blackest questions" and it is a game show to talk about black history and culture. host: cristina greer also teaches at florida university. we appreciate "washington journ continues. host: martin di caro from the new york times, what you do for a living? guest: i talk and i ask a lot of questions. i originated a podcast in the last few years and i needed and opportunity to do it. the podcast is "history as it happens" out of the washington times. it comes out every tuesday and thursday. we are taking a look at current events through a historical lens. or when something happens in the news it may reevaluate a past

event. the inspiration for this was we just need more historical thinking. i am not a historian myself but i interview historians and i was able to talk some of the best from the u.s. and the united kingdom. on things like the war in ukraine. what i mean by historical thinking, all of us have been exhausted by the day-to-day new cycle. more than that, i wanted to take a step back from the day-to-day headlines after being a b reporter and a day-to-day reporter for 20 years in radio. i wanted to take a step back from the day-to-day headlines and offer a little more perspective. everything happening today originates from something. so many americans are overwhelmed by the new cycle. sometimes we need to take a breath and realize things are

not as awful as they seem. our country has been through a lot. we managed to come out of it better most of the time. also a book by a great princeton historian, he read a book called "the age of reagan he talked about the need to reanalyze what is happening now. in the 1980's, the early 1990's, the end of the cold war, the expansion of nato after 1989. all of those things are in the news right now. his book about reagan's presidency that includes the clinton years. i thought it was very timely. we are living in history. host: on our american history tv

channel we call history in the news and you call it history as it happens. we have been discussing economics and what the senate is doing in the job support. how would you approach something like that on your podcast? guest: most of my guests are historians, i had a former fed member on. he was a skeptic of the bernanke 0% interest rates, to talk about the 1970's. that is when he got his start. i have done a couple of episodes about the 1970's. the most recent time when american society was beset by these types of problems. inflation and the steps taken that curb their did not curb inflation. paul volcker raised interest

rates to get the country out of inflation during reagan's first term. which was not going well, it took a few years for interest rates that come down in the economy took off. i am working on a podcast coming out in the next couple of weeks on the carter years. i think a lot of people can relate to the carter years. there are a lot of differences between carter and biden. there has already been talked about biden being a one term president, stagflation, the sense that policy is adrift. we had the withdraw from afghanistan in 20 years of war after afghanistan. i think there are some important parallels there. i always make sure to talk about the differences. history does not repeat itself

but it does rhyme. host: martin di caro you talked about sean valenz and how history needs to be reported now and not waited on. is it too early to look back at the trump years? guest: i think so yeah. it takes time for documents to become available to scholars. certainly we can analyze the trump years. we are not blind. we saw what happened on january 6. i don't think it will age well. as more emotions calm, when you are in the moment it is hard to be dispassionate. as time goes on we will look at that and think, oh boy, i think people will change their minds. in some ways yes, you don't know everything yet. also with time, we know that

presidents reputations improver don't improve. harry truman was not all that popular in the years immediately after his presidency. republicans in 1952 ran on cleaning up the mess in washington. truman is now considered to have been a successful president given the array of problems he took on after roosevelt's death. i will say yes and no, it is too early. we also have common sense. host: going back to truman, how much influence do you think david mccullough's book had on improving truman's opinion? guest: it is an important corrective. i just did an episode about grant.

it is its 200th birthday and we are having this reckoning on race. we had the 1690 project, black lives matter. there is this idea that you are either a racist or antiracist. but abraham lincoln and ulysses s grant don't fit into a neat category. there was an essay in the national review about how rant was the forgotten president and a civil rights president. grant's reputation has been rehabbed for the last generation after a century where he was denigrated by professional historians. i think he got a raw deal. host: you get an idea of what we will you talking about with martin di caro and his "history as it happens" podcast.

we will be taking your phone calls in a minute. (202) 748-8001 four republicans, (202) 748-8000 four democrats and (202) 748-8002 four independents. you can send a text message into (202) 748-8003. that is for text messages only. why a podcast? why not a live radio show, why a podcast? host: i think you can do more with the podcast. you have more time to prepare it. if you are doing a weekly radio show that is different. if you do a daily call in show it is a different dynamic. this way, i can think about a subject, find the right guess,

listen back to the interview. i can edit, i can do postproduction where i find archival audio. i do a set of of 10 minutes prior to the interview. i basically produce a radio program for a podcast. doing it that way allows me to do things differently than if i were doing a live radio show. as you know from taking calls here today. i think there is more production value and thought they can be put into it. host: let's hear from some of our viewers. richard in new jersey on the democrats line. you are on with martin di caro. caller: good morning, history as it happens. which means we are looking at it right now as it is happening. i want to ask a quick question. several months ago, you talked

about these historians, several months ago we had normal historians rate the president including 45. invariably, the consensus was 45 came in 44th or 45th in every category. we get these opinions from bizarre world that president trump was the best president ever. i am asking you, do you agree with normal historians or the bizarre people? guest: some of these presidential rankings. they are flawed, imperfect. i did a couple of episodes around christmas time called rank the presidents to find

presidential scholars and they believe that trump belongs at the bottom along with andrew buchanan and johnson. we never had a president before not accept the peaceful transfer of power and to try to undermine the electoral system. through a combination of public lies, propaganda, outright fraud. i don't think somebody's reputation improves from that. in fairness to trump if you want to look at his record, some people would say, despite all of the other stuff he had some accomplishments on his record. i think we look back at nixon and say yes, he did some things with lasting importance. the epa nt he codified affirmative action. opening to china, imagine a

world today without relationships with china. there is the good and the bad. to answer the collars question, i do think trump belongs in the bottom. in my podcast, i don't cater to anyone's feelings or opinions. if you want to hear that liberal or conservative, you can find it. i don't put too much of my own politics into the show. i want to hear what the experts say. i don't shy away from the truth. i just told you where i thought trump landed historically. i am trying to do historical thinking. host: one of the historical figures you looked at was george wallace. guest: i think george wallace is understudied. underappreciated in the sense

that we are living in a populist moment. the typical partisan lines, republican versus democrat don't fit as much as much as urban versus rural. establishment versus non-establishment. coastal elites versus middle america. these are generalizations and they sound cliche but we are living in a populist moment and donald trump he sensed that. he understood where the country was in 2015 and 2016 which is why his message resonated. there was a crossover between bernie sanders voters who then voted for donald trump of the general election. right now, we are not dealing with fascism. we are not dealing with the why martin germany -- weimar germany. what happens when you think of

george wallace? segregation. there were more aspects to his message about the ordinary fellow. he would give speeches and he would talk about the ordinary policeman, the farmer, the mailman. belittled by coastal elites. your values are being denigrated. you have been forgotten in economic globalization's. i would invite people to listen to that episode go online and find it on c-span's website in the video archives and look for wallace's speeches. he gave up on segregation when the country had moved on. in the 1970's he was talking about different things. the most important thing about wallace, i told you i talked for a living. my sentences never find their endpoint. the most important thing about wallace is the politics of rage

grievance. politics is about grievance, you can have a message about hope but you can also get people going on messages of events. ultimately, that is why he could not appeal to a majority. also, his racial ideals prevented him from becoming anything but a southern candidate. host: how many years did you spend in radio and where were you? guest: all over the map. i am not that old but i did get into this business prior to the internet becoming a thing. there was no digital editing. you had to find small radio stations to cut your teeth. i bounced around the country. i worked in new jersey covering

board of education meetings for $6.50 an hour. i moved to bellingham, washington which was a market so small it was not rated by arbitron. we were not even in the top 250 markets. sacramento, rhode island, there was a small fire where hundreds of people were killed. my coverage of that help me get some notoriety in new york city. new york and now washington for the past 12 years. host: gary in indiana. caller: hello.

the two quick points i want to make about george wallace. he also had the most electoral votes by third-party candidate. guest: he won five, six states in 1968. caller: two points i wanted say real quick. with history repeating itself, comparing bidens presidency to carters and the downturn of the economy. according to newsmax, the first one who endorsed carter was senator biden. the second point i want to make is i want to look at the 1924 election -- 1824 election compared to the 2000 election. andrew johnson clearly one that.

as far as 2000 and there were questions about gore getting ripped off thereto. those are two things i wanted to throw out there. host: let's see what martin di caro has to say. guest: we want to relitigate the 2000 election right now? i think he makes an important point. the carter/biden thing is important to look at today. i don't think we will see a repeat of 1980. i am too young to remember this. i am not here to plug c-span's website but it is a great tool. i don't think we will see a repeat of that this year.

as far as whether carter will run again? host: you mean mr. biden? guest: jimmy carter is not running again. whether president biden runs again. a political scientist, who i respect thinks that next spring biden will announce that he will not run for a second term. things are looking better for him this past week. amazing how quickly politics can change. he can make an argument that i was the sane, stable bridge from trump and i think a lot of people will be ok with that. if we believe these polls, his approval rating is bad right now. beyond that, we have to talk

about age as well. it happens to all of us. it is not a knock on him. he will be in the mid 80's by the time his second term ends. host: mike, good morning to you. caller: i just wanted to get your perspective on trump and this notion -- the first draft of history is in the news? host: what is your take on president trump? caller: i don't think he is that bad. guest: can i ask you a question? do you believe he bears any responsibility for the january 6 attack on the capital or trying to steal the election.

for instance, the georgia phone call where he called the secretary of state and told him to find 11,000 votes. how do you square that with his record? caller: absolutely not. if you listen to the entire tape with the georgia representative. guest: yes, i have. caller: it is not as drastic as it is pretrade in the media. -- portrayed in the media. he was saying that there was potentially all these errors in the voting and define those

votes where there were errors. host: we will let martin di caro talk now. guest: well, there were no errors. bill barr let him know that. if you listen to that phone call , he was making things up. it was kind of crazy if you listen to the whole phone call. i would just ask my republican friends, how would you respond if that shoe were on the other foot? i would hope democrats would condemn that as well. we have to move past some of this partisanship. we are in the moment right now, passions are still pretty high. host: can you compare liz cheney

to anyone in history at this point? guest: no, not off the top of my head. what is interesting about her case, she is a conservative republican on the outs of her party. republican and democratic parties have rich histories. they can take credit for doing quite a bit to help our country. both parties, talking about george wallace. he was a southern democrat, a segregationist. that party was terrible on civil rights for half a century. i find it bizarre that in some corners of the republican party that liz cheney is no good anymore. don't we want a sane two-party system?

whatever anyone thinks about the voting fraud charges, he still didn't except the election. host: how do you think senator pelosi will be regarded in history? guest: i think she is a brilliant tactician. this trip to taiwan was a mistake. historically speaking, the united states has made a commitment to china that it would stick to the one china policy. i can't really answer your question about how she will be judged. probably as a successful speaker. the democrats will say that. host: henry from boston, a democrat. caller: my question is on presidents, harry truman, i had two older brothers who served in world war ii and another brother and i served in korea.

my two older brothers served in a segregated military. i don't think harry truman got enough credit for desegregating the military. guest: good point. woodrow wilson, he desegregated the military and federal offices or read segregated ice should say. --re-segrated them i should say. franklin roosevelt died, he had never even spoken to roosevelt more than a handful of times. world war ii is coming to an end. the cold war is about to start and then the korean war starts. what an array of difficulties.

had we not had someone of truman's caliber, roosevelt knew he was dying and ran for a fourth term anyway. we lucked out with truman. his presidency was not perfect. i would encourage people seek out truman's inaugural address. every president since truman has sounded like truman. he talks about how in this post world war ii world, sharing our know-how to keep the rest of the world out of communism. he knew that parts of the developing world found communism attractive. host: after the overturning of roe v. wade, did you look at that issue historically? guest: history of the right to privacy.

i had a constitutional scholar from yale on to talk about this issue a couple of times and a historian from early american history to talk about abortion was commonplace in colonial america. there are a lot of layers to that story. there is the legal one. this is not just about constitutional scruples. whether the 14th amendment protects the right to privacy, and protects an abortion. there is also a conservative religious movement that sought to end abortion on a federal level. i think a lot of young people are giving up on politics. philip schafly proved what

is possible on the others. you can find her speeches online talking about this as well. after goldwater had lost, the conservative movement look like it was finished. we had the goldwater syndrome where a conservative could not win. many republicans supported planned parenthood under the population control movement. herbert walker bush supported plan parenthood. phyllis schafly changed it to a conservative party. there is a lot of layers to the abortion policy. abortion is now in the states. we saw what happened in kansas. host: joe from tucson, you are

on with the times martin di caro . caller: you said there martin and you want to p.r. my leg and tell me i am raining. you bring up january 6 but you don't bring up the summer of love where i watched day after day businesses being burned down and cops getting hurt. why don't you ask some of them people whether that was worse? january 6 or the summer of love? does donald trump bear responsibility? what about maxine walters? people going to republicans and restaurants and spitting in their face. host: joe, i think you got your

comparison. guest: i agree all of that behavior is disgraceful. i don't like to compare thing. the writing that took place in 2020 was regrettable in many democrats did not condemn that and strong enough terms. but as far as the first comment about peeing on his reign and telling him it's raining. i don't chastise trump supporters. trump sensed the moment and he understood the feeling of the country and he keyed into it. he is right about the failure of our institutions. he was right about how nafta alienated so many people. i did a whole show about how democrats lost blue-collar labor . historically, that was democrats constituency.

i understand that he is upset about the situation. i take a balanced approach about these things and i am keyed in to that issue. host: a recent podcast you did was called the declinist. i think all of the collars this morning, they would say the united states is in decline. how do you define decline? things don't seem to be going well right now. although we had a great jobs report, polls have shown that people don't think the country is going in the right direction. a catholic university historian wrote about the rise of decline. he looked at given and his six volume history on the decline and fall of the roman empire.

about signs of decline. one can be imperial overreach. have we been guilty of overreach since 9/11? we are still the most powerful military in the world. as our economy doing poorly right now? by some measures, but we are still the most powerful economy in the world. the point of his essay was whether the united states is in decline or not, we have the power to do something about it. declinist attitudes make us blame the other side. it makes us not want to work with each other. it is a fatalistic attitude. there is nothing we can do about it. it makes us overvalued the problem instead of trying to prevent decline if in fact we

are declining. host: you have been in this town for a while, what do you think when you hear politicians say at some point in history, this is the most important bill we have ever discussed. i remember this going back to senator hollings in 1986. guest: how about this being the most election in your lifetime every four years? that is impossible. i think people tune out politicians. i hear a lot of resentment in these calls with the system. it is like the teacher in the charlie brown cartoon. you hear them speaking but it is the same old stuff. i don't really like any politician, and the moment i try