in dues, mostly for political purposes. they are a juggernaut. anyone who opposes them, they will consolidate national resources and if person unelected. >> his book "nonaccountable" sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen on the free c-span now app. comments. host: good morning. the video of tyre nichols death at the hands of memphis police was released yesterday evening. five police officers were fired and charged with second-degree murder. there were protests overnight. this morning, we are getting your reaction to the video and thoughts on what policing reforms you support. give us a call on our lines

divided by region. in the eastern or central time zones, (202) 748-8000. mountain or pacific, (202) 748-8001. and we have a line set aside for law enforcement, (202) 748-8002. you can send us a text that (202) 748-8003. send your first name and city/state. we are on social media, facebook.com/c-span, and on twitter at the handle @cspanwj. this is a local article from memphis, the commercial appeal. headline, video shows police kicking, pepper spray and, beating tyre nichols after traffic stop. it says officers tased, pepper sprayed and brutally beat tyre

nichols during a traffic stop according to video footage released by the city of memphis. the footage, which comes from a sky cop camera and body cameras, is split into four videos. police can be heard yelling at nichols to get out of the car and forcibly removing him. the video has been described by law enforcement and attorneys as absolutely appalling, alarming and unconscionable. the videos show officers kicking nichols at least twice in the face, striking him at least three or four times with a baton in the upper body area, punching him at least four times in the face, punching him at least two more times in the of -- in the upper body area and kicking him at least twice in the abdomen. we will show you a short piece from that surveillance video. some viewers might find this disturbing.

[video clip] president biden spoke with reporters last night after watching the video and talking to nichols mother. [video clip] >> we talked about, as you heard her when she spoke publicly, but she also talked about how she didn't know what she's been doing. i told her that i had some idea of what that loss is like and although it is impossible to believe now, a time will come when you smile before there is a tear. host: president biden talking about the video. there were protests but here is an npr article headline saying,

mostly peaceful protests held across the u.s. after release of tyre nichols. footage says that numerous mostly peaceful protests or held across the u.s. following friday's release of body camera footage of the killing of tyre nichols. all five officers involved in his arrest were fired and charged with second-degree murder, assault and kidnapping earlier this week. protests in some cities lead to the calling of the national guard while others affected transit. in memphis, a group of demonstrators gathered at a downtown park and then took to the streets, shutting down the bridge over the mississippi river between memphis and west memphis. they chanted, no justice, no peace, and closed the bridge for nearly three hours before peacefully disbanding. we are getting your reaction also about police reform. anything you would support. we will go to the phones.

philip is in jackson, mississippi. good morning. caller: good morning, young lady. what a privilege to have an opportunity to express my thoughts about the situation. i have been very interested in what people do as far as the development ever since the civil rights era. i was born in 1967, so that should tell you a little bit about my background as far as history. i have seen the evolution of america's attempt to grow from hate and prejudice and racism and it seems to always install out. it is like you get in a car, a beautiful car, going, and the next thing you know, there is something breaking down on it and you continue to throw money

into it but it never solves the problem. however, people need to understand there is hate and violence and too many people are taught that from day one. it does not just start with police brutality. it starts with brutality in our minds, what we are taught to believe we have to react to everything. i do not want to get too wordy and talk about how much -- how painful it was and embarrassing it was to watch what happened within our own community, the self-hate of the -- the overall hate that persists in this country, but it was quite -- it took me back to something that happened to me in georgia, where i was arrested, actually, for

nothing, just driving while black back in the day. it was 20 something years ago, maybe longer than that. it was the most frightening thing, you know, that police could just manipulate the situation. host: what ended up happening, philip? you got pulled over and then what happened? caller: my friend, my accomplice traveling for vacation, she had a mild heart attack, and i took basically a small amount of marijuana. it is like if you had half of a penny and cut that in half. that is what they coerced us into showing them because they accused of of -- accused us of trafficking. she had a mild heart

attack. i went to jail. i was able to return to maryland at the time, where i lived. i found a decent lawyer and had friends in the justice system. it turned out to be a lesson to pre-warn me about the coming times we are living in and that is what i'm trying to say. it gave me a warning. i was just one of those ones, oh, it will never happen to you. we are good guys. policing is only going to be bad for the bad guys. it pre-warned me. and i wrote about it. it was good therapy. i wrote a book called running in my shoes. host: we will move on to doris in atlanta, georgia. good morning. caller: i watched it and, you

know, before they presented it, i believe they sort of hyped it, the news, because it was brutal and it was excessive, but they sort of said, oh, this is going to be so inhumane that it was worse than the rodney king beating, and i would not compare it that way. it looked as though they were trying to subdue this man and they used excessive force. so if you are comparing brutality to another brutality, i would say the rodney king beating was brutal, but what happened, rodney king survived. this man died. that is the ultimate type of brutality. but what they did -- there was a difference.

so it doesn't say there's a need for police reform. i have worked in police departments when i was in high school. i looked out the window and i saw the police beating, white police, beating another white man. and i wondered -- i went back to my supervisor and said, they are beating somebody out in the parking lot. the supervisor said, well, doris, you don't know what they did, what the person did. i am thinking for myself, that justifies what the police are doing to this man? i going -- i go downstairs to see them bring him in and he has his face covered up. this has been going on. host: what kind of reform do you think would help? caller: i am thinking there should be some national guidelines as to what police can

do and what the punishment or penalty for certain types of police actions have to be taken. it doesn't have to be all that complicated that they cannot do certain things. if these police, for example, they were automatically fired, you know -- when they reach a certain level of brutality. don't just think that they are put on desk duty or something like that. host: and doris mentioned the rodney king beating from a while ago. here's an ap article that says attorneys lichen tyre nichols arrest to rodney king's beating.

it says memphis police officers beat a motorist. it says attorney ben crump says police video shows that nichols was shocked, pepper spray and and restrained after the 29-year-old fedex worker and father was pulled over january 7, minutes from his home. next to charles in port huron, michigan. caller: how are you? host: i am ok. caller: that's good. i am enjoying your show. i usually do. here is the thing. we are trying to reform policing in this country and i do not agree with that. that means less -- they want to reimagine police, so that means less police on the ground, and when that happens, we need to be

all united to take up arms, because what they are doing with the second amendment in this country and the first amendment, is unconstitutional. host: you say we need to take up arms to do what exactly? caller: to protect ourselves when they want to take away police. so -- and with the atf coming out with all their rules and the fbi doing what they are doing, they need to be dismantled. there ain't no call from them. in the constitution. host: the fbi should be dismantled you are saying? caller: yes. where does it say in the constitution we need the fbi and the atf and the department of education? nowhere.

nowhere. point it out to me and i will shut up about that. see you. host: ok. let's take a look at a gallup poll talking about where americans stand on the need for police reform. it says americans remain steadfast on police reform needs in 2022. that highlights half support major reform. 39% minor reform. community relations changes to management practices remain top proposals. black people report more positive interactions with police than in 2020. it says that broad support remains for reforms that don't weaken the police. here are some things that would -- that two thirds or more strongly or somewhat endorse. requiring police officers to have good relations with the

community, changing management practices so officers with multiple incidents of abuse of power are not allowed to serve, changing management practices so officer abuses are punished, promoting community-based alternatives such as violence intervention, ending stop and frisk, changing leaving -- legal practices so police face legal action for abuse of power or inflicting unnecessary harm. these proposals have low support. reducing the budget of police departments and shifting the money to social programs, abolishing police departments, or providing only nonlethal weapons to police. tyrone is next in new york, new york. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have had good experiences and bad experiences with law enforcement.

i try not to use a blanket analogy. whenever i have a bad experience with law enforcement, i try not to say all police are bad. we have this horrible habit of putting everything into one box. when you have a bad experience with one person, that means everybody is bad. we have to stop doing that. we have to get out of that habit. that video is horrible. it was horrible. those guys were horrible. we have people responsible who do bad things. my problem with that blanket analogy thing, where you blame everybody for one person's actions, is the people who do that who are in power, we have to know that they should be held responsible. host: what kind of police

reforms would you support? caller: i would support getting rid of qualified immunity because i do not think that is right, that the public, only the public has to pay for another person's actions that were outside the boundaries. they have restrictions on them too. they should be held responsible for the restrictions. they disregard them. they go, that does not apply to me. because we have people, the more powerful they get, the rest responsible -- the less responsible they get for their actions. you should be held to a higher standard. you will say police officers are human too. they are but they have the power of life and death on their hip. they have to understand you have a higher responsibility.

you are treated differently because you have that power. and collectively, as a country, we need to understand that there are people in positions of power that should be held to a higher standard because they have that power. we need to stop letting people off because, oh, well, he's only human. he is, but you have responsibility. host: all right. let's go to joseph next in bedford, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i can tell you about two states, my hometown, detroit, michigan. growing up there, police and the courts and police brutality i suffered at their hands many times, but in virginia, where i live now, bedford pd, sheriffs, state police, everyone i have met has been polite,

professional, helpful, but i would like to bring up something about all these cases nobody else brings up that causes this, is fleeing and eluding. some people think it is a game to take off in their car, take off on foot, wrestle with the police, putting innocent lives at risk, but that does not give anyone the right to be judge, jury and executioner. what happened to that man, i could not even watch the whole video. it made me sick to my stomach. when i lived in detroit, there was this guy, the police beat him to death in the street, a puddle of blood so bad the city went out next day -- out the next day to cover it with sand. those were well-known, those cops, for police brutality, corruption, and -- host: what do you think is the difference? you draw a distinction between

the police in detroit and bedford, virginia. what makes them so different? what causes them to be different ? caller: i have no idea. i spent from my birth up until 2008 in detroit and most people there deal with problems on their own because the cops are more corrupt than the criminals. i am white. i was abused by them. i did not flee, did not fight, but i got my butt kicked more than once for nothing. that is just how the. host: let's look at the family of tyre nichols. they spoke to the press yesterday before the footage was released. [video clip] >> i do not know what else to say right now. i want to say i have never seen the video. but what i have heard is very

horrific, very horrific. and any of you who have children, please do not let them see it. i just want to ask for prayers from my family, from this whole community, and i want to -- want to say to the five police officers who murdered my son, you have disgraced your own family. but you know what? i am going to pray for you and your family because, at the end of the day, this should not have happened. this just should not have happened. and we want justice for my son.

justice for my son. >> justice for tyre. >> justice for tyre. >> justice for tyre. host: that was the mother of tyre nichols. we are taking your calls. your reaction to the video released last night and what you think about police reforms and what kind of reforms you would support. take a look at senator marsha blackburn, republican from tennessee. she tweeted, the footage released tonight is difficult to watch. my office has been in contact with doj and will continue to work with federal and local officials. unconfident the memphis police and state of tennessee -- i am confident the memphis police and state of tennessee will conduct a thorough investigation. this is doug.

are you there? no. let's go to vince in georgia. caller: good morning, mindy. first, my heart goes out to tyre nichols family. as everyone has said, the video is hard to watch it my thing is, who is hiring all these police officers doing these horrible acts? the one idea i come up with is why don't we -- why don't we -- we hire the officers, but when you hire them, you hire them under contract? it works with teachers. the first 12 years of an officer's service, every three years, his contract is up for review. if he does well, is doing good things for the community, does a

good job, gets a raise. if not, the contract is ended and they are gone. because these guys, it is unbelievable that some of these officers have been on the police force five, six, seven, eight, nine years or whatever. they become part of this scorpion unit. in atlanta, we had this situation in the late 1980's. these guys were just straight up bullies. the video i saw last night was just totally unacceptable and my heart goes out to the -- host: so, vents, you would support better hiring practices, better training? caller: absolutely. better training should be at the top of the list, but most importantly, accountability. you are not hired straight up, where you are just tired from

day one, but rather, you are hired under contract. it works for teachers. why can't it work for police officers? you are hired for a two year it comes up, you going t review -- you go under review, and if it is gou move on, if not, have a good life. that is all i wanted to put out, mimi. have a good day. host: rob in washington, d.c. hi, robert. callod morning. how are you doing? i did not see the video but i did seeat the white house last night. a similar incident has happened to me back in 1992 in washington, d.c. i think a lot of this started with a new law.

in april 2, 1992, george w bush made a lawt allows police to do what they a dng right now. gave the police something within the law. right after he made that announcement, that same night, i waeaten senselessly across the streetrom the very first united states national cemetery. i was thrown into reet. cars almost rolled over my hand. i was brought back, thrown against a car. host: for what, robert? i mean, why did that happen? caller: i was in my neighborhood and there was a domestic dispute going on outside. i happened to walk over to see what was going on. one police officer arrived.

there was only one officer. so i stood there and i walked up and looked at them and walked away. i stood a distance away from the incident where the police were. host: they thought you were involved in the dispute. caller: they did not even look at me. they knew i did not have anything to do with it, but i was on -- but he was on a motorcycle. the second police officers came in their cars. so they stopped their cars. i walked away from them. then the first officer initiated the first -- here, i am maybe 15 to 20 feet away from the first officer. i walked, looked at the cop, he

saw me, and then i walked away. the first officer comes out and he shouted at me. i said, ok, so i started walking away. host: what do you think of any reforms that would make sure that does not happen? caller: i don't know. because if the president initiated this response, because that same week, a lot of black men in d.c., all around d.c., right after april 2, 19 92, were all being harassed out of no way. there could be a stop and seizure with no probable cause. i even worked for them. i work for one of the trainers of officers who has been retired now for over 20 years. host: i will move on to frank in

manheim, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i looked at the whole thing myself and no one is talking about the beautiful things the police chief said. that young lady took care of business. she put the facts out there without all of these complicated words and terminologies. she put it just out there like she seen it, like it was, and those black officers, they had no reason to do like they did. they act like they are a bunch of slave catchers for the master. do you know what i am saying? they are like a bunch of wild dogs. they beat that poor man for no good reason and they were proud of it. they all look like they should be put on somebody's football team. it is like the honorable elation mohammed said, we can take care of -- elijah mohammed said, we can take care of our own business, pulling up punches, just put it out there.

that lady was so on. and to think that this all took place where brother martin luther king got shot, you know, it is just ridiculous. , it is just ridiculous. black folks got to wake up. just because we got the same skin doesn't mean we got anything in common and most of the time. you got to look towards the lord. the devil is real. i am talking white devil, black devil, puerto rican devil, chinese devil. satan is having a ball. host: all right. let's take a look at senator reverend raphael warnock of georgia. he said, may god bless the memory of tyre nichols. i pray for his family during this time of unspeakable loss. his life matters. we have been here time and time again. we must never accept injustice

and cruelty as the price for public safety. this has to stop. we got a text from stephen in michigan who says, there is no reason in the world that justifies use of deadly force i officers in a basic traffic stop. you can train and instruct police how to deal with everything, but some situations escalate, and all goes out the or. austin, texas, go morning, roy. caller: good morning. so nice to be on the show. the only time in my life i ever had a confrontation with the police, i was my 20's, and it was my attitude at caused the prob got pulled over, had some people vehicle. because i waspped, we were forced to sit in a ditch in

freezing weather while they dismantled my truck. it was because of me. what we have in today's society, we have police officers walking up to vehicles, getting shot. we have problems with the mentality of the public because, i don't condone what the police officers did to this young man, and my heart goes out to the family, but it could have all been prevented if the young man had not run. host: he was being beaten, and then he ran. caller: well, for what i read in the news, he was originally pulled over for reckless driving ran for that. i may have missed the article. that is what i read. host: there was a violent confrontation, and then he ran. then there was a second violent confrontation. i understand your point. in your situation, you had a bad

attitude with the police. caller: young and dumb, you know how that goes. i don't disagree with the fact that we need to reform police. host: like what? tell me about some of the reforms you would support. caller: it is so difficult when you talk about reforming police because none of us wear a badge and a gun. we are not confronted daily with what they are confronted with. i think more in the lines of being able to read people, to understand the situation, it may be being taught how to de-escalate things. we need to reform the way the public thinks as well. it is a bad situation all the way around. we need to find a solution. it needs reforms on both sides

of the line. thank you for taking my call. i enjoy when you are on the show. host: thank you. let's take a look at the merrick garland. he spoke about tyre nichols' case yesterday. [video clip] >> want to give my deepest condolences to tyre nichols' family. cannot imagine what his parents must feel. the united states attorney has met personally with the family to express the department's condolences and his own. we have opened, last week, a federal civil rights investigation under the color of law statute, which we will be investigating. we have been working in support of the state and local law enforcement in this matter, and we will continue to do so. i want to say -- i want to

repeat what the family has said, that expressions of concern when people see this video, we urge that they be peaceful and nonviolent. that is what the family has urged. that is what the justice department urges as well. host: that was the attorney general talking about the tyre nichols case. the video was released last night. we are asking for your reaction and also what kind of police reforms would you consider. the numbers are on your screen. if you are in eastern or central, (202) 748-8000. mountain or pacific, (202) 748-8001. if you are in law enforcement, (202) 748-8002. steve from south carolina. hello. caller: good morning. i watched the video. it was almost nauseating to me. i just hate physical, brutal violence. mimi, i got an answer about the

training. i will give you a demographic about myself. i am 75, white, born in charleston, south carolina, grew up in the 1950's and 1960's. so many people ended up on the police forces back then that were not particularly educated and may have been bullies. that should have changed by now. better pay, better benefits, better training. we hope that training would help with this. when i said my evening prayers last night, i prayed for peace and strength from god to tyre's family as they grieve. this transcends race. we saw this last night. this transcends race. so many police have out-of-control egos. their pride is off the charts. if you challenge their authority

at any level, they are going to make you pay. how dare you challenge me? i am in control here. your life is in my hands. i am going to show you about challenging my authority. that is a big problem. it transcends race. it can be white on black, black on black. i have mentioned this on social media. if i were a trainer in a police department, the first question i would put down would be multiple-choice. if someone in a routine traffic stop, dui, reckless driving, challenges your authority through the window of the van with a weapon, how are you going to handle it? that would stump them all. i would say we are going to audit every police man here. we are going to have on the scene audits. we are going to have unmarked

cars that looks like any other car, you will not know on your beat, right around and break the law. we are going to have them swerve, reckless driving. we are going to have equipment in the car to monitor how you treat that person. we are going to have them challenge you. we are going to have them say you cannot stop me. you see what i am trying to say. we are going to do it from time to time. you better be on your p's and q's. that would make them guys think twice about how they handle traffic stops. i am not talking about someone brandishes a weapon. that would help. it would make me think twice. host: let's go to randy, wisconsin. caller: good morning. i agree with just about everybody. this is a terrible, terrible accident, something going on

down there. you want to put the blame on somebody. do you think tyrone's mother ever told him if you get picked up by a cop, do what they say? if they say get out of the car, get out of the car. if they say get on the ground, get on the ground. don't get up and start running. that means you got a wolfpack behind you. they are going to get you. all parents, i did it with my grandkids. if you get stopped by a cop, you do exactly -- you might have drugs in your car. you just got caught. reckless driving. host: in this case -- i take your point -- but in this case, tyre was already on the ground, and he was still beating.

caller: i seen that. i watched the video. when they said get out of the car, he should have gotten out of the car. he did not have to be drug out of the car. beat him up. host: i wonder why he needed to get out of the car if he was being pulled over for possibly reckless driving. caller: if that is your point of view on it, and you get pulled over, siin your car. you will probably get the same treatment that tyrone got. listen to the officers. they are there to support you, help you. you cannot go around doing violations. talk to your kids today. if a cop pulls you over, right or wrong, do what they say. host: let's go to jackie in illinois. good morning.

caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. first of all, my condolences go out to the family of tyre nichols. i am 63 years old. i am in african-american. i have 20 biological children from three marriages. i tell all of my adult children, if the police pull you over, and they demand you get out of the car, and you have not broken the law, call me or a family member, lock your doors. do not remove yourself from the car. i had a son recently call me, and he called me and told the police officer on the speakerphone i am talking to my lawyer.

i have worked for law firms most of my life. i know the law. i understand the law. my parents were police officers. i trained under my parents to understand the law. if you are brandishing a weapon, that is a different case. when the police pull you over, and they say get out of the car, very aggressive, call someone. tell someone with some type of authority that i have been stopped. the police are trying to make me get out of my car. i don't know why they are trying to make me get out of the car. when my son called me that day -- that night, what happened was he was driving through a detour,

and the detour signs did not really speak much, just that it was a detour. they did not say what road to get off on. he tried to go around the detour. the police jumped out and pulled him over. i could hear the police demeanor. my son had me on speaker. i said what the speaker up to the window and cracked the window. do not get out of your car. the officer was yelling at my son. i told the officer, excuse me, you are talking to one of my clients. the officer immediately changed his tone, and he said he is reckless driving. i said where is he reckless driving through. the officer explained the

situation with the detour. i said i know that intersection. they should have that intersection completely blocked off. there should be an officer at that intersection to wave traffic around. you just cannot pull people over. host: you are saying if you do not have a weapon and have not broken the law, do not get out of the car even if the police tell you. caller: do not get out of your car. i am hoping people understand that they do not have -- the police do not have a right to force you out of your car. host: let's go next to jeff, law enforcement in north carolina. caller: how are you doing today? host: good. caller: i noticed most of these

have been democrat cities. seems like, if you go to your phone, they might -- and that is not something to do. on the suspect part, he was pulled over, then he took off in his car first and ran. they may have a foot pursuit and all that. don't do anything to piss the police off. do what you are told to the letter. host: are you a police officer? caller: ex. host: you are a former police officer. have you ever had the situation of a confrontation with somebody for a traffic stop? caller: yes, many times. i noticed those police officers were not properly trained. it is basic takedown and control

moves. no officers took control of the guy's legs. you can take the guy down, get control of his legs, and then you have the situation under control. you take him down and get control. all those guys have no control of that guy whatsoever. they are poorly trained. this happens all the time. poor training. all the black guys, rodney king, gorge foreman, all of them, they argued with the cops. that gave them a reason to get hurt. do what you are told. don't break the law, and you should be ok. host: take a look at abc news has an article about why congress has failed to pass police reform in recent years. tyre nichols' recent death is

centering calls for reform. for the first time -- this has not been the first time in recent years that police reform has been a serious subject. president biden campaigned on a out to reform policing. he has vowed to sign into law a comprehensive police reform bill. despite promises, there has been no bill put forward by congress for him to sign. there has been multiple attempts on capitol hill in recent years to pass police reform. none have been successful. keith is next in decatur, illinois. caller: how are you doing? host: i am ok. caller: i he en going through, for years, i have my tuation. y time something like this happens, it has a major effect i am trying to write a book. i have not gotten started.

i know every story i had, in the main thing i want to say -- and the main thing i want to say, they keep pushing stuff under the rug. i have not forgot about my situation and confrontations. i grew up with the police in decatur. my cousin, he was named after this policeman. the police man had three sons. one of them was a junior i graduated with. every time this happens, i tried to call one of the brothers who was a police man. i went to the police station to try to get my story out when they did that down there in missouri. i better turn the tv off because i am listening to myself talk. the police killed my brother in new jersey.

i was 22. my father was a big man. my brother's head was bigger than my father's. this was at 22 years old. i am 67. so many stories, i want to write a book called i love my city, but i hate my city. host: what could be a solution? is there a policy that needs to be put in place? caller: yes, they need to get together with these police officers, the one that beat me up, i faced him. he was a police officer. now he is a macon county sheriff. i seen him last month. it is almost like he jumped out in front of me. just let me know he seen me. i seen him. i put god in control of my life now. he helped me to get through this. host: let's talk to mark in

north carolina. caller: yes, ma'am. thank you for taking my call. host: go ahead. you are on the air. caller: can you hear me? host: i can. go ahead. caller: two videos yesterday. the first video was nancy pelosi's husband getting struck with a hammer. that young man hit that elderly person with a hammer. you could clearly hear the elderly gentleman on the floor knocked out, snoring. and this young man getting beaten like the video we sought later in the evening. the young man with a hammer, no bruises, nothing.

this is what we continue to see in this society year after year. you hate to say it, color barrier, but, you know, that is what we continue to see. that is my thought on that. the system is broken. i got one more question if i may. i hope later on today, mr. lamp, i've been watching you all for years, i hope you have something on the situation because i was in middle school when challenger happened. thank you for taking my call. host: thank you. let's take a look at social media. we have a text from kent, police departments need to do a better job screening who has the honor to serve their communities and

who is not able to because they do not possess the emotional and mental attitude to deal with the stress. diane in pennsylvania says, there is no defending any law enforcement losing their grip on what is ethical conduct when confronting unarmed suspects. ike in new hampshire says, as soon as a stock gets confrontational, a supervisor should make calls on how things should proceed. pamela on twitter says, police reform must come from within. if you do not remove officers at the moment there is any sign of aggression, you are showing other officers it is acceptable. mack is in summerville, south carolina. caller: good morning. i have been in every situation, including combat in vietnam.

i also work as a corrections officer at one time where i transported inmates. i have been pulled over for speeding. when you see that blue light, don't make them chase you. pull yourself over. i've been pulled over for doing as much is 20 miles over the speed limit. you have to set the tone yourself. i have never been ticketed for anything. i just wanted to pass that on. host: we are going to be talking about the vietnam war later in the program. be sure to stay with us for that. david in birmingham, alabama. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for accepting my call. a couple of things, first, i think all police officers should have the opportunity to visit the birmingham civil rights

institute. the second thing is i think the police officers should live in one community. we see police and the city of birmingham, they live wherever they want to live. they can do what they need to do and not learn the environment. birmingham is 75% black. the third thing -- the fourth thing, they should have a class, mandatory that the police should be taught in all the public high schools from grade one to grade 12 so people would know the laws and terms of how they should conduct themselves when the police stopped them. they don't do that. we have a high crime area here. the last thing is i like the way

they handled the situation in memphis. they caught them. they expelled them out the job. when that rodney king thing came through or any other black person was arrested by whites, they always give them a desk job. i hope the rapid firing of those five policeman, i hope that is a thing they do across the board. you don't get no desk job. host: let's go to paul in tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you this morning? host: i am ok. what do you think? caller: ma'am? host: yes? caller: it would be hard for me to sit in your position and listen to all this garbage. i am going to present the problem and then give you a

solution. anybody out there listening, you believe in an almighty god, i am talking to you. if you don't believe in god, i am not talking to you. our problem is we don't consider our ladder ends. we cannot see past the end of our nose. that is the problem. we don't consider the sins that we do and the collateral damage they have on other people. we cannot see past the end of our nose. we keep making the same mistakes over and over and over until somebody dies. then somebody takes notice. all these rights and all these liberties we wanted back in the 1960's is coming crashing down on us now, but nobody wants to look at that. america to korea, on this today. america went to vietnam, a

mess today. america went to iraq, a mess today. host: let's stick with the police in memphis. what do you want to tell me about that? caller: here is what i want to tell you. the one thing that could fix everything is have a personal relationship with the lord jesus christ. that is the one thing that will fix everything. until america comes back to god, we will continue to see this happening. it is not going to stop. host: let's go to angela, bakersfield, california. caller: hi. host: hello. caller: here is my opinion, and it is just an opinion. typically when police have an interaction with anybody, it usually has to do with either they have been called, or they

see a possible threat. how it would work is if somebody gets pulled over from the police, i was taught you turn off your car. you take your keys out of the ignition. you drop them out the window to alleviate that threat. you cannot stop a bully, whether it is the public or a cop. if something happens and a cop does something, filed the charges. don't pose a threat to them whatsoever. i think it is a matter of teaching police officers and the public. if you get pulled over, turn off the car. drop the keys outside the window. just wait. host: and what if they say get out of the car? caller: get out of the car. there is no threat.

they know you are not going to run. host: what if you feel threatened? caller: i guess i would have to take the beating and pressed charges later. host: all right. that is all the time we have for this segment. we will still have open forum if you would like to discuss this more. next on washington journal, jillian peterson of the violence project discusses the recent shootings in california and wider trends about mass shooters in the u.s. later this morning, peter asselin discusses the 50th anniversary of the paris peace accords, which ended direct u.s. involvemin the vietnam war. we will be right back. >> there are a lot of places to get political information, but only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. no matter where you are from or where you stand on the issues,

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fast-paced report of the stories of the day. listen to c-span anytime. tell your smart speaker play c-span radio. c-span, powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back to "washington journal." i am joined by jillian peterson, the cofounder and president of the violence project. welcome to the program. guest: thank you for having me. host: if you would like to join us and give us a call and share your thoughts about mass shootings in the u.s. and the recent shootings in california, feel free to do that. democrats (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. jillian, just start by telling us about the violence project, with the mission is, and how it is funded. guest: the violence project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research

center focused on reducing violence in society using data analysis and research. we were initially funded with a grant from the u.s. department of justice to examine mass shootings in america. we are primarily funded by various foundations and a lot of donations from concerned citizens. host: your database on mass shooters was back to 1966. what are you finding as far as the trends of what constitutes a mass shooter? guest: we tracked shootings where four or more people are killed in a public space. we don't include shootings where a person kills their family, which is the most common mass shooting, or relating to either underlying criminal activity. we focus on that narrow definition. shootings are getting more frequent and deadly over time.

we find this consistent pathway in the lives of mass shooters. many of them have violent childhoods. over time, they become hopeless, depressed, isolated. then something happens that pushes them over the edge where they are in crisis. they are actively suicidal for the most part. they start studying other shooters that came before them. a lot of them are radicalized online. they pick a target that represents their grievance with the world. a mass shooting is a public suicide. it is a way to show your pain and anger to the world. they have access to the firearms they need and location of their choice. host: you authored a new york times opinion piece, and you said it is the rise of despair that can help explain the rise of mass shootings. what do you mean by that? what are those underlying issues feeding that despair? guest: in addition to building

the database, we interviewed perpetrators who were incarcerated, people who knew them, their friends, their family members, about 60 people in total who had some relationship to the perpetrator trying to figure out what was going on in the days and weeks leading up to this shooting. we found these are a form of death of despair. they are a form of suicide. perpetrators were overwhelmed by something happening in their life. it could have been a job loss, the loss of relationship, a mental health crisis, something that push them over the edge. a mass shooting is intended to be their final act. nobody does a mass shooting and plans to escape. they either plan to be killed by police, kill themselves, or be caught. host: this is the back to back california mass shootings.

both of those men were older, 172 and one -- one 72 and one 66. guest: i was surprised to hear about the ages of these perpetrators. the average age in our database is around 32 or 34. we have been trending downward recently. since 2020, the average age of perpetrators has been 22, very young. to see perpetrators in their 60's and 70's is striking. typically, people h out of violence at that point. it does not follow the trend we have been seeing. host: i wanted to ask you about policy recommendations. what do you think could be an intervention that could stop some of these? guest: i think the important thing to recognize is this problem is complex and

complicated, and there is no one solution that is going to fix it. we wrote a book called the violence project. we came up with 33 different policy recommendations, things we can do as individuals, institutions, and as a society. if we look at this pathway to violence, you can intervene at any point along that pathway. from early childhood trauma screening, to building crisis response teams in schools, anonymous reporting systems, suicide prevention training, all the way to make sure people in crisis don't have access to firearms. host: you talk about firearms being as easily malleable factor in preventing these incidents. what have you found so far in going policies that might help? guest: we built a database of every gun used in every mass

shooting going back to 1966. that is available on our website. anybody can download it and look at it. our goal is to add data to the conversation. how are perpetrators getting their guns? when are they getting their guns? if we can do anything to slow down a person who is actively suicidal, homicidal from getting their gun, that would help. even safe storage. most school shooters are taking guns from their parents that are not secured. host: let's start taking calls. gregory is first in maryland, democrats line. caller: good morning, ladies. good morning, jillian. i feel like the entire argument is being disguised. i want to feature one of the commentaries previously mentioned. it was about 20 minutes ago. it was the implicit advice that

if you get pulled over by the police, do not do anything wrong , or you will be shot to death. that premise, first of all, is fake as can be. and what i want to add personally is that it is part of the nra lobbyist technique to try to put as many weapons as possible into our society and watch it self-destruct. host: let's get a response. guest: i think mass shootings are -- not a totally uniquely american phenomenon, but we have so many more than other countries. one of those reasons is access to firearms. we have so many firearms in this country.

if you are in crisis and on the edge, it makes it very easy to get access to a firearm. things in american society driving that, whether it is this lack of social safety net, lack of resources when you are in despair, certainly the number of firearms in circulation is a huge factor. host: stan is next in staten island, new york, democrats line. caller: what i was going to say is there is differences within the community. one of the first things that needs to be done, this was done in the 1970's, convening the appropriate stakeholders within the community to communicate and identify the particular issues and address those issues. in other words, collaboration. munication and collaboration are the key. -- communication and

collaboration are the key. when i was doing a doctoral dissertation years ago, he came away with an important insight. there are three institutions, family, education, and religion. if the three institutions are in sync, the kid will be ok. if the child is born, and the parents say this is right and this is wrong, based on religious principle, and the school confirms what the family is teaching. as far as what is being taught to the children, overall, i think basically you have to go community by community and convene the key stakeholders together to address what the specific issues are. in some communities, mental health might be the issue. in other communities, it might

abuse. -- might be drug abuse. basically, the churches, the social services, the voluntary organizations. host: we got it. go ahead, jillian. guest: i agree with that. in many ways mass shootings have become this partisan issue. we are finding this is complicated. it is going to take all of us to solve it. we are huge advocates of crisis response teams in schools, churches, community centers, workplaces. anyway that somebody can say i am worried about this person for whatever reason. people can get together, offer that person resources and intervention. a lot of this is about disconnection, that the individuals that do this are totally isolated.

one thing that is striking, when we talk to averted shooters, shooters who planned to do a shooting and changed their mind, the thing that changed their mind was a human connection. sometimes we think about this in these huge policy ways, which is important, but at the end of the day, somebody on the edge like that, it takes somebody connecting with them, pulling them and, and you can get somebody off of that pathway. i find that hopeful. it is simple in some ways. host: i want to ask you about the assault weapons ban. senator feinstein and other senate democrats introduced a bill that would ban military style weapons and high-capacity magazines. what has your research found about that? the federal assault weapons fan that expired in x-band that expired -- weapons ban that

expired in 2004. guest: we know that perpetrators are increasingly using these ar-15 style assault weapons. we have seen a huge jump in that in recent years. over half of the shootings in the last two years have used these types of weapons. every day community homicides, it is less than 1%. they are overrepresented. they are deadlier, and you can kill more people. shootings that involve an assault weapon have more casualties and more injuries. perpetrators copy each other. we call it social contagion. they see here is what somebody did before me. i have to do that as well. they research each other.

an assault weapon has become symbolic in terms of a mass shooting. it is not a mass shooting until it looks like a mass shooting. those weapons are something we need to be talking about. we recently had perpetrators going out and buying assault weapons on their 18th birthday and then committing a mass shooting. it is something we have to come together around. host: jim is next, atlanta, georgia, line for democrats. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. thank you for being on today. you brought some interesting points. one of them is the intervention part. that is fascinating to me. i think that concept should be integrated with our education system. i will go back to the previous segment real quick and bring up something one of the people said.

he said he had been stopped by the cops, went badly. he said, i had to turn it over to god. i think that is what we need to do as a society more frequently is to stop and say i cannot handle this. a higher power has to manage this. i cannot handle it. in terms of the solutions, it is complicated. it has to be a multipronged effort to get this resolved. i don't think weapons control is the answer. it might be part of the answer may be, -- answer maybe, but controlling access to firearms by the citizens of this great

country is not the right answer. host: go ahead, jillian. guest: i think this is really complicated. there are things each of us can do. what we can do is look around and see if people around us are in crisis. we tend to think of the people who do this as these outside monsters coming in. we try to secure our buildings and put aren't security at the doors and put up fancy security at the doors. the folks who do this are part of those communities. they are students of that school. they are employees of that workplace. they are moving in and out of that security every day. in some ways, that makes it harder to prevent a mass shooting. in terms of prevention, it makes it easier. those are individuals we see every day that teachers are interacting with, that janitors

are interacting with, that the bus drivers -- so how do we train everyone in how to intervene and make sure we are connecting those people with resources? host: i want to show a portion of the chief of the national threat assessment center at the u.s. secret service. she spoke about why, given a lot of these patterns about attackers are well known, it is still difficult to stop violent incidents. [video clip] >> where we see the challenges is in terms of equipping communities with resources and also having programs in place that ensures that information does not fall through the cracks. it is not just one person's responsibility. the number one practice we advocate is about multidisciplinary threat assessment. that is the approach the secret

service pioneered over 20 years ago. we put in protocols and policies, educate, train our own agents, and then identified is this person posing a risk of violence or other unwanted outcome? what interventions can we put in place? most of the majority, not only the research reports, but also the guides, so we put out a school safety guide using a threat assessment model, it provides actionable steps schools can take to enact these multidisciplinary threat assessment programs. the reason they work so well is you are bringing in all the perspectives, mental health, law enforcement, whoever may be having social services, and you are bringing in leaders that are authorized to act when something happens.

it depends on the context. what we advocate for is that multidisciplinary approach for behavioral threat assessment. host: jillian, what do you think of that? guest: absolutely. our research is consistent with the findings recently released by the secret service. we advocate for these multidisciplinary teams in schools as ways to share information. sometimes it can be tricky because you don't want to label somebody a threat. that makes people nervous. if i say i am worried about this kid, is he going to get labeled a school shooter? we need to shift our thinking around that. it is not that we are looking for mass shooters. we are responding to people who are in crisis and who need help and resources. if we think about it that way, it is not that we are hunting down the threat. we are worried about this person

in our community who is saying things showing he is in crisis. how do we hook him up with resources? what we see in the data is leakage is common. leakage is telling people about your plan. it is about 50% of perpetrators will tell somebody they are planning this. if we look at school shooters specifically, 80% or 90% of them are telling their classmates they are thinking about this. how do we recognize leakage as a cry for help and get that person connected with resources? not criminally charge them or expel them, but pull them in. host: david is next, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to mention something that took place in my life. my mother was a psychiatric nurse. in 1989 when they were closing down these psychiatric hospitals

, it would be like people that would do case studies on these patients and say this guy can go to the group home, this guy can go to the community. they were anxious to push these people out. my mother told me, there was one guy they were making a tremendous mistake. he was one of the most gentle people in the world. he seemed so nice. i remember him. he would have episodes, what they call in the hospital, he would go out of the box. they let this guy lose. he just did not like his new arrangement. they park him out in the mall in poughkeepsie. i don't think that was his fault even though now he is in jail, i guess. i think our mishandling of people that have the tendencies

to hurt others, they should be figured out, too. host: ok, david. let's get a response. go ahead, jillian. guest: i'm glad this issue was raised. one is what is the relationship between mental illness and mass shootings. that is something we look closely at. as a psychologist, that is what drove me to this work. what is it? what diagnoses are we seeing? what mental health history? mental health histories are common, two thirds of perpetrators have some sort of mental health history. it is one piece. it does not mean there is some specific mental illness that is making people do a mass shooting. we know that serious and persistent mental illness, these people are more likely to be a victim of violent crime. we cannot say here is this

checklist of diagnoses that make you more likely to be a mass shooter. nobody commits a mass shooting who is mentally healthy. these are people who are isolated. they are in despair. they are suicidal. they are hopeless. some sort of connection through mental health, peer support, something is needed. we also have a broken mental health system in this country. it is hard to get access to resources that are effective, affordable, that can be easily accessed. for many people, that is out of reach. host: roger is next on the republican line, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have a question. thank you for bringing this subject to the public. seems to me what is happening in our media is you have this

polarization around guns. both sides, the administration and the nra are on different sides, and the public is not well educated on the threat. when i was a kid, my dad had a gun, but it was locked away. i knew where the key was. in all these 30 suggestions, i think she mentioned some sort of requirement that anyone who owns a gun, if there are children in the home, these guns be locked away, maybe to the point of requiring an inspection of the home to make sure that is happening. i would like to see you post the url for your website where you list these recommendations. that would be helpful. host: that is theviolenceproject.org.

guest: theviolenceproject outward, you can request access to our database, and our book the violence project. we tend to get polarized around this issue. we try to bring data to bring us together. nobody wants mass shootings to happen. we can all agree on that. if we ground our conversations in data and research rather than fear or anecdotes, we can move forward. safe storage is something the vast majority of people agree with, gun owners, non-gun owners. it is something we can rally around, and it is so important. the number of school shooters who are taking guns that are unsecured is astounding. whether that is classes, laws,

public education campaigns, i think that piece of this is important. host: let's go to dan in georgetown, massachusetts, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for having me on. i am just wondering if, in your research, these 30 points, you have anything that has to do with increased government oversight. what i am talking about specifically is a lot of revelations have come to light that our government has been in the business of peddling influence. they are coming up with stuff, and they are using media to push certain things to sway public

opinion. what i am wondering, in this complex world we live in, where we are watching massive abuses from our government, which our media has not done a good job of covering, so we out here, we are not stupid. we see what is going on. we see these direct abuses of power. i am wondering if any of your recommendations have anything to do with oversight of some of these three letter entities that have a major influence on the public. thank you. host: what do you think, jillian? guest: our research is really focused more on what we can do as individuals and institutions. just because we get so stuck at

the government level, that we try to focus on what can i do so i don't feel totally paralyzed by the lack of action? what can my school do? what can my church do? focusing on things that individuals can do to stop mass shootings. we have recommendations around media. i think media, particularly social media, but media in general is an active participant in this. mass shootings are people looking for fame and notoriety. they want to go down in the history books for doing this. we have perpetrators who check social media in the middle of the shooting to make sure they are going viral. all of us, we are the witness. we are the audience. the more that media cannot give these people the attention they are looking for, not sharing their name, not making their manifesto go viral, anything to

focus on the victims, the heroes and first responders, that helps slow the social contagion. host: caller: dr. peterson, thank you so much for your work great i have purchased several copies of the violence project. it is a solution oriented approach to this problem. it is a fantastic book. have bought several copies and distributed them to people in leadership in my church and school. a couple of points, in your afterward, you list so many lease or as resources for people. one thing i was struck by is, you tell stories about social workers who see people, identify people who could be a threat but they do not know where to turn. your book helps a lot with that. the second thing i wanted to say, when i show people the first page. i say, read the first page of

this book. monsters all across the board. average cannot help but turn the page and read more. thank you so much for your work. i will go now, thanks. go ahead, jillian. any reaction? guest: thank you. that is so wonderful to hear. we tried to write a book in a way that made it accessible to everyone. not heavy in data, but have the data help tell the story. the first half of the book is called monster, it is how we think of these perpetrators as monsters and these outside monsters and the first thing that has to happen if we are going to solve this problem is, we do not have to think that way. these are individuals part of our community. we have to recognize somebody in our lives can do something like this, which makes us more readily ready to act.

we see that, a lot of people know the warning signs. they are concerned but do not know what to do. the police hands are tied. in many ways, they cannot arrest someone for something that have not done yet. you have to think about, how do we build a system that can intervene, get these individuals on the edge these resources they need without pushing them into the criminal justice system. host: craig is. republican in wichita falls, texas. caller: it is chilly. quick question on -- you established mental health being issued -- being an issue, which we have to agree is an impossible thing to resolve. we do not have a way to handle our countries problem with that. could you also comment on -- have you done research as to the

people that do these crimes and their habits on drug addiction, or drug involvement? i never hear if they do, what was in the person's system with these things. i have to believe there is a relationship there. what do you think? guest: great question. the database we built posed each of these perpetrators on about 200 different life history variables. people will come to us and say, what about violent video games? we will code, which perpetrators played video games -- violent video games. we will code drug use, psychiatric medication. none of those jump out as a major factor. sometimes, that part of the story -- that is part of the story, but it is not like you

see it in a majority of cases. host: we will take a call from stan in scottsboro, alabama on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. have a couple comments about what is going on there. everything they are talking about, we are going to have to solve the gun problem in this country. i am a gun owner. i am one of those guys that do not do mass shootings, it always comes down to the gun issue. new zealand after the church massacre down there, i know they did away with assault weapons. i am a deer hunter. i do not need a ar-15 to go deer hunting with. i do not --i am a trained gun

killer, when you go to the military, that is what they do. they train you to kill people. the rest of it helps take care of itself. thanks for taking care of my call. host: thanks, stan. last comments, jillian? guest: i agree. i think the majority of people who own guns in this country are responsible gun owners. it is the individuals who are in crisis, actively suicidal, actively homicidal we want to make sure they do not have access to a deadly weapon, in particular, a assault weapon that is incredibly deadly. coming up with ways to make sure individuals in crisis do not have access to those weapons is a critical piece of that. host: jillian peterson, the violence project cofounder and president. thanks for joining us today. guest: thank you for having me. host: ahead this money on washington journal, san diego

state university history professor peter asselin discusses the 50th anniversary of the paris peace accords which led the involvement -- the end of the involvement of the vietnam war. ♪ >> the state of the union is strong because you, the american people, are strong. >> president biden outlines his presidential state of address or at his first state of the union speech since republicans won back control of the house. we will hear the republican response and take your phone calls, text and tweets. watch live coverage of the state of the union beginning at at a clock p.m. eastern on c-span,

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they are a juggernaut. anyone who opposes them who can consolidate national resources and get that person unelected. >> philip k howard in his book, not accountable sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q and a. you can listen to q and a and our podcasts on our free c-span now cap. -- now cap. >> first boats are scheduled to be cast in the 2024 presidential primary and a proposal supported by president joe biden is approved, south carolina would vote first changing the political environment. in this episode of c-span's the weekly, we go back to prior joe biden campaigns for president and hear what he says about the importance of iowa and new hampshire leading off the presidential selection process. you can find the weekly on c-span now, our free mobile app or where you get your podcasts.

♪ >> live nd, february 5 on in-depth. author and essayist and journalist lance morrow will be our guest to talk and take your calls american culture, politics and history. mr. morrow is the author of many books, including chief, guardian, and the soon to be published, the noise of typewriters about his career in journalism and take on the profession join in the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts andweets. in-depth with lance morrow life sunday february 5 at noon eastern on book tv on c-span two. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back to "washington journal." it is open forum. i will be taking your calls about news of the day, politics, public policy. the numbers are on your screen.

democrats, (202) 748-8000. republican (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. there is a few things i want to bring to your attention. first, a video on usa today it says the video of a violent home attack on paul pelosi was released. it was made public yesterday. the footage shows a man identified by authorities as a suspect david to pepe breaking into the home, body camera footage from police responding to the location shows the confrontation between the attacker and pelosi. it shows the suspect reached a hammer from the grasp of 82-year-old paul pelosi and lunged toward him. the attacker holds the tool over his head, a blow to lucy occurred out of you and the officers rushed into the house and jumped on depappe. also in the news, ronald

mcdaniel in washington post, he quells revote to win reelection of chair of fractured rnc. the rnc voted to stick with mcdaniel among demands of account ability for the party's of electoral failures and one more thing from politico before we take your calls. it is this. biden confirms jeff signs to become new chief of staff. former covert response coordinator will replace ron klain, who called the job the honor of a lifetime. starting now, taking your calls on open forum. jack is first on the line for democrats. butler, pennsylvania. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i am stuck on the gun problem. i have a question, sort of it is a statement. what it is, is a six-year-old

shot their teacher. one i did not hear in the news is where that gun came from. host: i do not know, actually. i will see if one of our producers can look that up, if that has been made public. caller: has it? one of my real fears is the police stomp on my door and say, is this your gun? i say, oh, no, it is in my sock drawer. you go to your sock drawer and find out your gun got away from you and committed a crime. if it did, you should be in trouble for that. host: all right, jack. let's go to herschel next in virginia. independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning, america. i would like to talk about the gun control issue. the second amendment was written for a reason. people throw their word around,

assault weapon. we need to start paying attention more to the mental illness in this country as a former paramedic. i came across a lot of that. whether they can get their hands on a gun, a pen, a knife, we really need to start paying attention to the mill till -- mental illness in this country. thank you all. host: phil is calling on the republican line. wichita, kansas. hi, bill. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am 68 years old. i am obviously in wichita, the midwest. not near as exposed to the larger coastal towns. anyway, for the last couple of years, i have somewhat been beside myself trying to understand -- where is all of this hate coming from?

and, all of the people out there in my age group know as well as i do, if you go back when we were 14, 15, 16 years old in the late 1960's and 1970's, there was not this much hate in our country. this is what i do not understand. what the guy mentioned about the little kid that shot the teacher, a six-year-old child took a loaded gun to the school and shot his teacher. when i was in sixth grade at adams elementary, the least thing on my mind was to even -- was even considering taking a gun, and i grew up in a gun family, of taking a gun to a school and shooting your teacher. somewhere in the late, i would say, mid-1980's, something changed where this hate and hate.

my god, what we have seen the last two weeks, mass shootings, police beatings. that is what i would like everybody, especially in my age group, go back and think what we were doing back then and relate that maybe to this younger generation. thank you for my call. thank you. host: david. atlanta, georgia. democratic line. david. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i was listening to the psychiatrist that was on earlier. as far as the mass shootings, i understand that, but the one thing that we are not talking about that i feel is a big, important thing is the children who are killing and killing adults. we have children now that are killing their parents for not

getting them a v.a. are headset, or whenever they call it. we have children in the streets, they killed a older gentleman with a safety cone. we have children now surrounding adults and other kids and stabbing them to death, so that has nothing to do with guns. we have children that are getting these guns in the street , that is the point of the gun issue. psychologically, what is going on with our children that are making them this way? host: what do you think it is, david? caller: i think that, between society and the evolution of our culture. the gentleman that just called, i understand that. i am 63. the things we saw about guns were basically all western shows, the cowboy shows and maybe detectives.

there were not so much use of violence and guns that way. our society and culture has evolved into this. our kids are into this culture now, it is so different to us. i wanted to ask the psychiatrist because, she is definitely better than me, what could we do and how to change that? right now, it is like it is beyond -- with guns, it is beyond itself. that was my question. thank you. host: derek is in virginia. independent line. caller: hey, how is it going? on the gun control issue, i do not think i necessarily have a ton to say. one thing i want to keep in mind, you look at the rate of mass shootings per different countries -- for different countries. my understanding is, it is higher in the u.s., the rate of

gun violence. i think when you look at this problem, probably the place to start is to look at countries with lower rates of gun violence and say, what are they doing differently? one thing you will find in europe, the number of firearms available per capita for people is much lower. i am happy to say, that is incorrect but that is my impression. in terms of the cultural aspect people are talking to, kids in europe play fortnite. they see western movies. they are exposed to a lot of american culture. that same problem still does not seem to exist. i guess my own thought is, i have friends that are gun owners. they are very responsible. i think in society, eventually, this at this point should not be -- i do not think this can continue where there are continued past shootings. at the same time, we are a country of 300 20 million people. think people hear of mass shootings in the news and

read about them, it is genuinely horrifying. at the same time, i think it does not take a lot of people who have, i assume serious mental issues, to go out and buy a gun and make the choice to do this, to have a huge impression on people even though it might not be a systemic issue with millions of kids, it might be a couple thousand. those are my -- host: got it. george in jacksonville, florida. republican line. caller: good day. i am a engineer. i studied radio systems and chemical engineering, things like the -- on the side of your house, as well as tiktok. dr. peterson, have you studied what pavlov did? what he accomplished to win the nobel prize in 1904?

host: you are talking about pavlov's dog, with the saliva? caller: then, he worked for stalin and the bad guys. host: ok. caller: all right. by now, between russia and other countries, we know of 12,000 bad frequencies that cause problems like what happened in havana. havana is where we had to empty the embassy because people got sick. also, in china, north of hong kong about 70 miles. by the way, i have lived in 12 countries including that area and also in moscow. there are 12,000 new frequencies developed by good people, but they were switched and these people have them and they can induce hatred and anger and manic behavior. you go down the list of psychological problems. my mother typed the manuscript

for -- host: you are saying, george, there are radio waves out there that are making people at badly? caller: it went through stages. 10,000 years ago, music was developed by taking good frequencies, using those and they would ignore the bad ones. music -- pavlov used electrodes in the dog brain. that is kind of like a.m. they went to a.m. and they wouldn't be able to take the precise person. host: george, we have to move on. we are joined by paul steinhauser. we are going to get him on very soon on zoom. he is a national political reporter for fox news. we are going to be talking warmer president trump, -- former president trump's events today. we will talk about that. are you there? guest: i sure am.

good morning. how are you? host: how are you? guest: i am doing well. i am in the lobby in high school in salem, new hampshire. that is the first stop today for donald trump. the new phase in his presidency campaign, the only major republican so far in the race. a field of one, i guess you could say. since he launched in mid-november at his mar-a-lago club in palm beach, florida, he hasn't done many campaign events. that is changing today. first off not here, -- first off here, not an official campaign event. he will be speaking at the states annual gop meeting here. he will be speaking to elected republican leaders, officials and activists. next stop after here, later today, he will be going to south carolina where he will be holding a actual campaign, leadership event at the state capital there. he is holding the second and

third primary states in the gop president of cantor -- calendar all o day. host: we will be covering that campaign entn south carolina ve today on c-span at 4:00 p. eastern, as well as on the website and our free mobile app. let's go back to new hampshire. what is the republican party in new hampshire saying about donald trump? are they supporting him? what have their comments been? guest: the parties stay neutral, like they always have. bylaws, they have to stay neutral. they wanted to get a big name speaker to help raise money, they got arguably the biggest name, the most popular and most influential politician in the gop to come. this outgoing chairman, steve step in act of the new hampshire gop back in 2016 before he became the state party chair was

the cochair of trump presidential campaign in new hampshire. he is a trump ally, the one who orchestrated getting trumped up here. yeah, i think there are a lot of people excited, a lot of people taking part in this convention and meeting. they are happy to see the former president here. a lot of trump supporters here in new hampshire have gained power in the state party. you know, they are excited to see him. it will help raise money. for the former president, this day is a big day. let's be honest. he had a lot of criticism the last couple of months, both democrats, republicans giving him poor reviews on the campaign launch out of mar-a-lago. he has had a number of controversies since that launch that have gotten him into hot water. he still gets a lot of criticism by republicans for the lackluster election results for republicans in the midterm elections. a lot of people are blaming paul

trump for -- candidates who arguably cost republicans the senate. a tough start today, i think that is fair to say. host: a much quieter campaign launched in 2016. what are your thoughts on that and how that has been playing out? guest: yeah, this is a different campaign so far. compared to 2016. but, i was talking to one of the top senior advisers for the trump campaign. he says today is the beginning of a new phase. a lot more travel going forward, a lot more campaign events going forward. they are starting to higher in the key voting states. today in new hampshire, the former president will probably make announcements on who will be leaving his campaign in new hampshire. then, he goes to south carolina today where he will be presenting his leadership team down there and will be joined by senator lindsey graham and henry

mcmaster's. you are seeing a new phase right now in the campaign. host: at the campaign event in south carolina later today, what is the former president trump going to try to accomplish? guest: i think in both states, he is laying down a marker. there has been a lot of criticism that anything but an impressive campaign today, i think he wants to lay down the marker in these two crucial states. iowa first. new hampshire goes next. south carolina third. they are extremely important early voting states. he is going to announce leadership teams in these crucial states and plant a flag in both states, which is important. he is the only candidate in this race, but there will be others. how many, there will be others. they will be made of sons and daughters in both of the state spirit south carolina, senator jim scott and nikki haley who

served as u.s. ambassador to the united nations under trump, they are both seriously thinking of launching campaigns. presidential campaigns. in new hampshire, our popular republican governor chris sununu has been flirting with a white house run. it is interesting, the two states he is going to today, there could be potential rivals on the ballot soon enough. host: we will be watching that here on c-span. paul steinhauser, thank you for joining us. guest: thanks. host: it is open forum for another few minutes. am going to try to squeeze in a few more calls from you and go next to greg in texas, democrats line. caller: thank you. i surely do not want to waste my energy on that call. ok, what i want to talk about, when you are talking about guns and when we talk about guns, when that happened in that

shooting and the violence. we got what happened, the same thing that happened in the prisons. we got a lot people coming from africa, nigeria. they getting on the police force, they in prisons. they have no respect for black americans. they talked down to you in prison, they treat you like crap. they were sir then -- they worser then another virus. they have no respect for us as black people. we need to focus on what they are doing in colorado, the police force, the sheriffs. they running black people off their land. thousands of acres, killing their animals and everything. we are going through the same thing that we went through in the 1970's. back in the day when we was in school in the 1970's, we just was not taught what was going on. we were treated when you -- for the flag, you are not american. we've got to focus on what is going on. in colorado, they are taking

black people's land. two years, nobody is standing up. the black organizations are not standing up for it. the dude talking about violence, why would you go to your enemy and tell them you've got violence in your neighborhood and they need to help us out? they will just send the police officers and get the violence up more. we've got to deal with black leadership, too. it is not all about reagan and biden. biden is the best president in the country since the great depression. these people do not want this country to be the melting pot of the world. i am sorry. this is a beautiful country now. host: we've got it. let's stay in texas. crockett, texas. billy is calling. caller: thank you, darling. i agree with what the young man just said. i live in crockett, texas. i am a long-time media writer and activist. joe biden is a great president.

we are doing great things to help the world. without america, the world would not be able to do what it is doing. people with guns divide this nation. we made america great because we came together. we got people going against people like cops who want to beat black people. i am going to say this to the black men in the community. stand up to these young people. know that you are not afraid of them. let them know what we have been through and let them know what they can do to make america great. america is number one because we got black people here. we've got people white, of all colors. we are one nation under god because we are stronger and believe in god. thank you, darling. god bless c-span. host: thank you, billy. let's take a look at twitter. we've got something that says citizens should not fear for their life in the presence of law enforcement. officers who are challenged

should call their supervisor if the civilian request protecting themselves. a record of such confrontations is needed. also i twitter, time to do away with a dissent crated by the whole cloth of the supreme court. yes, police should be protected when legal force is used in the performance of their duties. but, qualified immunity should not be a get out of jail free card for police misconduct and finally, this one for starters and -- and qualified immunity for police officers facing the creeping militarization of police forces. that genie is well out of its bottle and probably is not a realistic expectation. let's go next to ethel, calling from sheave port, louisiana on -- shreveport, louisiana on the democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to complain. i do not see the press secretary doing her briefings on c-span

like you were airing with jen psaki. is there a problem with the new press secretary? i have watched it. i am home in the evenings, home at night. you do not air her briefings like you did with jen psaki. that is my complaint. i would like to see some of those briefings in the briefing room. is there a problem with pierre? host: we got your feedback. debbie is in fredericksburg, virginia. republican line. caller: hi. what i would like everyone to know is, i am 66. of course, i notice a lot of seniors calling in. i think the children going to school now, they are not being taught civics.

they are not being taught how our government work, they know nothing of the constitution. that is a shame. when things like this happen, i think they need to know how the government should handle it and they do not know how their government in their counties are working, what causes or what should happen in the case of this boy that got killed. it is heartbreaking. the children, they do not know. they are like in a daze. that is really all i had to say. read your constitution. host: all right, debbie. carl in nashville, tennessee. democrats line. good morning, carl. caller: good morning. thanks for having me. i am calling because the people of this country are being ran by what you call nuts.

the lady who came on, talking about insane people. the people in congress and -- democrats and republicans, they are run by children. their minds are like children. host: why do you say that, carl? caller: they cannot make a good decision. they cannot even play together. they cannot work together, they cannot talk together, they cannot even vote together. they stupid. the world is not made that way. people are made to love one another. in other words, how can you put a book out and people do not read? people will not -- people will read what they want to read. they want to read something exciting, something about the news, something about something that do not mean nothing. when you go ask yourself, what am i doing?

what am i doing to be with god, or with people, with other people? love. this thing is too much hatred. it is just messed up, sweetie. thank you for having me. i can go on and on. thank you for that. host: all right. that is open forum for today. thanks, everybody who called in. next on "washington journal" is pierre asselin, san diego state university history professor p he will talk about the 50th anniversary of the paris peace accord, which ended direct involvement in the vietnam war. stay with us. ♪ >> book tv every sunday on span two features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, philip wallace of the american enterprise institute shares his upcoming book, why congress?

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straight from the source. no matter where you are from or where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's network. unfiltered, unbiased, word forward. 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: welcome back to "washington journal." it has been 50 years since the signing of the paris peace accord, which ended direct u.s. involvement in the vietnam war. here is president richard nixon from january 23, 1973 announcing the agreement. [video clip] >> i have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that we today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in vietnam and in southeast asia.

the following statement is being issued at this moment in washington and -- at 12:30, paris time today january 23, 1973, the agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in vietnam was initialed by dr. henry kissinger on behalf of the united states and special advisor on behalf of the democratic republic of vietnam. the agreement will be formally signed by the parties participating in the paris conference on vietnam on january 27, 1973 at the international conference center in paris. the cease-fire will take effect at 2400 greenwich mean time january 27, 19 73. the united states, the democratic republic of vietnam express a hope this agreement will ensure stable peace in vietnam and contribute to the preservation of lasting peace in the china and southeast asia. that concludes the formal statement. host: that was richard nixon 50 years ago. we are joined now by pierre asselin, a history professor at

san diego state university. welcome to the program. guest: thank you so much for having me. host: we will be talking about the paris peace accord and the vietnam war if you would like to join us and ask a question or share your thoughts. feel free to do so on our lines by region. if you are in the eastern or central time zones it is (202) 748-8000. if you are in mountain or pacific it is (202) 748-8001. if you are a vietnam vet or family of a vietnam vet, we have a line set aside for you. that is (202) 748-8002. pierre, when that agreement was signed, tell us about what was happening in the vietnam war, what the death toll was like at the time. guest: you know, by the time the agreement is signed, everyone is exhausted. not just the american people, dramatic as this war was for

americans, for the vietnamese, i am sure you can imagine, this was traumatic. it is remembered, this is a war that came on the heels of a previous war against france, which had been preceded by a very blue occupation of vietnam and the rest of indochina by jeff vance. the announcement that the war was coming to an end, that offered tremendous reprieve and a sense of optimism. at the same time, the war was far from over at this point. by now, approximately 68 -- 58,000 americans had died. nearly 2 million vietnamese had perished. this is the situation we have as of 1973. we've got basically people leading on both sides, but

especially the vietnamese side. i want to stress that. traumatic as this war may have been for americans, we need to understand kind of impact the war of that magnitude had on the vietnamese themselves. both sides of the parallel. host: i want to talk about the talks themselves. before we do that, i want to ask about -- as you said, it did not into hostilities. it was almost called the war after the war. what was happening after the accords were signed? guest: so, the paris agreement ends american involvement in what is fundamentally a vietnamese civil war. the vietnamese civil war begins in 1945. some of your listeners and viewers might be familiar with hoshi ming declaring independence on september second, 1945. from that moment on, fighting

begins in vietnam between vietnamese communists and their followers and vietnamese anti-communists and their followers. then, the french come in to try and colonize. the french presidents -- presence amplifies. essentially, despite the involvement of the americans, the civil war remains. in 1973, when we announced the signing of the paris agreement, what we were early announcing is the end of american involvement in this ongoing vietnamese civil war. the civil war begins in 1945, it essentially becomes americanized in 1965. it is officially d americanized in 1973, but resumes almost right away as a vietnamese civil war until that war finally ends

in 1975. in this sense, what president nixon announced in 1973 is somewhat misleading. this does not ends the war in vietnam, it ends american participation in the war in vietnam. host: let's talk about the talks themselves. we know they went on for several years. talk us through the timeline and process of those talks. guest: communist leaders never wanted any sort of negotiated settlement. it following the onset of the war against the united states. in 1954, the communist authorities entered into a agreement with france. that agreement from their own perspective had turned out to be disastrous. for viennese communist authorities, there was a sense that -- vietnamese communist authorities, there was a sense there was not the end of war

unless we had done absolutely everything to win it will it terribly, diplomatically and politically. in 1968, as i am sure much of your audience will understand and remember, the vietnamese communists launched this huge campaign to effectively win the war known as the dead offensive. it is a campaign of shock and awe to use american parlance, which achieved some of its purpose in a surprising shock to americans. militarily, it is a disaster for communists and authorities. which is why they decided to open talks with the americans, with the johnson administration. those talks are semi-public. and, very quickly, they are used by the different sides purely for propaganda purposes.

once nixon becomes president, a second channel is open, a secret channel. it is through that secret channel that formally opens in august of 1969, that real negotiations will unfold. host: that is kissinger? guest: exactly. those are the tops kissinger was in secret -- talks kissinger was in secret involved in starting in 1969, with the individual nixon mentioned. the onset, the americans are desperate to end the war. vietnam ease communist authorities are -- vietnamese communist authorities -- both sides get more exhausted, they become increasingly productive. host: what is that exhaustion, that puts it over the edge?

what was it that got the agreement signed? guest: it was the exhaustion. both signs have claimed victory, but the reality is that neither side really wanted the agreement, but both sides were forced to accept it because of circumstances. vietnamese communists launched another mutual offensive in 1972. it is another military disaster. militarily, they were spared. they need this agreement, they never wanted. tilde terribly, nixon -- militarily, nixon is successful in 1972. the mission is very unpopular. we are launching or political and to an extent democratic reasons, nixon leaves the agreement. we have this convergence in early 1973 that leaves all sides to enter into this agreement at no one really wants but everyone

absolutely needs. host: speaking of nixon, one more question before we take calls. a lot of people want to talk to you. did nixon have a grand strategy for this all along? he also mentioned something called peace with honor. what did he mean by that? guest: nixon always talked about having a secret plan to end the war. he did not really have a tangible plan. this idea of peace with honor was definitely important to him. we know enough from the american records, for nixon, it was to extricate the americans from vietnam with a measure of american credibility intact. nixon understood that success to vietnam would prove elusive. the idea was to end the war in vietnam in a way the u.s. could continue waging the cold war and other parts of the world. this whole idea of peace with

honor, what nixon is really doing is recycling france's approach to ending its war in algeria. the goal at that time, to talk about -- this is honor. just like the goal in algeria, nixon took four years to extricate the united states from vietnam. we always talk about the french and vietnam, sending the americans following. the war also ends in a way consistent with the french approach in algeria. host: let's take a look at president nixon's detailing the terms of the agreement. [video clip] >> throughout the years of negotiations, we have insistent on -- insisted on peace with honor. my address to this nation on january 25, i say the goal to be considered essential for peace with honor. in the settlement that has now

been agreed to, all the conditions that i laid down then have been met. a cease-fire internationally supervised will begin at 7:00 p.m. this saturday, january 27 washington time. within 60 days from the saturday, all americans held prisoners of war throughout indochina will be released. there will be the fullest possible accounting for those missing in action. during the same 60 day period, all american forces will be withdrawn from south vietnam. the people of south vietnam have been guaranteed the right to determine their own future without outside interference. my joint agreement, the full text of the agreement and protocols will be issued tomorrow. throughout these negotiations, we have been in closest consultation with president chu and other rep resented as of the

republic of vietnam. this settlement meets the goals and has the full support of president chu and the government of the republic of vietnam, as well as that of our other allies who are affected. the united states will continue to recognize the government of the republic of vietnam as the sole, legitimate government of south vietnam. we shall continue to aid south vietnam within the terms of the agreement and we shall support efforts by the people of south vietnam to settle their problems peacefully among themselves. host: that was president nixon. pierre, your reaction to that, your thoughts? guest: i think what president nixon talks about with president to being happy supporting this, as much as they never wanted a agreement and nixon had issues with turns, there was one party that really did not like and want this agreement. it was the south vietnamese

authorities. they understood that from their own standpoint company communists would never hold themselves -- standpoint, communists would never hold themselves accountable to that point. at which point, south vietnamese forces would become much more vulnerable, which in turn would embolden and encourage to sustain its attacks to ultimately win all of vietnam as they did. the terms themselves, when we look at the paris agreement generally, it is a cease-fire agreement. it is in agreement that covers military aspects. the political questions themselves which are at the heart of the vietnam war are not resolved by that agreement. e paris agreement will call for negotiation between vietnamese parties, which everyone knew were going to lead

to conducting. allowances are made here to get the u.s. out, but that is what is problematic about this idea of the paris peace accord. it ends american military involvement in vietnam. for vietnam itself, it does nothing to solve the fundamental problems of the vietnamese, which date back to 1945. host: let's start taking calls, pierre. john is first, a vietnam vet in moorestown, pennsylvania. good morning, john. caller: good morning, folks. great to be on with you, this is one of the subjects i take a deep interest in. i want to say to the professor, san diego state university is one beautiful campus. the other thing i wanted to mention quickly, i do not know if he uses this for his formal course he teaches, but there are two excellent textbooks i have used to study. vietnam, an american ordeal by

george moss and patriots by christian giappe. a little bit of my background, i served from february of 1967 to february of 1968. i was a drafty, i wore the u.s. prefixed numbers we did back then. i was with the first air calvary division, alpha company 15 -- i was basically banished because of my so-called bad attitude about being there and the war itself, which i did not believe in any way. so, they sent me to work at a dispensary. it was a joint effort between the government, south vietnam and the 15th pinnacle italian to provide medical treatment -- battalion to provide medical treatment for the people in the

-- district and province. when i left vietnam in 1968, i did a couple of months at fort campbell. after that, it was like sleepwalking. i knew things were going to get worse over there. things were not going to improve. a lot of good people, gis and vietnamese were going to die because of a war that should never have happened anyway. another question i have for you, professor, do you think the united states was basically supporting a military dictatorship in saigon? that is what i came out with years later when i studied everything. i figured, yeah, they were really -- what was the difference between not only us, but the people sitting in province that was most familiar with, to talk about --? host: ok, john. let's get an answer. go ahead, pierre. guest: for the longest time,

there was an assumption the south vietnamese government was extremely corrupt, highly ineffective and dictatorial. over the recent years, my colleagues have been digging into that government. what we are finding out now, legitimate efforts were made in southern vietnam by the regime and its supporters to create an alternative to the communist dominated northern half of the country. in some respect, they were successful. it is absolutely correct, john, it is absolutely right that president chu and some of his los associates -- close associates did exhibit dictatorial tendencies. that allows for student protests. that allows for repressed, this close to independent newspapers in and around saigon at the

height of the war. these are freedoms that have never been dashed by the freedom of the north. we have to be careful here. i think the u.s. in a way at the time of the cold war was trying to do by right -- was trying to do right by its allies. those allies could be problematic, but we need to stop demonizing the regime in saigon. i think a lot of what we think is based on confrontations that i think armand to account for -- are meant to account for america's failures in vietnam. it is easier to put the blame on the allies then it is to put the blame on americans themselves or their policymakers. fundamentally, what is most difficult and i have noticed this when i talk to people about the war in vietnam, it seems almost impossible to fundamentally say maybe we lost because the other guy did things better. which, i would argue why the war ended up the way it did. the u.s. did many things wrong,

but also did many things right. but, the communists waged a much better war politically, diplomatically and territorially for that reason. host: a vietnam vet in west plains, missouri. joe, you are next. caller: that is right about the vietnamese. they were a little bit corrupt. our government is corrupt. to this day, it is corrupt. we were lied to by robert max amira, we rely to buy a general named west moreland. we were never winning. ok? we were never winning. nixon's speech there, he is trying to cover-up all of the mistakes. he might have been lied to, but our government is corrupt. we spend way too much money on these goofy wars we do not win. i do not think we have won a war since world war ii.

this thing in ukraine, i would not give them a penny. us taxpayers are getting screwed all the time from the equipment we give -- is ukraine going to pay us back? are we going to leave it there again? the vietnam war was baloney. nixon was lied to. this guy, west moreland kept telling us we were winning. robert met nara told us we were winning. we were never winning. host: ok, joe. we got that. peer? guest: the point joe is making is a valid one. at wartime, the idea we should expect politicians to put a rosier lens over what is happening, whether things are going right or wrong, of course as a politician you have to win american lives are on the line, you have to talk about the positives. i think, yes, americans rely too.

that is standard practice. i think some americans would realize, ok, the narrative by the administration is far from correct. that partially inspired the antiwar movement. in a way, we are seeing that now. we are looking at ukraine and the idea that there is good guys and bad guys. and that, everything ukrainians are doing is whatever russians are doing is problematic. i cannot help but the russians e doing is problematic. i can't help but think that soon people will realize it is not that black-and-white, not that clear cut, like vietnam was not black-and-white and clear-cut. studying the vietnam war is very interesting in that it is all good or all bad, and the reality is that it was a very multilayer conflict with some good done but a lot of bad done. there should be nothing surprising about any of that.

for the sake of a row, troops on the front lines, we have to create a specific narrative of the conflict. the u.s. had done better in vietnam none of the lives would matter. the north vietnamese were similarly always lying to their people about how many casualties they were suffering in the war, but they won and that, at least to us, becomes inconsequential. host: i want to show a clip from our archives september 1990 two, henry kissinger defending the peace deal. [video clip] >> the paris accords were a major diplomatic accomplishment for americans. as part of the accords we demanded and received from hud anoi that made the withdrawal of american troops dependent on the release of our prisoners and our missing.

monday morning quarterbacks cannot view that the paris accords were not perfect. i agree. to me the ideal outcome would have been an american victory but, mr. chairman, we had to deal with the war and the specific circumstances we faced. even with the perspective of 20 years i am convinced that in those circumstances no better agreement was obtainable. host: tell me a little more about how official washington responded to the paris accords. as he was saying, it is monday morning quarterbacking. how did they respond? guest: people have been longtime critics of nixon, thought about all of this and wrote about it in very, very favorable terms. to the clip that you just ran, i

agree with kissinger. this was a major accomplishment. again, because, getting the hanoi vietnamese to sign any piece of paper to me was remarkable. the problem with the agreement is that nixon and kissinger would make certain promises to the north vietnamese that essentially required a rubberstamping by congress, including reconstruction assistance, for example. and, of course, congress was not interested in spending any more money on vietnam. the idea that these monday morning quarterbacks, people who were criticizing -- the criticism is very much deserved. in the way the negotiations were handled secretly created dividends but also created problems over the longer-term. given the circumstances, i think

that the americans handled themselves well with the agreement but it is important not to blow it out of proportion and say that this will deliver peace in vietnam. everyone understood it wouldn't deliver peace in vietnam. it would give peace a fighting chance but -- it would give this south a fighting chance but peace would remain elusive. host: in rockville, connecticut, a vietnam that. hey, robert. caller: hi. hello? host: go ahead. you are on the air. caller: this is emotional to me. i was an 18-year-old marine. i am now 72. a little background, i was with a squad of 14 men. only one of us did not get wounded or without lost legs. i am shaking right now when i think of it. the last two months -- i love

the vietnamese people. i was in a village. they were lovely people. my question for the professor, john f. kennedy was my hero. you remember what he said about our country? i can't, i am just getting upset now. my question for the professor is, if john f. kennedy, what do you think he would have done? 58,000 men left? would he have left that way or would we have won that war and stayed? guest: that is a really, really great question. based on the evidence that we have, including the presidential recordings we have sort of concluded that if kennedy had lived nothing would have changed. kennedy had talked about pulling about 1000 american forces out, but only if the situation in south vietnam improved and it never did.

beyond that there were other references by kennedy and his administration to pulling out troops, but it was just to rotate them. of course, we idealize kennedy, but the idea that if he had lived things would have been different, none of this is supported by the ample amount of evidence we have from kennedy himself and his circle of advisors. beyond that, let's remember that johnson assumes the presidency among kennedy's death but retains the same team of advisors. historians do not believe that those same advisors would have given kennedy different advice. so, yeah. all this to say that kennedy said the u.s. on a collision course with north vietnam.

everything that happens after his death essentially follows the course that was set during the kennedy years. for me, kennedy is really essential to the escalation of america's commitment in vietnam. it begins with truman in 1950 with support to france. it escalates under eisenhower. it is really under kennedy that the american presence in vietnam goes from about 400 americans to 16,000. we witnessed under kennedy the introduction of helicopters and significant hardware. at that point it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for johnson to simply abandon vietnam upon assuming the presidency. host: since we are talking about what if, i wonder, how would the world be different if the united states had never gotten involved militarily in vietnam? how would the u.s. and the

geopolitical system be different right now? i know that it's hard to say. guest: it is very hard. vietnam was never about vietnam. in retrospect, the only people who cared about vietnam at that time were the vietnamese themselves. the americans, the soviets, the chinese, vietnam was about the larger cold war context. for me, that is why vietnam is inescapable for the americans. if you don't get involved in vietnam the chances are you will experience more fronts for yourself as you continue waging the cold war. given the context -- context is absolutely everything. i don't see how any american policymaker can avoid vietnam and retain enough credibility to keep fighting the cold war.

i think if there is no war in vietnam all that does is encourage communists in that part of the world and elsewhere to push, push forward. which is what would happen after the u.s. pulls out and it is captured by communist parties. in 1975 there is leftist insurgents activity in latin america and africa that culminates in the soviets being involved in afghanistan in 1979. the domino theory may be a bit much, but there was something to the idea that if we don't try to do something to stop communism in vietnam, we are likely to have to fight it somewhere else. host: bradley is a vietnam vet in clear fort, west virginia. good morning, bradley. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning, peter. a couple of questions. i was a combat engineer in

vietnam from 60 to 71. we build better houses, better roads and everything in vietnam then we ever dreamed about having. just like in japan they are taking our jobs and all these foreign pieces of junk cars are coming in. nothing sets me on fire more then a vietnam veteran or veteran driving a foreign car. i lose it. i have one more question before i quit too. i have a pretty nice general electric refrigerator. it was pretty new and it broke without warning. i got apart fort and the guy came to exit. general electric. the part was made in vietnam. nothing sets me on fire more than spending money on all these countries and then they are taking our jobs. i want to answer my question about what kind of vehicle you drive in california. host: how is vietnam doing now? guest: as bradley suggested, it

is doing very, very well. it is funny, mimi. during the war the vietnamese suffered tremendously. then the work comes to an end and in a way they suffer more after 1975 for a good 10 years or so. vietnam is an international pariah. there is a war with china in 1979. around that time vietnam invades cambodia and loses all of its friends. then the soviet union collapses and the vietnamese authority decides they are going to start, kind of, being nicer to other countries, including the united states. this leads to the normalization of relationships with washington in 1995 and we see vietnam trying to to more -- trying to do more in terms of integrating itself into the global economy

and the international community. it is a very, very young country, a very dynamic country. vietnam, on account of the industriousness of its people, have done quite well for itself. vietnam's economy has been growing basically almost as fast as china's economy over the last 10 to 15 years. it is not surprising, as bradley pointed out, that when we look at where stuff is made a lot of it is made in vietnam. that has been a good thing for the country. we are talking about people who suffered so much as a result of war. they deserve a break. they are getting it now thanks to economic integration and the willingness of a country like the u.s. to put the past behind it and move forward. host: mountain view, california, good morning, alex. caller: thank you for taking my

call. my one comment and a quick question. the reason the communists are eventually prevailed is because the majority of the vietnamese in the civil war wanted an attacker see. they did not want a western-style democracy. we americans did not have a right to go in and kill them. we ended up killing too many of them and poisoning their country with agent orange. i believe we know -- we owe them an apology and financial compensation.my question to the guest is what he thought about financial compensation for having interfered in their society? they had the right to choose the type of government they wanted, and it didn't necessarily mean we had a right to prevent that from happening. host: what do you think, peter? guest: the idea is that the vietnamese had the right to choose their government. it is important to understand that vietnamese communists,

northerners who fought against americans, they were not the sole standard bearers of vietnamese nationalism. a lot of those who fought with americans were vietnamese nationalists. their story matters in there was a reason that they thought with americans at the time. if you live in orange county, for example, they are still fighting today and they believe in an alternative system. the idea of the right to choose, if you start to exercise it long before the americans became involved in their war. the u.s. comes in and does become responsible for the amount of bloodshed that he and vietnam, but it's important to understand that many vietnamese were happy to see the americans because they wanted all the help they could in precluding

vietnamese communist authority from dictating and imposing their system upon them. this is a civil war. this is not a situation created by the united states. it existed long before the americans became directly involved. so, the right to choose -- and the vietnamese deciding to exercise their right, has as much to do with why the vietnam war becomes as nasty as it does. what americans did in vietnam and policymakers achieved in vietnam, it is important to recognize that there is a vietnamese agency here. that's important to make sense of the totality. host: a vietnam vet in vienna, virginia. hi, dan. caller: after world war ii and the cold war the u.s. was the only country to stand up to the communists. the communists after world war ii controlled many areas with

oil. the straits of florida and a government in cuba. in south africa. in the suez canal. and of course, vietnam. vietnam -- don't forget, the day after the pearl harbor the first thing that the japanese did was take the east in these. it was over oil. the military industrial complex could not have us cut off. that is why we were there. oil and it was oil today. we were the only one to stand up against the communists because of the oil routes. they controlled the government around the oil reserves. host: what do you think? guest: this is important. the americans were not the only ones to stand up to communism in the cold war, including in vietnam. it is important to recognize that first and foremost the south vietnamese themselves

stood up to the communists during the vietnam war. so, 58,000 americans will die fighting communist armies, but 300,000 south vietnamese will die fighting vietnamese armies. along fighting alongside americans were thousands of south koreans, thousands of australians, thousands of new zealanders, filipinos, there are our advisors from the republic of china, from taiwan. the u.s. was not alone in vietnam. we are talking about the cold war. this is an international system. of course, the u.s. tried to create a larger coalition as it entered vietnam, but it was never alone in fighting in vietnam. just as hanoi's armies were never alone. the soviets and the chinese provided significant assistance

that allowed communist armies to fight for as long as they did. it is important to think of the vietnam war as world war -- as a world were of a different kind. this isn't just between the vietnamese and the americans. this is a cold war conflict. like so many other cold war confrontations it involved dozens of countries directly and indirectly in various capacities. host: there is a question from twitter. do you believe there was a way that north vietnam could have been defeated without massively escalating the war beyond what would be seen as acceptable? guest: no. no, i don't. i just don't see it. first of all, a lot of critics of american policy would argue that the u.s. fought the war with one hand tied behind

its back. militarily the u.s. did everything they could short of dropping nuclear weapons, which was never really an option. let's look at the numbers. 58,000 americans killed, right? one million communist-led troops killed. that is a 20:1 ratio which you would take in any conflict. militarily the u.s. did everything right in vietnam. the problem is politically and diplomatically hanoi outsmarted and outplayed the united states. owing to the combination of political and diplomatic struggle it prevailed. looking back on all this, when we look at the nature of the leadership we had in northern vietnam, ho chi minh is sidelined in the early 1960's. the people in charge are

hardened revolutionaries. men and women who fought for years. they are obsessed with victory. victory for them doesn't just mean liberating vietnam from foreign rule, it means imposing this communist system on all the vietnam. their level of motivation and dedication is astounding. i want to emphasize, one was talking about a bad attitude. a lot of vietnamese who fought against americans also didn't want to be part of this. just like americans they were answering to their leaders and following orders. so, a lot of people will argue that the vietnamese went to war because it was their country and -- no, no. if the vietnamese communists win because they keep the fight

going and the people have no choice but to keep that fight going. by 1971-1972 a lot of people just want this to end so they can go back to their families. host: mark in new jersey. caller: it is all well and good for someone like henry kissinger to talk about monday morning quarterbacking sitting from the comfort of his office in the white house as national security advisor or the state department leader as secretary of state. i would be curious to know with the vietnam vets think about that. my real complaint is the amount of revisionist history that is taking place here. it's staggering. we are commemorating the anniversary, have ken burns, a bland neutral version of this. this is revisionist. i want your guest to answer

this. this was a war against south vietnam, ok? robert mcnamara said as much when they justified their involvement by pouring this aggression from within. the so-called viet cong, a pejorative term for the national liberation front, this was south vietnamese rebelling against a corrupt dictatorship. all of the fighting took place -- not all, a majority of the fighting took place in the south. the majority of the bombing took place in the south to the extent that 30 years ago the rates of cancer were dramatically different in north vietnam and south vietnam because of the uses of agent orange and other carcinogenic chemicals all in the south. host: mark, you said you had a question? caller: i want him to address this was a war against south vietnam. host: let's get a response.

guest: as i mentioned earlier, this is a solo war. i don't know if it is against south vietnam but it is a war within south vietnam, but it is a war within vietnam generally. mark talks about the viet cong, the national liberation front. the rank-and-file men and women fighting for that front are part of the front for various reasons. within the leadership of the front is accountable to hanoi. that has been established by evidence from north vietnam, from vietnamese communist archives. the idea that this is a war -- the southerners suffered tremendously and mark is right. there is more bombing that takes place below the 17th parallel than above it. this other vietnamese will suffer a great deal, but that suffering has a lot to do with the fact that this, from the

very beginning, is a civil war that began a long time ago and just kept escalating as the years went by. host: peter, there has been a lot of criticism as far as when the peace accords were finally reached. do you think that they could have been reached earlier than 1973? guest: no, i don't know. not at all. there's lots of talk about nixon interfering with johnson's efforts to end the war in 1968. hanoi was never going to end the war in 1968 through a negotiated solution. similarly, no matter who was in the white house was going to enter into a negotiated agreement in 1968. circumstances just weren't favorable to that.

again, the idea that we could have achieved peace in 1968, the americans are not alone in this. there are other countries involved. most important there are two important vietnamese parties involved and neither of those parties was inclined to even consider the possibility of a negotiated settlement as of 1968 unless, for the communists, that settlement implied unilateral american withdawl. and for saigon, unconditional north vietnamese surrender. host: a vietnam vet in woodberry, connecticut. good morning, barry. caller: i have two questions for you. number one. there was a book written about 15 years ago or so called "vietnam reconsidered." it was a naval professor who was

allowed into the archives and he concluded that the vietnamese, the north vietnamese thought they would have to stand down if americans put enough artillery bases on the mountain tops on the ho chi minh trail. that would have at least pulled them out of the conflict. it could have been temporary. in years they could have started up again. i want your opinion on that. do you think -- guest: those are very good questions. the artillery on the mountaintops. i worked in the vietnamese archives for almost 45 years.

i go to hanoi almost every year and dig through those archives. i have never seen anything about artillery being something, a major concern for the vietnamese communist authorities. what was a concern was the bombing. the american bombing of northern vietnam. so, the continued presence of the air force could have changed things, but only momentarily. american involvement in the assassination of the south vietnamese president in 1963, the americans aren't involved.

this is a coup carried out by his own generals. supported by the united states. it is problematic to say that the u.s. was behind the coup. diem's own detractors were behind it, but it was helpful to know that once diem was overthrown they would be supported by washington. there is a complicity that needs to be acknowledged. as much as we want to say that the u.s. has nothing to do with it or everything to do with it, we need to recognize that the truth is somewhere in between. peter asselin that will be the last call for this segment. a history professor at san diego state university and author of "a bitter peace." thank you for being on the program. guest: thank you for having me. i appreciate it. host: we will be back again

tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern, same time, same place. in the meantime, have a great saturday. ♪ >> c-span's "washington journal," every day, we take your calls live on the air on the news of the day, and we discuss policy issues that impact you. coming up sunday morning, republican strategist john theory and brad woodhouse discuss about the politics. and kevin carroll talked about his piece for the dispatch about the former f.b.i. official

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>> sunday on q&a, phillip k. howard provides a critique in his new book he argues that the fraternal order of police have usurped decision make power from elected officials and are arguably unconstitutional. >> the unions have become so powerful. this only happened after the 1960's. and since they got the authorization to do collective bargain, they have consolidated the mass of public employees to choose, a third of whom belong to unions into this into the largest and most powerful interest group in america. they collect $5 billion a year in dues, most go to support political purposes. they are a juggernaut and anyone who opposes them, they will consolidate national resources

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participated in a debate for the city's miami marlin election. the debate included current mayor lori lightfoot who is seeking a second term and cover a range of topics. the election will be held on february 28. this is about an hour and a half. this is about an hour and a half. community activist green, alderman sophia king, state representative kim buckner, willie wilson, cook county commissioner brandon johnson, former chicago public schools the ego, mayor laurie lightfoot, roderick