smith. then, in our spotlight on podcast segment, michael knowles talks about the michael knowles show. join the conversation with your phone calls, text messages and tweets. washington journal starts now. ♪ host: good morning. it is august 13, 2022. democrats passed a sweeping economic package to combat climate change, address rising health care costs and raise taxes on large corporations. a big legislative win for president joe biden and his party as they look to maintain their hold on congress in the november midterms. the vote came the same day documents related to the fbi

search of former president donald trump's florida home were made public. we want to get your thoughts on both of these important stories. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, your line is (202) 748-8001. independents, dial (202) 748-8002. you can also text us at (202) 748-8003. send us a tweet at twitter.com/c-spanwj. you can find us on instagram at c-span wj and facebook.com/c-span. we will get to your phone calls in a minute. we want to get the latest on that release of those fbi documents. we will bring in her grip and her -- herb gribner to tell us more. guest: good morning. how are you today? host: wonderful.

thanks for joining us. what have we learned about the documents that were released yesterday? what has it told us about the search of mar-a-lago? guest: right off the top, we know the fbi see -- fbi seized about 20 materials. four sets of secret documents and three sets of top-secret documents and three confidential documents. binders and notes. there was the executive grant of clemency for roger stone. there was information about the president from france, as it was referred to. that is what we know. before context of the document is unknown right now. that is kind of where we are at. basically what people are looking at is the agents will be

searching for materials that could potentially be in violation of the espionage act, which outlaws unauthorized retention of defense-related material that could pose a threat to the united states, harm the united states or help a foreign adversary. that is what we are looking at and what we know so far this morning. things will develop as we go on, for sure. host: can you explain a little bit more, a lot of talk about what documents the current or former president is allowed to keep and what can they declassify? why is it a potential crime for the former president to possess these documents? can you explain that a little more? guest: i can explain it to the best of my knowledge. it goes back to the espionage act. that act essentially covers the mishandling of national security documents. and the retrieval, the storage and the ambition of the material

are the center point. and the key, this is why it is so important for what is going on here, is it doesn't care about the classification. it is kind of like the mishandling of national security documents irrespective of classification. it is document several put the united states in harm's way for eight a foreign adversary. -- aid a foreign adversary. there are also things about the idea of the theft of government documents. documents that might change the way we are looking at and investigation are also a factor here. -- an investigation are also a factor. these documents could put the united states in harm's way. they were not in a secure facility. so, the justice department is

going to act on that. host: can you speak a little bit too precedent? we heard that former presidents may have also done the same thing and that has been refuted. can you talk about is this unusual, is this out of the norm what president trump is being accused of doing? guest: i would say it is a little out of the norm in a couple of ways. we obviously don't hear about this every day that a former president, especially such a recent president has one of their residencies rated by the fbi. that is a new thing there. on top of that, the idea of releasing the information behind the warrant is not normally a common thing to do, either. i believe it was merrick garland who said this was being done as a way to get the public interest. it was important to release a

search warrant yesterday. there are some unprecedented things here. but, i think that is also a talking point for all sides. there is a conversation being had that this is from the trump side and republican lawmakers that this is an example of a rogue biden justice department, trying to search for a president house. this is unprecedented. at the same time, there are things, these are national security documents. there has been some conversation about that. i'm not too familiar with the specifics. there is a lot of unprecedented things happening around it that make it kind of a big deal and something new to look at. host: how is trump world responding? you talked about some of his allies.

what is the president -- former president's response? guest: there was a push to release the document. trump had the power to release the search warrant and share those details. but they are not shared. he was calling for the release of the search warrant. there has been some challenging of the warrant. i believe it was last night, there was kind of this message out of the trump side that he had what they called a standing order to declassify any documents when he took them into the white house residence. so, that was kind of the message that this -- these documents are classified. it is -- are declassified. it is not a classification thing.

like i was mentioning earlier, the crux of the issue is that the espionage act is the focus of the warrant. it does not care about your classification. that is why there will be some interesting fiction -- friction that the trump side, his allies and supporters might be pushing that they were declassified and nobody cares. but that is why congress set up the espionage act. it doesn't matter what is going on with the classification there. these details can't be shared because it puts the country at risk. that is the message out of the trump side. i have not checked social yet so i don't know what is coming out of there. host: what is coming next out of this investigation and how quickly will we hear anything else? guest: i think what's next, i think there will be more -- i think there is a push to get the affidavit out of it and what was the probable cause that led to

the search warrant. let's take another step back and let's find out what led to this. why did merrick garland sign off on this personally? obviously he said it was important and he needed to do it. he felt a little odd about it. but what pushed that? what drove that? i think that is going to be -- getting more information, the probable cause that warranted the first search. and seeing the reaction will be important. it is the middle of august. midterms are pretty close. looking at that kind of big picture, i think there has also been some talk about the republican reaction. there were some attacks on the department of justice, the fbi on the republican side and trump allies. let's watch and see how that develops. because if this is a problematic

thing for trump, will the gop continue to criticize the fbi? the investigation, i'm not sure on that. i know there is a big push right now to be looking into what led to the search warrant and getting more details around that. i also believe there was actual reporting that merrick garland wanted to get this done on a smaller stage and issued -- asked trump to turn over the documents. i think that is something to look into as well. we are going to want to know why weren't these things handed over earlier? why did they wait so long? why did the justice apartment -- department let the documents stay in mar-a-lago if they knew about them? that is something definitely to watch. host: thank you so much for joining us this morning, herb.

that is herb from axios. we appreciate you joining us. guest: any time. host: now, we are going to go ahead to some of your calls. first up, let's hear from john in cape canaveral, florida, on the independent line. go ahead, john. john, are you with us? all right. let's move on. howard in fort lauderdale, florida, on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning for you how are you doing? -- good morning. how are you doing? caller: wonderful. host: we do not understand the full truth of this whole situation. if you step back, when trump came down the escalator, announced he was running for president, they started right then, they started the

impeachment talk then. right then, immediately. they tried to impeach him. they kept open the russia story. then hunter biden comes out and he's in deep you know what over the laptop thing. joe biden is involved in that. they had to distract the story from hunter biden to trump so that trump cannot run again and that trump will not be president in 2024. that's all this is about. everything that is in that safe, trump had declassified it. 100%. but trump also had dirt on the democratic party, on joe biden, on everybody else in the 2020 election, especially. there are all kinds of things that are in that safe that are now in the hands of the democratic party. ok? that's all this is about. they went in, broke in to steal

that so that trump did not have that. host: we appreciate your call. we will move on to howard in carmen, indiana on the democratic line. go ahead, howard. caller: good morning. it is unfortunate to hear the remarks from the house in florida, still supporting trump. it is unbelievable we have so many ignorant people who support this man. there was never a justification for voting for trump. we need to realize most people, the vast majority of us did not select or ever vote for us. he was never selected by the majority of the people in this country. there was never a justification for voting for him. he is not a businessman as many

supporters will comment about. enough about him. trump is not worth talking about. biden is worth talking about. i think what president biden has accomplished is remarkable, to have such a thin majority in both the senate and the congress, to be able to march forward is impressive and will benefit our country greatly. the legislation is fantastic. i think biden will go down as one of our top five presidents once history looks back on what he's been able to accomplish, assuming the rest of his administration continues to make this kind of progress. i think trump should be in jail and i think many of the republican representatives in

congress who voted not to impeach trump should be considered domestic enemies. we have a lot of cleanup to do in this country. host: let's move on to another collar. we have raymond in aurora, colorado, on the independent line. caller: good morning. i'd like to see more of you. you are doing a great job. i agree 110% with the last gentleman from indiana. i will add one thing. good will always trump -- beat people. i'm not worried because good will rise to the top and people will be put down. for all the republicans who talked about how great donald trump, go back and listen to his

-- and go back and look at how many times his father bailed him out. this man is evil. if he is elected in 2024, god tell us all. good will triumph over evil. thank you and have a blessed day. host: thank you. up next, we have tony in clinton, maryland, on the democratic line. go ahead, tony. caller: i just want to say -- first, i was in the army. fbi clearance gave these briefings to people. people need to rim of this trade this is a guy who had his campaign manager, sharing data within roshan -- with a russian oligarch. they decided his son was not suitable for a clearance. he gave him one anyway.

now, we have -- first of all, this nonsense of i declassified it, that's nonsense. this kind of information you don't just drag out to your garage and say it's declassified. there is more to this story that will come out. i believe donald trump has already committed espionage or was planning to. he is unfit to have held that office. everybody knew it in 2016. he will be the downfall of this country. 35% of the population are just mindless zombies. host: up next, we have jerry in virginia, republican. go ahead. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: look, donald trump

campaigned on draining the d.c. swamp. ever since, they've been after him ever since. everything they can do, he wants them to take him to court. he is still trying to drain the swamp. i think he would love to get it to the supreme court. host: all right. we have mark on the line from cloverdale, indiana. independent. go ahead. caller: i'm a minister of the gospel and i speak from the authority of the lord of god concerning where our country is right now. a sickly, the democrats are baby butchering, which is called murder in the bible. and they are promoting homosexual marriage and all sorts of perversion and teaching

this to our children. as i look at some of the other things they are doing, they are -- the fbi is basically like the kgb. the irs has tried to get 87,000 more people to go after the poor people in this country. $24,000 and below income will be oppressed, called in for audits and my dad was a farmer. he got called in eight or 10 times. host: we will keep talking about the big stories of the day. we have been getting your calls and thoughts about the fbi search of president -- former

president donald trump's florida home. we are also talking about the vote that took place on friday to sweep the -- pass the sweeping economic package. let's listen to representative tenney govern, who was -- jim mcgovern, who was speaking on the inflation reduction act. >> mr. speaker, for too long, too many people in this country have felt like the work that happens in washington is not meant to help them. like the people who work in the city are not on their side. you know what? for a long time, they have been right. for decades, corporate special interests and they're out of touch friends in the republican party have blocked progress in washington. they got what was good for the rich and powerful, not what was right for working families in the middle class. no more. that time is over. president biden and democrats

are putting people over politics. we are fighting to create better jobs, safer communities and a brighter future for our planet. this historic bill, this is a historic bill, mr. speaker. at the end of the day, it is not a complicated vote. it all comes down to what your values are. democrats have been fighting for years to lower drug prices and this bill lets medicare negotiate with drug companies to lower the price of prescription drugs. it cap the out-of-pocket costs of insulin at $35 for people on medicare. it stops excessive price hikes on drugs and says if you are on medicare, you will have to pay more than $2000 a year for your prescriptions. meanwhile, republicans opposed this bill because it will cut into big pharma's corporate profits. really?

they oppose this bill because they want to let companies continue price gouging. give me a break. this bill listens to the climate experts who tell us that melting glaciers and record heat are not normal. it puts us on a path to cutting carbon emissions 40% by 2030, helping create millions of jobs along the way. this is a huge investment in energy security, made in america by american workers. it lowers energy costs for working families. it is the biggest investment in fighting climate change in history. ever. this is a turning point in the fight to protect our planet. republicans oppose this bill because they have never given a damn about pollution or climate change. they are more interested in protecting big oils autumn line. that is whose side they are on. let's look at health care costs. this bill cuts health-care costs for millions of people by locking in affordable care act premiums. saving people $800 a year on average.

republicans oppose it because they want insurance companies to make more money by ripping people off. you can't make this stuff up. democrats want a tax code where rich and powerful people pay what they owe like everyone else. honest, hard-working it'll class families have to pay their fair share but the top 1% dodge 100 six $2 billion in taxes each year. -- $160 billion in taxes each year. host: that was representative mcgovern. let's hear from representative jason smith, the top republican on the budget committee, who is speaking out against the bill. >> we are debating what democrats call the inflation reduction act, which everyone from the congressional budget office to 230 different

economists, even senator bernie sanders says will not actually reduce inflation. when you strip away the fake sunset policies, this bill spends 745 billion dollars and adds $146 billion to our debt. it adds $54 billion worth of debt just in the first five years. and 80% of their budget deficits don't even begin until after the year 2029. lots of spending upfront. lots of debt upfront. and then maybe savings eight years from now? how is that going to put out the fire of inflation when the price of groceries is up 13.1% over the past year. senators's mansion and schumer,

secretary yellen and former president obama are all on record saying you don't raise taxes during a recession. but that is exactly what this bill does. it includes $599 billion in new taxes and budget gimmicks. half of the tax burden falls on taxpayers making less than $400,000 a year. the choice this bill puts in front of families, making less than $200,000 is clear. put the government at the center of your health care decisions or face a $10 billion tax burden. but it gets worse. this bill doubles the size of the irs. it doubles the size of the irs. so, it can target an audit -- and audit more middle-class

families and snoop into there account. not sure how subjecting americans to more audits solves the inflation crisis. in my home state of missouri, this bill would quadruple the number of audits. 18,000 more audits on hard-working americans who make less than $200,000 a year. host: we are talking about the economic package passed by democrats as well as the fbi search of former president donald trump's home in florida. go to james in fort worth, on the democratic line. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. first, the economic package, we finally got a bill passed. mitch mcconnell's job has been two things. keep the wealthy wealthy and to do everything he can to make the american people suffer when

there is a democrat in the white house. second, on donald trump, everybody knows the man is a criminal. he has been eating away with it for years and years and years. the man is a stone cold racist. you listen to him, and the whites of premises community. i am a white man and it disgusts me. i'm 77 years old. i went through civil rights and the voting rights when i was in active military, serving in vietnam. and i'm ashamed, i am ashamed that ronald reagan's and dwight eisenhower's republican party has been headed over to the neofascists. host: next up is sta -- sam. caller: good morning and thank

you. i will be brief. i am amazed that one of the former callers making the statement about how trump was already doing -- when he went down the ask later. it is ironic to think about that but it's ok for mitch mcconnell, his goal was to make him a one term president. second, all of the facade and fake when it comes to pro-life when it comes to the republicans. where were the pro-life people when it comes to columbine and stoneman douglas? think. it's not all about pro-life in the womb, it's about pro-life in life in general. thank you so much. host: up next, we have vivian in georgia on the republican line. caller: yes. i want to say something. i've been listening to c-span for a while and we hear all these people talking about god

and how he -- they don't think about what they are doing. donald trump is not perfect but they have not found one thing on him. biden and his son, they are criminals. i love america and i am a christian. i do think that people, if they think joe biden is doing a good job in this country, there is something wrong. host: vivian, i just want to ask, if the fbi determines that documents that should not have been taken were at mar-a-lago, do you think president trump should be held accountable for committing a crime? caller: anybody should be held accountable for a crime. but they have been after this man ever since before he got into the office. have you seen them go after

hunter biden and here italy -- hillary clinton? i'm not saying trump is perfect but he does love this country. i 100% agree that the truth will always come out. host: for viewers who want to know a little bit more about the hunter biden investigation, ill free to go on our website, c-span.org. -- feel free to go on our website, c-span.org. we have segments talking about hunter biden. next up is jackie in oakland, michigan. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have been taking a tally on who is for trump and who is against trump. it is even right now. but, back in 2016, the big thing

was lock her up. now we can say lock him up. thank you. host: william in quincy, massachusetts, on the independent line. caller: good morning. when they introduce a bill and it specifically says one thing and all of a sudden, it is piggybacked to other directions -- it was going to go through 100% but the democrats started adding on. the republicans turned it down because of the add-on, why do they still piggyback? host: thank you, william. we will move on to john in madisonville, tennessee on the republican line. go ahead. caller: good morning. i love your coverage. you are doing a great job. we always say it is the

dehumanization of trump before he was elected. from his election to his presidency to impeachments, now all we want to do, right before a fair election, they want to bring trump down. bring the republican party down. these demons, look at what they are doing. look at all of the different things they are doing to this country, destroying it. it's never going to be back like it is. all we want to do is have one party. the democratic party. host: ok. we have mary on the line from warwick, massachusetts. caller: yes. host: go ahead with your comments. caller: my comment is when trump was in office, i ended up paying taxes for three years. and what trump did to our

country and everybody wants to say it is democrats, no. the republicans got way out of hand when i was growing up. to me, i have read about trump. [indiscernible] host: we will move on. we have been talking about the fbi search of armor president donald trump's home in flow to pay let's hear from the top republican on the house intelligence committee, representative mike turner. he and fellow republicans on the committee spoke out, criticizing , laying out concerns about the search. >> i want to begin by stating that all of our members of this committee are in full support of the men and women who every day work to keep our nation safe at the fbi and apartment of justice

and we condemn any actions of violence against any law enforcement personnel. having said that, we have a serious -- we have serious questions concerning the actions taken by director ray and ordered by attorney general garland to raid the mar-a-lago residence of former president donald trump. it is our job to ensure that they are not abusing discretion or politicizing the powers we have given them. earlier this week, we requested that they disclose to our committee the national security basis upon which that they have ordered this raid. because many other options were available to them, we are very concerned of the method that was used in rating mar-a-lago in -- and the nine hours that it transpired while they were inside the former president's home.

while we are glad that attorney general garland has begun releasing the information to the american public and the american public deserves answers and our responsibility as congress is to make sure we provide appropriate oversight. they will be releasing the warrant and the inventory. it will still leave many unanswered questions. that is why our request remains that the director of the fbi and the attorney general disclose to this committee the imminent national security threat upon which they based their decision to order a raid upon the president's home. again, underscoring there were many other options available to them. we believe that after the release today, these questions will still remain unanswered. we are requesting that the chairman of the committee support our request for the disclosure of this information to our committee. and we are requesting that it be backed up if they do not comply with our request, by a subpoena for our committee.

our committee is intended to work with classified information. there is nothing that would be in the subject matter of this that cannot be disclosed to our committee. and we also deal with national secured threats and we want to know what was the imminent national secured he threat upon which this was based. next, we are also very concerned about the disturbing reports that there was an informant, perhaps somebody undercover at mar-a-lago or around former president donald trump. today, we are also sending a letter to director ray, demanding that he disclose to us the process by which that informant was utilized or that informant was placed. what is the relationship between the fbi and the person that has reportedly been utilizing this process. host: we are taking your calls about two big news events from yesterday. democrats passed the sweeping economics package and also we

received documents from the fbi about the search of former president donald trump's home in florida. the inflation reduction act is what was passed by democrats that is to control health-care costs, address climate change and raise taxes on large corporations. it's get to more of your cars -- calls. mark is on the line from massachusetts, independent. go ahead. caller: i just want to say the law is the law. as far as i know, you can't declassify top-secret documents. i don't want anyone to be endangered around the world, any of our people to be endangered. i think classified documents should be back where they belong. hunter biden is in big trouble with the irs. the guy is a train rick. don't worry about -- train wreck, don't worry about that. nobody under $400,000 will be

audited. they say everybody under 400 thousand dollars will be audited. which one is it? people are talking out of the sides of their mouth. which one is it? thank you. host: up next, we have shirley from columbia, missouri. democrat. shirley? caller: good morning. he is exactly right. people cannot run around with documents classified. donald trump is a traitor of the united states of america. donald trump is a loser. he is a fake and he needs to be put underground again somewhere to never be spoken of again in his lifetime. thank you. host: we now go to bubba in memphis, tennessee. republican. bubba, you're on. caller: good morning. it amazes me how many people

want somebody to be in prison when they haven't been charged or found guilty of a crime. they have been investigating this man forever. he's in the news every day. we are not even hearing about the terrible job that biden is doing in this country. the republicans, all they are worried about -- and the republicans. all they are worried about is trying to keep trump from running again. he will be the next president. you had the speakers on their who called trump these names. when a republican starts talking bad on the democrats, you hang up on them. have a good day. these people who want trump to go to jail will have to keep on

hoping. host: we go to scott in san antonio, texas. scott is on the independent line. caller: hi. good morning. i just wanted to call and reflect on the fact that i can't really understand why it is -- i'm sorry. i can't really understand why it is that the republican party has changed so much over the past 20 years or so. i just see a lot of what is going on right now is a lot of racism going on in this party. donald trump in my opinion really opened the eyes of a lot of people. i see this behavior on social media all the time where people

are making comments like they are looking forward to things going back to the 1950's and pre-civil rights. bigotry is pushing this support for donald trump. i was watching the lincoln project people on youtube. they put out, i guess, probably hundreds of videos. the thing that really surprised me was the fact that on all of these videos, they were starting to talk about the fact that they did not realize donald trump was a racist. all this seems to have been sparked from the fact that he was mishandling the virus that was going on at the time. i think that is what scared them into stopping voting for him. the rest of the country could see that donald trump was racist from the beginning. for them to come out and say all

of a sudden they see he is racist after he is mishandling the pandemic, i think that was just them scared that things were going to get worse. thank you. host: we go to roberta in west chicago. go ahead, roberta. caller: good morning. host: i just want to put in a little feedback with the taxation and security with seniors. i am a senior. when it came down to making choices, i don't think people were making phone calls. i already made my phone call and i learned that this tax benefit package was not quite what they were laying it out to be.

you have to go on an hmo in order to have certain benefits added onto the advantage package that you are going for. you would have to see the doctors to get that hmo. if you don't want to see those doctors, you have to get your bpo and you end up paying deductibles. a $2000 deductible, that is ridiculous. it is a crazy amount of money. as far as, he talks about the irs and the 87,000 employees. that is not an irs agency. you are talking about police.

they have to be physically fit. they don't say anything how they have to do training in any form of taxation. whether it be payroll or cpas, accounts. i did a lot of the stuff for my living. i can tell you, that cap of $400,000, that will move up each year. i will use $400,000 for an example. once you reach $400,000 of taxable income, then you don't pay social security anymore. it doesn't matter if you are rich.

host: roberta, let me ask you, do you think the rich should pay their fair share of taxes? caller: of course. and they do. it's just that they can afford the benefits that are not set. the companies i work for, they gave us options. different insurance packages. all these types of things. the company i work for had the opportunity to offer it. small companies were just heading to the point where they were able to afford offering their employee these same types

of benefits. host: let's talk about the inflation reduction act and what is in it. roberta mentioned part of the bill is to increase the oversight of the irs. it also allows medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. that is for patients who have coverage in medicare. it extends the affordable care act subsidies through 2025. there is $370 billion for climate change investments. it creates a 15% corporate minimum tax. again, that funding to expand irs enforcement. this comes from usa today. that is all in that package, approved by democrats. let's take more of your calls. angie in houston, texas, on the democratic line. independent. -- on the demo credit line. you are on -- democratic line.

caller: the cbo has to weigh in first. this was pushed through without cbo scoring. late yesterday morning, we found out the cbo found a problem with it. it passed without cbo scoring. it is a disservice to the good people of this country. we need better representatives because we know what it is like to hear one of our leaders in washington make the most ridiculous, stupid statement ever. we must pass the bill in order to find out what's in it. what a disservice to this country and the good people who are trying to make this country work. those kinds of people who don't allow the cbo scoring to happen

before the bill was voted on, that is wrong. we need to change that. somebody needs to establish a rule that the cbo has to score it before it is voted on. that's not right for the people of this country to have to pay the bill. thank you. host: we have tom from tucson, arizona. go ahead. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: my name is tom. i am 80 years old. i have but my time in the service. i would like to say i was on the uss arizona where 1177 men gave their life at pearl harbor. i have been to the cemeteries.

a lot of people gave their life for the freedoms that we enjoy. to see the things that are going on now, these people would wonder what is wrong with our country. donald trump will say anything. he will do anything. he is despicable. to turn around and say that barack obama took classified material with him, he doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. he will say anything. he will do anything. people who believe him, i would -- i used to be a printer. i have some stock certificates at my house that i would be more

than happy to sell them 100 shares of the brooklyn bridge for $100. because of they believe this nonsense, they will believe in giving me $100 or 100 shares of the brooklyn bridge. host: thank you, tom. tom just brought up the fact that former president trump, in speaking about the search of his home did bring up that -- he spread misinformation about records that he accused former president barack obama of also holding after he left the white house. the national archives countered that. called -- they called it misleading. the national archives said it obtained exclusive legal and physical custody of obama's records when he left office in 2017. it said that about 30 million pages of unclassified records were transferred to a facility

in the chicago area and they continue to be maintained exclusively by the national archives and records administration. this is from a washington post article. let's go to another caller. mark in freeport, texas on the independent line. caller: i am a trump supporter. there is a lot of things he does that i don't agree with. he gets loud free he speaks out, no doubt. the one thing is he is being investigated and has been searched by the fbi. hillary clinton was caught with a server at home with delicate information from the fbi. and she did delete emails and

they dropped the search. they dropped the case altogether. about trump, when he took office , they were beginning to come back and create jobs. when joe biden got in, he turns around and takes away those incentives. he stops the pipeline to canada. we only by 16% of our oil from the ukraine and those countries over there. we could supplement our oil easily from canada but he stopped the pipeline just short of where canada would take over the continuation of building that pipeline. another issue such as -- as far as i'm 64 years old. i was in a motorcycle wreck. i broke my back. i worked all my life.

i've made good money. since i have no children, i have paid excessive amounts of medicare, medicaid -- not medicaid. we don't pay medicaid. but taxes. and now that i am disabled, i am getting one weeks pay to live on for a month. they were giving me $19 in food stamps. they took that away because they gave a disability race at the beginning of the year. at the time, it was 60 or $80. my first bill was $55 and $.14 -- $55.14. anything they gave me was taken away by medicaid. i have to pay portions of everything. i am broke every month. i have $.58 last month. i think our country needs to

start putting more money into taking care of our homeless and our veterans. get our military back from the other countries. let them start building up our country and our defenses and let us start taking care of our own people. thank you very much. host: we go to mark in dearborn heights, on the independent line. caller: hello? host: hello. caller: i'd like to touch base on a couple of things. barack obama comes and passes the affordable care act, which helps and benefits the american people. it is the american people's tax money. money gourds -- money goes towards that and helps women and children. the people reusing the hospital emergency rooms for their health care. these doctors and nurses deserve to be paired -- paid.

the affordable care act took care of that. we go into the trump era. he passes legislation that cuts taxes for the richest 1% again prayed then, nothing. in the first year of the biden administration, he passes bill back better -- build back better, which ups farming, the sewer systems. you look at kentucky, they are flooded out. these things have to be changed as far as infrastructure. now, the new bill for spending as far as helping seniors with medicare and prescription drugs, now they can negotiate. having people who don't pay taxes, the irs is getting on them so they can pay their fair share of taxes. too many people are getting away with too many things. these loopholes are getting close. now you see politicians on tv, the republican party is saying they are raising taxes.

no, we are collecting taxes from the people who owe it. corporations have to pay their fair share. they do business in this country. they have to pay too, just like the middle class. these guys always go after the low hanging fruit. they try to punish women and children. their era and their message is old. host: next up is ray in pleasant view, tennessee. republican. you are on. yes -- caller: yes. the gentleman a few persons ago said donald trump would do and say anything. you're going to compare donald trump to joe biden, who lives, who doesn't know where he's at. his family has made millions on his name, no. donald trump gave his salary back to the government agency.

he didn't keep it and do with it . he gave it back. this man don't know what he's talking about. as far as this grade on trump's home in florida, these democrats and these liberals are so afraid that he will be the president and get us back to making america great. it was good. everything he did help the people -- helped the people. and that is the way it should be. until he is back in office and you can get these bloodsucking politicians out of their, -- out of there, we will be in trouble. that is most of the democrats. host: phil is on the line from naples, flora.

independent. caller: good morning. i would like to comment on the recent bill they passed in congress prayed i hope every democrat out there wakes up and sees what happening -- what is happening to this country. this country is being destroyed bit by bit and the biden administration, started -- starting with obama, destroyed this country. we used to have independent fuel. we would have enough fuel to support ourselves. we have unspeakable numbers of people coming here every year, undocumented. they support the democrat parties. if this country does not wake up and change the face of the democratic party, this country will be doomed. this is a time for democrats to

stand up and speak. and stand up for the country. not your politicians. host: we will take a quick break. up next, we have education professors henry tran of the university of south carolina and douglas smith of the university of iowa, discussing the national teachers shortage and how to fix it. and later, the daily wire's michael knowles joins us to discuss his podcast and the very busy week in politics. we will be back. ♪ >> american history tv, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. chuck d. talks about the music of social change and has songs that shook the planet project. we will feature a profile of pat nixon with scholars looking at

her media image, her person-to-person diplomacy and work to get more women into government roles and onto the supreme court. exploring the american story. watch american history tv every weekend. find a schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. ♪ >> over the past the january 6 committee revealed the findings from its investigation. all week, watch c-span as we look back at the committee's, featuring never before seen evidence, depositions and witness testimony into the attack on the u.s. capitol. u.s. capitol police officers caroline edwards, who was knocked unconscious during the first breach of the capitol grounds, shares her story alongside a filmmaker who was filming the proud boys and the rally. watch on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video app, or

anytime on demand at c-span.org. now available, c-span's 2022 congressional directorate. this is your guide to the federal government. , also contact information for state governors and the biden administration cabinet. order your copy today at c-spanshop.org or scan the code with your smartphone. every c-span shop purchase helps support c-span's nonprofit operation. >> 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 america's network. unfiltered, unbiased, word for

word. if it happens here or here or here or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span. powered by cable. ♪ host: we have education professors henry tran of the university of south carolina and douglas smith of the ohio state university to discuss efforts to address the national teacher shortage. our guests are lead editors of the upcoming book "how did we get here? the decay of the teaching profession." welcome to both of you. >> thank you so much. >> thank you for having us. host: of course. henry, can you start by telling me about your background in education and in teaching?

prof. tran: my background is primarily in human resources. i worked at the debate in education, did my training in public human resource management ended research in the hr field. coming at it from a talent management perspective. host: douglas, you are at iowa state university. i don't know how i keep getting that wrong. iowa state university. what about you? what is your background in education and teaching? prof. smith: absolutely. i come through working with student services and academic affairs. i have a phd from the university of wyoming. my primary areas of emphasis are education, human resources and leadership development across the pete 20 spectrum, working with k-12 leadership and staffing and also primarily community colleges. i focus a lot on those relati onships between the community

college and k-12 environment to solve many of these issues we are faced with. host: there was a report in the washington post that said it's hard to know exactly how many u.s. classrooms are short of teachers because there is no national database. let's start with you, douglas. can you tell us, you know, what are you hearing at the state and the district level about the scale of this problem? prof. smith: sure. and absolutely, that's a great place to start. because one of the challenges we have is exactly what you said, that we do not have great national data on what the shortage is. a lot of times, we use that term there is a national teacher shortage. more specifically, it is our labor markets in the teaching profession are hyper local. their issues in one localized area is not going to be the same. it's hard to say that we have a national teacher shortage, because we have all of these endorsement areas, we have all of these levels that we prepare people for, from elementary to

middle to high. each local area is impacted differently. the challenge in quantifying is that states do not collect the same data. some states do not collect much data at all around teacher staffing. often times, when we think about national teacher shortages, pundits are relying on anecdotal information. will be due here from school districts and leaders through our research -- what we do hear from our school districts and leaders through our research, there are concentrated shortages, especially in special education, stem fields and world languages that are difficult to hire. those challenges impact rural and urban school districts disproportionately in ways that may be those school districts are lucky to even have one applicant for a vacant job. host: let's bring in, henry. you guys had a recent piece

about the fact that efforts to combat teacher shortages do not always address the real problems. what do you think are the real problems? what needs to be done? prof. tran: let me just kind of start off, if i can, discussing what the problem is and why many of the recently proposed solutions miss the mark. there is a growing number of people teaching -- where teaching is a fundamentally unattractive profession. majority of parents report they do not want their children to become teachers. a lot of the proposals that have been coming out to address the teacher shortages have been aimed primarily at recruiting more teachers but are misaligned with the root cause of the problem. they don't make the job more attractive. turnover drives about 90% of the demand for new teachers. we are talking about turnover. when we talk about things like

lowering the barrier or reducing standards to allow more people to enter the teaching profession, that's not going to address the conditions that led the mass exodus of the teachers in the past. it won't address how things will be different for the crop of incoming teachers in the future. in short, a lot of these proposals are band-aid solutions, their shortsighted to a much more complicated and enduring dilemma. host: douglas, how has the coronavirus pandemic impacted the teacher shortage? is the current shortage a result of the pandemic or just exacerbated? what is the correlation, if any? prof. smith: sure. we have had acute teacher shortages in, likely said, in -- like we said, in specific school districts, in specific areas well before the coronavirus. but what covid-19 did is it

accentuated the working conditions that are increasingly unpalatable for teachers to continue to work in for some. and many of them, especially with the resurgence of the american labor market, has allowed opportunities to exit teaching at increasing rates. especially when we think about the wage differential that a teacher can step into in the private labor market with a bachelor's or a masters degree and make. when we think about what's happening, one of the major things we continually hear about, especially since covid-19, is the frustration with the lack of a tawny in -- lack of autonomy and what a classroom teacher is doing in the classroom, how they teach, what they have control of. and just the overall lack of ability to control what you are doing in the classroom and the support you have in doing that, that increasingly a teacher's

time is spent on non-extensional responsibilities -- noninstructional possibilities -- response does. nearly one third of teachers -- noninstructional responsibilities. nearly one third of teachers reported in the last year physical or verbal harassment just from parents alone. those kind of conditions become unpalatable for teachers to want to continue in if you find yourself in that situation. host: we are going to get to your calls in just a moment so go ahead and dial 202 748-8000. if you're a parent, dial 202 7 48-8001. if you're a student, dial 202 7 48-8002. anyone else, dial 202 748-8003. we are talking to education

professors henry tran of the university of south carolina, and douglas smith from the iowa state university. henry, you guys have talked about teachers and filling -- feeling disrespect. can you talk about what you think the root cause is of where that's coming from? is it the students, the parents, is it behavior, is it society at large? what do you think it is? prof. tran: in some of the research that serves as the foundation for our book, based on feedback we got from stakeholders, including current teachers and potential teachers. so, that's a random sample of college students. the most influential factor for why many people would consider not even entering the profession in the first place is due to lack of respect. i think of respect from a micro and macro level. examples of disrespect on the societal level are escalating workloads and responsibilities. teachers are expected to be more

than just do teaching. . they are expected to provide social work, mental health care duties, cleanup, janitorial services, etc. as for low teacher pay relative to other professions that require similar education and training requirements, one estimate indicates about 1% less. there is attempts to -- about 20% less. there is attempts to de-professionalize teachers. on the macro level, it includes poor working conditions, having to pay out-of-pocket for a lot of resources and tools to do their job, lack of student and parental respect, as dr. smith talked about, sometimes life-threatening violent, and weak administrative support. instead of allowing teachers to focus more on their job and teach, provides all this extra work and scrutiny that takes away from their focus on students. this lack of respect drives the turnover of teachers in the field and prevents many from considering teaching to begin

with. i just want to share one story that we had when we were interviewing potential teachers. this lady told us i really would want to be a teacher, but the thing is this, if i told my parents and my family i want to be teacher, they would be really disappointed in me. they would tell me, you have such good grades, you could have been so much more, why would you choose teaching? that is someone who was interested in teaching but was swayed away because of the general disrespect of the teaching profession. host: douglas, i wanted to ask you, we talked earlier about how the teacher shortage is most acute in urban and rural districts. has your research shown a divide between public and private schools? are private schools experiencing the same issues? why or why not? prof. tran: we largely focused a lot of our -- prof. smith: we largely focused

a lot of our research on public education. i think we could see a lot of the same issues that are happening in private schools but probably not so much with some of the critiques that we hear from teachers and criticisms around the loss of a tawny. in a private school -- the loss of autonomy. in a private school context, you are going to have more autonomy because of the regulatory responsibilities that are not there on private schools. the salary is going to be a component that is still going to challenge private schools and recruitment of teachers. the parental involvement still make causes some challenges and added stress in the private school context. dr. tran and i focus on the public school labor markets. prof. tran: would it be ok if i pay be back -- piggyback on dr. smith's answer? we talked about how the teacher shortage was not one-dimensional. not all schools face shortages.

even those that do, they don't face the challenges to the same degree. we talked about schools located in high poverty areas, rural and urban settings, especially for teachers in specific fields. from an equity perspective, there is a major inequitable distribution of teacher quality across schools. teachers with lower ratings across a variety of quality measures, experience, certification exam scores, value added, test score again estimate, which attempts to associate teachers with their students' average test score, they are more likely to teach in schools with populations -- high populations of students of color. if those schools have those type of estimates, they are more likely to have lower quality teachers based on all these metrics of quality. when we talk about proposals like lowering the bar to allow

more people to come to the profession, we are going to see a repeat of that pattern. that trend is just going to be worse for these concentrations of schools. host: let's take some of your calls now. andriy in washington, d.c. -- audrey in washington, d.c. caller: thank you. good morning, c-span. my question is, what is the advantage and the disadvantages of politicians determining what should be taught and what should not be taught in the classroom? everything is being politicized now. that teachers do not have the decision or the control of what is taught. i want to know the advantages and disadvantages of politicians who are not teachers determining what needs to be taught and what

the kids don't have to be taught in the classroom. thank you. host: douglas, do you want to take that question? prof. smith: absolutely. the advantages historically have been that states set standards for k-12 education. what students should be learning at each level. i think the disadvantage that the collar is speaking of is what we have seen in the last couple of years, which is a diving state legislatures and education governing bodies diving into a fine-grained detail of the content that we have not seen before. that's where we've seen a lot of these political headlines around some of the specific content within the coursework. that's what we hear from teachers, is that we are not against state standards and states guiding what should be taught and what students should know and certain benchmarks in k-12 education. what teachers disagree with is

that, by a large, the day today, what should i be teaching, how should i be teaching it? what can i and can i not teach when i am presenting different perspectives on be at math, science, technology, reading, all of those pieces? i think what the caller is getting at is we seem state legislatures dive into content at a level of detail we have not seen before. it is our position that these decisions are best made at the local level and ideally with the teachers. who should trust teachers enough that they are prepared that they know the content, that they know it's best to deliver in the classroom and how to deliver it. host: next up is pam in atwater, ohio. what line are you calling in on? caller: yes, hello. i am a teacher, have been a teacher for over 27 years in special education. host: question or comment?

caller:caller: i have seen a decline in the desire for people to become educators and it's been disheartening for me because i love what i do and have always loved what i do. but i will say, if i'm looking at it from a standpoint in aero district, so if you look at the low starting pay, is unsustainable for many teachers who have college debt, who are trying to live independently. it is too low for them. you have to lack of respect that comes from parents, from the public in general. you have a one-size-fits-all state standard, at least in the state of ohio. what that does is forces us as educators to really push these standards down these childrens' throats. it takes away our autonomy to do the job that we feel we are fit to do. the pressure is ridiculous when it comes to the standard. and then, you have the funding. in ohio, we rely on our families to find the school. we have failed levees repeatedly

. as we do so, we lose the programs that we have built over the years. it is like a cancer. we have completely decimated our school system. in my opinion. and unfortunately, the children who suffer the most. and then, you just have what's happened since the pandemic. our students have changed so much. they have suffered so much. the social, emotional pain is just profound. i am astounded. my last year -- last year, i should say, was one of the hardest years i've had in the field of education. i worked with them in third grade, fifth grade. i could not get over the change in these poor children's' minds having to process what they have experienced. as educators, it's hard for us to stop and absorb and address their needs. we are forcing them forward with our standards, again, trying to

push this down their throats and trying to, you know, get these test scores where they need to be, and i just don't feel like we are really -- and then it's all politicized on top of that. i think we are going to continue to lose teachers, unfortunately. we had a position open in sixth grade. we only had two people apply. what are your solutions to this? i fear for the future of education. i mean, i fear we are going to end up teaching all children online because we cannot find bodies to do the job. i work with some amazing professionals who have given the opportunity to do what they do best would do some amazing things with their students. host: douglas, i see you shaking your head. we just heard from a teacher. does this come down to money? prof. smith: i mean, i think a lot of what dr. tran and i's research says is that money matters. we don't want to discount that money matters. of the things that the caller is talking about matter. the continual added workload and

the stress that it puts onto our teachers, especially if you're in a state assessed subject. but the caller asks about solutions. the solutions are not easy because they are context specific. what works in one district may not work in another. obviously, we do need to focus on salaries. there have been states that have made significant headway in improving teacher salaries. florida just passed a significant enhancement in teacher salaries, new mexico justin the same. that is not going to solve -- just did the same. that is not going to solve our issues. it's going to take a multidimensional approach to solving and lessening the teacher shortage. like dr. tran and i talked about, we focus a lot on the retention issue, because when we lose teachers, it continues to drive up demand for needing to hire new teachers. part of our solution and what we talk about is we have to improve the working conditions for current teachers so we stopped losing so many current teachers.

have a lot of that boils down to administrative support. that's 1 -- a lot of that boils down to administrative support. they want to work in a school environment where they have support. they have a leader that is present, that is able to mentor and guide them into the profession, and is able to provide them with the support and the backup when they need it to deal with difficult situations, to navigate a process that may they have never been through. so, our solutions, it is really multi pronged. it is giving the teachers the resources. they are struggling to pass bond referendums. teachers want to work in clean and safe school facilities. all of these conditions add up. enroll communities specifically, sometimes -- in rural communities specifically, sometimes it's difficult to get teachers and earl communities if there's not -- in rural

communities if there's not housing. we have to be able to connect especially rural teachers to communities in a way that they become part of the community. we have to think of this from a multilevel approach. host: next up, donna in pennsylvania. go ahead. caller: i am calling on the others line. you two gentlemen, professors, this teacher shortage, i have a brother who is a schoolteacher, the other is a superintendent. could be because they started at charter schools paying the minimum wage. could it be possibly teachers who [indiscernible]? third, i have a cousin who was a schoolteacher in the appellations. kids were coming to school with no shoes on, no socks, poor

clothing. could this be another reason why there is a national teacher shortage? thank you. have a great day. host: do you want to address the caller? prof. tran: i mean, it goes back to the same issues. it is the general lack of respect for the profession. when we talk to people, we very rarely find people who say that they do not support education. there's a lot of lip service about teachers are very important, there's a lot of platitudes shared. when it comes down to the action , that's where the public says ok, -- from the district and leadership level, how can we provide the support so teachers can draw on the expertise to address problems to the best of their ability and not have all these barriers can attract their attention away from students. i think a lot those issues go back to respect. if we respect them as professionals, we will give them the autonomy.

, we will ensure things like for example, adequate teacher compensation, resources in the classroom, and you know, instead of doing away with, for example, standards and have more teachers come to the profession, what about doing away with licensure fees? how do we provide support for that? student months? those are all other barriers, financial berries, right. that requires more of the attention. host: next up, we have marie on the educator line from silver springs. go ahead. caller: hi. good morning. i just left education after 14 years with high school students. you will not believe the amount of my colleagues who congratulated me when i was leaving for being able to get out. will push me out was the parents. over the past -- what pushed me out was the parents.

i have received so much disrespect from parents. you need to respect your educators and you need to let your children fail. if they do not turn in an assignment on time, do not harass the teacher. you are not going to be able to harass their bus when they get into the work -- harass their boss when they get into the work world and you are setting your children of her failure. host: douglas, any thoughts? prof. smith: i agree with the caller. i just heard from a teacher this week that just shared a very similar story that a student was not turning in any work, especially during the pandemic, and the teacher gave the student a failing grade. the parent emailed the superintendent, the superintendent sent an email to an assistant superintendent and said deal with this, and then goes to the principal and says deal with this. the principal emails the teacher and says, are you sure that this grade is correct? the teacher says, well, i guess

i don't have a choice, i need to reevaluate, just grade what they submitted and assign a b grade for the work that was submitted. we have this growing, we just described as disrespect, but in another way, customer dissatisfaction mindset, that the customer is always right, and that's trickling into education to the point that we are starting to develop in some spaces a culture that we bent to the student and parent's wants and complaints. we have to invest in leadership development. we have many great leaders across k-12 education in the united states. but it is not universal. we need to think about who our next leaders are. we write a lot about and we focus a lot on how school and district leadership turnover adds to anderson's teacher -- adds to end worsens teacher

retention issues in the school districts. when we do not have strong, effective leadership that is supporting teachers, we allow these things to happen. addressing the teacher shortage is also addressing the leadership issues that we have. host: next on the line is kenneth. caller: my wife is a schoolteacher, first grade school teacher. she just recently received teacher of the year award. she teachers school in arkansas. what i watched her do, when she teachers, she gets home in the evening, they have a laptop where she puts her students' stuff together. it's a program they put together for the kids. she comes home, she works on this program until she gets ready to go to bed. and she does that about everyday. and just recently over there at

the state capital, they had a budget surplus, and i think they had a bill on the table trying to get some money for the teachers. and if i'm not mistaken, they did not pass that. they had a demonstration over there trying to get some money and the people outside that were demonstrating said we have the power to vote these people out if they don't give this raise. people need to start voting these politicians, the teachers, see, my wife is 68 years old. she's been in the school system for 40 something years. she has a masters degree. and they love my wife over there in brinkley. gloria hunt, that's my wife's name. she loves those first grade students. i mean, just like they were hers. she knows how to teach. a lot of people, they watch what you do. they say ms. hunt, we got your back. my wife was getting ready to retire, but she said i love those kids, i am not going to

leave. but if they don't start giving these teachers the proper financial support, you are going to lose a lot more. they need to start paying these teachers. i watch my wife, every day, she comes home and works until she gets ready to go to bed. let me tell you one other thing she does before i get out of here, she goes to walmart and buys gifts for kids to incentivize them to do good. when they do good, she takes money out of her own pocket to give to these kids, these little gifts, and they love that. yellow have a good day -- y'all have a good day. host:host: that was kenneth talking about there was a special session last month in arkansas in the governor said a teacher salary increase would not be included in that debate because there is not enough support for a proposal from democrats to raise teacher salaries. this is an article that was in

the northwest arkansas democrat gazette. douglas, let's talk about the fact that somebody places are not able to find the political will to address some of the concerns. prof. smith: absolutelyprof. smith:. first and foremost, we have to thank teachers like gloria in arkansas for the work that they are doing and the money they are pulling out of their own pockets to buy the resources that are necessary and needed in the classroom. in terms of the political will to make decisions, it's difficult. every state has a finite amount of discretionary funds that when we are allocating revenue. so much of state budgets rolls forward every year. there is such little movement. but we have to continue to request and ask and make the case for why this money matters and why it is going to matter for students in our states.

because one former north carolina governor described it, the teacher condition is also the student condition. that is really hard to separate the two. we have to continue to make those arguments for why investing in teachers, investing in leadership and the preparation of leaders that can support teachers adequately is necessary. prof. tran: former north carolina governor mike easley, the quote was teacher learning conditions are student -- teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. there's a petting of adult versus student interests. if you look at the literature, that is not justified. a lot of the things that help teachers improve their working conditions are beneficial for student learning outcomes. host: next up, we have john in pennsylvania on the parent line. go ahead, john. caller: yes, hi. i am 66 and i just want to make

some contrary comments. we cannot fix this problem by throwing money at it. unfortunately, we could see, of course, democratic cities that the school system is a mess. i believe the problems stem, i believe the problems stem from parenting and lack there of. and basically, we have different minority classes with different problems. we have minorities from asia coming that excel at math and they start with nothing. so, it is not a teacher problem, it is a parent problem. proving it, the fact that asian students excel at math, they excel at reading, they get high academic grades, while we have other minorities that have been in america for years getting public assistance, welfare and

stuff like that. host: i'm going to go ahead and let henry respond. the caller is basically making it a racial issue. what are your thoughts about the? prof. tran: going back to the issue of equity, when i started off the conversation in the beginning, we talked about that teachers are inequitably distributed in terms of a variety quality metrics. what makes matters worse is when you talk about turnover, to bring it back to our teacher shortage, those who do not leave the profession altogether, they often leave for schools with better working conditions. these better working conditions are typically schools that are wealthy, less diverse and better performing. once a teacher occurs enough experience, they often -- accrues enough experience, they often leave the schools that they work at. we talked to some superintendents that told us the same thing. we get the least experienced,

struggling teachers, we help them up. the next district over will say the conditions are much easier, more resources, students are higher performing, you have less on your plate to do and you get more money for it. it's hard to turn that down. if we want to address that equity consent, we have to address, how do we reduce that disparity? host: next caller, ann on the on educator line. go ahead. are you with us? caller: yeah. host: go ahead. caller: ok, can you hear me? host: yes. caller: ok. i agree with the statement that teachers need more respect. i am going to jump around with several items that i want to say. we need to keep educators motivated.

the product of an educator is the person. so, superficially, it looks easy. technically, serving every student is an enormous job to perform. the next thing is police and teachers share a lot of the same rules. -- roles. teachers see criminals and can spot them early. some kids are helped before they become criminals. the next thing, schools are too large. 3000 16-year-olds in one building is too much. education research is not being observed. the other thing, nobody wants to pay taxes, so education constantly gets cut. is the cost of technology going down? am i wrong? host: to you want to address the

concerns? prof. smith: yeah. i think the research says that teachers are more effective when they have smaller class sizes. but that's unfortunately not the reality in many schools. the other aspect is that -- that the color refers to is also the support -- the other aspect that the caller refers to is also support. we have parent educator shortages as well. para educators are critical support for teachers in the classroom and in special education classrooms. we have to think about just the overall support for just educator staff and in general, beyond even just teachers -- staffing in general, beyond even just teachers. the caller is talking about not just initial training of teachers, but how are our school districts and our state investing in ongoing professional development? one of the most effective

strategies that we can employ for initial teachers transitioning to the teaching profession is robust mentoring and induction support. bringing inexperienced teachers, having them work alongside new teachers and giving the mentor and new teachers space and time to do that and not just adding onto their jobs. the state of i will funds that directly -- the state of iowa finds that directly. we have to think about that beyond just the initial years of teachers. i think that's what the caller is also getting at. how are we helping teachers develop and grow as our technology changes, as our student population changes? we have to think about, especially for retention, is our ongoing support for teachers as well. host: next up, christopher in chicago. go ahead, christopher. caller: good morning. i want to thank your guests,

henry and douglas, further insight on the issue. i am not a parent, not in the public education system whatsoever, besides having gone there my grade school. i am just curious, based on your book "the decay of the teaching profession," i know much of what we are talking about is public education. i am curious if the authors thought of how school choice has affected the teaching profession. , obviously you know,, there's been such a large push to move children to other types of nonpublic education, even though they are publicly funded, because sometimes, religious institutions receive funds from the government. that's my question. i am curious if the guests have

any thoughts about how pro or school choice has changed or evolved the teaching profession. thank you. host: henry. you and your sleepy guest can go ahead and respond. prof. tran: i'm sorry. host: it's quite all right. prof. tran: our work does not specifically focus on the charter schools and choice movement. in our conversations and dialogue with charter school teachers, we do find a lot of the same issues present in public schools, traditional public schools in terms of teacher shortage. many of them receive less pay than traditional public school teachers. turnover rates are very high in certain charter schools. many of the same things we target about apply. one major difference is that they have even less administrator support. host: our next caller is will in

michigan on the educator line. will? caller: yes, hello, good morning. host: good morning. caller: yes. i am calling on the educator line. i am actually a former educator. i think there are the external pressures that people talk about barriers to entry and low-paying jobs and tough working conditions and that certainly needs to be addressed. i take exception to some of the thing some of the other educators have said. i think it comes down to, this notion of, its more important of how you think than what you think. so much of what you do in schools is what to think and the compliance of late assignments get zeros. i am not sure that addresses the values of what education is meant to achieve. this is exactly what i left because i was working a system that cannot let me speak my own values of, how do i help students come to think better as opposed to necessarily know specific information?

thank you. host: your thoughts? prof. smith: i think what the color' comments gos back to -- the caller's comments go back to his teacher autonomy in the classroom. . i think the caller is getting at is part of why teachers teach, is we want to develop young minds into developing their own opinions, and teaching america's youth how to think and how to develop their own opinions. when we start stretching and overstretching regulation into hyper dictating what we are teaching in the classroom, we take away some of that autonomy. and some of the core pieces that we hear when we talk to teachers and prospective teachers is that i want to be confident that i am an effective teacher, but i also want to know that i'm making a difference in a student's life. when you take away the latter

part and chasing of specific ways that we have to teach content and specific content that you absolutely have to have, and we lose and we chip away at the autonomy piece that we have been the custom, is going to drive away some of the motivation of current teachers. prof. tran: we hear a lot of this, teachers telling us one of the reasons they left the professionals they could not do what they felt was in the best interest of their students. whether that be teaching particular content or how they teach. an example i would give is one teacher said students are primarily spanish speakers. the teacher also spoke spanish and wanted to communicate with them. they were told you cannot speak spanish at this school, you need to speak english only. that creates a condition where i know how to connect to a student, but you are not giving me the opportunity to showcase that. as a result, this is not what i want to do because i am not

doing the best things for the students. host: next up on the line, pamela in washington. go ahead,,. caller: yes, thank you. i am 75 years old and i graduated from an il with school district in 1965 -- an iowa school district in 1965. i live in king county, washington now . i have 4 children who went through the school systems here. i was a single mother for the last part of their school. i was a housekeeper for a very nice family in a wealthy district out here. her kids would, you know, follow me around. sometimes, i would take them to school. they were in public school, not private. but the tax base there is so much higher and the children have a big advantage.

what i think should be done is that all the taxes should be sent to the state and then distributed equally into each public school system. that way, the children are getting the same education and the teachers would not have such a difficult problem bringing some of the children up. host: a quick response? prof. smith: i think the caller brings up an important point around the variability of school financing and the way school districts are funded across the country. when we inherently rely on local property tax revenue, which is a pretty common mechanism for k-12 school funding, that's a variability based on your property tax evaluations. school districts located in areas that do not have a property tax evaluations, do not have a lot of business and industry in those spaces or a lot of valuable agricultural land, you are naturally going to be at a disadvantage.

some states have some equity mechanisms to equalize that funding, but that varies across states. host: we have been talking today with education professors henry tran of the university of south carolina and douglas smith of the iowa state university. they are lead editors of the upcoming book "how did we get here? the decay of the teaching profession." thank you both for joining us. thank you. we are going to take a quick break. and coming up at 9:15, we are going to have the daily wire's michael knowles. we are going to talk about this very busy week in politics. the first after the break, we are going to return to our earlier topics, take your calls about congress passing the key economic package and trump's florida house being searched by the fbi. be right back. ♪

>> book tv. every sunday on c-span2 features leading others discussing their latest nonfiction books. emergency room dr. thomas fisher gives insight into providing patient care during the covid-19 pandemic and the challenges navigating the american health care system with his book "the emergency, a year of healing and heartbreak and the chicago er." at 8:00 p.m. eastern, and afghanistan war veteran shares his book, invisible storm, describing living with ptsd and how it affected his run for mayor of kansas city and 2018. watch tv every sunday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at book tv.org. ♪ >> c-span brings you an unfiltered view of government. our newsletter word for word recaps the day for you, from the

halls of congress to daily press briefings to remarks from the present. scan the qr code at the right bottom to sign up for this email and stay up to date on everything happening in washington each day. subscribe today using the qr code or visit c-span.org/connect to subscribe anytime. >> there are a lot of places to get political information. but only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. nomad or where you are from or where you stand on the issues -- no matter where you are from or where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's network. unfiltered, unbiased, word for. if it happens here or here or here or anywhere that matters, america's watching on c-span. powered by cable. ♪ host: we are back this morning talking about the sweeping

economic package that democrats passed yesterday that addresses rising health care costs, climate change and raises taxes on large corporations. it cap say really busy summer that allowed president joe biden to log several wins, including this bill, the inflation reduction act. there is also the chips plus act that addresses the computer chip shortage, the pact act, that was about health care for veterans, and legislation and approval of sweden and finland to join nato. we are also talking about the fbi's search of former president donald trump's mar-a-lago home in florida. we would like to hear your calls about these two very important news stories. democrats, dial 202 748-8000. independents, dial 202 7

48-8002. you can send us a text. please include your name and where you live. you can also send us a tweet, twitter.com/c-spanwj. we are also on instagram and on facebook.com/c-span. again, we're talking a lot about this search of president trump's mar-a-lago home. this is an article in politico that talks about the fact that the warrant shows that the former president is under investigation for potential obstruction of justice and espionage act violations. again, that search warrant was unsealed on friday. it shows that trump possessed documents, including a handwritten note, documents marked that indicates one of the

highest levels of government classification. and another item that was labeled referencing the president of france. the items taken also include an item that was related to the clemency for roger stone, who is a former trump aide who received a pardon in 2020. the warrant shows federal law enforcement was investigated trump for removal or destruction of records, obstruction of justice and violating the as pure nosh act -- the espionage act. conviction under the statutes can result in imprisonment or fines. we would like to get your calls. let's first go to cecelia in meridian, mississippi on the democrat line. you are on. caller: yes. i think it is very important that they follow through with

this. we are at a crossroads in this country regarding democracy. this is a good sign that not even the president can avoid the laws of our country. and no one has the right to overthrow our government or even influence people to overthrow our government. so, i am so proud of them going through. i don't care if it was a democrat or republican, i don't care who it is, no one is above the law of the country. and our number one concern has to be keeping democracy intact. host: next up, we have mike in oak grove, missouri on the independent line. caller: good morning. i would like to say that if donald trump does not end up in

jail after this, then people might as well get their guns and go do whatever they want, because the rule of law has gone downhill, there is no rule of law left in this country. i would like to say to the people do admire trump so well, last week in a deposition with a grand jury, he pled the fifth 44 2 times. he admitted being a criminal 442 times last week. the man that called from texas this morning about being thrown off of medicaid, that is a state deal. that is because he votes republican in his state and they kicked him off. another guy called in, he said that donald trump did not even take a salary. well, it was reported that donald trump spent $126 million

going to his personal properties while he was president. that is 300 years of presidential wages. thank you for taking my call. host: next caller is john from mechanicsburg, pennsylvania on the republican line. caller: good morning. i would like to comment on the whole raid thing in florida. my only comment, i think i speak for probably almost all republican voters, or real republicans, down so the justice department and fbi starts enforcing the law equally, those are irrelevant agencies and they need to be dismantled and rebuilt, focused on the constitution and bill of rights. they are selectively prosecuting people based on their political views. everybody that is a republican knows that. i don't know about the democrats or the independents, that's on

them. the vast majority of republicans know that both of those agencies are not real law enforcement agencies anymore. until they start applying the law equally, we are not going to pay attention to them. we know they are not real law enforcement agencies. that's my perspective and i talked to a lot of republicans, they all feel the same way. it is kind of a giant joke, it is a police force for the current administration. it is pretty sad. host: we now go to james in washington, d.c. on the democratic line. caller: in reference to the previous caller, you must have not been up here when the evening that trump, you know, held up the bible, i was up there, i was harassed by a helicopter, and i never thought being born in d.c. and growing up. for a majority of my life -- going up here for a majority of

my life that i would look up at the monument to a bunch of troops and armed guards. so, if you want to talk about selective enforcement and that these agencies are not enforcing themselves, well, trump had armed guards and helicopters harassing me. i have known people, i have known heads of the cia, very high people up, i have known heads of the fbi. they are not a joke. so, i hope the american public wakes up to the reality that trump may actually really be trying to start a civil war in this country. thank you. host: next step is rainn on the independent line. >> i am calling from little rock, arkansas. my issue is, we had a gun

violence issue for my schooling in 2018. what happens if gun violence gets out of hand to where we are having another threat like we did with 9/11, for an example? the president has to go in and has to go inside and, again, like they did with george floyd incident. so, where do the presidents really stand on the gun violence issue, plus the schooling for the kids, and may having something else with the military being involved? host: douglas is on the republican line. oregon. am i saying that right? >> yes. host: clackamas. go ahead. caller: i am just curious as when they think they can prosecute accordingly, evenly? even the fbi, they are so

scared, they have to protect themselves now because they know that they are not prosecuting it equally and people are getting upset. it is just ridiculous what is going on. we need to enforce the law equally. host: house speaker nancy pelosi friday talked to reporters about the type of documents that were seized from president trump's home during that raid earlier this year. the tear from her. rep. pelosi: there are laws against the improper handling of this material, there are laws against that. and we have to recognize that. this information, as it is coming across, and we will know more later, is highly classified, well above top-secret. it is, again, higher than top-secret.

it is about our national security. as we are told. and we will see how deeply he goes into that. i think our concern is always to protect and defend. and protecting and defending means we do not frivolously treat the documents that relate to perhaps, as they are saying, and we will find out, again, all alleged at this point, i don't know anymore more than what's in the public domain, everybody is holding it very tightly, that if the nature of this -- of these documents is what it appears to be, this is very serious. host: we now go to carolina and tampa, florida on the democrat line. caller: yes. i was calling more or less to indicate that the law

enforcement was enforced and if we don't enforce it at the top level, then we should not enforce it at the bottom level. certainly, we want the laws enforced at all levels of government, and that is from local, state as well as with the united states. my concern is we are focusing on this, and i'm so glad i have the opportunity to say this as well, the greatest thing is the great success of deals that is going to make a difference, inflation, the pact with the burning pits with the veterans who work so hard for this country. we need to understand, just like we are passing all of these great bills, we have got to pass bills so that we can increase funding to go to education across the board, and we cannot do it just for k-12. we have to do a better job with these liberal arts schools and teaching at the collegiate level

so we can infuse money into those schools to make sure the students are prepared. the bills that were passed were actually great for this country. it was great for the people of america, and it is amazing, regardless of what party you might be affiliated with, that we have individuals that we elect and send to office and they will not vote for the betterment of the people. and now, they sit around and tell us they are not going to pay any attention to law enforcement. that is sad and we need to make sure we can get that improved. thank you so much and an excellent program this morning both on the education and on these subjects. host: thank you. laura is on the line from ohio. independent. caller: i have a question for every american out there, i don't care if they are republican or democrat. do we stand for equality? i am a veteran.

i took an oath to defend our constitution that guarantees equality, irregardless of your political affiliation, your wealth, race, religion, everything. trump was given better treatment , pretty much all wealthy or connected politicians or people of that nature get privilege over the poor man. breonna taylor was not given any advance notice, any discussion or subpoena. they stormed in with gums on her house -- guns on her house, and hers was not a possible national security issue. everybody needs to go back and realize equality means equality. if you want the rich man treated with specialty, the poor man better be treated with specialty too. if the politician is, so should the rebel, anybody.

either we are all equal or we are not. you either want to be in an equal country or you don't. that is what it boils down to. host: next is roy in austin, texas. caller: good morning. i want to touch on a couple of things. about this new bill that just got recently passed. one of the problems i have with it is i don't know why we need 87,000 new irs agents. as far as the raid on president trump, i don't understand this because when hillary clinton, when she botched benghazi and the subpoenaed her hard drives and stuff, she bleached them, headphones broken by her staff, hard drives crossed with a hammer by her staff and the fbi never rated her -- raided her.

when you all were talking about the education stuff, the man called in and was saying the problem is with the parenting. i don't know how, but for some reason, you turned that around into a racial thing and that bothers me because i agree the problem with education is we don't have parents involved in their kids. teachers are not there to raise your children, they are there to teach your children. the biggest problem we had was taking corporal punishment out of schools and allowing parents to sue school districts. thank you for the time and have a blessed day. host: i want to bring up the associated press fact-check about some claims from some republicans about the irs agents that will be hired. they say in this article that most of those employees will not all be hired at the same time. they will not all be auditors and many will be replacing

employees who are expected to quit or retire. that is just a little bit more context about those 87,000 irs agents. let's go to david in illinois on the democratic line. caller: good morning. i know that we as a country have many issues. but the thing i am concerned about is the right to vote. i really believe in time that the people of the united states will straighten things out as long as the right to vote is always there. that is really all i have this morning. i just made a beautiful drive up through minnesota. we have a beautiful country here, but we as a people have to take the bull by the horns and that will be through the vote. thank you very much and have a great day. host: our next caller is jim in florida. caller: good morning.

the trump fbi search, i think, was not really necessary if he has the power to declassify anything that is in the records for anything. according to the purpose of being the president, you have the right and the ability to declassify anything that is in record or coming to records. host: did we lose you? caller: no, i am still here. host: go ahead. that was it? caller: pretty much. other than that, we really need to take a look into a lot of the past presidents.

host: thank you. our next caller is henry in georgia on the independent line. caller: good morning. i just wanted to bring up two points. the first is from that last caller. i am a military that. -- vet. i have had top-secret fbi clearance. the president can classify and declassify things, but there are certain things he cannot classify. we need to get that clear and i'm sure that is common sense to anybody in the military. you cannot just classify anything. all of these complaints about the fbi, cia, irs, first of all, i think we as citizens need to do our research and see what these organizations do. as far as the irs, the irs does more than just taxes. all of these people complain

about they are supposed to be hiring 8000 agents or whatever. as many times as the irs has been cut, even c-span has had shows where people have been calling and saying they have been waiting to were three years for returns. we should be happy they are hiring more people. as far as this job posting, the irs handles people that do money laundering and all kinds of other stuff. thinking they are coming out of us -- after as as ordinary citizens, that means you are doing something you don't need to be doing. let's think about these situations before we stick with politicians and put out on twitter and got us all riled up for nothing. host: i do want to bring up this u.s. news & world report.

this is an article that talks about how donald trump has explained those documents. it gives his take on things. and part of what he wrote on his two social media -- true social media platform is that number one, it is all declassified. this is what he says. number two, they did not have to seize anything. they could have taken anything they wanted to without breaking into mar-a-lago. he said they were in secured storage with an additional lot. that is how the former president has explained his use of those documents and why he felt he was doing the right thing. next caller is jill in iowa on the democrat line. caller: hi. i am just surprised at how republicans just accept this

from trump. he is not a thoughtful, careful man. he shoots from the hip all the time. not surprising that he immediately said obama did the same thing. of course, it is not true. the national archives put that down pretty quickly. none of the boxes in chicago were classified. they are all in the care of the national archives. so why is he bringing that up? his big thing was that he declassified them. that is not just happening with presidential magic wands. things at the top have to be change, there a process you go through. it is just silly for him to say i have a standing order that anything i took to my residence was classified -- declassified. the other thing is all of the

republicans -- i had to laugh. defined the fbi -- defund the fbi. really? they talk about the unequal treatment. if there were black people with ar-15's in the trees and washington, d.c. on january 6, i think the reaction would have been a little different. there is different applications of justice in this country. mostly, it is rich people get away with things because they can afford good lawyers. i think trump must have run through all of his good lawyers because it seems he had teenage bimbo lawyers from fox. looks like they were barely out of college and had not even talked to the president. not really worthy of putting on fox television. host: thank you so much. joe, our next caller in north carolina on the republican line. caller: good morning.

this harassment is going to continue until after the election. they started with the russian hoax. 47 million taxpayers money. they are not going to stop because of their hatred of donald trump. i grew up under communism. when i saw what was going on with the january 6 meeting, it is a similarity that is striking. that is what is happening in this country. they want to bring socialism, communism. they have got to stop this harassment for once and for all. they cannot continue this to

this country. they are splitting up the country. 88% of the people think the country is going the wrong way. 30% of the people still believe in him. why? who are these 30% of the people. they remind me of the germans who followed hitler's all the way to the abyss. that is what is happening. they have to put the country before the party. the democrats, the diehard democrats will always split the party -- always put the party before the country. host: we are going to go for our next caller. larry in texas on the independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning. i guess the hypocrisy that the leadership of the republican

party is beyond belief. when they were investigating hillary's emails, their comments were like, no one is above the law and things of that nature. now, the same leadership team is wanting to attack the fbi, why? because of trump? the hypocrisy is unbelievable. i don't blame trump, i blame the leadership of the republican party for the state the country is in now. they claim the democrats are doing this, the democrats are attacking trump, they are harassing trump. if trump would stop doing things that are against the constitution and against the law, they would be no reason to keep harassing him. he stays in the press because of his actions. everyone is accountable for their actions. trump is not going to be accountable and the republicans don't want to hold him accountable. the hypocrisy is beyond belief. host: our next color is g --

caller is jean from cincinnati. caller: i just want to, that it seems president obama took all of his records with him and nothing was done and everything is ok with that. hillary clinton everything on her computers. nothing was done. but president trump had the people in their checking -- there checking all of his boxes and information and he is the one put on the line. something is wrong, something is biased, no matter what anybody says. you cannot negate with the fact is. thank you. host: after this break, "the daily wire's" michael knowles joins us. our spotlight on podcast segment is next.

♪ ♪ >> sunday night on q&a, lou doris cordell takes a critical look at our legal system and offers suggestions on how to improve it. her latest book looks at racial bias injury selections and police reform. >> particularly in urban settings, but not exclusively, police officers are not interested in the fact that you did not have your traffic signal on. they are not interested in that. what they want to do is have a reason to stop you to then engage you in conversation and maybe then search your car. the u.s. supreme court has said to police officers, that is just fine. you can make these kinds of stops and it does not matter that that is not really what you

are interested in. i think what has to change is the very nature of policing has to change. we need to take that role out of policing. police should be used to investigate crimes and prevent crime, but i think traffic stops are a major problem because they disproportionately focus on people of color. >> sunday night on q&a. you can listen to all of our podcasts on our new c-span now app. >> live sunday, september 4 on in-depth, uc berkeley governmental studies color will be our guest to talk about leadership, ronald reagan's political career and the american conservative movement. he is the author of several books. one about the scholars that changed the course of conservative politics in

america. join in the conversations with york phone calls -- your phone calls, facebook comments and tweets. join us on book tv on c-span2. ♪ >> c-span shop.org is c-span's online store. shoppers who spans -- shop through c-span's latest apparel. every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at cspansh op.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: "the daily wire's" michael knowles is here with us to describe his -- discuss his podcast. welcome. guest: thank you so much for having me. host: thank you.

tell us about your podcast and how does it fit into the podcast eat those system. guest: my wife now joked that every single millennial and america has a podcast, so i am one of those that has one. we have been very blessed that the show has grown and we just reach over one million subscribers on youtube and lots and lots more, the various audio podcast apps and the members of the daily wire. it is wonderful. the show comes from a conservative perspective. we touch on the political issues or policy wonky issues. the cultural foundation of the issues and even ultimately the religious and philosophical foundations of those issues. we are a conservative news outlet, but even among the hosts at the daily wire, i think we

all probably disagree on a huge variety of issues and come at politics from all the different aspects of the american right. conservatives in america live to use various phrases to describe themselves. i'm a traditionalist, a that-ist . i wants heard it described that political monikers are the right wing version of gender pronouns. i tend to, politics from a conservative wing of the conservative movement. slightly to the right of genghis khan, as i sometimes like to describe it. we do that over there along with a couple of other shows. verdict with senator ted cruz and the book club at -- i always appreciate the opportunity to come on and discuss on c-span. host: for our viewers out there, we are going to get your calls

in just a moment. we want democrats to dial one number, republicans can dial one number, independents, and you can also text us. please include your name and where you live. you can send as a tweet @csp anwj. we are also on facebook and instagram. before we get to some of those calls, i wanted to ask you, your show is based in nashville, not washington. how do you think that changes your perspective on politics? guest: not only is the show not based in washington, and not only is it based in nashville, it used to be based in los angeles. we fled to los angeles in the predations of governor gavin

mussolini because the regulations were so burdened, the lockdowns during covid basically put an end to business, the taxes were outrageous and the city of los angeles is filling with crime and drugs, and it is just very unpleasant to live there because of poor government. moving to nashville has been an absolute blessing. it has been wonderful. it has also given us a fair amount of political balance because tennessee is a pretty red state, but nashville is a very blue city. the democrat to republican ratio is about 2:1. it really opens up one's political perspective in a way that i fly to washington frequently, especially for my show verdict with ted cruz. i think that the whole beltway can become a little bit insular and sometimes a little out of touch with what the rest of america is thinking. i find nashville to be the perfect location to hear all sides, what ordinary americans

are thinking about. host: we have been talking this morning about the fbi raid of former president trump's mar-a-lago home in florida. you had a recent podcast titled "biden's banana republic invades trump castle." give us your take on what happened. do you think it makes former president trump weaker or stronger? guest: it certainly makes trump stronger in terms of his support among the republicans because the fbi raid on mar-a-lago is, and let's be as explicit as we can, completely unjustifiable. you will notice the people defending it continue to change their reasoning for the raid. initially, the justification was he had violated the presidential records act. this is a really flimsy article -- argument because many past presidents have violated they

act -- that act. plenty of presidents have taken all sorts of papers. barack obama, richard nixon, lbj, and in some cases, took decades to return those to the national archives. on top of that, president tr ump was already working with the doj. then, the next argument became that president trump took classified material. this argument does not really hold because the president can declassify absolutely anything he wants, and he does not need to follow any sort of formal process to do that. the moment that a president discusses classified material in a declassified setting, it instantly becomes declassified. the reason for this is the president is the chief executive of the united states. the president does not need to answer to some middling

careerist at the doj or anybody else about what sort of information is to be declassified. furthermore, we were told through anonymous sources that trump had taken nuclear secrets or something to that effect. there does not seem to be a ton of evidence. if you look at the search warrant, a lot of the material included books of photographs and all sorts of personal documents. i think that was probably pretty weak. and then, i think the final evidence that this was unjustified is how long it took, if, as we are being told by these anonymous sources, this was a matter of urgent national security. we were on the brink of nuclear holocaust for him to be permitted to keep these documents that he may or may not have had, why would the doj weight or 19 months to do that? furthermore, the fbi got the

warrant to raid mar-a-lago on august 5. why would they wait three days to raid mar-a-lago on august 8 if this were a matter of urgent national security? some people on the left, i am not joking, have actually said it is because august 5 was a friday and august 8 was a monday. so you are telling me the documents that trump had a mar-a-lago were so dangerous to national security that the fbi and doj had to undertake the unprecedented action of raiding the home of a former president, who coincidentally happens to be the current president's chief political rival, but they were going to take a few days to watch golf on the weekend and get the documents on monday? none of that holds up whatsoever. it is a real shame what merit garden -- merrick garland has dented federal law enforcement. this is the sort of thing we expect from banana republic's. it is dispensable -- despicable

to see this. host: you went through a lot of the concerns that republicans have raised about the raid. if there were top-secret documents at mar-a-lago that should have been in a high-security facility, do you think that is an issue? guest: it would be odd if those documents were so super top-secret that the doj simply asked president trump to put a padlock on the door in which those documents were stored. it is not as though the doj or national archives were unaware that some documents were at mar-a-lago, just as all presidents take some documents out of the white house. the second part is a matter of the nature of classification. i reiterate this. i think a lot of people don't fully appreciate what it means. the president has a right to

declassify anything he wants. he could walk onto this show and read the most superduper top-secret documents in the world. that is 100% his prerogative because he is the chief executive. when president trump comes out and says these documents were not classified, that is simply a fact. the person who would make that decision is president trump. i think there is a riches sort of irony here because the democrats, for years now, have tried to downplay the seriousness of having classified material at home. the clear analogy would be hillary clinton, who possessed lots and lots on an unsecured home server. the analogy is important because hillary clinton had much less of a right to do that. hillary clinton has never been president, she does not have the right to declassify whatever information she wants. furthermore, the material that was there was an physical paper

form. the risk of someone stealing these sorts of secrets is very low unless someone is going and with an ax to go in there and steal it physically. that is probably not going to happen. foreign government size a -- easily could have hacked that and have hacked that information. furthermore, the material that was with president trump was years old because it dates from his presidency. the classified material on hillary clinton's email server was contemporary, so it was far more urgent. it was real time information. and of course, the fbi does not rate him -- hillary clinton. the threshold for raiding a former president should be much higher than for rating a former secretary of state. i think all of that information taken together within this context becomes so clear this raid had nothing to do with national security. this raid had nothing to do with the rule of law and everything to do with an unpopular president's lackeys doing their

very best to harm the chief political rival come 2020 for. -- fbi illegally attacked donald trump all the way back to his campaign in the crossfire hurricane campaign, which began after an fbi lawyer made up evidence before the court and was able to get the trump campaign fined. also based on falsified evidence created between the doj and fbi in the hillary clinton campaign. this is a pattern we have seen for years. it is no surprise that would try it again in 2024, particularly when joe biden's poll numbers are low. host: we are going to go to the calls. john in san antonio, texas on the democratic line. caller: good morning.

i think that now is the time for republicans, for all of us as americans, to ask ourselves, are we american or our weight tru mplicans? this is our america. we need to step back and look at the facts. a lot of people who believe all of the websites, they do not do their homework. it makes them look like idiots. we need to step back and ask congress to set barricades so this does not happen in america again. we need to set barricades on presidents before they can even put their name on the ballot. they need to have background checks. trump lied since day one.

he never turned in his taxes. they are still fighting that right now and we don't have time for this. life is too short. we need america back. host: michael, do you want some quick thoughts about that caller? caller: i am not sure exactly with the point was other than to say the caller does not like donald trump. one point he brought up was that there needs to be some application process to become president. you need to undergo some kind of background check. i think a lot of people in this country are laboring under this misapprehension but there is a background check. it is called the presidential campaign. the american people do not need to wait for their candidates to go through some bureaucratic process so that some technocrat in washington, d.c. can decide

whether to allow them to vote for a candidate. we get to see our candidates for months. the american people voted for donald trump in 2016. he was the duly elected president and very popular again right now. if the caller does not want donald trump to be president again in 2024, the caller is more than welcome to persuade his or her fellow citizens to vote for joe biden. but the suggestion that federal agencies should bar these people from running, that is the mess we are in right now. that is what the doj is trying to do. that is what letitia james is trying to do in new york. all of these deep state or swap agencies are trying to do that because they fear the american people will elect trump again. host: next caller is perry in hollywood, florida on the independent line. caller: good morning.

host: good morning. caller: you and your republican cohorts are making excuses for trump's actions, regardless what he says. you make excuses for him. you are falling into the fascists' plans to destroy our democratic government. you are one of them. the quiet, insidious plan trump is working on to destroy belief in our elections, destroy our belief in our judicial system, to destroy our belief in law enforcement.

you and everybody else should go back and read the rise of the fascist governments in europe by hitler and mussolini. the parallel is the same and we have to be very, very careful that we defeat your ideas of taking over our democratic government and make it into a fascist government. host: we are going to let michael respond. go ahead. caller: george carlin said, when fascism comes to america, it will come in nike sneakers with a smiley face and that is what we are seeing happen on the left. the caller brings up the idea that president trump is trying to destroy faith in our judicial system. i am not sure where he gets that idea. we had an attempted

assassination of a supreme court justice. it was not a conservative, it was the opposite. a liberal came from california all the way to washington, d.c. to murder just as brett kavanaugh because he was upset the supreme court was overruling roe v. wade. how did he know they were going to do that? because a liberal clerk leaked the opinion. absolutely unprecedented. this was followed by weeks of illegal protest outside the homes of conservative justices followed by domestic terror attacks by groups on the left. if anyone is destroying faith in our judicial system, that would be on the left. in terms of our electoral system, the people destroying people's faith in the electoral system would be the ones changing all the rules and dragging elections on for weeks at a time. in the case of pennsylvania, violating the state constitution

and how they are conducted. that would be the democrats, not the republicans. and the caller insinuates people who support donald trump, mainly half of the country, are fascists. to delegitimize the american voters and say they are fascist and said they should have no vote, that is the most fascist. what we are getting is pure projection. everything he is accusing his opponents of doing our what he and his partisans are doing. host: next we have our caller from carol, ohio. caller: nancy pelosi has raised more cash on illegal things, so, she should not say anything. but merrick garland will hate

trump until he dies because he took the supreme court away from him and now he wants to destroy trump because he did not get it. biden, who is biden to talk about putting irs agents with guns -- he is the first that says, guns are destroying the country. but he turns around and puts 87,000 irs people and asks them to be gun owners? what is wrong with that picture. i think there is something wrong with the situation. as far as garland, i don't care what he says. most fbi agent's are decent but they are also paid enough to be illegal and do the dirty work if they are paid right. i feel that for those people. but as far as garland, i think he is a two-faced crook. and pelosi? she has her nerve. her husband has more inside

trader money than anybody in this country and i do not see people prosecuting that family. don't give me that crap about, oh, the democrats are just being -- no. they are going after republicans because they are scared of trump. they know that person in the white house does not deserve to be there and he was put there by his lackeys on the left. host: michael, your thoughts? guest: i could not have said it better. very well put. host: we will go to the next caller. jackie in stratford, connecticut on the democrat line. caller: hi, michael. please explain to the american people in detail why the judge agreed to the search warrant? guest: well, that judge, like so many other judges, appears to be a left winger who hates donald trump. i would have to turn the question back on you if you

think raiding the homes of former incumbents is normal. when has this ever happened before? it has never happened before. it is unprecedented for a reason. it is usually rife for abuse. we have a tradition of the peaceful transition of power and not throwing opponents in prison. trump is a good example. in 2016, you heard at so many rallies, "lock her up" because hillary committed crimes. she improperly stored classified data on a server that was hacked by foreign governments. and then she destroyed the data and wiped the server and could barely deny it. she tried in a flimsy way to deny it on television by asking what it meant to wipe a server? it was so transparent.

and yet, when donald trump won the election he did not lock her up. this may have disappointed some of his most excitable supporters, but it was responsible. for the peaceful political order to continue in the united states it is not a great idea to lock up our opponents and predecessors and our chief rival. wipe with the judge sign off on this warrant? because, unfortunately, the left is becoming more power-hungry, much more brazen in its aggression toward political opponents. i think it can only have a debilitating effect on the political order. host: next is calvin in greenville, north carolina on the independent line. caller: i would like to say that michael knowles, you are wrong.

the president has the power to declassified documents but not after it has been declassified to take it. they should be stamped so everybody knows they are no longer classified. they should not be at his house. they should be in a vault. that is what i had to say. your information is wrong on classified documents and taking them to mar-a-lago. host: michael? guest: respectfully, the caller is not right. the caller is right there are procedures generally to declassified documents - -dec

lassify documents. but the president has the ultimate right to declassify whatever he wants. he does not need a stamp. he does not need a meeting at the doj. he is the chief executive. you can understand why this is the case. if the president had to answer to somebody else in order to declassify documents, he would not be the president. the other person would have that right to declassify. it rests with the president. the way you know this as fact is because if the president were to go on television and discuss classified material, it would instantly become declassified. you have never seen any president prosecuted for this in any way. you have never seen any sort of rave. you will hear liberals suggest the law means this, that or the

other thing. really, there is this procedure. they have no proof because we have never seen a raid like this. ultimately, it is incoherent. the president has -- i hope i can drive this home -- the president has the ultimate right to declassify whatever he wants. if president biden wanted to post the nuclear codes to twitter, he would be able to do that. but jack dorsey kicked them off. other than that, he can declassify whatever he wants, whenever he wants when he is president. host: michael, i want to clarify something. can a president declassify documents and still be considered sensitive, like the nuclear codes? guest: of course. [laughter] i think we can agree the nuclear codes are sensitive. that is why the president was working with the doj and the doj said, president trump, you have

certain documents like all presidents do when they leave the white house, so put a padlock on the door. this before merrick garland ordered the unprecedented raid. but they were working together. barack obama took millions of documents to chicago when he left the white house. he said he would return them to washington, d.c. when he digitized them in five years. he has not done a single one. other presidents have done this. richard nixon took decades to return all of the documents they took from the white house. removing documents from the white house is not unprecedented. removing other things is. clinton stole furniture from the white house that they ultimately had to return. the only thing that is unprecedented here is not taking documents, not declassified things, the only thing is the

next president using the law enforcement agencies to attack a political rival. host: the next caller is fillmore on the democratic line. caller: the truth about this country is it is an experiment in democracy. the whole idea is a country based upon freedom of the people and the opportunity to thrive based on a person's experiences. that is the reason -- america was based on democracy. this man is spewing poison bent on destroying not democracy, but america. he is supported by people who want power and are riding on the backs of 74 million people in this country. they want to get back in power

in the 81 million people who voted against him want the original idea of what america is about. this man does not want america. the election of president obama put 74 million people in a position they thought they were no longer in control because a black male was controlling the country. a couple of callers ago said, the confrontation is being made here between the idea of america. i signed a paper that got me four years of which i was willing to give my life for "we the people." i was willing to give my life for all of the people, not just a select group. that select group is behind this man spewing poison who does not want that to happen. they want an america where somebody can control people they don't agree with and control them and make them, bind them,

into thinking the way they think. president trump came along at the right time when those people who thought they were out of power wanted power. they loved everything he said. he is exactly what they wanted. he wants to give the power back to the people who were originally controlled -- host: we are going to give it back to michael. guest: first of all, thank you for your service. your argument is that the election of trump is an attack on democracy. use it when people elected barack obama, that was good, and when they elected trump it was bad. people elected obama but then they voted for trump because they hated black people. it is a mathematical necessity that many of the people who voted for barack obama subsequently voted for donald

trump, because barack obama won two elections and donald trump won the next. there has to be some number of people -- and in a country of 330 million -- who voted for barack obama and then donald trump. i know would number of these people who voted for obama and trump. the suggestion that the people who are voting for trump hate lack people would come as a surprise to my -- black people would come as a surprise to my caller friend. i think he has given away the game when you discuss the attacks on donald trump right now and the reasons we need to keep him out of office. the doj, the biden administration, the attorney general of new york, all the people trying to disqualify president trump in 2024 are doing so for one reason, because they fear the american people,

the democracy, will elect donald trump again. it is so ironic that the people who are supporting federal agencies and technocrats and bureaucrats in their quest to undermine the will of the american people would call themselves true supporters of democracy. if you really support democracy, you should welcome president trump putting his name on the ballot in 2024. if you believe the majority of the american people support joe biden, who does not know what his own name is these days, you should welcome donald trump being on the ballot. you should be so confident that the american people would reject him. i think the democrats do not think the american people would reject trump. most things were going better under trump. joe biden's approval ratings are

some of the lowest we have seen for every president ever. they are the lowest for any president gallup ever recorded. why do they fear trump? because they fear american democracy. it is the opposite of what you're describing. host: our next caller lives in haymarket, virginia on the independent line. caller: hi. i want to tell michael that the president does not have absolute power to declassify information. in this country, the president does not have absolute power to declassify information. the process is given to him by doj and law enforcement and they decide what to declassify or

pick which one he should declassify. the thought the president can declassify anything is wrong. tomorrow, biden should declassify all of the ibm's around the world for the world to see. guest: why would he do that? caller: let me go to my second question. i am from west africa. i grew up there. what you're doing -- and every time i tell americans that i am blessed to live in this country -- but what you are doing is what we experienced in west africa.

it was a dictatorship. we all followed one guy and this person can do whatever they have to do without any repercussions. they can come to your house, do whatever they want to do, they can close down schools, they can do whatever they want to do without any repercussions from the public. that is precisely what you are doing. host: we are going to let michael respond. guest: i think you made a lot of not very good points in the beginning, but a very good point at the end. you said it is really dangerous when the government can arbitrarily and capriciously go in and shut down schools and shut down businesses and raid your home and wheeled all power against you -- wield all power against you.

which side is doing that? for the past 2.5 years the democrats wielded that power against the entire american people in the used covid-19 as the excuse. i still do not know what the excuse is to lock down certain schools. a week ago the fbi raided donald trump's home in an unprecedented display of capricious political power. this is a theme i am noticing with these callers. the things you are accusing your opponents of doing your own side is doing, exclusively in this case. and then to your first point, i understand the civics education was not what it once was in this country. but the point you're making is simply not true. very often on the shows, especially up ago journal," we disagree about -- "washington journal," we disagree about how

the country should be run. but it is a fact the president can declassify whatever he wants. this is not controversial. this is not subject to, you have your opinion and i have my opinion. that is simply fact. a google search will clear that up for you. i know that people do not understand that or maybe they don't want to believe that or they are not familiar with the american system of law, but that is how it works. the reason for that, as you say, in your misunderstanding, you set the president needs to submit some application to the doj and they will inform him if he can do that. if that were the case, the president what ceased to be the chief executive. the doj would have more power than the president. the other reason he has the power to declassify -- you are simply wrong on that point of

fact. i think you need to look more deeply into which side is actually doing that. host: mark in colorado springs on the independent line. caller: good morning. i am listening to this and i am amazed how some of these callers cannot use google. i am a veteran. i am retired from the military. i worked in two war rooms and served on two boards. one does not exist anymore in germany. i have to educate you on something. the one thing you are correct on is that the president can declassify anything he wants per you are correct. however, there is a rebuttal process. i think you know this you just

don't want to talk about it because you are sounding like a trump guy. i don't care if you like him, love him, hate him. correct procedure -- and there is procedure because the president cannot walk out of the white house and say, hey, i am going to declassify this. no president has ever done that. no president walks out of the white house and says, i am going to declassify. it does not work that way. if you are going to declassify something as a president, you have to have that process in place. there is a process and i cannot reiterate that stronger. that being said, if you are going to google stuff and find out, you need to go find yourself military personnel who

have clearance and we can all tell you because we know. there is a class we have to take on how it is done. it can be rebuttaled. they have to rebuttal why that should not be declassified. that is the case being made through the fbi and the national archives research association. that being said, that is how that is done. if donald trump has taken items that are not declassified, i don't care what it is, and has them at his home? he has broken the law, point blank. host: we are running out of time but michael, can you give us a brief response? guest: first, thank you for your service. second, i agree with 99% of what you set. 99% is correct and you point out

that you and others who have health clearances and who have been in the position to declassify certain material, there is a process you have to follow that's true. furthermore, you are right there is a process for people of the white house and the president. you are most correct in what you said the beginning, which is that the president has the right to declassify anything he wants. you might even be correct in saying the president ought to follow a certain procedure and that makes things cleaner. that's true. but you will observe that no president has ever been prosecuted for declassify material or possessing declassified material and that is a technical matter. one can never know with certainty if the president has or has not declassified material. it could be the case that the president declassified material while discussing that in a classified setting. whether or not the doj wants to

refute that or put a stamp on it or otherwise. i agree with you 99%, but your first observation, that the president has the absolute right to do that, is the correct one. when that comes into conflict with the procedure, the president's right to declassify -- part of the pun -- trumps it. host: thank you for joining us today, michael. guest: thank you for having me as always. host: that was the daily wire's michael knowles, host of the podcast "the michael knowles show." that was part of our spotlight on podcasts segment. you can check out all of c-span's podcast available on the website, c-span.org/podcasts, and you can also check us out on the mobile app, c-span now, or wherever you get podcasts. i thank all of our guests for joining us.