floor proceedings in hearings from u.s. congress, white house events, the court, campaigns and more from the world of politics, a let your fingertips. stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for c-span tv networks and c-span radio, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. downloaded for free. your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. ♪ good morning and welcome to "washington journal." over two years since covid hit and the number of cases is going up in boston, los angeles, san diego and new orleans. city officials in some cities concerned of reinstating mass

mandates. -- mask mandates. american officials are trying to convince some who are reluctant to get the first vaccine and to wear masks in credit situations. that is the question, how worried are you about covid-19? we are going to open regional lines. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, your number is (202)-748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, your number is (202)-748-8001. you can always text us at (202)-748-8003 and we are always reading on social media on facebook at facebook.com/c-span, twitter @cspanwj and instagram @cspanwj. more and more covid-19 cases are

showing up around the united states leading some officials to wonder whether there should be more mandates and more things to be done around the country about covid-19. the wall street journal yesterday had a story about how the cases are popping up around the u.s. more than half the u.s. population lives in counties where covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are high enough people should wear masks indoors, according to the cdc data. the cdc's latest assessment represents a significant jump from the week before, adding to the pressure that the easily spread ba-5 subvariant has become the dominant strain. over one third of u.s. counties fall into the cdc's high category, up from one in five

earlier. los angeles county, the largest in the country with more than 10 million people, recently joined the list. if it stays there for two weeks, officials say they will reinstate the indoor mask mandate july 25. the white house has been talking about these increases and last tuesday the covid response team held a briefing. here is dr. jah on what americans should be doing. [video clip] >> let me walk you through key things every american should know. vaccines remain the most important tool to protect people against hospitalizations and death. staying up-to-date is essential as we see ba-5 to rise across the country.

we encourage americans to get vaccinated. those five and above should get their first booster five months after the initial vaccination. if you haven't, don't delay. do it now. getting vaccinated now will not preclude you from getting a variant specific vaccine later this fall or winter. for people who are 50 or older, my message is simple. if you have not gotten the vaccine in the year 2022, if you have not gotten one this year, please get another shot. you are eligible for your first or second booster wherever you are in your vaccination schedule. if you have not gotten the shot this year, get one now. it could save your life. my second message is we have highly effective treatments that work against ba-5, including

paxlovid. this reduces hospitalization and death by 90%. we have worked hard to acquire more of these pills than any other country in the world. we have moved quickly to make these treatments widely available at more than 41,000 locations across the country. we have built up a large network of treatment sites. let me talk about test to treat. people can walk in, they can get tested, if they are positive, they can speak with a medical provider and if eligible, they can have the prescription filled in one stop. if you test positive in the days and weeks ahead, please consult your health care provider about your eligibility for treatments. or visit covid.gov to find a treatment location where you can get tested and treated in one place. treatment can save your life.

host: let's get some basic information about what is going on with the coronavirus in the united states. let's go to the johns hopkins resource center and see where we are with the virus in the united states. according to the johns hopkins coronavirus research center, there has been more than 88 million confirmed cases of covid-19 in the u.s. and more than one million deaths in the united states since the beginning of covid-19. also, they have a vaccine tracker on their site which shows 67% of the united states population is fully vaccinated. that is more than 222 million americans. but 67% are vaccinated which

leaves a little over 30% of americans who are not vaccinated. we want to know, how worried are you about covid-19, especially as summer vacation is in swing and was school season coming up? how worried are you about covid-19? if you are in the eastern or central time zones, we want to hear from you at (202)-748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, your number is (202)-748-8001. let's start with ben calling from state college, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: hi, good morning. host: go ahead. caller: good morning. i understand the renewed anxieties in regards to the ba-5 variant. but i am also sympathetic to the

folks who, at this point, enough is enough. for folks who are immunocompromised or have some underlying condition to covid-19, i can understand extra precaution. but i hope this will not lead to more mandates, requirements, stuff like that. at this point to it a half years in -- two and a half years in, those who know how to handle it know how to handle it. that is my personal opinion. host: what happens when these numbers continue to go up? let me put the question this way. at what point do we need to get worried about covid-19 nationally? when does it stop becoming a personal problem and become a

national problem? caller: i am certainly no epidemiologist or anything like that. but from a layman's perspective, do we measure how many people get a cold every cold season? at some point we need to understand it is here to stay and we have got to move on. we cannot wait for the drop of a pin every time a new variant comes out. they are saying this might be more serious, but the media have lost their credibility. dr. fauci, i still respect him, but at the beginning of the pandemic everybody sat on pins and needles listening to what he had to say next. at this point, i don't want to say we have been fed lies, but distorted information through this whole pandemic. nobody is buying it, you know what i mean?

if a serious variant were to come about, i feel most people are tone deaf to the advice from the professionals. host: gotcha. lisa is calling from old orchard beach, maine. caller: good morning. i completely agree with the last caller. why are we continuously worrying about this? people are vaccinated. my thing is getting children vaccinated. why would you not get babies vaccinated against this? host: are you vaccinated? caller: yes, i am. host: why would you object to getting babies vaccinated since they are in the most vulnerable category? caller: i don't know, i just am.

you are putting something into a baby that is not really approved for children that young. host: i think the only shots available for children are the ones approved. am i wrong about that? caller: i don't know. i think the media are overreacting. host: what should be done? we know the number of cases are coming up in major metropolitan areas, which is where most diseases start. what should be done now to make sure it does not spread around the country, knowing that schools begin again in september? caller: to be honest, i am not sure. i live in a popular beach area.

even the canadians are here. they are not worried about it. everybody is going on with their lives and that is what we should be doing. host: let's talk to charles calling from laurel, maryland. caller: how is everybody doing? let me ask you a question. you said children are most vulnerable. most vulnerable to what? host: to death and disease. caller: no, no, no. they are most vulnerable to the infection which they handle overwhelmingly. this guy from baltimore said the object of government is to create fear and to hurt people and to make people think only the government can save them. this is all propaganda. i have lived in china. i just turned 76 years old.

i have seen this. you have got to stop coming on with all this fear information. ok, we have to protect the children the september, my lord, from a virus they handle easily. this is a form of insanity. what do they call it? mass formation. host: are you vaccinated? caller: no way, no how. we know this was not tested. there is not enough judgment on this vaccine, especially for children. host: how much data would you need before you think this vaccine is safe for you to use? caller: i would need to know some medical information to know

that most people who have even a modicum of health handle viruses easily. but you must protect the old. you must protect the vulnerable. you must protect people with comorbidities, but you cannot live in fear. have you seen what is happening in china? they are locking down 26 million people in shanghai. it is for control. i have a friend in china who says this is stupid. they have one case in his city. one case and they locked down 12,000 people overnight. host: at what point do you think we need to be worried about this in the united states? what we know for a fact is more than one million people have died the last three years from covid-19. at what point do we get worried? caller: how many have died from the seasonal virus? host: what seasonal virus? caller: the seasonal virus that

old people get vaccinated for. nh1? there are half a dozen viruses that came out of china. it came out of the wuhan lab. it came up prematurely because it was supposed to be released in 2025. that is not a conspiracy theory because i have friends in beijing that talk to me. i know people who are my friends and they tell me this is xi jinping going against shanghai. host: don calling from michigan. are you there?

tom is calling from richmond hill, new york. caller: good morning. i don't think we need to panic and i think we need to stop focusing on the number of cases. it is kind of an irrelevant statistic at this point. we should think about whether it is a severe situation. right now, we have the tools we did not have two years ago to combat this disease and its many variants. we have vaccines and if you get sick, we have treatment. you can take a series of pills to deal with the disease. this overreaction every time we get an uplift in cases needs to stop. we need to focus on the people

who end up in hospitals as opposed to people who acquire the disease. most people are this way. they acquire the disease, they have it for a few days, and then it goes away. stop talking about cases because when people hear "rising cases," that is when the panic button goes. but we are nowhere near where we were a couple of years ago. we have the tools to deal with this and we need to go on with our lives. host: since you brought the number of hospitalizations, the johns hopkins covid resource center has a map here. over the last 90 days the number of hospitalizations from covid is creeping up toward 50,000 per day. does that change your opinion at all? caller: i am not an expert. you would have to look at the number of cases and compare that to the number of hospitalizations. if you are in the hospital,

unlike before, we have a treatment regimen that can combat the disease. it is fda approved. it is very effective. again, we need to calm down and going back into lockdown is counterproductive because there is a lot of consequences associated with that that we are just starting to grapple with now after two years. so, you know, look at the numbers. stop scaring the public -- host: don't you consider the fact more than 50,000 people getting hospitalized a day, isn't that sort of a scary number? caller: you have to compare that to a couple of years ago. you just cannot look at a number and decide, this number is bad.

you need comparison. you need a frame of reference to decide how severe this is compared to the last time. i am not saying it is not a worse number. what i am saying is we have treatment options available now that mean if you do end up in the hospital, if you are treated, you are released and you are ok. the major item that we need to look at is the number of deaths. how many of those 50,000 hospitalizations a day turned out to be people who die? host: tom brought up the number of deaths. they have that chart on the coronavirus resource center where we see, over the last 90 days, the number of deaths are creeping up to 1000 per day in july 2022. that number is creeping toward

1000 per day. our question you this morning is, how worried are you about covid-19? after the past two years of lockdowns, after the years of mask mandates, are you worried about covid-19? last tuesday the white house covid response team briefing, dr. jah, who is the coordinator of the response team, discussed what americans should know about testing and masks. [video clip] >> vaccines and treatments will prevent serious hospitalizations and deaths. we also must reduce the spread of illness and we have several tools to do that. let's start with testing. as we face ba-5 here is how we think about testing. before attending a large indoor gathering, or visiting with a high risk immunocompromised individual, consider taking a test.

that is what i do. you don't want to be the person that brings covid to your grandparents for a wedding. the administration has made tests widely available. we require health insurance to cover testing at home. testing that only identifies whether you are infecting but also prevents spread. another thing that prevents infection and spread is masks. there is broad consensus in the scientific community that wearing a high-quality mask in indoor public spaces can control the spread of covid-19, prevents you from getting infected, and prevents you from spreading it to others. we have made high-quality masks highly available and we have developed community levels which have clear recommendations on when individuals should consider masking in indoor spaces.

we continue to encourage americans to visit covid.gov to find the level of spread in their community and wear masks are available. we encourage americans to follow the cdc recommendations. i want to talk about ventilation. we know improving indoor air quality by improving ventilation, putting in purifiers, they can make an enormous difference in reducing infection and spread. if you are a business or school or any institution that brings people together indoors, please work to improve the quality of that air. host: right now in the united states the ba-5 omicron subvariant is the major variant that is spreading to the country. ntr had a story about what this subvariant is like. the ba-5 subvariant, which is the most prevalent strain in the

united states, is four times more resistant to covid-19 vaccines, according to a new study. the strain, which is considered hyper contagious, is more defiant against messenger rna vaccines, including pfizer and moderna. it represents 65% of the cases from july 3, according to the centers for disease control and prevention. it is contributing to increases in covid hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care units across the country. but the vaccines still provide more protections than going against. vaccinated people have a five times -- on vaccinated people have a five times higher chance of acquiring the virus. the chances of death are 14% to 15% higher, said the head of the mayo clinic vaccine research

group. what do you think about the covid-19 pandemic? are you worried? are you going to start wearing your mask more? are you not going to wear a mask? are you going to get a covid booster? are you not going to get vaccinated at all? we want to know what you think. sheldon calling from bakersfield, california. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing this morning? host: just fine. go ahead. caller: i am concerned about covid. i understand that people are fed up with covid, i really do understand, but i don't want to catch it. this thing called long-haul covid that can affect your health further down the road, that is what i am concerned about. it can affect your health three

or four years later and is a major concern to me. also, i have older parents and i don't want to bring covid home to infect them. my job requires me to wear my mask. i have not taken my mask off and have gotten all of my vaccines. i am really concerned about covid. host: are you seeing other people wearing masks? or are you seeing people going about their daily business like before covid hit the united states? caller: in california where i am at, i see people going about their daily routine. they do not wear their masks, they walk around, they do not use social distancing. host: let's talk to bill calling

from mobile, alabama. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i wonder if this new covid scare has to do with the election being 114 days away. it seems to me biden is not accomplishing anything. begs saudi arabia for oil, gets none. inflation is 9.1%. we don't know what the true lethality of this virus is. what about the crowd coming in south of the border? the whole thing is a disgrace. host: what do you think president biden should be doing about covid-19 right now? caller: what he always does, nothing. host: but what should he do? caller: absolutely nothing.

host: you do not think the president should do anything about covid 19? caller: no, i think there are politics involved in this. host: are you vaccinated? caller: i am vaccinated with one booster but i do not think i am going to get anymore. host: how are things in alabama? are you seeing people wearing masks? are you wearing masks when you go out? are people going back to pre-covid habits? caller: they might be one out of 50 wearing a mask. host: does that worry you or do you think it is time for us to go back to the way we used to live before covid showed up? caller: i think we are going to have to live for this from now on. it will be popping up every so often. we just have to live with it. host: all right.

dave calling from valdosa, georgia. caller: good morning, jesse. i am thinking a lot about what the gentleman before me said. i wonder why it is they will not close the border. you are seeing hundreds of thousands of people coming in and they do not know who they are, where they come from. they are telling me to be careful and to wear a mask? they are the health care professionals. they don't have an opinion on that? host: what our people in georgia doing when it comes to covid-19? do you see people wearing masks? do you see people going about their daily business? is it any different than it was a year ago in georgia? caller: not many people wear masks anymore. i think things are back almost to where they used to be.

host: i am going to make a big assumption and assume you are going to be a fan of college football in the south. do you think they should have athletic events in the south where people are unmasked and gathered in huge stadiums, like athens? caller: let me clarify, i am retired. i am originally from washington state. i was a huske fan. i am the minority down here. but i do think they should be in football stadiums. i cannot take this serious, i guess, when they will not close the border and they allow millions of people to come in here untested. that is where i stand.

host: carol calling from massachusetts. good morning. caller: i agree with a lot of things that have already been said. one is the border. if they are really concerned about this -- host: are you there? caller: yes, i am. host: go ahead. caller: i am really concerned about the border and i agree with a lot of things people have already said. the little things that people have already said. if they were really concerned about this they would start protecting the people of the united states and close that folder because people are coming in from all over the world. i also think this has something to do with election like it did the last time and go back to mail-in ballots which are highly questionable. i think that has something to do with it. also the pharmaceutical companies are big contributors to the democratic campaign and

that includes president biden. and of course the more they tell people that they need vaccinations come the more it benefits the pharmaceutical companies, the more money they make. all these vaccines particularly for children have not been clinically tested. we don't know how this is going to affect our health, especially children later on. if they want to be concerned about anything, what they should do is stop the amount of fentanyl coming across the border. it's killing a lot of younger people who are going to be working age later on. we are wiping out that very important population. if biden is so concerned about this new virus, what is he doing traveling all over the world? he can find time to go to saudi arabia and that kind of

nonsense, walking around over there without a mask. but he doesn't have time to go to the border and take care of that kind of crisis here. host: he thought this increase had something to do with the upcoming elections. are you talking about the midterm elections, the presidential elections? and what do you think this virus will have on the election? >> likely did the last time. i'm not questioning -- there's a lot of feeling that people still have. i'm not crazy about trump, i am not crazy about biden. i'm an independent. i do think there was enough question about the legitimacy of the last election and the way people voted that there is question about it. it just seems to me that now that we are having an election in november, all of a sudden the

virus is rearing its ugly head so to speak. the other thing is if they start shutting down this country again because of covid and ruin businesses and everything else, we are kind of set back another two years. this is not a good move. i think they are overdoing this covid -- the other thing that happened in hospitals -- from covid. some of those things are questionable because people also died of heart attacks and pneumonia and other diseases that they had. host: let's go to alan: from washington. good morning. are you there? caller: well it's all nonsense.

if it was as deadly as old fauci said it was, all those private and all those blm riots -- riots and all those blm riots would have had many more did in portland -- dead in portland and minneapolis. -- never said a word about it, but they talk about a football game. i got millions coming from the border. if it was really deadly, all of mexico would have been -- because they sure the hell weren't -- distancing 6 feet. host: do you think -- can be deadly? caller: well the people that are

sick, my lord. they count everybody that was -- like he said, you can die of a car crash and if you happened to test for covid they call it a covid death. they did the same dam thing with smoking. anybody that ever smoked a cigarette and died was counted as a smoking death. host: are you vaccinated? do you plan to get vaccinated? caller: held no -- hell no. i'm 80 years old. i'm on vaccinated and i don't wear masks. how many people wear masks that went in the hospital? they never tell them about that. host: are you saying you've never taken any vaccine? or you've never taken the covid-19 vaccine? caller: never taken the covid

vaccine. host: but you have had other vaccines. i want to make sure i heard you correctly. caller: a long time ago. host: ok. caller: i took pneumonia once. didn't bother me. didn't do any good. host: the last caller brought up dr. anthony fauci. last tuesday at the white house covid response team briefing, dr. fauci discussed immunity to the new covid variant ba.4 and ba.5 among those who are already vaccinated. here's what dr. fauci had to say. >> it's very clear as i mentioned in my brief presentation that immunity wanes. whether that's immunity following infection or immunity following vaccine. even though the immediate protection following infection or vaccine is generally good protection.

the point made should be noted that it's good data now that if you were infected from ba.1, you don't have good protection against ba.4 and five. the reinfection rate is clear. but the overall principle is that we know immunity wanes with coronaviruses whether that is natural infection or vaccination. so if you've been infected or vaccinated in your time comes for a boost, that is when you should go and get the boost. i might say myself, having been someone who has been vaccinated and infected, when we get the next round of having vaccines available months later, i will be in line to get another boost after that. host: chris is calling from lafayette, louisiana. good morning.

caller: good morning. yes. i want to chime in on the conversation. just recently we celebrated the fourth of july. and thousands of people gathered in many places in the united states. and nobody was really talking a whole lot about masking and all of that and we watched on television the fireworks and everything. it's like doing the texas two-step. we don't know where the data comes from, who is telling the truth. dr. fauci recently has been sick and everything and he was vaccinated. it makes me want to believe sometime those vaccines don't even work. because you are getting vaccinated and you're still getting sick. we talk about school. of course we want all of us protect. the children, all of us.

the bottom line is the ones who are supposed to be the most educated in those fields can even give us i would say solid information to go with. it's like they are lying. a lot of americans feel like they are being lied to. they are being misinformed and deceived and everything and this is pathetic. and who knows about all of these deaths that we have had. are all of them really covid deaths like a caller said earlier? people can be dying of other things and they could be reporting them as covid that's because maybe the government pays the hospitals more money if you just say it's a covid death. host: let me jump in right here. your local officials in louisiana say covid-19 is surging there. here's a story from w wl channel four in new orleans. your local officials say children's hospital of new

orleans chief medical officer says right now covid-19 is surging in louisiana. i'm getting more calls, seeing more patients, hearing about more than ever before. this is nothing to play around with. it's making people sick. it's keeping people out of work. it's putting some people in the hospital. deaths of all picked up around the state. your local officials are saying this is not coming from the cdc. this is coming from your local officials in louisiana who say that covid-19 is taking up. are your local officials lying to you as well? caller: i will say this to you. you just said the key term. local officials. politicians. tricksters and all of that. they're just man. you said earlier about worry. i believe in god. i don't worry. worry is an evil -- god says if you worry, you don't even trust

in me. i keep my faith. i don't worry. you have a good day. but it's just not working, guys. host: angela was calling from doylestown, pennsylvania. caller: thank you for taking my call. i just wanted you to know that i'm a nurse. and have been working in this environment for two years. it's really sad to hear the people that you've been talking to online with the lack of trust in each other, in our hospital, scientists, doctors. and our community and our country. and i think all of this started with the last administration constantly with the lies that have come out and the misinformation that has been given and fed to people here in our country which has caused a

lack of trust with each other. and i think that's the bottom line here. covid is real. covid is changing day by day, week by week, month by month. the vaccines can't really keep up with the changes are happening with all of the different variants and the lack of trust, the lack of confidence in each other, in our community, our neighbors, our families has eroded. it's really -- it's heart wrenching. host: did you say you are an active nurse or a retired nurse? caller: i'm retired right now and i have taken all of the covid shots. because i worry about others in myself, i wear a mask when i'm

indoors in public. the gentleman before me was talking about going to the fourth of july fireworks. if you are outside, it's really not necessary to wear a mask. because the air is moving and the wind is blowing. in the variant will not be as bad as if you are indoors. if you are indoors -- this is not a political statement. people are telling you the truth. this is something simple that we can all do to help each other. they are doing it in australia and new zealand. they're doing it in other countries. our country is the worst because nobody cares about each other and it's all because of what's happened in our political environment and this is not a political thing. it is a health issue. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about whether they are

saying about whether they were worried about covid-19. here is one tweet that says, not at all. everyone but the meek or ignorant has educated themselves from the qualified reports from qualified experts. beyond the mainstream media fear mongering. especially those attached to the the biden administration. in tweet says, here in new york city it's like people don't care anymore. i still wear a mask. working in grocery retail, customers and even some coworkers look at masked folks like we are in sin. i will not get another shot. one final tweet that says i'm not worried about covid. i'm more worried about children going hungry in my area. we want to know how worried are you right now about covid-19. let's talk to derek: from naples, florida.

caller: i have to say that angela retired nurse kind of stole my thunder. i am actually a registered nurse. i've been a registered nurse for 16 years. i work in a hospital. i work in surgery and i also have a masters degree in microbiology from the university of pittsburgh. she kind of stole my thunder. i received the initial two vaccines and i've also had two boosters. i'm in my mid-40's and i got the second booster because i was traveling in june and just wanted to be extra protected. my biggest concern are the long-term effects of covid and knowing that science and research are evolving and that we will know so much more about covid a year from now, three years from now, a decade from now.

i give you a lot of credit for listening patiently to the conspiracy theorists. i think it's ironic that a lot of them say, why aren't we closing the borders. so out of one side of their mouths they are saying they are not concerned about covid. but then they are greatly concerned about covid if and only if if it's being brought across the border by a brown person. when you have colors that start railing against biden, public health is not a political issue and unfortunately as angela said, i think our last administration made public health a political issue. and it isn't and it shouldn't be. host: you are in florida. i read a story in the tampa bay times yesterday talking about how covid is hitting florida right now. i want to ask you what florida should be doing.

the covid-19 cases in florida are climbing once again. the state recorded more than 11,000 cases per day in the seven day period from july 8 to july 14. hospitalizations climbed 9% with more than 4000 confirmed cases in florida hospitals as of friday. federal health officials reported thursday that nearly 97% of florida residents live in counties at high risk of covid-19. this includes the entire tampa bay area and most of south florida. so what should florida be doing now given that these numbers are climbing? what can people in florida do to keep from getting covid-19 and what actions should state officials be taking now if any to get these numbers back down?

caller: at this point in florida, you would be hard-pressed to get a majority of people to continue or to resume wearing masks. i know that some of your callers have said masks are not effective. a lot of masks are effective. if you are wearing just a basic non-cloth, i won't even say surgical. but they are effective. one other thing i just want to clarify about a gentleman who said what i get a vaccine if i'm still going to get sick. vaccine 101 is they do not guarantee that you will not contract the particular virus that you're being vaccinated against. but they will more or less guarantee that you will not need to be hospitalized or have a moderate or severe case of in

this case covid. i think living here in florida we have a lot of older adults that you would think would really be invested in getting vaccinated, receiving the booster. if you're going into the grocery store or another big box store like target or walmart where there's a lot of people that would think to put on a mask just to protect himself. and protect others. as angela said, we've just lost -- we are a very me me me society now and it comes directly from our last administration, from donald trump who was very me me me. host: jonathan is calling from north las vegas, nevada.

are you there? caller: yes i am. host: go ahead please. caller: thanks for having me. i am so disappointed with this country right now. i fought for this country. i don't even know this country anymore. there's so much dishonesty and lying. the previous administration came up with the concept of fake news. people don't know the truth about anything anymore. host: all right. let's go to joseph who was calling from hagerstown, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. me and my husband are both double vaccinated double boosted

. we take this virus very seriously. like the nurses were talking about, the vaccine is so important to take just so you don't end up in the emergency room. this is something that is going to eventually i believe be included in the annual flu vaccine and we will have to deal with this long-term. host: don is calling from upper michigan. good morning. caller: hello. i got caught off -- cut off last time. i just want to say about viruses, they mutate. it's going to turn into another one and the vaccines aren't going to keep up. i came back to upper michigan

from lower michigan and my mother had been ventilated with carbon dioxide. they tried to get her to breathe on her own. i have relatives from florida and it is a me me thing and a rich people kind of thing. they don't believe in vaccinations. they've got the tax breaks. but yet the workers they treat like crap. as far as coming across the border, i watch one of your programs on poultry and tomato plants. they were actually taxpaying mexicans and they would come over and work and they would not give them health care. what happened, a lot of them got covid what happens, all the prices went up for poultry and vegetables. people need to get educated. it's a virus.

we had these people from florida and the baby was sick and now the mother-in-law of that family , i don't want to talk too much about them, she's got covid and won't make it. i'm very scared. sometimes i know she really wants to see the grandkids and stuff but they don't believe in the shots. that's all due to the father's position of owning a large business and homes and even up here now. and car dealerships. trump is the one that fast paced these shots and everybody was so proud of him. now nobody wants them. host: let's go to social media and see what people are saying about how worried they are about covid-19.

here is one tweet that says no objection to masking. stay safe. another tweet says, very worried since my daughter and son-in-law just got covid-19 at the end of june and were very sick but are recovering. they are both vaccinated. i got my last covid-19 booster vaccine yesterday. covid-19 is not done with us. one final tweet that says politics is a major cause for not getting covid-19 under control in the u.s. in my opinion. i am very worried. how worried are you about covid-19? lewis is calling from mansfield center, connecticut. good morning. caller: i'm not worried about it. i got my booster shot. people forget that the last

administration, the last president knew that covid was airborne. he had everybody washing their hands for 30 seconds. and he knew all the time that it was airborne. but he never did say it until the day he never said it. everybody told it but it was airborne. but i believe in it. i believe that the science. i just came off a cruise ship where everybody had been vaccinated. it was the finest time. host: angela is calling from indianapolis, indiana. caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm not worried about covid-19 or any of the variance. i'm 61 years old.

i'm more worried about my health in that regard making sure i continue to get my screening because there is no vaccine for cancer. and that's very interesting in and of itself because cancer has been around for as long as it has been so much funding has been given to cancer research. i'm still looking for that vaccine. but apparently there is none and there probably will never be one. so i'm more concerned about keeping my health screenings and things in check in that regard. i also believe that the numbers of positivity right now with covid and the variance are screwed and inaccurate because there is no accountability for home testing. people can test positive at home

and just go on about their daily lives. how many of them are truly actually taking note of that and making people aware that i'm positive and i need to quarantine. if they are at risk of losing their job or they don't have anyone to watch their children. they just go on about their daily routine. i don't feel that sick. i'm ok. they go out into the world knowing they are positive and that doesn't help the overall population. so i'm not worried about covid. i'm worried about other things. gun violence in my community and my city and my neighborhood is off the chain right now. i've had a gun pointed to my forehead in 2014 and rubbed. right in front of my home with my family inside. so there are other things.

my life and my health can be auctioned at any point in time by anything other than covid and that's a deadly situation for a lot of people. host: jim from olympia, washington. we lost him. let's go to alma. caller: i'm calling about covid. i haven't gotten it myself. every day i take a 60,000 vitamin d3 and 10,000 of vitamin c plus my other supplements that i take all the time. i'm 90 years old. i haven't gotten it and i don't

intend to get it and i go everywhere i want to. i wear a mask where i have to. other than that i'm fine and i don't have any signs at all of covid. host: have you been vaccinated? caller: i have not and i will not be. vaccines from what i've heard of them right now, they are killing people. those vaccines that they are giving to people today are ridiculous and the people are being killed. people don't know that, but they are killing people and that's what they're doing today is killing people with vaccines which is ridiculous. what i'm more concerned about is the border. biden hasn't done a damn thing about that board and he should. he's letting people in here with all kinds of diseases. that's what we should be afraid of. and also people breaking into your house. on the fourth of july we were sitting in the family room having our dinner and somebody broke right into our bedroom in broad daylight.

they ripped off the screen and came right in. and they didn't get much thank god. but they came in while we were eating and that was happening on fourth of july. host: we would like to thank all of our collars and social media followers for calling in for that first segment. coming up the washington examiner's michael barone will be here to discuss campaign 2022. and later, a discussion of the americans with disabilities act. our guest will be tom harkin and disability rights activist judy huemann. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> c-span now is a free mobile

app featuring your unfiltered view of what's happening in washington live and on-demand. keep up with the day's with live streams of floor proceedings from the u.s. congress, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. you can also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for c-span's tv network and c-span radio. plus a variety of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. download it for free today. >> this week on the c-span networks. thursday night january 6 committee holds its eighth hearing investigating the attack on the capital. also on capitol hill this week, transportation secretary pete buttigieg testifies before the

committee on the $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill. the senate judiciary committee examines the highland park attack and civilian access to military style assault weapons. and ceos from gun manufacturers invited to testify before the house oversight committee on the practices and profits of gun makers. the house and senate are both in session with the house taking up their first federal spending bills for 20 23. they will also work on legislation to protect a person's ability to access contraceptives. the senate will consider executive and judicial nominations. watch live on the c-span networks. stream video live or on-demand any time. c-span, your unfiltered view of government.

washington journal continues. host: we are back with michael barone, the longtime co-author of the almanac of american politics. senior political analyst for the washington examiner and resident fellow emeritus at the american enterprise institute. he's here to talk to us about politics and what's going on in politics today. good morning. guest: good morning. nice to be with you. host: let's start off with your piece in the washington examiner where you talk about the political gluttony of the leisure class. this is washington, d.c.. who is the leisure class? guest: this is a title that i took as a sort of ralph -- a book published in 1899. a little before my time. on the theory of the leisure class. how rich people engage in conspicuous consumption,

luxurious homes and furniture and stuff to show off that they are rich. and i said basically what we are seeing sometimes in politics now is the theory of the leisure of the theory class. turning that around. and basically the theory class are people who don't have concrete interest in this. they don't have dollars and cents. affluent people, white college graduates as they often are taken out of polls and so forth. they have moved from being a republican group when i was young too heavily democratic group now and more liberal on cultural issues in particular. they are operating in a situation where they have become in some respects the most left-wing part of our political spectrum.

and my argument in the piece is that this hasn't worked out very well for them at least in the short run as we are seeing issues unfold. host: many people who look at politics from outside the beltway will save the entire political class from left to right in washington, they are all part of the leisure class. they are all passing bills and talk about policies that don't affect them but affect americans outside the beltway. guest: there is a certain logic to that. when you are a member of congress you are one of 535 people who are different from that respect. naturally there is a difference there. i think there's always an argument that people are -- elected officials are out of touch. if you talk to elected officials, what they will say is

i get these letters and i'm seeing all this email and twitter stuff. i'm trying to get in touch with these people to understand what they want. i got a problem in the next election. i'm facing that in the general election may be or the party primary or convention and so forth. consequently they feel that they are under stress there. what's happened here is that we have seen a much bigger group of highly educated high income people that has expanded as a percentage of our society who are taking liberal positions on the basis of theories they believe will work out better for society or for people and members of particular groups. the late political scientist james q. wilson wrote a book called the reform democrat and it was about the reform movement

and the democratic party in new york city and particularly in manhattan. these were people who were against, just a few against the old political bosses who they believed were corrupt and not sufficiently liberal or motivated on the issues. jim wilson found out what kind of people they were. they were graduates of harvard law school, yale law school and columbia law school. they were high status people. they were for finance firms, for big law firms and so forth. they were in it for idealistic reasons. they were a small minority. if you read the political coverage as i was doing in the early 1960's, he had congressman william f ryan from manhattan's. you had about four members of the house of representatives who were aligned with the reformed democrats representing that constituent.

it's a much bigger constituency now. in the 1950's only a small percentage of americans went to college. now we've got a majority of americans entering college. not necessarily graduating from it. perhaps burdened with debts they took on. but they are graduating. we are getting a higher group of when people talk about disparities of income. they actually grew less during the trump presidency years pre-covid and they had in previous years. a lot of that trend is more people at the upper end. a large number. what we are seeing is as the colleges and universities became more and more places of monopoly , leadership from the political left. not just liberals but people now calling themselves progressives, radicals and so forth.

they are graduates as they have moved into relatively high earning positions. as they have located themselves in kind of hit neighborhoods in central cities. gentrified areas which have been expanding. and certain high education suburbs, they have become a much bigger part of the electorate. they have become in many ways kind of the guiding part of the democratic party primary electorate in many states and in particular in those big states like california and new york which thanks to the views of people called gentry liberals have become safe democratic states. those people have become a dominant force in american politics generally in a way that james q. wilson's reformed democrats were just a few people

kind of outliers on the left that nobody but jim wilson paid much attention to. host: who would you say this leisure class is trying to help in politics and how successful have they been? guest: one of the issues i took a look at in my washington examiner was the crime issue. one of the things that has happened in crime-fighting policy has been that after the murder of george floyd in minneapolis, a couple months after the beginning of the covid pandemic, you suddenly had a movement to defund the police. you had a movement -- demonstrations in a wide range of places across the country. liberal commentators have said they were mostly peaceful.

this is a phrase you saw again and again. a guy saying mostly peaceful and there was a fire arranging in the background. the answer is there were 6000 mostly peaceful celebrations. there were 500 violent riots in american cities. have the potential to do enormous harm. -- we had a riot in detroit. i was there in the command center. it wasn't in command of anything. 43 people died. i have seen what's happened to detroit in the wake of that right. -- riot. it's two thirds down. a lot of destruction. some parts of detroit are coming back. great news. the fact is there has been a

tremendous destruction of the city and we have seen crime rays starting with that may 2020 incident and the mostly peaceful demonstrations against the defunding of the police in cities including minneapolis, los angeles, san francisco, new york and so forth. violent crime rates have increased at a faster level than at any time since we have cap national statistics on this which would be 1960. we had a big increase in violent crime. we are now seeing year-to-year increase that is greater than in any single year in that 1965 to 1975 period. who are the major victims of this. who are the people that live in high crime neighborhoods that have to fear for their lives, whose real estate values are going down beekeepers -- because people don't want to buy houses

in high crime neighborhoods. african-americans in large part are the major victims of this crime wave that we have seen going. the theory is and we have seen this with some of the left-wing prosecutors backed by george soros group or other foundations that believe we ought to reduce the amount of incarceration, the theory is that in the long run if you reduce the amount of incarceration, he will move fewer people toward committing crimes in the future. that theory has not worked out. we just saw the recall of one of those prosecutors in san francisco. one of the most liberal states in the country. some people have said this is conservative republicans in san francisco. both of them voted -- the city that was something like 85% for joe biden in the last election.

voters rejected this policy and we will see what happens to some of the other cities seeing recalls. this is one place where the gentry liberals. the high income people. the leisure class. the people who see politics as a leisure activity rather than a dollars and cents activity or a stop crime activity in their own personal lives. they live in apartment buildings with doormen and armed guards in their office buildings. they live in suburbs that have a zero crime rate and so forth. this has been an academic issue to them in the theory that they have been pursuing is not working out in practice. host: viewers can take part in this conversation. we are going to open up our regular lines which means democrats, you can call in at (202) 748-8000.

republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always reading on social media, on twitter and c-span wj -- at c-span wj. i told the world that you are the longtime co-author of the almanac of american politics. so let's jump right into politics. the political landscape going into the 2022 midterms. political wisdom says that the president's party will lose seats in the house and senate in a midterm election. is the political wisdom correct? what are you looking to see happen in this year's midterm election? guest: in the house races that

has generally been true. not always. franklin roosevelt's democrats gained seats. bill clinton's democrats gained a few seats, enough to out newt gingrich as speaker of the house. george w. bush is republicans gained seats in the house. there is a fundamental fact of our political structure that moves in that direction that is to say the president gets elected. he's got a majority of the electoral votes. in the case of joe biden, a majority of the popular vote some of the things he's going to do keep some of that 51% unhappy. if you have macro issues like rising inflation, increases in crime, out-of-control immigration that are arguably going on in the minds of many voters, that will tend to -- the discontent will work to the

advantage of the out party. and one of the things that you can do in an off year election is that you can administer a little bit of a rebuke to the incumbent party without giving the out party total control of the government because they will still be a democratic president even if there is a republican house of representatives. a check on the balance as james madison would have appreciated back when he was designing the institutions that in large part became the constitution in 1786 and 1787. there is a built-in tendency for the party in power to lose seats. it doesn't always happen and sometimes when people are happy with the party in power they can gain seats. the senate races tend to be harder to predict because there are fewer of them.

races that produce unusual results tend to be canceled out. you've got a sort of statistically significant sample. when you've only got 33 or 34 senate races and half of them are seriously contested, you can have a bunch of results that go 51-49 and produce a sweep against a party in power that's popular. 1986, president reagan had 70% approval rating going into the elections and the republicans lost eight senate seats. most of them were like 51-49. narrow margins. in the case of some of the republicans who had been swept in and in 1980 when reagan won a surprise election victory and they were swept out when their seats were up later. the senate race is a little harder to predict i think. you can make a plausible scenario where the democrats

retain a majority and increase their number of the senate from 50. i can construct a set of results that are plausible that get you there. i can also construct a set of results where you get maybe even 54 republican senators out of these elections. you're kind of rolling the dice with the democrats and of all the close ones go in one direction, there is not a statistically significant number of races for the odds to even out. host: so you see republicans taking the house but you think the senate is still up in the air at this point. we are talking in july. who knows what's going to happen election day. >> i think that's the likelihood as we are looking ahead and that's the basis that most people are making their

political calculations at this point. the democrats emerge from the 2020 election with a reduced house majority. you lose five seats, you are down to 217 and that's not a majority of the house of representatives. a relatively small change in the house of representatives. that change against the democratic party means you have a republican majority. one of the things that has been fascinating over the last almost 30 years now starting with the 1994 election is that the house of representatives has mostly been pretty closely contested. you haven't had either party winning a prolonged series of election by a wide margin. that's pretty different from 1954 to 1992. you had democrats holding the house of representatives and the

political scientists that the democrats have a lock on the house. they're always going to have the house. and republicans have a lock on the president. but along came two baby boomers named bill clinton and newt gingrich. bill clinton broke the republican lock on the presidency and newt gingrich broke the democrat lock on the house of representatives and republicans have won more majorities in the house, democrats have won the presidency more often than republicans. host: let's start with vicki calling from california on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i'm always hearing this george soros. who is he and exactly who is he giving money to, who is he funding. and i wanted to make a

correction from february 16 i called in and i was hung up on because i was assumed to have called in earlier that day and that was very insulting that i was called in. so shout out to the lady that i was mistaken for, wanda in lancaster. holler at your girl, vicki in paris california. but my question is, who is george soros and who is he funding. host: all right. guest: george soros is a man that was born in hungary and immigrated to the united states. he has now i think close to 90, if he's not over 90. he's a survivor of the holocaust, world war ii. he was a child or an adolescent i think. he's a billionaire. he has made a lot of money investing in things.

he made over a billion dollars speculating against the british pound in 1992 and did very well in that. and he's made a lot of investments. with the fall of communism he spent a lot of money trying to build institutions in the former communist satellite countries in eastern europe and the soviet union to promote democracy and things. he has had more recently one of his projects has been to fund prosecutors who believe in things like decarceration, trying to reduce the number of people sent to jail. believe that we have been overly stringent on prosecuting people. his argument goes relatively minor crimes. and prosecutors of that sort have been elected often but not

always with his support in san francisco, los angeles, chicago, manhattan. and other big jurisdictions. crime in this country tends to be concentrated in big central city areas. a county prosecutor is actually a person of considerable importance in terms of national policy because they are setting policy for prosecution or nonprosecution of people in the central city jurisdictions. he has been attacked by people who say those prosecutors have gone too far in the direction of not prosecuting things. they have taken advantage of laws like the one in california that says it's only a misdemeanor to steal goods valued more than $950 i believe is the number.

so you see people just running into chain drugstores with big baskets and taking all the stuff they want. the guards just look on and watch them do it. they are not going to be prosecuted for a misdemeanor. there's been arguments against them. some people charge that people criticizing george soros are anti-semitic because he is jewish or of jewish origin. i think most of the critics of george soros have zeroed in on the specific policies of the people that he and his organization have back. and i think sometimes it's worthwhile for all of us to remember that george soros has also done important work promoting democracy in formerly nondemocratic countries. host: what makes george soros the bogeyman that we hear conservatives talk about all the time? liberals have their own bogeyman which is the coke brothers.

conservatives talk about soros and his billions. what makes him the bogeyman for so many conservatives? guest: i think he has been the bogeyman for many conservatives because he's been effective. this group endorsing these prosecutors has zeroed in on these races. they have spent a lot of money promoting the ideas that they back. the people for whom politics is kind of a leisure activity who are not themselves as high income people living in doorman buildings and crime free suburbs. threatened with high crime themselves. and george soros has been effective in this way. the coke brothers instantly --

interestingly -- koch brothers interestingly have at least to some extent supported policies of releasing people from prison earlier and things of this nature that at least go in the same direction that george soros has taken on criminal justice issues. so they are not the right wing on that issue if you mean by right wing people that support more stringent anti-crime and prosecutorial policy. host: calling from wellington, florida. caller: you mentioned something about immigration. it annoys me when pundits and

politicians speak about immigration and they focus on the border. do you realize that in 2012, the u.s. government spent $18 billion on border protection, which is more than they spent on fbi, drug enforcement agency, secret service, bureau of alcohol and to firearms. -- tobacco and firearms. our system is flawed. you are not talking about the structural changes that need to be made as a country that works for us. we are not going after the employers who encourage these illegal immigrants to come and work. i don't think we should have illegal immigration. we should have a sound immigration policy that makes sense. you made a statement about black

communities suffering adverse consequences of certain decisions and so on. and i heard a program early on where people are calling in and saying that black people choose to live in these communities where they demonstrate such depravity and we ignore the history. while it is not happening today, the history where black people were forced to live in certain communities. they weren't allowed to acquire properties. properties they acquired today are surrounded by areas they weren't allowed to have development. they continue to underperform as it relates to their white counterparts. and by the way, i don't hate white people. i have gotten some major break since i have been in this country. i'm jamaican. from white americans. i'm not a racist person. but when people talk about issues relating to raise, the average white american -- race,

the average white american doesn't relate to issues as they face black people. if you look at scissors, they are predominately made for right-handed people. when left-handed people complain about scissors, they are not complaining that the right-handed people are people. they are saying the system that continues to make a scissors that caters to the needs of right-handed people is a problem. host: go ahead and respond. very interesting comments from the gentleman. my dad was a surgeon. he was left-handed here and he had to get special instruments for left-handed surgeons. i am familiar with the attended problem. i am right-handed myself and can't stand the sight of bud so that hasn't been a problem for me. the judgment brought up immigration. we -- the gentleman brought up immigration. we had a large number of

immigrants, a flood of them from 1982 through 2007 in large numbers. there was agreement on the right and left that it is probably not a good thing to have a whole lot of people, 11 million people in your country, who are here illegally. it is bad for them because they can't do certain things they might otherwise do. they are subject to easton deportation, theoretically at least. we had, you know, a sudden halt to immigration on the southern border, the land border in mexico with the 2007-2008 housing crisis and so forth. basically net immigration dropped to zero. as the great political critic donald trump made the point that

mexican immigrants tended to be more low skilled than immigrants from other countries, which makes a certain sense because they have a land border. he could have cited if he had read the report from the pew hispanic center, mr. trump wasn't a big reader, that in fact that was the case on their scholarly analysis. the fact is that we have a situation now where we are basically admitting to million people a year, it would appear, numbers of something like that magnitude coming across illegally, dispersing around the country, flown in government planes to the northeast and told, if you want to apply for asylum, you ought to come to a hearing. people don't come to those hearings in very large numbers. we are basically, under this administration, in producing a

lot of illegal -- introducing a lot of illegal people into the country that a lot of people argued in the past is not a good thing and we did have economic conditions and public policies that reduced illegal immigration during years which obama and trump were president. i think the fact is if you policies that foster illegal immigration, that is something people had thought was bad. the caller brought up segregation of black neighborhoods, and i think it is important to have a sense of how things have changed in the united states. many years ago, i took a years at the census block returns for oakland county, michigan, where i grew up part of the time and a part of washington, d.c. in 1960

census. the number of black people in the box, 0, 0, zero, zero. there was real exclusion of segregation operation -- operating through the private market with white people being unwilling to sell to black people, being immensely difficult for black people, even with those with high incomes, high educational, professional characteristics to buy houses in those neighborhoods. that is not true today. the open housing laws have been successful to a considerable extent. we do not see an entire blending of people on a random basis in neighborhoods, not by a longshot. we don't see it among my fellow

italian americans. most italian americans live within 100 miles of new york city. that they got off the boat and didn't get too far away hundred years ago. there is a difference now. is the situation ideal? not in my view, but i think you've got a situation where black people today can buy in other never has and so forth. you've also got a situation when crime goes up in certain neighborhoods that have on a percentage of african-americans, who are the people who suffer? the people who live there and paying their 30 year mortgage off every month of the year for property whose value is not going to increase. those are the people hurt most by high crime. host: let's talk to thomas from

texas. caller: what you failed to address is who is hiring the illegals and has anything changed since trump's administration as far as covid and letting people in returned back to mexico? the guy was talking about the black neighborhoods in it is hard to live in a neighborhood when you have a freeway going through it. a lot of italians have the same neighborhoods and irish neighborhoods because someone put a freeway or train track through it. as far as the polling, you have seen recent gun shootings and mass shootings into schools and other stuff. i believe, i think the democrats may take the house and senate. guest: the freeways, i actually

lived in detroit for a while in an neighborhood where the chrysler freeway went through a street called hastings and oakland and it was a black neighborhood and the heart of business in world war ii and afterwards. we are not going to restore that neighborhood we go through with the proposal to take that freeway down and make a boulevard, but there could be other uses. his first point was, it slipped my mind, but for the immigration . we had definite changes in policy. president trump campaigned that he was going to build a wall.

they did build some wall, not as much as he promised. i think it was fair to saint president trump was not a detailed -- fair to say president trump was not a detailed man. some who backed him initially said he didn't deliver in a serious way. he negotiated with the mexican president the remain in mexico policy in which mexico was retaining people who were seeking to cross the border looking for asylum. that vastly reduced the number of illegal border crossers. president biden i believe abandoned that policy on day one and stopped building the wall in mid-construction in some areas along the wall. it is interesting that one of the biggest moves for the

republican party in the two years of the biden presidency has been along that border in texas, along the rio grande, which is actually misnamed, because i could swim across the rio grande. it is not particularly fierce at. much of it is diverted for agriculture use. the population there are people who are characterized as latino, hispanic, and so forth, about 70% to 80% of the lower rio grand valley has moved heavily towards the republican party. the assumption made by some of our theory class of people for whom politics is a leisure pursuit is that because these people are hispanic, they are going to be in favor of more illegal immigration.

that appears to be the opposite of the case. we just had a republican when a special election for congress in a district held by democrats going back to the -- to lloyd benson who won the seat in 1948 and before that it was democratic for many years. her husband is a border patrol officer. that is a source of employment in that area. the assumptions of the theory class that hispanics would be rooting for more hispanics to come over illegally don't seem to have been proved out in practice. host: i could talk to you for hours, but unfortunately we are out of time. we would like to thank micheal barone , senior political analyst for washington examiner for being with us here today.

thank you so much. guest: thank you for inviting me. host: coming up next, more calls and comments. later today, former iowa senator tom harkin joins us to talk about the americans with disabilities act that he authored and cosponsored and along with judy human to discuss the impact of legislation on americans with disabilities and the small business community. you can see the numbers on screen for our open forum. we will be right back. ♪ >> weekends bring you book tv, featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. ucla log -- law professor talks

about his book "unreasonable." on afterwards, south dakota governor kristi noem discusses her book about her life and political career. she is interviewed by a senior political correspondent. watch book tv and find a full schedule or watch online anytime on tv.org. -- on book tv.org. c-span has unfiltered coverage of the u.s. response to russia's invasion of ukraine, bringing you the latest from the president and white house officials, the pentagon and the state department as well as congress. we also have international perspectives from the united nations and for net leaders on the c-span networks, c-span now free mobile app and c-span.org/ukraine, our web resource page where you can watch the latest video on demand

and follow tweets from journalists on the ground. go c-span.org/ukraine. >> listening to programs on c-span just got easier. tell your smart speaker and listen to "washington journal daily, important congressional hearings and other public affairs events throughout the day. check washington today for a fast-paced report for the stories of the day. listen anytime. tell your smart speaker, play c-span radio. c-span, powered by radio. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are in our open form segment where you can call in and talk about your most important political topic of the day. we are opening regular lines, democrats, you can call (202) 748-8000.

republicans, your number is (202) 748-8001. independents, your line is (202) 748-8002. keep in mind you can always text us at (202) 748-8003, and we are always reading on social media on twitter @cspanwj and on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. we will start with deborah who is calling from murphys, california on the democratic line it. good morning -- line. good morning. caller: i wanted to make a comment. first of all, as far as california goes, we had a number of years where we had the two strikes law putting people in jail for stealing a grand theft of a bike. we had too many people in jail and we had a problem and that is part of what we are trying to realign.

checks and balances are not a thing of the date now because we can't trust them anymore. one of my biggest fears about our republic and democracy is i am seeing the word in my brain, tierney -- tyranny. we have a senate that is being ruled and then with the filibuster, more of a problem. but the population isn't being adjusted for and we had the presidency where you can with the popular vote and lose the electoral college. we have a supreme court that is appointed by people who didn't win the popular vote. we have a situation brewing where i feel the minority is

starting to roll the majority. thank you for taking my call. host: let's go to charlene calling from crownpoint, indiana on the republican line. good morning. are you there? caller: yes, i am. host: go ahead. caller: i would like to make a couple of comments as well. number one, thank you for taking my call. i want to know how is it that the administration can get away with our border crisis. host: is that it? caller: i am hearing feedback. i was saying, how can the administration get away with the border crisis, high rates of inflation, the high rate of

crime, and how the speaker of the house led america publicly in a fit of rage over 40 years of nothing but hate -- over four years of nothing but hate and for andrea kazu cortez -- a cause io cortez -- andrea o rcasio cortez come with outright hate and if i have done what they have done i would have been reprimanded and lost my career. host: let's go to patricia: from irvine, california. good morning -- let's go to patricia, who is calling from

irvine, california. good morning. caller: i would like to express that i lost my affordable housing program in irvine and was told it was due to density bonus law, which allows developers to instead of building the same number of apartments across three income rackets, it was written by the california association of realtors, allowing developers to take the apartments built in the middle income and give it to the low income and leaving the middle income bracket empty. but the application tells the applicants there are three income brackets and obviously, so i am a homeless, disabled

veteran who is 61 years old. i went to the city of irvine and asked why there are only very low and moderate income housing buildings, i am told that is just the way it is. most people are not aware that the government -- governor jerry brown signed density bonus into law. host: let's go to cecil, is calling from alexandria, virginia on the democrat line. good morning. caller: greetings. i think one gentleman had raised the issue regarding immigration, that it is mainly the businesses that are hiring them, but they don't primarily get prosecuted.

second of all, if you look at mexico during the american-mexican war, with california, oklahoma, mexico, texas, all taken from the neck sickens. -- mexicans. the people who robbed them are not considered immigrants. we live in a facade with so much illusion. of all the subject of controversy is the european men. if you look at the way they treated their women and the africans treated their women, they rent them into the ground. christopher columbus, we failed to learn from the street.

-- from history. to folks who spent 20 years for the guilt of the assassination of malcolm x, who were the real killers? host: let's go to denise, who is calling from indiana on the republican line. good morning. caller: hi, i just wanted to say i am glad you are having this conversation. the only thing i would like to say about this is immigration is who we are. host: let's talk to rena, who is calling from calumet city, illinois on the independent line. caller: i just want to piggyback on the gentleman and speaker this morning regarding the

income inequality of the neighborhoods, especially the black neighborhood and the reason why there is so much high crime is because of the different illegal guns into the community and they have taken away the resources of the african-american community. you are going to have a lot of high crime and angst like that. police officers are not doing much to deter the crime. a lot of young guys are carrying these guns in the community. we do have a problem all over the united states with the guns are overwhelmingly in communities and especially in the african-american community. that is the problem, and also not trying to get these guys to do something to try to get more

programs so these guys won't end up committing crimes and things like that. host: let's go to brenda who is calling from fort lee on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. can you hear me? host: i can. go ahead. caller: i just have a common about the president -- comment about the president not shaking hands with the king and dignitaries. it is a disgrace. it is a disgrace to us as americans. i think also the president could

be doing more with bringing down food prices. it is so hard as a retired senior to buy food, gasoline. i don't go much places, when it comes to grocery shopping, the prices are outrageous. host: let's talk to helen calling from long beach, california on the republican line. good morning. caller: i am so sorry i missed the earlier open phones on the covid. i have it again, second time in two years and i have had my vaccination and to booster shots . my last one was in december 2021, so it has only been seven months. what concerns me the most about this infection is, this is omicron described as the most contagious virus encountered,

and it doesn't seem the vaccines have any effect on it. my concern is, i have it, my mother who is 87 years old lives with me and i would say it is a matter of days before she will come down with it. i have four family members who have it. i always wore a mask wherever i went into. as i read more about this, this was created in a lab. i can't go into lung details and bore your listeners, but there are valued, respected sources from the national institute of health and scientific american nature. every time they look at it again and again over time, it suggests strongly it was created in a lab. this virus doesn't have a normal

trajectory that you would see in nature. host: let's go to daniel who is calling from muncie, indiana on the democrat line. good morning. are you there? caller: yes, i am. are you there? host: yes, i am. caller: thanks for having me on the phone. a few years back i lived in arizona and also had the privilege of working at a plant. the plant has a capability of producing reverse osmosis claiming at a rate of 90 million gallons a day, 630 million gallons of clean ro water a week that could be pumped to the northern reservoirs in nevada for a lot of distribution and a lot of people's crops and end up

being drinking water as well. that is 630 million gallons in one week. when i worked there, this night was never at its full capability. there are things called service contract reactors, these big round things, and they were actually available and able to work, at least one of them, 30 million gallons of water. it has been a long time since i have heard anything about the plant. i don't think it would cost that much to build a pipeline. they are talking about pipelines for everything else. host: we would like to thank all of our colors -- callers. coming up, we will have a discussion of the americans with disabilities act. our guest will be our former

senator tom harkin and activist judy human. we will be back in just one second. >> celebrate dismiss in july by shopping at c-span shop.org, now through july 19. save 25% on shoulds, home to core. there is something for every fan. shop our christmas in july at sale now through july 19, only at c-span shop.org or scanned the code with your smart phone to shop now. >> c-span has unfiltered coverage of the house committee hearings investigating the attack on the capital. go to our web resource page to

watch the latest video of the hearings, briefings and all coverage on the attack and subsequent investigation since january 6, 2021. we will have reactions from the white house, journalists and authors. go to c-span.org/january 6 for a fast and easy way to watch when you can't see it live. >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington. keep up with the biggest events with live streams of floor hearings from u.s. congress, white house events, the court, campaigns and more all at your fingertips. also stay current with the latest episodes of "washington journal and scheduling information for c-span tv and radio and compelling podcasts.

it c-span now is available at google play. download it for free today. your friend proceed to washington, anytime, anywhere. >> this week on the c-span networks, thursday night the january 6 committee holds its eighth hearing investigating the attack on the capital. also on the hill this week, transportation secretary pete buttigieg testifies before house transportation committee on the implementation of the $1.9 trillion infrastructure bill passed last year. two hearings on guns and gun violence and the senate judiciary committee investigates the highland park attack and access to military style assault weapons. ceos invited to testify before the oversight committee on the profits of good makers. the house taking up the first

federal spending bill for 2023 and also work on the protection for a person to access contraceptives. the senate will consider executive and judicial nominations. but this week live on the c-span networks or on the c-span now, our free mobile video app. head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video live on demand anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> weekends bring you book tv, featuring leading authors discussing the latest nonfiction books. ucla law professor talks about the fourth amendment and the power of the police with his book "unreasonable." and afterwards, south dakota governor kristi noem shares her book "not my first rodeo," and is interviewed.

find a full schedule on your program guide or online anytime at book tv.org. >> there are a lot of places to get political information, but only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. no matter where you are from or where you stand on the issues, c-span is unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. if it happens here or here or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span, powered by cable. >> c-span ring to an unfiltered view of government. our newsletter, "word for word" rings you daily press -- brings you daily press briefings and

remarks from the president. sign up and stay up to date on everything happening in washington each day. subscribe today using the qr code. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back, and as part of our landmark series, we are going to be talking about the americans with disabilities act. we are going to start by showing you senator tom harkin introducing the final report of the americans with disabilities act in july 1992 than -- to the u.s. senator appeared for the radio listeners, the first part will be silent because he is doing it in sign language. hold on and you will hear us in a few minutes. [video clip]

[performing sign language]

>> mr. president, i think you for permitting me perhaps to say something that only a few people understood. but i wanted to do that as sort of a special way of thinking a very special person in my life who taught me at a very early age that people with disabilities could do anything they set their minds to do and

that people should be judged on the basis of their abilities and not on the basis of their disabilities. host: we are joined in the studio today by former senator tom harkin who is here to talk about the americans with his abilities act of 1990 that he authored and cosponsored. also with us this morning's disability rights activist judy huemann, and they're both here to talk about the impact of the ada on the lives of americans with disabilities and the small business community. thank you for bring with us. first, senator harkin, why does the americans with disabilities act fit into our landmark legislation? guest: is great to hear -- be here -- it is great to be here with judy. why is it landmark? look around, think about what america like before the ada and

what it looks like now. transportation, access to buildings, people with disabilities in employment and all aspects of society. it changed the face of america. buses are assessable and trains and stores with widened doors and bathrooms everybody can use. it broke down those physical barriers, but just as important, it broke down attitudinal errors, -- attitudinal feelings and prejudices with people with disabilities. the americans with disabilities act said look, disability is a normal part of human existence and should in no way diminish a person's right to full participation in society, equal

opportunities, independent being, -- living, and having work and meaningful employment. that to me is what really changed america, and i think people today, broadly speaking, now see people with disabilities not with separate and apart from but a part of our family. host: judy, did life really change before the ada and after the ada? guest: i agree totally with tom, obviously. life had begun to change before the ada because of section 504 which came about in the 1970's, but the americans with disabilities act, from my perspective, was really not only groundbreaking in the united states but around the world, because it was decades of work

which required disabled people with all types of disabilities to come together under one umbrella. the ada really required that we have two work together and be able to tell a story the types of discrimination we were experiencing. we need to be able to work at remedies. tom's point, fundamentally, is that our moving forward as a disability community, being granted rights like other constituents in the united states, not only was a powerful message here but around the world. host: you're just talking ago -- seconds ago about stories you had to tell about living in america with disabilities. what was it like before the ada? what did the disabled community face in the united states before the ada?

guest: i will start off by talking about myself and tom might want to speak about his brother. today, the cdc says there are 60 million disabled people in the united states and according to the world health organization, there are 1.5 billion disabled people. one thing i want to say also is we need to look at disability and await which is not just thinking of people with visible disabilities. that is a very important part of the definition under the ada. to the viewers and listeners, people who have things like diabetes or depression or bipolar or cancer or significant back problems, something which limits one or more major life activities, you are protected under the americans with disabilities act. most importantly, you need to

see ourselves as a part of an ever-growing movement. when i talk about that as an ever-growing movement, it is not that the numbers are dramatically changes but the fact that people like myself, and with invisible disabilities are recognizing that we need to be proud of who we are. that is part of who we are, not the totality of who we are is that we have one or more different kinds of disabilities. that is a significant outcome of the ada, that we see ourselves as being a part of society. myself, some of the issues of discriminations faced and some of the broader ones, i graduated college and wanted to be a teacher. i was in brooklyn and i applied for a teaching license because i

had taken the appropriate courses. there were no loss at that point. i had to take the written, oral and they were given in buildings that had at least one flight of stairs here i had to have friends carry me up those stairs. i had to write specifically. i was able to get attorneys who worked for free and the judge was the first block woman to serve -- black woman to serve on the bench and it was lucky we had her, because she understood that what happened was clear discrimination.

so i settled out of court and that might teaching license and taught for three years. the time that i went to a restaurant with some other friends and the manager told us to leave because we were disturbing. there was no law at that time that made that illegal. i told him to call the police. i learned to become a very strong advocate, not because it was something that was inherent in me or that my parents raised me to be an advocate, but my parents, even today, learn very quickly that if they weren't going to be our advocate, my advocate, and i didn't learn how to be my own advocate and things like getting on buses. you think about rosa parks, a black woman who got on a bus, sat in the front and was told

she had to sit in the back. if rosa parks had been a wheelchair user when this happened, she would never have been able to get on the bus. the ada was one of the exact change that that all people in civil rights movements can now get on the bus. host: senator harkin, in that clip we showed from 1990 gave the beginning of it in sign language. what is your passion on this subject and why do you know sign language? tell us your experience in this area. guest: i grew up with a brother who was deaf, and i just saw how he was discriminated against when he was going up in terms of schooling and education and told he couldn't do this, he couldn't do that, couldn't get a job that he was qualified for. the problems he went through

just to get a drivers license as a deaf person. it was just one hurdle after another. and so i just -- and i had a nephew who became quadriplegic. i began to see it was at only hearing problems but mobility problems he was a young man who was injured in the military and became quadriplegic. and i went to visit him and my sister and family, he couldn't even go to a restaurant or across the street because the curbs and doors and he couldn't get in there just one thing after another. i started because of my brother who was deaf and continued on after i saw what happened to kelly, and at one point met with danny piper, a young man with down syndrome and a light went off in my head that it is not just communication problems and mobility problems, it is also

intellectual disabilities that people have and are discriminated against. all of this came together when i went to the senate in the 1980's and we had people like judy who was out there reading the charge by a broad civil rights bill. either way, i might just say that judy huemann led the longest sit in in a federal facility in history in san francisco in 1977. you are to see it -- amazing. i would also say for your viewers there is a movie alled crip camp. guest: you can get it on netflix. guest: you should see this movie because it gives the origin of

the movement in the late 1960's, early 1970's of people with disabilities demanding their rights this country. i would just close on this -- we all know about the civil rights act in the 1960's, notes, nation on the basis of race, sex, origin, religion, but they left out people with disabilities. we said what about us? they still discriminated and then that began this long movement. but my brother, frank, who is deaf and taught me sign language. host: my daughter is learning american sign language for her foreign language. guest: she will love it. host: let me take a second to remind our viewers they can take part in this conversation about the americans with disabilities act.

we are going to open up regional lines. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, you call (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, your number is going to be (202) 748-8001. we are going to open up to special lines for this conversation. the first line will be for people with disabilities. we specifically want to hear from you and your experience with the ada. your number is going to be (202) 748-8002. our last line will be for caregivers of people with disabilities. we know this affects you as well your number is going to be (202) 748-8003. people with disabilities, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8002. caregivers, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8003. you can always text us at (202) 748-8003.

and we are always reading on social media on twitter at @cspanwj, and at facebook at facebook.com/c-span. senator harkin, you started talking about the politics of getting the ada past and you talked about judy -- passed and you talked about judy trying to get the bill passed in 1989. guest: as judy mentioned earlier, in the early 1970's, there was a rehabilitation act basically covering federal government, section 501, 5 03, 504, i get them mixed up. then there was the education of all children's act passed my first year in the house. i wasn't all that much involved in that, but later it became the individuals with disabilities education act, which was my bill that i got passed over 20 years

later. it came together because, well the disability community was hammering us. they were demonstrating all over the country. you have to remember that in the 19 80's, people with disabilities would lay down -- 1980's, people would -- people with disabilities with lay down under the buses and the buses couldn't move. this became national news. i remember at one time we had a demonstration where people with wheelchairs had chained themselves across independent avenue by the capitol at rush hour. what was funny is i went outside to watch this with my staff person, bobby silverstein, who we all know did a lot of the

writing and was with me on the floor that day, we went out to watch this. it is cold out, dark, rush-hour, and they brought the paddy wagons and police to get rid of the wheelchairs blocking the traffic. they brought the bolt cutters and were cutting the chains and they brought the paddy wagons and the wheelchairs wouldn't fit in the paddy wagons. and they were saying g, you can't even arrest -- gee, you can't even arrest us because we can't fit into the paddy wagons. the national committee and disabilities just said, look, we were left out of the civil rights bill. we need a broad civil rights bill that covers all persons with disabilities. that is the outside influence that came in. host: that is what i want you to talk about judy, that outside

influence. where did that start and when did you get involved and how did it get all the way to washington? guest: thank you. there are thousands of disabled people in the united states who worked on section 504. it is fairly fair to say that no one person creates a movement, and i really want to underscore that. basically, i got involved out of necessities with stories i was telling you earlier about discrimination, not being able to get across the street. growing up in new york i would have to ride 20 blocks in my wheelchair behind the buses and cabs because of the curbs. the beginning of the film shows disabled people going to a particular camp.

what we were learning at that camp and other camps around the country as disabled people who were becoming teenagers is that our nondisabled peers were talking about college, careers, getting married, where they wanted to work and how they wanted to participate, and for many of us it was very clear that was not going to be what was happening. we also made the decision that we were not going to be prohibited by pursuing our dreams because of problems in discrimination. it is really important to say the civil rights movement in the 1950's and 1960's and obviously way before that, had a very strong impact on many of us, because television really wasn't coming into being until the 1950's. it was the first time like

people -- that was the first time people like myself and others were not only learning about the impact of discrimination but also what people were willing to do to express themselves and fight for them right and fight collectively for rights. the exclusion of disabled people in the civil rights act was something as more of us were getting older and learned about what legislation was and learned about the civil rights act itself and its impact, really made us realize the fact that in that period of time when the civil rights act was being developed, we were invisible. that was a very important part of the movement then and today. the ada has created something called the ada generation were younger disabled people realize that just having the ada wasn't sufficient, but had to be

implemented and people need to understand what that rights are so they can deal with it collectively. host: a perfect segue to what i want to talk about next, which is what is specifically in the ada? i will read a couple of the titles of the ada and i want you to tell me about why it is in here. title i of the ada bans employment discrimination against those with disabilities and covers employees -- employers with more than 15 employees. title ii prohibits discrimination by public duties, which includes physical access to public buildings and public transportation. title iii bars discrimination in public accommodation in places of commerce and covers service animals for auxiliary aids and calls for a balancing for accommodations. let's start with title i, why does it cover employers with more than 50 employees and not those with fewer question mark guest: that was -- with fewer?

guest: that was a compromise. i will start out, if you don't mind a little history, i didn't announce the first ada. it was lowell riker. on the house site it was tony gwynn lowe and steve barlett, maybe and then lowell riker got defeated and then it fell to me and i was chair of the disability subcommittee, so i picked it up and moved it after that. we did start out with just covering everybody but then we had to compromise. we took something from the small business legislation of 15 employees. what can i tell you, it was just a compromise. i wish it was less than that, sure, and quite frankly i think

that many employers who have fewer employees than that of i voluntarily and do that because they see their customers coming in the door and they want customers and people with disabilities and families coming into the store to shop or whatever. it could be just a small watch repair shop we have in a strip mall near where i live. people with disabilities by watches and rings and earrings and get their watches repaired, so they made the doors wider and put in a ramp so people could get in and out. it was just a compromise. guest: and in the state of california, it is five. the ada and other federal laws are going above. i want to emphasize another point that tom was making, which

is the developing of standards. those standards have been developed at the federal and state levels, and those standards ensure things like when a new building is going to be built that the door will be wider from the beginning so it isn't left up to each individual merchant to decide what the width of the door will be because there are standards on that. one very important outcome of ada 504 has been that as these laws been implemented, we are seeing standards that are happening at the average person isn't even aware of, but those changes, like elevators for train stations and buses that have lower floors have a lift that comes out. those are for people with baby carriers, canes, broken legs to use these very important parts

of our life without ever knowing why it came about, but they are benefiting. now if you were to take those things away, many people would recognize that whether or not they were defined as having a disability, they would be excluded temporarily. universal design is one of the outcomes happening with the ada. i remember, i insisted that employment be number one. and i still feel this way, employment is so critical to a person's life. work is more than just getting a paycheck. it is how we affirm our identities. we make friends, get involved in our community through our work. employment was so important. what we wanted to do in the employment title, focus on the

15, but it is -- businesses had to provide reasonable accommodations for a person with a disability to get a job. they could not discriminate in hiring. if you are a person with a disability and applying, they cannot ask you about any disabilities, at all. we wanted to break down those barriers to employment, to get people into meaningful jobs. not sub minimum wage jobs, segregated jobs, but integrated in employment. that is what we put it number one. guest: about employment for the audience, it is very important to look at the onset of disability. when we look at employment for younger people, and i was 18 months old, i was not seeing myself.

i am still not seeing myself that much in children's books, on television, places where young people see themselves. so you find that as much because of ada and other laws, the movement itself, younger disabled people are seeing employment as something they want to participate in. prior to the ada, not seeing yourself as a doctor, a teacher, a bus driver, a personal assistant, you did not relate. the ada put forward a very strong statement that there is an expectation that disabled people can work and will work, and looking at removing those barriers that mentally made people feel like this is not for me. then, you have so many other people who acquire disability as

a result of working or a result of something that happened while they were in the workforce. ada is so important for that population of people, to be able to have a sense they cannot be kicked out of their job. i want to say that one of the very important changes that have happened over the last three plus decades with the ada and before that because of section 504, employers are recognizing what we were saying in the beginning. that is disabled people are meaningful, valuable employees and customers. we have to recognize the failure of disabled people being a part of our society, not being represented, has set up visions of what we are not able to do. as tom was saying, those are really beginning to fall. host: let us let viewers take part in the conversation, starting with james from new

hampshire. good morning. caller: yes, hi. thank you for allowing me to address. i applaud everything you are doing, particularly addressing the viewpoint of visible disabilities, but expanding to those that affect large numbers of people in the population. recently, i had the opportunity to travel to europe. a number of countries, italy, france, spain. i found a varying acceptance of the disabled people and provisions for expediting their ability to integrate probably because the early onset of the americans with disability took

place in america, now it is totally -- it is totally in place, totally effective. there, i found it less so. it was episodic from country to country. it did not occur until much later than in america, so i wanted to say how thankful i am for the people i know and the general population who have benefited from these initiatives that are good for the country as a whole. host: talk to us about the international acceptance of the ada. our other countries doing with the united states did? or is it still an uphill climb internationally for people who are disabled? guest: it is a combination. for those of you history buffs, 1981 was the year when year of disabled people. we go back that far to the bbc, canadians, japanese that

hour-long documentaries on the united states into what was going on with 504 and the work towards americans disabilities act. another important point is that the u.n. convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which unfortunately, the united states has still not ratified, has been having a major impact on disabled people around the world. very similar to what was going on and is going on in the united states after the second world war. but one of the differences is, the ada covers the public and private sector. what you have seen in many countries is that they are starting with where we were, 504 only covers entities receiving money from the federal government. you might see, for example, buildings being constructed in a country overseas where, if it is a federal building, it will be

accessible. if it is private, it will not be. let us talk about what we are talking about. when i was growing up, shopping malls were not accessible. there were not accessible bathrooms. there were steps, no ramps. i've, like many people, are cautious about drinking. i do not mean alcohol, i mean water. we do not know if we will be able to use the bathroom. after years of not knowing whether you can use the bathroom, you stop drinking. you see that in europe. in some places, bathrooms are accessible. other places, they are not. the same pattern. host: what is it like internationally? guest: what she said, a lot of countries started picking up on this. the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, that

was fully propagated about 2008, 2009? guest: 2008. guest: so i might just add, other countries are picking up. some are doing better than others. but they caller talked about traveling in different parts of europe, i have been some of those places. they were using the excuse, these are old buildings. they go back to the middle ages, we cannot change them, it destroys the architecture. people are ingenious at figuring out how to put in elevators, ramps, how to widen doors without destroying the architecture. i've seen in italy, different countries. it just takes the government and the private sector working together to say, look. we can figure this out. guest: there is an organization

called the international disability alliance, it represents more than 13 international disabled organizations and regional groups. you can see how the movement, which i do think was really evolving a lot in the united states before others, is really catching on around the world. and, the ingenuity and creativity of disabled people around the world is clearly coming forward. guest: i might add, there is something called the harken institute at drake university. one of the big things is on disability, we are focused on employment. to show you the hunger of the -- other countries have, we have an international conference every year. the last one we had, judy was there, was in belfast last month. we had represented is from 30 countries and over 600 people. -- representatives from 30 countries and over 600 people.

countries in africa, pakistan, india, bangladesh, jordan. they want to figure out how we -- to do what we have done here in america. guest: the most important part, there were major corporations from all over the world. i think the ability now to get corporations, who are doing good jobs, who want to be seen, let people know what they are doing very much came forth in that conference. host: from north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. i just wanted to make a couple comments. i graduated from college in 1975, shortly after i was in a car wreck and became a paraplegic. i was totally confined to a wheelchair after that. i want to make two comments, one about sports. in the early 70's, people

thought about people in wheelchairs and sports, they thought about wheelchair basketball. three and a couple of guys decided to change that in the 70's. we started road racing, just three of us. we would go around the country, go to these road races unannounced. they would let us race. as time went on in the 80's and 90's, we were still doing this. bigger and bigger groups of wheelchairs were participating in the road races and marathons. the second thing, i would like to make a comment on, employment. i worked for ups for 42 years. it can be done. i went in entry-level and worked my way up, i did a full circle of operation jobs, imports, exports, hazmat's, dispatching, customer service. i did it all. and they did it in a wheelchair as a paraplegic.

it can be done. the third thing, international travel, i went to london in the early 80's. there were physical barriers, structural barriers. but the english people were so kind and understanding, there was hardly any place i could not go in london, it was amazing. i appreciate the call, thank you. host: i saw you nod when he was talking about sports. guest: my first trip out of the united states was when i went to where the wheelchair accessible -- sorry, paralympic's were taking place. thank you for bringing this up, i want to say why. if you look at where we are what is called the paralympics, they were separate from the olympics. so the olympics in 1972 ring munich, the paralympics were elsewhere. in the 90's, that changed. the paralympics and olympics are

now held at the same venue. they are not held the same time, because they cannot fit everybody together, but the amount of sports that are part of the paralympics is phenomenal. the impact not only of having the same city, but the whole issue of inclusion. if we go back and look to the games in london in 2012 and the impact that has had on nbc and others, in london, the paralympics was equal to the olympics. they included it in the hiring of staff. they did this amazing thing. channel four in england had it. they wanted to have disabled individuals as the commentators for all the sports that were being done under the paralympics. and they could not find people with the level of skill or training. so, they found people they felt were qualified, trained them,

did all of the commentating. many of them are still professionally in the field. the other part about simple things, big things like the pair the bics analytics being together -- like the olympics and paralympics being together is demonstrating the skill and the art. he was talking about road racing, now the wheelchairs that are designed at that are so amazing and allow such speed. let us look at the special olympics, which are working with people of intellectual end of elemental disabilities. in many countries around the world -- and of elemental disabilities. in many countries around the world, they are seen as equal valued members of the community. it is major. we have to remember in some countries, disability is seen as something which people believe was a result of a curse, a family member did in the past.

ada, final four, the convention on the rights of people with disabilities and our ability to be in society are really breaking down the smiths. host: we have a text that came in from one of the viewers, they want one of you to help them with. as an educator of students with disabilities, physical and learning, it is very hard to get the support needed for impoverished students to get diagnosed properly. my question is, what can you share in organizations that supply free diagnosis for students with disabilities? what do we do in education? guest: well, first of all, this is state stuff. state and local. state governments need to have in place a system whereby parents of young children with disabilities get tested early. really early.

support that family early on, try to figure out what is the most appropriate integration for that child in the education system? one of the things we did in the individual with disabilities education act was to set up what we called in individualized education plan. each student gets in individualized education plan. it has to be done with the parents, parents have to be involved. school is involved. it can be modified and changed as it goes along, but only with the parent approval. they cannot kick kids out of school anymore like they used to. again, i think the ada has set the overall structure. 504, 2. set the structure for the federal. but the ada said, ok. states, you have to do it too.

that is one thing people forget about in the ada. what we did indy 504 under the federal level, you now in the states have to do on the state level. host: organizations for this educator -- guest: i would like to go back a little bit. host: this is bill from new york city. guest: so, first, i understand what you are saying. families who believe their child may have a disability are frequently not being appropriately served by the school district. i want to really underscore that the school districts are legally responsible to ensure that a child who needs to have an assessment gets that assessment at no cost to the parent. i know you are going to say that is what it is supposed to be, but it is not happening. that is the law.

filing complaints against the school district, with the state department of education -- this date is given the responsibility to monitor what is going on within the state. they are getting money from the federal government and the obligation to get the money from federal governments is to ensure that students are being served. in new york city, there is something called parent training information centers. they have various names. if you go online and look at parent training information centers, there is a technical assistance center based in new jersey, there are 100 pti's around the country. that is the one place to go. if you believe your child has a learning disability, having difficulty reading, difficulty with math, there are groups like the national learning center on

disability. take a word you think this child may have, put it in. autistic organizations, so many types. if it is for a parent, look at the parent training information centers. in new york city, you can call the mayor's office, call the governor's office -- this is true for any place. you can also call the department of education in the city, at the capital, at washington, d.c. in washington, d.c. -- i know this because i worked in the bill clinton administration and that was one of my responsibilities -- there are staff working in the office of special education program that have responsibility for working with certain states. so, if you see a problem and your family is not able to get what they need, call the office of special education program, find out who the person is that has responsibility for your state, and get more information.

guest: also, every state has at least one. maybe california and new york have two. ? university -- what? guest: university affiliated centers on disability. guest: every state has one. the federal government gives them money, a lot of them give money out to different entities. in your state, you can find it. you can find where the university center on disability is, get a hold of them. they can tell you where to go, they can guide you in the right way to get a hold of the parent training -- guest: the pti's, go online. but in parent training information center, it will come up. the uses are important. one of the values of these organizations, they focus significantly on people with

intellectual and developmental disabilities. they have research going on around the country. and there is another group, protection and advocacy. they exist in every state. some of them have multiple offices around the state. but they definitely would be experts in listening to what the issue is, giving guidance. in some cases, they may be able to intervene and help or refer people to other places. host: let us talk to michelle, calling from wisconsin. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling because i am a caregiver for mental health. i work in a group home and have been doing it for six years. prior to that, i have a son who is severely autistic.

my husband worked so i could stay home and attend to him for 23 years before i placed him in a group home, because i will not live forever so i have to rely on another system to take care of his needs. during his education process, i had to fight diligently for his educational rights to make sure things were being met. at one point, when he turned 18, they wanted to stop his special schooling and put him in a special ed program at the high school which i did not do, because of interrupting his environment, his consistency, everything would make it really hard on him. when i speak of the level of severity of his autism, he is nonverbal. i could never get him potty trained.

he just finally learned to drink from a cup. we are still struggling with eating utensils through the group home. when i get him here once a month for four days for a visit. when i take my residence into the community to do shopping and other things, we did get quite a bit of looks because of their behaviors and stuff. once other people start giving them looks, more anxiety comes on. therefore, you know, our community is still not being well educated on people who suffer from mental illness. if they do not have a physical disability, people just assume they are ok and their behaviors can be controlled, which is not true. host: jump in here with what michelle said.

has americans attitudes changed since the passage of the ada? or is it a work in progress? guest: it is a work in progress. overall, a lot of the attitudes have changed. you've got to understand, we are talking about centuries of discrimination of people with disabilities being pitied, being set aside. even the major religions of the world for people with disabilities is welfare, something that should not be in society. you have to take care of them. it was based on pity. that is centuries old. now, we are trying to break that down into say, wait a minute. people with disabilities have a right to be integrated, a right to function in society. they should not be set gated -- segregated outward pitied.

the old saying, no more pity, but pride. take pride in our disability. is there still discrimination? yes. people, especially against people with intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities, it is still there. i think because of more integration of people with disabilities, you see people in stores, restaurants, even tv ads. things like that. it is breaking down. we still have a ways to go. host: i want to jump in real quick, we are going to run out of time. what is the next legal step? what is the next legislative step after ada, or is that it? should there be more legislation? guest: let me get back to michelle and relationship to your question. -- in relationship to your

question. one area separate from the ada is the need for what we called home and community-based services. money to enable people to hire personal assistance, i do not use the word caregiver, so people can be living in their own home. if they wish to have a roommate, they would have a roommate. including people with autism, mental health disabilities, etc. that is one of the big areas. it was part of the build back better legislation, which unfortunately did not pass. but i raise this is a very important issue, because personal assistance services are not only important to people like myself. they are important for you. they are important for your grandmother, your mother or father. anybody who may need assistance as they are getting older, because they may not be able to do things by themselves and do not want to wind up in an institution. i call nursing homes and other

facilities institutions. why are many of these people living there? the houses they lived and were not accessible, there is not money available to make them accessible. people may need different levels of support in their home. the money is not there, people have not been taught about what it is. i want to thank michelle for what he said about her child. i also want to say, please go look at this. there is a section that looks at an institution that is no longer around, but you can see how people with intellectual disabilities were treated, tied down, segregated. that is no longer true in most cases. that is the result of ada and other laws, that we finally have been able to demonstrate that, with appropriate education and support services, people can

make major contributions. even with the most significant disability. host: one more collar, that is fred from vermont. caller: good morning. i will try to do this quick, i could go on all day. i've been living everything you've been talking about. i was around before pl 94 142, thank god i grew up and attend a let me go to school. i want to adjust the sports thing real quick, i could talk about all of the issues. i was born with severe rheumatoid arthritis, diagnosed at six months. definitely physical, so people can look at me and know that i am disabled. i've been coaching basketball for almost 38 years now, plus i am a tutor and trained teacher. i felt the sting of that big time. i bet colored people could say the same thing, you cannot do as

well as your able-bodied counterparts to move up. from third grade to jv, every time a varsity job comes open, one time i did not get interviewed all. even though i was recommended by the varsity coach. a second time, they hired some kid out of college, who had no experience over me. then, i got fired by that guy after a glowing evaluation. i am going in tomorrow because i am feeling undervalued. i will not go into details. but i feel almost like, in order for us to move up, we have to outperform, or at least double outperform able-bodied counterparts. sometimes that is not good enough. very frustrating. host: i am sorry, we are going to run out of time. final words. guest: i hope you file a

complaint. title i of the ada, if you believe you have been discriminated against in employment, your message is important. but we talk about, has the 80 did everything we wanted to do, is the same thing he would ask with the civil rights act of 1964. obviously, racism, agism, homophobia continue. but they are moving forward, these laws are so very important. they allow us to see that we are recognized and partly, it is our responsibility to know what our rights are into pushback. host: final words? guest: there are three more things in the ada we need. guest: we are not looking at amending the ada. guest: oh, yeah. but personal services. right after i gave that speech, the next step is personal attendant services, which does not have it. second, housing. we are still building housing

and apartments and condos that are not accessible and we are getting an aging population that wants to live at home and age in place. we have the mandate, just like buildings. every new building in america has to be accessible. we should have the same for housing and condominiums and apartments. third, no discrimination in health insurance for people with disabilities. three things we need to do. host: i would like to think the senator and judy for being with us today and talking about the landmark legislation,

>> here is what is coming up, a hearing on privacy and civil rights after the supreme court overturned roe v. wade. then, look at the threat of drones to national security. and at 8:00, this week's edition of q and a paired our guest is elliot morris who talks about -- q&a. our guest is elliot morris who talked about public opinion polling and the united states and its role in our democracy. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government, funded by these television stations and more, including charter communications. >> broadband is a force for empowerment. that is why charter invested

billions building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> testimony now from the lead plaintiff in the case that legalized same-sex marriage. they appear before a house judiciary committee. hearing at privacy and civil rights concerns impacted by the overturning of roe v. wade. topics include access to birth control and contraceptives, adoption or same-sex couples, and the future of other decisions once considered president. this is just under four hours. good morning,