in the inflation reduction act. and we discussed ranked choice voting and the alaska primary and other voting reforms with fairvote's ceo rob richie. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." just about one year ago, president joe biden declared an end to what he called america's longest war, the u.s. invasion of afghanistan. the fighting began weeks after the terrorist attacks on september 11 and the group the cost of war estimates the u.s. spent more than $2 trillion on

the invasion, not counting what it will cost future veterans of that war. that is our question -- what is our legacy for the war in afghanistan? did we achieve our goals? was it worth it? we will open our regular lines. republicans, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8001. democrats, your number is (202) 748-8000. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. and we are opening up a special line this morning for veterans of the afghanistan war. your number is going to be (202) 748-8003. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003, and we are always reading on social media, on facebook at facebook.com/cspan, on twitter at @cspanwj, and you can follow us on instagram at @cspanwj. once again, we are talking about

the legacy of the war in afghanistan one year after president joe biden said that we were pulling out in the war was over. an analysis piece in the washington post this morning talks a little bit about what they see as the legacy of that war. a year ago, the taliban captured kabul, capturing the fragile -- the islamic militants' that were chased from power were back in command. -- it drained more than $1 million from u.s. taxpayers and cost the lives of more than 3500 u.s. service members and tens of thousands of afghan civilians hung in the balance. hours after --

the special special general for afghan reconstruction issued a report on 20 years of u.s. efforts in the country. it was grim reading. if the goal was to rebuild and leave behind a country that can sustain itself and pose little threat to u.s. national security interests, the overall picture is bleak, the report noted. once again, that coming from the washington post. there are people who say that the withdrawal was still worth it. there is a column from reason magazine that i will read a couple paragraphs to you, that argues getting out was the right call. this month marks the one-year anniversary of the u.s. troop withdrawal from afghanistan, which put an end to america's longest war. 7% of americans polled last year by the chicago council on global

affairs supported the decision to withdraw u.s. troops. they are now roughly split on the issue. when asked whether the u.s. made a mistake by withdrawing troops from afghanistan last year, 40% of full respondents -- poll respondents said yes. broken down by party, 61% of democrats felt the withdrawal was not a mistake while 68% of republicans felt it was. once again, that is in reason magazine. it was just about one year ago on august 31, 20 21, when president joe biden announced the end of the war in afghanistan. let's take a look at what he said. [video clip] >> my fellow americans, the war in afghanistan is now over. i am the fourth president who must face the issue of whether

an when to end this war. when i was running for president, i made a commitment to the american people that i would end this war. today, i have honored that commitment. it was time to be honest with the american people again. we no longer have a clear purpose and an open ended mission in afghanistan. after 20 years of war in afghanistan, i refused to send another generation of america's sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago. after more than $2 trillion spent in afghanistan, the cost would be over 300 million dollars a day for 20 years in afghanistan, for two decades. yes, the american people should hear this. $300 million a day for two decades.

you take the number of $1 trillion, that is still 150 million dollars a day for two decades. what have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunities? i refuse to continue a war that was no longer in the service of the vital national interest of our people. most of all, after 800,000 americans served in afghanistan -- i've traveled that whole country. brave and honorable service. after 20,744 american servicemen and women injured. and the loss of two thousand 461 american personnel, including 13 lives lost us this week, i refuse to open another decade of warfare in afghanistan. we have been a nation to long -- too long at war. if you are 20 years old today, you have never known and america

at peace. when i hear we could have, should have continued the so-called low-grade effort in afghanistan, at low risk to our service members, at low cost -- i do not think enough people understand how much we have asked of the 1% of this country who put that uniform on, willing to put their lives on the line in defense of our nation. host: former u.s. and nato afghan commander david petraeus specifically talked about, in an article in the atlantic, this month what happened with afghanistan i want to redo the statement from general david petraeus that was in this month's atlantic. our foundational mistake was our lack of commitment. in essence, we never adopted a sufficient, consistent, overarching approach that we stuck with from administration

to administration, or even within individual administrations. once again, that from general david petraeus, the former u.s. and nato afghan commander. our question for you this morning is what is the legacy of the war in afghanistan? want to hear from republicans that (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. and we are opening up a special line for veterans of the war in afghanistan, (202) 748-8003. let's start with william, calling from baltimore, maryland on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. good to see you. to stay in afghanistan definitely was not worth it. we stayed there too long. maybe a better strategy would have been surgical airstrikes.

i really do not believe in boots on the ground, sacrificing our bravest and youngest, young americans in these wars. and to make matters worse, going into iraq was an even more egregious decision, probably the worst in america's military history. just think, none of us had to happen, because the 2000 election was stolen, the real stolen election, if you want to talk about stolen elections. none of this would have happened, because i doubt if al gore, who also warned this country of global warming and all kinds of problems -- the election was stolen from him, and this led to all the bad decisions of going into iraq, staying in afghanistan for over 20 years. so this is where we are -- host: so what do you think should have been done with afghanistan? now we can go back and say we

should not have gone to afghanistan in the first place, but since we did, did we get out of it in the right way? caller: well, there was no right way to get out once you went in. it is like an old saying from the secretary of state powell. once you break it, it is yours. once we went in, there was no easy way to get out. this is why i am in favor of surgical airstrikes and things of this nature, because once you put boots on the ground, leaving is always difficult, was always proven to be difficult. we should have gotten out a long time ago, cut our losses. war is never a good thing, and boots on the ground is never a good thing, so surgical airstrikes should have been the thing to do. host: let's go to herb, calling from greenville, south carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. you do a great job, and you make it look easy.

look, the mainstream media leaves out huge gaps of information. fortunately, there are people who do real journalism, and they travel to places and see the people on the ground. the reason the u.s. military was in afghanistan was to guard the opium crop, so the big pharma. now you have homeless veterans, who have been traumatized from the orders they had to follow when they were in afghanistan and also iraq. how can you say america -- and you have homeless veterans who have psychological trauma. they leave their families, because they cannot cope with the situation. no, no, no. host: let's go to jim, calling

from rockville, maryland on the democrat line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning kid i guess i will have to double dip, but because i am both a veteran and a democrat. and this particular withdrawal left a lot of ill feelings. i did four tours in the country in the southeast and in the north, and i think it was disastrous. there is a saying that goes it is not what you do, it is how you do it, and the way the withdrawal was done, it was tragic. so many tons of military equipment, ammunition, night gear, night vision gear, drones -- i think this will come back to haunt the u.s. allies and haunt the united states itself. and now, former enemies have

some of the most sophisticated weaponry on the planet in a situation where there were less than 2000 soldiers and some contractors over there that could have balanced out or quelled whatever issues that were there, and also issues -- there are over 1000 americans still there hiding like anne frank, and also thousands of afghans, who were interpreters, who worked with the u.s. military, and now they are being persecuted and murdered in afghanistan. host: jim, according to factcheck.org, when the u.s. signed an agreement with the taliban in february, 2020 to set the terms for a u.s. withdrawal, there were 13,000 troops still in afghanistan. as you said, when the withdrawal actually happened, there were

only about 2000. so that 13,000 was phased through the entire withdrawal? caller: when i was over there, it was not necessary to have 13,000 in order to keep the country stable. there were 2000 troops over the last two years. there was no casualties, no deaths in the last two years. so that rapid withdrawal from key military bases -- bagram, kandahar, other bases, it really gave the deathknell to that country. so many billions of dollars expense over there. and again, all that military equipment, i fear, will show up on the streets of the united states, canada, western europe, and its allies with a bunch of terrorists -- host: what branch of the military were you in in afghanistan? caller: i was in the marine corps. host: you were in the marine

corps. what are veterans saying amongst themselves about the legacy of the war in afghanistan? what will it be remembered for? caller: to be honest, sir, it is a shame and disgrace, the withdrawal itself. for this administration -- as i am saying, i am a democrat -- but this administration to leave, take the word of the taliban and think they're going to make an agreement, that would have been like roosevelt taking the word of the nazis in 1944 and making an agreement. they cannot be trusted. if you live into italian parts of this world, like i have, freedom is not free -- if you live in totalitarian part of this world, like i've, freedom is not free. people have to sacrifice. but sometimes it is better to have sacrifice in foreign shores than to have them in your

neighborhood, on main street here. host: your suggestion is the biden administration should have gone back and scrapped the deal the trump administration made to withdraw from afghanistan? caller: i am not familiar on that deal. i do not know all the necessary items. but i think the withdrawal of those 2000 troops over there was a tragic mistake, and people are paying for it today. people are being murdered in afghanistan, those people who have worked with the united states state department and the military. there taken out and being shot, tortured on the street. there are still over 1000 american citizens over there, basically hostages. and military veterans that i know who have been over there have a very poor opinion of this particular administration. in fact, it might cost this administration many votes, many democratic votes, in the next

race, and also, it might cost the white house during the next presidential race. host: let's go to patrick, calling from lady lake, florida on the independent line. good morning. caller: well, i see, as usual, c-span got all the history of afghanistan. as far as i know, americans used to do the eat, pray, love vacations and afghanistan before they started doing them in india. didn't realize all the afghan heroin came in. they do not talk about that. and bush left the northern alliance, who probably would have been a real stable government over there, let them die, let osama bin laden escape

into pakistan. and what was it, 9 saudis, and they supposedly had one meeting in afghanistan where they taught -- we never talk about the saudi involvement there. but keep up the good work, c-span. host: let's go to theodore, calling from miami, florida on the republican line. caller: yes, i am calling because the last caller is more correct, because joe biden's legacy on afghanistan is going to be one that is not going to be remembered well. i am in agreement with the caller just before him. it is something that is going to read -- going to be remembered because it was a mess.

host: let's go to william, calling from wilson, north carolina on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. just a statement. joe had an objective to do -- biden -- there. for 20 years, we waited to get our troops out. so he obtained the objective. we got our troops out. we got 126,000 afghans out. we got all our other people who were in our embassies out. so the objective was obtained. it got a little messy, let's say, but it still was achieved. no one else did it. that is all i have to say. host: let's go to maury, calling from michigan on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i've been listening to c-span for quite a while, but i have

learned by listening to them that they are not impartial. you have developed a group of monitors, who, every one is biased. you picked some from the dispatch group, some from the nonreflective skin group, and you also have the traditional caucasian group, but they are all biased. and this bs that you give us about they are not or that it's unfiltered news is just that, bs. now on the afghanistan problem, that is a typical government response. they do not know why they went there, they do not know what they are supposed to be doing, and they screw up everything they try.

that is our government's effort. thank you. host: let's go to ralph, calling from augusta, georgia on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, sir. i have a different take from what some of the people were saying earlier. i retired -- i was not in afghanistan or iraq. but i played the part of a role player by the u.s. state government. hello? host: you are still on. go on, sir. caller: yes, i played a role in new mexico. we had similar buildings that were blown up, and my role was to play as a role player along with other afghanistan's and people who had worked as interpreters for the united states. one of my role player jobs -- i will just tell you this 1 -- was

to take my rifle, go out hunting for my family. the military approached me and asked me why did i have my rifle? i explained to them why. they said you do not need a rifle to go hunting, we are going to take care of you now, now we are here, you do not need a weapon. they confiscated my weapon. i was told we will take care of you from now on. this was told to a man who was trying to feed his family. those are some of the systems -- there were others, but i will not take up all of your time. we role-played -- i do not think my americans had any idea of leaving, at least anytime soon. i played the role as a village person. i may have walked around with the wives so the military

could see it and tried to blow them up, and they come up -- we did all kinds of things. we'd get paid by the military in a timely manner, and we did different scenarios when they came in. like i said, they did not think that the military were going to leave. that was way back up into the mountains where, at different times, we worked with people. host: well, on february 29, 2020, then-president donald trump came out of the white house to say the u.s. and the taliban had signed an agreement for bringing peace to the region after then almost 18 years of conflict. here is what then president trump set about his agreement with the taliban. [video clip] >> i will be meeting personally with taliban leaders in the not-too-distant future.

it will be very much hoping that they will be doing what they say they are going to be doing care they will be killing terrorists. they will be killing some very bad people. they will keep that fight going. we had tremendous success in afghanistan and the killing of terrorists, but it is time, after all these years, to go and bring our people back home. we want to bring our people back home. and again, it has been a long journey in afghanistan in particular. it has been a very long journey. it has been a hard journey for everybody. we are very largely a law-enforcement group, and that is not what our soldiers are all about. they are fighters, the greatest fighters in the world. as you know, we have destroyed, in syria and iraq, 100 percent of the isis caliphate.

100%. we have thousands of prisoners. we have killed isis fighters by the thousands. and likewise in afghanistan. but now it is time for somebody else to do that work, and that will be the taliban. and it could be surrounding countries. there are many countries that surround afghanistan that can help. we are 8000 miles away. so we will ringing it down to -- so we will be bringing it down to approximately 8600 or somewhere in that visiting the. this was a very spirited agreement. there was a lot of talk, and a lot of everything here they happen trying to get this for many years. it is time.

so i just want to thank everybody. i want to congratulate everybody. i really believe the taliban wants to do something to show that we are not all wasting time. if bad things happen, we will go back. let the people know. we will go back, and we will go back so fast and we will go back with a force that nobody has ever seen. i do not think that will be necessary. i hope that is not necessary. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about the legacy of the war in afghanistan. here is one tweet that says the bush, cheney, rumsfeld choice should be left to our military. another tweet that said what sane leader would evacuate the military forces and then try to evacuate civilians? biden's legacy will be the worse evacuation in history. like vietnam, it was "planned."

how many did biden leave behind? another tweet says the agreement was made by trump and they ignored the afghan people. a lot of people there did not want to leave when they have the chance a lot of the equipment was disabled or blown up. another tweet says afghanistan did not fight back when the taliban advanced. they collaborated with them, the way they did all along when we spent billions. it was a lost cause from the beginning feed you cannot help people who will not help themselves. and one final tweet -- in light of the inflation we are dealing with, it would be worse had we stayed and wasted billions more. it was good that we left. there will always be casualties in war. that is why we should avoid wars at all cost. there is a story in the business insider with a group that evacuate people from afghanistan.

the head of the group gave some quotes about what is going on with the evacuation of people out of afghanistan right now. i want to read a couple paragraphs now. throughout the war, 2488 service members, approximately 66,000 afghan national military and police officers, and over 40,000 afghan civilians died. the u.s. evacuated approximately 120 4000 individuals during the withdrawal last august. since then, the biden administration has been evacuating 800 american citizens from the country, politico reported earlier this month. the new york times reported last year thousands of afghan nationals who have helped the u.s. government throughout the 20 year war were seeking refuge. others said they still needed help getting out, so biden has

extraordinary success he has faced criticism from both parties. the guy at the top of it seems to have washed his hands of the whole situation and wants to move on from something that happened last year, and it is a shame, seller said of biden, adding that helping people stuck in afghanistan would require this administration to actually care. what is going to be the legacy of the war in afghanistan? once again, we want to hear from you. republicans, you are at (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, we want to hear from afghan war vets. if you are veteran from the war in afghanistan, we have a special line for you this morning, (202) 748-8003. let's go back to the phones and talk to mike, calling from

covington, louisiana on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. like several of the tweets, i think we failed to learn anything from the vietnam era. once again, those that wish to engage with the united states on the battlefield believe that they can always outlast us in these very much guerrilla wars. we are not going to win those by attempting to convert them to democracy. we need to take some lessons from the israelis. when we have an issue like the first bush president, we need to go in with the capabilities we

truly have, the technologies we have. we don't need to carry on and on and on with these wars. even ukraine has the potential to do that for us now as we pump billions upon billions of dollars. i am a supporter of the effort in ukraine, but it seems like we are just feeding the war beast again. we have a bloated military that cannot turn sharply and operate quickly and get out. we cannot change the world's philosophy on government. we need to build our strength as a democracy and put the right leaders in. i voted for the previous president once. the one we have now, i do not think he has the leadership or the intellect to drive our country in the right direction. i'm concerned about either one

of those people getting reelected. i would like to see some young, smart individuals, and the legacy needs to be not that we continue to pump billions of dollars and thousands upon thousands of u.s. lives into these faraway countries. if it is that critical to us, we go in and take out what we can with the technology, and you leave. don't leave like afghanistan or a rooftop in vietnam. host: let's go to paul, calling from wilson, north carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. and thank you for c-span. i just want to say i did agree with a lot of the statements that you read from the social media sources. i do want to thank our service members for their service in afghanistan and around the world.

i just want to say that, you know, could the negotiated withdrawal have been handled better? i think absolutely, and that is in hindsight. but i want to remind everyone that the trump administration decimated our state department, placed many unqualified people in our government departments, mostly acting department heads, not even confirmed. and i will just say what was the big, beautiful afghan withdrawal plans the trump administration had in place as they negotiated this at camp david? thank goodness, even when they did that come apparently he did listen to some of his advisors and not had that meeting actually on 9/11 as they originally reported.

so i think hindsight is 20/20. i think biden is handling a lot of things that we do not even think about, just because of the chaos that has been going on for the last four years in our government. thanks again for c-span. host: let's go to maurice, calling from north carolina on the democrat line. marie, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i agree a lot with what i just heard from the last person. but you have to look at things from the beginning. first, there was no reason for the united states to be in afghanistan. i want to sit at and a veteran. when we send military people into an area, it is to fight a war. and even though this was called the afghanistan war, what was the threat in afghanistan against the people of the united states, and what was our national interest? if we do not have a national

interest and we do not have an enemy, per se, that is threatening the people of the united states, we should not have the military in there. now there is a lot of bureaucracy across the united states that can go in and do all kind of things to help people. if you want to do the state department, department of commerce, whatever. but the military, just sitting over there for 20 years with no real mission, it did not make any sense. when trump said "come out of there," even though i do not agree with him about much, i agree. what joe biden did took a great deal of courage. that is why people are trying to use it right now is the one thing he did as a failure. and logistically, as a logi stician, we saw one of two planes fly out of there. everyone knows you cannot fly a whole army out of there with one of two planes. there had been months and months of people moving out of

afghanistan before we saw the end. the whole idea that we had one plane and everyone was on it is not true. thank you so much. host: republicans in congress are asking the biden administration to provide them more information about the with drawl from afghanistan -- about the withdrawal from afghanistan, and rollcall.com has a story about what republicans are doing to put pressure on the white house. i will read a couple paragraphs. one year after the united states' chaotic exit from afghanistan last august, republican lawmakers are putting renewed pressure on the biden administration to answer questions about the withdrawal. in a new report, republicans alleged president biden misled the american public about the consequences of a withdrawal, did not properly prepare for the withdrawal, and failed to evacuate many afghans who worked

with the u.s. during the 20 year war there, including elite military personnel. and if the biden administration continues to drag its feet on providing requested information to the committee, it may consider issuing subpoenas. the top republican on the foreign affairs make -- committee talked earlier this week about what he is looking for from the white house and why this information is important. here is representative mike mccall. [video clip] >> there was no plan. to your point, even both -- bef ore, i think the state department did not have the resources it needed to carry out an evacuation of this size. they were overwhelmed. but there were so many mistakes. the biggest one for me, having lived through it, being in the classified space, listening to the intelligence community tell the story about this will be

imminent, it will fall sooner rather than later -- the military told us the same thing. then we went to state and they paint the white house a very rosy picture. there is a disconnect between intelligence on the ground and what the white house is doing. this report says it all. there is no way we are going to evacuate embassy personnel with helicopters like we did in vietnam, and of course we know that happened. >> the criticism of this report is this was the monetary -- the minority report, and it is inherited in -- inherently political. and that this will just be a political line of attack. how do you respond to that? >> i was a federal prosecutor longer than i was a member of congress. it has been almost 20 years now. i pride myself on being objective. i think this is a fairly objective report on the failures made. one of the biggest ones was the

taliban -- general mckenzie made an offer, you can take control over kabul and secure it for purposes of the evacuation -- >> general mckenzie said that is not what my assignment is here. >> that is not what the commander in chief told me. they run it up to the white house and get no answer. later, jen psaki said they would not have approved. we rely on that taliban to secure the perimeter -- that led to the chaos. it also led to the suicide bomber that killed 30 teen servicemembers, men and women, and injured hundreds of people. and it could have been avoided. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about the legacy of the war in afghanistan. here is one tweet that says the legacy is we needlessly occupied afghanistan for 20 years, only to have an administration turn their back on the afghanistan government in favor of the taliban, because that is the legacy of tfg authoritarianism.

biden had to implement the trump agreement that left no plan to leave. another tweet said the legacy for afghanistan should be that americans will not fight for people who will not fight for themselves. example, the ukrainians. they are fighting for their country, and that is who we should help. another tweet says we are out. it was not pretty. armchair generals no longer needed. another tweet says yes, it was a lost cause, but we knew that before we invaded. one last tweet says we got bin laden, that was enough. democracy cannot be forced, nor should it be. once again, we want to know from you what is the legacy of the war in afghanistan? let's go to remmy, calling from maryland on the republican lines. good morning. caller: good morning. we got some good commentary going this morning.

pretty much almost everybody in the comments. but the thing concerning to me is the boomers. the generation following us will be saddled with a trillion dollar debt. we have not done anything since vietnam, laos, cambodia, fasttrack to afghanistan, only to not focus on so much the corporations and the 10,000 hardware and software corporations that had profited from these invasions of sovereign nations and the killing of millions of people, and we spent trillions to kill millions. this is the thing that is really bothersome. it is irksome to me and even to people following, the generations following us, is that we are not happy unless we have an agenda that is going to benefit corporations and their lobbyists that take care of our

politicians, because they seem to be the masters for our politicians. they are tagteam politicians, like tagteam wrestlers. they have good guys, bad guys. this is something i remember going back to the 1960's when i had to go into the national guard. if you ask the pentagon what it is that they had done as far as keeping track of the casualties when it comes to civilians, they will simply tell you, we do not track the casualties of civilians. that is just their blanket coverage. but we need to wake up. we need to start looking closer at these politicians and their corporate masters as to what it is we have to do to change this entire system. in other words, get on the same page. let's rebuild the country, since infrastructure is imploding and in national debt that will not be satisfied. stop leaving the empty suits and

talking heads that will do nothing except take us down the next path to what they have been doing to us in the past. host: let's go to joe, calling from atlanta, georgia on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning to you. thank you for taking my call. i want to change the idea of what they call the afghanistan war. that was not a war. that was an invasion. we have got to learn how to distinguish between the two. just like vietnam. we invaded vietnam. we put half a billion -- half a million u.s. troops in vietnam here they were never a threat to the united states. the business of this country is war and manufacturing war materials. look how many billions of dollars in arms we are sending to ukraine right now, hundreds of billions of dollars in arms. that is not right.

we should not be sending weapons of mass destruction all over the world. but we have destroyed our manufacturing base in this country to where we have to keep on building arms, and doing so, just to keep the country working. we have destroyed the food manufacturing business. we import more food now than we grow. we are paying billionaires hundreds of millions of dollars not to grow food on the land. that is wrong. we should be growing food and not holding all these arms to have a whole war against each other. host: let's go to dorothy, calling from baltimore, maryland on the democrat line. good morning. caller: morning. i cannot agree more, especially with the caller just before the last one, and mostly with the caller you just had, and i think he was a republican. i cannot agree with him more.

our politicians are not politicians for the people. they are corporate. we have corporate leaders -- that is what we need to call them -- governing us pure that is why we always have complaints. we have complaints because we are voting on politicians telling us what they want. they should never tell us what they want. we need to tell us what we want. but back to afghanistan. we got to remember. we got to go back to the beginning. trump should not have met with the taliban without first meeting with the afghan military. that is not a good plan. i mean you gave their support, and we have no idea what trump told the taliban. the afghan military do not either. as far as they know, he said i side with the taliban here that was the downfall of afghanistan, because they figured america must be on the taliban's side. and trump never removed people

from there. once he said -- it took five years, they said, to evacuate from vietnam. it still will take years to get people out of afghanistan. that should have been a plan made when trump first thought he was going to leave. when he made that deal, he should have had planes to get civilians out right then and there. he should have started it. he did not. he did not have a plan. that is what started it, and that is the truth. host: let's go to jerry, calling from new jersey on the republican line. good morning. jerry, where are you? there you are. are you there? let's try that again. are you there? caller: i am here, can you hear me? host: we can. go ahead. caller: i think, when president biden told the world that he would not leave one american behind, and then he did -- he

left over 1,000 of them behind -- i think that the world saw that biden was weak. i think, when the afghan terrorist groups told biden he had to leave by the end of august, biden wasn't in control. and i think that's part of the reason why we now have the ukraine and china and all the big country threatening us, because biden showed his weakness. leaving americans behind is something we have never done. we have always protected our own . and everybody, the whole world, saw that biden did not do that with the americans.

the $70 billion of equipment, every so often, you see on tv how they operating with all our equipment. that just leaves a bitter taste in all our mouths. and now, i think the world sees us as weak, and that's sad to me. host: let's go to van, calling from paris, ohio on the independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just want to say that the afghan people let the united states down. we worked so hard to try to get their independence, and we worked so hard helping them. we donated more equipment and money in afghanistan than most any other war. and it all went for graft and in the pockets of the politically influenced afghan people.

and when the chips were down, they decided that they were not going to defend anymore and help themselves, and they just lay down their weapons and turned themselves over to the taliban and whoever else wanted to come in and take control. they had no backbone. and we are supposed to be the backbone? we cannot do everything. and i think some of these people that are promoting biden's weak ness should understand his hands were somewhat tired. he had a program -- his hands were somewhat tied. he had a program to fulfill. his problem was not to have the state department and every american was out. host: let's talk to josé, calling from texas, and a veteran of afghanistan. good morning. caller: good morning.

thank you for taking my call. i was in afghanistan in 2006, 2007. i knew that was a lost cause. it was great to serve the people of afghanistan. however, the beliefs were from 300 centuries back in the day. we are never going to make them change their customs, their history, nothing. nothing at all. it was a great idea to get out of afghanistan. for 20 years, losing billions and billions of dollars that it cost americans' pockets, that was great, great to be out of there. host: what branch of the military were you in? caller: i was u.s. navy.

host: and what our veterans like yourselves, when you talk amongst yourselves, veterans of that war, what do you think the legacy of that war will be? caller: it was a lost cause. a lost cause. lee had been there 20 years for no reason. terrorism will never be won -- we will never win the war on terrorism. we kill the terrorist leader, they will be replaced with another leader. it's a ladder. replacing one by another one. host: let's go to nate, calling from wisconsin on the democrat line. good morning. caller: thank you. i appreciate the program. i have a lot of agreement with

my preceding caller. it is great to hear from a veteran who was actually there. as a democrat, i think we should not be as partisan as we are about a lot of this stuff, because, really, we are all taxpayers and we are all citizens. this war cost both blood and treasure. it was just an incredible waste of money. when you think about all the money that -- all the things that money could have been used for and the lives that could have been invested in. just think of the families damaged by the loss of husbands and brothers and sons and the chaos the families of veterans

were thrown into. the loss is just incalculable. and we are just talking about our side. think about how the afghan people feel about the losses of their family members. that is the part of the story we do not even know. my points would be, from the beginning, this was a flawed idea. the blame now, because republicans are out of power -- they were in power when this started. this was a bush venture. corporate military ideas were prominent. it was afghanistan and iraq. iraq has so much oil. these corporations, they just paid for the war. that it would not cost anything,

what a pipedream that was. host: let's go to steve, calling from south dakota on the republican line. caller: good morning, sir. yeah, i got a problem with biden's withdrawal. it was an absolute cluster -- and i will leave that term at that. you do not pull out your military before you pull out unarmed civilians during the government's work. you pull out the civilians first. the civilians were unarmed. they had no way to defend themselves. 13 troopers are not going to be able to ward off hundreds of taliban. then, he denies that he did anything wrong. to this very day, biden thinks he did everything right and used the excuse, well, the agreement

that president trump had with the taliban was set in stone. no, it was with conditions. if so much as one american was injured or killed as the result of an attack by the taliban or any other terrorist group, there would be hell to pay. and this administration did nothing. host: let's go to douglas, calling from cocoa, florida on the democrat line. caller: sir, good morning, america. i hope everyone is feeling good today. i had a few comments on this subject. one, vietnam withdrawal, they left a whole platoon of marines sitting on top of an embassy. now afghanistan, which is the real subject, one, we should have never went in. we should have just made the

whole country glow-in-the-dark and say terrorism, american style. but we went in, had to go -- they sent the army to go somewhere else, remember? but that is another story as well. then, we had a great president, donald trump, that surrenders and then sits on his ass for 11 months. host: let's go to mary sue, calling from norfolk, nebraska on the republican line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a few opinions, i guess. i don't know -- you sad $350 million a day -- you said $350

million a day supporting afghanistan. you could have given $100 million to an american and an electric car and eat for that money. i am really disappointed in our government. i was young when i saw saigon fall. i joined the army when i was 17 years old due to the fact that i loved my country and i never wanted anything like that to happen over here. we should have left afghanistan alone. they've been warring for eternity. it's religious, it's power, it's oil -- it's all of these things. yet it's not something we can change. they do not want a democratic society. they don't want to have freedom.

it's all about control there. now, ukraine? i absolutely admire the president. wentz from television to leading his country in a war that absolutely he should not be able to be holding his own the way he is now. host: let's go to joe, calling from north carolina on the independent line. joe, are you there? caller: good morning. i just want -- yes, i am here. can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: yeah, i just want to say two administrations, bush and

obama, helped the afghan government build up, and then trump came in and negotiated with the very terrorists that propped up al qaeda. so how is that ok, and how can anybody see that is a good thing? that is just not a good thing. if americans stayed, more americans would have died due to that failure. host: let's go to brenda good morning. brenda, are you there? caller: yes. i wanted to say that i am so sick of hearing people blaming biden for bringing out the people out of afghanistan.

it is just unreal. it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to have them say what they say about biden. he did the right bang. he did the best he could consider that trump did absolutely nothing. host: we would like to thank all of our callers who called in for that first meant. next, aaron wins from the freedom foundation will be here to discuss the $80 million associated with the inflation reduction act. rob richard will be here to discuss voting reforms. we will be right back. ♪ >> nobody really thought that

this would happen, that they would succumb to the nazis. the city of lights was supposed to be this bastion of enlightenment and free inking and people -- freethinking and an open society. they executed liberals, they executed freethinkers, and everybody was scared, as they came into paris. >> martin do guard, author of the book " taking paris" watch on q and a tonight. you can listen to q and day on our new -- q and a on our new

c-span app. >> live sunday, september 4, steven hayward will be our guest to talk about leadership and the american conservative movement. he is the author of several books, " greatness is not enough." join with your calls, texts and tweets. ♪ >> washington journal continues. host: we are backend we are going to talk this morning with aaron withe who is the ceo of the -- he is here to discuss the

$80 billion that the irs will get as part of the inflation reduction act and how that will affect america. guest: thank you for having me on the show. host: tell us about your background and the freedom foundation's background. guest: the freedom foundation is a 501(c) three nonprofit that founded in the early 90's in washington state. the idea back then was to create conservative reform in a liberal state like washington. what we learned over the course of the last 30 years is that conservative reform could not happen in washington. now the freedom foundation is a national organization. we are not a think tank anymore. we are a do-tank.

the average public employee in america pays $1100 a year in union dues and most do not know that, that money belongs to them, that they can opt out and put it back in their pocket. host: you recently wrote an opinion article in the washington times. the headline reads " larger irs, another way to reward biden's cronies." why do you say this? guest: biden's number one supporters are unions. when we see a potential new irs agents being hired, we see new potential union dues payers.

the irs union makes over $40 million in union dues every single year. when i say " payback," that is what i am referring to. i fear the biden starting to take steps the former obama administration did in 2010. what that does is it stops conservative groups from being able to get set up. we are under tremendous pressure when being audited. new agents will not be going 100% of the high income earners. they will be going after everyday americans too. this is the power of the bag by rewarding their union cronies, and at the same time going after conservative groups. host: let's look at the specific

provisions of the inflation reduction act that specifies what is going to happen at the irs. according to the inflation reduction act, they will invest $80 billion over 10 years to the irs. it will allow the irs to hire as many as 87,000 employees over the next decade. it would raise over $2 billion in revenue or a net of $240 billion. are you making an assumption that all of those employees of the irs are democrats? guest: of course not. when you become a public employee, it is expected that you become a union member on day one. regardless of political

affiliation, most of these people signed up to be in the union from day one didn't understand they had a choice. they do not know that this money is going towards democrats. they have no idea most times. it takes the freedom foundation to tell people they have a choice. they are probably not going to be well-informed about their rights when it comes to joining a union, and they are not going to be given the option to opt out until contacted by a group like the freedom foundation. host: you are assuming these irs agentss will be auditing people who make a certain amount of money instead of auditing people who make a lot of money. where are you getting that information from? guest: they are going to be auditing the rich, but they are

not going to be exclusively auditing the rich. they will be auditing everyday americans as well. i find it absurd to think that biden can pass this inflation reduction act, which is ironically named, and audit all of these people. they will be watching every day mom and pop shops. they will be concerned did i keep my receipt from my business lunch last year. these are the things these people will be worrying about. i don't think weaponizing the irs is a good step for anybody. the trump and the biden administration, arguably the trump administration's biggest win was to get a big tax cut for americans. arguably this is biden's biggest

win. host: let me remind our viewers they can take part in this conversation about the irs. we will open up regular lines. that means republicans, you can call (202) 748-8001. democrats, your line is (202) 748-8000. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. you can always text at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading on twitter and facebook. you said a couple of times that the administration, specifically the obama and biden administration is weaponizing the irs to go after conservative groups. guest: the obama administration, we found documentation that the irs was blocking groups with

certain terms and their names. i don't remember the certain terms, but they were terms like freedom. the freedom foundation, of course, would have been denied at that. tim -- at that time. that is one of the ways the irs was formally going after conservative groups. i think they are going to weaponize the irs. i think there will be more audits and they will be focused more on conservative groups then they are another groups for example. you look at the actual weaponizing of the irs, you see all these videos coming out on social media of training these irs people with weapons.

there are literally weaponizing the irs. host: the irs will tell you they are not partisan and not political. you would disagree with that contention? guest: i think they were political in 20 i think they were political under10. . -- political in 2010. i think they were political under the obama administration. when you have an irs union, they give 100% of their political funding to democrats. they don't give a single dollar to republicans. that certainly skews to the left. host: the irs and people who cover the irs say the irs's budget needed an infusion. i will read you a quote from a

policy reporter. this is what she reported in vox . " the irs's budget has been cut by 20% since 2010. in 2010 the irs had about 94,000 employees. it dipped in 2021. some computers still run on a computer language that dates back to the 1960's." it sounds like the irs needs money just to update their systems and the number of their employees have dropped. do you agree that the irs needs money to modernize? guest: have you ever heard a government agency saying they have enough money?

they will always complain about a lack of funding. they will be -- there is never enough money when it comes to funding the government, because they are always looking at getting more. i know this is a significant increase, and i do not think that the increase in budget here is not going to help your everyday americans. these are not resources that are going to be used to put money back in the pockets of americans. this irs will be used to squeeze the american taxpayer for as many dollars as they can get, whether it be by audit, whether it be by changing tax code and tax law, who knows, but i do not believe this will end with americans getting more money at a time when they need it. the inflation reduction act

-- taking money from people and putting it into irs agents? i do not think that will put anymore money back in the pockets of americans. host: let's let some of our viewers take part in this conversation. we will start with steve who is calling from san jose, california on the republican line. caller: i totally agree with your guest in regards to his opening statement. this stands to be used by the democrats for nefarious purposes. let's go back to lois lerner -- it was documented how many trips she made into the obama white house. i think it was about 20 trips,

and i'm sure lois lerner had discussions about obama and how she can -- how shall we say -- work for nefarious purposes against republicans. she pled the fifth when she was called up in front of congress after they found out what she was doing going after the tea party. i will make 2 additional points here. when it was found out that the democrats were requesting $80 billion for the irs, the republicans complained that it was going to be used for nefarious purposes, and the democrats came back and said " it won't be used for nefarious

purposes!" then there was a republican amendment. your guest might talk about that. a republican amendment that would guarantee that the irs would not be going against people making under $400,000, and that was voted down by every democrat. i hope when republicans gained the house of representatives this screams, literally screams, for an oversight committee to keep track of what these people are going to do. host: go ahead and respond, aaron. guest: i agree. you are right. the person calling in was exactly right. the amendment was shut down by

the democrats because they know they cannot limit it to people making under 400 that -- over $400,000. they will be going after mom and pop shops, they will be going after people making minimum wage, making sure they are claiming the right amount of exemptions. everyday americans should be worried about this. i think they probably are when they are filing their taxes. i do not believe this is a good thing for your everyday american. it will sweep the american population for every dollar they potentially owe to the irs. you are likely to pay up rather than to the lengths to challenge the litigation.

everyday americans should be scared about what the biden administration has done. host: let's go to dj calling from wake forest, north carolina on the democrat line. caller: sure. my goodness. scary stuff. taking the fifth amendment. can you imagine what criminal behavior she must have been guilty of? are you against unions altogether? caller: i believe if unions should exist, they should be voluntary and people should know about their rights when it comes to union membership and unions should represent their members instead of putting hundreds of millions of dollars into politicss which i what to government unions are doing all across america.

host: let's talk to cory calling from davison bill, maryland -- davisonville, maryland. caller: 5% of the population controls 70% of the world's wealth. it seems we are back in the world of the railroad barons who engineer the fate of the human race basically. i see unions as a buffer to argue for workers' rights and the citizens' rights, the common man's rights while special interest, big-money corporations socially engineer the way things go in general. guest: i think that when you talk about unions, there is a

disassociation between labor unions then and today. labor unions today are representing irs agents. there are one spending item i -- their number one spending item is politics. let's not -- government unions are the number one special interest group. there are the number one funder of liberal politicians in america. they are taking this money from the every day public employee. the national education association's budget, it was less than 10% of their budget being spent on representing teachers. the rest of the budget was

politics and 501(c) fours. government unions are the biggest special interest group in america. host: when you say that the irs is being used by democratic administrations to target conservative groups, is the same thing happening in conservative administrations? caller: i have not seen -- guest: i have not seen any evidence of it. i have never seen an irs go after liberal groups in america. i have never seen the irs taking exempt status from liberal groups. i have not seen an instance of it. host: ok. let's talk to? is calling from columbus, ohio on the republican line -- let's talk to jack.

he is calling -- let's talk to our next caller. jack is calling from columbus, ohio on the republican line. go ahead, jack. caller: the democrats -- i am a converted democrat. i voted for obama, and i have always said that we needed a businessman in the white house and one that knew what he were doing. the irs is the democrats' army. i have dealt with them a couple times. they do not scare me.

[indiscernible] caller: when i heard is that the caller -- guest: i did not hear much of what went on in that call, but what i did here is that he had previous dealings with the irs. this group is one to be feared. host: this -- now that this money has been watermarked for the irs, what should future congresses do? guest: we should be overseeing what the irs is spending this

money on and xavier becerra's inflation. that is what the bill -- and how they are reducing inflation. that is what the bill is for. let's make sure that we do not get a repeat. let's make sure we are having oversight and make sure they are not targeting specific groups based on political affiliation. let's make sure they are not overly focusing on americans earning below $400,000 and less than that. if there are going to be loads of people who arguably should be on the wealthier side of things, it should be larger corporations rather than your everyday mom and pop shops. i anticipate it will be more everyday americans than people anticipate. 87,000 government bureaucrats

is a lot of people to be hiring. host: you are not calling on republican lawmakers or republican administrations to defund this money from the irs? caller: -- guest: you rarely see funded government agencies unfunded. o moneyn has been watermarkedc for a government agencye, it is hard to -- once money has been watermarked for a government agency, it is hard to get back. host: during the debate earlier this month, oregon democratic senator included -- spoke out in favor of the measure and the funding for the irs, citing taxpayer fairness and how it would target wealthy tax of azor's and enhanced tax

enforcement. here is what senator ron wyden had to say. [video clip] >> we have heard some of our colleagues say this will target working people. that will not happen, and the reason it is not as my colleague on the finance committee knows so well, working problem are not the problem here. they pay taxes with every single paycheck. it is right there on their paycheck. everybody knows what taxes they pay and should they be engaging in any fraudulent activity, it would show up on these forms. they are not the problem. as we have been told again and again by independent experts, democrats, republicans, and independents, we have a problem with big, wealthy tax cheats.

big, wealthy tax cheats do not pay taxes with every single paycheck like firefighters and nurses, and after a decade of republican budget cuts, we are in a very difficult position to, go after these wealthy, tax cheats who ripped off the american people for billions of dollars every gear. the current commissioner -- every year. they current commissioner is a republican appointee who estimated the number of taxes owed that are not collected could be as much as $1 trillion per year. we believe the agency ought to have the resources it needs to go after sophisticated, lawbreaking tax cheats at the top. i know my colleagues on the finance committee join me in saying we will watchdog the agency very carefully and make sure the focus is on the wealthy

tax cheats and not the typical working person as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have talked about. host: i take it you disagree with senator widen their. guest: the way wyden paints a grim picture of wealthy individuals -- we should be encouraging people to get in that tax bracket. what these people had to do is claim the tax code in a way that benefits them, but it is a tax code the government has been in charge of that for a long time, so when it comes to deducting things from their taxes, they are deducting the maximum they can. the average americans are not hiring the accountants these

billionaires have. of course, they are paying taxes. they are paying with every paycheck. what those people should be scared of is the irs coming after them. if there is allegedly $1 trillion out there from taxpayers not being paid, they significant portion of that is coming from people earning below the lowest threshold, which is why the democrats voted to only audit -- it will not be specifically targeted to people above $400,000. host: i want you to talk about the current congressional investigation going on with the irs. the latest story is in politico. " the irs said thursday it has

asked of the government watchdog to investigate how 2 former senior fbi officials criticized by former president donald trump were chosen for intense audit. he had personally contacted tax administration about the matter. former fbi director james comey, andrew mccabe were both as few as several thousand a year are chosen out of 150 million filed annually with the i.r.s. the agency said it was ludicrous and untrue to suggest it targeted them which helped the government.

what do you think about that investigation? guest: i think there should be a different standard for government elected, officials and elected officials. we should know their sources of revenue. that information should be public. so i think there should be a different standard applied that two people either elected into office or those that are government officials that are political appointees. i think that's a better practice. we should know who is influencing those folks. i would have to see more evidence of that, i suppose

that's what this investigation is going to find out. host: let me shake sure i understood. are you calling for more open tax forms for all government officials including agency heads that their tax forms should be public? guest: i think we should know who is influencing these people. if you're put into a position where you're on top of a deposit, for example, we should know who is influencing those folks. that applies to both conservative and democrat administrations. we should know who is influencing our elected officials and also who is influencing agency heads. i think that's absolutely a good thing and we should be knowing what is pulling their strings at the end of the day if they're making money outside of their jobs we should know that. host: just to be clear you're talking but, the supreme court, the heads of congress all 535

members of congress and the president? all of their tax forms should be public. am i understanding you correctly? guest: i think so. i think it should absolutely be public. we should know who is influencing them. for example, a group named open the books is a government watchdog they found that anthony fauchie made hundreds of thousands of dollars outside of his job at the nih. so i think they should absolutely bsh b -- that information should be public more often than not when it comes to, elected officials and agency heads. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to wanda on the democrat line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. this country is in turmoil and i

don't think that your guest is helping at all. he is part of the problem. this conversation that is being had is a good conversation but the way that it is being delivered is divisive. i believe that the republicans banner is get rid of the government so that we don't have to be accountable. we can do exactly what we want. his approach is divisive. it's about the democrats this and the versus the conservatives. if people do what they should be doing they have nothing to be afraid of. so why continue to tell the people that you should be afraid? he is actually making people fearful and trying to get people to object to what is going on. i believe the thief of this country who are robbing our country of the taxes, that they

should be afraid. so if you're doing the right thing, you have nothing to be afraid of. aaron never mentioned or talked about the level of fraud and the theft that goes on in this country. all he is talking about is that they should be afraid that somebody is looking at your taxes. if you're doing the right thing, you have nothing to worry about. host: go ahead and respond there. guest: i think the point is a good one, but sounds like somebody who has never been audited by the irs. this is something you could be doing everything right but yet they find something, as rae did you knowednt as not keeping a receipt from a business lunch that you took a couple years ago or deducting office space if you have your own business and the office space is bigger or smaller than you deducted from. there's so many nuances when it comes to filing taxes that your every day americans aren't aware

of, yet the ultra wealthy have accountnts out there doing a good job of making sure they're paying the right amount of taxes. so when i talk about americans should be scared, i certainly would be scared if the i.r.s. came knocking on my door trying to do stuff and i do everything correctly. i believe that probably most americans would be in that same situation if the i.r.s. came knocking on their door. host: let's talk to david whose calling from los angeles, california on the independent line. caller: good morning. mr. white, you've made so many misstatements i don't know where to begin. you're either grossly uninformed or a blat president liar. donald trump gave tax breaks 83% went to the wealthy. number two, the i.r.s. wasn't targeting conservative groups, they were targeting illegal 501(c)(3)s it just so happened

that 93% of them were conservative groups who were traying to donate unlimited amounts of money which is illegal. and we know this for a fact because the applications went from 170 per year to 1,700 per year. and whern they did the research they realized that most were coming from extreme right-wing conservative groups. and they were trying to dump money into their candidates's coffers. they found political fliers and organizing political events which is against the i.r.s. rules so what you're saying most of the stuff that you've said thus far is just factually false. thank you. guest: i'm certainly aware of how the i.r.s. operates when it comes to 501(c)(3)s being the c.e.o. of one. and i'm certainly aware of the rules that should be followed.

i think what was happening under the obama administration was these groups were not even being allowed to stop, they were being denied their tax exempt status before they were starting. giving political contributions is as a nonprofit is illegal. if that is happening anywhere it should be shut down. people received a tax break for giving donations to 501(c)(3)s like my own and we do not engage in politics. we are an organization that helps union members to opt out of their union. that's what, it's public education and the likes that these 501(c)(3) groups could and should be doing. not any political campaign contributions or anything of the sort. host: i guess i should ask has you group ever been audited by the i.r.s. or have you ever been audit? and what was the experience like? guest: we go through an audit every single year not through

the i.r.s. but by a group that comes in and looks at our books and makes sure everything is in line the way it should be. i think that most 501(c)(3) groups certainly those that get above a certain size have the same practices to make sure we're in compliance with everything that the i.r.s. puts out there. i think that's a good business practice for groups of a certain size, i think most could and should be doing that in fact, to operate in some states you have to do that. so those are some of the ways that you can help yourself almost by if you are, if you do run a 501(c)(3) or other nonprofit groups those are some of the ways that you can help to avoid misconduct and we certainly hold ourselves to a high standard and doing an audit each year is one of the ways you can do that. host: let's go to washington on the republican line.

good morning. caller: go ahead. caller: i'm talking. host: let's go to john from illinois on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i just want to say i've been listening doesn't sound like this guest, he doesn't want to pay taxes. i think corporations need to pay more than their fair share. i think that when he claims that the i.r.s. is going to start targeting regular people, the i.r.s. has been targeting regular people the entire time. so i don't know where he's coming up with this.

i think he just doesn't want his company or the mega rich to be taxed. but they should be. i also want to comment on the marginal tax rate during the biggest economic boom in the country was at 09%. and it's just gone down ever since and if he doesn't know already the billionaires have already made trillions more in profits during this pandemic while wages for workers have stayed stagnant. and the workers still pay a higher tax rate than people like jeff bezos who literally pay zero in taxes so to me it sounds like this guy doesn't want to pay taxes. i assume he feels they're theft in some way. so i would encourage listeners to ignore whatever other bs he has to say. thanks. host: go ahead and respond.

guest: i hate words being put in my mouth. my point i made earlier about the ultra wealthy as he calls them paying their fair share of taxes, these guys have accountnts. these guys have well-paid accountnts telling them the best way to maneuver the tax code to give themselves the most money in their pockets. your every day americans sdroent those types of accountnts. they don't have those types of resources to do that so yeah i think that i'm of the belief that we should be taxing people as little as possible and putting that money back in the pockets of people. i think they make better decisions with their money thanked the government tends to. if the former caller disagrees he's welcome to write the i.r.s. and other government agencies bigger checks for taxes each year. host: joan from ohio on the republican line.

caller: good morning. listen, i have to say i'm a common-sense person and the problem i'm having is that i'm always safe for the little guy. the government if they want to do what they're doing they should start from the top person down, start with joe biden and his family, karm la, nancy pelosi, every one in government do them and then do your governors and that, because that's where we're trying to find out how much money they have where they're spending it, are they involved in stock fraud. everything. we just need to know. and they need to get rid of the lobbyists, and if nothing else they also should be taken care of first. i thank you. have a great sunday. host: go ahead andrea spond. guest: i think it goes back to the point i made earlier.

yeah, we should be knowing who is influencing our elected officials and the top, the highest levels of our public employee agency heads et cetera. these people should be disclosing their taxes so that we can see what they're making additional money from outside their government jobs. i think that's a good practice that will help clean these types of things up and that should happen on both sides of the aisle. host: we thank aaron the chief executive officer for the freedom foundation for coming on with us this morning and talking the 80 billion funding boost to the i.r.s. for hiring and enforcement. guest: appreciate it. host: coming up next, we're going to talk at 9:15 this morning with fair votes rob richie here to discuss the advocacy for rank choice voting and other rae forms.

but it's it's open forrium time. your chance to call in with your top political or publicy issue on your mind this morning. start calling in now.

host: we're back and we're in our open for m segment where our

viewers can call in and talk about the most important political or public policy issue on your mind this morning. we've opened up our lines. that means that republicans we want to hear from you. the numbers are on your screen. you can always text us your opinion and we're always reading on social media, on twitter and on facebook. let's start with bruce from wisconsin on the republican line. caller: good morning. how are you this morning? host: i'm doing great. caller: i want to talk about this bill for the i.r.s. number

one, we don't have a fiscal or a supply problem causing the inflation to go up. it's all related to cost of goods sold. and what they're doing is going to raise the inflation rate. after jimmy carter and after bill clinton started. so we aren't going to gain anything on that bill. it's been rumored that the one requirement is to get hired obama 80,000 positions is that you no longer shoot a gun. is there anybody can tell me if that's true or not? host: all right. i haven't heard anything like that but let's go to jennifer who is calling from california

on the democrat line. caller: good morning. and thank you for taking my call. on a positive note, i just want to say thank you for your show. i'm really getting up early watching c-span every morning. it's interesting to see what other people say across the nation since i live in a little small corner here in california and i'm really pleased that we're finally doing something about climate change. it's been a long slog on 65 and i'm concerned about my grandchildren, living in california and have to worry about the fires and the heat and i've just really, thankful we're finally making some progress. i just have good wishes and hope for everyone. thank you for taking my call. host: let's talk to south

dakota on the independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just want to ask that we shouldn't really invite conspiracy theorists lake the gentleman you had before talking about taxes. you know, he talked about the new hires that the i.r.s. would be carrying guns, something that has been denied anday bunked by everyone in the government. secondly, he was worried about being audited. well, you know, if you are paying your taxes and you're honest with your taxes why should you be worried about being audited? he talks about maybe use your home as an office. well, if you've got that much smarts you should read the rules and understand under what circumstances you could do that. if you're not doing that, you're

taking free ride on the back of the rest of us and in fact you should be paying us. thank you very much. host: john from california on the republican line. caller: good morning. i had a couple of things, you were going to talk about the rank type voting and those things. i was wondering about no one ever talks about yauzing the internet. your email system, to vote on maybe could be candidates but on issues. when i yauz the internet, i buy and sell stock. i buy products all over the country, and it seems very secure and it's very convenient. and maybe it's just too

democratic, small d, for people that they fear that people will conveniently vote on things. that's one of the things that i was wondering about. the other thing was setting up some kind of control on the amount of money on each side of an issue so that you get a balance of coverage let's say using an eskro type account where each party puts money in and then they get to draw out an equal amount. that way the very rich wouldn't hog the airways. anyway, that's just two things i would like to put out there. host: two quick questions, and we will be talking about rank choice voting at 9:15 with rob richie. but question, would you trust your vote to the internet where you have no control over see whethering that vote, how that vote gets to where it is supposed to be. would you trust your vote to that? caller: i would. i would have to -- well, let me

say when it comes to money i can trade $100,000 on line and i trust that process. as i understand, these tractions are held permanently so things could be audited if there was somebody cheating on it they would be caught i would hope. host: all right. well, i'll be sure to ask that question in our next segment. let's talk to michael from west virginia on the democrat line. good morning. caller: i would like to say a few things about your previous guest that you had. i'm 75, i got out of high school ant went to the military four years, spent a year in combat in vietnam. worked on my education, then 35 years for the internal revenue service. the purpose of the irs is

two-fold. it's to assist taxpayers, whether they're individuals or businesses, to file their tax returns or get them to file their tax returns and to assist taxpayers to pay what they owe or get them to pay what they owe. that's the purpose no matter where you are with the i.r.s. now, as far as the union goes that he was talking about it's called the national treasurer's employee union. it mrongs to the treasury department. the i.r.s. is a bureau of the treasury department, they report directly to the treasury. nteu is a very, very weak union. it can, employees can either be in management or regular employees and in about approximately 40% of the people in the i.r.s. belong to it. you remember what reagan did to the air traffic control union. ok, as far as guns goes, the i.r.s. exists of an examination which is your revenue agents and tax auditrs, your collection revenue officers which i did,

and then your customer service, and then your criminal investigation area which is less than one half of 1% of the total i.r.s. employees. those are the people issued any type of a firearm. and as far as the hiring of these 87,000 people go, it's going to take a long time to get that because they're going to be looking at people that either are cpas or accounting degrees or people previously worked for the i.r.s. or people worked for tax agencies that worked with the i.r.s. so it's going to take a long time for that to happen. thank you for your time and i'm, just wanted to get the guy straight. he was wrong on a lot of stuff. host: tony from pennsylvania on the independent line. caller: good morning. i appreciate the opportunity. i'm glad that a lot of callers are calling in to talk about the previous guest aaron and the

many ways that aaron was factually incorrect. that doesn't seem to be an anomaly on c-span or in the news. we have these think tanks that hire sort of professional liars that come on and present viewpoints that are not grounded in facts. and i'm a little disappointed in c-span because we have this pattern i think a much better format would be to have the think tank liar and then have someone maybe from a good public policy standpoint come in and talk about it. for example, on the i.r.s. if we're talking about i.r.s. funding i think it would make sense to talk about the size of the u.s. economy, how much it's grown, what is the size of the i.r.s., what is their budget, and there would be an nrjt way to have that conversation. when you have a guest come on and talk about the i.r.s. coming after little people not grounded in any facts or basis in reality, i think it's not helpful and ink that a lot of

the conversations we're having in these country aren't helpful. and i would go to again our media is owned by roughly five companies. c-span gets its funding from the cable monopolies so it's going to be a very tainted privileged product that supports the narrative of the billionaire class. and we need people to have more power, control, and voice. and there's very little room and i know i don't have enough time because i'm not a guest that gets to come on and lie. i'm just a citizen with a very small voice but i appreciate this little space. host: let's go to john who is calling from florida on the republican line. caller: good morning. my theory with the i.r.s. is the

rich have too many lapholes to go through. the poor innocent guy doesn't have the loopholes he's got one thing in common, he's got the rest, that is the problem with the i.r.s. now, the other problem is with the monkeypox. biden has left all these people into this country without vetting them, without getting them vaccinated. what gives him the right to break one law against the other? he wants everybody to do what he says but the other people can just walk in. this country is headed for disaster. the american people got to stand up and say something. what gives him the right to make -- to break the laws of this country, the law says you can't come in unless you're looelly into this country. you come in legally. and he says no, you don't have to abide by that law. just let all these people in.

and who pays for it? host: let's go to dan from wisconsin on the democrat dan, good morning. dan, are you there? caller: good morning. just 2-fold. ok. your last caller, aaron wihe should -- withe should probably go back to the u.k. and get the monarchy's money back from them. last october i called up and the big thing was trump 2024, and i said " nope, by this time next year trump and his cronies will be in jail." liz cheney is doing her

job. maybe my prediction welcome true! host: let's talk to mary calling from michigan on the independent line. good morning. caller: hi, jesse. i wanted to bring up an article talking about the irs that was glenn kessler, washington post, fact finder from august 11, if people would just read that article. about two days ago you had a woman on their talking about the drought in the southwest, and people kept calling over and over again about shipping water through pipes from the great lakes. there are already seven states that take water out of the great lakes for drinking water, plus we would have to deal with the canadian government, so do you

think that is ever going to happen? do not give up on the irs. they are 21 million refunds behind and i just got my 2018 refund in the mail yesterday. host: let's talk to al calling from houston, texas. caller: i wanted to ask, why is everyone defending more taxation? we do not need more taxation, we need less taxation. as far as inflation, inflation is skyrocketing because the democrats have attacked the oil industry.everything is made with oil . how can you attack the oil industry and not cause this disaster we are living through? all politicians are sold out to the ccp, and it is very obvious. host: let's talk to sherry who

is calling from muska time, iowa -- muscatine, iowa. caller: it is muscatine. my question is i watch your program every morning. i do believe i saw a program on water, and i was not sure if you had any information on that? host: i do not, but we can look and see what we can find. let's go to carlos calling from madison, tennessee on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. thank you so much, jesse. i wanted to touch a brief point here about avoiding online, which was previously addressed -- about building online, which was -- about voting online.

i had a problem previously educating online. my mother was able to hook the phone to her system. i think the phone would count. thank you for the time. i appreciate it. host: we will be talking more about changes to voting in the united states in our 9:30 segment, so if that interests you, stick around. let's talk to nancy who is calling from arkansas on the republican line. caller: good morning from the natural state! it is nice to get through. i am a first time caller, but i do not want to monopolize a lot

of time. there is a lot going on in our country that is concerning. we could go on and on, but i think the main thing that concerns me that i have been concerned about and i have made many phone calls, and do not seem to get much satisfaction from any party is the open border. i do not see how the laws are not being fortified here. i do not understand why this administrationis letting them -- administration is letting them flood in. the lives that are being lost, these poor people thinking they can come to america for a better life. people do not want to come to this country legally that are the people we want in this

country. i do not understand why it seems to be ignored. our public officials are saying our country, the border is closed, but it is not. being from arkansas, i am not a border state, but it is very close to border states, and i want to say the governor of texas sending people to new york, i do not think it is malicious, it is letting everybody get a taste of what is going on. i will end with this quote -- " justice will not be served until those who are affected are as outraged as those who are." that is one of our founding fathers' quotes, benjamin franklin. host: let's go to big sandy,

texas on the independent line. jesse, good morning. caller: good morning. yes sir, i was just wondering where our week ? -- where are we? who are weak? -- who are we? who is in charge? we are destroying our children's future. someone take charge. host: let's go to mike who is calling from long island, new york on the democrats' line. caller: i would like to -- jesse, jesse? host: go ahead. caller: i would like to applaud the people who criticized the guy from freedom works who was

throwing out a lot of dumb facts and trying to scare people. the woman who just called up about immigration and borders, the first three months of donald trump's administration, they could have passed any law they wanted to about the border. the reason the border isn't tightened up -- and i am a democrat -- , the financial -- is because the financial arm of the republican labor wants cheap labor to come into this country. guess prices are a little high. everything else -- to come into this country. gas prices are a little high. everything else is fine. there is so much misinformation. you know, the price of gas just came down $1.50 and most people

won't give president biden any credit, so that means the gas company did it on their own. they are getting $15 billion in buybacks. if people would just understand, read a little, not just go off talking about what a disaster everything is, they would understand stuff a bit more. host: let's go to paul who was calling from dallas, texas on the republican line. caller: good morning, america. i tell you, what has happened to america? i love america. i'm the old school america, and i love america so much. china bought us out years ago. americans are starting to wake up before it is too late. the border is wide open.

i do not want to see no kids die from drugs brought in by the cartels. the cartels are moving up the border more. hiring irs people, you know. host: all right. let's go to mark who is calling from green cove spring, florida on the independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i would like to reach out and say, to the caller from alpena michigan -- alpena, michigan. i'm from flint. i wanted to comment about the people calling about the irs. i respected the irs, trust me, i do, but i do not believe they are really there to assist the taxpayer. i believe they are there to make

sure we all pay our taxes. i do not agree with the people calling in, that one person calling in particular " they are here to assist you for this, assist you for that." i am 64, and i hardly recall calling the irs for assistance. i call the person doing my taxes. middle america pays 90% of the taxes, and the trump people don't pay hardly anything. gas prices, we are still paying $2 more than a year ago. what happened to the hybrid cars? that went away. unless you can give me a battery i can swap out at a gas station, i will not sit there all day and charge it. host: let's talk to rob calling from tuscaloosa, alabama. good morning.

caller: listen, i wanted to say to the lady who called in about the border being open, she sounds like she is from europe someplace. everybody came here from somewhere accept the african-americans. we were brought here to take care of the europeans who could not take care of themselves. some good people came from europe, but the good people did not leave europe came here. do not think they were all good people. let these people know everybody came here from somewhere. columbus named -- except of the indigenous people and columbus named them indians. germs came in and killed the indians. everybody came from somewhere. i am being repetitive now, but you need to know just like how

the europeans crowded this country, someone else is going to crowded. -- to crowd it. host: let's go to our next caller from virginia. caller: anyway, the reason i called, i just heard liz cheney say that she would do anything to stop trump from running again. does that mean kill him? does that mean invade his home? what does it mean when she says that she will do anything? plus her heart, she need -- bless her heart, she needs to make it clear what she said. host: let's go to katrina calling from indianapolis,

indiana. caller: i wanted to make a comment in reference to the people coming in on the border. no one talks about the immigrant visa program. our country lets in more than 50,000 immigrants annually through the visa program, and they are coming in from all different countries. they are coming in legally, so it has nothing to do with people coming in from the border. they're coming in from all different countries. we never ever talk about that, and i don't think a lot of people even know about the program. host: let's talk to nancy who is calling from st. charles, michigan on the independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call.

i would like people to consider what freedoms are we losing now. we are a free country, but the irs, i'm thinking how much information are they going to get on this? what is their purpose? what could they be looking for and to certainly find out who we voted for and that will tell them something. on top of that, the democrats are going to allow recreational marijuana in the country, and our children are already taking those marijuanas laced with thc to school in their lunch bags in michigan in our middle schools in michigan in our middle school. --

if our children have altered brains, how will they even know what information will be used about them? host: we want to thank all of our callers who called in for that open phone segment. up next rob richie and his advocacy group talk about voting reform. we will be right back. ♪ >> over the past few months, the january 6 committee has revealed the findings from its investigation. watch c-span as we look back at the committee's eight hearings featuring previously undisclosed evidence and witness testimony into the attack on the u.s. capital.

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>> find presidential recordings season two on the c-span now mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ >> it is time to wrap up of the season with the c-span shop end of summer sale. now through tuesday at c-spanshop.org, save on apparel items. there is something for every c-span fan, and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. skim the code on the right to start shopping now. ♪ -- scanned the code on the right to start shopping now. ♪ . >> washington journal continues. host: we are joined by rob richie, the ceo of fair vote. he is here to talk to us about election reforms. caller: thank you, jesse.

host: remind our viewers what fair vote is and what is the mission of your organization? caller: was talking with -- guest: i was talking with your producer. we started way back when thinking about ways we could open up elections so voters have more opportunities to participate in competitive elections and better representation at the end of the day. the car thing to look at was the structure of elections, the underlying -- the core thing to look at was the structure of elections, the underlying rules. the conditions that truck people -- troubled people about democracy are the rule changes make more sense than ever. it has been exciting to see. it is in the spirit of what the u.s. has always been about, which is a more perfect union.

host: who are you working with? do you work with congress? do you work with state officials? who exactly do you work with? guest: we have a component, the bigger component of our organization fair vote, which is a 501(c)(3) organization, we are nonpartisan, we do education, we do have a point of view. we have a set of ideas we want to get out there, but we do it in a way that is very inclusive, basically working across all those dimensions, local state,, and national. we have fair vote action which can be focused on trying to win things. it can be focused on lobbying and ballot measures, and that kind of thing. host: you have been with fair vote for 30 years, which means you have been there for the organization's entire existence

because fair vote is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. explain the progress fair vote has made in its 30 years. caller: i have done-- guest: i have done every single one of our year end letters. what is happening is bigger things are happening. because we have ideas that are very relevant and i think, speak to conditions that trouble voters, we have been able to be part of national conversations from the get-go. , i called in -- 30 years ago, i called in to ask about preferential voting. we had a op-eds. the former presidential candidate was working with us at that time. creating the conversation, and then changes like this usually bubble up from the bottom. it has been making connections

with city and county policymakers and reformers. we now have more than 50 cities using our voting. it has moved from idea into practice. host: let's make sure our viewers can take part in this conversation. we are going to open up regular lines, which means -- to open up regular lines, which means republicans, you can call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats, your line is (202) 748-8000. independents, you can call us at (202) 748-8002. you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. we have taken care of the past. let's talk about what is going on right now. alaska used to rank choice

voting for the first time this past election. let's explain to our viewers exactly what preferential voting is. how does that system work ? guest: the idea is to get the voters better options. -- how does that system work? guest: the idea is to get the voters better options. options create conversations, create new ways for voters to participate and think about government. when you only vote for one, when you pick one candidate your options become limited. a third candidate enters, it will be a divided field, a spoiler. this is a forever ongoing conversation about how do we handle the shocking possibility

of having a third candidate run. we see a lot of state seats in the primary becomes everything. you only get to pick one. we have had people elected to congress with effectively 18%. voters have more insight other than.just picking one let's say my first choice is so-and-so but i might have a second choice. here is my third choice. ballots can be designed very well. voters like that and find it easy to do. you take those rankings, and another name for this system is instant raw. you have to be strong in first races, but then you can use the backup choices for people who backed someone who didn't run so strongly, basically seeing who does better between the top 2.

it is not a majority. the candidate with 25% is knocked down into the voters who voted for that person have a chance to indicate who their second choice is. those ballots are added to their second choice. host: let me make sure i understand --so if you have three candidates running, the lowest vote-getting candidate, those voters who voted for a second choice, their votes will be added to either the first or second. guest: then you get a head-to-head comparison, instant runoff. host: how did it work in alaska? guest: the voters liked it. on election day, voters had a chance to participate. it was the higher turnout they had in a primary ever. we do not have data yet beyond the first races.

alaska is a big state, has a lot of rural parts of the state where the mail does not come every day. they have a lot of military voters. there are a lot of ballots coming in from outside of alaska. an absentee ballot can come in 2 weeks later, but it will still be counted if it comes from one of these remote places. it essentially happens instantly, you push the button and see where the ballots go between the top 2. that is something we would like to see, but in alaska they have such special circumstances. we will get there a lot faster than a runoff election, but it. will take a couple of weeks -- but it will take a couple of weeks. host: does rank choice

voting eliminate the need for a second runoff? guest: yes yes. that is why so many jurisdictions go for it. they are saying " let's just get it done in one round." cheaper, faster, more efficient elections create positive incentives for voters to learn more about candidates. host: let's let our viewers during the conversation. we will start with robert calling from harrison, arkansas on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i do appreciate c-span. i am sitting here talking to the world! the u.s. post office is part of the u.s. constitution, and we have let that slide by so much.

i would remind you the internet is a net, and it can catch a whole group at one time. we need to put back integrity. it has been down. the post office has been used for all these advertisings and things, rather than the importance of that postmark on the envelope. when you hand that to them, and they stamp about envelope, that is you doing your part and they carry it legal lead to go, and we -- it where it is to go, and we have stopped the process. it is so important that we rebuild the post office to the integrity it has. it is not to be profit-making. it is to handle our communications with each other. host: we are talking about rank toys voting -- choice voting

and election reform. guest: in election reform identity is most important. all of those are constitutional rights. you want to know you are speaking to the right person. a picture is one thing, but a thumbprint is another. our forefathers did not stand there holding a portrait that had been drawn, but the signature was important. a thumbprint, whether it is a mail-in ballot, whether you are standing there, to me is a very important identity factor. i hope you understand that point. host: should we require thumbprints to vote? in some foreign countries they do require thumbprints on ballots. should we do that here? guest: we have to be careful

about mixing up the issues of secure access to democracy with broader questions about civil liberties, freedoms, and making sure we find the right balance. there are proposals that if we did something like that, that every eligible voter would automatically register. we are not there with our systems, yet which is part of the balance we need to do. right now it is frustrating for people. it doesn't feel like elections are as secure as they should be, but they are not as accessible as they should be. one thing i wanted to say about voting by mail, we have a lot more people voting early, and one of the reasons it is catching on as strongly as it is, when -- is, i when you vote

earlys and conditions change, it is a huge deal. we had more than 3 million votes in votes who were cast for a candidate by the time they were counted was no longer an active candidate and we have some examples or we can see when the voters knew that they change their behavior but if you vote early you might -- but if you have the ranked choice system you can noise at that second or third choice count. four states did that in presidential primaries, those voters had 90% of their vote for one of those withdrawn candidates ended up counting for an active candidate. host: you mentioned briefly early gerrymandering is one of the issues. gerrymandering we know favors incumbents. we have a social media follower who is a question. want to know does rank choice voting favor incumbents? in alaska which to candidates will go on to the general election.

does rank choice voting favor the incumbent? >> here's what we can say who would favors as the voters. they have a different ability to vote for whom they want and end up getting more representative outcome. i think if you are an effective incumbent whose earned the right to reelection and can be comfortable with rank choice voting. newly reason you might loses is because some third-party candidate gets and splits the vote. i think if you are not doing a good job it's hard to be shielded by your party label or your trying to scare out candidates from running. it's one that rewards virtue and punishes lack of it. >> let's go back to our phone lines and talk to mary calling from michigan on the republican line. caller: i'm opposed to this rank

voting. suppose you have three people running. so? they like the first two people everybody votes for them but then they have to make another choice of a vote for the third person. the third person ends up winning even though nobody really wanted the first -- that person. i think it is terrible, i think each party should have their own representation is due to vote for and who they would like to have elected. like in france you have to be registered, you have to be a citizen, you also have to have identification before you vote. in france they use paper ballots. i'm not sure if he's familiar with the way the due elections in france and i totally disagree with you because a third or fourth person cannot end up being elected who the people really don't want. you should really tell people the truth about that. host: before you answer. mary we had someone on social media wanted to ask that same question.

i'll read that to you their concerns. ranked choice voting is a stealth way of getting losers to be declared winners. possible to get a winner who was nobody's first choice. explain how this works and see if you can deal with their concerns here. guest: you can win -- it's when you add up all the first choice than the candidate in last places out. so then you don't have any ballots which can go to your second choice because no one voted for you. if you only get second choices you're knocking to win with rank choice voting brain you have to be someone who people liked enough to be first choice and do well. sometimes people sort of miss this out there. it is use widely. it's an parliamentary guides about how to do elections pretty it's used by thousands of ngos, all kinds of in canada, parties

from left to right use rank choice voting to pick their leader. the conservative party of canada is using that right now. virginia republicans used it in three congressional primaries this year and picked glenn youngkin, that's how he won his governor. here's the fundamental thing. you add up those first choices and if you have to -- if you are in last place you're knocking to win. this idea that you might sneak in a sort of the stealth candidate that no one knew about is not true. host: are you assuring our viewers that only the first or second choice is going to win? nobody who's third, fourth, fifth has any chance of jumping the first two people. guest: what you do in your ranking. let's say you rank to sort of longshot candidates and then rank one of the strong candidates third your ballot might count for your third

choice because your first choice loses then your second choice loses then it goes towards the third. but you can be -- you can do a candidate who is a very weak first choice and end up winning. that's the core concept and it's why it's called instant runoff. runoff elections, with a woman who talked about france prayed they have runoff elections prayed they don't just count the ballots and elect the person with the most votes. if you don't have a majority they have a whole second election. you can do that, but in our country it's hard to hold quick elections. turnout usually drops, expenses of candidates. in an instant runoff all the voter has needed to do is dedicate what they are able to do which is what their second and third choices are. host: one of our followers had a question about the runoff thing and want to know can he explain the reasoning behind states who require a majority to avoid a runoff. and i let the person with the most votes win even if only a

plurality? guest: a lot of states do. but i think it's like settling, settling on the practical challenges. the idea of saying the moment the most votes even if it's 25 percent and 75% oppose that person is actually not a very principled decision. you can have 75% of people want a certain kind of representation , a certain kind of philosophy represented. let's talk about alaska. in that context they have two republicans and one democrat. you just do the math, the democrat has the most first choices it doesn't mean she's the most representative candidate. in fact 60% voted for one of the two republicans. sophie just went with the candidate with the most votes you could have 60% of people have a certain view of what they would like and 40% might defeat that candidate. it's not guaranteed a republican will win there because they have to earn those second choices. so one of the republicans is

going to finish third. , those of the candidates were fighting it out for second right now. one of them is can finish third, the backers of those candidates will have an option to let sarah palin or mary polar. in it is fairer to have a head-to-head comparison. i think we often see runoff elections because rank choice voting isn't used as widely, but runoff elections have their own challenges. the big one is you often see real distinct declines in turnout. we've looked at the runoffs for congressional primaries and turnout decline is a most 40% on average winning a whole lot of people do not come back so you really don't have a represented outcome. host: this is a perfect segue into what sarah palin said about rank choice voting this past week. i want to bring to you, former

alaska governor sarah palin who is running for don young boss seat in congress and what she said about the rank choice voting that's going on in alaska. [video clip] >> so pay attention to what's going on in our state with this newfangled weird kind of voting system that's confusing everyone. finding out who craft this thing, it was rino lisa murkowski's lawyer. you can imagine the way that the ballot question was worded, and nobody knew everybody was getting shock stirred by how weird it was. don't let it happen to your own state. if alaska has to be the test case, if somebody for who are instance i just went through this primary, there were 50 candidates in my race, you didn't have to declare what party you are in and i won that handedly, i got more votes than anyone else. i was so grateful for that, but

it wasn't winner take all. what they did with that was they took the top vote getters and then they go on to this next process, are you could be ranked first, second and third. it's a bizarre system and considering the source it came from elite -- lisa murkowski's camp, there is something amiss with it right there. host: respond to sarah palin. guest: first is alaska takes a particular approach. i think it's fascinating, it's not the only way to do this. people might be familiar with how california and washington state vote. they have this open all candidates run together contest and they vote for one and then the two candidates with the most advance. alaska does that also. that's the first part of what sarah palin is talking about. and set of allowing two to advance, she asked they allow four. -- they allow for.

-- four. a lot of people want to jump in. she did get the most votes but she didn't even have one out of three voters vote for her. so the advanced four, in california they would've advanced two. they created this general election where there was more choice than having just to -- two. potentially sarah palin didn't get the most first choice this time. the fourth candidate had dropped out. that creates a rationale to say sarah palin is likely to actually win this election. so think the role of ranch chores voting in it is one where it's allowing voters to have this extra choice but still get a fair outcome. in november where we will see a lot of interesting elections in alaska it will be the senate race in the governor's race

again voting in the house race, the same candidates running. i think it's one we will see that outcomes don't favor one side or another. they truly do not. we see this as not a partisan thing. this is a bit of a frustration. sarah palin is a big platform. it is used widely in virginia by the republican party, by the democratic party and some of their contests. it's adopted in california and utah. it's a sort of mix of places. so there is no partisan agenda here. it is some thing that is pro-voter, pro-having choices fundamentally want elections where you have more than two choices and you can get fared out -- you can get fair outcomes. a more practical way to get the job done. host: let's talk to henry from

spring hill, florida on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning gentlemen. my question first is how is fair vote funded. basically my comment would be in the last 30 years, would it be more beneficial for us to be securing the integrity of our vote, because the biggest underlying threat as everyone's want to say, the threat to democracy would be people's trust in the elections. over the last four or possibly five elections there has always been doubt discourse. i know he wants to make things fair, or he says convenient, we don't need to make things convenient. i think we need to make them where people have confidence and trust in our elections. that's my comment and i believe you would be better well serve the people in this country if

you directed your efforts in that direction and not worrying about -- it reminds me of a most abbott and costello when they see the landlord to pay the rent and we cross everything off. host: go ahead and respond. guest: i would say we have more than one thing to do in this country about elections and we've been part of conversations about that. i'm not only for convenience or security, we have to have accessible elections that are secure. that's not rocket science to do and i think their summer we can get. i like the idea of voter registration systems that get every eligible voter on the roles accurately, someone who is ineligible should not be on the roles and we create opportunities for people to vote. this isn't rocket science. there are systems and rules that get there. that said, we think the idea of accommodating having more than two choices and a fairer way to

do that is very fundamental to what makes democracy work in this country and i think we can do a better job at it and we have the tools to do it. host: let's talk to sue who is calling from dallas, texas on the democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you all. i just wanted to make a comment. i guess i'll ask the question. i just happen to come on the show by accident watching it and one of the things that i'm concerned about and i'm pretty at this as a democrat, but this talk about election integrity i think is a farce. i do believe any time you can open up the political process to even more people benefits. we know the political process, but i don't believe in a

distortions about election integrity. so i guess my question is do you believe that the ranked choice voting opens it up to more people, potentially minorities and women and how would you encourage others states to consider it? guest: the last caller mentioned how we are funded, we are generally funded by individuals and that's where most of our money is come from. we've been around for 30 years. we weren't a big organization for much of that time. we still try to get the job done paired we've grown and support part for -- partially because of what's going on in the country that creates a discussion about elections. speaking to the most recent caller, we can have secure and accessible elections and we should. the highest percentage of our --

we saw our highest percentage of adults vote in the 2020 election. i think election officials under the circumstances did a good job. we did not see a partisan tilt one way or another. republicans did reasonably well while losing the election -- the presidential election. high turnout elections are not favoring one party or another, they are pro-voter, need to keep their can stash secure and accessible. on ranked choice voting. we have more than 50 cities using it. we can grow that. it's on the ballot in nine cities and counties. all which were put on the ballot by charter commission. making a decision about changing their own elections. we had a whole lot of places in progress to build on that.

there's a group called i think the vote which works with groups around the country. more than 40 states have a group that is singularly focused on ranked choice voting and a lot of other organizations interested in it. talking about how we reform gerrymandering. with more than one representative being elected on a multimember district, that's a conversation happening in more cities and counties. i think it's really been rewarding for me to see the progress from an idea into people taking action. host: we know they are using ranked choice voting in alaska. nevada has it on the ballot this year where people are trying to amend the state constitution for

ranked choice voting for general elections. what is the prognosis in nevada? do you predict this is going to pass. to have enough support there. guest: nevada is a big one. it's a state where you vote twice. if it passes it will also appear on the 2024 ballot. so the vote this year's continuing the conversation. do we feel we should have an opportunity to look at ways to make it better and to vote yes and keep the conversation going forward. i think the most recent polls show about 15 percentage point, it doesn't mean it will definitely win but it means it is ahead. the same a system that alaska has. it's a wide-open first round, all candidates there, than the top five in this case rather

than the top for advanced to the general election and the use ranked choice voting to handle that mix of choices. potentially all the states eat suddenly get a little more general election in action. almost all the races have some real interesting contests in november rather than what we usually see where it's down to fewer than one in 10 has any kind of general election that matters in states that don't have this. host: i want to read an editorial from the main newspaper in las vegas talking about ranked choice voting. this is what the las vegas review journal editorial has to say. improving voter turnout is a worthy goal but this could do the opposite making the system more difficult to navigate, discouraging people who don't want to list multiple candidates or to vote on 10 different ones prayed if -- it's even possible the eventual winner wouldn't have majority support.

this may be absent, but the concept of one person one vote isn't one of them. ranked choice voting is a rube goldberg solution in search of a problem. respond to the newspapers editorial. guest: most charter commissions, come to a different conclusion. we welcome for debating considerations and we think we win that debate every single time. that's a bunch of opinions that are generally wrong. for the voter turnout one, alaska just used it, it looked like it may have had the highest turnout in its elections ever had. new york city used it in its primary election for the first time, it was the second highest in the city primary in history. the last one that was higher up was in the 80's. the reason for that is voters in

fact are not turned off by having choices and the candidates have to do something different. they don't just settle into their first choices are. they say about my people ready to vote for me i can ignore everyone else. you have a reason to extend the conversation to other people and that means engagement. earning second and third choices when it comes to earning people's respect, that's tied to showing some of the kids were listening. that means more direct engagement, learning about would voters want and so you end up with the people who win in ranked choice voting elections often get ranked first, second or third not just by 51% of the people but by 65, 70% of the people because they've done work to try and connect to voters. it's not always can happen, there's a lot of things the drive turnout but ranked choice voting is positive on that. it is ironic that that editorial

writer says that my not win a majority. it happens a lot in nevada right now. they have what's called none of the above voting. it's not unusual for close elections to not be one with the majority and ranked choice voting is designed to stop that. host: in a ranked choice system are you required to choose a second or third? you can just go in and do what you did in the past. guest: usa voter are getting more options. you can vote for one, your second choice doesn't hurt your first choice. it only hurts if they're in last place and that person is out. just a backup choice, you can say i don't want to use it or i do. most voters do. if you have a competitive mayoral race in a city with four or five people, the top 90% of people decide to do it and they

like it. this is one of the things we see in utah. more than 20 cities signed up and a bunch, a whole mix of cities. almost 90% used it and liked it. 90% of people ranked and a high percentage liked it. i think voters like options. host: let's go back to the phone lines and talk to jen on the independent line. good morning. caller: hello c-span and hello world. i'm a long-time listener, first time caller. i just wanted to say here in maine we've had ranked choice voting for the last few elections. we absolutely have better democratic participation.

it's less ambiguous, as an independent voter typically have a hard time going to the polls and not being able to vote who i want to because i don't want to throw away my vote. ranked choice voting it's not a problem anymore. it increases voter turnout i believe. sorry i'm so nervous, but i just want to say before we had ranked choice voting we were not being represented. we had an idiotic republican governor who kept getting elected because the democrats and the liberals kept splitting the vote. ranked choice voting we don't have the issue anymore. we have a governor more representative of our democracy and absolutely love it. i think every other state needs to be doing this. thank you very much. guest: maine has been exciting for us to see.

it's been quite a struggle and now it cemented in a good position now. we worked on a series of polls there showing ongoing increase in support for ranked choice voting up to around 60% from having won with 52%. it's a fascinating result. here's a good example, a call earlier about how women and people of color, it does allow us to consider new choices and new arrivals. women and people of color tend to be underrepresented. they never had a woman governor in maine, one of the states that never had a woman governor. had seven candidates and a woman emerged from that process, winning the democratic

nomination in the general election. we have more than half of the cities, a group called represent women studied how ranked choice voting is accessing women's opportunities. maine just extended presidential elections. they used it in the general election in 2020. it can be using congressional elections. i think this can spread around the country. the way life should be, the way democracy should be sending a signal of that. host: let's talk to bill from asheville, north carolina on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning america, good morning c-span. it's a great pleasure to speak to you. a question regarding the second half of the election reform. i'd like to know why you don't

think more of election holiday? that would also help with voter turnout. what say you? guest: -- we like the idea of getting more people to vote in accessible and secure way. a state holiday has to serve natural support out of there. we are crating alternate ways of getting to that perspective which is they have a lot of early voting and chances to vote off of election day if that's what you prefer. so i think if you only vote on election day and don't have early voting i think we should have a big conversation about making election day a holiday. or certainly on a weekend. why tuesday is a organization that asked that question. i think reading these alternate ways to vote make it not as important. i'm not against it, i'm just

saying we should put it in the perspective of what else we are doing to create chances for voters. host: richard calling in from georgia on the democrats line. we are running at a time fast so give us a quick comment or question. caller: good morning. i learned about the constitution and one vote one rule, why not have that or keep it like that instead of what's happening in the senate, filibusters and runoff elections in georgia. guest: i think one is a runoff election is to play one person one vote system. ranked choice voting is also a one person one vote system upheld in court every time that question comes up because it's counted for one candidate and only goes to your second choice if the first one is not in the contest. a question of how to make sure

we are treating voters, all people are created equal, consent of the governed is built into the ether osa of our country -- built into the ethos of our country. the electoral college gerrymandering, there's a lot of ways to avoid that. i think we can creek conditions of democracy for everyone. -- create conditions of democracy for everyone. host: we would like to thank the president and ceo of fair vote for joining us this morning and explained to us ranked choice voting and election reform. thank you for being here with us. i would like to thank all of our viewers, social media followers and all of our callers for being with us for another edition of washington journal.

please continue to keep washing your hands and stay safe out there. have a great sunday everyone and we will see you tomorrow morning. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] announcer: c-span is your unfiltered view of government funded by these television companies and more including cox. >> homework can be hard. but squatting in a diner for internet can be hard. that is why we are providing low-income students internet so homework can just be homework. announcer: cox, along with these other television providers giving you front row seats to democracy.

>> nobody really thought that this was ever going to happen. it was unthinkable when it finally happened. it was supposed to be this bastion of enlightenment and freethinking. mass executions, executing freethinkers, and everybody was scared that was what was going to happen in paris as well. >> martin do gard, author of the book "taking paris" and its liberation by american and french forces in august of 1944. watch q and date tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. you can listen on our new c-span now app.