it has to be this fundamental change." the red guard, which had begun to spring up rather tentatively, were given the mark of mao's approval, so it really lit the fuse on the whole cultural revolution. it makes it not just a party matter, but a beijing-wide, a universal matter. >> tania bread again with her book, -- tonya branigan, with her book "red memory." you can listen on our free c-span now at. >> a healthy. democracy does not just look like thisit looks -- now app. >> a healthy democracy does not just look like this. it looks like this. get a form stray from the source on c-span, unfiltered, unbiased,

word for word from the nation's capital to wherever you are because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, power by cable. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back to washington journal. it is open forum where returning to our question that we ask this morning, what is your top news story of the week, and we are taking your calls by party. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents. (202) 748-8002. i wonder show you something quick before we take calls. a color this morning brought up the story of hunter biden -- a caller this morning brought up the story of hunter biden's daughter. "hunter biden's daughter and a

tale of two families. the story of president biden's granddaughter who has not met her father -- lyndon roberts posted photos of her father during a trip to washington on instagram. dna testing established that the girl's father is hunter biden, but she has yet to meet him or president biden." you can see that in the new york times by jd rogers. this is in the washington post. it is about forever chemicals. it says here " forever chemicals tainted nearly 50% of u.s. tapwater, according to a study contaminants linked to health issues such as cancer, high cholesterol. the latest evidence of the pervasiveness of forever

chemicals, that is a new study by the u.s. geological survey. it estimates these contaminants meet nearly half of the country's tapwater. the study looked out water coming directly out of the tap adds to a body of research showing that pfas chemicals are long-lasting and widespread in water supplies. exposure to pfas has been associated with severe health risks, including some cancers, developmental delays, in children and reproductive effects in pregnant people, though the epa states that research is still ongoing to determine how exposure to different levels of pfas can lead to a variety of health affects." we go to dwight from fairfield. caller: mimi, i would like to

address, i believe it was a caller from new york who compared the democratic party to the kkk. he was correct, not the current to democratic party, but our history. abraham lincoln freed the slaves back in 1865, and most of the plaques went to the -- blacks went to the republican party. i was republican for a long time. my name is dwight. was named for dwight eisenhower, a republican president as well. during that time, the democratic party, which was called the dixiecrats in the southern states, they put their hoods on.

this was the old democratic party. when lyndon johnson signed the civil rights act in 1968 the southern states really went all out. i can mention george policy was the governor of alabama at the time who was a democrat. i can remember sure connor in georgia, it was a democrat, but then the pendulum swung where most of the old dixiecrats and democrats win over to the republican side when barry goldwater ran against lbj. that is when the pendulum swung, when democrats -- blacks started leaning more towards the democratic party. there were a lot of surprised faces. it was another caller who disputed what the guy from new york was saying, but he was correct.

you have to take in the context and the times he was talking about. i am a 70-year-old guy, i live there a lot of this stuff and the pendulum has swung as far as democrats back then, and democrats now. host: mary is in philadelphia, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. i am concerned that we are funding these nonprofits, these business organizations that are primarily filing against us in our united states court system based on civil rights violations. i am concerned about what happened with the supreme court with their overturning a lot of the civil rights legislation that has been put in place for decades.

i am a major taxpayer, and they are using first amendment rights to do this but freedom of speech? you can go on any street corner and preach and say whatever you want based on freedom of speech but you are not allowed to use my tax dollars to fundamentally go against me as the major taxpayer in this country. host: can you clarify? what tax money is going towards that? guest: federal tax dollars -- caller: federal tax dollars. i pay not only city, state, federal taxes. when you have taxes that are basically used to start up businesses to give major tax

loans allow businesses, but now they are saying that an organization can discriminate against me. we use -- we get funding to universities. when they put these cases on the supreme court, what cases do they use to deny president that has been for decades. i am looking at -- if you want to do this, you use this on your own tax time. don't use this based on what i have to provide for the rest of my life. i had to pay federal taxes for the rest of my life. i am not exempt. >> i want to sell you something from usa today, that is what our pre-scholars have been talking about. it says that there is a fact-check for democratic

party's that did not found the kkk or start the civil war. the claim is that the democratic party started the civil war to preserve slavery and then the kkk. the article says that as america marks a month of protests against systemic racism and many people draw parables between the current events, and oversimplified trope about the democratic parties races path has been posted online. a reminder that if you support the democratic party, up or support the party that founded the kkk and start the civil war to keep slaves. this is a claim of an image, tweet. many users read between the lines of the tweets implication and modern democratic and republican parties. some argue that this many know that the party created the

freedom of slavery, but it also created a freedom for slaves, and said that most active still vote for democrats who want to keep slaves. i am a conservative, but i find this argument pretty stupid because that is not with a support anymore. values change over time. historians agree that although factions of the party did contribute to the civil war start and the kkk founding, it is inaccurate to say the party is responsible for either. mark is calling from florida, independent. good morning. >> hello. you are a goddess. i can't believe i got through. you are an excellent host, and i found some people who worked third shift, and i walked in here, and i walked into turned the television on and i put on foxbusiness and c-span. you are on and i -- those year

ago. i've seen every single show in dvr. this program is the best program. >> is nice to have you. >> what is on your mind? >> all right. white from california made an excellent point on bringing up the history of the democrats. i hope everyone listened very clearly to it. it was very good. i also liked the point you brought up about hunter biden. you brought an article to everyone's attention, and i do watch fox news, and i was aware of this, but many democrats aren't aware of a lot of things. the answers you provided, i think a big problem for the people not knowing each other, if they would just listen to each other, be around each other, not get involved with the media projection, i think things would be a lot better and a lot

less divided. the government has gotten into too much control. programs like this, they bring this subject to life, and i'm glad to be making my point and bring things to everyone's attention. thank you very much for your time, and again, this is the greatest program. everyone gets to say, and there is a quality gas and they should appreciate the cast and the access they have two that because sometimes, people start getting a little will behave when they call. your guest should be on other programs in other news organizations because it is very quality and very measured. temperament with knowledge. >> thank you. marion is in augustine georgia. the morning. >> morning. the reason i'm calling is that

u.s. what we were most concerned about in the stories of the past, but there was no major concern come almost every week. mass shootings wherever they occur. i am a retired psychologist and the american psychological association has consumed research. it involves people who do mass shootings. and when they do it. it is just baffling to me that we haven't tried in this country to do something about mass shootings that is really meaningful and works. i don't want to say that i have the answers. i don't. but i do feel that there are qualified people who have done enough work to offer meaningful

suggestions that could lead to a meaningful compromise. there is no one in favor of mass shootings. the argument is about statements on guns. at any rate, i just wanted to register that concern and say that it is worse in my heart. as a country, is a congress, there is not any unity. and we are trying to come up with reasonable answers. >> take a look at what president biden said recently about gun violence. over the last few ds, we have once again under the wave of a tragic and senseless shooting across america, from philadelphia to fort worth. baltimore to lansing. wichita to chicago. today, jill and i read for those who lost their lives and as we celebrate our independence day, we pray for a day when our

communities will be free from gun violence. it is within our power to once again ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and acquire safe storage for guns to and gun immunity from liability and to enact universal background checks. i earn other states to follow the lead and continue to call us on a public and lawmakers in congress to come to the tabor on commonsense reforms that the american people support. next to jerry in tar heel north kierland. democrat. >> good morning. you know what? i urge the democrats and republicans, both parties, to step back and take a look and

deal with uranium. we have to be a man, and we will win. we have to outlaw these issues, and boone even sign it treaty, so we've done this [indiscernible] we are the leaders of the free world [indiscernible] warfare. all we know how to do is sell weapons. this was a good country. we need to get back to making things in this country. to have leadership that brings everything back to normal. there are millions things in america. >> let's talk to melissa in las vegas. >> hello. the biden terrace have caused us

to lose oppressive arms. >> ok. >> jonathan in minneapolis, independent. >> good morning. first off, i appreciate your show and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and we all need to come together as a country. my main concern is being in minneapolis last weekend for the fourth of july, if anyone knows what were talking about, there was a group of people shooting off fireworks at the police department here and the people in the crowds were running and screaming, and it was just a mess, so it my main concern is in the city of minneapolis, we have a problem with the homeless youth and parents who don't know how to maintain their children and respect the country that we live in. we also have the right to live in our homes and be happy in the

states we live in. the problem is no one is doing anything to protect the people -- protect the people of this area. i am tired of having to be in my house by 6:30 p.m.. i can't even go for a walk. not without being harassed or jumped. i was just on sunday the fourth of july, and i literally have gone to a point where i've gotten so angry that i am having a rally on national night out, and i wish everyone would join me and walked the streets of minneapolis or wherever you are from, if you're tired of violence and you are tired of what is going on in this country. it is not a democrat problem. it is not a republican party problem. it is a human condition problem. if you have homeless in your city, do something to make their life better.

go to the people in your city and go to their office and talk to them and say we demand action. i demand action from the governor of the state and the mayor of the state -- city to do something to make it safe in the city of minneapolis. i am tired of walking down the street and not being able to feel safe. i have trained my brain to say not all people of ethnic backgrounds or whatever, where you're from, to be ok, walking down the street. >> let's take a look at an interview earlier this year on cbs. this is south dakota republican dusty johnson. he is a member of the problem solvers caucus, and he talked about why he thinks legislation is not the solution to gun violence. >> is there anything that can be get done? something that hasn't already been done?

i don't know. i am quite skeptical, but will it move the needle and we wanted to? >> i am the father of three sons who get dropped off at school or drive themselves to school, and obviously, when you see this kind appear people, it sucks everything you've got out of your soul. this is the type of thing that should be good for the world. what can be done? last year, when folks largely on one side of the aisle past some legislation and safety, we were told this could be a big advance and that this was -- anyone who wasn't for this was continuing carnage. this is that we stop the carnage. no one really believes in that legislation.

they have not stopped acts of people. i think that is part of the problem with this legislative solution. we feel like we have to do something, but the carnage is unfortunately a lot bigger than what we saw national. the carnage is 100,000 people who died of drug overdoses every year. and a hundred thousand people who died every single you. we are not a healthy nation. we are -- what you got about? >> i think a lot of the key institutions that we used to bind us together and used to help the resilient have weekend. i'm not trying to criticize the way anyone is living their lives, but we have to watch the economy from last week in the faith community. their mental health is

substantially, significantly, materially stronger than people worn. the economy did say that because jesus in their life. we are not talking about spiritual tributary where human capital. the ponds that have helped us to look at for another and be guardians of one another are an absolute ball watermark. our social capital has fallen off a cliff, and i think until we talk about a hundred thousand people killing themselves every year, we are going to continue to talk about them killing others. >> walter m butler indiana, go ahead. >> good morning. thank you for taking my call. i hope you survive. you were being attacked by her coffee a little while ago on tv. i was worried. >>'s water bread i only drink water. >> oh really? >> i love coffee, but on the set, i'm only going to drink

water because i'm afraid to spill myself. >> you're so pretty, he you can do anything you want. the reason for my call is that i want to report wonderful news. i have two full families of geese that have moved into my pond in the backyard. i have a set of mourning doves that are in a tree, and i set up there and have a coffee, and i watched a beautiful piece with their goslings growing right before me and i listen to these beautiful dogs and just to pass on some information, we look at the beauty in life. the joy. if you can't control it, consider yourself with it. we are so blessed and so soft. we have to look for the beauty of life and enjoy your own personal life. turn over all of the noise and the squawking and hawking and be blessed, and if you want to find life, look for it. you can find a wonderful world because i submit that if you wake up in the morning, and you have a roof over your head that

only leaks once in a while, then you can turn on the faucet to get fresh drinking water, and you have pods and cell phones, and you can press a button and somebody will bring you food, trust me, you have no problems at all. so just go back to enjoying the simple things in life because we are going to go home at the end of the day, and none of these things matter. i hope all of you can find this simple joys of life because it is misleading. have a wonderful day. >> a lesson for all of us. independent line. >> good morning. i don't know about that kumbaya moment, but i want to look at a couple of things that were spoken on with the democratic party. the democratic party may have not started it, but you can believe the majority of them were democrats. and the reason why -- excuse me. or luther king was a republican. but the reason blacks went to

democrats was johnson priddy at affirmative action. if you noted, that is not the same type. one of the poorest countries in the world, china, became a centrist because they wanted to ship off union jobs to black communities of progress. so they sent the main factoring jobs because they said these became bad. everyone knew the unions were the recent they had no class. you know, we think about that, you have to think about the current president. biden. biden says i'm working across the aisle. but he was working with strom thurmond and robert byrd. two ku klux klan recruiters. you can go back and look in the 90's we came up with the three strikes you're out, and whole nine yards. welfare for reform, and this is

a very racist country. they let millions and millions of illegals here. >> are you going to vote for the republican ticket? >> it doesn't see haitians out for the weekend. >> are you voting for the republican ticket in the next election? >> the republicans are no different than the democrats. that's the whole point with the democrats. just like the tea party. you know what i mean? big money takes over. ask who are you going to vote for? >> we have independent days for the citizens. we have abraham lincoln, we have july 4, and that we are trying to celebrate juneteenth. that is when citizens -- they were citizens for two years. they were deprived and beaten. they had to work for free. nobody got a dam reparation.

now, they want to celebrate that. they don't want to celebrate what lincoln did for us, but they want to celebrate the two years that the citizens -- and they give this a federal holiday. where the majority of white people are federal, --. >> will more call. buffalo new york. good morning. >> the morning. one more thing about the ku klux klan. when donald trump first ran for president in 2016, the media got a hold of the fact that david duke, former wizard of the ku klux klan was campaigning for donald trump. when that was presented donald trump, when that was happening, trump said that he didn't know the man, never met the man, and i guessed all trump forgot about the interview that he had with david duke. the grand wizard of the kkk. that's all i have to say. thank you. >> that's all the time we have

for the segment. next on washington journal, we have our spotlight on podcast. we will talk to lillian cunningham about her podcast called field trip, about america's national parks. will drip back. -- we will be right back.

>> i'm joined by the host of a podcast. welcome. >> i'm glad to be back. >> tell us about this podcast. the field trip. what does this focus on, and how many episodes are there? >> first, thank you for having me on, and highlighting this podcast. we've been working hard on this for a full year. it's been a labor of love and i

appreciate the spotlight. the podcast is about the national parks, and the big question we are facing in the 21st century. the series is five episodes. it focuses on five national parks in particular where there are urgent and fake and interesting stories playing out about their future. everything from climate change to how the park is wrestling with that threat to ways that other parks are trying to re-forge a better relationship with native tribes that used to live on the land and not next to the parks. the idea is really to not look at these questions before the parks today and that is inevitably a journey back to the past.

the origins of these parks, the original missions, the degree to which the ways that we have tracked in the past to protect them are still relevant, given the new challenges. >> why only five episodes? there are 63 national parks. >> there are. why not go to all 63 of them? >> i agree with you. there is a small chance that the people listen to the ca spread we will discontinue to add more parks. but we started with five because we went really deep on this reporting journey, so for each of these parks, we took a long and in many cases two week reporting trip inside of the park, and we did an expensive archival research with hundreds of hours of interviews with experts. it pulls together these five

expert -- episodes which hour-long. we deal with those five. i just want to mention to our viewers that if you would like to call in and make a comment or a question for our guest, you can do so. our lines are regional. if you are in the eastern or central time zone, you can call the numbers on her screen. lillian, what is your personal interest in this? you were on this program before. a while ago. you had u.s. presidents here. >> yes. i'm a journalist of the washington post. i've been there 13 years. but for the past eight of those, i've been doing these large enterprise podcast series about big chapters of the american

story. my first big podcast was called presidential about presidential history, and i did one on constitutional history, and i did a third on the space race, so now the national parks. i am someone who is just as deep an interest in american interests, but i would say i love david macola. he was a historian, he did biographies of teddy roosevelt he always said that in order to look forward, you have to look backwards. as a journalist, i want to embrace that. it's a comprehensive story of what is playing out around us. it is often helpful to dive into that history, and national parks are such an iconic piece of what many people today think about when they think about america.

they also think about america's best idea, so, it feels fitting to take a look at a piece of the country's history that was very much about the land and the ideas of american democracy manifested through the way we treated those most special places in the country. >> let's talk about the history before we talk about what is happening now. abraham lincoln started the idea of national parks. >> he is the president certainly. he hit -- kickstarter the idea. people give teddy roosevelt to much credit. he often touted for sort of laying out a national park vision, but it was abraham lincoln during the civil war who signed the first public landfill in this country, the use amity

valley grant. it protects part of the parks. there is a growth with the giant sequoias. and yosemite valley, where there is a famous el capitan, and the domes. it wasn't called a national park at the time, but the first national park sort of official designation went to yellowstone, about a decade later. that idea of preserving land in america for the american public to use and enjoy and appreciate and to protect it from what they saw in the encroaching development threats. that really started during the civil war with lincoln. >> why was that a priority? the civil war was going on. they had much bigger problems on their hands. >> he would think that would

probably be the last thing that they would take time for that. but there are number of reasons. a couple of them, there were a lot of influential people in california at the time. they were pushing for the public land designation, and to be crucial to the war effort, and in some ways, that was a bit of a hurrying up local favor did more importantly, there was a statement about the endurance of american democracy and the united states as a country, and it was a way of putting or were the idea that there was a role for the federal government to play in creating this country, unlike any other we have on earth right now, and one of the ways that -- one of the reasons

we preserve a union like this is the majesty of what this landscape is. so, we had a symbolic rationale as well. >> you mentioned this before, climate change. what impact does that have on the natural parks. how are they responding to that? how are they becoming more resilient to the effect of climate change? >> i think i interviewed the national park service directly, and they would tell you that climate change is the biggest threat to the national park service and the system today. overall, on average, the national parks are warming at twice the rate of the rest of the country, and that, it sort of makes sense when you think about that because they protect

the sort of exceptional landscape, so the highest mountain, or the lowest coastline, and these places we've cordoned off for a protection are the ones by virtue of landscape are even more at threat than the rest of the country. that looks different, of course in every part, but one of the episodes takes place in use amity and we focus on the threat of wildfires. i mean, they are taking massive efforts out there to protect the sequoias and protect the whole park area from wildfires. what it is a very difficult battle. they have sums -- some projections that unless things change, there are projections that the sequoias will be dead.

from long-term wildfire, and these are trees that have been around for thousands of years. they've been through wildfires for thousands of years, but the intensity and frequency of the wildfires that air being seen now, they threaten on a whole new level. >> how do you do that? how do you protect trees from wildfires? >> well, one of the ways they are realizing is sort of the most effective is actually to turn back to indigenous practices for protecting the trees, and for much of the history, they were actually banned. it was intentionally setting fire around the trees, which might seem counterintuitive, but these trees actually -- and much of our parks, they need a certain amount of fire in order to be healthy. it helps clear out underbrush around them.

in the casas acquires, it actually come in order to birth new sequoias, the fires but they need a certain type of good fires, and they have been very deliberate about bringing what is called a prescribed burn practice back to the park where they to intentional controlled burns that help make the forest more resilient with massive wildfire burns rolling through. we will start taking calls shortly. you can join the conversation by calling our line spy regions. eastern and central time zones, 20 270,000. mountain and pacific, call us as well. you went to glacier national park, you spoke to members of the blackfoot tribe about buffalo reintroduction. tells what is going on? >> the blackfeet are one of the

tribes that live very close to glacier national park, and they actually live on and have much of the land that is now glacier national park prior to becoming a national park, and there are a lot of pieces of history and tension and headache. it is between the tribe and the u.s. government. a park service. but one of the ways right now that they found to collaborate is through the reintroduction of buffalo to the landscape. they use to roam the western plains, and into the mountains that are part of glacier national park. for about a hundred years, there are no buffalo in glacier national park. since it has been a national park, has not had buffalo unlike yellowstone. the blackfoot tribe in their own

effort because of the cultural significance of buffalo to return to the landscape, they went to the national park to reintroduce buffalo to the area. they opened up gates and they let a herd of buffalo out off of the reservation land to roam freely between the reservation and later national park. if you are visiting that glacier national park this summer, you will possibly see that as we go through the sun road, there are mountain goats or bears, and you could also come across a wild buffalo now. x in general, what are native tribes doing as far as being more involved in park management, if anything. >> again, these parks are in

many ways not reporting up to the national park service. they do have their own identities, and they sort of work out their own agreements in a lot of ways. they bring to these tribes what is happening in glacier something different than what is happening in the everglades, but i will point out that for the first time ever in national park service history, right now, we have native people who are the head of the park service. we also for the first time ever have a cabinet secretary who is a native american who is the head of the department of interior. that is pairing people and a strong leadership role, and creating a moment that a lot of people say of opportunity for discussion of tribes in the park

service to reach a new level, and one of the things they talk about is this idea of comanagement, co-stewardship, and it is looking for ways to be brought more into the decision-making process of how these lands are managed, and that can mean everything from consulting on a small program that happens within the national park to in some cases having a discussion about whether large parts of the park service unit could be managed primarily by native people. >> us talk to the callers. john is up in long beach mississippi. morning. >> imani. how are you. i can see you're taking my call. this is the first time i've reached out to. this is coming from saying a lot of things i have to agree with.

if i can continue by telling you might thoughts on this matter i appreciate it. >> go ahead. >> i think, if you would put an end to the fact that nature should have as much right as we do. the constitution it doesn't. if we can stop those who have as much to say and we can challenge things, and we can turn around and stop people who are politicians from becoming lobbyists when they leave office which i don't think it's possible. but that would be a good thing. and we can get the taxes that might contribute a great deal to resolving problems when it comes to nature. and how we cannot separate ourselves from nature. we are part of nature, and it

cannot be a natural, and i think, this is saying a lot of things i agree with, and i appreciate that. >> let's get a response. >> i think the question of how to protect nature, and i don't know about giving constitutional protections, the will you people, but certainly, i take your point that it is a huge question and one that many care about witches how do we make sure we protect these places, and one of these things we explore in this podcast series are the facts that you can draw a line around the national park since they've protected it, but we were talking about something like wildfire or you are talking about something like mining happening right outside the park border, there are so many things that happen right outside these

places that we are trying to protect, and inevitably, it is steeped in an effect of the natural world inside it that we have decided we want to protect, so how you do that is really tricky. at times i think it has led to one of those episodes we have in the series about the national park in alaska. we've explored the fact that in 1980, there was an effort in alaska to create parks on a size and scale that was just completely different from the national parks we have in the lower 48, that was partly an acknowledgment that it is really hard to drop a line around a small area because they are protecting nature and you have to -- if you're committed to

that, one of the ways you try to do that better is by protecting things at a larger ecosystem level, but obviously, that is hard in the modern world. tell us about the funding situation. how that is looking from the federal government the national park service is part of the department of the interior. >> i think the national park service would say that they could certainly use more funding. everyone says that. >> it does -- i think, visitors to these places have it easy to travel through them, and on a summer vacation, you know, perhaps rightly, not in the amount of work that goes into maintaining or supporting a park, but with yosemite as an example, it takes millions of dollars for them to maintain yosemite every year. they have 750 people who work

there in the summer and within the national park service. and, you know, millions of visitors pass through their gates who only need support services, and these places, you know it they are nature, but many of them have lodges or roads. they have campgrounds. they have a lot of infrastructure inside of them. it has to be supported and maintained, and i think, you know, how do you get the money they need to maintain them the way they have to be is always a challenge for the park service. shaun is next in massachusetts. good morning. >> hello. i hope that you give me a little bit of time so i can give you the correct history of the world. >> room was fact. it was taken over. eastern europeans were

supposedly during a time we had problems with russia. during the time roosevelt, stalin, churchill made a deal. >> is about the national park's? >> and with the history of the world. >> welcome i would like to know, brown people on this planet have a place where they can go without getting bombed by europeans and european caucasians. >> any response to? >>, sure he was going, but i will say, one thing that i think is worth pointing out is that it is absolutely incorrect to start telling a history of the national parks by telling the history of when they became national park's as designated by the u.s. government because all 63 of these parks sit on indigenous land. they all create -- they all have

somewhere on their landscapes, sacred sites, and they have deep histories where people who live on these lands are connected to, not just connected to but maintaining these areas so i would just say, it is worth pointing out, and anything we try to do as well to backup our historical storytelling and tell that sort of deeper, in some cases deeper geological history, but also the history of the human presence that predates the coming in national park. >> charlie is in roslyn heights near. morning. >> good morning. saving the national parks are important, but the rest of the

court is important. we are here in new york on a co-op conflict and we are fighting pesticides over here. it's like pulling teeth. i wish people were out on the streets like a few years ago with george floyd. there was water that is a whole other issue that came up in the news. they said half of the faucets are giving us poisonous water or chemicals. i can't understand where the epa is. why the american people are not getting upset about this. maybe you can answer this for me. >> a much sure that's really connected to the national parks, but let's talk to kathy in independence missouri. >> i am part apache and part gentleman. and a lot of our lands are meant

to protect our lands, and the natives know that. it is time that the united states of america didn't give us anything when they say we could be known as american indians. our parks belong to the indigenous people. let's let the indigenous people run our parks and run our waterways, and you will see a difference in what is happening to our country. thank you. what do you think? >> i will say that comment feels very similar to a sentiment i heard from people in the blackfeet in glacier as well. i mentioned how there is a lot of discussion going on right now about how a national park and tribe can better collaborate, but certainly one of the ideas, a lot of people were pulled in a

lot of native people were pulled , but as you mentioned, these lands could just be fully managed by the native people who were douglas lands. before they became national park's and well to entirely turn ownership of the national parks over to tribes would be a pretty massive legal change that would have to happen, there is a lot that can happen up to that place where it is the national park service is power to do quite a lot to bring indigenous knowledge and experts, neighboring tribes into the management of the split places, and i think, what you have expressed is something that a

lot of people would like to see. >> there are questions from rick. why is more attention not given to the hundreds of national park visitors advantage each year? why are missing person records not available for national parks? did you look at that? >> unfortunately, i cannot help too much there. we did not focus on any individual cases. we focused on telling the story more than the park themselves. >> nebraska, go ahead. >> i am all for national parks. i want more. that's all we have in america where europe has all of the big cathedrals and the big cities that are so old and stuff. we have national parks. i don't have a problem with making more of them and giving them more money. however, living in nebraska, i

am a little -- i would be leery of giving any responsibility to the natives because they live in swamps anyways, the way they live right now. i don't think they are capable of doing something. i'm not all of them, but i'm saying a lot of their areas they have, i don't know if they are capable of running that. >> what do you think? >> i think a lot of people would disagree. i think also, this is a place where there is a lot of dark history in this country around how native people have been treated and the circumstances that have led to a lot of inequality and injustice in these communities.

they are tied out the many cases to the loss of lands, the loss of culture, and so, i think there are people who would say that to strengthen the connection with native people, they could have that with the land, and and to revive cultural practices on those lands, but it would also be a step towards helping these communities rehabilitate. >> angela washington, d.c.. hello. >> good morning. i'm glad to see her guest today. i want to clarify that we are talking about the continental united states. i grew up in the united states and the virgin islands where there are national parks and monuments. and sanctuaries. >> there are -- one of her national park is in the u.s.

virgin islands, and i will say, for our podcast, we've been focused on the 63 national parks with a capital you are alluding to overseas, more than 400 national park units. so, that includes national parks, but also, as you mentioned, national my name is. national seashores. even national battlefield. gettysburg is part of the national park service. it is certainly true that the scope of areas of the park service is protecting, administering, they like to say being keepers of the american story on these landscapes. that is certainly a print that is much larger than just 63

national parks we think of an yellowstone ornate yosemite. >> you go to the everglades, and we focus on the ecosystem and restoration. tell us what you saw? >> in the everglades, the largest and most expensive environmental restoration work in history across the planet is going on. the united states, the federal government in the state of florida, it is pumping billions of dollars into trying to restore the everglades, and it's a long winding tale that is super interesting you should listen to the episode, but the short version is that in an effort to develop in south florida over the past century, the united states has a lot of money training everglades. there was a misperception that this was treacherous,

undesirable land in its current form, and it's a lot of martians, it's a lot of swamps. it is a shallow flow of water systems throughout basically the southern half of the state of florida. it is great for wildlife. but at the time, when they were trying to develop florida, it made things very hard to bring you new people down and live on it and use it for agriculture, so there was a major effort made, and they employed the army corps of engineers to do it. to set up canals, levees, tykes. a whole system that drains and controls the water. in some ways, this works, and it dries out south florida of the massive city of miami, and tons of development.

but what they are more recently realizing is that created there is a domino effect of a lot of difficult environmental problems which are now kind of circling back around my development. it is hard to have a clean drinking water like they need to support city of miami when they are not filtering the water. they've also seen massive algae blooms and other sort of environmental tourism in florida, and so, in addition to there being an environmental imperative now to rehydrate the everglades, the there is also a strong economic case for why we need to do the environmental restoration work and that is of course maybe more urgent because

of climate change and sea level rise and most of south florida is not far above sea level. getting water right there is really important, and really important. >> let's talk to area in griffith, indiana. >> thank you for taking my call. we see there is awareness, and we want to have an example. i grew up in the northwest indian area outside chicago, and it is establishing the lakeshore, as part of the national park system. my rule is to expand community outreach and get by the community at large, but particularly low income areas that have surrounded one of the areas of the park across three

counties, and one of the most western areas is a population of 70,000. the presenter people of color. a percent are black lung. there is a median income of towing 1000. they had a nato image that is not part of the national park, and there was nearly 4 million year, but it also means that there are deeds that work there before. i don't really have a lot of knowledge on this, but to my knowledge, and maybe you could talk about this little bit, but there is an income level of two blocks from the park. at least for that part or another part. went to get your comment regarding access to the low income communities and populations to the national parks, especially when they exist within our own communities. >> what do you think? where access a great question, and i don't know that i can answer it in total detail, but i

mean, you are correct. for most national parks, there are entrance fees now. depending on your age and if you buy a park pass for the year, and whatever. they are all very different. the park service has also instituted a program where every fourth-grader across the country has free access to the national parks and can bring their families. certainly, what you articulating is an issue for low income communities near the spark, that doesn't address if you are not a fourth-grader, but i do know the national park service says that this is an area they care a lot about, and it makes the parks more accessible. and, diversifying by income and

race, the people who come to these parks, but i don't know whether there are plans in the work to provide more service exemptions than they already have. >> lillian, which of your national park? >> that's not quite it i have so many favorites. i am indecisive. i will say case of the arctic in alaska was my most transformative national system. it was also north of the circle in alaska, and unlike most national parks, there is not a single road in the park it there is not a launch in the park. they are even dealing with heart -- hiking trails. but it is really just pure nature. and the only way in is to take a

plane. >> all right. well, lillian cunningham, the host of the field trip all caps from the washington post. thank you for joining us and that is our show for the day. we'll be back again tomorrow morning. 7 a.m. eastern on c-span. have a great day.