>> coming up on today's washington journal, we look at house republican debt limit and spending cut proposals with the heritage conditions richard stern and bobby cogan for the center for american progress. dr. jonathan metzl on gun violence. "washington journal" starts now. ♪ host: after a narrow win at the polls last fall and a four day struggle to see the speaker, republicans took control of the

u.s. house in early january. last week arced 100 days in office. the battle for speaker to lay their agenda, house gop leaders have pressed forward passing key bills, creating new select committee said focusing several standing committees in a new and aggressive oversight direction. many of those house wills may not ever see senate action as democrats retain a strong -- slim majority. house republicans are pressing forward in finding the issues they see is critical to the nation's future. good morning, welcome to washington journal. it is sunday, april 23, 2023. we will start this program asking you about those first 100 days. how would you great house republicans on the first 100 days in power? republicans, use (202) 748-8001 four your calls. democrats, (202) 748-8000. for independents and others (202) 748-8002. you can send us a text message

(202) 748-8003, tell us your name and where you are texting from. we are on facebook, twitter and instagram @cspanwj and we will look for your comments. we will hear from republican leaders and democratic leaders in congress, as well as from president biden. first 100 days in office for the republican majority of the house. your grade, that can be a letter grade, you can do pass, fail, however you see the way forward on your grading or judging how house republicans are doing so far. in sort of a chronological look, the hill last week published this piece. key moments from the gop-controlled house first one hundred days. house republicans enter the majority 100 days ago with a long list of priorities and investigative inquiries. in the past three months, the conference has ticked off a number of those tasks. lawmakers passed messaging bills to appeal to the base, open long

promise investigations and even clinched a few bipartisan victories. gop majority is facing down a critical stretch as battles over funding the government and lifting the debt ceiling come to a head. they begin with january 7, the day kevin mccarthy was sworn in as speaker. reminding us that the house lawmakers new and returning took their both surly in the morning of january 7 after speaker kevin mccarthy won the gavel after 15 ballots. some of the bills passed so far, some actions taken so far by the u.s. house include the lower energy cost act, which passed in the house by a vote of 225-204. a parent's bill of rights. that has not been taken up by the senate. past on a party-line vote, several of these passing on party-line vote's. the small family -- family of small business taxpayer protection act.

neither of the first four bills were taken up by the senate. the covid-19 origin act of 2023, which passed in the house with barely bipartisan basis. the senate did not take it up for a vote. they passed it by unanimous consent. that was assigned into law by president biden, a bill that directs the director of national intelligence to look into the origins of covid-19. your letter grade or your pass fail, how would you great house republicans first 100 days in office? for republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. kevin mccarthy held a town conference to summon the accomplishments by his side so far. let's take a listen. [video clip] >> the numbers speak for themselves. in the first 100 days of the 118th congress, the house has introduced more than 3000 pieces of legislation.

has taken more than 180 two rollcall votes and voted on more than 59 bills. 86% of them being bipartisan. the 36 bipartisan bills, democrats have cast -- yay votes on them. shows a great contrast to the difference to the last congress to this. one being much more productive. two, showing up for work. three, what the majority selected for their hr one. the democrats picked a bill of hr one to protect themselves to make it easier for them to reelect them. we picked hr one lower energy cost act, how could we help the american public lower the energy cost for them? not only did we have four democrats vote with us, but we continue to move that bill forward. we created the select committee on china to allow america to

speak with one voice. we had more than 146 democrats to join with us. last week, a number of democrats joined us at the reagan library in meeting with the president of taiwan. we blocked the sale of oil from the strategic prolia -- petroleum reserve to china, 113 democrats joined. we plan -- past legislation on criminal code, even though the presidents in the beginning said he would veto it, he ended up signing it. we passed legislation to in the pandemic. 11 democrats joined with us. again, the president said he was opposed to it and ended up signing it into law. we denounced the poor words of socialism -- horrors of socialism. we passed legislation that would protect senior retirement savings accounts. the president vetoed it. host: house republicans first one -- 100 days in office, how would you great it? let's go to and in indian -- ann

in indian trails. caller: i would like to comment on the -- they put up and adopted. they do not come anywhere near -- but they complain about biden has done. i am 79 years old. i'm going to tell you to this day, we would never see an infrastructure bill passed to republican cities, mayors, whatever. we would never see that if we waited for the republicans to do that. they do all these little bitty bills that is not to our importance of living. they passed the abortion act, which does not always have anything to do with a baby. it has to do with taking care of

a woman after -- i had two miscarriages and nearly bled to death. they probably set on tv, would take me to the hospital and swear i had aborted myself. this is scary. they do not pay attention to what scares america. they made up all of this woo-ha-ha about the schools and got everybody, the parents, the teachers on the extent. they are trying to make the teachers carry guns. i went to college to be a teacher. i took psychology, so i can tell these people are just telling -- they make up things every day. the one thing i will say before you cut me off. biden has a speech impediment. he has a good, cognitive mind. i have got a good, cognitive mind. i am 79 and i can remember everything. let me tell you, my brother was

a councilman and a union leader. he had stuttering when he was young. as you grow older and learn to speak correctly, you never speak correctly. host: ok, we will move on to texas and hear from glenn. how would you great house republicans so far? caller: i tell you what, they are doing real good so far. i have a little message for senate speaker mccartney on the debt ceiling bill. i would tell joe biden to choices. vote for it, or second choice, get impeached over it. that would be a real good deal for the american country, if joe biden would get out of the white house. he is nothing but a constructive wrecking ball on the u.s. economy. the american people cannot stand four more years of joe biden. i would never vote for him.

he says he is going to run for president again. i bet he does not get 20 votes. host: are you happy with the policies enacted so far by the house republicans in leadership? caller: yes, i am excited about what they are doing. the democrats did not do crab when they -- crap when they were out there. all they did was get money for them selves and stick it in their own pocket. the republican house is doing very well with what they promised the american people that they would do and regain the control of the house. host: on to allen in wisconsin, independent line. caller: i am an independent. i would give republicans probably a d for dumb so far this session. you know, this whole thing has been more performance. it is just theater. it is intrigue. it is college intrigue nonsense.

the republicans, this is what they do almost all the time, including when they control all chambers of the house and senate and even the presidency. i will tell you one thing that they can do, and this is something if they do not do it, is going to cut them in the throat. that is, return bankruptcy protections to student loans. the previous two colors were from north carolina and texas. in both north carolina and texas, student loan debt vastly exceeds the entire state budget nowadays of those states. taxes is $141 million -- texas is $141 million in mostly student loan debt. this is a government lending scam ruining the lives of one in five adults in all states. host: why don't you think it is a bigger priority for house republicans? caller: because there is 38

million distressed student loan borrowers. people are losing sleep at night over there student loans. host: not all of them are democrats, republicans. there are a lot of republicans i assume that have student loan debt. caller: yes, that is the thing the republicans have not been recognizing since 2020 and before. you wonder what happened to the red wave? student loans are what happened to the red wave. i kid you not. 30 million educated people vote and are losing sleep over federal debt. the conservatives are idiots for fighting against these people and wagging their finger at them. host: alan, thank for your call this morning. asking you this morning to grade the house republicans in their first 100 days in office. (202) 748-8001 is the line for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats.

you can send us a text at (202) 748-8003. continuing on with some of the measures path so far by the republican -- passed so far by the republican house under republican leadership, the resolution to block edc crime bill passed, the born alive protection act passed in the house. a resolution condemning attacks on private abortion facilities and what was called the pandemic is over act. that, by the way, was passed in the senate as well and the president signed that legislation and a resolution ending the covid-19 national emergency. that is the resolution that was signed by president biden. back to the d.c. crime bill, that happened at the middle of february. here is from the hill, house passes resolution to block d.c. crime bill, a vote to block washington, d.c.'s revised

criminal code against democrats with 173 voting against the measure and 31 voting in favor after the administration said it was opposed to the resolution the legislation passed to 50-173. ahead of the vote in the scent, biden said he would not veto the measure if it landed on his desk , leading a number of democrats in the upper chamber to support the legislation and infuriating house democrats who thought they were voting in line with the white house when they opposed it. biden signed the measure in march. michael is in marina del rey, california, republican line. good morning. caller: yes. i think it is impossible to give a great to either the house or senate because the majority is so small, it is impossible getting anything done. i think everybody knows that if we ask a question, how would you grade the senate, you would get the same answer.

it is complete gridlock. nothing will get done. we are going to have to wait again for another election next year to see if either party has an ability to gain enough seats to actually get anything done. if you look at what trump was president, he had all three houses and still could not get anything done. host: what is your sense about the next election in terms of republicans being able to gain control of the u.s. senate and gain control of the house? caller: it depends at the top of the ticket. if it is trump, it could have another disaster they had in 2022 where they should have picked up at least the senate. if trump is ahead of the ticket, i think they will actually lose more seats in the senate and they could possibly lose control of the house because the numbers are so ridiculously small. i think this is the smallest majority in the 20th century.

i understand where you are coming from in times -- in terms of trying to grade, but it is impossible because they cannot get anything done anyway. host: next is bill in indiana on the independent line. hey, there. caller: good morning. host: good morning. you are on, bill. go ahead. caller: yes, sir. calling in on your tv forecast, or broadcast this morning regarding the houses first 100 days, i have noticed they seem to be struggling or having a real struggle trying to get started. finally got through that, then got things in order to where they can head the direction they want to go. i do notice that there seems to be an awful lot of political grandstanding. i suspect a little bit of that is a celebration for taking the majority.

the whole lot of it is people showing that they have future ambitions, probably much taller than their current office. i think it will find it very difficult to get much accomplished because of the difference between them and the senate. the hollywood factor seems to be an item, they would like to be on the news at least 12 hours a day. other than that, i wish them well. host: your sense, some of these legislation is just messaging legislation, then. caller: not so much the legislation. the legislatures, i think so many of them are looking for future offices. i guess on the wild end, i would say there is at least 100 of them that maybe anticipate them being president someday.

they spend more time performing for the cameras than they do actually getting their work done. host: our previous caller mentioned the narrow majority is not only in the house or republicans but the senate for democrats and the two-seat majority there, slimmer still with the absence of dianne feinstein, which has slowed down the process of judicial nominations in the judiciary committee. some of the focus in the senate has been the debt ceiling negotiations. majority leader chuck schumer last week spoke about the progress so far and what he sees from the republican proposal, kevin mccarthy's proposal that came out last week. [video clip] >> speaker mccarthy should know that when you insist on a taxing things to the debt ceiling, something president trump never did, and which republicans under trump never did, you risk a catastrophic default.

speaker mccarthy insists on cuts. well, there is a time to discuss what kind of cuts folks are looking for or what taxes they want to raise. it is called the budget. it should not be part of this conversation. that kind of discussion, the cuts, belongs in a discussion about the budget, not as a precondition for avoiding default. to date, after countless requests, speaker mccarthy has yet to produce any concrete plan as to the cuts he would make. one that details the specific cuts he once and has the support of 218 republicans in the house. democrats have called on speaker mccarthy over and over and over, show us your plan. i think you have heard me say that before. well, what we got today was not a plan. it was a recycled pile of the

same things he has been saying for months. none of which has move the ball forward an inch. he has not shown us a real plan. when i say us, i do not mean me or senate democrats or even his own caucus. i mean the american people. americans deserve to know what he wants to cut, win, and by how much. it is specifics. talk about cuts, you have an obligation to say what they are to the american people. host: by the way, the next segment on this program, we talk more detail about that house republican proposal. this first hour, we are asking you, how would you grade the u.s. house under republican leadership in their first 100 days? a couple comments by twitter. this one says, b plus. they're starting to make gains to the slowdowns these wacky biden officials and their corrupt obama influence plans to transform this nation. close the border, enforce law

and order, commence domestic energy production. there is a lot of work to do. house republicans ran on inflation and crime. have they passed laws on either, no. his grade, f. the phone lines, (202) 748-8001 four republicans. for democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. we will go to ripley, nebraska. christian -- ripley, maine. i'm sorry about that, christopher. caller: how are you doing? host: good. i think they are doing pretty good. they are slowing them down, they are stopping them was -- which is what republican said they would do. once this thing comes out -- i think they're going to impeach mr. biden. not much more is going to get done the next two years. i think they are showing the american people how corrupt mr.

biden really is. it is going to take time, but it will work. host: in washington, d.c. on the democrats line, brian. go ahead. caller: hi, i am brian. i would like to first say what mccarthy said about the democrats hr one -- that was a voting rights act. it is true, if more people voted, the republicans would be out of power. that is an absolutely true statement. i do not think it should be the case that passing a voting rights act would injure anybody stays in power. it used to be the republicans were -- could be more moderate to attract more folks. i also want to say, i am not aware of anyone saying during the run-up to the election, their primary thing would be to

investigate hunter biden. i did not hear that. when they do argue the investigation, the most they will find is hunter biden -- had nothing to do with joe biden. he is their son, acknowledge they have problems. all families have problems. that is what i want to say. host: next is stephen on our democrats line in fort lauderdale. go ahead. caller: good morning, everybody. i wanted to say the republicans are only interested in one thing. that is the garbage that fox news is shoveling. it is nonstop hunter biden, which is nothing more than an extra rug addict and they are going to waste all our american tax dollars. that is the end of it. bye-bye. host: reporting from fox news about the first 100 days, house republicans mark 100 days of well overdue oversight on border crisis and china, homeland

security committee marking completion of 100 days in charge of the high profile committee during which they say they have made a running start on well overdue oversight from the department of homeland security on issues such as the border crisis, counterterrorism and the threat from china. last, chris -- last congress -- chairman mark green said in a statement to fox news digital, republicans changing the focus of some of those committees and also creating new standing committees and their first 100 days. some of the actions taken along those lines by the house republicans include creating a select committee on the u.s. competition with china. also, created a subcommittee to investigate the weaponization, the so-called weaponization of the federal government. the republicans launched a probe of president biden's handling of documents, a probe into the january 6 panel and republicans

got access to financial activities reports tied to the biden family business. some of the committee focuses of the various committees and the new committees created by new, standing select committees created by house leaders. let's hear from roads in queens, new york. republican line. rose in new york, you up. caller: good morning, how are you? host: fine, thanks. caller: good. i would give them an a. i think they are doing very well. they seem very committed to what they are doing and they seem to have been working very hard. i appreciate the bills they have introduced. from my perspective, they get an a. host: next is glory in denton -- laurie in denton, texas.

independent line. caller: independent line? host: go ahead. caller: i give the democrats maybe. host: how would you grade the republicans? caller: f right now. they cannot get their act together. they want to prohibit the democrats from moving forward. it is pathetic. host: this is the starting line, the iowa starting line, the political publication in iowa, their headline. house gop's first 100 days. key results, lots of unpopular ideas, they write. marked 100 days since republicans took control of the house of representatives. it has been a memorable but unproductive time and fighting with the republican party began right away. it took a record 15 rounds of voting for kevin mccarthy to be elected speaker of the house, which delayed the swearing in of hundreds of members of congress and off actual legislative work for several days. to secure the speakership, they

write, mccarthy was forced to make promises to a critical group of far right and serve it is who want to/government spending on key social programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, and food assistance. the last three months have seen mccarthy struggle to live up to these promises and failed to create consensus in his caucus about how to approach debt ceiling negotiations with the biden administration they have seen him give some of the most extreme house members of his party carte blanche to conduct sometimes conspiratorial investigations. into the biden administration and other democrats. the founders -- on our democrats line in jacksonville, for the. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i agree with the republican house -- i gave the republican house and f. we did not send them there to do

the things they are voting on. they are not acting professional at all. it is an embarrassment to the country. i am just concerned they may stick things onto the president's budget to keep from passing the debt ceiling. i think that is wrong. they need to continue doing what they have been doing in the past and come back to those other things. take the petty stuff off the table. it does not make sense. host: next is mark in northwood, minnesota -- northwood, new hampshire. good morning. republican line. caller: good morning. i think, first of all, let me put my words together. first thing we need to do is deal with china. the chinese have been undermining us for decades. the first thing we need to do for the debt ceiling is eliminate every penny we owe to

china. they have been sending us poison for decades. poison cat food, poison dog food, poison sheet rock. as a retired mechanic, 50% of the parts that i put on harleys and automobiles come from china. 50% of those are defective right out of the box. what are we paying money for? i am so upset with the things that i hear and the rhetoric and the opinions from newspapers that you people continue to push. it just upsets me. i am allowed one phone call a month. i hold it dearly. i have not called for almost two years. gas prices are going back up. i biggest concern right now, is my numbers financially have not changed any at all. this year, i got half of what i got in a tax return from last year. i do not understand why.

i have gone through the forms. i have gone through everything. the government is nickel and diming us and sending us all kinds of crap information. i think the republicans need to do more to solidify what is going on. i gave them na+ for trying -- an a+ for having. the obstacles we have between the news media and opinions is what is hurting become -- the country. host: glad you got through, mark. this is an opinion piece from the washington examiner written by republican representative from new york, elise stefanik. delivered results in his first 100 days. congresswoman stephan it saying in the first 100 days of the new majority, house republicans have been hard at work fulfilling our commitment to america on behalf of its people. already, house republicans have passed 59 bills that focus on

creating an economy that is strong, a nation that is safe, a future wealth on freedom and a government that is accountable. you can read all of that at washington examiner.com. charles is next on the democrats line. charles in tennessee. hello there. caller: yes, sir. can you hear me? host: we can. go ahead, charles. caller: i would like to give them a low grade. -- this bill, they are not going to cut social security and the republicans. if they had all three, social security would be gone. that is one thing people need to think about. they like it too much to get to that. the other thing is, they will not pass nothing to protect women. it is about high time we do a one pair health care bill.

people are dying from lack of health care. you cannot pass these little bills, the things with the schools to tell the school teachers -- another thing i would like to see this country going back to doing, -- you cannot give them a high grade because they run on busy -- they run on high notions. they do not have legislation the people will accept. i tell you what, i thank god for these young gen zers coming off because they will be the savior of this country. thank you very much. you people have a good day. host: we will hear from james next in ohio. james is on the republican line. what are your thoughts? caller: i just called, everybody is holding up the budget it is by and because he thinks he got it if he holds out he can get

his budget up or post some more money. i think this country has had enough of mr. biden and his brat. thank you. host: it is (202) 748-8001, the republican line. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. our opening topic this morning on washington journal is your grade for house republicans after the first 100 days which they passed last week. the house republicans passed by a party line vote a bill that would limit transgender athletes from women's sports after the passage of that legislation, kevin mccarthy had this to say. [video clip] >> house republicans pledged before the last election our commitment to america to protect women and girls in sports. today, we kept that promise. i want to thank greg steube, he has fought long and hard to make sure this bill worked through.

why? he watched in his own district the unfairness. he watched women who would wake up early in the morning and train from a young age, sacrifice, only to find a biological man to compete. that was wrong, and we all know that is wrong. unfortunately, they on the floor, not one democrat could stand up for title ix or stand up for women in sports. i believe that is wrong. behind me today are just a few of the women that have experienced this. may see, selena and taylor. there are so many more. it is incredible -- these incredible women have dedicated their lives to sports they love. we have watched hearing after hearing to hear their stories. through years of waking up early and training into the evening, they pushed themselves to the limit as humanly possible, made sacrifices and never gave up.

they strive for excellence and achieved it. they learned the value of teamwork and hard work. because they were forced to compete against biological men, they lost out on opportunities that they deserved. they watched their peers lose out on opportunities they deserved, as well. these women did something courageous. they spoke out. they spoke out for equal opportunity, for privacy, for safety, for truth. for everything the previous generations of women who fought hard for title ix. they are the current champions of those women 50 years ago who fought for equality, who fought for fairness in sports. today, they had a victory. host: grading house republicans on their first 100 days in power. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats.

all others, (202) 748-8002. on twitter, a couple of comments. the best thing they did which i am not holding my breath for it surviving was bringing regular order back, this brings budgeting back to 12 separate bills instead of omnibus spending. derek says, from my perspective, i give them an a for not doing anything. a comet, 100 days in office, 100 groups in the bucket. 100 days of control in the house and republicans do not talk inflation anymore. did inflation get cured overnight? derek says, how about creating a committee on the weaponization of the federal government while literally doing all of this with that committee. wisconsin, tim on the independent line. you are next. caller: yes, hello, good morning. i have to admit, i am an independent but iowa's thought the republicans for the most

part are wimpy weaklings. boy, they have pretty much held their own. i grade them at maybe plus, a minus. they passed that bill against these women for sports, that transgender bill which really discriminates against women. unfortunately, there is a lot of really woke people that just do not seem to understand that. they also voted, i hope they hold their own with this, the budget. i think mccarthy has done a good job. he is facing a lot of people people on that democrats side and in the media and stuff. good luck to him. thank you for your time. host: next is kim on the democrats line in columbus, ohio. caller: i give the republicans a flat f. they ran on crime. they was going to help get inflation down. they have not done any of that.

they are concentrating on all this, like batman just said, -- like what that man said, gay people, women's rights, they do not care what the kids think and more. i went to school, i never worried about getting shot. not one day. to see these kids get shot in these schools, it is enough to upset you. kids getting killed. knocking on doors. kids getting killed. driving in bad driveways, accidentally touching the wrong car. we concentrating on this stuff? they think the republican party is winning? i can guarantee you, they are not. i need them to know that we see what they are doing. i give them a flat f. host: thank you. we will be focusing on the issue of gun violence in our last segment of the program beginning in the 9:00 eastern our.

on that bill that passed in the republican house last week, the bill that would prohibit transgender individuals from participating in women's sports. it passed in the house, know where the senate will take that up. this is the democratic leader, hakeem jeffries, after the passage of that bill. [video clip] >> extreme maga republicans are trying to sensationalize an issue that does not really exist in the way that they are falsely portraying. if this is about elite sports competition, let's allow the relevant organizations involved in elite sports competition to do what they do and set the framework and boundaries and rules of engagement. you know what, many of them already have. the ncaa already has a policy as

it relates to this issue. so does the international olympic committee. so does the track and field association. and, many high school athletic associations have this issue addressed. what this is about, again, extreme maga republicans doing everything possible to jam their right wing ideology down the throats of the american people. it continues to happen. it happened with abortion care. happening with banning books about our history. now, they want to bully kids. transgender kids. by the way, more than 50% of transgender children have either contemplated suicide or attempted suicide. where is the decency on the others of the aisle that in the face of that dynamic, you want

to bully trans kids and create an issue because you think it is politically going to benefit you? i believe it will not. host: a chance for you to weigh in this morning on the house republicans first 100 days. how would you grade it? (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. for independents and others, (202) 748-8002. in pennsylvania, darrell on the republican line. caller: good morning. i agree with the gentleman who just spoke about the transgender children, the parents start being parents at an early age. these children will not grow up to be transgender, they have a right to be a kid first. that is all i have to say. host: next is miami. henry on the independent line. you are on. caller: good morning, and thank you. it is hard to believe we are

rating the republicans in the house during the first 100 days when joe biden has been in office for two years and taken the country backward. in fact, with china threatening to become the number one world power in every respect both militarily as well as financially and joe biden actually selling off the country with his son to china -- by the way, i am an independent, a freethinker who has voted both republican and democrat historically. there is no way in the world you can actually give the house any kind of rating for the first 100 days when they are dealing with issues that have arisen over the last two years. we have a crisis with world power. we pulled out of afghanistan in a disastrous mode, which every country in the world has taken note of and has been pushing towards threatening the stability of those countries worldwide. we have issues with respect to

our economy. we shut down our energy independence. we were once energy independence until joe biden took office, which will put it in reverse. we sold off fuel to china. in our strategic reserves during why, because joe biden was in office. two years worth of an open border where people have just strolled in, is projected by the end of his term to be 15 million people who have come across the border from 170 countries throughout the world. we are going to break the republicans as to what they are doing? the first thing you do is investigate joe biden and his family and determine how it is that treason has been brought up into our politics where he is selling off the country for the benefit of his family and the bribery that is coming in from china that came in from ukraine that has come in from russia into the biden family.

we have issues with transgenders. no one is willing to say that, you identify a man as two x chromosomes. genetic chromosomes. you identify a woman as ax and y chromosome. i am sorry, the woman is two x chromosomes. the man is a x and y chromosome. when they do surgically to remove the physical aspect their manhood or womanhood, we then call them a woman just because they think like a woman. i hate to tell you this, but for the last 7000 years, there has been men who identified as women socially and yet, they still remain a man based on the fact they are x and y chromosome. actually, it makes the man more powerful and competing against

women, which has clearly been shown. host: we are going to go to pennsylvania to hear from jerome on our democrats line. good morning. caller: yes, i tell you, every republican who called and there is going to give the house a a or high grade. the republicans have divided this country so bad that nobody is seeing right. we are going down the hill because the republican party has chosen to take this country to an autocratic leadership. that means nominal freedoms whatsoever. we've got people killing kids on the street. we've got multiple killings, multiple killings around this country. the republicans choose to put money in their pockets instead of taking care of those situations. republicans have formed committees instead of forming groups to take care of the situations. we sit back and say joe biden is doing wrong? wake up, america, or we will be under an autocratic country

where we have no freedoms. host: about 15 more minutes on your calls on this particular topic. other news this morning, a story that continues to develop overnight. the reporting of reuters, their headline foreign state seeks evacuations as u.s. polls -- most epaulets. united states and forces help a busy stuff get out of sedan, evacuations by other countries appeared to paceproblems on sunday amid battles that have triggered a humanitarian crisis. the abruption of fighting eight days ago between the army and rapid support versus, paramilitary group has killed hundreds of civilians and trapped many thousands in their homes in sudan. that is the reporting of reuters this morning. fulton, mississippi. we go next to alan on the republican line, welcome. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. host: sure. caller: i would just like to say

, the other callers calling in, you have just read a text on the television saying the republicans are considering the social security cut. that is completely untrue. the republicans are not going to cut social security. in actual fact, president biden has already cut social security because people with fixed income -- it is 35% to 45% less now than it was before he came in. that is a cut in social security. it -- he has already cut social security. don't the democrats realize the

fact, his regards, his son and his dealings abroad. let me just say this. the day president biden and his son went to the ukraine -- he got a diamond for it and got put on the board $1 million ago and everything else because the government gave the company $60 billion, i think, something like that. whatever. from this very same day, four marines came back from afghanistan in body bags. isn't that disgraceful? host: next is dallas, texas. david on the independent line. caller: good morning morning, good morning, good morning. i definitely, emphatically, give

the republicans a f. part of the reason is, i do not know where to start with the first 100 days because i think it was anywhere from three to five days before they could even get mccarthy to be speaker of the house. this arguing among them which was undeniable, i agree with them about transgender people participating -- transgender men participating in women's sports. i will give them an a on that. i do not even know where to start. you think about it, they have a january 6 committee for people who tried to overthrow the government and support them and went to visit them in jail. marjorie taylor greene is an utter, disgusting woman in my opinion. she has done nothing but argue, baker, called someone a liar in the middle of a committee hearing. not to mention, the fact every

time the republicans complain, listen to the rest of these calls. the only thing they do is complain about the border, complain about hunter biden's laptop, complain about weaponization of the government, the irs and the fbi, the cia, complain about that. they complain about the guy who prosecuted trump. they want to go after him, the man who gropes women, cheated on his ex-wife and received permission from the saudi government to install hotels while he was the president. these people are walking around blind without a cane. all they do is listen to fox news. all you have to do is watch fox news the night before, listen to c-span the day after and everything that was on fox news is what the republican blind dummies are calling and complaining about on c-span the next day. host: david mention marjorie

taylor greene, she is in this fake photo obviously. someone sent us. first 100 days reminds me of a song off the osborn's crazy train. this one says, we are going through the horrible -- that is the wrong tweet. this one says in 2024, democrats that unipart he will back control in the house, be embroiled in wars across the globe, to musick, economic depression and buried in violent crime from sea to shining sea. we have no means of self-defense and our constitution will be gone. if mccarthy's job is to complain and blame the president, he is succeeding, says bobby. a text saying kid -- saying it is undeniable this republican house has been active so far, a grade of na+ by some members on efforts but a total on zero on results. more height as the nation continues to vote for the narratives while we fail at home and abroad. says bird in virginia.

in pine bluff, arkansas, democrats line is next. melvin, go ahead. caller: yes, my concern is about weapons control. there are many young children dying because the republicans refuse to support this gun violence, this gun situation. if this gun situation was controlled, there would be less of these young children that do not even begin in life, or not have any type of life because they have been destroyed by the republicans because they will not do anything about the gun control. host: on to helen in north carolina on the republican line. caller: good morning, god bless. i have a lot of things i want to say, but the main thing i want to bring up is something that

nobody knows nothing about. the j sect, the group of lawyers that go to the supreme court, president biden's got a deal to pass by the end of may, give rights to china through the world health organization and we have got to vote against that. everybody, call their representatives because we already have china ruling president biden, the socialist left, marxism government in power right now and have been in power through several different presidential offices. president biden -- trump, when he came in, he corrected that and put us back on the, on our

regular, american standard. host: we are grading congress. the first 100 days of the republican-led house. we go to alaska. doug, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for having me. i do not want to get too weary, but it is nauseating hearing what these callers and democrats are saying. i do not understand the weaponizing of the government against -- well, basically, a common american. i do not understand why they would support this. having a male competing in a female sports, how can that possibly be fair in anybody's mind? i do not understand the

democrats thinking on this. i notice there was no votes that were in favor of passing the bill regarding transgender. they have the hearing down at the border where no democrats showed up for that hearing. i believe it was a few weeks ago or a month ago. to try and bring it down to that point of saying, look, this is like grounded zero. let's have a talk. they did not show up to that. you talk about bitcoin -- about them arguing about the most ridiculous things. it is nauseating to hear the people voted into office, to not have the common decency or the lack of fairness.

there is always more important things to do, there are certainly more important things to do. these things that keep popping up, they need to get nipped in the bud. i was very proud that the republicans all voted in this last bill to try -- that will not pass the senate from my way of thinking, it will get vetoed, biden gets his hands on it. you know, it just goes to show the american people what they have to do. they have got to get out to get out to vote these people out. how they got in office, i do not understand the common logic with where these people come from. host: a couple more comments on social media and via text. from michigan, i think the gop at this point is failure. maga has taken over and a comfort to aid the democrats, nothing is getting done. they are focused on revenge

based on lies and conspiracy theories. pat, a democrat from florida, removing books from shells, refusing health care for trans teens, republican party is moving closer to fascism every day. this one likes what they see on the screen. some of the things passed by the republican house so far, giving them na+. a comment on that transgender bill, this one says there are 36 transgender athletes across the nation. republicans think this is the main issue. there -- their whole focus is culture war nonsense. what is next, declaring the war on christmas is over? larry is in bethlehem, pennsylvania, democrats line. you are on the air. go ahead. caller: there is no new sins. the sins in this world are

poverty and ignorance. [laughter] host: ok. on the bradley in west virginia on the republican line. go ahead. caller: good morning, c-span. the guy from arkansas, he must still be in kindergarten. the guy from pennsylvania, the guy in arkansas is raising canes about guns. it takes a failure to put that gun off. put these people in jail. we are letting these people run loose. it is no wonder people get shot to protect our self, they do not know who is out there. the guy in pennsylvania raising cain about the dependent -- the democrat and republican parties, they need to get together and quit fighting because from the time the democrats got in this country has went to -- i am not going to say the word, but you know what. he needs to wake up in pennsylvania. used in lieu of -- live close to pennsylvania. pennsylvania is in bad shape.

look at the steel mills, everything is shut down in pennsylvania. wake up. host: this is a editorial cartoon in the washington post. showing president biden and speaker mccarthy about to go over the waterfalls. default on america's debt, is what the sign says. we go to nebraska. it is roger on the democrats line. caller: yes. morning, everybody. i am upset about -- i like the way the republicans are working. they passed that bill in the esg, you cannot take money away from the 401(k). host: are you there? caller: i am. host: i thought i lost you, but continue on. caller: yeah, i like the way the

republicans are working because they passed that bill in the esg and joe biden vetoed it. it was about taking money away from people on their 401(k)s. i think the republicans did a good job. they had democrats that voted with them. so, that is all i need to say. host: appreciate all the input this hour on washington journal. still to come in the next segment, the heritage foundation's richard stern will be with us and bobby kogan with the center for american progress. we will be talking about the house republicans debt limit plan, which the speaker announced last week. later, dr. jonathan metzl will talk about gun violence and gun violence prevention measures. ♪

♪ >> this week on the cease and networks. the house and senate are both in. the house will vote on the debt limit increase bill. the senate will consider medicinal cannabis for veterans. south korea's president will address a joint meeting of congress. on tuesday a appropriations subcommittee will hear the justification for fiscal year 2024 for the sergeant at arms. on wednesday president biden hosts estate dinner honoring the present -- hosts a state dinner honoring the president of south korea. head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video live or on-demand

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podcast about books with current nonfiction book releases plus to bestseller lists with trends through insider interviews. you can find it on c-span now, uor free mobile -- our free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. host: house republican leadership last week came out with their debt ceiling plan, their budget and debt ceiling plan. we we'll spend some time this morning talking about it. richard storer is the director of the hermon center. bobby cogan is with the center for american progress. he is the director of their budget policy. welcome to washington journal. let's start with broadly how you approach issues of the federal

budget and budgeting issues from a personal and from your organization? bobby, would you like to start? guest 1: yes. i wish these were my words, but we have a limited amount of resources, so we are forced to pick what we care most about. we i'll have to prioritize. -- we all have to prioritize. we have a lot of good low income programs. we have stuff to make sure society can function. a budget should make sure we are taking care of people and that people are able to succeed and that we can invest in research and environment.

host: richard, how do you approach things? guest 2: the values of the drafters of those budgets -- what is the appropriate role of government? we think it is appropriate that the government be efficient, those critical -- beyond that we think that when the government gets larger and takes more resources the, people work hard to produce it takes us away from people's ability to build for their own futures and more than that we think that loss of income to people is more than dollars and cents. it is a loss of future productivity, things that not only create more money but promote a longer and healthier lifespan. we one-day system where the

government only takes as much as it needs to sustain those necessary systems. host: on a statement of priorities, how do you see the republican plan is a statement on their priorities? guest 2: it is a statement that they believe in the american people. they want to leave the american people with more control over what they produce, what they return so they can put more resources into innovation. it is cutting regulations that are needless. that is what i see as their plans, a statement of belief. host: it is -- does this give you a a clearview of the republicans' view of their -- does this give you a clear view of the republicans' view of their role in government. guest 1: there's a clear

difference in the belief of what the government should do. 70% of interest payments go to people for their child or health insurance, medicare, medicaid, chip, acas payments. where we disagree is whether we are giving too much to help people or whether we should be giving less. what the government spending is doing is largely going to people and making sure we have safe water. making sure that we have safe food. these are essentially really good functions of the government, and i don't think they should be cut. host: we got this from republicans last week, and the speaker, there have been some

complaints that this was not a budget. the president has is skewed his budget -- issued his budget. this was not a budget. it was a plan. does it matter at this point? guest 2: we know already where the federal government is. i tellst us what the underlying budget of the government is. this is a vision of where we are now. here is where we want to be. we spent enough money to write a check for more than 150% of the populi to every single person in america. how can we be spending that much money and still have a lot of the problems we have? a lot of that money is spent inefficiently. there are much more efficient ways to run these programs to provide that help for people.

imparting question is -- the important question is not that that money goes to people, that it is taken out. it is a burden on people, even if the cash is getting back to people, it means stunted production of goods and services. host: let's look at a couple of the topline details in this budget plan for our viewers and listeners who may not have the full details on it. the republican plan includes raising the debt ceiling into 2024 and would reduce spending to fiscal year 2022 levels. it would recover unspent covid-19 funds. it would also impose new work requirements for medicaid, requiring some 80 hours per

month for some recipients. $80 billion passed under the inflation reduction act. it would block student debt cancellation and revoke clean energy tax credits. bobby cogan, take any of those in their. what is it you find the hardest to take in that budget proposal? guest 1: the hardest is a tough question. the biggest one of those in terms of the deficit reduction is the first one you mentioned. the speaker said that it would reduce deficits by $4.5 trillion. i think that is high, but it is in the ballpark. taking government spending back to 2022 levels --the way it is

stated makes it sound really reasonable. it is much more extreme than it sounds. it is pretty vague. they are going to cap discretionary spending. it is a third of the budget. ot is -- it is nonmandatory spending. it is most of what we think of what when we think of the government. host: what did his plans say about defense spending. guest 1: it didn't. guest 2: it is a caps on discretion spending. what i would say is in the last 6 years, the dollar increase in annual discretion spending has

outpaced to the dollar increase in health care programs. health care programs are the fastest growing mandatory programs, but every year when congress comes back to the well and drawl resources, they have managed -- and draw out resources, they have managed to deplete -- if these programs had gone on an inflationary track, where would they be at? it is not cutting. it is getting back to that cleaving away. let's -- in many ways it is to send money back to their district. guest 1: discretionary funding i s about 6.1% based discretionary

in 2017 and now it is 6.2%. it is growing 1% faster than the economy. immediately cut it. depending on what you want to be relative to -- i went to be relative to purchasing power -- if you would just essentially for population growth, it becomes more than $200 billion, and from there grow it only 1%. every single year, we would be falling further and further behind. by the end of the 10th year, -he- -- did not specify how edward work. it could be that everything is cut 30% -- how it would work.

it could be that everything is cut 30%. huge cuts, bigger than any thing we have seen in history. it would be something hard to actually carry out. host: let me make sure our viewers and listeners can get involved in our conversation with our guests. (202) 748-8000 is the line for republicans. (202) 748-8001, democrat -- (202) 748-8001 is the line for republicans. (202) 748-8000 democrats. and (202) 748-8002 for independents. in terms of the inflationary pressures on discretionary spending -- guest 2: those levels where the

levels of spending just a few months ago before we did the last omnibus. it is not as dramatic as it sounds. even the flat nature, of discretion spending the size of the economy a lot of those come at the expense of defense spending falling as a percentage of the economy over time, if you look under the hood of these programs, i don't think there is a reason why they need to grow ablated -- where is it going? it is staying in the hands of americans. host: can we turn to military spending? it would seem all of this, there would be increased pressure for military spending to increase. that is not even been addressed in this republican plan.

in the last six years, defense spending -- guest 1: in the last six years, defense spending has grown every year. if you had to cap what mccarthy was proposing, and we took care of our bets vis-à-vis the president has estimates, and we make sure we carry out our health plans, that would be the rest of the budget cut 91% -- 94% by the end of the decade. the cuts proposed are so big, there is not room for anything else. that puts money right back into people's hands. i you take away the moneyf that goes towards people affording rent, it is not clear to me that you have actually helped people. i get that money comes from here and it goes over there, but i

personally believe the stuff the government is doing here to make sure -- it is also stuff like clean water and food safety. i think those are really good uses of the government. if we were able to do 94% less cancer research, think that is a bad thing. host: what is the end goal? this is very temporary. the debt ceiling raised to march next year. what is next? what do republicans want to do next? how do they want to make this more long-term? guest 2: the attempt is to start saying "this is a better trajectory for spending." from a heritage foundation standpoint, it is critical -- it does not need to be arbitrarily grown. this is an attempt by

republican leadership to be responsible with how we are using americans' money. the bill deals with infrastructure. those programs have been boxed out. in favor of programs that distort the economy. the subsidies were talking about is part of the conservative plan to get rid of those subsidies which lead to more demand for welfare programs. we need to get back to an economy that is growing -- that is why, to get back to an economy that is growing. guest 1: i should have said this before, but i think part of the premise here is pretty flawed. congress can and should debate physical path.

people want to talk about what will be the trajectory of our debt? this is couched in a debate of whether we should meet our legal obligations. host: the debt ceiling. guest 1: minority leader mcconnell has said of course we must pay our debt. the issue behind all of this, the proposals are kind of there to say "if you do not do enough of these, we might force a default." regardless of what you think of the policies, that stance and structure is deeply inappropriate. host: do you have a fair criticism of that? guest 2: it has nothing to do with whether we default. the constitution requires -- if we set the debt limit, it means that the volume of government has to go down, but it still

means the debtors of the government, the bondholders, social security as well have to pay back in full. it is a statement of prioritization of government spending. guest 1: the first thing is the treasury had said that it does not think it has the capability of doing debt prioritization. currently, we cannot prioritize, in which case we would be defaulting on the interest. defaulting on our interest is not the only type of default. this would be lethal for payments to disabled veterans. host: it is not addressed in this part of the plan at all, but maybe i will ask later in the segment.

one thing congress is kicking down the road is any reforms for the long-term health of medicare, social security, medicaid, which is no part of this plan or proposal. we have got callers. we will go to mark first in las vegas, democrats' line. caller: i cannot believe anything the heritage foundation says. they are saying there is no significance to defaulting ? come on. how come the heritage rendition never says anything when about -- anything about trump's subsidies to farmers. how much have you paid t farmers because of china?

why do republicans make everything so simple? build a wall. guest 2: thank you for calling in. the heritage foundation annually puts out 230 policy options, which is our budget blueprint. one of them, you were talking about farm subsidies, we proposed cuts to that. we do not play favorites at the heritage foundation. the only people we are looking out for are the american people. we're talking about real people's lives, real people's livelihoods. that is, what we put forward a government that works for the people and that leaves people as free as possible with as much as what they worked to produce as possible. that is what we believe in. that is what has built this country. host: the heritage foundation,

you can read some perspective on this at heritage.org, 8 things to know about biden's fiscal budget from bad to worse. let's go to benny in ohio. benny is on the republican line. go ahead. caller: i was wondering if either one of the gentleman could tell me how much the united states plays -- gentlemen could tell me how much the united states pays on illegals, and where in the budget are they trying to hide that money? host: bobby, would you like to take that? guest 1: i don't know of the top of my head how much the dear g -- the doj has. we are making sure we have

immigration judges. that is largely within the department of justice. one thing i would say is that immigrants make america much richer. we probably an agreement there. immigrants are contributing to society. they increase the workforce, they increase demand. i will say strongly that america has made stronger by the fact that people want to come here and want to be part of the country. host: let's go to newport, richie, florida. caller: thank you, washington journal, for an unbiased platform. i have one thing for both of the gentlemen. richard, we should separate social security from the budget,

and it should go back to the way it was. my question to richard is do the social security payments that we pay in our deductions every paychecks hide any of the debt that we have? and bobby, i have a couple real-life examples i would like you to comment on. my ex-sister-in-law was getting $800 for childcare and $350 for being an ex-drug user. she would buy drugs with that. another example is my other sister-in-law had a client that came in for problems with their respiratory system and they gave

him a $2000 check to live on the beach so he could breathe easier. could you guys comment on those things, please? host: we will start with richard certain. guest 2: thank you for calling in. everything that you pay in to both social security and medicare go to those programs, however, there is a $52 trillion unfunded liability from social security and medicare. part of that reflects what people pay into texas. it hides a deeper truth, which is that money that we take people from these programs is invested in the federal debt. you may look at your 401(k) retirement accounts. that money is invested in the market.

that is -- socials -- the rates of return are effectively zero. any rate of return you make on that is text pearman a taken from someone else. that is why we have that 52 trillion dollars unfunded liability. the conversation we are having about the debt ceiling today, social security would not be touched by it. to the extent the treasury says we are not going to prioritize payments, that is the treasury department holding hostage the entire american economy. host: bobby, if you would like to respond to the caller. guest 1: i appreciate the question. without knowing the patient, i cannot speak directly to it.

it does not follow my understanding. if you have long-term disabilities, you can be on it. i don't think it is doing childcare or drug use. i cannot speak directly to it. social security is a program that pays out based on how you paid in. if we go over the edge we would find out whether the treasury could prioritize payment, but right now there is no legal dictate on what would happen if we go over the edge, because we do not go over the edge. why would we decide to not meet our legal obligations? we do not have a law that says "if we decide not to meet our obligations, this is how it would work." if we could find a way to

prioritize some programs, it means it comes at the expense of everything else. if we could prioritize, which it is not clear we have the operational, capability to do it but if we could prioritize social security and interest payments, and some months you would still not be able to do that. one of my colleagues looked back in the last year. in some of the months, you just couldn't. in some of the months, we do not bring in enough money. it is not a viable plan. even if it worked for those, it would end up destroying everything else. those are payments to disabled veterans, the money to make sure our food is safe. what the government is doing is useful functions and if they are not able to make the payments, then we all suffer severely.

host: i have to move on to donald in michigan. democrats's line. caller: good morning,, c-span. i would like to thank c-span for everything it does. on the debt ceiling i think, it should be stopped, playing politics with the debt ceiling. the bills were created last year. the debt ceiling is always raised, regardless of who is in office because we have to pay our bills. we have to show the world that our economy is strong and reliable. mccarthy is playing games trying to make the republicans look like they are getting something done. the cuts he is proposing her to

the irs. we have boomer babies retiring that need to be replaced. he wants to cut medicaid, medicare, food programs. everything he is cutting, but i did not hear him say " let's raise taxes on the 1% and corporations that we gave texas to every time we have a republican in office -- taxes to every time we have a republican in congress." guest 2: the debt ceiling is about future spending. it is about spending that has not happened yet. that debt ceiling increase allows the government to spend more money. i meanst it is necessarily taking that purchasing power --

it means it is necessarily taking that purchase power away from americans. what does it mean for the american a government to consume greater and greater percentage of white americans produce. it is because of the government taking the cash out of the market, meaning private industry, homeowners cannot get money for student loans or to expand business opportunities. the government is choking the economy by doing that. the other important thing to keep in mind is the economy is representative of the value it produced in american views. it is about what americans work hard to produce. when the government takes those resources, when we text corporations, those taxes are not felt by the wealthy -- tax

corporations, those taxes are not felt by the wealthy. they are felled by the rest of us. -- they are felt by the rest of us. host: can i ask you about peace you did on the debt ratio, bobby? a piece you did recently, tax cuts are primarily responsible for increasing the debt ratio. were talking about the tax cuts under the trump administration. they came under the george w. bush administration. how has this led to where we are with the debt ceiling? guest 1: it is a little bit nonoverlapping. i was writing about the debt ratio. they are in the same vein here. i wrote it to be topical.

there are two points to the argument. part number one is if you look at the effects those tax cuts have had on our long-term debt, they are big enough that without for them, debt climbing as a portion of gdp for forever. host: that is revenue that is not -- guest 1: revenue that otherwise would be collected. that is fine. someone might push back and say "aren't we bringing in more spending?" if you look at the last time we were projected to have debt be declining for forever and you compare our spending levels our spending is lower than it was there.

spending is lower than it was projected to be. host: spending -- are we still feeling the residual effects of covid spending. guest 2: four sure. to that point as well -- for sure. to that point as well, spending has diminished as a portion of the economy. we have spending programs that will spend into oblivion. we are scheduled to reach 200% on the gdp. it is certainly possible to strangle the economy, to take enough tax revenue to balance -- what is it like to live in that country, to have a country where

the economy is strangled because the governments takes more and more resources. in my mind, that is just strangling the economy and taking from americans. guest 1: we are a super low tax country when it comes to other rich nations. the spending is due to demographic issues and increasing health costs, but they were not set to go up 80% of the economy. in that scenario we would still be a really low tax country, significantly below the european average. we are not imagining w -- we

are not taking every cent americans are making. guest 2: the revenues are slated to grow with the growth of the size of the spending of the government, but it is not just the rate. it is how the taxes are done. the countries are talking about a move to mostly flat consumption systems. our tax system is designed go after the engines of the economy that afford opportunities. host: we are talking about the debt ceiling plan offered up by house republicans senator mccarthy last week. let's go to greg on the line in huntsville, alabama. caller: 3 quick topics for you. health care -- it has fascinated me how poor of a job we have

done on the health care act. the problem is 29 million americans are paying more for those policies. wseems lik we are being way overcharged. i would like to know where all that money lands is that to the insurance companies? whose money does that land in -- whose pocket does that money land in? they are going to put 6% of their budget towards customer service with an average wait time of 8 minutes with one out of 10 people being actually serviced. what a business model!

we are going to confirm that guy? are you kidding me? we are taking 41% of that budget and putting it towards enforcement. that sounds like a shakedown to me. it does not sound like an improvement of the agency. it sounds like a shakedown from the agency. it does not sound like the top earners are getting rich off of using vindman award things of that nature -- venmo and things like that. let me solve immigration for you. i m a republican. -- i am a republican. i love immigrants. build a wall. put a bunch of doors in the wall. when you walk across the border,

here is your tax id. host: we will start with you, bobby. guest 1: thanks for the question. there is no doubt that the u.s. over pays for health care. we are paying too much. we have seen health care grow faster than inflation and faster than the economy for years. it is a big problem. where is it going? it is going all over. we have more expensive drugs, we have more expensive specialists, we have more expensive insurance. we are getting worse outcomes. it is true that nominal costs have gone up, but the rate of growth has declined significantly and do you have seen this in projections of future health care costs. it has been going down and down and down.

that is progress in the right direction. we saw the actuarial value, what you are getting for your dollar, increased. there is a long way to go on it. host:, health care, irs or immigration. do you want to touch on any of those? guest 2: absolutely. health care and education happened to be the two sectors the government's most heavily involved in. when the government gets involved in a sector, it muddies the waters and makes it harder to coordinate. you get less efficient use of resources. the money is only as valuable

as the real goods and services you get for it. what you get is not more stuff going to people. you get more waste, slower growing economies, that means that money is not being stretched as far. one thing on the irs, the irs put out a document last week saying what they're looking to do with those $80 billion. there documentation, all of that money for customer service they will run through by the end of 2024 and that is when, they are going to ramp up the enforcement activities. those being up -- audits will be going after low income and middle income families. many are welfare beneficiaries.

they will also be going after small businesse.s they said themselves they would go after complex entities. that is a fancy term for small businesses with one or two locations. guest 1: to the extent that it could be a small business, if i am doing my own thing and i make my own llc and i am making $2 million a year, i can be a small business. the other quick thing, i will say about health care and education is we are getting causality potentially mixed up here. is it a worse thing because the government is in their or is it the government is in there because it is worse?

host: our next caller is thomas. caller: thank you for the opportunity. i m 66 and i have been an unaffiliated voter all my life 0 -- i am 66 and i have been an unaffiliated voter all my life. i struggle with the republican party. they seem to only be concerned with the debt when they do not have complete power. the perfect example to me is the first two years of the trump administration where they had the presidency, house, and senate. they did not pay the bills. they were spending their way to prosperity. when they do not control those branches, then they are very fiscally conservative and i do not believe that is genuine. host: it is richard's turn to

start. guest 2: i share that complaint about a lot of conservatives in d.c. i was ai former congressional staffer. i i have always worked to reduce the size of government. there are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle that believe the right way to get there is to spend more taxpayer money. i am proud of the heritage foundation for always pushing to give that money back to the people who earned it. there are a lot of people who malign the trump tax cuts adding to the deficit, but they grew the economy, they gave that money back to people. it is not just about the debt. it is about what the government consumes.

trump tax cut bill is the same size as what we lost from covid. inc. about how much worse the pandemic would have been had we not had the growth we had. guest 1: i want to get to the caller's first point. under the trump administration and the widen administration, -- biden administration, all three had bipartisan support. when we have a democratic president that is when it becomes an issue. that is the underlying issue or that is how i interpreted it. the other thing i wanted to say, i think i have now forgotten. guest 2: the only reason -- the

only reason we lost as much as we did is because we had a huge monetary and fiscal response. guest 2: when republicans have control of the house and the senate, we see lower spending. it doesn't have to be a showdown over an agreement. host: political question for both of you from jimbo in california. " consider the idea that mccarthy does not have the votes to raise the debt ceiling." guest 2: i think it is well settled law that when it comes to paying back the deficit, pingback social security, you cannot prove -- paying back social security, you cannot prevent the government from

paying those back. those are kind of where that separation is. guest 1: i hope we will not find out. i hope we will not have to find out. it will be disastrous if the united states government deliberately does not meet its legal obligations. it is not clear to me of social security would be considered a bondholder. social security would be protected under that. guest 2: all of the social security assets are u.s. debt. host: on to dallas down, pennsylvania -- dallastown, pennsylvania pennsylvania. go ahead with your question or comment for our guest. caller: i have 2 simple topics. number one is every time

republicans have control of the budget is they attack the same issues. 2 examples -- children's lunches, they want to cut education, they want to force people to have babies. bringing children into the world, but they don't want to take care of them when they are here. why do you never hear them going after these corporations making billions they're getting? all of these billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, the whole company. all of these -- on top of that because of our tax law, donald trump said that he would get on the irs and shrink some of these laws down that you could fill out your taxes on postcards. never happened, and yet all of these companies do not do taxes.

the last time the republicans were playing this game with raising our debt ceiling, what happened to our credit r ating? it dropped from aaa to aa. guest 1: i.obviously agree -- obviously i -- i obviously agree we should not be playing games with the debt ceiling. saying that if you do not get enough of your demands, you will threaten the full credit of america is reckless. i want to emphasize the point nicholas made. lot ofa what the government does -- a lot of what the government

does is really important. providing money so schoolkids can eat is great. those are good things that make america stronger. we can have a debate over whether those are good or brad program -- add programs, the debt ceiling is -- or bad programs, but the debt ceiling is not the place to do that. host: you have seen a few debt ceiling fights in your career history. is there a way to make this stop, to end the debt ceiling negotiations or does it have to become a permanent part of our political fighting on capitol hill? guest 2: in response to our last caller as well, i think one of those who has made this worse is you increasingly had corporation's bylaws.

being pro-free market is not being pro-victim. it is about a level playing field for everybody. the large amount of companies simply buy a legislator or the law that they want. he wants to get rid of tax subsidies for companies. i don't mean the republican side, i mean full conservatives, the belief in an even playing field. we noticed that there are very few places where you can get your voice heard. the debt ceiling is an indispensable tool for the government people against of the abuses of companies thatb want touy legislator -- that want to

buy legislators. if you want to get back to a congress who is fighting for an even playing field, you need to get to a situation that represents those values. guest 1: i cannot disagree more. we are one of only two countries who have a fixed dollar debt limit. countries do not do it this way. if we want to change the skull path of america, we debate -- the fiscal path of america we should debate every month. we will do it again this year. using that as hostage in this debate is not ok. there is no way in which we should default on our debt. host: on to mike, independent line, crescent city, florida. caller: this question is for mr.

stern. why do we keep giving these tax breaks dwell of these corporations? we are supposed to be -- breaks to all of these corporations? we are supposed to be a free market economy. i am 75 and i grew up in the 50's, 60's and 70's. the tax rate was over 70% and the corporations paid it. do something for the american people and to stop blaming the democratss for the problems you guys because. guest 2: thank you for calling. i will say this, in the period you were talking about, the tax on the people who made the, most was 70% but for most people the

raid was much lower. moreover, the tech system was set up less to penalize investments in new jobs and the creations of goods and services. there are 2 types of tax breaks people talk about. one are the subsidies mccarthy wants to get rid of. the other is what the trump tax cut did, which levels the field for everybody. it is not about cutting corporate tax rates. it is about cutting how those taxes are borne by the american people. it reduces profits, it reduces the investment capital that goes to other businesses, or it reduces worker pay, or increases consumer prices. those taxes on the wealthy are felt by the american people. guest 2: on corporate taxation,

if you take everything that has been said the u.s. used to have a strangling tax system. i don't know how you can hold that at the same time and believe we are also the best innovators. those things do not naturally go together. quickly on the green energy credits, the point of those is to help greenify the grid. if we believe that climate change is a problem, this is to help businesses by clean energy -- businesses buy clean energy. the idea of pulling that away,

is bad for our long-term. host: on to my goal in florida, republican line -- michael in florida, republican line. caller: our nation has become a socially bifurcated society. why could we not black gronk -- block grants specific state and then let the states decide where they went to allocate the money or if they want to raise taxes in their own state to pay for something, or just cut the spending in their states in line with what the people want? guest 2: to address your point first, i agree entirely. block grant the states. we should just cut federal spending at the american level. s state government can raise taxes -- state governments can

raise taxes with their constituent and feel free to do that. the extent that climate change is a problem, the u.s. has been innovating out of that. you have said earlier how can the u.s. to the most innovative country in the planet with regulations. we have a lower tax rate than most countries in the planet. whe we weren a powerhouse was when those regulations were even lower. you had said earlier about reversing causality. the causal relationship of supply and demand, creating demand takes resources out of the hands of manufacturers. host: bobby cogan?

guest 1: guest: that is precisely where we want the government to go in and say this is not being captured. i appreciate the question. i think there is a fundamental disagreement and what we think the role of government is here -- in what we think the role of government is here. i believe social security should be everywhere in the country. i believe they should still receive disability benefits even if a state does not think so. if we believe there should be no federal government or federal spending, that is tough to take. i would say i respectfully disagree. i think it is important we help people. the government helps lift 48 million people out of poverty every year.

i think it makes america stronger. host: bobby kogan is the senior director of federal policy at the center. there is more i had on the program here on "washington journal." next, dr. jonathan metzl will be with us. we will be talking about "stand your ground" laws and gun violence in recent weeks in the country. your comments and questions welcome, next. >> tonight, on "q&a," a biography of the first lady and

her influence on the role of first lady and the extent to which she secretly covered for president wilson after he became incapacitated by his stroke in 1919. >> who was this country bumpkin who suddenly decided she could be the executive? throughout her life, she showed she was the sort of person who barreled into a situation she might not know exactly how to handle and handled it beautifully. tough, smart, relied on her own opinions, funny. she was one of those people who put everyone at ease. those are positive attributes. she was also quick to hold a grudge, racist. she had a somewhat fickle regard. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." you can listen to all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app.

>> the very first president to attend the white house correspondents dinner was calvin coolidge. i had just been elected to the senate. [laughter] >> washington's premier black tie event is saturday. what lives he spends -- watch c-span's live coverage. this year's headliner and president biden is expected to speak. you can watch online at c-span.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: dr. jonathan metzl is with us. he is an author, the department of medicine at vanderbilt university, the director of the department of medicine, health, and society, an author as well,

and almost us to talk about gun violence and in particular stand your ground laws which have come into focus with recent shootings in the u.s. good morning and welcome to "washington journal." guest: good morning. thank you for having me back. host: talk about your role as a sociologist into psychiatrist and how this helps you look at the -- talk about your role as a sociologist and psychiatrist and how this helps you look at this account issue. -- public health issue. guest: i did not think i would be in this role. i trained in psychiatry and did a fellowship in emergency psychology. i had been trained to understand faith and politics. i have a degree in sociology and m.a. sociology professor.

i did not think this would be my role in society until mass shootings started happening in america and people started calling me and saying, are mass shootings caused by mental illness? when you start isolating that answer, you eliminate all of the other factors like politics, access, economics, history, all of these bigger factors. i got into it because i kept answering that question and it led to a career over the past 15 or 20 years. i have been studying the relationship between psychiatry come up mental illness, and shootings, and have expanded over the recent decades to look at different laws and also gun suicides and other factors and have a bunch of books and articles on it. host: we will focus only stand

your ground laws in particular, but more broadly the interaction of individuals in situations we have seen more of in the last couple weeks of seemingly random acts of gun violence between unsuspecting individuals. i wonder if you can explain when it comes to stand your ground laws, what is the castle doctrine? guest: we have had an evolution or d evolution in stand your ground laws. initially, if someone breaks into your home and you cannot flee, you have a right or duty, are you sanctioned or protected if you shoot an intruder in your home? i think most people would say

yes, if someone breaks into your home and you cannot get away. that question has played out in the united states since the 1990's in earnest. infect, many years from english common law and other common-law notions of the castle doctrine. the idea is that a man's home is his castle and he has the right to protect his castle against intruders or invaders. that was the framing, especially when gun rights were being expended and justified in this country to say people should have guns in their homes because, what if someone breaks into your home? the castle doctrine initially, in the 1980's, 19 90's, early 2000's, meant that you could keep a gun in your house in case of an intruder.

if an intruder breaks income you can shoot that person. what we have seen is castle doctrine protections because of loose gun laws and the gun lobby that have been expanded over the years to say the castle doctrine protection expands to when you are in your car and walking around the supermarket. it created a bubble around people to say if you even feel threatened, you have protection to shoot and kill somebody. initially, the castle doctrine meant one thing. but now, it means something very different, much more expanded and permissive firearm use. i think that has led to the situation we are in now because this castle doctrine idea is underneath all of these stand your ground laws. host: how many states in this country have stand your ground

laws? guest: it is about 30 m growing -- it is about 30 and growing. the frustrating thing for me, i am probably somewhere in the middle of all of this. i try to study causes and effects but i cannot say it does not prevent that much crime. it does cause some effects like we have been seeing over the last couple of weeks. in spite of that, they seem to hold as a marker of showing their respect for gun rights. we now have about 30 states and growing. host: you said these stand your ground laws, expand on the castle doctrine, allows an individual who feels threatened, how does the law do fine --

define how someone feels to make the determination to use a firearm in self-defense? guest: we have had a number of these cases in different states. in missouri, when someone has someone knock on their door, how do we say that person did not feel threatened? somebody was driving away from the driveway and fired a gun. someone got into the car, the car is a protected space according to the doctrine. different states have different systems. as you are suggesting, and i agree completely, it is subjective. one important thing to note is we also use to have a duty to retreat.

in this country until recently the idea was you could only use deadly force where you could not get out of there because deadly force should be the last option. the idea before is if you are out in the world and you can get away without killing someone, that is what you should do. the laws have said you do not have a duty to retreat. that you can step forward. people called them "make my day laws" like an arnold schwarzenegger movie. the stand your ground laws are you do not have to avoid conflict. people feel justified. the other part is if you feel like your life is in danger and you feel threatened, and that is

a very subjective standard. when people are talking about their feelings, their feelings are being threatened, that taps into everything involved when we misperceived situations, racial bias, unconscious bias. stereotypes of who is safe and who is not. when people in split seconds are deciding based on those biases, we see what we see now. in a flash of rage, people shoot each other in road rage incidents because they feel threatened or in this horrible case in missouri, i knocked on the door of someone looking for his siblings. but because of what appears to be racial stereotypes, you fire first and ask questions later. that stepping forward and you feel threatened, it seems a

preposterous standard for when you might be protected to kill somebody else. host: our lines for dr. metzl are regional. if you are a gun owner, you can use this line. in the aftermath of the missouri shooting in the last week, cbs news had a report that said in theecade-plus since trayvon martin's death, stand your ound laws have led to between an 8% and 12% increase in gun violence and deaths. in southern states, including florida and alabama, homicide rates have jumped 10%, the study found. it seems the whole concept of feeling threatened, and you

talked about racial bias and animus, these speak to emotional if not mental health issues. guest: have no problem with somebody wanting to own a gun. we have a constitutional right to own firearms. the supreme court said people can keep guns in their homes if they are responsible gun owners. people feel like the police will not get there soon enough. the minute you start justifying the minute you feel a threat that a gun is the answer, you see the kind of outcome in states that have these laws. interaction, conflict, everyday mistakes that should be resolved peacefully and are resolved peacefully without places in our laws and guns become deadly

encounters. we are arming people on the assumption the person they are engaging with is also armed or should not be trusted. in a way, you create a toxic mix we are seeing now. i don't want to say it is inevitable but i would say what we are seeing now and the data you are suggesting is quite clear that in places where there are these permissive gun use arguments, but are really offensive the way people think about them, stepping forward into a threat, people shoot each other more. everyday encounters become deadly. how do you know if the person you are road raging against is vin diesel or somebody's grandmother? you do not know in the moment of passion. we are seeing these ludicrous examples that are fatal and deadly.

i think these stand your ground laws have become far too vague and permissive. after a shooting happens in many of these stand your ground states like missouri, the onus is on the prosecution to prove the person did not feel threatened. think about how crazy that bar is. if somebody says i feel threatened, like in missouri, you have to prove somebody did not feel threatened. it is hard to charge people with unjustified shootings because how are you going to argue somebody did not feel threatened? we were talking about race before. there are also expensive racial differences in whose shootings are called justified and who are called criminals.

those are not equal by race. black americans often are charged with homicide for the same sort of shootings that are ruled justified. these laws are not clear. they are leading to these outcomes. host: we mentioned the study on stand your ground laws. a headline from the town hall about the state of nebraska, the latest to pass the law to allow criminals to carry. have those been shown, is there data showing that is leading to more gun encounters between individuals? guest: i was born on a military base. i know many gun owners. i have no problem with that. but i would also say personally i feel like a responsible gun

owner is somebody who has been trained to use it, shows proficiency, and knows the regulations. i think what we are calling wrongly constitutional carry, i would invite anyone to read the constitution and say this is in there. the idea that people can carry weapons without a permit or training makes it harder to track crimes or shootings or things like that. this is a long way of saying i do not know. i find the data a little suspect because the minute you start telling people they can buy and carry a gun without any regulation process, you do not know who is shooting who. in a way, we have overturned not just the regulations on buying and selling guns, we have also

overturned the regulatory processes that track where they go. all of my research suggests that the easier it is for people to get and carry guns without any kind of process, the more shootings there are. i certainly think that is true. if you think about it, what if you do not need to take a driver's test or get insurance? of course, you will have more car accidents. i think it is the same with guns. also, because there is no data to make that possible, the data is harder to follow. host: our guest is dr. jonathan metzl of vanderbilt university. we go to loretta on the line in cleveland. go ahead. you are on the air. caller: good morning. good morning, america.

good morning, bill. good morning, dr. metzl. i appreciate your conversation this morning. i feel like the cart is before the horse because we have not talked about the origin of the use of guns in america. historically, guns are to keep black people in line from slavery to the present. if we look at the original name of the police, they were called the slave patrols. now, white people, they can get guns. left, right, up and down, all around. black people cannot even carry with a permit.

i look at full and steel -- philando castile. he had a permit to carry but he was still killed by the police. then you look at kyle rittenhouse who was not old enough to own a gun. he did not even own the gun he was shooting, and he got off. what we are looking at is institutional racism. we protect the whites and convict the blacks. then when you look at the reasons for guns, it is for the comfort of white people. we have got to deal with that. host: dr. metzl, your response? guest: i have a whole book on this topic where i go into a lot of his tail -- a lot of detail. we do have a racial history in

this country in particular. she is exactly right that from even before the founding of the country, there were racial politics about who got to carry a gun in public. in colonial america, white people could carry musk it's in public -- muskets in public. that was to keep native americans and african americans from revolt thing. you have a history before and after the civil war. they were meant to disarm black americans who have gotten guns from service in the civil war. we had black codes across the south that limited gun ownership written into the constitution of many southern states that said

white people could carry guns and black people could not, all the way through the 1960's when malcolm x and other people said we demand the right to carry guns to protect ourselves against the violence of society and the police. we had the gun control act of 1968. there is profound racial politics and who gets to own and carry a gun. the last couple of years have been interesting. when you overturn gun laws so that anybody can walk into walmart and get a gun, you would think that would level the playing field. in part, that is what we are seeing. we are seeing significant surges in black gun ownership. black women are quickly rising as a population of gun owners. i would also say it is not likely have righted a social wrong.

i think the caller is right about this. this question about who has the right to shoot somebody has racially disparate outcomes. even though gun access is easy for anyone right now, it is not that hard to get a gun in this country, but i would say the laws of who gets to shoot or carry, i have examples in my book of black americans and white americans open carrying in places like walmart and the different receptions they get. not surprisingly, white americans are freely shopping and the black americans get tackled or arrested for the same case. it is not always, but i would say the history of racially disparate outcomes is not just about shootings.

and i think she is right about gun ownership and gun carry. host: let's hear from john, calling from syracuse, new york. good morning. caller: basically, i don't understand the gun owners' position this is all about mental illness. we have mental illness everywhere. australia, germany, brazil. basically, i don't trust people. people are crazy out there. if you think i support people walking, black, white, asian, walking around with guns in the streets because they are responsible, i don't buy it. i don't think people are responsible. you go into a grocery store. how many people perfectly healthy are parking in handicapped spots? people kind of stuck. i do not support people walking around with guns, no way. as far as mental

illness, they should be called on this. the reason we have so many problems in this country is we do not have gun control. they have mental illness, we have mental illness. the only difference is we don't have gun control and they do. guest: people do kind of suck very often. two people suck who look different from us? we start throwing guns into these areas, what feels familiar and what does not? we tribalize guns. they not only lead to shootings but to polarization of every kind. i feel like loose gun laws make

people suck more. he was mentioning mental illness. i have a lot of work on this. for a while, we agreed as a society that persons with severe mental illness were the one group of people who should not have access to firearms in our country. that was until five or six years ago. every mass shooting, the debate would be about mental illness. i was critical of the because when i was studying mass shootings and you would list the 100 factors leading up to a mass shooting, mental illness would be number 60 if anything. the reason was twofold. first of all, there is no mental illness that causes somebody to shoot somebody else. there so many other factors that

lead to shootings that have nothing to do with mental illness. access to firearms, substance use at the time of the shooting, living in a state with loose gun laws. all of these factors were much more predictive of who would shoot somebody then mental illness by itself. i certainly think we need more mental illness treatment in this country. i would agree with the caller insanity is the symptom and not the cause. it became less tenable as gun laws became nonexistent in a lot of places. it required a permit or process and things like that. we have seen less of that narrative recently which i think is a good thing because we are not stigmatizing mental illness but it is also a bad thing because it means we do not have

any standards for who is buying and carrying guns. host: the nra have argued people should be able to protect themselves wherever they are. is that too expensive in your view? guest: i think people should feel safe. there are many ways to make people feel safe. i don't think every person carrying a gun is the right way. when people are carrying guns around, other people feel unsafe. one person might define themselves as a good guy but they are a bad guy for somebody else. it is very relative. i think there are great ways to promote safety. we can make public spaces safer. we can enhance every kind of protection, but also economic and social investments.

there are great sociological studies that show investing in neighborhoods through the business, loans, health care, transit, all dramatically decrease violent crime in those neighborhoods. the idea that we will fix what people perceive safety by giving them a gun is out of whack with what does promote safety which is making public spaces safer and investing from the ground up in promoting communal safety. i agree people have the right to feel safe. in a country like the united states, people need to feel safe to go to work and do everything you need to do in a society like ours. i just don't think giving everybody a gun -- it feels like fatal windowdressing for what we need to do to make things safer. host: calling from hillsdale, michigan, good morning. caller: i have a question.

if i walked into the supermarket in an open carry state and found somebody sitting there with a gun on his hip, i would certainly feel threatened. i wonder if i would be able to attack and disarm that person. thank you. host: dr. metzl, any thoughts? guest: i'm not sure, you walk in and saw somebody with a gun? host: i'm fortnite, we lost the color, so we don't know -- unfortunately, we lost the caller so we don't know. let's move on to sam. caller: i read your book called "dying of whiteness" and it was a sobering read. pamela hayes conch about mass production of guns. there were so many guns that

americans originally sought guns as tools and not part of their persona. the nra has pushed this idea that you need a gun as part of your personality. with more guns available, criminals have guns. criminals have guns. people are not securing guns. guns are being used domestically for suicides and things like that. i feel there has been a mass madison avenue marketing plan. if you want to carry a gun to feel protected, now there are too many guns. thank you so much. guest: that is a very knowledgeable caller. that person knows what they are talking about. i have a book coming out in january on this exact topic about the history of gun

marketing and mass shootings in america. and perceptions of what it means to own a gun. we have a long and important history of gun ownership in this country. the reason people own guns has seen a manipulated tradition. if you look at opinion polls from 2000 and the many decades before that, people said that they owned guns overwhelmingly for hunting or because they had a family tradition or because the guns had been passed down. a small percentage would say i need a gun to protect myself against other people. it is not that people fear safety more or less.

it was also a communal responsibility. they trusted society and other people to follow the rules. we have seen opinion polls before, during, and after the pandemic. overwhelmingly now, 75% of gun owners own guns because they feel threatened by other people. we have trained people that owning a gun is a way to protect yourself from somebody else. it is really that mentality, that perverted extension of it, we are seeing a new horrible shootings the last couple of weeks. the idea you need to protect yourself against so many else because society is not going to do that, that is the mentality people are being told as to why they need to own guns.

i say it again, it is not just an individual factor. this ties into defunding of cities, communities, infrastructure, education, economic betterment, and health care. all of these factors, it is like we have defunded everything and then we say a gun is your answer. unfortunately, we think it is not a great answer. thank you to the caller. host: the line for gun owners, pat is on that line, calling from plains, montana. he is also ex-law enforcement. good morning. caller: i try to educate my neighbors if they talk about having a firearm for self-defense as a last resort. always keep in mind the thing called collateral damage. there are neighbors next door if you live in town.

i carry my sidearm when i go to town. i have a concealed weapons permit. i don't show it to everybody. it is not actually to defend myself from somebody. if something was going on, hopefully, i could intervene and help the situation. we have to consider there are next-door neighbors, children next door, people down the street. the firearm does not stop in one room. people need to be somewhat educated. if they think they are going to defend themselves with a gun, it could be a horrible thing. people need to keep that in mind. that is on my mind so much. host: thanks for sharing your experience and insight on this. dr. metzl? guest: wonderful,. i cannot agree more with

everything you said. somebody who has had training and thinks about the role of responsible gun ownership and the importance of training, the fact he educates his neighbors about this is key. i have no problem with that. i completely support that. somebody trained in law enforcement who sees the of course that is something that we would support as a general concept in a democratic society, people in his neighborhood are buying guns with no training whatsoever, it is not just about owning the guns. it is about storing the guns, which is something he is suggesting. there are loose laws, more accidental shootings. shootings were a kid will pick up a gun, it will go off.

it can fly through a house and kill somebody in the next house or down the street. this idea of people buying guns in homes where there are no kids, with no permit, no regulation, no training. it feels like a toxic mess. you are less likely to protect yourself in this scenario, which is real. if someone breaks into my house, i would want a gun at that moment. but the imagined scenario of you load up the gun, shoot the bad guy and save the day is less likely than a scenario where you shoot yourself on purpose or accident. a kid picks up a gun, we are seeing more guns bought with no training, no permit. no background check. that got much worse during the pandemic. millions of people went out and

bought guns during the pandemic because of this fear with no training whatsoever. so all of the guns are being stored at homes so i think they should keep doing what they are doing and speaking out. host: he talked about collateral damage of gunfire, i want you to speak about the collateral damage of the social issue itself. there is a piece in the washington post, headline in the wake of a shooting, black teens face fear and resignation, writing about the fear that teens and their parents have of their sons in particular going into social situations where a gun encounter seems more likely. guest: it is ptsd, we have created a society of people can get shot or killed any moment for even the most innocent of interactions. the people who are seen or perceived as the most threatening by society and the police are the ones who are of the greatest risk.

we have deputized citizens, we tell people they can take the law into their own hands. in tennessee where i live, there is legislation that gives people the same rights as the police. it is the everyday person. the idea that we are all at risk and almost trusting each other is certainly an across-the-board issue. we have a society where people are mistrustful and the people who are seen as the most violent , at the highest risk, are the ones who will feel this the most. i could not agree more, i think it is an outstanding piece and i hope people read it. host: how the politics of racial resentment is killing america's heartland, dr. jonathan metzl,

thank you for being on the program this morning. guest: any time. host: still to come on washington journal, up next we will open up the phone lines for any public policy or political issue you want to talk about. items in the news you are following. the lines stay the same, they are this. republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents and all others (202) 748-8002. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ >> two public corporations, cbs and viacom, used to be controlled by the same man. this is the subject of a book called unscripted. our guest is a reporter of the new york times, with his cowriter. they start in the preface of the book this way. the drama that unfolded may have

occurred at viacom and cvs, but the recent drumbeat of greed, backstabbing, plotting and betrayal at the upper level of american business and society has hardly been confined to one or two companies or one wealthy family. viacom and cbs merged in late 2019, the new company is called paramount global. >> the co-author and his book, unscripted, on this episode of book notes plus. it is available on the c-span now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪ >> c-span campaign 2024 coverages your front row seat to the presidential election. watch our coverage of the candidates on the campaign trail with announcements, meet and greets, speeches and events.

campaign 2024 on the c-span network, c-span now or any time online at c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. ♪ >> book tv returns to the los angeles times festival of books, live from the university of southern california, featuring more than 35 authors over two days. today, coverage continues on gun violence. live today at 1:30 p.m. eastern on book tv, c-span2. to see the full schedule, visit our website. >> washington journal continues. host: if there is a public

policy or political issue in the news that you are following and want to talk about, now is your chance to call in. (202) 748-8001 is the line for republicans. for democrats (202) 748-8000. for independents and others (202) 748-8002. there has been an evacuation of a u.s. embassy in sudan, u.s. evacuate's diplomats, shuts down embassy in the country. the u.s. troops are carrying out a precarious evacuation of american embassy staffers in the african nation of sudan as fighting rages for a ninth day. u.s. troops that airlifted embassy staff have safely left sudanese airspace. we go to david in new york city, democrats line. caller: hello, how are you?

host: fine, thank you. caller: my thing is this. i believe it should be illegal to teach a minor to kill. i grew up, young caucasian kids were taught to kill from the age of 12, 13 years old. teenage mind is unstable. they carry the anger with them and see the mass shootings they are performing. the guns they are using our illegal weapons. they should be illegal. the parents should be held accountable for this. no one under the age of 21 should be taught to kill, unless they are going into law enforcement or the military. the other thing america needs to address is shutting down illegal weapons. it is out of control. i hope that somebody hears me, but none of the politicians or people talking about this in the

mass shootings continue to go out of control in our nation. a lot of them are perpetrated by people who were under the age of 21 years old. thank you. host: a piece of the new york times, the editorial opinion of nicholas kristof writing the headline of his peace, a gun at home makes matter more likely. you must challenge the misperception a gun in the home makes people safer. on rare occasions, it can avert a crime. researchers found repeatedly a gun in the house makes people more likely to be murdered, not less. people living in homes with firearms have higher risk for dying by homicide, according to a 2022 study. people may choose to have firearms for hunting or target product this or to protect livestock from predators. i live on a farm with guns. but given the elevated risk, personal safety is not a good reason to acquire a gun. wisconsin is next on the republican nine -- line.

caller: how are you? host: doing fine. caller: i do not know if anybody has noticed, but there are these ads that are coming on tv now for something called circle. some kind of digital currency thing that is coming out. i have got a feeling everybody is going to love it when that comes out. supposedly it is gramophone -- programmable, surveillance type stuff like the chinese have. host: you are seeing this on tv where you live? caller: yes. it is on cable, on spectrum. it is called circle. i think it has got to do -- i am not sure, but i think it has got

to do with the digital currency thing they are planning on rolling out. host: on to florida, bob is on the independent line. caller: i guess i am mostly responding to the previous conversation, it struck me as a very woke conversation with just one side being presented. for one thing, they talk about taking the law into their own hands. but the mayor of new york has done that with donald trump. he is totally out of his jurisdiction and he is making a ridiculous harassment because of political purposes. also, take the case of somebody who is living in a retirement community, as i do here in the villages. you get to a certain stage of

your life, you are racked with arthritis in pain. you are a target for anybody who might want to take off all of their resentments for a life badly lived. let us face it. most black lives are badly lived. host: why do you say that? caller: obama's father beat feet for africa. they grow up without -- host: we are going to let you go in go to nevada on the democrats line, good morning. caller: hello. i am a democrat, 30 years or so ago i did not vote for the caucus. i would like to encourage all the republicans to not vote for

bad candidates on your end. regarding gun control, i have guns but i do not have any ars. it was trump who took away your gun rights about four years ago. if you went to the gun shop, there were no bullets, except for maybe a hunting rifle bullet. you could not find a 38 special, anything. because of covid and the logjam on the suez canal. if you want to blame somebody, blaine trump. -- blame from. you could not buy any bullets and you had no gun rights for quite a while. one last thing i would like to say, in the name trump are the letters ump. lock him up. it is the crazy thing that we have seen all of this, trying to

overthrow the election, i do not know why he is not in jail already and i do not know why he could be allowed to run again and why -- i know he would vote for him, you would vote for jimmy swagger if he was running for president. you are not voting for the guy, you are voting against what we have on the democratic side. host: a new poll is out, 38% say they feel exhaustion over the prospect of a rematch between biden and trump. from arizona, we hear from ted on the republican line. caller: good morning. the new secretary of state in arizona, over 135,000 votes. kept the seat for 135,000 votes. together with independents and democrats -- they will never get

a republican governor in the next 15, 20 years. that is all i want to say. host: washington, d.c. is next, independent line. caller: yes, hi. i am living in the d.c. area, i own a gun. a small firearm. i took lessons and was trained in how to handle a gun. it is not easy. all these kids running around, i do not understand. it is not easy to use a gun. but it is my right. i wanted to clarify from what i heard a woman say earlier, guns have been around since the beginning -- for hundreds of years.

the use of firearms founded our nation. that is what was used to take over the british. host: in your personal case, do you feel -- do you carry your firearm regularly, and do you feel safer with the? caller: i do not carry it, i have it in case my home is invaded. it is in a closet, i have it for my own dissent in case anybody ever chooses to break into my home. they say people use their firearm against their spouses. i quite frankly do not have ammunition for it right now, so it is not usable. host: what was the training like to use a firearm? caller: here is an important question. why did not anyone mentioned

there was a woman in new york who was also shot? the girlfriend of someone when they drove in, you used the african-american example in missouri, which is horrible, will boyd looking for his brothers -- of a boy looking for his brothers. but what about the woman that was shot and killed? why don't you talk about that as an example? host: there's only so much time, we mentioned a couple of cases. we were not particularly focused on anyone, the doctor mentioned the case in missouri a few times. michigan is next, go ahead. caller: i have had -- not me, but friends of mine have situations. they owned businesses, one gentleman owns a business need a gentleman tried to come in wrongfully. he shot the guy, the guy went down the street in lames he was walking down the street and was

shot. but the business owner had already called the police and described what he had on, what he looked like. when he got to the hospital, they arrested him. a friend that did the shooting, it cost him $4000 in court costs. he had a gun permit and was inside his business. another caucasian friend of mine that has a business, came in that morning -- a gentleman came in to try to rob him. he turns the alarm on, then the robber realized what he had done. so he tried to leave and was leaving, they guy came out with a 10 gauge shotgun, shot and killed him. he had to go to court, do nothing. that is the difference. people that carry guns that have permits with your homeowners policy, you can carry carriers insurance.

you are going to be downtown and spend $4000 in legal fees, so you'd better have carriers insurance. i am not promoting any insurance company, but you can usually get it with homeowners. host: texas is next, howard go ahead. caller: hope you're having a good morning up there. host: we are. caller: what i do not understand is why the democrats or liberals, whichever it is, want to take away second amendment rights? what are they going to take away next? host: do you feel that your second amendment rights are threatened? caller: everybody. no matter who you are. for some reason, they want to ban this gun or that gun. but i do not think every gun kills somebody. i understand, it breaks your heart to see these kids, but what about abortions.

that is the innocent of the most innocent, how many of those have been killed? and what is this in new york about a girl shot and killed? had not heard about that, what is the deal with that? host: it is open forum, from michigan. caller: i think they should have a national vote on what we do with guns. host: what would the vote be about specifically? caller: what kind of gun to carrier have, i think maybe have a whole list and see what they feel is justifiable to have for guns, what style. shotguns are good for hunting, whatever. host: you think that is the states and localities responsibility to determine what kind of firearm they allow? you see it as a national issue,

we should have a national referendum on that? caller: yes. host: texas is next, republican line. caller: good morning. i'm calling from texas, i have a gun permit. i've had it for years. i am ex military, i was trained. i do carry all the time, disabled and i am not going to take a beating or anything. it is my personal protection. you have a right to carry the firearms through your constitution. we the people that are behind these guns are responsible. it is not the gun that kills people, it is the person that pulls the trigger. i have not heard anybody talk about picking up the law and making stricter penalties for

using a firearm in a commission of a crime. if you put more people in prison and lock them up for using it against somebody else to gain something of monetary value, to steal, then you should pay the highest penalty. host: appreciate all of your calls this morning, that will about do it for washington journal this sunday morning. we are back monday at 7:00 a.m. eastern and we hope that you are, as well. enjoy the rest of your week. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪

gun violence. "washington journal" starts now. ♪ host: after a narrow win at the polls last fall and a four day struggle to see the speaker, republicans took control of the u.s. house in early january. last week arced 100 days in office. the battle for speaker to