in the 2020 u.s. election, and we discussed north korea's recent launch of a ballistic missile over japan and the international response with victor cha. washington journal starts now. ♪ host: good morning. friday, october 7. a little over a month before election day, we will take your calls on what issues will drive you to the polls to vote, and for which party, because your vote will determine which party controls congress for the last half of president biden's term. here is how you can join the conversation. if you are a republican, dial in at (202) 748-8001, a democrat, (202) 748-8000, an independent,

(202) 748-8002. all of you can text, including your first name, city and state at (202) 748-8003, or go to facebook.com/c-span. you can tweet with the handle @cspanwj. monmouth university did a poll where they asked people to rate issues. this is what they found when they asked people which issues are extremely or very important to you. inflation came in first at 82% followed by crime at 72%. just below that, elections and voting, jobs and unemployment at 68%, infrastructure 57%, abortion 56%, racial inequality

53%, gun-control 51%. in virginia's 10th congressional district, there was a debate held this week. listen to the candidates on this issue of inflation. [video clip] >> inflation is on the rise, impacting americans wallets. what do you believe caused the increase in inflation and what can congress do to address it? >> inflation is not do to anyone because. there are a number of reasons we are suffering historic inflation. people were no longer going on vacations and wanted to buy more goods. at the same time, they wanted more things. we saw supply chains suffering from historic shortages and things were shut down around much of the world, making it harder to get these products, so we had a disconnect between supply and demand.

another part of it is definitely putin's war in ukraine cutting down on global oil and gas. we worked hard in the congressional delegation to lower food and fuel costs. also, the inflation reduction act, which will make a big difference in people's lives by cutting the cost of health care premiums and allowing medicare to negotiate drug prices and helping to decrease costs for energy now and going forward. thank you. >> inflation began on day one of the biden administration when he put all the regulations through executive order on the oil, chemicals and gas industries. instead of relying on american workers, we are now going to saudi arabia, venezuela, and even iran, who are murdering

women right now in the streets for protesting against the morality police. we can be energy independent. that is what caused inflation. being able to rely on our own oil and gas instead of other countries. host: from virginia's 10th congressional debate earlier this week. you heard jennifer wexton's opponent talk about oil and gas. yesterday, the president responding to opec plus's decision to reduce production of oil and gas, surely raising gas prices ahead of this election cycle. we are asking you your top issues and how you plan to vote and for which party. on that 10th congressional district race in virginia, jennifer wexton is a former domestic violence prosecutor and state legislator who flipped her northern virginia district blue

in 2018, and is still widely considered to have the upper hand in that race. her opponent is a vietnamese refugee who served 25 years in the navy, retiring as a captain. gary in pennsylvania, republican. what are the issues that are your top three or top issue driving you to the polls? caller: my top issue is concerning the announcement from president biden that he will expunge federal marijuana arrests and convictions for about 6000 people, and my concern is, ok, you do this on

an application to purchase a firearm. it is directly and clearly said, have you ever been arrested or convicted of a felony? so what does this do to allowing more guns on the street? host: what do you think happens? because this is related to crime, which is also one of those big issues for people according to this monmouth university poll. >> i believe there will be 6000 people that will now be legally eligible, which i have no problem with the second amendment, to purchase a gun, be it a hunting gun or handgun, but you have to remember, marijuana is at this point a controlled substance. it alters the mind. host: ok.

the white house put out a statement on the president's decision on this yesterday. the president went to twitter to talk about what he is proposing here. [video clip] >> as i said when i ran for president, no one should be in jail just for possession of marijuana. it is already legal in many states and criminal records for possession have led to needless barriers to employment, housing and educational opportunities, and that is before you address the racial disparities around who suffer the consequences. while white, black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, black and brown people are arrested at disproportionate rates. i am announcing a pardon for all prior federal offenses for simple possession of marijuana for thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession who may be denied employment, housing or

educational opportunities as a result. i am calling on all governors to do the same for state marijuana possession offenses. the federal government currently classifies marijuana as a schedule one substance, the same as heroin and lsd, and more seriously fenton -- fentanyl. i am asking to initiate a process to review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law even as local and federal regulations change. important limitations on traffic, marketing and underage sale should stay in place. too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. it is time we write these wrongs. host: president biden on his announcement yesterday on marijuana offenses. you can read more in the papers today or find him on twitter. back to the conversation on campaign 2022 and your top issues.

that color saying it is that decision on marijuana offenses. all 435 house seats are on the ballot, but control of the house will come to several dozen races. democrats currently control the chamber narrowly, 220-212. a party needs 218 seats for a majority if there are no vacancies. there are 35 senate contests on the ballot in november. fewer than 10 are highly competitive. the chamber is currently split, with democratic vice president kamala harris serving as the tiebreaker. one of those races to watch is the wisconsin senate race, and the debate is happening tonight featuring republican senator ron johnson and democratic challenger mandela barnes.

for milwaukee, watch live tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or our free mobile app, c-span now. you can watch it there. c-span is the place to go for debate coverage of all of these highly contested races. we are bringing in many debates across the country and have done so already. if you are looking to watch some of these conversations, go to c-span.org. you can find it all their. david in riverside, california, let's hear from you. caller: my top issue would be what they are doing to teenagers now with the transgender movement, giving them puberty blockers. i heard planned parenthood is now in the business of giving out puberty blockers in recommending surgery to change your gender, which doesn't even

work. there's a lot of issues. the border is a problem. i never cared normally because i think, if they come over, i don't care. but this time, 4 million illegal immigrants came in two years, and they are bringing gangs. you don't know who is coming over. my understanding is the people who were coming over have to come through the gangs. the gangs will not even let them come on their own. when they get here, they get into prostitution and drug dealing. it's a major security issue, not to mention the problem with violence. i was listening to karen bass and she wants to defund the police. she is a communist. i mean, literally a communist. you cannot vote democrat anymore. it is getting too radical. they are not into the average american.

we cannot claim that we don't like the government if we keep voting for things we don't believe in. host: joel in texas, a republican, what do you say? caller: good morning. i have been a devotee of c-span since it began operating. i would say curtailing wokeism in all its forms. the mainstream press will not report on -- we have been told by c-span hosts that you are going to follow the reporting on hunter biden and the biden crime syndicate. there's nothing there. it is sort of glaring. it is like, why will you not

address this subject? it's immigration, transgenderism, all of it. the policies are the ruination of this country. guest: there -- host: there is news on the hunter biden investigation. agency a viable case against the president's son. the investigation on hunter biden began in 2018, and became a central focus for donald trump during his unsuccessful 2020 reelection efforts. it initially centered around hunter biden's fight it's -- finances. focusing on whether or not he did report all his income and whether he lied on gun purchase paperwork in 2018.

agents determined they had assembled a viable case against him. inside the washington post, they are reporting, and go on say this, it is ultimately up to prosecutors at the justice department, not agents, to decide whether to file charges where prosecutors believe the evidence is strong enough tool -- enough to lead to a conviction. ann, manchester, kentucky, good morning. caller: my biggest concern is everything happening since joe biden took office. our country is falling apart.

drugs. a lot of our family started off on pot, on marijuana. they died early. they went on to other drugs in ruined their lives -- and ruined their lives. the open border is destroying america. the jobs. gas prices, food prices. i made soup yesterday. it cost me $60 to buy the stuff to make the soup with. host: what has gone up? what were you surprised at? every single ingredient? caller: yes, and i got the cheap stuff, corn, peas, vegetables, juice, crackers. a box of crackers is five dollars. host: ann in manchester , kentucky.

she also mentioned the border. this issue coming up in the arizona senate race. it was one of the top issues last night. here's a portion with responses from first-term u.s. democratic senator mark kelly and republican challenger blake masters. [video clip] >> on immigration, we need comprehensive immigration reform. we have tens of thousands of dreamers in arizona that are as american as my own two kids. i have one daughter in tucson. my granddaughter lives in tucson. i think of dreamers no different. my opponent, blake masters, said he would never offer citizenship to dreamers. i think it is mean and fundamentally un-american. we need comprehensive immigration reform.

i talk to farmers and ranchers all the time who cannot get the workforce they need under the existing visa programs. they are struggling. you look at yuma and the food supply issues we have there, the workforce issues, of legal immigrants coming across the border to work in arizona adding to our economy, but this issue gets politicized over and over again from people like my opponent, blake masters. >> politicizing the issue, not understanding the issue. respond. >> i understand mark kelly supports open borders and that is why we have them. he is the 50 as in the senate. joe biden needed his vote. mark kelly could have dug his heels in and said i will not support a single piece of your agenda and lest get border security. if this is a result of senator kelly being focused on the border, he is the most ineffective senator of all time.

people are walking through by the hundreds of thousands. the drug cartels, if they could vote in this election, every single one of them would vote for senator kelly because they get what they want from him, and again, it is killing our ur children. host: tissue, immigration and borders at the u.s. senate debate. senator kelly is running for a full six-year term after serving only two years after winning a special election in 2020. you will recall, he beat martha mcsally in that race to finish the two years left remaining in the late senator john mccain's term. let's hear from jeffrey and woodbridge, virginia. what are the issues? who are you going to vote for in november? caller: i am stunned.

five or six republican callers in a row and you hear the same thing. wokeism, the border. it's a broken record. republicans had a chance to pass comprehensive immigration reform. they held power in 2016. they did nothing. they do not want to fix the problem because that would resolve the problem. as far as my issues, i will not get into the other side and what their problems are, i am voting democratic. i am voting democratic because i look at results. inflation is not an american problem. it is a global problem. same with oil prices, and we brought those down far better than other countries. you look at the u.k. and europe, we are doing better than them. as far as issues, joe biden has had the most successful two years of any president over the

last probably 50. look at all the legislation that's been passed. covid relief, infrastructure, the path act for veterans, reducing medicare costs for seniors on medicare, cap and costs -- capping costs. you go down the line. this issue with marijuana. you want to hit the cartels? legalize marijuana. it's really a no-brainer. we are putting people in prison for this. you look along the line in terms of what the president and the democrats have accomplished, it is a no-brainer. republicans have no issues. they have no policies. they run on fear. they run on platitudes. these are issues that don't affect the average individual. what is their plan for inflation? they don't have one. what is the plan for the border?

a wall? that doesn't solve the problem. they don't have any policy proposals and when they are challenged based on that, they cannot say anything. the biggest issue coming up in this election is the individuals who are running and their position on free and democratic elections. we have people who will not certify the next election. that is obviously a big concern, democracy, and where we are in 2024 if republicans take back power, and are they going to certify and accept the results of the next election? host: the front page of the washington post has a story. denialism is rife among gop hopefuls.

290 nine republican nominees who have denied or questioned the outcome of the election. 173 are running for state gop seats. you can read that in the washington post. in redwood city, california, i democratic caller. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have two big issues. the first is abortion. when you look at the states that have passed abortion bands, it's basically made women second-class citizens. when i think about those women having to carry their dead babies in their wounds because there -- in their wombs because the state has abandoned them, i cannot believe we will have a federal abortion ban if the gop takes power, and that is my second big issue, the gop is too extreme for america.

it seems like their mission statement is a federal abortion ban. they want to ban books in schools and libraries. they want to kill social security and medicare. and they want to overthrow the government and make trump a king. i think those two issues have got to be on the top -- those issues are at the top of my list. host: on the january 6 committee investigating what happened at the capitol on january 6, they have rescheduled what is expected to be their last hearing, the ninth hearing. it was supposed to happen on the 28th, but due to the hurricane, they postponed it. it is now scheduled for october 13. we will have coverage on c-span. this issue of abortion. you saw where it ranked in that monmouth university poll.

56 percent of those surveyed said it was a big issue for them. this came up at the governor's debate in kansas. the candidate, derek schmidt, is challenging laura kelly, a democrat, and a changing political landscape. take a look at this exchange. [video clip] >> i am pro-life. i would prefer a kansas that has fewer abortions. kansas voters spoke to this issue in august and made a decision that any state involvement in this area will have to satisfy judicial scrutiny and we have to respect that. i do believe the biggest challenge will be in defending those limitations and restrictions that are already on the books. i believe they will be subject to legal challenge. i am committed to defending

them. the governor has made no such commitment. in fact, her views on this are far out of the mainstream. i have yet to hear her articulate any restrictions on access to abortion. she actually voted against every one that came before her when she was in the senate and vetoed everyone that landed on her desk. >> i think we saw on august 2 that an overwhelming majority of kansans believe a woman's right to make private medical decisions should rest with her. they saw that amendment as serious government overreach. i believe, and always have believed, and have been consistent on my position on this, that a woman's medical decisions should be made between her, her family, and her doctor, and women should have bodily autonomy equal to that of men.

host: from the kansas gubernatorial debate. c-span is your place for campaign 2022. we are gathering debates from across the country from high-profile or contested races. you can find them on c-span.org. with a month to go before election day, we are taking your pulse on how you will vote, what are the issues that are important to you, which party do you want to control congress. there are the lines on your screen. democratic caller, let's hear from you. host: sorry, i didn't realize you are our last call. finish your thought. caller: i just wanted to say that when i think of the women that have been abandoned by their state because of the bands on abortion, those women having to carry those dead baby in their wombs because their state won't let them have an

abortion, and the fact you cannot get them drugs because the doctors are afraid, it is wrong. host: let me go to brian in las vegas, independent. caller: good morning. i believe the most important issue in this election is the integrity of the people, the candidates. are they qualified to be a public servant? you know, they are calling them election deniers now. it has become a buzzword. and if there was any evidence of election fraud, it would have come out in court. over 60 court filings. isn't that right?

people know that the election was not a fraudulent election but they are continuing to promote this as a tactic. there's something really wrong about it. host: we are going to dig deeper into this issue of the 2020 election, how it's impacting your vote. we will hear from michael mcdonald later in the program. pandemic, insurrection, voting in the 2020 presidential election is his book. on the state of deb at a, how will you vote -- of nevada, how will you vote? caller: i will be voting for a democratic candidate. catherine cortez masto is a name i am familiar with. yeah.

i am supporting what joe biden is doing and i am supporting the fact that there are, you know, policies going into place that support people. i remember the previous administration complaining about health care and never putting forward any sort of health care proposal at all. host: you are calling on the independent line. have you ever voted for a republican? caller: yeah. i used to be a republican, and actually, i mean -- host: i will leave it there. brian, an independent, says he will be voting for the democratic ticket this fall. democrats hold edge in arizona senate race well nevada has no

clear leader. [video clip] >> the grand jury to testify against something like this. host: are you still there? thomas, raleigh, north carolina,

republican, good morning. who are you going to vote for? caller: voting all red. the price of everything is skyhigh. the only thing that has gone down is my 401(k). i have lost 23%, almost $280,000. who can afford a $62,000 electric car? i do not want an electric car. gas prices, food prices, everything has gone through the roof, and don't blame republicans because the democrats have all three chambers, have been in power the last 18 months, and everything has gone skyhigh. if you want to continue to pay high prices on everything, vote democrat. i am voting all republican. host: michael, florida, republican. what do you say?

caller: the situation with the government is it is corrupt. joe biden basically kidnapped and tried to murder people. host: joe in north carolina, democratic caller. caller: somebody needs to till the hillbilly that just called that 18 months does not create an economic agenda. any government, anywhere on earth. we have a problem here in north carolina. we have republicans running up and down the roads hollering about inflation and how high the prices are, but ma'am, everybody is driving huge pickup trucks and suvs that are burning gas like it's going out of style. we have people here complaining about immigrants coming over our

borders, but every time you want to pave your driveway or put a roof over your house or paint your house, they are nothing but illegal immigrants, so something is going on here with this propaganda. we need to wise up to the fact that we are being bamboozled by a bunch of people who couldn't win the last election and who want to put a king over all of us. host: the wall street journal on the issue of oil and gas prices, which could exasperate fears and concerns over inflation. u.s. plots response to opec after cut in opec, including retaliation against the cartel and moving to curb exports. from the wall street journal's reporting, president biden and

lawmakers have decried the decision, raising the prospect of retaliation against opec and saudi arabia. leaders are threatening legislation that would charge opec members in front of the wto or subject them to u.s. antitrust laws. chris murphy, the democratic senator from connecticut, tweeting, six years ago, i gave a speech in new york arguing for the recalibration of the u.s.-saudi relationship. many argued it was naive and that we need to keep the saudi's close so that in the case of a global conflict, they would pick us. and chris murphy also saying, like many gop arguments, the claim biden has gutted u.s. oil production is made up. july 2022, oil production was just as high as in the year under trump. you can follow chris murphy on

twitter if you are interested in that data. mark in cloverdale, indiana, good morning. caller: i am planning to vote for the republicans. i will quote the most famous person in the world, jesus christ, who said ye are of your father, the devil, and of your father ye do. this sums up quite plainly that the murder of babies is a standard thing of the democratic party and their father, the devil, and i will never vote to send my soul into hell to pacify

any other considerations. the second thing i say is because of the economics. my wife's 401(k) has plummeted and i lost my job because i was hauling travel trailers across the nation and it all started because biden and the green new deal has caused the price to rise so much and they call us climate change deniers but they are god deniers because god is in control of the climate. he determines what the sunspots are. we don't control this with our

use of co2. co2 is necessary for the growth of plants. i have a degree. host: i will leave it there and follow-up because the president will be talking about the economy today after we get more economic news. the september job numbers are going to come out at 8:30 eastern. the president will be talking about the economy at a manufacturing plant in maryland. watch on c-span, c-span now or c-span.org. he will be talking about the economy and there is this on the front page of usa today. there are some sectors now that are cutting jobs. the top five industries in cuts are automotive, 28,000 job reductions, of 194% -- up

194%, health care and products, health care and technology, retail, and services. these are the sectors that are cutting jobs according to usa today. we will hear more on the economy from the president coming up. the caller mentioned abortion. it is an issue coming up in congressional debates across the country. in iowa, iowa's third congressional district, the candidates clashed last night. here they are on the issue of abortion. host: good people can disagree on abortion but there are important things -- [video clip] >> good people can disagree on abortion but there are important things. provide exceptions.

additionally, we take care of the mother throughout the process, and after, to be able to have an advantage for people who want to adopt. we have supported over-the-counter contraception. my opponent unfortunately has a voting record that is extreme. it would allow abortion up until the day of a birth. it would provide taxpayer-funded abortions even if the child was viable. this is more extreme than anywhere else in the world other than china and north korea and it's wrong. most islands don't agree -- most islands don't agree. >> you can now directly respond. is there a limit to what should be legal for abortion? >> my stance on women's reproductive health is clear. there's no one who should be making a decision for reproductive health other than the woman. the choice certainly belongs with her. my opponent, on the other hand,

can slice and dice this however he wants. we saw him on stage in a primary debate question if he supported abortion when it came to cases of rape. he said no. he raised his hand, no, when they asked him if he would support in cases of incest, and he said no in the case of the mother's life. this is just a few months ago. if we forget about his 2017 support for the abortion bill, where there were no exceptions for rape or incest, or the six-week fetal heartbeat bill. this man's positions on abortion are extreme and are out of touch with what people want. host: the des moines register with the headline abortion and inflation divide these

candidates in the iowa third congressional district debates. the district includes 21 counties in iowa's southwest corner and des moines. it is a highly competitive contest as both parties see control of the house. if you want to watch more of that, you can find all of our campaign 2022 coverage on c-span.org. norman in new jersey, democratic caller. caller: good morning. my issues are abortion. host: you have to mute your television. caller: ok. my issues are abortion and gun control. why are there more murders in the united states in one day than in all the other countries in the world in a

whole year? that is one of my main issues. the second thing i cannot understand, the republicans are always complaining about the economy. biden has nothing to do with the economy. it is the world economy. the economy is the same in every country in the world. he does not control it. if you look at england, france, germany, they have the same problems with gas and everything. it is stupid to try to suggest that biden controls the prices of gas and the economy, so that is what i want to know. as i said, it is abortion, which really bugs me. i have two daughters, two granddaughters. i cannot believe that our country has sunk so low that we

would pass laws like this -- i should understand it because the supreme court has become political. it's no longer justice. it is political. it is all appointments by republicans, so that is about -- all i want to say, but as far as the economy, i wish the republicans would stop blaming biden. he cannot control it. host: heard that point. jay, newark, new jersey, independent. caller: i am a proud independent from experience. going back to my point. things were pretty bad in those days.

now, take away rights for this and that. they have been wanting to do it since 1972. host: all right. let me hear from eva in georgia, republican. caller: good morning. i am part of the republican

suburban women who decided that we needed to have shared values, that we needed to come together and we did in 2020 during a pandemic, where we came together and decided that no matter our race, political party or zip code, most of us believe our elected leaders should reflect our values and govern accordingly. we are going to have to vote our values, but many of our politicians are elected to only represent a group of wealthy and well-connected people who are overcharging georgians. for things like groceries. the dollar stores have even increased their prices. i was reading the wonderful information c-span gives with all the economic sessions you have, the book reviews, the history.

we have an opportunity here. our health, our housing. a few mega farms have bought up half the rental properties. food companies. this is who is pocketing the profits. we are strengthening the hand of the change we brought together, a coalition of change, of shared values for our families. i look at it like a quilt. a quilt that is stitched together with threads of fabric. it is a window. if we look out the window of our lives, we must come together and strengthen the hand of the coalition that brings us -- greta, please. they brought us childcare.

a 250 to 350. if they had completed that. who voted against that? the republicans. host: how did you vote in 2020? caller: who voted against the health care subsidies? the republicans. host: how did you vote in 2020? caller: i just told you. i was part of the women -- the coalition of suburban middle-class, upper class, which i am, educated women that came together in a coalition in georgia that brought together and we must strengthen that hand. host: how do you plan to vote in november? caller: continue strengthening the hand with the house and of the senate. this country is divided. host: are you, as a republican, voting democrats? all right.

tony, michigan, independent. caller: hi, greta. good morning. i hope everybody has a great year. my number one issue would be not sending $43 billion to ukraine. we have to get out of these never-ending wars. i hope we don't get back into afghanistan, but my real issue, if i can go off topic a little bit, is when c-span covers a campaign, the tv director and the camera operator seemed -- seem to forget the camera can pan left and right and zoom in and out. i cannot tell whether the speaker is talking to 15,000 people or 150,000. host: let me jump in because what we are doing is we are

taping these debates from other sources and gathering them here in one place on c-span. usually, these are productions from a local television station. for example. so they are not a c-span production. we don't have cameras there. we just want to be able to, as people look at the election as a whole, be able to find debates from these really competitive races across the country and watch all of them, a little bit of them, whatever you have time for so you can get an idea of what this november will be like. it is not always our cameras. caller: ok. a couple things. if that is true, if you are covering a presidential campaign and our vote is important, it should be enough to where you would either have your own camera there or make a deal that, ok, when the speaker

refers to somebody over to their left, sometimes you see the camera just start to move and then go back and stay on that tight shot. a picture is worth 1000 words. if you could tell your production people, hey, we are c-span. we have a national audience. if we ask you to pan the camera or zoom it out, please do so, or bring your own camera. host: i want to show you a debate, a portion from idaho's senate debate. it was about the electoral count act, election integrity. the senate proposal to change the electoral count act. the issue that came up on january 6 and what happened there. this is from the idaho capital sun. u.s. senator mike crapo is

seeking a fifth term in the senate, a seat he's held since 1999. his opponent, democrat david roth, and independent candidate scott cleveland, were part of the debate monday. take a listen. [video clip] >> do you support the electoral count act? >> i do not. it is the states through the electoral that elect the president. we have a constitution, the 12th amendment, which lays out the procedures, and the electoral count act of 1887 that further lays out those procedures. those are the procedures i believe we should follow. the electoral count act is a step to go further, facilitating congressional engagement on vote counting and literally the management of the electoral college, and i do not support that. >> it also makes some changes to specifically what --

specifically avoid what we saw on january 6. do you think we don't need any changes in those areas? >> the 12 amendment and 1887 electoral count act deal specifically with those questions. when i talk about facilitating federal takeover of states rights, let's look senate bill number one, what democrats wanted to pass, a bill which first of all prohibited voter id requirements for mail-in ballots, mandated that the states allow unsupervised ballot boxes, prohibited states from doing the cleanup of their lists, and many other things, and that was a federal takeover of what is states rights. i don't want to vote for any legislation that would support any step towards facilitating or legitimizing federal engagement in setting election rules. elections are states

responsibilities under the constitution and should stay that way. >> as a candidate for the senate, how would you restore trust in election results, and what is your position on the bipartisan electoral count act? >> i think it is critical that we accept the results as they come out. so win or lose, i think it starts with us at the top. part of the reason we have seen so much widespread belief in the election allegations of 2020 is because you have, several years later, the former president still pushing those same theories, even though he's not been able to find any amount of widespread voter fraud, certainly not for lack of trying. we have seen audits in arizona and other states. mike lindell came here to idaho and audited butte county, if i'm not mistaken, to make sure there

was no irregularities there. so i think it starts from the top down. we need to instill that confidence in the system win or lose. i would support the electoral act you described mostly because i think it is important that we protect something like january from ever happening again. host: from idaho's senate debate. you can find the debates from many of the contested races on c-span.org. our coverage continues until election day. there is also the georgia senate race. here is a headline from the daily beast, who broke the story about gop candidate herschel walker's relationships with women. the headline is, herschel walker's latest abortion denial still makes no sense. while spouting off nonsensical

implications yesterday afternoon, he indeed confirmed he has a child with his accuser. after the daily beast reported monday that walker had an ex-girlfriend -- that walker and an ex-girlfriend had an abortion in 2009, he said he had no idea who that woman could be. that prompted the woman to offer additional details about her relationship to walker and agreed to publicly disclose that they also had a child together. the problem, against all odds, he repeatedly said he didn't know who the woman was, and suggested her claim that he was the father of one of her children was false. walker confirmed to the daily beast in june that this woman was in fact the mother to one of her kids -- his kids. go ahead. caller: hope everyone is

doing well in the universe. i am a proud democrat and one of the reasons why is i believe not just in saving children but the planet. one of the ways that the republicans are not saving the planet is by extracting all the earth's insulation, which is oil, and the oil giants have been behind the republicans from the beginning. the earth has four layers. the hottest layer is the inner core at 9300 degrees fahrenheit. oil insulates places that are extremely hot from becoming hotter and those that are cold from becoming hot as well. that is why we have melting, mainly because the oil is being extracted. you have a couple presidents, and one who should have been, al gore, who hit the nail on the head, in terms of his documentary, an inconvenient truth. this is the first time any

president has gone this far in terms of saving the planet through renewables and green. when jimmy carter tried to do it, put solar panels on top of the white house, what they did was caused inflation in oil and gas prices, and they are doing the same thing today to eliminate democrats and make sure republicans have inflation to run on. host: i will jump in because i want to hear from pam, democrat of maryland, before the top of the hour. caller: hi. how are you? i am calling about several things. inflation. everything doubles always. if you look at 10 or 12 years ago and count up to now, you find everything doubles every 10 years or 12 years. in the united states, the mega

farms, the groups that buy a property, sell it, rent it out. other countries are buying up the united states. we don't even own the land we live on. corporations are the enemies of this country and they are un-american. large company -- large countries by a ball the land, take up all the resources, and leave nothing but gangs and dictators. we are the problem. host: coming michael mcdonald, political science professor at the university of florida, discusses his new book on voting in the 2020 election, the challenges officials face, and how resulting changes in voting laws could impact this year's midterms. later, victor cha of the center for strategic and international studies discusses north korea's launch of an intermediate range ballistic missile over japan. we will be right back.

>> but tv every sunday on c-span2. at noon is turn south carolina republican senator tim scott talks about his book america, a redemption story on his life, political career and his thoughts on the future. missouri democratic congresswoman cori bush offers forerunner discovers -- discusses her life. she is interviewed by danielle bellman watch but tv every sunday on c-span2 and find the full schedule on your program guide or watch any time on book tv.org. >> mark twain back in the late

19th century had a lot to say about financier jay gould who was a bird -- very rich man. the people, had desired money before his day that he taught them to fall down and worship it. a partner at the money management firm included the quotes and many others in his just published book american rascal. >> greg steinman and his book american rascal on this episode of book notes plus. it is available on the c-span now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> listening to programs on c-span or c-span radio just got easier. set your spark -- smart speaker

and listen to "washington journal" important congressional hearings and other events throughout the day. weekdays at 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. eastern catch washington today for a fast-paced report of stories of the day. this into c-span any time so you're smart speaker play c-span radio. powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: michael mcdonald is with us this morning he is a political science professor at the university of florida and the author of his book from pandemic to insurrection voting in the 2020 presidential election professor mcdonnell, good morning. you described the election as a story of triumph, and tragedy. guest: we have to recognize that the 2020 election at the highest turnout, the highest number of people that participated since

1900. that is quite an accomplishment in the midst of a pandemic. so of the officials had an almost impossible task of delivering and election and allowing american democracy to continue even while the pandemic was raging across the country. that is the part tramp. we have to give them -- that is the triumph we have to give them acknowledgment. they turned out at rates not seen before in american elections. that is the triumph side of it. the downside is that there were people who unnecessarily died. because we did not offer full mail balloting in the 2020 election and unfortunately there were those forces that try to undermine our democracy. they leveraged the fact that we

had to move to mail ballots in an us at time. at an unprecedented time. host: what do you say to people who deny the results of the 2020 election? guest: trump had an opportunity to provide evidence of some sort of malfeasance in the election. he went before judges he appointed to the bench, he had allies in key states that were serving on his reelection committee. these were not people who've are part of the key state in any way. these were people who were his allies and yet he could not bring any evidence forward those people who viewed the election results they looked at the

integrity of the auction. there is always going to be a few errors. 150 million people voted. there are going to be some people who have accidents and that sorts of thing happens but they were very isolated there was no widespread far -- brought in the election and trump and his allies have yet to produce any proof of any fraud that happened in the election that was widespread. widespread fraud, no. i react to people who believe this and i understand. you get upset about the election outcome. there were people after the 2016 election who supported clinton who also had theories about russian influence in the election. they were upset that their candidate lost and rightfully. they had a lot invested in the

election and they wanted their candidate to win but the election in 2016 was free and fair. the election in 2020 was free and fair. so i really ask those people who really believe, just look at the evidence. realize that no credible evidence has been put forth before a court, it has been checked over by election officials who were allies of donald trump, none of these people produced any evidence that there was fraud in the 2020 election that would have reversed the outcome. host: remind viewers what changes were made by states ahead of the 2020 election and how they were able to make those changes. guest: one of the things i do is i follow the early voting. i have been doing that since 2008. so every election year, i spent the day compiling all the early voting statistics.

we have seen a slow increase in the number of people who cast ballots before election day through mail balloting and threw it in person early voting. about 2016 we have 40% of the electorate cast their ballot before election day, about half were in person early voting and half or by mail. i 2020, things were upended because of the pandemic. we started to see states encourage mail balloting. in many states those emergency provisions carried over to the general election. but there were a lot of leaf -- legal battles. there were states that had archaic laws and never contemplated the possibility of running an election and the midst of a pandemic. they were opera paired to -- they were unprepared to run an

election. it turned out that half the people who voted in the 2020 election voted by mail. that change really affected our politics. many of the people who were voting by mail were democrats. many of the people voting in person were republicans. that upended patterns we had seen in decades prior. suddenly the method of voting by mail which republicans had never really questioned as fraud suddenly it became the focus of our because the democrats were voting that way. so, after the 2020 election and that it -- it is what is carrying forward today because of the response democrats use

mail ballots more frequently we see republican states to restrict mail ballots. we have seen democratic states who when they expanded mail balloting or maybe they started the move before the election, they decided to cement in those laws and we see a number of states adopt all mail ballot elections after the 2020 election or made other moves to expand voting so there is this real intention happening across the country. each of the state governments is a microcosm of what's happening naturally -- natural nationally. we're seeing a retrenchment moving backwards and the ability for people to use mail ballots.

host: how is early voting shipping up at this point before the november 2022 election? guest: 2020 election was the unprecedented election. the highest turnout rate since 1900. quite an accomplishment. you have never seen an election like this before for a presidential election but 2018 we actually saw participation pickup for midterm elections. in that election, over half the people who were eligible to vote participated that was the highest midterm turnout since 1914. lots of things have changed we had people changing their behaviors some of them are using mail ballots. we have seen the usage of mail ballots, it's hard to predict at this point how this is going to shape out for 2022 but the indicators that we see in a number of poles for the early voting we have seen so far over

300,000 people already voted in this election. we are at levels that are very comparable to 2018. at this time, we still have a month ago. it looks as though we are going to see a very high turnout midterm election again. we made the 2018 that's going to be remarkable but we should be somewhere around at this point i believe in that 2018 turnout. host: let's get to calls. joe in florida, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i think the mail-in ballots were kept track of the way the lottery keeps track of their lottery tickets, you can't, you can't forge a lottery ticket. they know exactly how many they printed and where they went. so i don't believe that a lot of

those ballots were marked just president and vice president. the rest were blank. i don't think we should have mail-in ballots unless they can really keep track of them. host: michael mcdonald for the april to keep track of them? guest: there's a whole chapter in my book on this. the security election officials have around mail-in ballots and it is really difficult to forge a ballot so much so that what you have to have as some sort of inside job within an election office and there is no evidence anywhere that any of that actually happened. so i could go through the litany, it's in the book but even bill barr, trumps attorney general have made allegations before congress that there was going to be some conspiracy about foreign government who tried to submit mail ballots, at

the end he said there is no evidence of that. there really couldn't be, it's very complex. to answer the caller's question they barcode ballots, envelopes, they even have really cool innovations on how they run the other actions. they were running ballots as they were moving through the mail system. we do have a very robust system for tracking individual ballots and to anyone who is trying to forge a ballot would have to somehow defeat that. if somebody else had if somebody else was able to forge the ballot for someone who hasn't voted yet that would be a very difficult system to orchestrate and there is no evidence that there were some ballots that were coming in that the election officials were scratching their head sink where are they coming from they knew where they were

coming from. they knew the ballots that were being back in their office and they were doing other security provisions to check the authenticity. host: president trump in june of 2020 sent out this tweet. absentee ballots are fine, a person has to go through a process to get and use them. mail-in voting on the other hand full lead to the most corrupt election in u.s. history bad things happen with mail and. 19% of ballots fraud. guest: new jersey was one of the states that really didn't have a good system before the 2020 election. they had been moving towards mel ballots but new jersey requires an affidavit to be placed inside the envelope when people return their ballots and what happened

in new jersey was that many people didn't know they had to do that particular step and a large number of ballots were rejected because people were not following procedure. this is important for everybody. i know there are a lot of people who have to vote by mail and there are people who want to vote by mail, you have to follow the instructions. i cannot emphasize that enough. the most frequent way in which people disenfranchise themselves, people who are earnestly wanting to vote is by not following the instructions. follow those instructions. they made provisions to try and fix that system, if you look at other states states that have been doing mail ballots for a long time, they had a much smaller percentage of rejection. why is that? they had better looking envelopes and they had better directions for their voters. so people don't miss those important steps. people do still do and again, i

want to emphasize follow the instructions. it was nothing like reversing in new jersey and in new york too by the way. very height of of ballot rejections during the primaries. one of the nice things and good things that happened out of the election as people learned. election officials learned and some of these archaic ways in which states that had only used absentee ballots, they learned better ways delivery -- during the election and making sure voters were following the instructions so by the time you get to the general election new jersey's rejected ballots go down significantly because people are more aware of following the instructions. host: richard in on trail, canada, republican. caller: yes, good morning. i have some friends that they

are able to count -- the same night but here in the united states where they have you don't have strict voter id laws and strict signature voting it takes days. our country doesn't have strict voter idealized it's not an honest country. if you look at mr. mcdonald's twitter feed you can tell he is a political activist for the democrat party which is why he doesn't want to discuss the interview which proved there is corruption in the democrat party. they never talk about corruption in the democrat party. his credibility is at zero. thank you. host: your response come over professor? guest: first of all, about the mail ballots or states that due process mel ballots before election day. my home state of florida will be

one of them. on election night the officials have already separated them out from the envelopes they check to make sure that the voter, make sure the ballot is not going to be rejected so it is more of a process of processing the ballots on election day. by federal law, we have to count all the ballots on election day itself. so that is what is going on in states like florida where they prepare the ballots for counting. but there were some states pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin three of the critical battleground states where the republican election officials did not allow the election officials to do that preprocessing. so they had to do all of that other work about in making sure that the ballot would not be rejected on election day itself.

that led to delays in the reporting. that is where we get allegations of fraud like in milwaukee and detroit. that was engineered phenomenon because if election officials have been like in florida they would have already prepared the ballots and they would have done it very quickly. some other states, they do allow people to return the mail ballots, they have to do it on election day but election officials continue to accept the ballots after the election. if they are postmarked by election day. so some states there are still ballots coming in. we do this for our military and overseas voters. every state does this. florida, washington, everywhere. we all allow our military to participate. some states extend this courtesy of allowing the late ballots to

come in to election officials after the election not just our military but to domestic civilian voters as well. lastly just to respond to the viewer, i work with republicans. i care very deeply about the democracy of this country i put my country over my party and other people who think about the importance of the american democracy and its experiment you do the same. it's ok to be partisan but what's not ok is to try and destroy our democracy because you don't like the outcome of an election. host: midland texas, and dependent. caller: good morning, longtime listener, first time caller. i appreciate all the topics

discussed in the different viewpoints. when it comes to the 2020 election, and over they don't think there was a significant and off fraud. may some isolated pockets but enough to make a difference. all these claims, i think they are a distraction from the real story. which was coordinated suppression of the hunter biden laptop scandal which exposes corruption in the biden family. i think this information would have had an impact on voting decisions and my opinion this was one of the bigger impacts. it has come out that the fbi was reaching out to social media companies to warn them of upcoming disinformation prepare for the hunter biden stories were starting to get weak. higher intelligence people came out and said it was false but it turned out to be true. that is the real story here so

all this talk about mail ballots and machines not working i think it's all nonsense and it's a distraction from something that is legitimate just the influence that social media has on controlling narratives and people's thoughts. housecoat let's take that, michael mcdonald? guest: social media has served as a vector for misinformation we can see our viral application misinformation on both sides. we have to tackle as a country the effect social media has on our discourse and a lot of the allegations and conspiracy theories we see emanate from information that is not from trusted sources. no one has come up with a solution to this. we have fragmented our media

that started with cable news and it has accelerated. i. of time in this country we had partisan media and it's not the first time we experienced this phenomenon. these trusted news sources and have it be our only sources we did have partisan news. what's interesting is the last time that we had very high turnout was at a time when there was partisan people believed deeply that elections matter. back in the 1800s from sources that worked very partisan they were trying to hype up allegations that may or may not have been true back in the

1800s. part of that is likely due to the fragmentation that people can go out and find out information sources that agree with them rather than trying to seek out other sources that might counter that narrative and be closer to host: what the truth is. we have heard claims on this program from viewers who say there were multiple ballots or ballots that were not requested by rotors did that happen? guest: it can always happen, but election officials have ways of checking the applications and verifying that the voters are requesting those ballots and taken if the ballots are coming in to a polling location and they already voted, and here is the person saying i didn't do that that raises red flags for election officials. especially if we started, there

were instances of that happening where people forgot that they cast a male ball atmail ballot. they sort of forgot that they just voted. in those cases they keep records. they can go back and look at the ballot that was cast by mail and can confirm versus the person trying to vote in person. all of those instances where those allegations were being made and they were very sporadic so we are talking about one or two not lots. those cases were that happened but election officials were able to go back and verify that isn't the signature of the person on the mail ballot that is trying to vote. like las vegas where one of

these instances happened. host: dennis, democratic color. --caller. caller: thank you for taking my call in vote by mail. i have voted by mail every election since. in 2020, they would not allow drop boxes in this county and i went to turn my ballot at the election office and the line was 100 yards long. when the cult leader turned against mail-in ballots, that same legislature that passed the law all turned against it and tried to repeal it and i had to go all the way to the state supreme court to be caught a

fight as legal. and as an aside our county commissioners just voted to hand recount the 2020 election because you still have people that don't like the results and trump got less votes than some of the republican candidates in this republican county and they don't accept the election to this day. so they are going to recount my hands in january. have a nice day, thank you. host: michael mcdonald? guest: it is incredible house on many aspects of our election system has become a lettuce sized. drop boxes was one of those. the ironing for drop boxes is that there is actually a stronger chain of custody that are placed with drop boxes because election officials go

out and collect those often they are special containers that are covered -- at government occasions they have security monitoring going on. so those receptacles have very high level of security and an election official who is taking the ballot deposited and returning it to the election office there is a chain of custody on the ballot. instead, instead of having drop boxes the republican legislatures restricted the drop boxes in favor of people using the mail system. that actually creates a weaker chain of custody because now you have a carrier that has to transverse the system, with several hands of on the way of sorting the mail it has to be

delivered through trust. it has to get back to the election office and again another person has to bring it back to the election office. it is a curious thing of the system if he really cared about security you would say drop boxes are the most secure way in which people can return ballot. there is no evidence that it facilitates higher turnout there is no evidence that democrats is it more frequently the republicans. it just became part of the flashpoint of the whole system were it says here is a weakness and it may be that if we can restrict the ability for people to return ballots like the caller said having to stand and along line. it will suppress turnout for some people.

everyone should have an opportunity to participate. i have been for federal voting assistance programs. it attends to be republican group of people. just as i am advocating for mail-in ballots i am also advocating for it for our military. i think democracy works best when everybody can have their voice heard and the election outcome can be based on what the will of the people is. host: there is a republican, good morning to you. caller: good morning. two things, when trump got into office we heard four years of russian collusion. and to impeachments and one impeachment after he left. to me that kind of makes me feel like the democrats didn't accept him either.

and then i just need to know is it true zuckerberg spent $150 million in drop boxes all across key state? because i did see a video of one of the drop boxes and the same woman came on three different occasions with like 20 different ballots. i was a little confused about the dropbox thing. zuckerberg spends 150 million in drop boxes is that true? guest: no, it's not true that zuckerberg provided $150 million for drop boxes. what zuckerberg did was and a lot of other individuals and organizations did was provide grants to affection officials to help them administer the election. election officials are underfunded in this country. it is not something we really

fund very well be taken for granted that our election officials have the support and resources they need. ironically, a lot of the rule, small republican counties are the ones that are most stressed and in most need because they are underfunded by state governments and local governments. so here in florida for example, our republican legislator passed a law that outlaws any outside support for the administering of elections. here we just had some of the most republican areas of the state and election officials there are struggling to run an election and unfortunately, because i think there would be a lot of people who would want to help those election officials provide them with support in some way to run the election. unfortunately for those election

officials in the south, florida, they are unable to accept any outside help because of a law that just passed because of this misinformation that came out that zuckerberg was trying to somehow sway the results of the election. so, unfortunately it's not true. but the perception that it's true has infected our discourse in this country. now it's coming back and hurting republicans and await because they didn't anticipate that future elections it would be republican areas of the state that we desperately need the help for the administration of their elections. host: a headline related to what michael mcdonald was just talking about arc zuckerberg helps fund the 2020 election now republicans seek to ban future grants. heath in palm bay, florida. republican.

caller: good morning, hope you're having a great day. just to make a suggestion to c-span you guys have two be the first person to have an adult conversation. all these people i thought i was living in america we are supposed to be all americans. c-span knows something about this because it is getting ridiculous 30 years ago you guys were the best. anyway when it comes to elections there was always an undertone [indiscernible] but the monitors in 2000 with the bush/gore ever since then there has been bigger undertone.

the easier you make it to vote, who doesn't know that you can vote? we beg people to vote and the easier we make it, the more opportunity this is 50 states every state has a different system of voting that when you are talking this is going on over here and before 2000 the media was always in the news. when the carolina thing happened the republicans started to get into it. we are all turning the wrong way. host: several points there, michael. go ahead and respond. guest: is absolutely sure the election is done differently than any other democracy in the world. we do have 50 states that run

their elections. if you look at other current -- countries they have one national election commission that runs the elections in most other countries have a national identification card that serves as your voter registration and also serves a lot of other purposes as well. we don't have that in the united states. we have a very clunky system of voter registration that does not work the same weight in all the states. so there is, i think real discussion that needs to happen in this country and maybe some of these collars will be surprised to learn i liked donald trump and that i support the id. it will solve some other problems we have in this country. i have a card to do that, rather than having a clunky system that is a 50 state system for drivers

licenses. that is what other countries in the world do. but not us. instead, we are minors in politics and again if you look across the world our politics are much more politicized. our elections are much more politicized than other countries because we have person elected officials running our elections. other countries don't do that. we have that aspect to us and we have centralized elections and partisan actors trying to sway the election one way or the other. we have the most litigated collections in the country as well. if you look back at the 2020 election it is just a case study all of those other elections i think we would be much better having election officials rent

elections nationally but we are never going to have that because we have a tradition of having centralized elections in this country. we have a very complicated system so that entrenched interest we have in this country to have something like a professionalized bureaucracy like every other country in the world does, is just not in the cards for the united states. host: andy in kentucky, republican. your next. caller: you just said something there and i'm not a big on it that you said something about the voting system. how would you administer a national registration process like that? it would be in charge of that? also, in california, new york, and other states do not

recognize kentucky's concealed carry registration laws. so those states have motor voter laws. and those laws, illegals get drivers licenses. i think there is 27 states now that have that? so they get these drivers licenses the contractor my statement i can't carry into the states. a concealed weapon. so, how do you deal with things like that? there are so many points to these things. host: let's take a couple of those points that you just made. guest: there are pluses and minuses. it allows some states to enact laws that it is best for the culture of their state this is a good example where we have concealed carry laws and drivers

license laws. in some cases and of course we see this nationally there are some national laws we have in this country for example, like a passport because am going to answer the other question the federal government issues a passport. it would not be a stretch to put together a system that allows people to get an identification card when they become of age. some countries do this very early. i know they are given all of the information needed at that card is tracked throughout their life. let me be clear on how the system would come to work. we see again states when they deliver their drivers license availability some states do not provide the resources to allow people in all parts of their states to have the same access to driver's licenses.

places like alabama particularly in rural communities the offices are not open or they closed or only open limited hours. that is not fair. we need to have a fair system and having a national system with the government can put its resources behind it to have a system that works for everybody, not just certain areas that are benefited and by and large those are areas that are more urban. there are technologies we have that we don't even realize that the administration, those areas are wealthier and use the economy for scale to run more elections. if you go after rule areas in this country and there is a problem with professionalized

election administration. it is because we don't give them enough resources to conduct their jobs. we really do need to rethink about how we serve out elections in this country. again, it is ironic because we can have this discussion. we are so paralyzed in this country you can have this discussion that it is republican areas that are being hurt the most by the way we underfund our elections in this country. host: escoto brian in pennsylvania, independent. caller: good morning i'm curious as to why you would have stated that in pennsylvania the republican voting officials set up not to count the ballots until election day. the voting officials in

pennsylvania are with democrats. when they passed a law and they reformed it as a lot of voting by mail-in voting but the democratic official said you didn't need signatures to verify who you were and i wondered if you hadn't any work on that? guest: yeah, again, i cover all this in the book so what happened in pennsylvania there was a transition before the election. they were on the road to expand mail-in ballots. if you look at the percentage of the electorate that was casting mail ballots it was around 5% or

so so it was a very limited number of people no one anticipated that suddenly in the 2020 election that we would have such expanded use of mail ballots for emergency procedures so russian officials -- election officials never complicated contemplate the fact they would need to process the ballots. it became evident as we ramped up into the november election that that was going to be needed in order to get the election results out. i think we could spend a day and they are checking over the results looking for any outliers. some of the conspiracy theories that relaunched involved michigan. because of a local election that

put onto the ballot, at the very last minute, they got program drawing and instead of changing single recent that change got propagated throughout the entire state. excuse me the county. i work for the organization on election night we were looking at the interim county election results that had leading and we didn't believe it. we knew that something had gone wrong with election reporting so we just disregarded that particular county until they could figure out what was going on. it was very quickly that the associated press said it was a programming error. they reported it, several hours it was fixed. the have recounted by hand so we know the election results were correct that launched one

million conspiracy theories about the dominion voting systems we have seen organizations like fox have to retract some of the statements they said under the threat of a lawsuit from the company. so if we just took a little extra time, we don't need election results immediately on election night. if we have them check over the result and make sure that everything is evidence not to be accused of what it's being accused of. i think we would all be better served as a country because we wouldn't have these sort of ballots coming in. that is all that is going on there. the ballots had to be tabulated and they had to do it on

election day they weren't like florida where the results cannot immediately because election officials prepared for this before the election. if we just took that extra little time a lot of the things that have lunch conspiracy theories i think is to check things over and then we can except maybe in by wednesday? we convict the election results and not have this sort of process and seeing under the head everything that is happening with the sausage making that is going on with the reporting of the election results. host: michael mcdonnell is a boater -- political science professor. voting in the 20 20th use at us -- 2020 presidential election. guest: think you and thank you to the viewers as well. host: the numbers are out from

september 263,000 jobs added less than expected. investors thought it would be more around 275,000. the unemployment rate dropped 3.7%. we are going to take a break. when we compactly will be joined by victor cha we will talk about north korea's launch of an intermediate range ballistic missile over japan and how the u.s. and its allies are responding. ♪ >> american history tv saturdays on c-span two. exploring the people and events that shaped american history. mark talbert talks about george washington's involvement with the freemasonry. deserving brother and debt for

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college president and professor shows his book the death of learning which looks at the state of liberal arts education. he also talks about political correctness on campus, multiculturalism and the importance of western civilization courses. >> maybe a bit in high schools. yeah, jefferson, martin luther king, abraham lincoln, the least -- not everything in liberal arts has to be a debate. >> john crafter with his book the death of learning sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on

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today for a fast-paced report on the stories of the day this into c-span anytime, just tell your smart speaker. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us this morning is victor cha the director during the bush administration also the senior vice president for asia and korea mr. cha let's talk about what happened here just this week what exactly did north korea do with the missile? guest: a couple of things. earlier in the week they flew a missile over the archipelago of japan. even if you don't know a lot about north korea is pretty provocative when one country

flies a ballistic missile over in another country. many risks not least of which is the missile could fail and fall on the country. it was the longest missile that north korea had longed to date. which of course crew raises an eyebrow. and after that, the north koreans yesterday launched additional missiles. there were about a dozen fighter jets and bombers near the border with so are you. fairly provocative action even for north korea. they usually communicate through shows of force. but these latest provocations attracted a lot of attention for good reason. >> why do you he took these actions? guest: it's very difficult always try to understand what north korea is doing they are the most paid country in the world in terms of what they say

and what they do. i think they like to be ok, and like to keep the world guessing but one of the reasons possibility is they are responding to u.s. and south korea and japanese exercising in the region and the three countries, the three allies have wrote -- in response to over 40 missile tests by northern korea. these are missile-defense exercises of various sorts. the north would also like to get attention and they know that the united states is distracted by the war in europe as well as concerns about the war in europe might mean for chinese intentions across the taiwan strait. in addition to issue some help the slowdown of oil from opec countries, there is a whole host of things for midterm elections

so part of the whole thing is to attract attention and we can't rule out the simple reason which is they are continuing to develop their both the sick missile and nuclear weapons technology in order to do that, they have to be able to test the kids ability so the they can't judge that very scientifically for doing things of this particular time. host: what is it propose? guest: they launched intermediate range ballistic missile it can travel about 4500 kilometers. it is mostly launched from a global -- mobile platform which means it is harder for the united states if we detected the sort of missile launch headed for the u.s. homeland it would you ok to take out the missile before i can do in her -- any harm.

guest: host: could the united states have taken out this missile as it launched and if they could have, why didn't the united states do that? guest: without getting into a bunch of stuff that we can talk about on tv, i think the united states has the capability abilities i will say that it gets much harder when these missiles are not sitting on a platform being filled over a. of two days but when they are mobile they can move them around and it's like a pop up lunch platform and if the missiles have solid fuel propellant in other words we don't have this kind were we can see them do this. this idea that they lunch we don't think it has the link.

but still, it is very difficult in general. the decision to take out the missile is a very important one because i think you can only be made by the president of the united states. because of the brisket poses in terms of it escalating tensions and perhaps starting a war or a nuclear war. policy is that the u.s. tracked these things very closely. we could intercept it host: know it was going to be launched, new the trajectory, new where it would land? guest: so that is one of the purposes of all of our overhead capabilities, just to be able to detect overhead and ground-based capabilities to be able to

detect and trap the trajectory of the missiles but north korea is also doing a lot to try to overwhelm our ability to do that. our ability to track and ultimately defend hitting the missile. working on technology is to try to define our missile defenses. host: does north korea have the capacity to hit the united states or a territory? guest: based on what i have seen the senses says they do have the capability today. it is not an operationally capable option that they have tested enough to show that they can reach warm, hawaii, and parts of the continental united states. they don't test these missiles in the direction so they land 100 miles off of los angeles, so

they don't do that but they test them on large trajectory. if fires it straight up into the air and then they come down, not far from, you know, they come down in the waters between korea and japan based on that lawsuit if you sort of flatten the trajectory out it gives you a sense of the distance and can travel and they shot these up in the past and they go pretty high then when you flatten out the trajectory you can catch that they can reach certainly the west coast of the united states if not further. host: the ambassador to the united nations tweeted out we called use for security council metal -- meeting to address the missile launch. we want to limit the country's ability what options to the

united states and other countries have? guest: that question is not an easy one to answer i would like to start by saying i think also part of miss springfield's, her statement that the u.n. was russia and china are enabling korea so one of the ways they try to limit this capability on the part of -- is to get china and russia to enforce sanctions they find -- signed onto. the security council resolution kerry trigger causes within them that say if north korea is to launch another ballistic missile china will cut off fuel the russians and the chinese are not doing this right now. let alone signing onto new resolutions at the u.n. to try

to sanction north korea. this enables north korea to gather the financing to continue to build and finance these programs. the second thing more broadly, and i know some people don't like to hear this, is that we have to find a way to negotiate with north korea. the only time we've really gotten north korea to stop testing missiles or nuclear weapons is when the united states is in negotiations with them. when worry trying to engage them to stop them from continuing to build their programs. and we're in a protracted period of no negotiations with north korea. ing and it's not by coincidence that we're also seeing a high volume in testing during this period of no negotiations. so i think that's important. exercising, military exercising, military readiness, of course that's very important. for the united states and its allies. in the previous u.s.

administration, the previous u.s. president committed not to exercising with our allies, japan and south korea in the region, which degraded military readiness as part of his summit deal with north korea. but that military readiness is important for deterrence so that north korea doesn't think it can get away with some sort of military coercion against the united states or its allies. and we also know that military exercising doesn't really stop testing by north korea. the only thing that stops testing by north korea is some form of negotiation. host: let's hear from dan who is in brooklyn. a republican. morning to you, dan. tkphapb brooklyn. are you there? -- dan in brooklyn. are you there? one last call for dan in brooklyn. republican caller. are you with us? caller: yes, i am. host: ok. go ahead. caller: two questions for -- good morning, professor cha. the first one is, much of the

nuclear technology of north korea seems to have something of a russian origin and to the great consternation of china. i wonder if there's a way to play these or what role they play relative to the relationship with japan. are we essentially able to pressure the russians as well as the north koreans effectively? or -- and get some cooperation from the chinese? or do we have to take them as one unit, which i think would be a mistake. guest: so thanks for the question, dan. so, yes. your question is correct in the sense that the russians have actually played a large role in terms of the development of north korea's ballistic missile

program. north korea basically has taken russian technology, whether it's short range ballistic missiles or the long range ones that follow them. essentially taken russian technology, reversed -- have used it, have imported it directly into their initial earlier generations of missiles, but then have also reversed engineered those missile engine -- reverse engineered those missile engines and developed modifications to build their own missiles which they then have sold to other countries like iran and pakistan. the origins of north korea's missile program are russian and there's no denying that. despite the fact that north korean propaganda and their so-called self-reliance ideology says that they developed all these things on their own. whether we can gain cooperation with russia to prevent them from giving more technology than north korea, given the current state of u.s.-russia relations,

is hard to imagine. as you may have seen in the news recently, north korea said that -- north korea recognized putin's taking parts of the donbas region as russian territory. and they also publicly announced, it's reported, that they're going to provide munitions and arms to russia, to the failing russian mulltary effort -- military effort in ukraine. so there's a deep relationship there. one of the things that we don't have a lot of clarity on is that, you know, over the past several years, north korea has really leap frogged technology in terms of these missiles. they've become much better at them. they were able to put a pay load vehicle into orbit much earlier than many of us thought they could. so the question is, where and how did they get that technology? did they have technical help, scientific knowledge that they didn't have before? and we just don't know the

answer to that question. but if i had to guess i would say it was coming from russia. then your point about should we treat these countries, khao*upb, russia, as a strategic whole or should we try to separate them. i think prior to the war in ukraine and prior to the previous administration when the united states was engaged in diplomacy with north korea, we were actually working pretty closely with china to try to get north korea to stop this nuclear weapons programs and its ballistic missile programs. in fact, china even was the host of a multilateral negotiation that i was involved in, it was called the six party talks. the u.s., japan, china, russia, north korea and south korea. china hosted those talks and they signed on to u.n. security council resolutions against north korea. that is no longer the case.

china is not willing to cooperate on north korea. in fact, if anything we are seeing the china, russia, north korea axis coming together, he could hearing even more closely -- cohering even more closely together with the events in ukraine, with these north korean launches and with the chinese activities and exercises across the taiwan strait. host: we're talking with victor cha about north korea. please dial in this morning, we divide the lines, republicans, democrats and independents. you can also text us, include your first name, city and state. victor cha, describe the internal political situation in north korea right now. guest: so, you know, this is a country that's just been ruled by one family since 1945. the kim family. kim el sung, the first leader.

now kim jong un, the third leader of north korea. it is a totalitarian system. there's no freedom of anything in north korea. everybody is subservient to the leader and to the state. probably the most salient internal domestic development has been covid-19, the pandemic, as it has been in almost every other country in the world. the difference is that north korea, they don't have really any sort of public health infrastructure to speak of. and so the outbreak of covid in this country, among the population that already has a lot of co-morbidities in terms of other sorts of diseases, not a strong vaccine infrastructure there, and the fact that none of them -- no one in north korea has received any of the shots, any of the vaccines, and then in addition to that, the population

is very badly malnourished. this is a very dangerous situation. so north korea has been, since january, 2020, under a zero covid policy where they have shut down the border completely. all foreign diplomats, all u.n. agencies, other n.g.o.'s, international institutions, unicef, the world food program that have people in north korea have all left. and the country has basically been under lockdown since january of 2020. so your earlier question about why are they doing this, another possible reason is the people can't be happy with that situation. they're already living near subsistence levels in the best of times. when you lock down the border now for well over two years there must be a great deal of public indignation. so having an external enemy or an external threat where you can say you're firing these missiles

to counter them is one of the ways to try to distract the public and draw their attention to the perceived external threat such that they will be distracted and focus on that rather than their own internal hardship. guest: cnn is running a headline right now. officials fear north korea preparing for new nuclear test. what do you think that means? guest: we have been looking and waiting to see when north korea will do their seventh nuclear test and see if as we use commercial satellite imagery to look at the nuclear test site, our commercial energy has found that basically it appears as though all the preparations for this seventh nuclear test have been done. and that the decision really is up to the political leadership about when they want to do that. in the past we have seen them sequence a long rage ballistic missile test followed by a nuclear test. so it wouldn't be out of the range of plausibility to think that we are seeing them sequence

these things again. and that we might see a nuclear test sometime around u.s. midterm elections. the other thing that we know is that north korea testing, whether it's ballistic missile testing or nuclear testing, tends to be higher, more frequent, in u.s. election years than not u.s. election years. we've collected the data on this. and in general when we are in a midterm election year in the united states or when we are in a presidential election year, we tend to see more north korean testing. and so it wouldn't be out of the range of plausibility that that might be the case and that's probably one of the reasons why u.s. officials are trying to prepare the public for that eventuality. host: back to the internal situation in north korea. the u.s. and its international allies have imposed sanctions on the country. that's what's that done to their economy he? what's their economic situation right now? guest: their economic situation

is not good. it's not been good for a while. they suffered a famine in the mid 1990's. they're one of the few industrialized societies in modern history that have suffered a famine because of political mismanagement, economic mismanagement. not because of the sanctions. the majority of the sanctions that have been imposed by the international community have really been focused on trying to get at elite financing, so elite cash that sits in bank accounts overseas, that sits in bank accounts in russia or in china or in southeast asia or elsewhere. that has sort of what the sanctions have been after. illicit activity. counterfeiting the u.s. currency. these sorts of things. they haven't been general sanctions. the exception is that in 2016-2017, not the united states

but the u.n. imposed general trade sanctions against north korea that has affected some of their exports. things like textiles and seafoods. and that has had a broader effect on the economy. and those also certainly have hurt the regime. potentially also hurt the people of north korea. when the north korean leader kim jong un met with donald trump in vietnam, it was the one thing that he asked for was the lifting of these general trade sanctions. the 2016-2017 sanctions. that in and of itself is about as clear a signal that you can send that these sanctions have been effective. but the other point i'd make about sanctions is, yes, there are a whole battery of sanctions on north korea today by the united nations and by -- and bilateral sanctions by the u.s. and its allies. at the same time though, because of covid, north korea has self-sanctioned.

since january, 2020, they have completely shut off their border to any sort of trade. so even though there are sanctions imposed on north korea, covid-19 and their unwillingness to accept international assistance in terms of vaccines and testing equipment and these sorts of things, have really imposed more sanctions on north korea than any sanctions that the u.n. could have put on north korea. so it's kind of a double whammy right now, if you will, between their own self-isolation and the sanctions currently on them for nuclear testing and ballistic missile testing. host: do we know what this does to the north korean people? guest: yeah, so, usually we would have some sense from the n.g.o.'s and from the diplomatic community that are in the country. but because of the zero covid lockdown, all those people have left. that diplomatic community, you know, e.u., australia and others, have been waiting to get back into the country.

they have been trying to find out when the government will allow them back into the country and thus far they haven't gotten a positive answer. so because of that it's hard to really gauge how bad the situation is. there clearly is a food shortage in the country. because they generally suffer a one million to two million metric ton foot shortage on a good -- food shortage on a good day annually. the lockdown probably makes that food situation more acute. the expert reports i've seen says it's as bad as it was in the mid 1990's when they suffered a famine that killed 10% of the population, over two million people, in north korea. but undeniably the north korean people are suffering. host: ron in florida, democratic caller. hi, ron. caller: hi. i just want to say, i was in the army and in 1967 i was in

training in 1968 and then the pueblo was taken. so instead of going to vietnam i went to korea. when i was in korea, the north koreans launched a propaganda program and they took 10,000 transistor radios, put them in a plastic bag and staoeur foam and sent them out into the sea. they started to land onshore in south korea. the south korean authorities had a heck of a time trying to collect them. now i understand that south korea has balloons, helium balloons that they tie propaganda information to and they float them and they land north into north korea. why can't the south koreans take little bags of rice and float those up into north korea and

let -- help feed those poor people up there? i was interested in your thoughts on that and the communication efforts to stop the north koreans from launch thoegs missiles -- launching those missiles. guest: thanks for the question and thank you for your service. a couple of things, the first is, yes, absolutely in the late 1960's, while you were there, it was a very tense situation when north korea was carrying out a lot of provocations. not missiles, but a lot of provocations across the d.m.z., the demilitarized zone. one of the most provocative was the seizing of the u.s. intelligence ship, the u.s.s. pueblo, and holding the crew, capturing and holding the crew. so it was a very difficult time then. the experience you had of the north koreans sending transistor radios is very interesting for two reasons. the first is back then in the

1960's, you know, in terms of the levels of diplomatic between north and south korea, they were about at parity. if the north koreans were not slightly ahead. because at that time the chinese and soviet union were providing a lot of assistance to north korea, particularly the soviet union. and not to go too far back but coming out of the japanese occupation in the first half of the 20th century, the japanese built all of the manufacturing and heavy industry infrastructure in the north where all the minerals sit on the korean peninsula. in the northern part of the korean peninsula is rich in minerals, the southern part is the bread basket or the rice basket of the country. so this propaganda attempt by north korea to try to influence the south koreans by sending transistor radios was a sign of how strong the north koreans thought they were at the time. if we fast forward to today, the

situation is completely reversed. south korea has the sixth strongest military in the world. it has the soth largest economy in the world -- soth largest -- 10th largest economy in the world. probably every other device in your home is a south korean-built device, whether it's your cell phone or television or washing machine or refrigerator. south korea's just a world class country right now and north korea's stuck back in the 1960's. and so for that reason different groups, n.g.o. groups have tried to get more information into north korea. they have sent, ron, bags of rice, bibles, thumb drives that have news about the outside world that play south korean pop music, south korean videos and dramas across the border to north korea, either by these balloons that you mentioned or through other means, to try to get information into north korea about the outside world.

the regime tries its best not to allow that sort of information in because it knows that if it did, the outside world would -- the north koreans would understand how much better off the outside world is. so those sorts of efforts do exist. it's been much harder because of the shutdown, the lockdown in north korea. in addition the previous south korean government, not the one currently in power, but the previous south korean government actually outlawed some of those balloon activities because they thought they were unnecessarily provocative. of course there are many who view that to be incorrect. myself being one of them. and that we should try to get as much tphaofgs the north korean people -- information into the north korean people as possible. host: a tweet from a viewer. shouldn't we ensure that japan at least has the ability to launch a counterstrike? don't kid yourself, china is controlling the actions of north korea to intimidate countries they feel are in their sphere of influence.

guest: so this is a very good point and it relates to a very current debate that's taking place in japan today. about what japan needs to do to enhance its defense capabilities in response to both north korea and the threat of conflict across the taiwan straits. there's a review of national security strategy taking place in japan today about whether they should increase their defense spending over the traditional 1% ceiling. and also whether they should consider what are called counterstrike capabilities, framed as a defensive capability, but what it means is having the ability, be a offensive strike capability, to try to preempt a north korean missile if it were aimed at japan or if it were aimed to go over japan. so this is a very salient debate right now. it's a watershed moment for japan in terms of their thinking on defensive strategy because as

some of our viewers know, japan since 1945 has a so-called peace constitution in which they have deliberately foreagain to offensive -- foregone offensive capabilities and the ability of japanese self-defense forces to dispatch overseas except in the case of u.n. peacekeeping operations. so this is a very important question and both the north korean threat and the china threat have sparked a lively and very vigorous debate in japan about whether they should be able to defend themselves in a more robust fashion. host: karen in east lansing, michigan. democratic caller. caller: yes, hello. it's been a very informative program, thank you. what i want to know is, what are the relations between iran and north korea? we often hear about materials sent between -- that south korea

has sent to iran, nuclear material. is that correct? guest: the relationship between iran and north korea, there is. that's a very deep relationship that has gone back for decades. and it's primarily been in the missile business. and so there are two aspects to this. one is north korea tests a new class of missiles, it's successful. these have been the short range ballistic missiles. they deploy them operationally. so they actually produce them and then deploy them on their soil, pointed at south korea and japan. but they also sell them. and one of the places, one of the biggest customers for north korean missiles has been iran. that's one element of the cooperation that we know very clearly happens. the other element, which is a bit more murky, is the extent to

which north korea is doing testing, missile technology, including rocket engine testing and things on behalf of iran. or as a proxy for iran. or that testing is taking place in iran as a proxy for north korea. so there's technical cooperation, not just sort of finished product sale. but technical cooperation that we think is happening between iran and north korea and is another element of the cooperation. this is aside from any economic and trade cooperation that may take place between iran and north korea. you also mentioned south korea. in the case of south korea there's certainly no weapons technology taking place between iran. but there's a vibrant commercial relationship. in addition south korea gets

some of its energy resources from iran and so the south koreans have traditionally asked for exemptions from u.s. sanctions on iran to be able to import some of that energy. host: what are you watching for in the coming days and weeks? guest: there are a couple of things. one is we have the chinese central party conference coming up i think starting on october 16. where the chinese leader will seek a third term, an unprecedented third term in office. and then of course we have our midterm elections coming up in the beginning of november. and why that's important for north korea is if we're trying to understand when they might do a nuclear test or when the next big provocation might come, you know, one might think that they want to avoid the chinese central party conference so that they don't embarrass the chinese. but at the same time they want to place themselves front and

center in the u.s. political calendar by doing something around the u.s. midterm election. so that window i think is someplace where we could see them do something from a political timing perspective. they do these tests for -- clearly for technical reasons. they're building capabilities. but we can't ignore other factors. they watch the news. they watch what is happening in the united states. and they see that president biden has his plate full with the war in europe, with concerns about china across the taiwan straits. with energy prices, with gas prices. they know that he's got a full plate. and they have no trouble, they have no problem with trying to make it more difficult for president biden. host: victor cha, the chair for

-- and senior vice president for the asia and korea at center for strategic and international studies. we always appreciate the conversation with you, mr. cha, thank you. guest: thanks very much. host: we're going to take a short break. when we come back, return to our questions on campaign 2022. what are your top issues? there are the lines on your screen. ♪ [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] >> book tv every sunday on c-span2 features lead authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at noon eastern south carolina republican senator tim scott talks about his book "america: a redemption story." on his life phreurbgts cal career and -- life, political career and his thoughts on america's future. missouri democratic congresswoman cori bush, author,

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newly elected member of congress. we ask this year's competitors, what is your top priority? and why? make a five to six-minute video that shows the importance of your issues, from owe potion and supporting -- owe potion and supporting perspective -- opposing and supporting perspectives. be bold. amongst the 1*dz00,000 in cash -- $100,000 in cash prizes is a $5,000 grand prize. videos must be submitted by january 20, 2023. visit our website at studentcam.org for competition rules, tips, resources and a step by step guide. >> there are a lot of places to get political information but only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. no matter where you're from or where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's network, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. if it happens here or here or

here or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we're back focusing on 2022. your top issue this is election cycle. what is bringing you to the polls, how do you plan to vote and for which party because your vote will decide which party controls congress for those second half of president biden's first term. in the monmouth university conducted a poll and asked what top issues rate extremely or very important to you, 82% said inflation, 72% said it's crime followed by elections and voting at 70%. just below that, jobs and unemployment ranked 68% and infrastructure 57%, abortion also a top issue of extremely or

very important at 56%. all the racial inequality 53%, 51% said gun control, extremely or very important in this election cycle. on the economy, the latest job numbers just came out for september. according to the labor department, 263,000 jobs added and below the expected 275,000 jobs but the unemployment rate dropped from 3.7% to 3.5%. here on c-span we've been bringing in some of the key congressional debates from across the country that will determine which party controls the house and senate, currently controlled by democrats, as you know. we're also covering governor debates as well. we want to show you in nevada, the gubernatorial debate last sunday where steve cities lack

faces phil lombardo, crime is one of the issue. >> people aren't safer than 10 years ago. crime expanded in our communities and it's in our neighborhoods and homes and businesses. i met with a roundtable of local businesses that told me one of the biggest problems they have is burglary. they can't get metro to respond to burglaries because it's so far down on their list. we need to take the safety in our community back. that's not happened, john. he's sitting on $124 million in the more cops fund he never allocated. >> you can respond. >> obviously anecdotal information, there's no proof in the data we don't respond to burglaries, that's an absolute falsehood and we absolutely respond to burglaries and the problem is we have to respond to twice as many burglaries because of the change in the legislation, the laws associated with burglaries and the

penalties associated with burglaries which proliferates among the criminal element and causes to have more calls for service. and $120 million in the more cops fund and we aren't able to hire more because the attitude proliferated among the public space defund police and lack of support for the police. it's not sexy to be a cop anymore because they don't feel they have support. my intent is to change that paradox. >> i don't know a requirement to be a cop was a sexy position. i never advocated to defunding the police. the sheriff at one point went on record and said he could support defunding of the police. >> that was inartful language. you don't think the sheriff wants to defund the police, do you? >> the sheriff said you could reallocate some of the funds used for law enforcement to another function. host: nevada's gubernatorial debate last sunday and find it on our website along with other

congressional and governor debates. c-span.org for all your campaign 2022 coverage. diane in ohio, democratic caller. what is your top issue this election cycle? caller: number one the job issue, of course, retirement money, social security, medicare, medicaid. you're kidding if you think that the republicans are not going to get rid of it. they have said it over and over like there on c-span during the day with congress talking. also, another big deal is about the abortion law. in the state of ohio, we have, back in 2019, the law was already made up for the heartbeat bill and then 2020, 52 little girls under the age of 15

were raped and impregnated. we've got children sleeping in offices. we have no place for them. eight of where my son works at the jail are in there for lack of child support. this is the third richest county in the state of ohio. where do you think all these kids are supposed to eat and sleep? people don't understand what legal means when it comes to drugs, fentanyl gets over here, it's distributed by white supremacists, 75% of the drugs that my son has to test for marijuana has fentanyl in it. the white supremacists

distribute the medication. host: diane, how do you know that? caller: they know it through the law enforcement. host: terry, in boone, iowa. what's your top issue? caller: my top issue and hope you don't cut me off, greta, is the same top issue i called you on every time you've been on that i called and that is the hunter biden laptop. you guys have covered it up for how long now? now it's out in the open and you still aren't apologizing you covered it up and ruined the election. that's my issue for 2022, just like it was in 2020. when are they going to investigate joe biden and his ties to hunter biden and hunter biden's ties to all these foreign countries? host: this is the front page of "the washington post" this morning, a viable case against hunter biden though the case changed, the investigation into hunter biden began in 2018 and

became the central focus of president donald trump during his unsuccessful 2020 re-election effort. initially the investigation centered around hunter biden's finances related to overseas business ties and consulting work, over time investigators with multiple agencies focused closely on whether he did not report all of his income and whether he lied on gun purchase paperwork in 2018 according to people familiar with the situation. terry, your reaction to that? caller: my reaction to that, this is their cover-up and their way of getting out of it. what they're going to do is throw more crumbs out to the public and say we'll get him on tax evasion or he lied about his thing on the gun. they're leaving out all the corruption and all the stuff that joe biden and him have done together. they don't want that out in the public. what they're doing is throwing a little bit out there so the american people will say oh, well, they did do something to

him and then they're going to let it be where no one can prosecute him farther. this is what they're up to, people, wake up. host: heard your point. to atlanta, georgia, jeff, democratic caller. hi, jeff. caller: how is it going today? host: good morning. your top issue. caller: my issues are i've got -- my first one is the gentleman brought up god. got a big problem with the liars and the politicians, they have a problem with lying and this and that, but really another one is the abortion issue. when i was 14, i had a girl that got pregnant and she didn't give me the chance to have a free will about that, you know. my issue is everybody needs to get off the judgmental things, pro-life, pro-choice. they're both judgmental and both

sin in god's eyes, you know what i'm saying. we need to mind your own business as far as that goes. host: we'll continue with your phone calls, getting your top issues of campaign 2022. first joining us this morning, though, to focus on one competitive race is big glover, a reporter with "the milwaukee journal sentinel" and joining us to talk about the wisconsin senate debate because mr. glover, the two candidates are meeting to debate tonight. what do you expect to hear? guest: they're going to clash over abortion, policing, inflation, more of a joint appearance than debate. it's only an hour long and there are six questioners and remains to be seen what kind of back and forth can you get in the format and they have another debate thursday which is a big moment for both candidates.

host: what is polling saying? guest: it shows the race close though johnson has an advantage in the public polls, the internal polls are believed to be closer. it's still considered a tossup race with a marginal edge to johnson at this point. host: why is this race important to watch? guest: why is this race important to watch? wisconsin was known as the bellwether back in the day, it's a purple state, very competitive, both sides, nobody expects anybody to blow anybody else out here and it's a presidential battleground, ron johnson has been in office now two terms. he's going for the third term, mandela barnes, the lieutenant governor is bidding to become the first black elected to the u.s. senate from wisconsin. they are opposites in terms of age, in terms of politics and in terms of disposition. it's a fascinating contest. host: what part of the state should folks be watchdog see

which part determines the winner of the senate race? guest: for the democrats it's madison in milwaukee, they have to get tremendous turnout. the area i'm looking at which could be a swing area is the third congressional district which is held by ron kind, it's in the western part of the state. he's a democrat and he's not running this time. this third district could be going decidedly towards republicans and that's an area that could determine the outcome of the senate race but it's going to be fascinating. we have a governor's race as well as the other statewide offices. host: what issues are helping the incumbent ron johnson. guest: johnson entered and he had a lead according to the law school poll and at that point johnson and his republican allies battered barnes over

policing, security issues, crime, and that seems to have worked to get him back into the race and into what may be an apparent lead right now. there's just tens of millions of dollars has been spent trying to define mandela barnes who has only run for statewide office once. host: what is hurting the incumbent, senator johnson? guest: the issue that's probably hurting him the most, or the democrats are trying to hurt him the most with is abortion, his stance on abortion. the other thing about ron johnson is he remains under water with voters. that is more voters disapproving of the job he's done than approving of the job he's done. it's been that way for the last year or two. as you know, johnson has been a focus in national debates over issues with the presidential election, the covid crisis, so

he is under water with voters. matt: how is it mandela barnes has been able to keep this competitive? guest: mandela barnes basically won the democratic primary by acclimation. it was a big primary and then at the last moment the other top contenders pulled out of the race when they realized they could not beat barnes so barnes was the democratic nominee and that will get you $35%, $48% of the vote guaranteed in this state. there's very few voters in the middle to compete for and that's what both sides are competing for. host: how expensive will the race be and where are the candidates getting their money and is senator johnson putting in his own money? guest: senator johnson is not putting in his own money he has a donor apparatus and mandela barnes as well. in the last quarter mandela barnes raised $20 million. we have not seen ron johnson's

numbers yet but they're probably pretty good. then you have outside groups, especially republican groups, mitch mcconnell's connected superpack and a sort of state super-p.a.c. funded by a couple billionaires supporting johnson. there's plenty of money around. host: how expensive could this be, one of the most expensive? guest: oh, yeah, i can't put a dollar figure on but yes, one of the most expensive and the fact is you get more bang for your buck advertising in wisconsin than you do in other states. so you know, the public is now flooded with these ads for the last month, the last five minutes of tv news is basically one ad after the next. host: you can follow bill glover's reporting@journal

sentinel and daislive.com. thank so you much. for more on the senate race listen to tonight's debate featuring the republican senator ron johnson and democratic challenger mandela barnes hosted by the wisconsin broadcaster's association and you can watch it live at 8:00 p.m. eastern time right here on c-spans with our video mobile app c-span now or online at c-span.org. we're asking for your top issues in this campaign cycle. there's a month to go before you all get to decide which party controls congress. democratic caller from illinois. you're up. caller: good morning, ms. greta. i first want to wish a happy birthday to brian lamb. i was supposed to call on sunday but then i saw you so i thought i'd call.

my issue is to save democracy, to be honest with you. i see you earlier used 299 people running are deniers, election deniers of president biden. and what that tells me is that these people, if they are elected, would not honor the 2024 elections. and if that's the case, democracy is lost. that experiment we were talking about for the last 246 years that the founders had, benjamin franklin was asked what kind of government did you give us, he said it's a republic if you can keep it. are we in 2024 going to sever that by saying no, we will decide, republicans will decide who gets the actual presidency based on whatever felonious arguments they may face, they may present whether it's the

state legislator that decides, and so one vote, one person voting is going to go to waste. and so my entire thing i'm prepared to do and i want republicans want fair-minded to look at this country and what it gave you and what it was rather than destroying it for the sake of a party that doesn't even serve you. joe biden has done more for this country in this two years for your pocket. not only did he fund the 1, 400 immediately when he passed, he did medicare. these elderly people that are calling, they're going to benefit from the medicare negotiation, making it easier for them to vote throughout, it's easier. the infrastructure bill, look what's happening in mississippi. that's directly going to be benefited, those poor communities. host: ok.

"the washington post," what you referenced is the ones that had the reporting, a majority of g.o.p. nominees, 299 in all deny the 2020 election results. and they say of those, 173 are running for safely g.o.p. seats. david in reno, nevada, republican. hi, david. how do you plan to vote, which candidate? caller: i got to tell you, let's stay off the red, blue or orange topic. i normally would want to talk 2020 election but i'm going straight to jeffrey epstein and blaine maxwell. host: we are asking for your top issues in this election cycle, campaign 202 it. roger in troy, michigan, republican. caller: my top issue is immigration. i think -- i can't say his last name correctly but i think with the border being wide open and

we have all these illegal immigrants in the united states, i don't understand why they don't just shut the border down. i understand when they tried -- when i think it was the african-american man, they had his young brother killed in chicago, he tried to get information on how they were going to stop all the crime there and nobody wanted to explain how. we're in a country where we do have laws and can't figure out why they're not implemented at all. let me move on to the abortion issue. the abortion issue as a reminder, i can define a woman, just to be very clear about that. host: roger on immigration, this is an issue that came up not surprisingly in the arizona senate race. democratic senator mark kelly and his republican challenger

blake masters squaring off over this issue. >> we need comprehensive immigration reform. [video clip] >> we have tens of thousands of dreamers in the state of arizona which is as american as my two kid, one daughter lives in tucson, my granddaughter lives in tucson, i think of dreamers, no different. my opponent blake masters on the other hand, he said he would never offer citizenship to dreamers. i think it's mean and fundamentally un-american. we need comprehensive immigration reform in a lot of different ways. i talk to farmers and ranchers all the time. they can't get the work force they need under the existing visa programs. they're really struggling. you look at yuma and the food supply issues there and the work force issues of legal immigration, legal immigrants coming across the border to work in the state of arizona, adding so much to our economy but this issue gets politicized over and

over again from people like my opponent blake masters. >> politicizing the issue, not understanding the issue, respond, please. >> i respond very well and understand mark kelly supports open borders and why we have them. he's the 50th vote in the senate. joe biden needed his vote. kelly could have doug in and said i'm not supporting a single spending bill and not a single piece of your agenda and unless and until we get border security biden would have had to secure the border. mark kelly, if this is a result of senator kelly being focused on the border, he's the most ineffective senator of all time. the border is wide open and people are walking through by the hundreds of thousands. if these mexican drug cartels, these terrorists, if they could vote every one of them would vote for senator kelly because they get what they want from him which is a complete wide open border and free reign and "the sentinel" is killing our children. host: from last night's debate in arizona, the closely watched

senate race and for all of the closely watched races in the country, turn to c-span, you can go to our website c-span.org to find our debate coverage of campaign 2022, your unfiltered view of politics, and you'll see many debates, governors and senators, house congressional debates listed on our website there and you can watch these as many people watch them closely to see who will control the house and the senate. chase in panama city, florida, independent. hi, chase, good morning to you. caller: good morning. host: what's your top issue? caller: yes. i have two topics. one, very important, our democracy is at risk. if that goes, the other issues we are all worried about will mean nothing.

voting will mean nothing. so we could control those issues that are very important to running our country because our democracy would be gone. the second issue has to do with hunter biden's laptop. the information on his laptop should be termed illegal because the person went and gave up the information without hunter biden's permission and that was an invasion of privacy. so therefore, nothing should be done about his laptop. the person who gave out that information should be prosecuted. and those are my two issues. host: ok. all right. some political news yesterday, senator ben sass likely to resign from the senate putting

all eyes on ricketts and the nebraska republican is likely to accept the university of florida presidency and leave congress in the near future according to people familiar with his plans. he tweeted out yesterday about accepting that position. nebraska governor petrickest would then appoint a replacement for sass which the seat is up for a special election in 2024. one of the people familiar with sass's plan sedrickest himself is a potential person for his seat. carlin from nevada. caller: good morning. this wasn't really what i was going to call about but since hunter biden has been brought up, i guess i will talk about that. host: is that a top issue for you? caller: it is, yeah, because somebody else brought this up. so i thought i would just, you know, go along with it.

about hunter biden, there was an article in "the times" about four months ago, a full page, a whole page article about something china bought and there was a group that was paid by the bank of china a billion dollars. that didn't have anything to do with hunter biden and his group. however, it went down to the least paid and that was $300 million and that was paid to hunter biden and his two partners. that was what they got -- for, i'm sorry, it's $30 million. it was $30 million they got and that was paid by the bank of china. and they traced to see what they did with that. not one of them took any of the money.

they put it right back into their company. the three partners, hunter biden and his two partners. host: i'm not sure if you're referring to new york magazine's piece about the laptop, the sorted saga of hunter biden's laptop in case anyone is interested, a lengthy piece. the first thing you need to understand about the hunter biden laptop is it's not a laptop, they write, s.c.i. took possession of the original if you accept the version of events by those who distributed the data which hunter biden and his lawyers don't and all we have now are copies of copies. when it first publicly surfaced 20 days before the 2020 election, the authenticity of the material was doubted to the degree twitter and facebook banned the story from political discourse. since then mainstream news organizations including "the washington post" came to verify at least some of the information

contained is authentic and hard to think of a single individual who experienced as total and alienation of digital privacy since our devices became extensions of our consciousness. that's from the new york magazine, a piece about the laptop if you're interested. john, florence, massachusetts, independent. we're talking about your top issues for campaign 202 it. what are they? caller: thank you very much for taking my call. i hope you give me some time. my main things are, like i say, i'm an independent and i haven't heard any talk about rafael warnock and his covering up of child abuse at his church or spousal abuse. that's not my main issue. my main issue is -- host: are you voting in massachusetts? caller: yeah i am and i'm an independent and the democrats win everything, they have a governor republican so they have somebody to blame for everything. the election deniers, i have two

things, there were a lot of election deniers in 2004 and 2016 still in office now for the democrats, too, and nobody promotes that. and the other thing i want to say about kanye west with the white lives matter sweatshirt, i think i can solve some of the racial relations problems we have because when sports teams lose the world series or super bowl, they give them to the third world nation the t-shirts they made earlier and it's great and nobody cares. they should give the white lives t-shirts to those crossing the border because they said -- host: we'll leave it there. we have a couple minutes left, your top issues for campaign 2022. if it's the economy, we showed you the latest job numbers in september showed the unemployment rates dropped from 3 .7% to 3 .5% and there were 263,000 jobs added. this from "usa today's" weekend section, front page, cracks show in labor markets, job cuts on

rise ahead of the shopping holiday season, u.s. based employers announced nearly 30,000 jobs cut last month, 68% increase from a year earlier and 46% increase from august. some cracks are beginning to appear in the labor market. hiring is slowing and downsizing events are beginning to occur. which sectors are cutting job? five industries are the automotive, health care industry, technology, retail and services. that in the front page of "usa today." this issue of inflation coming up in many of the congressional debates across the country along with abortion as well and we've been covering many of these debates, calling them on our website c-span.org. here's one of them from virginia's 10th congressional district and the back and forth between the two candidates on inflation.

[video clip] >> it's on the rise affecting the americans' wallets and what caused the inflation and what can congress do to help it? >> inflation is not due to any one cause, there are a number of reasons we're suffering from inflation right now. the main one being the pandemic economy, the big shift in terms of our supply and demand. people aren't going on vacation and want to buy more goods. at the same time they're home and want to buy more things and stick in their houses. at the same time we saw supply chains suffering from historic shortages and things shut down much of the world making it harder to get these products. we have the disconnect between supply and demand you end up with higher prices. on another part of it is definitely putin's war in ukraine, cutting down on global oil and gas. so we work very hard in in the congressional delegation to

lower fuel. and making a difference in people's lives cutting the cost of health care premiums and allowing medicare to negotiate drug prices and bringing down drug prices and also helping to decrease cost for energy now >> inflation began on day one of the bite administration -- biden administration. when you put on the regulations through executive orders on the oil, chemical and gas industries and instead of relying on american workers who have the cleanest practices in the world, we are now going to saudi arabia, venezuela and even iran, who are murdering women on the streets for protesting against the morality police. we can be energy independent, that is what the cause of inflation -- being able to rely on our own oil and gas instead of other countries.

host: from virginia's 10th congressional district. for all of your campaign 2022 coverage, go to c-span. follow us on c-span.org. you can find all the key races in this election cycle. thanks for being with us this morning, that does it for today's "washington journal." enjoy your weekend. ♪ >> the u.s. labor department reports the unemployment rate dropped from 3.7% to 3.5% in september. the u.s. economy added about 263 jobs -- 263,000 jobs this month. president biden is expected to

deliver remarks on the job and the economy this afternoon and we will have it live beginning at 1:35 eastern. you can watch it on our app or online at c-span.org. ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including comcast. >> are you thinking this is just a community center? it is way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with thousands of community centers so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. comcast supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> ♪ >> up now in our live campaign 2022 campaign coverage, american university posts a discussion previewing the midterm elections

focusing on how potential surprises could affect the races and president biden's agenda. 8:00 p.m. eastern, senator johnson and his challenger and della barnes debate in wisconsin's u.s. senate race. you can see these events live on c-span, on our free video app c-span now or online at c-span.org. >> the january 6 committee returns thursday. ahead of the release of their written report expected by the end of the year. you can watch a hearing live beginning at 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. c-span now, or anytime on demand at c-span.org. >> arizona democratic senator mark kelly is being challenged by republican blake masters and libertarian mark victor. in the november elections. the three met for their first