous. every place, to me, is becoming more dangerous, and i do blame politicians for it. host: how long after the mandalay bay shooting, the massacre there, how long did it take you before you returned back down to downtown las vegas, to the strip? caller: well, you know, i am

retired. i do not ever have to go to the strip or downtown. but people that work on the strip, they have to be ready for the possibility that any big mass thing could happen. there was a protest on the strip, and a young cop got shot, and he is a quadriplegic now. i mean, just a few weeks ago downtown on the strip, a young guy, 23 years old, was shot. he was running right on fremont street and a 16-year-old shot him and killed him. so not only is his life, his parents lives, ruined, but a 16-year-old life is ruined. so you know, i get so angry at

people that take this so cavalierly. it just really fries my -- to tell you the truth. host: appreciate your calls. white plains, maryland, is next. john, welcome. go ahead. caller: hey, good morning. so our problem in our community, i live in charles county, the police are doing their jobs and arresting these people. but consistently, our judges release those individuals back into our communities with monitor bracelets on. these individuals are convicted felons who should not be in possession of firearms in the first place, and the majority of them are also caught trafficking dangerous drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamines. and the judges -- i read in our

local news at least half a dozen and the last month, that the judges continuously release back into our communities with monitoring bracelets on peer so if the judges are not going to be tough on crime and incarcerate these individuals, what will additional gun laws do? host: theresa in ormond beach, florida. good morning. caller: yes, we have had two former governors here in florida that i believe actually encouraged gun violence. jeb bush signed these danger ground law, and he had representatives of the national rifle association standing right next to him when he signed it. after that, it gave you the right to defend yourselves if you felt you were in danger. people were shooting at their neighbors if their dogs were barking. so so much for that. then you had this scott governor, he actually tried to prosecute doctors who were just warning people to be careful around the house, whether you

have a dog that is aggressive, keep your gun secured. he wanted to prosecute them for that kind of talk. right after jeb bush signed the stand your ground, i think a lot of people remember trayvon martin, the 16-year-old young black kid shot by zimmerman, a community guard, and was killed. the kid was not armed. he had a bag of skittles and a soda, and this guy just hunted him down. yeah, so we have had some really terrible governors that have encouraged gun violence. thank you. host: we can reports from the washington post, staggering scope of use gun deaths goes far beyond mass shootings. want to show you a chart that ties the correlation between the spike in gun sales and climbing deaths, the pandemic, and notable events triggered surges in gun sales.

this shows changes in both sales and deaths since 2010. if you focus on the years of the pandemic, gun sales on the orange line, up 228.2% by the george floyd protests, up 180% at the january 6 attack on the capitol, a corresponding line of firearms deaths tracks that come as well. a surgeon from uvalde, texas, talked yesterday at the white house about the impact of that attack and gun violence more broadly. [video clip] >> it has been 40 days since the massacre, and now the makeshift memorial in downtown uvalde consisting of wooden crosses, children's pictures, candles, and colorful ribbons, has been taken down. the dried white roses and sunbleached teddy bears have been taken away and stored. what remains is hollow feelings and our guts as we drive through

our streets, which quickly turns to pain and anger as we approach the grounds of robb elementary school. it is a place no one likes to visit. i am using this pain to speak to you today as a uvaldean aunt to speak for the parents and victims who seek the truth, -- and to speak for the parents and victims who seek the truth and accountability. [applause] these parents seek a safe and secure environment for their children. it has been tough being a pediatrician in a community where children do not want to return to school and parents do not want to send them there with the fear of the future attack. i see children daily with ptsd and anxiety now leading to depression. i spent half my days convincing kids that no one is coming for them and that they are safe, but how do i say that, knowing the

very weapons used in the attacker so freely available? host: some comments on twitter. this tweet, easy access to assault weapons makes mass shootings by people possible. this one says, the first thing americans can do is stop lying about gun violence, mentally ill people do not commit mass murders, only gun owning losers do. and this is after decades of gun driving debts, the latest reduction came after police decided to get tough. we need the police to stop and frisk at will, similar to roadside sobriety checks and airport checks all over america. (202) 748-8000, the line for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001 mountain and pacific. about 10 more minutes of conversation on this opening topic about the impact of gun violence in your community. john in north fort myers, florida. go ahead. caller: yes, my name is joni.

host: i apologize. caller: i completely agree with the person just before me about florida. florida has always been a big -- south florida has always been a big clan area, they have just been under the radar for a while. and now, because of trump, their back out flying their flags everywhere. you know, there is no value in grief, so the republican congress is killing us by not protecting us. they want to pass bills to protect themselves, but they do not care about the rest of the people in the united states. uvalde was, i think, the turning

point for me. because no one went in there for an hour except a mother to get children out of schools. and cruz and mcconnell now are the biggest threats to the united states citizens for not passing a bill to ban these weapons. i think the parents of uvalde, texas, should petition for the crime scene photos for their children, just like emmett to's mother did, and have them posted in every newspaper and on every news channel so that people that do not know what these weapons can do, then they will see and

understand that these people are dealing with. i am so sorry for these parents. host: appreciate the call. back to the "washington post" investigative piece on gun violence in the united states. a chart, gun deaths approaching rights of the early 1990's, saying deaths dropped in the mid-1992 from peak levels, suicides began climbing around 2005, and homicides in the 2014. the line for homicides increasing fairly strongly here towards 2020, and the rise in suicides, as well. carol is in west virginia, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. in my area, we don't have too much gun violence. we don't really have a whole lot of violence, period. but i do think that we need to look at the whole picture.

it is not the guns, it is society, in general. i think we have been -- we see so much violence. it has pretty much taken it down to where, as a society, it has become normalized. but i do think that we need to start holding prosecutors accountable, because even though some of these people that are committing the crimes, whether they are receiving that gun legally or illegally, they are being either dwindled down to less charges and the charges are not being taken seriously, and they are being released on either no bail or low bail. so if we're going to hold people accountable, let's hold everybody accountable, from the

legal gun owners that does stupid stuff with their legal guns or the illegal people that does stupid stuff with their illegal guns. host: as the president was announcing or holding the event on the white house lawn yesterday, a poll came out from the "new york times" -- most democrats do not want biden in 2024 or they were right that president biden is facing an alarming level of doubt from inside his own party, was 64% of democratic voters saying they would prefer a new standardbearer in the 20 24 presidential campaign. in a college poll, voters nationwide have soured on his leadership, giving him a meager 33% job approval rating. the president today departs on the middle east trip, and his national security adviser jake sullivan was asked about that

trip and what it might do in terms of oil prices and production. [video clip] >> the president said at nato that he would be asking about oil production, and uae has indicated the increase is limited. so what is possible from those countries if that comes up? >> first, we have already seen opec take a meaningful step with respect to an increase in production in the month of july and august, positive step. we will have the opportunity, among this very broad agenda, to talk about energy security with the leaders of the opec nations in the middle east, just as we discussed energy security on the trip in europe. and we will see what results come from that. ultimately, that will be up to opec countries to determine. so i do not have anything to say from this podium right now because those discussions are

best confined behind closed doors but we do believe there is a capacity for further steps that could be taken, and we will see how that unfolds. >> looking -- you are not asking them for a specific figure? >> all i will say is that we will convey our general view, as we have, as i have publicly from this podium, that we believe that there needs to be adequate supply in the global market to protect the global economy and to protect the american consumer at the pump. we will always advocate for that publicly and privately, and we will coordinate with leaders around the world, including the middle east come on that issue. host: a couple more calls. curtis is in virginia, go ahead. caller: yes, sir. i am a gun owner myself, and thanks for taking my call. i am hunter, and i was raised up with guns. we hunted, and i just feel the assault rifle ban, these cells

should not be made to the general public -- these sales should not be made to the general public. but i also think the problem is discipline, no discipline at home. when i was raised up, if i did something wrong, i answered to mom and dad. that has been taken away. parents have no responsibility over the children anymore, even the schools. society and the government is paying for it today. thanks. host: rick in madison, alabama. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. as the previous caller mentioned , i think there needs to be historical research on when all this goes on, and i think it happened when the school system started stepping in to give parents less autonomy over raising their children.

i think that has lead to bad consequences. also affecting communities, i think the trust among the citizens, trust among the figures that run the city's, it is eroding, no longer there. so i really think this country needs to employ psychologists to take a look at where the cause of societal breakdown is and be truthful about it. those results and solutions they come up with, i think people need to take them seriously and let go of past that is on all sides. inc. you for your call. have a great day. more ahead here on washington journal. we will hear from law professor frank buckley who will talk

about how conservatives will become the american natural party. and also ellis cose and his new book. [music] >> the january 6 committee returns for its seventh hearing. watch as they examine the role extremist groups took in the capital. watch the hearing at 1:00 p.m. eastern, c-span3 or c-span.org. you can visit our website at c-span.org/january 6 to watch previous hearings and other videos related to that day.

c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> tv, every sunday on c-span two features leading authors discussing their latest, nonfiction books. at 8:00 p.m. eastern dennis carvalho talks about the fourth amendment and the power of the police with his book, "unreasonable." and then on afterwards, kristi roem. she is interviewed by david drucker. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find the full schedule on your program guide or watch online any at book tv.org. now available at the c-span

shop, c-span's 2022 directory. you can order a copy of the congressional directory. this is your guide to the federal government with contact information for every member of congress including committee assignments. also, contact information for governors and the biden cabinet. order yours at c-span.org. every purchase helps support c-span's nonprofit organization. >> washington journal continues. host: frank buckley has been a professor since 1989 and the author of this brand-new book "progressive conservative it ." why did you write the book? guest: i worked on the trump campaign and i realize that not many people got what it was

about. it was a decidedly left of center movement in some respects. now that trump has disgraced himself and the party has to say , goodbye to trump. there were a lot of trump supporters, and i want to try to understand what that was about. i don't think the party will win another election if they all leave the party. how do you retain the ideas behind trump while saying goodbye to trump? host: the initial appeal of the former president was that he was in your terms, left of center? guest: i will give you examples, early on i told a member of his family, i am from canada. canadian medicare is better than a lot of people think. we can do better in the next day trump said exactly that. on a whole bunch of issues he

rejected what had been right wing orthodoxy. host: is he fitting this term, " progressive conservativism." guest: it is so well-known term that goes back to teddy roosevelt and dwight eisenhower who said that the party will be nothing if it is not progressive. in all of them there is a single thread that finds a certain kind of conservativism that is not well understood which is been forgotten over the past 60 years in which i think holds the key to republican victories in the future. host: could we have seen signs in former president, teddy roosevelt had to run as an independent to be a truly progressive and failed in that race in 1912. in the case of dwight

eisenhower, he was very much in favor of major civil rights legislation. government spending on the interstate highway system and caught flak within conservative members within his own party. guest: he did not have much use for that. he did not like them. he was very much a civil rights president. that was an era when people like jackie robinson were republicans. i feel nostalgic about that party in that moment. he was an extraordinarily popularity president, the most popular president in the last century except possibly franklin roosevelt. it has always been there. the gop has been a history of peaks and valleys in the peaks in my view are when it is progressive. what follows is white ring reaction. you have a blinken who is progressive and so many ways. the homestead act, education,

all of that. followed by a right-wing reaction. the republican party became corrupted. this was a. when groups were rising and politicians, democratic and republican at that point hated all of that. then came teddy roosevelt who thought, let's take a look at what these people are saying and he was progressive. what followed was coolidge republicanism. this is to be said for the progressives and for franklin roosevelt as well, what followed in the crisis of the great depression was quite

extraordinary and all over the world, people were looking at things like fascism and communism to provide employment and here we had the darker alternatives of hugh we long. we can think franklin roosevelt for that. a lot of progressive republican supported franklin roosevelt. people like henry wallace came to the administration as a republican. harold hickey. this is a trend in the republican party. it goes to the west. a way to understand this is to look at american politics versus west versus eez. progressivism rose in the west. frederick jackson turner described the progress in

american history in terms of west versus eez. east. a sense of nationhood in the west versus cosmopolitans in the east. that came to define a conservativism which we've forgotten about. it has been washed over by right wing policy. host: our guest is frank buckley , his new book is progressive conservativism. we welcome your calls. democrats your line is (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001 and four independents and others (202) 748-8002. you wrote about the party, we

have come to a dead end except for the recovery of the mystique of america's founding. theodore roosevelt, dwight eisenhower and the content they gave to our idea of the common good. you have already expressed your dissatisfaction with donald trump. who are the leaders that fit the bill in the gop today? guest: it's a lot easier to go back 60 years. i don't think you will find them in the senate. you may find them in the statehouses where governors have had to deal with real life issues. there are a ton of them right now. republicans will have to do something about abortion for example. the governor and my state, is

approximately where you want to go. the reason why you want to governor, you want someone who has had executive experience running things. senators do not have that and trump did not have that. trump presided over levers of power and he did not know which ones to pull. guest: in terms of being the progressive conservative where did donald trump go wrong? guest: he went wrong straight at the beginning. i wrote speeches for the campaign. i wrote the inaugural speech, i wrote a kennedy like speech. i read a book on presidential speech in's and listen to what was delivered and i thought well, this is going south very fast. the campaign, the ideas were not reflected in the governance. he was not much of a dealmaker. for example, the tax cut and

2017 helped to revive the economy but it is not what trump wanted. he wanted something to go after the fat cats that would take back some of the loopholes for the old true rich. he did not at that. the contours of the plan of the deal were put together by people like paul ryan. trump ran up against a right-wing congress, the opposition from the democrats. he did not have much of a chance. the guy who was elected to be a dealmaker did not cut deals. host: was he inhibited by the desires of the conservative majority in the republican party? guest: he was for the first two years. he was also a poor judge of character. he surrounded himself with

creepy people. i don't want to get into names. i think he got lost along the way. he did not quite get the message and in the end, he looked like an illiberal fellow. because i think that which is illiberal is not american. host: tell me about the how, you say that republicans will become the natural running party. what does that mean? the national governing party in the u.s.. guest: i am glad you did not emphasize well, that is wishful thinking. it would be a party devoted to the national good of all americans. in a race and gender democratic party, they have given up on that. the disappearance of the old democratic party. these were noble people, they did great things. not all of their ideas worked

out. they tried to give us a middle-of-the-road that was going to work. and it did for a while and then it floundered over vietnam, and floundered over a whole bunch of things. the republicans were never able to mount an opposition as a party looking after all americans. the republicans made some terrible mistakes going after the southern voter. the republican party gave up on its history of support for civil rights. it needs to get that back. that is where people like eisenhower had no use for people like goldwater. host: you are a professor at george mason university. the president's picks for the

supreme court, are they in the mold of the late, former justice? guest:scalia? they are in many respects. whether that is a good or bad thing depends on your point of view. we named our school after justice scalia after a $30 million gift to the school. we were happy to take the money and t is an eminent judge. as to the politics of it all i would like to make a distinction between the supreme court and that which the government should be doing. i am adjusting myself to politicians and not the justices. host: are there any potential 2020 for candidates that fit the mold in terms of progressive conservativism guest: i think

youngkin comes the closest. on abortion, which is going to be an issue for the governors at the state level. i think what the abortion decision helped do is bring moral serious to what is going on. moral seriousness means not an absolute ban. for years, the right has been saying we have far more liberal laws than they do in europe. if you emulated some of those laws in europe you would end up with the regime something like that which governors would propose which is a ban on abortion after 15 weeks. something like that. host: your calls for frank buckley are welcome. (202) 748-8000 for the

democrats, (202) 748-8001 republicans and independents (202) 748-8002. let's go to calls and hear first from dave in armstrong creek, wisconsin, on the democrat line. dave, you are on the air. caller: thank you for taking my call. you were talking about dwight eisenhower as being one of the greatest presidents. i do believe that. today's republican party, he would be considered a socialist because of the things that he did. i wanted to bring up leading up to today, the republican party and a lot of the democrats are basically in the pockets of corporations, the fossil fuel

industry especially the republicans. the court decisions leading up to citizens united where they talked about corporations being people and money being speech, which is ridiculous. probably one of the worst decisions they ever made. we need to get money and influence out of politics, especially the dark money where we don't know where it is coming from and it could be coming from out of the country. these court decisions have made the republican party especially, in the pockets of whoever their donors are. that is what i believe and i like your comments on that. guest: i agree with almost everything you said. you raise one big issue which is corruption. i said, if you think in this as

terms of what versus east. republican virtue versus republican corruption, money is a big problem in politics. the republicans are called the stupid party, and one of them is giving the issue of corruption over to the democrats. there are a whole lot of things that could reform politics. this turns out to be an issue that democrats were able to pick up on and republicans have been silent. that is a great problem. i am not sure about dark money which you referred to. that favors democrats, not republicans. here is where we should be looking. we should be looking at something all americans could get behind, not just republicans and democrats.

and that which would be progressive. is to try, through valid constitutional means, rain and some of the influence of money in politics. host: we have a call from the republican line. caller: you seem to me to be one of the most sneaky intellectuals in washington dc. i think i prefer the frank buckley of american secession. trump blue hole through the system. one question i want to know about, is the jesus party within the republican party. we are a spiritual,

philosophical section of the party. there was this idea of purity, in christ it is the old summit purification of sin. can you dovetail that into your party of the future and what the jesus party should do when talking about its role within the republican party? guest: when i spoke about republican purity, i was not thinking about religion particularly. what i was thinking about was the founders of the country in 1776 and the idea that to win this war against the british, all of us are going to think about something greater than ourselves.

republican purity meant disinterested virtue. it was not a religious phrase in any particular way and one that historians revived 30, 40 years ago. the idea of republican virtue, what we ended up with was a different kind of idea about how to govern which was called pluralism, a madisonian idea. forget virtue, we are corrupt people, the best we can do is have a bunch of people sitting around a table cutting deals with each other. because every body is at the table, the best will emerge from that. a highly naive view of american politics that has played itself out. it did not work. that left a lot of people behind. it left the deplorables

behind, we need an idea greater than that. what is the common good for all americans? i identified that as a republican virtue moment. host: kathy is out next from ohio, on the democrat line. caller: good morning, mr. buckley i am a former republican and i left the republican party because they left constitutional law, rule of and then they left high moral authority. they were never there, not for us. they decided that they would run trump o reprobate. as a born-again christian i am shocked that there are people who call themselves born-again christians who would vote for a person who is a reprobate. he is a warmonger, adulterer, thief. he colluded with our enemy and

the white house and t is an insurrectionist. how can the republican party say they have anything that is american like high moral authority? they gave it up for the worst of the worst. host: alright kathy, frank buckley? guest: i get it. the part about russian collusion is an exploded live. e. it polluted our politics for two years. in other respects i agree with you entirely. what i started to say here is that trump has disgraced himself. certainly after january 6, the party can have no use for him. even before then, even before january 6 there were terrible problems with the

administration. i agree with all of that. all i will say is that walking into it, and 2016, even with the history that he had prior to that point, his ideas represented something new and it was those ideas that i thought deserved to be taken seriously and supported. host: i want to get your thoughts on some reporting from the new york times so we mentioned earlier, this janne sienne poll. gop voters have two minds about trump. a college poll says that his post presidential quest to consolidate power has left in weekend with half the primary voters seeking someone different for 2024. a significant number bowing to

abandon him. guest: it i hope he does not run. it would ensure the defeat of the party. he has disgraced himself in the party can have no use for him. they somehow have to present platform that represents the ideas that he brought to the party. that is the trick. host: it is a pretty strong chance that republicans could take over the house of representatives. what kind of progressive conservatism platform or ideas would you like to see them put forward given that it will be a divided government? guest: in some respects it would be progressive and in some respects it would be conservative. on the progressive end, a great majority of americans would like to see catastrophic medical insurance at the national level.

that would be superior to obamacare, that would cure a lot of problems that people had. every conservative party supports that. as to what would be more conservative, a reform of our immigration laws. the model there was the point system adopted in canada and exported to australia. the idea behind that is, when we admit people to our country, let's do so on the basis that we are making americans better off. once you do that you can become more generous in respect to refugees. we do an extremely poor job and .

i'm not trying to put down immigrants in any kind of way. host: choices on the independent line. caller: i don't believe the republican party should be the natural party of this country. they don't know how to negotiate with people other than themselves. they worked 40 years to get the supreme court a conservative court. i truly don't believe that by me being a person of mixed blood, part native american and part black. i really don't think that is going to happen. they don't even want us to vote. if they turned back all of this stuff, they will turn back brown v. board of education. guest: i don't think they will

go there. that would be crazy. i guess that is why i get nostalgic and harken back to dwight eisenhower when we had a different republican party. what i am doing is taking on all of the big thinkers in the republican party who are solid right-wingers. these are people who were never trumpers and they are trying to snap back to the way we were. and i am saying, not let's go back to six years ago. let's go back to dwight eisenhower when the republicans where the progressive party. i think that is possible. i don't know if it will necessarily happen. i agree, you have reasons to be

skeptical but i hope we can overcome that. host: to joseph in fredericksburg, virginia on the republican line. caller: good morning mr. buckley. there are no big thinkers that are never trumpers. all those people are gone and they have been discredited. i just heard you talking about the scalia school that you represent and they got a $30 million gift so that is why they call it the scalia school. with amy coney barrett, gorsuch and cavanaugh and whether you like them or you don't. how can you not like the conservative court that we currently have? kathy who called to calls ago, john mccain did not win.

george h w bush lost to bill clinton. jeb bush, ted cruz they did not win. donald trump won. it sounds like you would rather have hillary clinton. this is no disrespect to you, you are not a doer. you are a talk abouter. donald trump beat every single conservative president running. he crossed all of them ntb the clinton machine. host: we will get a response from our guest. guest: i worked on the trump campaign and i was happy that he won and i am happy with the supreme court picks that he has. i don't think i disagree with you.

as to those big thinkers, i guess to i am referring to are the people in the big inc. tanks in the magazine still getting their money from donors. what there is not, is anything like a trump movement. i am trying to articulate the trump ideas within the niche that attracted all this people in 2016. as you put it, i am a talker not a doer. host: a tweet saying, trump was the only politician who was successful alien air before arriving in d.c.. -- successful billionaire before arriving in d.c.. you work for him, where did i go wrong? where was the moment that you said i can't support this guy

anymore? guest: certainly january 6 but even before then i didn't see it going and a good direction. trump had made some bad choices with the choices he appointed. some of the strong people, madd ox, he could not get them to agree with him. he did not create an atmosphere where people got along. he surrounded himself by acolytes who were obsequious to him. i agree that what he brought in 2016 was something extraordinary and he ran against 16 other people for the nomination and all of them were your ordinary right-wingers.

and he was different, that was what was great about him. he was in the mold of eisenhower at that point in my view. host: we will hear from don in crystal lake, iowa on the republican line. caller: i am calling from northern illinois. i appreciate you joining us. this is my first time calling in. i am a solar radio astronomer and physicist and i am concerned that the republican party as it has turned into over the past few years is no longer the party of engineers and scientists and persons working forward. it seems to be a party that wants to go backwards in time. i am concerned that educated ladies like myself who are in the sciences and engineering and

in space industries. are going to be pushed out by the hostility towards women, the misogyny that i am experiencing in the intellectual pursuits of engineering. i think surgeons are also getting pushed out. we feel as if the hostile, religious right has no place for science and engineering and that is an uncomfortable situation. thank you for coming on board and i appreciate your time. host: when did you start to feel this way in the republican party y? when did you start to

notice this? caller: i attended president trump's inauguration. i was a of jeff sessions because i am in favor of law enforcement and i am concerned about illegal immigration and the lack of security at our borders. i am a crime victim. i suffered a home invasion by an illegal alien from mexico and i have been warning people about the criminal threat. i supported jeff sessions, not just donald trump. i became very disillusioned when donald trump brought people into his circle that seemed to me, disreputable and not people i would want governing. host: i will let you go there and hear from our guest.

thanks again for calling in. guest: i agree with a lot of what you said except i have not had that sense of animosity toward science and technology to the extent that it exists, it is simply crazy. i also appreciate what you said about jeff sessions who was my ideal of the statesman. an honorable guy, and by the way a good example of trump's problems. jeff was an old-fashioned southern gentleman and donald trump could not appreciate that. host: let's hear from jonathan and grand prairie, texas on the democrats line. caller: good morning professor buckley, thank you for taking my call. even though i am a democrat i do

have some republican views in regards on some of the policies that i think are inclusive of all citizens. this is a comment more than a question, previous callers were asking about when you saw a change in the american psyche and i have to say for me as an african-american from a multiracial family. it started when barack obama, there was a racial undertone with people not wanting an african-american family is first family. with trump knocking off 16 candidates, there seem to be a

strong racial undertone. the republican party has to do a lot of work in terms of their image. seeing january 6 was really heartbreaking. when you see the rest of the world seeing what our democracy is like, i feel like it is downhill from here. we have seen attacks on asians after covid, the way the president handled covid. things of that nature don't seem to be good for the country. i am hoping we get moral leaders in both parties going forward. thank you for taking my call. guest: i can't disagree with you in anyway. i would like to, but i can't. to digress a little bit, when i

talk about eisenhower, i admit i am older than some people. i can remember cap whistles and coonskin caps and people say it was not such a rate time for women and african-americans. then you want to go back and say, who was on the right side of the issues at the time? there was something else about the 50's, there was a sense that for everybody it was getting better. sadly, we have missed that. this really important pole that was taken in 2014, people were asked, do you think your kids will have it better than you do? most americans said yeah, that is the american ideal. in 2014, they said no.

that was huge. one of the issue in american politics is class politics. our sense that our kids will not have it as well off as we did because we have become a bit of an aristocracy. that has been a huge issue. i thought it was something trump would take on. what do you do if it is a class society? if you want a mobile society, you have to move to another country. host: every year gallup does the poll, are you proud to be an american? pride and republicans were at a new low, what role does patriotism and i guess you could

say nationalism have in the republican party these days? guest: in terms of the answers on those poles i think you can blame president biden and president trump. trump is a nationalist, there is a nationalist movement right now in american politics. i don't think a lot of people get what it is all about. if you are an american nationalist, you subscribed to the idea of the founders. that which is not liberal is not american, you must believe in the provenance of liberalism that the founders believed in. the second thing about nationalism, if you are a nationalist you feel a bond of sympathy with everybody else in the country. to be a nationalist means to

prefer americans to non-americans. you don't say we don't care about non-americans but you have a preference for americans. that means you will support a decent welfare system for all americans. that is something that should not be controversial. a lot of people will call themselves nationalist, they are just right-wingers who don't like welfare policies. host: we will go to connecticut on the independent line. caller: i agree with you on eisenhower. i think he is one of our last, great presidents. i have always thought that trump was a buffoon. i voted for him and against the clinton collection. biden is the poster for term limits.

i am a proud american but i am not proud of where our government is. guest: i understand the term limits movement, my problem is a little different. my problem is not how long they stay, my problem is that they never seem to leave washington afterwards. they will just move from washington to k street. host: that is a problem for both democrats and republicans. interestingly enough, ted cruz and aoc suggested a lifetime ban. i think that is great. lifetime ban on serving as a lobbyist after you leave congress.

host: the book is "progressive conservatism," frank buckley thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: we will be speaking with ellis cose and his new book. that is up next. >> if you are enjoying book tv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on our screen to receive a schedule on upcoming programs. book tv, every sunday on c-span2 or anytime online a book tv.org. television for serious readers.

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 to watch the latest videos of the hearings, briefings and all of the coverage on the attack and subsequent investigation since january 6, 2021. we will have reactions from members of congress and the white house as well as journalists and authors talking about the investigation. go to c-span.org/january 6 for a fast and easy way to watch when you cannot see it live. at least six presidents recorded conversations in office. here many of those conversations during season two of c-span's podcast, "presidential recordings." they are 100% unfiltered. the main thing is, my heart goes

out to those people. as i am you know, i tell you, if i could have spent a little more time being a politician and less time being president i would've known what they were doing. find presidential recordings wherever you get your podcast. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us next from new york sitting is ellis cose, author of a dozen books including his newest, race and reckonings from the founding fathers to today's disruptors. your new book examines the link between race relations in america and past and present

injustices. what kind of historical incidents do you touch on in the book? guest: let me make a point before i address that question directly. when i began this book, it was my intention to write a book about why in 2016 the united states decided to make someone like donald trump our president. i started with an idea that would have to do with communications, the ideas of truth the political dialogue. it has a lot about that in the book. i also concluded that it had a lot to do with race. the trump presidency owes its existence to racial fears and racial anxieties to a large extent. the book became a book that in large measure looks at our

approach to race and ethnicity from the beginning. beginning with the arrival of the first ships from africa and the 1500s and going through the. where was being decided whether the united states would have slavery or indentured servitude. going to the earliest periods of discussions about the constitution and how slaves would be treated in the constitution in many different ways. looking at the approach to native americans, the policy of indian removal. it looks that the civil war of course, the reconstruction and how america missed a great opportunity to be a multicultural society in that era because it eventually went

back more or less to the way it was even though it was slavery without the name of slavery. it looks that world war i and the frustration of black soldiers in the riots that sprang up in the aftermath of the war when the soldiers demanded to be treated as human beings. the treatment of immigrants in naturalization. we started naturalization law in 1790 that required people to be free and white to become naturalized citizens. any of number of people, including the asian exclusion act, why we entered the japanese and not the italians and not the germans. it looks at the modern civil rights movement and how that came about. the obama presidency, the impact of that all the way to the trump presidency and beyond.

it was a wise sweeping book that attempts to make sense out of why this issue of rays has been so primal in the united states, and it has been. the civil war was fought over slavery which is a question of race. host: this gets to why despite divisions that spread back before lincoln, all-american share a cultural identity and belief in liberty. we also have a history of separateness, marginalizing those who are not white and shrinking from interracial equality. we are engaged in a war over that history but what vision of america will prevail? the one that accepts all americans that is equally

entitled to sedition ship. have you answered that question? guest: we will eventually get to a place where we have a multicultural, multi-racial society. it will take us a while to get there. we are still dealing with the contradictions that began with thomas jefferson's when he declared all men work created equal. all men except these men. these men meaning african-americans, these native americans who were not created equal. the united states has struggled with that issue from the beginning and continues to struggle. the fact that the trump presidency got its wings because he so strongly attacked barack obama and tried to make him into a noncitizen of the united states and came down the

elevator attacking mexican and immigrants. it is an indication of how strong that sentiment is. i think it is an extremely strong sentiment to accept america as it is, not from our old-fashioned notion of america. host: you mentioned thomas jefferson, there was a headline that tours of monticello have gone woke. the message that you are trying to get out with that? guest: i think what it means that people are acknowledging the reality that thomas jefferson was a slave owner. in our version of history, a lot of people in areas of the south are trying to teach an authentic racial history. they want to gloss over the

imperfections and people. thomas jefferson was a genius but he was also racist. that is rather blunt, but that is the reality. he owned slaves, he thought blacks were closer to orangutans than white men and thought they had no place in american society. acknowledging that is not degrading to thomas jefferson, it is simply acknowledging reality. there are a lot of people who don't want to accept it. they want to make the civil war into something that it was not, which it was over slavery but rather states rights. this tendency in southern states to stop teaching about race at all. banned books, ban beloved

which was based on a true story. host: your book comes out today, the publishing date today. "race and reckoning." . any concerns on your part about your book not being taught or being banned in some jurisdictions? guest: i think it is possible that it will be and that is the place where we are. the book is also an analysis of that phenomenon and why we seem compelled, at least some of us to want to do this and bury this history. my argument is, if you bury this history, you don't really understand america at all. you don't understand why there are still ghettos, still

segregation, why americans still respond to speech that is racially polarizing. the idea that you can solve that by simply ignoring it strikes me as nonsense. that's like saying you can solve pollution by using technology that exist. you actually have to deal with it. host: author ellis cose is our guest. the lines are (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans and for independents and others (202) 748-8002. you told us a moment ago that initially, this was not the book you started out to write but it is become a history book. did you find the stories that you researched and wrote about

that were new to you or had not known about before? guest: there were certainly a lot of new facts that i had not encountered before. the story that i just mentioned about peggy as a real person in toni morrison's beloved. i found the reaction to her trial after she killed her daughter. the child she killed was not her only child, whether they would be forced to go back into slavery as well. there were a lot of new facts that i learn. i have been writing for a long time and i have done histories of immigration, histories of the american press. i've a pretty good grasp of american history but there are still things i learned. host: more broadly, you report on things like the internment of the japanese and other incidents

of populations that have been marginalized and abused in this country. guest: the internment of the japanese is interesting. they were model citizens, but once the war started, things became very polarized. partly because they were concentrated largely in california and washington state. but mostly because they were perceived as different. it was easy to make them scapegoats for the war and to return there was some kind of threat populated by the japanese. the general who was in charge of japanese interment essentially made up stories about sabotage that the japanese.

stories about sabotage japanese committed out west, none of that was true. absolutely none of that was true. we did not do that with other enemy aliens like italians and germans because it didn't seem right to do it to those people. host: we go first to marry in louisiana on the republican line. caller: hello? host: you are on the air. caller: mr.cose i am 76 years old. when i went to school, school was integrated. this needs to be told. the whole truth about slavery is

not being told. there was many black people owned slaves that had been slaves themselves. not only did black people own slaves, american indian owned slaves. guest: that is all true. caller: they want to make everybody think that the only people who own slaves was white people. i go all the way back to 1719. i voted democrat for years, all the way up to 2008. i went to the library and checked out books. host: we will let you go and let ellis respond. guest:there's native americans o

owned slaves. there were also native americans who became slaves, and the united states for a while thought for a while it might have a number of native american slaves. but native american indians could escape and find refuge much easier than blacks could. one of the more interesting court cases that i came across was a case of a former indentured servant who was black who had won his freedom and got some land and some money, and actually ended up enslaving people himself and went to court to force somebody to work for him. so you certainly had these cases where there were blacks who enslaved blacks and native americans who enslaved blacks as well. i'm not quite sure with the caller's point was, but that's our history. it was never a predominant fact

that lacks were -- blacks were enslaving blacks. there were very few who did that, but it did happen. host: debbie, the democrat line. caller: good morning. mr. cose, mr. cose, mr. cose -- i love what you are saying. the whole thought i had is from when mr. buckley was on -- no, the people in this country need to tell the truth. the truth will set you three. -- set you free. who was it who said they can't handle the truth? that's why they are banning books. guest: i think that was jack nicholson, but yes. caller: i have to say, when i see these documentaries, mary, i

see where everybody had slaves except the slaves. i just saw a documentary on the university of virginia. where it was, you know, under the regime of thomas jefferson, you know? guest: yes. caller: he told folks, don't bring slaves. we have slaves for you here. but no one wants to know that, even though i believe they know that. they don't want anybody else to know it. mr. buckley, he was supporting glenn youngkin -- you know why? they just had glenn youngkin on the other day and he did everything he could not to admit that they sabotaged the election using books to make folks think.

every time their children have some kind of conscience, don't make people think they have responsibility. we all have the responsibility to tell the truth. host: ok, debbie. we will give ellis cose a chance to respond here. guest: it's unfortunate that you have a lot of politicians who want to, in effect, burn books, bar the truth about american history because they think their rationale, it will make white students feel bad -- that's just idiotic. it's teaching ignorance. you certainly can teach these subjects in a way that is very clear. you are not blaming the students, young students had nothing to do with any of this. so the idea that students, high school students can't handle this kind of knowledge is

ridiculous. the whole point of education is to learn reality, to learn facts, to have yourself challenged in ways that you weren't being challenged elsewhere. so, you know, this approach to education which insists on burying our heads in the sand strikes me as anti-intellectual and stupid. host: who are the -- i should say, who are today's disruptors in the subtitle to your new book? guest: well, the principal won of course would be donald trump -- principal one of course would be donald trump and all of his supporters. the january 6 committee will have one of the chief hearings today and focus on some of these disruptors. the people who want to destroy democracy in pursuit of a vision

of america which is outdated and makes no sense -- those are the disruptors i am talking about in the subtitle. host: let's hear from barbara in new york city on the independent line. caller: good morning. good morning, mr. cose. i want to refer back to your previous book, democracy, we can keep it, by the aclu. did you read the 6-3 decision by the supreme court, in which the court held a violation of the miranda rule does not provide a basis for claims about deprivation of rights, specifically the fifth amendment? and my other question is coming yesterday in new york city, the department of emergency management started running a public service announcement on what to do in case of a nuclear attack. guest: you are right. caller: how likely do you think

it is that president biden and the democrats are considering to declare war on rest and will use that as an excuse to cancel the midterms? thank you. guest: that's a huge question. i certainly cannot see into the mind of president biden, but he has made it very clear he does not want to go to war with russia, so i can't imagine him declaring war out of total surprise to win votes, especially when the united states does go to war, the president in office tends to benefit from that politically, at least initially. in terms of the supreme court and where it is headed now, yeah. i am not going to comment directly on that decision, but i will say in general, you have a court that wants to undo a lot of what the warren court did. we have a court that wants to undo a number of previous courts -- what a number of previous

courts did and they now have the power to do that. i think they are going to proceed in doing that to the best of their ability. host: you mentioned the january 6 hearing coming up today, 1:00 eastern, on the c-span network, by the way. a new headline from the new york times, raskin faces a moment in a five-year crusade against extremism. he will lead some of the questioning today. they quote him in this article about the charlottesville unrest and civil disturbance down there, the attacks that happens down there. charlottesville was a rude awakening for the country, mr. raskin said in an interview, rattling off the list of deadly hate crimes that had taken place before the attack on the capital. there are a number of young white men getting hyped up on racist provocation and incitement. what is your perspective on the incident that day, 2017, in charlottesville. guest: it came out of the same

set of issues we are talking about. the young man who organized the march on the other protesters in charlottesville, interestingly enough, was a former obama supporter. he somehow learned or it had been taught to him that african-americans -- not african-americans, but minorities were projected to become the majority of the population, and he transformed himself into this little white rights person. it's interesting, on a personal level, that he could do that. but where this fits in is we have had a pattern in this country. when there are advances in racial progress, people get concerned about that. we saw that most emphatically in post reconstruction, when the enslaved people became freemen

and the south went crazy, and ultimately managed to kick out the troops that were overseeing reconstruction. then there was the dramatic compromise that ended up with hayes as president. we have a history that sort of precedes all of this stuff, but clearly, and the previous caller talked about it, interestingly enough, the virgin -- virginia chapter of the aclu was actually the agency that brought the suit that allowed the march to go on, where it went on come because the aclu has always held that all things should be protected, even hate speech, and acting on that principal, they

did that. but the caller is right and the implication that we have seen in the last few years, an increase in hate crimes, un-increase in the growing community of people, largely online but elsewhere as well, who dwell on rage and resentment. that seems to be an unfortunate reality of the racial history and our legacy. host: next up is bryce in spokane, washington, republican line. caller: i am from spokane, washington, and i have a question about the tulsa riots. in 1922 under harding as president, didn't the national guard step in to help aid the citizens who were having their rights trampled on after the riots broke out and racial tensions were higher than ever?

guest: that's what the national guard and the other troops who were sent in to tulsa were very controversial -- they essentially joined the rioters and became part of the crowd that was destroying that community. for those that aren't familiar with the tulsa riots, it basically came about because there was a very affluent or relatively well if you -- well affluent black community in tulsa called black wall street. one day, the rumor got started, not clear whether it is true or not, but the rumor got started that a black youth on an elevator had offended somehow the female elevator operator, the white female elevator operator. that blew out of control in the

newspapers, they were printing a story that made it seem like an attempted rape. the next thing you do, there was a crowd that gathered, the young man was arrested, a crowd wanted to pull him out of jail and lynched him. some black individuals showed up to protect him, there was gunfire, and in very short order, the whites decided to march on the black community and simply destroy it. the role of officials, police and other officials in that case, it's very controversial. the evidence seems to indicate that they became part of the rioters. host: we will hear from jerry, next up on the democrat line and sewall, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning, mr. cose.

i have a couple of questions for you. margaret sinner, who was a democrat, who started the abortion movement, to get rid of all blacks. that was a democrat, ok -- guest: i don't really agree with that, but she was very active in terms of -- ok. caller: yes, absolutely. now, i could be wrong, but you can straighten this out for me -- most abortions are done by black people. you can straighten me out on that and give me ratios about how many blacks are eliminated. now the other question i have -- host: gerri, give ellis cose a chance to respond on that. caller: i don't want you to hang up on me, i want to ask another question. guest: i will say, it is true

that unfortunately, blacks have more abortions than whites do, but the idea that most abortions are performed on blacks or done by black physicians is not true. host: and you have an additional question? caller: yes, here is the question i am going to ask you. you know, this is a bashing thing on trump, really. i am a registered democrat. i am a true trump supporter. i have never seen a man try to do more for black people. he got people out of jail, he rectified some things to get people who were incarcerated, the length of time, he got out of -- got them out of jail, tried to raise their salaries and get them upgraded. when i look at the democrats, their whole thing is welfare keeping the black man down, keeping them in certain districts and putting them in certain areas --

host: all right, any further response? guest: well, from's son-in-law work for criminal justice reform, so that is true, but does that mean he did more for blacks than anybody else? i think it would be hard to justify that and i don't see what the basis of that conclusion would be. host: you have a piece that touches on some of these themes. the title is, democracy crisis existed in america long before trump. how do we fix this? we must recognize that our task is not to keep our democracy, but to create one. what is the meaning there, by creating a democracy? guest: for most people, the idea of a democracy is one person, one vote society.

where all votes are equal. unfortunately, in america, and this goes back to the structure of the constitution, we don't have that here. the clearest example i can give is in the senate, where each state, whatever its size, has two people. that was one thing in the old days, back in 1789, 1787, when this idea was brought up, at that point, the largest state of america was virginia and the smallest state was delaware. depending on whether or not you counted enslaved persons, virginia was either nine times or 12 times the size of delaware. now, you have a situation where california is 67, 68 times the size of wyoming, but you have the same weight.

these states have the same weight in the senate. the senate is automatically an anti-democratic institution, because it gives disproportionate power to a handful of small states. but the same mathematics that underline the senate also underline the electoral college, which is based on the number of senators and number of representatives. so you have in donald trump and also prior to that, in george bush, you have minority presidents. you are going to have more because the system is such that that's what it creates. the senate, of course, is the body that approves the supreme court justices. so as long as the senate is so contorted away from what the majority of americans want, you will have supreme court justices

who don't conform to what most americans believe. that's not really my idea of a democracy. it's my idea of something else. i think that because we are -- and this goes back to the comment i made earlier -- i think that thomas jefferson and the other founders, many of them were geniuses. they were brilliant people. but they couldn't see working in 1787 what affects their work would have on a society in the year 2022. the reason they allowed us to amend the constitution, although they made it difficult to do, is because they realized they could not foresee the future. i think the assumptions they made about how america would grow and what kind of a country we would be have created a society that will now have a very frustrating time, because you will have a supreme court out of touch with society, a

senate that is largely out of touch with society, and a society where many average people don't think their vote counts anymore. we have to figure out how we are going to solve this problem. host: ellis cose has a long career in journalism, he has also written several books, his latest is "race and reckoning." we will go next to paul in indianapolis. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. mr. cose, i'm looking forward to buying your book. i love history, since i have retired it is mostly what i do, and there are several questions i have in relation to that. guest: sure. caller: this whole issue of race, ever since i gotten to "this hallowed ground," i realized race was a key issue in

the united states. but slavery seems to be unique. china and india did not get rid of slavery until the middle of the 20th century. guest: right. caller: but it seems that scientific racism, social darwinism, whatever you want to call it is far more responsible for the mess we are in now. we are thinking about people's skin color indicating the degree to which they are involved, if you put it that way. it's something charles darwin came up with end in 1920 was considered to be as good science as climate science is now. don't you think we need to sort of refocus our efforts on correcting this mess? it's not so much based on slavery as a false academic theory that totally disproves what we now know about dna. guest: i agree and i disagree.

i think certainly, science of eugenics, which came to the fore in the late 1800s and early 1900s in this country, and started, originated in europe, basically, was a science that was designed in effect to prove that certain races were superior to others. it's based on total nonsense. people today know that. but the link between, there have been many nations that had slaves that did not have slavery based on race. i agree, it's not an inherent connection between race and slavery, but in the united states, having declared that all men were created equal, we cannot justify slavery unless you make the argument that these men who were being enslaved were not really men.

at least not men in the same way. so you had a lot of theories about race that came into play in order to justify slavery. i agree, there is not an inherent connection between slavery and race, but in the united states, the connection was made immediately and in an attempt to justify something that otherwise would have been unconstitutional, illegal, and totally immoral. that sling -- that's lingered in our society. you can point to many societies that had slavery that was not race-based. one does not necessarily imply the other, i agree with that. host: let's hear from ron in annapolis, maryland on the republican line. caller: ok. mr. cose, let's talk about the present time, right now. guest: ok. caller: a little bit about history, to show you where we

are at. in 1965, a small group of guys got together and set up hud, then they went to detroit, chicago, l.a., every major city and bought the worst sections of land. they financed, developed them, and to this day, own and manage the section eight projects, where 70% of blacks are concentrated, and hellhole projects worse than the days of slavery. today, blacks are murdering, robbing, and killing each other. and, and so, the 30% of blacks in this country, that includes you, oprah winfrey, barack obama, the educated, they are doing fabulous. you have multibillionaire blacks -- kobe bryant was worth $600 million when he died. more than any country in the world. so what are you doing about the

70% that are living in these hellhole projects where these young boys, they either end up getting shot or going to prison? do you know what barack obama and biden did for eight years to help the blacks? try nothing. go out on the streets and asked blacks who are walking around -- what did biden and obama do for the blacks? host: ellis cose? guest: i would have to look this up. i am pretty sure 70% of blacks do not live in section eight housing, but there is some truth to that, which is that a huge proportion of blacks still live in very segregated housing, some of it subsidized by the state, some of it is not. there is a long and contorted history of why housing for blacks and whites is so different. it doesn't start with obama and biden and those people, it

starts with the decision made by the united states and maintained by the u.s. government to segregate society and relegate blacks to some of the worst neighborhoods. the housing projects, which came in the aftermath of world war ii, were segregated. there was very different housing made for whites then was made for african-americans, and we are still living with the consequences of that. the society we live in was segregated, so i don't think you can blame this on democrats. i don't think you can blame it on republicans. i think it's a result of our unfortunate history of marginalization, where we are marginal and -- marginalizing people. the only way to fix that is create a society where people will be cooperative and he will education. we are far from that. one of the many reasons we are far from that is because in this

country, unlike in many other countries, education is financed locally, which means if you live in a poor neighborhood or poor city, you are likely to have a much worse education than someone living in another city. we can talk for hours about intergenerational wealth and why so many african-americans had nothing to pass on to their children, whereas that's not the case with most whites. i think that's a very complicated discussion, it's not just about a few politicians and not about democrats and republicans. host: here is mike in deerfield beach, florida, democrat line. caller: yes, hi. here in desantis' florida, desantis and trump said we must be willing to die over crt. do you know who else died over crt? mlk. we can't teach that.

i am a teacher here. but we have 1500 new -- in the country with one million members that under supreme court law that are allowed to ban caucasians. in fact, you cannot have a non-caucasian wife. the reason is because of eugenics bias of the first libertarians back in the 1860's, which you spoke about earlier, the source of this racism, herbert spencer and dalton to justify slavery on the basis of science, so that evolution optimizes survival of the fittest. my direct question to you is this -- are you aware that the same things on -- the think tanks on the right and left do not understand this science? evolution is not optimized, number one, and number two, it does not look like competition, it looks like cooperation. they did not know this in the 1860's, but this is a deep

eugenics lie, which is why we allowed millions of people to die of covid, where the -- said half of those were preventable. it's why cpac got together as a group and said, we need to target school boards to push our southern white racism, they basically came out and said that, because they want the freedom to be racist. they want the freedom to be misogynistic and the freedom to be --. host: ellis cose, your thoughts? guest: i agree race is not a scientific category. scientists who deal with dna and realized for a long time -- i realized for a long time that race is not a scientific category. so they are simply a reflection of people's biases and

prejudices. what's also interesting, the increase in dna testing and the ability of people to do it, what we are discovering, a lot of people who thought they are white are not quite white by the american definition. a lot of people who thought they were black are not black. the whole categorization of race as science is total nonsense. i will just leave it there. host: to san diego, one more call, nelson on the independent line. caller: yeah, wow -- that last republican caller is why i am no longer republican. what he said about the black community, it could be said about the predominantly white state of west virginia. most people their get the wealth and everything -- my remark is

how the religious part plays into this -- i commented on this last time. people do not know how much evangelicals push the white replacement conspiracy theories that motivated the buffalo shooter, the charleston church shooter, the pittsburgh synagogue shooter, the sikh temple shooter. in california, john mccarthy totally took the side of the neo-nazis after charlottesville. there were three hours on c-span, he had on his show katie cox field from england saying why people will be so persecuted they have to move from state to state. host: we will wrap it up there. do you touch on america's religious community that all in your new book? guest: only in the sense that i make the point that the part of the rewriting of the history of the civil war was to make it a

fight of northern heathens in essence invading the south. i don't tap on the current religious situation in regards to race or anything else. host: the book is "race and reckoning." the author's ellis cose. thank you for being with us this morning. up next on washington journal, it is open forum. your chance to weigh in on any political or public policy issues. the lines stay the same. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. go ahead and dial and we will get to calls momentarily. >> listening to program on

c-span through c-span radio just got easier. tell your smart speaker, play c-span radio, and listen to washington journal daily at 7:00 a.m. eastern, important congressional hearings and other affairs throughout the day. at weekdays at 5:00 and 9:00 p.m. eastern, catch washington today for a report of the day. listen to c-span any time. tell your smart speaker, play c-span radio. c-span, powered by cable. >> the january 6 committee returns for its seventh hearing. watch as they examine the role extremist groups play in the attack on the u.s. capito and their relationship with the trump white housel. watch that at 1:30 eastern on c-span3, c spend -- c-span now, or c-span.org. you can also visit the website to watch previous hearings

related to that day. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the u.s. response to russia's invasion of ukraine. bringing you the latest from the president and other white house officials, the pentagon, and the state department as well as congress. we also have international perspectives from the united nations and statements from foreign leaders, all on the c-span networks, the c-span now free mobile app, and c-span.org/ukraine, where you can watch the latest videos on demand and follow tweets from journalists on the ground. go to c-span.org/ukraine. washington journal continues. host: open form until 10:00 a.m. eastern. (202) 748-8000 is the line for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. for independents and others,

(202) 748-8002. we should be seeing more images later today from nasa, the web space telescope -- webb space telescope. president biden was at the unveiling of the first images from that space telescope. here it is. [video clip] >> as an international collaboration, this embodies how america leads the world not through power, but the power of our example. a partnership with others. it symbolizes the relentless spirit of american ingenuity and shows what we can achieve. what more we can discover not just about what's in place, but our own planet and climate, like nasa's earth system observatory we launched last year. that's why the federal government must invest in science and technology, more than we have in the past. the images will remind the world

that america can do big things, and remind the american people, especially our children, that there is nothing beyond our capacity, nothing beyond our capacity. we can see possibilities no one has ever seen before. we can go places no one has ever gone before. you have heard me say over and over again, america is defined by one single word -- possibilities. possibilities. i want to thank the team and nasa for once again showing that's who we are. that's who we are as a nation, a nation of possibilities. let's take a look at the first image from this miraculous telescope. [applause] nasa administrator nelson, i will turn this over to you. will you tell us about what you are seeing? >> mr. president, you held a

grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arms length, that is the part of the universe you are seeing, one little speck of the universe. what you are seeing there are galaxies, you are seeing galaxies that are shining around other galaxies, whose light has been bent, and you are seeing a small, little portion of the universe. you know, one hundred years ago, mr. president, madame vice president, we thought there was only one galaxy. now, the number is unlimited. host: by the way, you can see that image on all kinds of websites. nytimes.com here, and we will see more coming out from nasa

later on today. it's open forum here on washington journal. any news item you are following, public policy or political issue you want to talk about. leo and woodstock, illinois, republican line. caller: hi, i am commenting on your previous guest, ellis cose? i have written a book called unbroken -- read a book called "unbroken," and it stated that there were no japanese -- ellis cose stated there were no japanese saboteurs during the war, but there is an event in the index in the book, there is a james konichi susaki. he was captured and prosecuted,

he was a japanese informant. lewis zamforini encountered him in a japanese prison camp while he was a japanese pow. the book is "unbroken," written by laura hildebrand. i wanted to point that out. i believe that guy is a liar. he should do his research first. he stated emphatically that there were no japanese saboteurs. this man, he was in the u.s. with lewis sam ferrini and it was in the book. that's all i want to point out. host: to charlotte next up, charlotte in columbia, maryland. go ahead. caller: yes. a couple of days ago, someone called in, a white person, and said that after 400 years of being here, blacks have failed to assimilate. he's right, blacks have been here for 400 years or more, sick

-- 1619 at least. but assimilate into what? we have constructed everything we have not apparently assimilated into. who hasn't are white people, they have not assimilated into the cultural and diverse country that we are. they are failing to assimilate. as far as blacks assimilating here, we have been here. it's not like we came over and there was something for us to assimilate into. we've been here. thank you. host: kansas city is next, kansas city, missouri, paul on the independent line. caller: good morning. i want to -- prior to the january 6 committee, the dumbest thing i think i have ever heard said, there was a new employee who was given the handbook to read and when we ask them after the weekend was over if they have read the information, they

said, i read the parts i knew, but i didn't read -- i read the parts i didn't know, but i didn't read the parts i already knew. those are the people that have not watched the january 6 committee, yet call it disingenuous, unsanctioned, witchhunt, one sided. unless they watch this, they are not taking part in something that's very important to america. at this point, you either see it or you are complicit in it. the people who are denying the validity approve of this corrupt ion. that's my point. host: the hearing coming up on

our c-span networks. it begins today at 10:00 eastern, our live coverage of the senate judiciary committee, holding a hearing on the legal implications of the supreme arts decision overturning abortion rights and roe v. wade. that's on c-span at 10:00, also on c-span now. on c-span3 at 10:00, the federal transportation at -- administrator will testify on how the laws affecting public transportation -- that's on c-span3. in the january 6 committee hearing, that's at 1:00 eastern. they will look at the role of extremist groups on the attack on the capitol, and their relationship with the trump white house. montgomery, texas is next up.

we will hear from gary, the republican line. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i, i voted democrat and i have voted republican. i am currently a republican, but i am curious about why the media is constantly pounding, and i don't own a gun and i never have, and i don't really want to gun, but i think you should be able to -- they keep pounding on the nra and gun control and everything else, but you don't hear a peep about any media related things, like all these crazy videogames, the movies are filled with nothing but blood and guts, music, culture, everything revolves around violence. all you hear is people whining and complaining about people's guns. what, are they going to take away your car too? people are running people over and killing the with their cars, knives, everything. no. people need to have respect with each other and they don't.

they have lost it. host: life is next up, independent line in florida. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: my comment is basically, one, i appreciated the guests that you had. it was interesting to get their perspectives because you had mr. buckley, who gave a perspective with progressive conservatives. i heard him describe jeff sessions and others. some of the historical elements of civil rights by past presidents. then, you had mr. cose.

his basic premise is, for me, this is our history. we need to be able to say, this is our history. so, my comment is, unless and until we can acknowledge this and come to grips with our history, we are doomed to repeat it. host: why do you think it is so hard, it has been so hard for us to do that? caller: well, several factors. one is, to start to talk about it, it makes people feel uncomfortable, both those who were the oppressors or looked like the oppressive groups and those who looked like the oppressed group.

we don't talk about it in such a way, this is how we have gotten to where we are. being here in florida, several years ago, we tried to have what was called community circles to talk about race. it was a great idea, but it was disbanded because it turned into shouting, finger-pointing matches. white people came away feeling as though they are being blamed for all deals of the world. black people came away feeling victimized and so forth. that kind of rhetoric has deceased. to go into this, we are only

going to give it more life. that would be my one piece, we have to say, you know what? all black people, don't come around looking to see how they can get a handout and cry victims. neither do all white people want to oppress black people. start moving away from that kind of rhetoric that is fueled and people buy into it. that just seems where we are. i think you for your show. host: roof is in oh ciano, california. -- ruth is in ociano, california. good morning. caller: good morning. one caller called in and said blacks have more abortions -- that's what she said and you can tell me any different.

but 76% of whites and 14% of blacks -- how is it physically possible for black females to have the most abortions? also, the demographic as far as folks giving birth, whites are at a flat line. there is a small decrease for blacks having babies, -- increase for blacks having more babies and hispanics having more babies. so why do they always push this rhetoric that blacks have more abortions? the population is not growing as much as it was, there are people having abortions, but they still want to put this on the black female, that she is having the most abortions when we probably represent, like i said, it has to be less then 14%. then you look at the

childbearing age of a black female. it's just a fallacy, but can we really believe the republicans fought and paid good money to line up the supreme court to stop abortions for blacks and hispanics? it doesn't make sense. i was trying to call in earlier for the guest, mr. ellis that was on, but could not get through. that's the question i wanted to leave with all your listeners out there, is physically impossible. host: our live coverage commitments today -- we have the u.s. house later today on c-span at 2:00 eastern. the senate comes in at 10:00 this morning on c-span two, both bodies aiming to finish work before the august recess. from the hill this morning, passing sweeping government funding bills next week. the house will vote on more than half $1 trillion in spending as

leaders were to pass their annual funding bills before lawmakers are set for recess next month. in columbia, mississippi, eva on the republican line. caller: good morning. i want to ask about this fuel that he has given our gas and oil to china. who authorized this? did joe biden have the authority to do it on his own? where is the money for it, how much did we get, and isn't it kind of stupid to sell something or give it away and not try to get it back from another country? that doesn't make sense. i'm wondering what's going on. i wondered who authorized all this -- he needs to be reminded, as they reminded trump so many times, he is not a monarch. he cannot make a rule and that is it. he has to go with the law. thank you. host: richard in missouri on the

democrat line. good morning. it's open for. caller: good morning. i bought a book, an old book at a flea market and it has the constitution laid out in it. it says if you ever took the oath to defend the country -- like i did when i went in the army, every politician in office takes that name oath, i think. it says if you took that oath and try to rebel against the country, change the government or rebel against the country, you can never hold office again until two thirds of the house and senate okays it, that you can be elected again. so if these are people that rebelled on january 6, all of them congressmen and two senators, one of them is lying, they should not be in the government because they tried to rebel against the constitution. now, the supreme court, one or

two more things i want to say -- the supreme court is supposed to have nine people on it. they got nine people on it and then they got the other guys wife telling them what to do, so there's 10 people on the supreme court now. i think we should move the statue of liberty from new york harbor down to texas and face it towards mexico. for the hypocrites that don't want people to come to this country, they should just take a good look at the statue of liberty. host: all right, richard. a headline from the washington examiner, and investigative report. 100 biden payments were flagged by a bank. 100 hunter biden payments were flagged by j.p. morgan chase and 2018 and late 2019 in a report filed with the federal government. hunter spent over $30,000 on

escorts, many of them linked to .ru russian email addresses who worked with a model agency called ubergfe between november 2018 on march 2019. the washington examiner previously reported. biden claims to members of his family that he was broke during that time, but was able to make payments to the escorts thanks in part to president joe biden committing to wiring him $100,000 to help him pay his bills from december 2018 through january 2019. on the republican line in georgia, this is linda. go ahead. caller: yes, i have several things that i don't like. how they are doing the gas and -- in mexico, and there are others. they elect all these people to go to congress, the house and senate, and hunter biden, we

blame biden for a lot of stuff. i am a republican i don't really like biden, but i don't know why congress is letting biden get away with all this, whether they are democrat or republican? i also wonder how much taxes you can continue to collect to help these immigrants that are coming who only have so much money they can give. the other thing is, i do like mexico, i do like the ones that have come in contact with -- i really like them. [inaudible] but they are going to bring us down and let -- instead of letting us stay up where we can help them. thank you. host: washington journal, frank

from oakland, california. go ahead. caller: good morning, c-span, and good morning journalists and reporters of the united dates and people of the united states. i have a challenge for the journalists and reporters of the united states. why don't you start investigating and egging into what led up -- digging into what led up to the russian invasion of ukraine? there is no coverage of the historical context, what happened in ukraine, russia, and the united states prior to the russian invasion of ukraine. i say this coming from a perspective, having served in the united states air force during the cuban missile crisis and the indochina war. i worked on nuclear weapons and nuclear armored b-52s and nonnuclear b-52s. we are slowly creeping into increasing military conflict in

a proxy war in ukraine that could very easily slip into a war between the united states and the russian federation. nato, which started off at seven countries in 1948, has expanded to over 30 countries in nato. it's the largest, most powerful military alliance on the face of the earth, nato, the north american treaty organization, with nuclear weapons. now it is on the border of russia. if we put the shoe on the other foot, what happens if china had a military alliance in latin america and the caribbean and they were allied with countries there, in south america and the caribbean? gradually, over 25 years, they built their military alliance from seven countries to 15, including supporting a coup d'etat in mexico and took out a friendly government in mexico and put in a pro-chinese

government in mexico, which aligns with china and sets up nuclear missiles in mexico on the border of the united st ates. what would we say is americans? we would be quite upset, like when the soviet union put nuclear missiles in cuba. host: thank you for your call. we read this story earlier in the program, some reporting on how we are getting our news in the country these days. news engagement plummets as americans tune out, engagement with news content has plunged during the first half of this year compared to the first half of 2021, and has fallen below pre-pandemic levels in some cases. americans have grown exhausted from the constant barrage of bad headlines and trump era scandals, crises and tweets. the level of headlines took a

nosedive following 2020. news readers have firmly retrenched, from cable, primetime viewers, app usage, and unique sessions and visits to websites, they have dropped considerately in the first half of 2022. phyllis is in hammond, indiana. democrat line. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. as you said, i am in hammond, indiana, and joe biden, you know -- i feel like we are our brother's keeper. i am a democrat, republican, independent, we come together and make the laws that put the politicians to step aside, get

some true laws for this gun violence because we just can't say in the inner city, it's all over america. we need to work together and have some compassion for each other, and get some laws to save our children. save our parents. i'm not about guns -- if you want to have a gun, lock it up. keep it safe. all these high power rifles, i feel like they are not necessary. host: to stephen, next up. underwood, washington on the republican line. caller: hey, thanks for taking my call. host: sure. caller: one thing i would like to tell people, approach things with critical thinking. one example i wanted to give is this testimony by ms. hutchison at the january 6 theory area she kept -- hearing.

she kept using "words to that effect" when talking about what somebody said. instead of repeating what somebody said, she said, words to the effect of, which is, i am not going to tell you exactly what the person said. the next obvious question from the questioner would be, what did the person actually say? they never ask that, so that was suspicious. then lots of the panel was on meet the press, and she said, well, it doesn't matter if what she said was true. it match -- matters that they spoke to her and lied to her about what happened. but that doesn't make any sense. why would they have a witness come before the committee and tell something that the person who told it to her said wasn't true -- that would be like supporting perjury in my eyes. if you apply critical thinking to what we are actually hearing

people say in their testimony, and everybody skipped over this fact, she rarely told us exactly what somebody said and instead gave us her version of what she thought they meant. what someone meant could be very different than what they said. they are host: we are wrapping up the program for this morning here on washington journal. we are done for today, back tomorrow at 7:00 eastern. hope you are as well. we are going to take you next to the senate judiciary committee considering the legal implications of the supreme court rulings on abortion just getting underway live here on c-span. >> this case represents the first kind in america's history that the supreme court has revoked a constitutionally protected right. the first time. as a result, a woman's personal decision to make her own reproductive health care