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♪ host: good morning. it is tuesday, february 14.

the house at senators will take part in a classified briefing focus on china's spy efforts and object shot down over north america. after a weekend that saw three objects violate u.s. airspace, members of congress are calling for transparency and answers in the white house. we are asking viewers about the biden administration's response to these aerial objects. we want to know what you think. phone lines are split by clinical party. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can send us a text at (202) 748-8003. please include your name and where you are from. catch up with us on social media. on twitter and facebook.com/c-span.

let's start calling you now about the biden administration's response to these aerial objects. we will bring in brett samuels, white house reporter from the hill newspaper joining us vi zoom. the story you put out, what we know and what we don't know about the latest objects shot down by the u.s. after that briefing at the white house yesterday. what do we know and what don't we know? guest: there is a lot we don't know. officials don't know and are not ready to share with the public. what we do know is there were three different objects shot down over the weekend, friday, saturday and sunday by the u.s. military. what we know is not much beyond that other than where they were shot down. on friday over alaska, saturday up in canada, and sunday over lake huron.

officials are not really ready to classify or describe what these objects were. the are calling them aerial objects. the reasons they were shot down is because they were in civilian airspace around 20,000 to 40,000 feet. b, they decided they were unsure of the surveillance capabilities these objects might have. president biden went ahead and made the decision to shoot them down. we still don't know where they came from, what their purpose was. there is much to be learned in the days ahead as teams work to recover the debris. host: the first was described as a chinese spy balloon. these last three objects a little different. are we certain they are from china or is that the expectation? guest: we are unsure where they came from.

officials have been careful not to assign china responsibility for these but it is possible that may end up being the case. john kirby, they white house spokesperson was talking about how the reality is there is nothing nefarious about these objects, acknowledging research institutions send out weather balloons and other objects for whatever reason. it is possible it may not be nefarious. given the chinese spy balloon that was shut down 10 days ago -- shot down 10 days ago people are on high alert. host: john kirby in the briefing room yesterday. he said the white house has been as transparent as we can. i wonder how that went over in the room with reporters and with members on capitol hill who have been calling for answers and

transparency. guest: on the one hand from the press corps's perspective there is appreciation john kirby could speak to these issues and was sent there to answer questions about this. on the other hand, there's a lot of information folks just don't know about this. there is limited info he can share. i think there is even more skepticism on capitol hill where lawmakers are confounded about how this is happening, these objects are in our airspace, why they are being shot down all of a sudden, why there is talk of if it has happened before. there's a growing course from republicans in particular about whether president biden needs to speak to the nation to talk about why this is happening and whether there is any security threat. i think we will see that continue to fester in the next

couple of days. calls for answers. there's an expectation the white house will brief lawmakers in the coming days. until we know more about where they came from and what they were doing there will be a frustration on capitol hill. host: do you get the sense president biden is closer to going and front of cameras about these objects? guest: i have been talking to folks at the white house and i think there is a sense perhaps at some point this week we would hear from the president on this issue. i think they want to be careful before we know too much about these objects. not have him speak just to have him speak. there's the possibility as we learn more and these outings are recovered there's a chance we could hear from the president at some point to address the public

about these issues. host: what details about the classified briefing senators are taking part in this morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern before the senate comes in at 11:00 a.m.? guest: the administration is trying to be transparent, as john kirby said, give us much information as they can. they have talked about they have not been able to recover the debris from the objects shot down over the weekend because of the weather. up in alaska the ground is frozen. in the case of lake huron, it was down over water. -- downed overwater. water. it's an olive branch to show they want to be transparent and keep lawmakers in the loop as they learn about these objects. host: thank you for keeping us

in the loop. brett samuels with the hill newspaper, white house reporter. we always appreciate your time. guest: appreciate it. host: that is the shot of the sun rising over capitol hill. the house in at 10:00 a.m. for a brief pro forma session. the senate at 11:00 a.m. eastern. we are asking about the biden administration response to these aerial objects. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. these objects, the chinese spy balloon migrating to the opinion pages of the national papers. two examples from the washington times. steve yates, his peace with adam

savitz. permanent threats are permanent with the chinese spy balloon's. they have only just begun. this from the lead editorial in the washington post. the right response does not include panic but it is time to get answers and a plan for how to handle these incidents. a picture of john kirby accompanying the lead editorial. a spokesman at the white house. we will show you more from that. we want to hear from you about the biden administration response to these objects. republicans, democrats, independents. this is john from bridgewater, new jersey, republican. caller: good morning. not everything has to be partisan.

these are matters of importance for the state. we lead the world in surveillance. we go back to gary powers to 1960 and before that. to me it is no big deal. we have balloons or satellites. they have their balloons and satellites. they know what we are doing. we shouldn't -- we should let things settle in. it is not a big deal. it is great political theater. if it was trump in office, the democrats would be clamoring for his head as well. let's not make everything partisan. host: you are of the opinion if we are ok with satellites going over us in space, why not balloons tens of thousands of feet in the air? caller: of course. it sounds like a saturday night live joke.

if they have satellites and sending balloons over that people can see [laughter] , it is laughable. what are they going to collect if they can't collect otherwise? it is like the tempest and the teapot. host: we will stay in the garden state. pumpkin planes, and this is mary kay. caller: good morning, john. this is the second day you have this topic. the second day. we don't know more than what we learned on the first day. don't understandi why you're obsessed with this topic other than to bash biden. i think the guy from bridgewater, even though he's a republican, i agree with what he's talking about. i don't understand c-span. they are more topics to be concerned about right now. let's not forget what just

happened at michigan state university, another mass shooting. we hear on valentine's day the anniversary of parkland in florida. you are talking about whether the biden administration is doing a good job or not on a shootdown of the balloons? there are so many more important topics. when he gonna start talking about jim jordan? when you gonna talk about what's going on in georgia and the indictments possibly against the former guy? host: the white house put up their national security spokesman yesterday briefing room to do an entire briefing with reporters about this. a lot of members of congress, which we cover closely, asking questions about this and continuing to call for answers. caller: but it's the second day.

host: there's more questions being asked at a press conference yesterday about it. caller: the bridgewater guy said this is a topic that does not have to be talked about every day will be don't have all the information yet. host: and we will hope more information comes today after this briefing the white house is giving every member of the senate at 10:00 a.m. that's happening in about two hours and 45 minutes. you mentioned the story last night from the detroit news article, three killed and five wounded at michigan state's campus. the suspect is dead. the suspected gunman killed three people and wounded several others at michigan state university was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. the 43-year-old suspect died of the gunshot wound. a campuswide shelter-in-place order lifted shortly after midnight on tuesday.

this truly has been a nightmare we are living through, says the deputy chief of msu's police department. the suspect not affiliated with msu as a student or employee. we have no idea why he came to do this tonight. if there is more information on that as police continue the investigation, we will keep you updated. that tragedy out of michigan state university last night. this is thomas, delray beach, florida. republican. caller: good morning. i kind of agree with the overall tone of the first caller. not that i blame c-span because it is a big story. i think this is a nonpartisan story. i think china did this intentionally with the intent of causing division and

controversy and drive americans against each other. oh, if trump was in office, things would have been different. locale slow biden --look how slow biden was to respond. china is trying to cause division among americans. i'm kind of pleased overall. i'm looking at social media and how people are talking about this. for the most part americans are not making this partisan, which is a good thing. we should remember this is not trump's fault or biden's fault. the party to blame is china, not the u.s. and any party in the u.s.. host: gary, independent. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, sir. caller: i have been watching you

since 1989. like the woman said earlier, you have these back to back days with this balloon nonsense. it's a distraction for the mass extinction event happening in ohio. that is my opinion. host: you are talking about the train wreck? caller: releasing a cancerous substance that is going downwind, hundreds of miles downwind from it and they are coming up with cancerous substances in the water. i thought you might be talking about that but i guess the balloons are a lot more important to your overall narrative of basically c-span, the cable companies dictating to you what to say. host: that is certainly nothing

case, gary. caller: it appears that way, and when it appears that way -- host: with every member of the senate being briefed today and officials come to the capitol, a lot of questions being asked yesterday. we are happy to hear your thoughts on whether it is a story or not. we are simply asking your thoughts on the response to the object. (202) 748-8001 for republicans to call. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can send us a text at (202) 748-8003. joe out of georgia, republican. caller: john, love c-span. you do a fantastic job. i think biden's policies have been extremely weak. i went to predict that this will lead to republicans taking back the senate and the presidency in

2024 and record-breaking stock markets. you do a great job. i have been calling c-span for 30 years. i'm a huge fan of c-span. keep up the great work y'all are doing. host: do you think republicans will take the presidency in 2024? caller: i think it will be the biggest landslide in history. host: who do you think will be the person to do that? who will carry the standard? caller: i would vote for any republican. people are discounting trump, but when trump was in office -- i'm a stock market got any hidden all kind of records. the economy was great. i think people are discounting trump. i would say trump will be the nominee and will win in a landslide victory. this aunt is -- desantis is coming on strong. we have never had a stronger

bunch of candidates. i think it will be a huge republican win in 2024. we are fired up and energized. come down to visit us. host: we will talk to you in 30 days joe. terry out of nora croft. caller: thank you for this opportunity. i wanted to say this balloon business puts me in the mind of dwight eisenhower's open skies proposal with nikita khrushchev. eisenhower felt if we could overfly each other and keep an eye on each other and everybody know what the other was doing, that would improve the cause of world peace, not impinge it. now we have defect open skies

with the satellite business -- de facto open skies. everyone is watching everyone else. i think that contributes to a peaceful world. also a cluttered space. we will see if that lasts. thanks a lot, you guys. host: matt from maryland, democrat. caller: how are you doing? i agree with the first three callers. first of all, i think the first thing we should be doing if we suspect it is china is to contact them to find out. on top of that, and we know this. i don't think there is any point discussing it. that is all i would like to say.

host: matt from maryland. lawmakers on capitol hill want to discuss it. this is from the washington times. biden goes silent will lawmakers seek answers, noting the president did not address the public yesterday. the spokesman for the national security council did. not scheduled to hear from the president today either. that could change. lawmakers calling for answers, including mitch mcconnell, minority leader in the senate. this was mitch mcconnell yesterday. [video] >> on a different matter there is something unusual going on in our nation's skies. president biden needs to communicate a little with the american people. about two weeks ago, a chinese spy balloon cross and our airspace and was taking its time surveilling our homeland.

we watched it tour a big chunk of the country before the administration belatedly took it down. since then the public has heard about another new unidentified flying object on a daily basis. yesterday one of our f-16s shutdown down something they have not identified near lake huron. the day before that, in consultation with canada, and american f-22 shut down something else over the yukon. the day before that, we took out some thing else over alaska. the administration has not been able to divulge any meaningful information about what was shot down. what in the world is going on? as the biden administration just dialed the sensitivity of

our radars up? are they benign science projects and wayward weather balloons or something more nefarious that we have somehow with missing all this time? president biden owes the american people some answers. what are we shooting down? where do they come from? whether they are hostile or not, is there coherent guidance about when to shoot them down? if the administration knew all along about china's surveillance efforts, why did they not have options to shoot them down before it maneuvered all across the country? did the right people know about the surveillance threat? did dod not adequately share intelligence about the growing threat? how did we get into a position

where the greatest nation in the world does not know what is traversing our airspace? how long has the domain awareness cap existed? what has the department done about it? the commander-in-chief owes the country some answers. host: senator mitch mcconnell yesterday on the floor of the senate. also yesterday, the number two democrat in the senate dick durbin who cautioned lawmakers not to give advice to president biden and officials on how to handle the objects. 7 >> -- [video] >> i don't know what is up in the skies. i think there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. if there's a threat, it is an acceptable and we all agreed both political parties. when we start giving advice to this president and the

department of defense on these matters, we have to stop and reflect on the manager of the local car wash in springfield, illinois. i went there a week ago when the first balloon was spotted. he said, senator, what is going on? i said i think china is responsible. what are they trying to tell us? i said whatever it is, we better answer decisively. we don't need anybody from china flying in our airspace, endangering americans in the process. then he said to me, what about those cowboys and congress want to shoot it down wherever it is? are they thinking about what's going to happen if debris from that whatever is falls on a city, hospital, a school playground? they don't want to do that, do they? i hope they don't. i wonder when i listen to some people here who argue we should

have shot it down when it was going to cross the united states if they reflect on what i did been the collateral damage. we did not know what was on the balloon. we knew it was the size of three school buses. that is not a small operation. whether it included anything dangerous, radioactive, some sort of explosive. we did not know. i think we did the right thing. we waited until it was off the coast. still near our own territorial waters. shot it down and now we are recovering what was in it. as for the other elements, we will be briefed on china. i believe those questions are going to be answered and should be answered. i will be there on a bipartisan basis as i was last week. it is serious and we are going to take it seriously. the notion we shoot this down over louisville, kentucky or chicago, that's a responsible. -- irresponsible.

i trust the military. host: dick durbin on the floor of the senate yesterday. back to your phone calls. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. david. d.c., republican. caller: i think this is probably the biggest story you can think of. i would challenge anyone to produce the last time our airspace was violated. i think the japanese sent over balloons to start wildfires in world war ii in the northwest. this is a big deal. when was the last time we had a fighter jet shooting things down over our territory, or our neighbors? the administration is handling it well. let's find out what is going on, brief congress, tell the public

to continue with their business and get information when we actually have the assessment done. i think it is a huge story. whoever is responsible, whatever the equipment is, let's find out the facts and move from there. host: alabama, jc, independent. caller: good morning, john. how has the biden administration reacted to this? as usual, completely did the ring and inept -- dithering and inept. that is what you can expect from joe find. he plagiarized in law school and was only kept in by somebody doing him a favor. with the previous colors that is exactly right. as they try to dismiss this, we saw biden dismiss this on a public stage speaking to xi jinping. he said, all nations perform intelligence on other nations,

trying to dismiss it and belittle an invasion of the united states sovereign airspace by an enemy adversary nation. host: we shot these down. what more do you want to see done? caller: the dithering was for an entire day and a half. the response should have been before it entered u.s. airspace, and the very instant a civilian founded over montana it should have been shot down. we should have heard a stronger, much stronger verbal response from the commander-in-chief. but we are not seeing that. we are not hearing that. biden is living in a previous generation where america was exceedingly strong. the situation has changed dramatically, if anybody has not noticed. the people's republic of china is now exceedingly powerful and they are mocking us with these invasions and incursions. a strong leader like ronald

reagan, ron desantis, one of those men would have responded with at least strong words to the dictator of china. host: this is john, yukon, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i can't understand the lady from new jersey saying let's forget about this incident and get on with something else. this is the mentality of the americans. during the second world war, the japanese sent balloons over this set the forests on fire and bombed the coast of california, which we did not hear about until after the war. who can we blame for all these forest fires we had? some camper. some camper. this is very important. i blame the military for not

shooting this down to begin with. where was the radar? where was all the money we spend on defense? thank you very much for taking michael. -- my call. host: plenty of stories about the history of balloons in the wake of the first incidents of the three incidents. one local story from north dakota. chinese spy balloon sparse memories of the japanese balloon bombs during world war ii. -- sparks memories of the japanese balloon bombs during world war ii. this is claudia from newport , florida. caller: thank you for taking my call. host: go ahead. caller: i do agree with the last

gentleman that was on about everybody forgetting about history in this country. not to blame president biden, but my question is why wasn't something done before it ever even entered into alaska? why is this administration allowing the complete spine on our country -- spying on our country? is that not enough for rules of engagement? i know they are trying to tie those. we just give them all of our information. this is like the fourth thing biden has just let go. at what point are the republicans going to file for articles of impeachment against president biden for the afghanistan anything, and now

allowing our airspace to be invaded and our information be taken? when donald trump was in he was fighting against tiktok. all of a sudden, wow, it is new news that everybody has to stop using this. i think the people need to wake up and realize china is very strong and the potential of them of taking us over considering how depleted we are, including our military -- host: what did you make of the comments about the history of the spy balloon program? officials pointed out yesterday and in previous days the program existed under the trump administration. john kirby said it was the trump administration who did not detect this program. it was the biden detected this program.

--biden administration that detected this program. caller: i would like their proof of if it was occurring during the trump administration, show us the proof. why wasn't anybody picking this up? is our military that weak at this point? host: this is john kirby from yesterday. [video] >> to put it into context for you, how we have worked and are still working to better understand the issue of high-altitude, low speed craft. let me start with the chinese program. when president biden came in the office he directed the intelligence divinity to do abroad assessment of chinese intelligence capabilities to ensure we were working to detect and protect against them. for reasons you will understand we cannot publicly go into details about how we discovered and counteract foreign

intelligence collection efforts. much of what we have done and are doing is sensitive. china has a high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that is connected to the people's liberation army. it was operating during the previous administration but they did not detect it. we detected it. we tracked it and have a carefully studying it to learn as much as we can. we know the surveillance balloons have crossed over dozens of countries on multiple continents around the world, including some of our closest allies and partners. we assessed at this time these balloons have provided limited capabilities to the p.r.c.'s other intelligent platforms used over the u.s. in the future, if the p.r.c. advances this technology, it could become more valuable to them. host: john kirby from the white

house yesterday. taking your phone calls, asking for your thoughts on the biden administration response to these aerial objects. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. it is just after 7:30 on the east coast. just keeping you appraised of other news out there. a caller mentioned this earlier. a georgia judge ordered a partial public release of the grand jury investigation report on former president trump's attempts to interfere in the 2020 election. the judge said three portions of the report will be released on thursday, including a section expressing concern someone says may have lied under oath, although the names will not be made public. they launched the inquiry shortly after the january 2,

2020 conversation where the former president urged top election officials the find 11,780 votes to tilt the election in his favor. authorities have investigation possible conspiracy oath of office violations and racketeering and election related charges as well. we will find out more on thursday. the shooting at msu is the latest report on the shooting. and today is the anniversary of the parkland shooting in florida. 17 students dying and that shooting back in 2018. today on the op-ed pages of the usa today from a member of congress looking on the issue of gun violence. gun violence claimed my son's life. we can spare other parents' my grief.

usa today is where you can find that. back to phone calls. todd from moreno valley, california. independent. caller: good morning. any foreign aircraft invading our airspace, as far as i'm concerned, we shot down -- needs to be shut down. it is an act of war. in my opinion we have the right to self defend. we should stop manufacturing everything in china. bring manufacturing back home to the u.s., mexico, canada, from the nations. -- friendly nations. we need to use electronic, internet spying and warfare on them and disrupt and destroy their food supply and cripple their nuclear defenses. because, they are the enemy. people are not realizing that.

host: are you worried about that being an escalation? caller: no, because that is what they have been doing for the past year and a half. all these fires at food processing plants. china is buying up farmland here. that is an act of war. host: that is todd from moreno valley, california on chinese efforts to buy american farmland and american real estate. that is the topic of steve yeats's column. there peace in the washington times. in 2019, a chinese billionaire purchased acres in southwest texas. this is in the same county as lockwood air force base, the training ground for air force pilots. a group of chinese agricultural company's blood of 370 acres 12 miles from grand forks airbase.

the air force deemed that a threat. ccp control of agricultural land is an urgent concern, even if the land is not adjacent to sensitive site. controlling food supply chains is an interval part of china's stated strategy to dominate us politically and economically. this is part of a plan playing out in real time. chinese investors holding u.s. agricultural land surged from 13,000 acres in 2010 to 352,000 acres in 2020, a 2000% increase. the average u.s. farm is 445 acres. nearly 800 families could be farming the acreage now controlled by china. that is from today's washington times. john in chicago, democrat. caller: good morning. thanks for c-span.

it seems to me having it shot down over the coast was potential for giving us a treasure trove of information. the pictures i have seen of what have come up, primarily the propellers, seem to be entirely intact. i would think they would be a detriment is meant of information we might gain from the wreckage that would have been lost if it crash like it on the solid surface. thanks for your time. host: wake forest, north carolina. this is james. caller: with every caller it brings up so many things that need to be talked about. that article you read was people ought to take that seriously. we are under attack.

it was brought up earlier about all the food processing plants in this country that have been burned down mysteriously in the past year or so. we had a fertilizer plant burned to the ground in north carolina about a year ago or less. it was like not even brought up -- host: you think china did not? caller: i don't think china did it but we are under attack by somebody. this guy in the white house, hunter's laptop shows he is compromised. that is who they want in office. china is doing some stuff but i'm not saying they are burning of the food processing plants. they are purchasing hundreds of thousands of acres of land and our government is allowing it to happen. the cia is corrupt.

the dod is corrupt. the doj is corrupt. the health care system is corrupt. if we don't wake up, we are not. -- done. host: there is a bill to block the chinese comet's party from controlling u.s. agricultural land in the wake of these incidents. you think the bill will move through congress? caller: not if we have democrats in control of the senate. they are selling our country. selling it. they don't care about america. they don't care about the constitution. they don't believe in god, even though they say they do. the only thing they believe it is abortion -- believe in is ortion and blm and woke and not understanding if you are a boy or girl when you are born. host: reginald in florida on the line for democrats. caller: first off, a story i

learned a long time ago. i think it was under reagan at a seminar in washington, d.c. there's is a sidewalk with a mailbox on it. on the mailbox liens a man. three people come three different days. one man stepped on his foot. he keeps going. the second man passes by. the man stepped on his foot. this man curses him out. the third been walks by. the man stepped on his foot. the men beat them half to death. who is right and who is wrong? the man on the mailbox is wrong. the three men on the sidewalk are -- they have the right to respond whichever way they feel necessary. our president has done on the

sidewalk is his decision. we are stirring the pot. we are continuing to stir the pot on issues we keep finding trapdoors in. we keep stirring the pot. america needs to wake up. american people need to wake up. we have glorified -- if i stir this pot over here, the racial pot over here, our infrastructure stinks. i go don't georgia street. i crossed the line in the road stink. look at your feet. look at your streets. look at your infrastructure. four years of trump and what we did not get. nothing. we have a stacked court. 600,000 people dead. y'all still want to jump on the

president and a decision he made that did not kill nobody. yellow -- y'all stirring the damn pot and you need to cut it out. host: kenny, independent. did pedro take brian's space? host: pedro -- nobody took his place. there are several hosts of this program but brian is still in the office. he's right on the whole. let me --

caller: let me talk now. it looks like -- i have to agree with the gentleman. host: we come up with her own questions every morning between my producer i workers in the morning and the executive producer of the program. we usually chat the day before. we try to figure out what the story of the day is and what is happening. that group of individuals and

maybe some other members of the washington journal team chiming in. we come up with questions every day and try to spark a conversation and do it every morning here and give you a chance to talk about the news of the day. caller: it changes so much since the days of brian lamb. there are so many stories now. china is dividing us with their balloon sent over. you just talked about china buying up all that land. they had a story -- you don't have stories on israel. rupert murdoch is a jewish guy. a citizen but he says something about israel, you cut them off. hello? host: i'm listening to you, kenny. i bet you if we got brian lamb at the desk you would say we do the same thing here that we did during his days. it is trying to have a

conversation and give folks like yourself that speaks of the country. this is your chance to speak back to washington. we try to do it everyday and we will continue to try to do it every and give you the forum. randy from norman, oklahoma, republican. caller: i wanted to say we need to take this very seriously. i will appreciate you bringing this up today. the chinese are coming through our southern border by the thousands because of the border policy of president biden. they are buying up the land as you mentioned a few minutes ago. we have 100,000 people you're dying from fentanyl that was basically manufactured by the chinese. one tv station was covering this the other night. did not find out anything about this being shot down.

hunter biden received payoffs for access to joe biden when he was vice president from the chinese. in world war ii, there was a mini sub spotted in the harbor of hawaii. there was also, if i remember my history right, warnings picked up on the radar at that time as well. a very serious issue we have. we have a problem in the united states that we think we are invincible. if you look at the bible, israel thought they were invincible. but god used another nation to totally destroy them. to think we are not in dangerous territory. not from the chinese.

like thomas jefferson said, i tremble for my country when i respect god is just. america has been so blessed by god. host: that is randy. 10 minutes left in the washington journal segment. please take your calls on the biden administration's response to those aerial objects. we are trying to keep you updated on some of the other news items and hearings on capitol hill. let me run through a couple. the senate is holding a hearing on crypto and financial systems safeguards on crypto at 10:30 a.m. eastern today. go to c-span.org watch that hearing. 11:00 a.m. eastern, the senate judiciary committee with a hearing on protecting children online.

that's at c-span.org. expecting to hear more from mark milley, chairman of the joint chiefs and lloyd austin, the defense secretary. a press conference at 9:45 a.m. eastern. that got. there was a hearing -- that got moved up. there was hearings on the ukrainian defense. now there are questions about the aerial objects. secretary austin recently discussed the threats posed by the unidentified objects over the u.s. this was part of a press conference he was giving yesterday. this is about a minute from that press conference. [video] >> a lot of people have questions given the activity over the weekend. i want to take a minute to give you the latest on where we stand and what we know. then i will take a couple of questions before we hop in the car. the safety and security of the american people is the

president's and the department's number one priority. these objects do not present a military threat to anyone on the ground. they do however present a risk to civil aviation and potentially an intelligence collection threat. we will get to the bottom of it. our priority is the recovery so we can get a better sense of what these objects are. we are working closely with the rest of the federal government, including the faa, the fbi, nasa and others to work through what we might be seeing. host: secretary austin yesterday briefing reporters as he was traveling. rau in -- ray i fayetteville, north carolinan, a democrat. your thoughts on the incident and the response? caller: it is really comical to

hear some of these people call and talk about things. don't they know that chinese has satellites that can pinpoint a needle on the ground in the united states? if joe biden had shut that balloon down over the u.s. and it had another virus and it or whatever, why did he shoot it down for? they never miss the opportunity to try to bash this president. this president is doing a wonderful job trying to straighten out his country that maga and trump messed up. it is really sad. it is sad. you know what is wrong with america? these people calling in that are getting no information from fox

news, newsmax, all these channels. that is the problem with the united states. host: kathleen from navasota, texas. republican. caller: this is cap lying. i wanted to call about everything going on in washington. i want to make as citizens arrest on president biden for treason against the united states and everything he's got his fingers in that the american people does not know. something needs to be done about it. host: kerry from illinois, independent. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. the rules are very suspicious. -- balloons are very suspicious. everyone is blaming china.

people could eye see it when it was called in. how did he get into our air traffic lanes without the faa permission? administration had to know about this. i know it would interfere with flights. that is very suspicious to me. the second point is, this went on for hours before they made a move. the third thing that is most suspicious is that they shut them down but they can't find any of the debris. i think that is very convenient. host: there are pictures of their recovery efforts. caller: pardon? host: we have seen pictures of the recovery effort. the fbi released pictures over the weekend of picking up debris from the balloon and ongoing efforts to find more of the debris. caller: was it the white house

spokesman yesterday or one of the generals that said they did not have anything to investigate? i'm just going off what they said yesterday. host: they are sifting through what they have found and continue to search for more. that was the latest. i was pointing out the picture that the fbi released from the naval vessel in the atlantic ocean that was recovering that debris. bob in north carolina, democrat. you are next. caller: i want to remind everyone we have become too adversarial with china and will have to do without computer parts, truck parts, car parts and many things they totally have us as an economic colony. for kenny worried about the coverage, brian lamb warned us in the early 1990's and mid-1990's about the 1997 telecommunications act.

we were too lazy to pay attention to it whatsoever. have a nice day. host: erie, pennsylvania, mike. caller: hi. this is frank. i wanted to let everybody know first and foremost everybody needs to look at biden's portfolio. he has nothing invested in america. host: we are talking about these aerial objects. do you want to talk about that? caller: when you call up and spot an unidentified flying object in this space and call the committee that holds that -- i think it is in washington state. the first thing they say is it was a balloon.

it might have been a balloon. there are alien on this planet right now. host: this is lynn in rockville, democrat. caller: there's a couple of issues that are concerning. one, when the first balloon was spotted by civilians on the ground and they reported it they had no indication that our government was paying attention. it was not until people turned around and it became a story that they started to track it, then ignored it until the criticism. the criticism starts, and the next objects they came floating across within tract -- within track -- where then tracked.

if we assumed our military can pick up a missile which is much smaller than a balloon, why can they not pick things up. now we have not down for them and we don't know if they came from china for sure. they could have come from russia. they were intelligence gathering. if it's a danger to people or americans, course it could have been. it could have been anthrax that was militarized. there are a variety of things that can be carried on a balloon. it is not like it is a threat. it could have been a threat and the intelligence gathering was a severe damage to our intelligence. it went over although secure locations. and then to hear kirby saying it has happened before. sounds like just passing the blame, which is not untypical

for politicians in washington. host: lynn is the last caller in this segment. plenty more to talk about, including up next we are joined by frank macchiarola of the american petroleum institute to talk about oil and gas policy. later, we turn our attention to issues impacting black americans. the debate over teaching black history. that conversation with author and journalist toure from thegrio. we will be right back. ♪

our mission is to influence public policy, oil and natural gas. host: in 2023? caller: it means energy security. the united states because the shale revolution is anymore secure energy posture. we want policies to ensure we can continue to be in this

position as a country. it means providing affordable and reliable energy for the working people. our industry works hard to provide that while meeting the challenge of the climate challenge that faces our industry, our country and the world. that's the commitment of the industry. we have a few priorities. we need to access federal lands and waters to continue to produce oil and gas the ragged people in the world need. we need infrastructure. permitting reform has been the mighty policymakers. that's very important, to get the product from where we produce it to where the consumer needs it. we need policies that advance

cleaner fuels. that's a priority for the industry as well. we need to gather republicans and democrats to tackle this climate challenge. we need reasonable policies that meet that challenge and provide affordable and reliable energy while advancing the progress we have made in reducing emissions. host: president biden gave a state of the union address. he had some thoughts on the oil and gas industry. [video] >> have you noticed the reported profits, record profits? last year they made $200 billion in the midst of a little energy crisis. i think it is outrageous. why? they invested too little profit to increase domestic production. they were afraid he would shut

down the oil refineries and await -- anyway. >> have you noticed record profits? last year they made 200 billion dollars in the midst of a global industry crisis. i think it is outrageous. why? they invested too little of that profit increase production. when i talk to them, they said they are afraid we will shut down all of the oil refineries. why should we reinvest anyway? we are going to need it. production. if they had invested in induction to keep gas prices down, instead they use record profits to buy back their own stock, rewarding their own shareholders.

that is why i propose we quadrupled the stocks and long-term investments. they will still make considerable profit. guest: that was president biden. first, on the oil and gas profits. what you do with investments, the criticisms from the president. guest: over the past year, as demand has come back, you also seen supply come back. you have seen oil and gas producers increasing. we recognize the need for energy as a industry. if we are committed to providing that energy. -- we are committed to providing that energy. host: when the president says

you are not reinvesting that enough, that it is turning into pockets of people, how much of that does get invested? guest: it is untrue. our industry is providing the energy people need. we are investing in capital intensive projects that takes decades appeared there is no question that during the pandemic as demand decreased, you saleh in decline -- saw a decline in vestment, but you saw it come back. the are supply chain constraints. labor shortage issues that face all industries. that is not unique to our industry. we are coming back, we are producing more. what when he from washington, we need a president that incentivizes that production of american energy. a president that promotes that our approach energy, that aren't

trying to lock up areas for more production or stifle infrastructure or increase taxes on the industry. if we can get that from washington dc, i think you will see outcomes improved. host: senior vice president at the american petroleum institute , api.org is where you can go with us for about 35 minutes this morning. go-ahead and start calling in. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. democrats, (202) 748-8002. when we talk about the permitting process, would you mean? does every single project has to get the same kind of permit? guest: it takes a long time. the biggest constraint is often times from litigation, and extensive litigation that holds of projects. host: who is usually suing

you to hold up those organizations? guest: third parties. there are statutes that need reformed. the timeline for approval is for and i have years appeared they national environmental policy act, which requires environmental impact statements or assessments of a particular project. long-term, many agencies engage in those process. the average timeline was for and a half years. if we can knock that down to two years, we did a study at api that showed there is about $157 billion of infrastructure product caught up in the process. reducing get to two years can take 67 building projects and move them along -- billion projects and move them along. there are other statues that

need to be reformed. these delays are bottling up the critical energy we need. in the appalachian region, we surveyed 10 projects alone. four of which, about 5% of the total natural gas we use in the united states. it is significant and can make a real difference if we have that reform. host: if you were to cut it from four to two years, what does that mean, less time for responses as these legal suits go back and forth. how do you trim that process down and still achieve the goals that neva was originally written to do? guest: we want to make sure that we do all of the environmental work that needs to be done on projects, but we do not have undue delay that ends up in many cases counseling projects that are critical for our -- canceling projects that are critical for our infrastructure.

democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. joe, you are on. caller: good morning. . thanks for taking my call. . host: what are your questions? what are your questions? caller: the record profits this year, the 20 billion, whatever it was, billions of dollars of profit that the oil company made toyear?

how many times does the oil company lake to make record profits? when president biden said there's going to be oil needed for the next 10 years, can you explain the lies -- you probably said it. we were energy independence when we buy 20% of our oil from canada and 30 from mexico. that sounded like the most ridiculous thing. now you are saying you make record efforts. they have done nothing to cut gas prices. host: let me let you address this. guest: on record profits he asked about previous years, certainly during the pandemic when the price of oil went below zero, our industry was not profitable. it suffered significant losses during that time. again, as demand went back up and supplies have not kept pace, you have seen higher prices. it is important to recognize this industry is not simply made

up of corporations, it is made up of. it supports -- made up of people. it supports 11 million jobs in the knighted states. 8% -- united states. energy is the backbone of the american economy. a strong u.s. and oil industry means we are less reliable of foreign sources of energy. we have stronger employment around the country. we are adding to our economic productivity. we are proud of the record that our industry has. again, the challenge that we have now is to continue to make that progress and to reduce emissions. host: what do you think would be the idea price for a gallon of gas in this country? guest: i cannot talk about prices or estimates going forward.

what is ideal is a situation in which you are providing affordable and reliable energy for people, you are making progress on reducing emissions. critical to this is producing more energy that we have here at home. for decades, we heard about the importance of not being relied on strengthening our energy dependence. we doubled the production of natural gas and oil in the united states. as a result, we are more secure, we have a more stable price environment. we created jobs, provide economic growth for the country. we need to continue the progress, we need policies to ensure we can do that. host: is it fair to say it is two dollars a gallon too little for a gallon of gas?

isis five dollars too little? guest: it is less of targeting a price and more of making sure we have an abundant supply for people that is reliable. so come on they wake up in the morning and drive to work, -- so when they wake up in the morning and drive to work, they are sure they can get the energy they need. that has made a huge difference in being able to get supplies to the marketplace. critical in all of this, our policies that incentivize u.s. production that make us competitive against countries that in many cases do not have our interest at heart. if we can unlock american energy, we can really strengthen our energy security and the advantage we have against other countries. host: are we ever energy independent or ever been energy

independence? guest: we are energy secure. we get our energy from home and canada. we exploit crude oil next -- export crude oil. we also export liquefied natural gas. the ability to provide natural gas to other countries. it was critical during the war in ukraine. the u.s. has been there to support our european allies. it is also important for the climate object's of those climates -- countries. here in the u.s. we reduced carbon emissions, largely due to the switch from coal to natural gas, we want to export the progress made on reducing emissions or the use of natural gas by exporting.

host: author. you are on. caller: president biden has said -- that is exactly the kind of attitude to companies that make millions of dollars every year should take with a bargain with their labor unions. the workers remain on strike because of senior managers. host: author, do you want to talk about oil and gas? that is our topic for the moment. caller: no, thank you. host: republican. good morning. caller: i had a question. i see where these chinese and other countries are buying up our farmland. how much does that affect the oil and gas that is coming out

of america? they're not only going to be raising food for themselves, but oil and crude coming out of the farms that they already purchased at of the united states. when biden got in office, why is it legal for these presidents to put money into foreign pipelines and shut ours down the first day in office and makes our fuel go up. why should they have to go through congress to get these laws passed? it seems like when they go in it is like they are god and do what they want to do. it seems like we have a medical arena that controls everything that we do now. guest: you spoke about pipelines. it is really important that we continue to build out our infrastructure in the u.s. that is why we are pushing for reform in congress. it is not just our industry that

needs the reform, it is also the -- industry that needs transmission lines. this is a bipartisan issue, permeating reform. it is something that unites people who support all forms of energy. we are hopeful that we can get this done, even in divided government. host: andre in weatherford, texas. andre is a independent. caller: my question, you have all of these permits that gives you the right to drill on land. some reason, energy companies are not drilling on the. you get subsidies of -- petroleum companies get subsidies of millions of dollars. back in the 70's and and 80's os

below $80 a barrel. the subsidies, you do not all need. the last question, the president really ain't got nothing to do with the oil prices. isn't it put on the public market? host: a couple of issues there . guest: this is something the biden administration has raised a number of times. they are wrong on the facts. two thirds of the leases for oil and gas development on federal land are actually in production, that is the highest percentage in over 20 years. we actually produced around 100,000 wells in the u.s. the industry is out there producing. we have seen an increase of nearly one million barrels year

over here. you're going to continue to see an increase into next year. again, the demand and a coming out of covid was much steeper than people anticipated. you are seeing supplies coming back and the industry produced. host: when it comes to federal land, is there more energy underneath federal lands than private lands? is that where your focus is? drilling and getting access to that energy? guest: overtime we have seen more production on private lands for oil and natural gas. federal mix of a significant amount of reduction -- production. it is important. the area in which the federal government has the most impact. it is the area in which the

biden administration has taken action. when they first came into office, they should aim a moratorium on leasing federal land. i continue to the point where they leased fewer acres than any administration since the second world war. they are well beyond the obama administration on leasing. our encouragement to them, they keep talking about the need to provide for lower prices. they could have an impact on that by offering lease sales and incentivizing operators to go out there to produce more oil and gas. host: where can you and can't drill when it comes to offshore drilling? guest: right now we are urging the administration to issue a five-year plan, which is really

the rules of the road for drilling on the outer continental shelf. we have gone them over 220 days without a plan. it is the first time since the 1980's that we do not have a five-year plan in place. it is essential that we put that in place, provide the rules of the road for offshore leasing going forward. this is a critical part of our energy mix. host: we're 13 years on since the deepwater horizon disaster in the gulf. what has changed when it comes to oil drilling offshore at that time? guest: it is something that our industry has taken as a priority. we set up apis to focus more on this area. our industry is committed to safety, environmental

stewardship. to provide affordable, reliable, abundant energy for the american people while addressing admissions, that is -- emissions, that is the critical challenge we face right now. the offshore is a part of that right now. it is among the lowest carbon barrels. in the u.s., we produce energy to the highest environmental standards. . (202) 748-8001, republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. line for democrats. good morning. caller: biden must be about the best president for oil companies considering the profit margins. obama was good too.

in north dakota they were producing oil oil like no time. in 16 and 17 they were all shutting down because of the oil prices. that did not help them at all. they're opening up again now and things are starting to bloom again. i would like to have a couple of questions. the oil production in the united states today opposed to -- and why is it at a all-time high? why should the price be so high? also, the elephant in the room is opec. when trump was president they were pumping oil over there and they took production drastically. that is -- has completely benefited the u.s. oil

companies. i would like for you to answer a couple of them questions. guest: the caller mentioned opec. one of the troubling things that we saw in the last couple of years is the administrations continuous urging by opec to provide more supplies in the marketplace while locking up our federal lands and waters canceling our pipeline projects? this country has projects? this country has been in a struggle with hope for decades, to wrestle most of the world's energy supply away. because of the shale revolution, we were -- shell revolution, we were able to become a swing producer, the largest producer of oil and gas in the world. opec would like to wrestle control back. for a whole host of reasons,

whether it is energy security, national security, the economy, jobs, it is better that we produce more energy in the u.s. then the less reliant in countries in opec. opec plus includes russia, about 10% of the total oil production in the world. i think everyone would recognize that it would be better to produce more oil in the united states then to rely on russia. host: who is buying russian oil right now? guest: mostly in asia. host: china? guest: i believe so. host: which administration has been best for the oil and gas industry? do you have a favorite? guest: we do not have a favorite. we work with both parties. we try to promote energy policies that are going to provide access to affordable,

reliable energy to more oil in gas in the u.s. that is going to build out infrastructure system to get it to where it is needed. it is not to provide cleaner fuel for the next generation of the internal combustion engine that will continue into the long run. experts, not just the president, independent experts in government, the u.s. and internationally tell us will continue to use oil and natural gas as a primary source of energy in the world for decades to come. the critical question for policymakers is, whether that energy should come from overseas or whether it should come from the u.s. because of all of the reasons are outlined, it is clear we ought to do more in the u.s. to produce more to produce more energy and gas and for the american people. host: is that $200 billion

accurate? guest: i am not sure totally throughout the industry what the prophets were. host: wasn't a record year? guest: prices were at record highs, margins were high. margins were high in the industry. it is important to recognize that historically, over the past three years to come our imagery -- industry faced record below oil prices. it was not making money during the pandemic. it is also important to remember, those companies employee thousands of americans, and are responsible for providing over 11 million jobs of the u.s. economy.

a successful oil and gas industry in the united states means that we are more industry secure, that we are improving the economy, job creations, the things we ought to be champion as policy makers. host: larry in florida. independent. about two minutes left. -- 10 minutes left. caller: this is actually lori. that is just fine. i appreciate you. i have been with them since it started. i love your program. i love these things called special order speeches, one of my favorites was done by roscoe bartlett. he has done several of them. what they want to do, they want

to learn about the speech he commemorated on january 18 2007. host: why that speech particularly? caller: about how oil is a finite supply and how these previous generations should have been saving elect bid for our posterity. -- saving a bit more for our prosperity. i'm going to get off here and let him answer. host: what was your specific question that you want an answer? caller: question that you want an answer? caller: why do you want to draw everything out of our land, as much oil as quickly as possible just as the boomers did? if he is not familiar with rick, he needs to become familiar with it. it was made in 1957, but the baby boomers were not talk about it, but the gen x kids were. guest: with respect to the

question, energy provides the modern lifestyle that will lead. it strengthens people's standard of strengthens people's standard of living. it lifts people globally into the middle class. over the next 20 years, we are going to see populations around the world increase by around 2 billion. we're going to see the need for energy increase as economies grow and as people move into the middle class. it is critically important for the u.s., national security, energy security, that more of the energy that you use globally comes from right here. we have this apply to be able to meet the demand. that is why everyday we work to ensure that the u.s. oil and gas

industry can continue to meet that demand, while meeting the challenge of producing emissions. host: how they feel about wind energy, solar energy? guest: listen for all of those forms. we think we need a diverse portfolio of energy to be able to meet the growing demand. they benefit from the fact that they are zero and low carbon emissions sources of energy. they are part of the next and optically. host: how long do you think they would take for they were noble to supply as much energy? -- for those renewable energies? guest: folks will try to accelerate that time. for us, when we talk about the energy transition, what we try to focus policy makers on, is the fact that we are not talking about sources of energy, we are talking about emissions.

a energy transmission should be one we transmission away from carbon emissions, to a low-end zero carbon emissions future that could include oil and natural gas with technologies like carbon capture utilization and storage. it could be hydrogen, biofuels, a whole wide or folio, solar, wind, a whole wide portfolio available fuels have in the united states to continue to drive our economic growth and meet this challenge of climate. host: how do you get a zero carbon barrel of oil? guest: reduce emissions through carbon cap utilizations. you can get cleaner fuels as we are investing in cleaner fuels including biofuels. you can increase energy efficiency, as we have done through cafe standards over the years. a corporate average filled

economy standard. miles per gallon on automobiles. there are a whole host of ways you can get more energy and less emissions. we want to do that at the lowest cost of the consumer. we want to continue to provide affordable reliable energy. we want to meet the challenge of reducing emissions in that energy. transportation is harder to debate a sector. -- debate a sector. if you look at our industry, on the power side, we have made the most progress in reducing emissions over the last several years through writer use of natural gas. we moved away from using coal. it was about 40% of our fuel mix in 2005. the result has meant about a 40% reduction. if we can continue the progress in other areas, industrial uses and transportation while still

providing the energy that people need to come will make progress on both ends. host: how long have you been in this line of work? guest: i started on capitol hill. i work for the natural resources committee for several years and transitioned into the private sector in 2018. i have been in api since 2016 working on these policy issues. i have been on both sides of the issues. i feel very strongly that our industry supports the american way of life, energy is the backbone, the foundation of our economy. the more secure if we produce work that energy in the united states, that is a for the american people. we need to put policies in place to ensure that.

host: what if you think of folks like yourself to lobby for the industry? guest:guest: to make their case. why the company they represented ought to have the public policy in place that they were trying to advance. . it is a constitutional right. a petition of government. it is important because it informs policymakers of the industries that they are regulating and legislating for to find out what the priorities are for those industries. certainly not everything that they are going to say is something that the principal agrees with or is going to try to advance. that open dialogue is important. it ultimately makes legislation that are, more informed. it is important to have shows like this on c-span, and open a

committee process and for process of the american people can see the debate. as of issues are aired. i am pleased to see a more open amendment process. i think all of those things are important to ultimately getting better legislation. host: bolingbrook, illinois. this is chris. democrats. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i know a lot of callers were talking about the prices and a lot about what biden did and the government. can you touch a little bit about what the api is doing to drive the industry towards the future may be less oil and the fact that we face things like climate change -- although we need

energy and we need to have fossil fuels, it is kind of a double edged sword. we needed. at the same time we have these challenges. what are some of the top things that api and you guys are doing in mitigating some of this? guest: a couple of years ago, we released a climate action framework. five points around energy initiatives and public policies that can be adopted to meet the public challenge, including promoting investments and technology and innovation for low and zero emission technologies, an economy wide price on carbon, the advancement of cleaner fuels, sustainability reporting within the industry. these principles are essentially the framework, they outline the framework for the advancements that our industry can take.

we have also stood up at the api group called the environmental partnership. more than 100 producers, about 70% of total onshore production that came together to tackle the challenge of methane emissions. it made significant progress in phasing out high bleed mimetic devices and sharing best practices on how to continue produce methane emissions. our industry is committed to addressing the challenge of climate change, whether it is investments in hydrogen, cc u.s. , low-end zero carbon emission technologies and next-generation fuels. that focus is they are across the industry. at the same time, the focus is providing affordable reliable oil and natural gas that the world needs right now. that is the challenge that our

energy faces everyday. host: peter. republican. good morning. caller: i just wanted to say, first of all, the price of oil is not set by the oil companies. it is a world commodity, global commodity, the prices is set by the markets. the pandemic as you said, the war in ukraine, all of that played a big role in the supply chain. it is true that president biden, when he first came in, he said i am going to shut down the fossil fuel industry. that sent a very bad message to investors to try to say, we are not going to invest in oil and gas because the oil is not in favor of that industry

prospering. the first thing president biden did was shutdown keystone pipeline. when they passed the inflation reduction act, senator manchin was promised by nancy pelosi in chuck schumer that they will pass a permitting bill. it does not matter how many acres of land you guys have in your position if you do not have the infrastructure to build a pipeline to get the product to market, it is useless. that is a part of the problem. also, the thing that concerned me the most, we were going to have a shortage of natural gas in the country. why? they opened one or two lng plants. the industry got contracts to liquefy that natural gas and ship it out. because there were problems at the liquefy case and plant and because of the warm weather, the

supplies were insufficient for this year. about six years ago, congress decided they were going to allow this to go on. my concern is, even though we were producing more natural gas now, we are liquefying it and shipping it out to europe and other countries. host: peter, let me stop you there. guest: your last point about lng, we have more than enough natural gas here in the u.s.. we have the second largest natural gas field in the marsalis, pennsylvania, we have more than enough natural gas to be able to meet the domestic needs that we have as well as to

supportsupport our allies in eud to provide two markets in asia and through lng. the test for policymakers is to make sure we are accelerating the application, a process for lng so that we can continue the progress we have made in the shell revolution. author and journalist to talk about issues impacting black americans in schools. first, any political issue you want to talk about you can call in and talk about it. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. go ahead and call in now and we will get to those calls right after the break.

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host: it is our open form. any political issue you want to talk about. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. as you are calling in, we found out about tony minutes ago, -- 20 minutes ago, the pace of the easing is starting to level off in their story on the latest report out of the labor department. many economists seek core cpi includes volatile energy prices and the overall figure of the story noting that inflation comes as the federal reserve

raises. the central bank raised its highest level since 2007. officials indicating in february that they would raise rates further this year. that is the latest in inflation. nikki haley, the republican former governor out with a three minute video, get excited, time for a new generation, let's do this is promoting her presidential campaign kickoff, the former south carolina governor set to kick off her campaign tomorrow. if you want to watch the full three minute video, you can do so on her twitter page at haley. -- nikki haley. this is toby. out of wisconsin. democrat. what is on your mind? caller: i just wanted to mention a little bit about frank.

the person is not telling the truth about the price of oil and all of that. they make billions of dollars and buy back. it has been going on for years appeared they are making more money now than they ever had. when do they plan on lowering the prices? do they plan on it? or are they just going to keep it high? inflation, oil prices, that is one of the problems they're having with that. the gentleman talked about natural gas. we have plenty of natural gas around for sure. frank, he talked a little bit. but he never put in prices out or percentages of money that they buyback or other other res.

host: sterling, virginia. republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. i hear a lot of colors saying things i want to talk about. first, i hear people calling in a lot about climate change as of though it is something profound that the weather is always changing. now, i disagree with that. now, it is more erratic and extreme. we never had tornadoes back in the 50's, 60's, all the way up to the 2000s in december and january. we never had ef orders for fives like we got. i noticed when katrina first hit, the whole gulf of mexico.

the whole gulf of mexico. cleared the next thing i want to talk about this all about the macro friends --maga firm spirit . host: that is gary. this is alan in pennsylvania. good morning. caller: i am calling in regarding the illegal immigrants that are coming across our borders mexico and other areas, as well as i understand they are coming across from canada. in my opinion, we need to have the borders -- what is on the books were immigration we can sort these people out and have them go through properly. i come from a background of immigrants. i would like to see the government, if they have to have

the national guard on the border as a backup to the border patrol people so they can have time to scream these people out. i think it is -- screen these people out that i think it is costing a lot of money and an invasion for the north and south borders. host: this is eddie. it is our open forum. caller: i am calling about the phenomenon. i do not know whether it was japan or china. host: you are talking about world war ii and japanese balloons? caller: yeah. now that these balloons are coming into our airspace as it

said, yet we have satellites that can tell the weather, why wouldn't they be able to see where these balloons are coming from? it is frustrating to me that they cannot pinpoint where the balloons are coming from. we have satellites that can pinpoint above the ground. host: the history here to world war ii, this is a story about from the washington post. here is the lead of that story. a balloon from asia floated over the skies of montana, the year was 1944. the bloom drifted down to eight

area near montana. two loggers found it in december of 1994 -- 1944. made of laminated paper. writing on the bloom told him it was japanese and had been completed at a japanese factory. another balloon was found near oregon, farmers and ranchers began hearing explosions with metal fragments nearby. what they were seated, japan's effort to bring the war to the mainland. japan launched nearly 10,000 balloons from 1934 to 1935. around 300 landed in the united states. if you want to read more about the history of that effort, that

is the column in the washington post. connor. republican. . caller: one of the biggest problems in america right now is the mainstream is afraid to ask questions and politicians are too afraid to answer them. i saw a clip of one journalist asking tough questions at one of the board members and a journalist was hit with a burger bag. why is donald still on the board of directors? host: the corporate issue has nothing to do with our program here. this is running in lakeside california. defendant. the morning. -- independent. i was just wondering when they going to get up there but and get the country like it -- the way it was when i was growing

up. host: what was it like? caller: the politicians were not insulting each other and we respected the president of the united states. have a good day. host: houston, texas appeared, . democrat. good morning. caller: i wanted to talk about civil discourses the previous caller mentioned the respect for one another also. even here today on "washington journal", we heard someone call you silly. you did not deserve that. host: i hurt a lot worse over the years -- heard a lot worse over the years. it is fine. caller: you need to speak to one another with respect.

in the office, we had a policy, you cannot disparage someone. it was not allowed. that is a hostile work environment. in our civil discourses, we should observe the same things. people deserve to be spoken to with respect, even love. all of us who read the bible and say that we follow jesus are told by jesus, you love one another as i have loved you, love one another. we need to remember that and keep that in our speech. say thank you to the people who help us. remember to say thank you to the person who draws our blood for a blood test. say thank you for what you did to get a education to draw my blood so i do not get sick. thank you to the person behind the cash register that is checking us out at the grocery store. thank you for being able to provide for me food. they worked through covid, some

of them died to provide us food cleared show love for one another. we will be better off. we will make progress as our nation. this is really important to us. just do not beat each other down. the under kind and all of that. without it, we have a dictatorship. we don't want that, we are america. we are working for a more perfect union. host: eric, republican. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my

call. my comment has to do with what administration and congress has learned over the past year or so. i was threatened -- frightened to learn a majority of many factors -- a majority of medications we use are manufactured in china. we attempt to amend this and shift the medications back to friendly countries or the united states. someone should pose the question to the administration and say whatever you tend to look out for the american citizen -- what have you done to the gut for the american citizen? host: nashville, tennessee. this is jeff. what is on your mind? caller: i am going to quote verbatim.

"a buffer state with open borders cannot long survive." that is all i need to say. thomas jefferson would not -- [indiscernible] thank you. host: sharon. oklahoma city. democrat. good morning. caller: i am concerned about the windfall process that many industries are receiving as a result of covid. congress really needs to look into that as a primary issue and attend to it. the fed is raising interest rates. that hurts the lower and middle class folks. i am not going to buy a car into

interest rates go down. i am not quick to buy new carpeting. i am not going to do a lot of things because interest rates are climbing. the only ones seem to benefiting from these interest rates are the banks. what are the day -- what are they doing with their windfall with the results of the profits that are higher because of the fed? host: just economically km on the east coast -- just after 9:00 a.m. on the east coast. the house is in for a pro forma session at 10 a.m. the senate is in at 11:00 a.m. eastern. there is an all senators intelligence briefing about a chinese spy efforts, the aerial objects that have been shut down expected to be the topic of that conversation. we will see if members of the

senate are willing to talk a bit about it afterwards from reporting today. 10:30 a.m. eastern, gigi saad, by dan -- president by the's nominations -- president biden's nomination to serve the -- commission, her testimony on her nomination before the senate commerce committee is live this morning and 10:30 a.m. on c-span, c-span now, and the fee video app. at 1:30 today, a meeting of the national association of counties and their legislative conference , speaking about the u.s. economy in that final day of the meeting. you can watch that live at 1:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span, c-span now, and the free c-span video app.

biden is said to be at 1:30 p.m.. back to your phone calls. alfred hoffman in north carolina, republican. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. this country is not going to return to prosperity until we reelect donald j. trump. we had prosperity, we had leadership, he took care of the veterans and law enforcement. president joe biden has done nothing. he has degraded veterans and degraded our law enforcement and military. we are hoping and praying america will come to their senses and reelect tom's jacob -- and related donald j. trump. thank you. host: illinois. rich, good morning. caller: i am puzzled when i am hearing these people, their perspective of what is going on.

like the last person with the genius donald trump and the prosperity. i seem to have missed what they are talking about. the perspective i see and hear from people, what i see and hear on the news of the television cash for news and the television -- the news and the television, there is a breakdown of communication i don't understand. when we talk about the way our government runs and this china building thing -- this china balloon thing. that stuff has happened since i have been around. it is like a political football that people throw at it. we have a system of government and our government is very -- is there to protect and monitor this stuff so we are not under attack.

i don't understand why that balloon is an issue. we addressed it. we dealt with it. now it is like because he is a democrat, the way he did it is as good as the way the republicans can do it. i don't understand that breakdown. host: james, democrat. good morning. caller: i have been trying to get a hold of you seven months. one time we were talking and you recused me because i was using republican talking points. you asked the question why i was off air -- while i was off air. i would like to give you a couple of answers. that was things about trump's investigation and they had the pledge of allegiance before the meeting.

and all of the democrats are worried they should not say the pledge of allegiance because it wasn't socially acceptable. you didn't report on the 95 democrats that refused to condemn the orders of socialism. 95. biden's eulogy will tell you when the schism started between the republicans and democrats because he gave you the dates, 1994 to 1996, i believe. saturday, he was asked to put up the video of joe biden in 1995 trying to shoot down social security not once, not twice, but four times. they have been able to come up

with that in five days? it is starting to get to the point where it is -- where it is getting ridiculous. host:. the story, pledge of allegiance ruckus erupts before jim jordan chairs his first meeting. is inappropriate to say the pledge of allegiance before a house judiciary committee? the committee not shared by jim jordan argued over that for more that half an hour at last wednesday's meeting. matt gaetz kicked off the debate by saying the committee be given the average empty to begin the meetings with the pledge. the top democrat chaired the committee when it defeated bill gates -- defeated baskets's -- defeated matt gaetz's last attempt.

"i don't know why we should say the pledge of allegiance twice in one day," said nadler. caller: so what about the 95 democrats that voted nay on the orders of socialism. host: we will work is -- we will work on getting a story on that one. this is bob in tennessee. caller: the guy who called the six or seven people are mentioned god. he tried making his points. all i know is democrats are in club. is called the satanists club. host: we are going to move over to wayne in virginia. caller: people can't get along no more. the billionaires in this country are trying to take over this country and using their money to

do it. that is why these programs are putting everybody against each other. if the justice department doesn't convict donald j. trump as treasonous and put them in jail with the rest of their congress, that would be a revolution in font in -- a revolution fought in 2024. host: that is weighing in chester, virginia. on the voted previous caller was talking about, the house that voted two weeks ago to approve resolution to nothing socialism, that isn't the hill that reported that -- that is the hill that reported that. they cleared the chamber. the majority of democrats, 109, voted with all republicans. 86 voted against it. 14 voted present. the measure says "socialist

ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has time and time again collapsed into communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and dictatorships." this is charlie in california, democrat. good morning. it is open for him. caller: we americans better get along. the budget was balanced. the social security money went to be of the debt. this country has been hawked. all the money from the slaves across the pond, the chinese own this country. they own in the west coast and now they own the south. you guys better get a grip. i don't care what color your

skin is, when china and north korea get housing on our -- host: dj, weatherford, texas. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call with the need to discuss -- taking my call. we really need to talk about the shooting in massachusetts. we need to talk about the second amendment. we need to address the gun issue in our country. i went into the ships department and nine years old and was instructed on the handling of firearms. this country seem to think it is going to have a government that is going to mandate things into our lives, where they have no business being. where they have a business being is when the talk about the

constitution of the letter states. the second thing written by the constitution, the very second item was how we are going to protect ourselves from our own government. if we are going to have that kind of law, if everyone is entitled to have a gun, it is mandatory that everybody knows how to safely handle a gun. host: that story, the tragedy from last night at michigan state university, three killed and five wounded at michigan state's campus. this aspect is dead. causing a lockdown. that was shortly lifted after the 43-year-old suspect was located off campus and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. that will do it for our open forum this morning on "washington journal."

45 minutes left before the health comes in this morning. in that time, we will be joined by author toure from thegrio about teaching black history in this country. stick around. we will be right back. >> start your day with "washington journal," your window into the nation's capital. the only nationally televised forum for discussing latest issues in washington and across the country. >> it gives people an opportunity to speak themselves on the issue think about. >> join us for a live, three-hour conversation with a congressional member. >> is the great institution in this country where speech -- >> and washington influencers. >> thanks for bringing in a

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you can see his work on the thegrio.com. what is thegrio? guest: thegrio is a black media network. there is podcasting, television, written essays. is owned by byron allen. we are try to talk about america from our perspective. host: what is your perspective at thegrio? >> caller: -- i write -- guest: i write about a variety of things. i am working on a podcast where we talk about songs of different decades and the political ramifications and meanings inside those songs. i can also talk about politics, culture, some new form of racism we are seeing. i might write about rihanna's super bowl performance. it can be anything that much matter to black americans. >> host: -- host: all of those topics would make a great segment on "washington journal."

you have podcasted about what it means to be black in america today. we are halfway through black history month. what to think about the debates we are having in this country about teaching like history in high schools and colleges. guest: it is quite disappointing. i was an african-american studies major at emory university and long time ago. learning about my history and african-americans' part in that history gave me a sense of self, a grounding in my history in this country. 's give masons of purpose about what i want to do with my life and how i honor the people who sacrificed and died so i could have the opportunities i have. quite often this discussion about black history in the curriculum, people want to throw in critical race theory.

most people using that phrase have no idea what it actually means. from the right, it is a dishonest conversation which transit is in them like -- should we teach a five euro white kids who hid themselves? literally nobody is talking about that. he doesn't care about the five-year-old or 10-year-old black child trying to figure out the world and does not understand the world. we do need to have any honest understanding and reckoning in this country about what has happened and where we are now. racism is not just in the past. racism is not just things people say to each other or the feelings people have. is about systems that produce inequality in terms of policing and criminal justice in terms of where we live and how we are educated, in terms of wealth,

how people are able to have and maintain wealth. some of these systems are invisible to many of us. it was only in the last year i really became fully aware of where we still are in terms of racism. a lot of times people come to assess the value of a home and give that value may be half or several hundred thousand dollars less in value for a black family vanna white family. there are a number of families who have sued and got this overturned. there are thousands of families that did not know they could do that or did not have the money to sue. this is millions of dollars of value that has been taken out of the black community just from missy valuing the homes we have because we lived there. when you talk about how is it black america has not gotten further already, this is part of

why. i am going to start writing about this that are today. there is a new podcast called out the best boys that breaks down how the federal government used people to infiltrate black lives matter protests and discredit the movement, to do things that are violent or not legal to make the movement look bad. we see this throughout history going back to the black panthers, malcolm x. the government working against our attempts to become a more liberated and a deeper part of this country. how can you get to any sort of liberation with the government working against you? how to be understand how to move forward if we don't understand the things that have happened? host: let me give you a few numbers -- the phone numbers for

viewers to join the conversation. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. the house is coming in edited cook a.m. eastern. we will go there -- is coming in at 10:00 a.m. eastern. we will go there for less coverage. a headline from the washington post, "as red states target black history lessons, blue states are embracing them. the lessons children are receiving are diverging in this country depending on where they live." what does that kind of approach lead us to in the decades to come? guest: it is hard to say where we are going to be in decades to come, but i don't think we should have two entirely separate nations within america where in some places people are taught that racism is real as slavery happened and systematic racism is real.

test of the barriers of entry for black people are harder. another part of the country ignores that and does not teach that at all. inherently tedious to me why superiority. systemic racism does not exist, then how are we to explain that white people have almost all of the wealth and hold almost all of the positions of? power in? this country? what is the expression for that? is it that white people work harder, deserve these positions more? my child's assistant racism does not exist -- if my child sent to me systemic racism does not exist, why isn't that almost all ceos of fortune 500s are white? why is it that 90% of all wealth is held in white hands? why are there so many black people in prison? if i do not say systemic racism is part of those things and the

legacy of slavery is part of why those are true, that what i am -- then what am i talking about? the inherent superiority of white people? surely by now we know that white people are not inherently superior to black people. i would use dollar trap as a key for that case. host: this is governor ron desantis on why his estate education department boasts rejecting a proposal from the ap african studies program put together. ron desantis from last month. [video clip] gov. desantis: the required teaching black history. this was a separate course for advanced placement credit and the issue was we have guidelines and standards in florida. we want education, not indoctrination. if you fall on the side of

indoctrination, we are going to decline. if it is education, then we will do it. i figured they may be doing -- it is way more than that. this course on black history, what is one of the lessons about? queer theory. who would say an important part of black history is queer theory? that is somebody pushing an agenda on our kids. they have stuff about intersectionality, abolishing prisons, that is a political agenda. that is the wrong side of the line for florida's standards. we believe teaching kids facts and how to think but we don't think they should have an agenda imposed on them. when you try to use black history to shoehorn in queer theory, you are trying to use that for political purposes. host: toure, indoctrination and political purposes here. guest: it is important to not

have politicians shaping our education system. obviously that is going to have political implications. ron desantis is running for president, this is the pregame. he is setting the floor for himself so that the far right that supported trump will support him. that is what he is doing here. he does not actually care about what happens to the children of florida. i don't know what indoctrination means in this case. i know what he is trained to signal. -- he is trying to signal. indoctrination is teaching them something that is not true. we do see neo-nazi homeschools happening. there was a report about what is happening in indiana. that is indoctrination, teaching young children to be 90's. -- to be nazis. teaching the history of america is not indoctrination.

the notion of queer theory not fitting into black history is a historical. there's a huge number of gay and queer people who have been incredibly important to american history in general and also to black history and the black liberation struggle. we could sit here for 10 minutes naming important figures in that struggle. to say that doesn't fit for him either shows his political attempt to rally his base behind him for a complete misunderstanding of american history. there is this notion that children should never be uncomfortable in the classroom. i remember taking college classes as an african-american studies major and learning about the particulars of slavery and walking out of the classroom feeling very upset, very uncomfortable, very angered.

i was working at a restaurant at the time. it was difficult to work at a restaurant after hearing these things about what my ancestors had to do. that happens in the classroom. if white americans are uncomfortable doing about what happened, they should understand that is because of what has happened. we are not made a better nation by pretending bee stings did not happen. when we look at the history of germany and south africa, extra ordinary atrocities have happened -- extraordinary atrocities happened. that helps you understand who you really are. we don't avoid people by pretending it doesn't exist. between must talk about it and confronted. host: where did you go to college. guest: emory university. host: what was the extent of teaching black history in your high school? guest: that is a good question.

i graduated from milton academy in 1989. at that point, there was much more of a discussion nationally. it wasn't as codified as it would be later, but that we should have black history in classes. i had a black history class my junior year and my senior year. i went to a new england prep school, so it was a white christian man teaching those classes. as a person who was extraordinary dedicated to that history -- this was a person who was extraordinarily dedicated to that history. he remains dedicated to black students. his knowledge was in the right place. but it also shows institution's and ability to find black people to teach this stuff.

which was important. i did not have a black teacher. there were a couple of other black teachers in my school but i did not have a black teacher until i went to college. i feel like not having that black authority figure was a loss to me as well as my students. we should have experience of seeing black people in charge. that should absolutely be the case. host: let's chat with a few callers. linda is up first out of connecticut, the land for democrats. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have been listening all day and the colors keep missing the point. is not about joe biden, it is not about republicans in congress. i don't know why so many of you are ignoring the fact that alan

block is trying to possibly newspaper union. that should be a bigger story on your network. host: a couple of colors -- callers brought that up. is not an editorial issue we discussed here. do you have a question for toure? okay, we will go on to mike in michigan. caller: there are 36,000 black millionaires in this country. 11 black billionaires in this country. who is the victim? host: do you want to think that -- do you want to take that? guest: there is a small number of black people who have been able to acquire wealth. that does not speak to the vast majority of black people who

have not been able to acquire any wealth and are living in the working-class and have a history of wage theft and other ways of stealing their wealth or income throughout history. when we think about victims, that gets into an emotional and triggering situation. where we start to say who is the real racist, people get emotional. nobody wants to be called or feel like a racist. i don't want anybody to feel like they are racist. i don't want to engage in that conversation because it is not a very emotionally productive -- it is not very emotionally productive. white people in this country are benefiting from the white privilege. that is accrued to everybody,

even if you are an ally and you are loving and you are fully engaged in black liberation. you are benefiting from white privilege. the fact that oprah and jay-z and beyonce have been able to become billionaires in fairly traditional ways, lebron james and tiger woods as well. sports and entertainment has been open to a people for decades -- open to black people for decades. white people are able to get ahead in sorts of ways. they don't realize they can move through their day and have white privilege affecting their day. they don't notice the cop that does not stop them. they don't realize the job they may not have gotten or any number of things, benefits accrue to them constantly without needing to do anything from white privilege. the idea that oprah is more rich

than mike from michigan does not disprove white privilege. i read this interesting analogy this science-fiction writer wrote that being a straight white male is like playing the videogame of life on the lowest difficulty setting. that does not mean that mike from michigan and other white people did not work hard and are not going to work hard today and did not do things to earn their position in life. however, that does not mean a black person cannot find a way to succeed in spite of the hurdles and difficulties. i think it is pretty clear that being white is easier. i post this on twitter, is there any white person willing -- if a

genie him along and said you will be black the rest of your life and you can never go back. is there any white person who wants to do this? chris rock talks about this on his comedy. he says i am rich and white people don't want to treat basis with me. host: a viewer on twitter has a couple of questions, asking, "we want students to be taught that unequal outcomes only occur because of discrimination?" to be want students to be taught that unequal outcomes only occur because of discoloration? -- because of discrimination? guest: surely we do want to teach people -- teach children that we cannot understand

america if we don't understand systemic racism and the legacy of racism that continues to affect america today. there was a study after the 2020 election that showed the likelihood of voting for trump correlated with living in an area that had a certain amount of slaves. these things are not god. -- these things are not gone. to not understand these things is do not truly understand what was going on in america. host: out of roswell, new mexico. debbie, thanks for waiting. you are on. caller: i am very nervous talking to you. i always admired what you had to say. we are talking history, facts, racism. let's stick with truth and facts. you keep saying white people, white people.

i am 67 years old. i met one white person my entire life, he was an albino. why do we keep saying white people when they are pinkish -tan. maybe if we stop with the color of skin, that could get rid of racism. white people are not white. why do we keep saying they are white? host: do you want to take that up? guest: it is an interesting point. i don't think not talking about race will get rid of racism. i understand that i am not actually the color black. white people are not actually the color of white. that is how we understand each other. i think we are making judgments about each other. i don't want to get down into interpersonal racism and what

does each individual white person i encounter during a given day think of me. that is not where i want to think about racism. i want to think about systemic racism and the way that systems in america produce inequality for people of quality, especially black and brown people. education, wealth and accretion, criminal justice, where we live, all these things that white privilege is constantly pushing white people forward and pushing masses of black people backwards. if we don't understand that that we don't understand america. host: a recent piece in the oklahoman, hannibal johnson, an author and historian of the black experience. he had a hole -- he had a column heading into this black history

month in which he wrote, "if i had my druthers, they would be no black history month. as a chronicler of black history , somewhere think i would relish in in the history in which i am immersed. why then this contradiction? i concern lies in the isolation of black history, setting it from americana. to black history we celebrate is essential american history, relevant not just for african dissent but -- descent but for all of us." he read that in the oklahoman, a call for the end of black history or why we don't need it. guest: understand the need to integrate. black history. black history is american history so. it should be integrated. . we are in the midst right now of the battle where the writing is

trying to remove black history and some of the most difficult parts of history as it relates to a black people from the school curriculum. now is not the time to talk about maybe we should do black history as we are moving toward the erasure of black history. there is a value in the celebration of black history, of same to america, let's put a spotlight on the celebratory, victorious moments of black history as well as the difficult moments. black history is rated x if it was a movie. i took much of into the african-american museum of history and culture in d.c. it is an extraordinary experience. but they move you through that history in a chronological way. papers couple of floors -- the

first couple of floors, my daughter was crying. i am like, this is black history, this is what happened. the images of lynching may have been traumatizing to them. it was traumatizing to me. there are a lot of white people who feel like, where is white history month? that notion becomes offensive to us because whiteness is celebrated constantly. white history month is every month of the year. we are saying we are going to take one month and put a spotlight on black history. that is difficult or offensive to you, that is offensive to many of us. host: for the third year in a row, "lift every voice and sing"

was sung at super bowl festivities. a headline at fox news, "black national anthem at the super stirs debate on social media." your thoughts? guest: surly ralph led "lift every voice and sing" in a string way. i. know i was moved -- i know i was moved. we appreciated the inclusion of that song from our history and culture in the solution of football where most of the people on the field are black. football is interesting because almost all of the skilled players are black. why cannot have her sing lived every voice -- have her sing

"lift every voice." is not a song that contains a whole verse that is offensive and racist. there is a verse we don't sing that is a very dicey -- that is very dicey. we appreciate the value of that. is singing the black national anthem before the american national anthem is problematic to you, you should perhaps look in the mirror and try to figure out why the inclusion of black culture is so triggering to you. host: betty in zion, illinois. for democrats -- the line for democrats. caller: there was a movie called "black like me" and he tried to change the color of his skin and

went into the seven states. finally he decided he could not handle it. that was not what i was going to say. i am 84 years old. i was born and raised in greenville, south carolina. i went to a black school which still exists. there was music made like marvin gaye, "what's going on?" that is good music. also, james brown "i don't want anybody to give me nothing." thank you for letting me speak on black history day. host: toure. guest: thank you for the call. the thing that jumps out at me, people who want to talk about slavery was so long ago.

that he is 84 and she grew up in south carolina. was her grandmother and enslaved person or her great-grandparents? , blew her grandparents -- probably her grandparents. that is how close we are to that history. host: on that history and how close we are to that history, a podcast you are launching "being black in the '80's," what are you referencing there? guest: i am talking about different songs and they speak to social political issues. thank you for bringing this up. the first episode is tracy chapman's "fast car." host: why is it one of the most important socks?

important songs -- the most important songs? guest: it comes to the world's consciousness at the nelson mandela birthday concert. nobody thought nelson mandela was going to get out of prison. he was just an incredible inspiration. millions of people around the globe watched that concert because in the 1980's more people had a global consciousness and we saw nelson mandela's struggle as our own. when they said we are going to have a televised international nelson mandela birthday concert, the world turned in -- tuned in. there was fortune for tracy chapman in that state he wondered they did something

technological for his set and they did not have it. they sent someone scrambling. tracy chapman who recently released an album, but nobody was paying attention, all she needs is a guitar and a microphone. she goes out and does "fast car," and it is like the entire world gets wrapped up in this amazing song. she is first propelled by this global ds boric consciousness -- global diasporic consciousness. i related to jesse jackson's presidential campaign which was ultimately about self-esteem. i am somebody, that was his key thing he would talk about. tracy chapman's life is brought to bear by affirmative-action.

sugars up in poverty in cleveland and someone comes to her and says you could go to a good school in connecticut and they are like we don't even know what that is. because of a better chance, sheath is kosher to this school. it changes her life. she gets into tufts in boston where there is a scene of people doing this music. she meet somebody whose father is the head of a major record label and she gets into the canada for music she is doing. there is no expectation that she is going to get signed. is very fortuitous. a brilliant historian made he pointed to me that affirmative action leads to afrocentrism and the global dasporic consciousness.

black people were in academic and professional spaces where they are one of the very few black people around. they felt like it, i need grounding in my life to understand where i am and what is going on here. what they ended up creating was this global afrocentrism. it ties together. we also talked about elizabeth kotten, this full legend. she grew up in north carolina in the early 20th century. by age 12 she has written a song that years later would become a folk classic. by 15 she has to quit playing the guitar to work for the family. she is married and a mother by 17 and spends four or five decades working as a domestic up and down the east coast until by chance she runs into yum peggy seeger who has lost her mother in a department store.

older people will remember there were big department stores where you could lose your children and said you had to get on the speaker saying i found this young girl crying. the mom was like, you are so lovely, work -- come work for us. there are guitars all over the place and where she is a free moment, she takes one of the guitars and starts playing. peggy seeger and her little brother pete are like, the maid is very good at the guitar. they start to facilitate her recording and touring. at 60 something years old, she becomes a full legend and she wins a grammy the year before "fast car" comes out. as could have been tracy chapman -- that could have been tracy chapman's life, a young folk

master who cannot do it because she has to make money. because of affirmative action, her life was changed. we will talk about the war on drugs and the impact crack had on families. there is an episode i'm working on about the history of jamaican music in america. we are working about an episode on afro futurism. i am excited about this project. host: you were that are interested, where will they be able to find it. guest: this will be on thegrio black podcast network. anywhere you get podcasts, this will be out there. host: giovanni cobb has been on this network when times. last year with will talking about his book "my seven black fathers." you can watch his appearances on our network on c-span.org. a little more than five minutes

before the house comes in possession. we will take you -- comes in for session. we will take you there. until then, your calls for toure. this is cheryl, republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. the first point i want to make is we don't have a race problem in america, we have a spirituality and morality problem in america. you could do a lot of good by talking with dr. woodson, a really good man. what i don't understand -- i don't understand why you would want to have hundreds of thousands of very young black people feel like they are oppressed. we are not oppressing anybody and we are being tired of being called racist. i worked my entire left, nobody gave me anything. my dad was dirt poor and he

worked up to three jobs to put us through school. the real problems i never hear you talk about is what is really the problem, the lack of fathers in the homes. look at what is happening in our cities to our children. these children matter. do you know how many children were murdered last year in violent crime? it was well over 2000. that is a big number. host: let me give toure a chance to respond. guest: there is some recent polling and studies. black fathers are actually more involved in their children's lives then the men of any other racial demographic. this bold bright pink -- old right-wing notion that fathers

-- fathers are not participating in their children's lives does not line up with the data. we do have a racial problem. just because white people are poor does not mean white privilege does not affect their lives. does not mean you are not working hard and that your father was not working hard. but whiteness is beneficial in america. that should not even be controversial to say. that is pretty obvious. blackness is a hurdle we have to get over. i was taught that very early and it is never a message of you can't make it. it is that there are extra hurdles. my mother said you have to be twice as good as those white kids. i did not see that as you are oppressed or don't try, it was like, we have to work harder. that is something i have educated with me throughout my life. -- i have had to carry with me

throughout my life. i vitiate the notion of virtuality, but we do have a racial problem in this country when whiteness is inherently beneficial and blackness is detrimental. host: let's see if we can get in shamika. you are on with toure. caller: it is an honor to be -- it is an honor to be on the call. first of all, black woman, grew up in georgia. it was shamed upon, i felt shame , especially when we're are talking about history. it was always impressed upon me to be thankful for individuals like president lincoln who freed the slaves, that is a common thing we were taught.

when you talk about black history and you look at it like history as being -- at black history peasant being -- black history to means like people -- black people overcoming every hurdle that white superiority -- that white supremacy has created for us. my question is pertaining to the comment that governor desantis stated, talking about queer theory and intersectionality being the challenge with african-americans. are these theories taught in other cultures like asian-american studies and latino american studies? host: i will end there because the house is about to come in.

guest: i don't know the answer to when you go to latino history. lincoln made a judgment that he wanted to try to win the war. it was not some beneficent thing. it is a slavery that led to america being able to afford the war of independence and in the slavery that led to america becoming a global economic power. not just the work enslaved people did, but the value created by those bodies. it is not just people who owned people who were benefiting from slavery. the entire united states economy grows to global economic power status because of that. the war of independence and it is slavery tha