♪ host: protest in israel are building to a crescendo --

looking to approve a new measure of leavening -- limiting the authority of the supreme court. the united states supreme court has seen more protests in cases and decisions regarding abortion rights, voting, and student loan forgiveness and more. give us your take on any topic using our lines. good morning, we talk about the approval ratings and ask you your view of supreme court. democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001,

independents (202) 748-8002, text us at (202) 748-8003. and you can also join the conversation on facebook and twitter. we have the decision of the supreme court and we dive into the survey on that supreme court. and we will talk about a proposed bill, and ethics reform bill for the u.s. supreme court. we will talk about that. we will keep you posted on the protests and changes in the israeli supreme court as well. the proposed changes that have drawn the protests of president biden for example in the comments to the israeli prime minister. we would love to hear from you, democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002.

here's a headline from the pew survey released friday. the supreme court reviews fall to a historic low. following high profile issues such as lgbtq rights and student loans. those that had a favorable opinion of the u.s. supreme court has fallen to a decline lowest since 1987. you look at the poll numbers and you can see it. the lowest point more than three decades. that is a dark line falling in the early 2000's. the approval rating, on -- unfavorable rating going up to 54%. a breakdown by party. the red is republicans, blue democrats. again, in early 2020, the wind

really dropping off. falling slightly -- falling slightly 86% approval rating and over 20% below. the decision for the supreme court -- here is the reporting on that from the washington post. the headline on the pieced is that the senate votes on party lines to advance the supreme court ethics bill. they said the legislation requiring the nine justices to adopt the binding code of ethics was adopted on thursday, but they write the proposal based on the chance in the divided senate. republicans have promised to torpedo the deal. some details of the washington post article in addition to mandating the creation of the ethics code of a right specific

to the nine justices proposals in the ethics bill include requiring the supreme court to strengthen its recusal. bringing financial disclosure rules and lie with those of congress. setting transparency guidelines. allowing the public to submit ethics complaints against the justices. the chair of the do dish area committee is the senate of illinois. here is what he had to say. >> several months we see a steady stream of news reports highlighting ethical failures by the highest court in the land. the supreme court justice is appointed by republican and democratic presidents. justice clarence thomas traveled the world in a private jet. the home of justice thomas's mother allowed her to continue to live there rent free. he paid for the education of a

relative of justice thomas. none of this, none of this was included in justice thomas's financial disclosures. justice samuel alito took a all expense paid luxury fishing trip to alaska he traveled there in a private jet. he stayed at a fishing lodge of conservative donor robin barclay. and justice alito did not disclose any of these receipts. in explaining this, justice alito said he did not believe he was required to disclose the private jet travel because he was seated sitting in a seat that would otherwise have been empty. justice owing you -- sonia used tax dollars to promote sale of her books and speaking engagements. she failed to recuse herself from cases that involved her book publisher. if the senators or staff members

sitting in the room today were involved in similar activities, they would be in violation of the ethical rules of congress. because all of us are subject to enforceable codes of conduct that prohibit us from accepting gifts and using taxpayer-funded for personal gain. we are required to make public disclosure about our finances and the constant winces if he failed to meet the standard. the same is not true for the nine justices across the street. unlike every other federal official, supreme court justices are not bound by a code of ethical conduct. they are the most powerful judges in america and yet they do not file on these most basic ethical standards. host: in the judiciary committee on thursday, the hill reported this morning trading the numbers

ferguson it democrat that he -- tested positive for covid-19 he will miss most of the senate this week for congress breaks for the month of august. our opening topic here at the washington journal is your view of the supreme art. it starts with the idea of the survey on the american supreme court. the lines are democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002. the court is out of session and will be back in session or the new session in october the first monday in october. let's go to cincinnati first democrat line. hello. caller: yes, the courts are a mess. democrats and republicans. a question i would like to ask

you is everybody else in government has a checks and balance. these people have none. they are supreme. who is there watchdog? there really isn't any. host: what do you think of the court support -- the court the independent third branch of government that is not congress role to oversee the third branch of government? caller: i don't think that is a good situation for today's world . may be back when the court was created. and when there was more what debate call it police reality which kavanaugh says there is. i am telling you about this with all democratic republicans. it seems like thomas and alito are the biggest offenders. i find it a little bit offensive that his wife has behaved in the matter but she has.

the lack of the recusal is also troubling. so, i think it is a real mess. but i do not know how you change the dynamics where they have to report to somebody. it seems like there has to be some kind of a ethic mechanism in place. so that should be checked. i think also if we can ever get term limit that would be good. but i don't know if we will ever get those. host: thank you. here is with the minority leader mitch mcconnell had to say about this. he said the escalating attack on -- the fundamental misunderstanding of the court structure and purpose is an ideolocal group that takes cases as they com they put that in reality and start relief. only 90% of the cases produce the -- conversation that has

hyper polarization the court. 5% with fi republican a justice makeup the majority. 16% of the cases were cided by the majority by reported -- republican appointed justices. some magus supreme court -- has evidence from the past term that indicates that the course -- court polarization -- verizon unpredictable center. on the republican line what is your view? caller: yes i want to say the ethic of this far right republican is concerning. the ideology is exactly like putin. putin destroyed the russian decision. now we know and the whole world knows he is a dictator.

now, if you think about it justice alito is the same. look at what happened to him. trump in his mind it said i want to -- [indiscernible] host: we ask you to use the line that best reflects your political ideology. it is democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002. beth is on that line in washington state. caller: good morning. how are you and our wonderful viewers. you know i've voted both parties and i do respect the supreme court. i have more respect for the court which measuring against the constitution -- is a

separate branch of government. i don't know what congress was to do or the senate to do.

-- caller: thank you for taking michael. that lady would just finished she said the court has not done anything. she is not really keeping up with reality and she doesn't know what is going on with the supreme court. that is just being fair. that does not mean that this cannot be regulated. so, my approval rating of the supreme court is very low because they have been sneaky. they have been taking away people's rights. they have been bought by people

with all of this money. the upper echelon -- trump was saying he's trying to get rid of some group of people and that is who they are. those people above the supreme court have alito and thomas and who knows what else. they are the group that is like a secret society. they are the ones. and trump wanted to be just like them. -- like gluten. he is also trying to destroy democracy where he is at. putin has already done it. you know and we cannot stand for that. we have to come together and look at reality.

we have to think about our children and the future of america. in vote democrat if you want -- grubhub -- host: republican line. we have robert next. go ahead. caller: the supreme court -- needs to have a term limit on the supreme court. it should be every two years you get a new supreme court judge that is 18 years if they got one every two years. there are nine of them. that's about all of got to say right now. host: rich in inquiry hills, illinois. independent line. what is your view of the supreme court? caller: thank you. one of my things about the

justice for the supreme court is that it is usually the appointees are politically based by the president -- when the need for a justice comes up. i never understood why there is like that political connotation to the supreme court. with that, the supreme court justices were supposed to be higher ethics and moral standing. that is why the approval is through the congress and the senate. but to me it is like it is supposed to be about policy. it is not supposed to be a political philosophy. it supposed to be for the constitution and upholding it. host: how do we get around that?

in the case of the supreme court nominations? caller: again, you could use the to your advantage. if that's what you wanted to do. but it is not supposed to be about that. you're supposed to uphold these standards. honesty and integrity. that is what it is supposed to be about. there is power, corruption, everything else. with the individual that is what you want to be that's a way you are rate. -- with abortion at believeth

roe v. wade in the supreme court when it went out, i remember how the country was at that time. i was glad once they made the decision regardless of whatever it was. whenever they made the decision that was supposed to be the end of the discussion. they said let's get a new supreme court justice and come back and do it again. you were glad -- host: you were glad in the 1972 decision on roe v. wade or last year overturning roe v. wade? caller: right to me it was such a divided issue back in the 70's. it was whether you agree with it or not, it was just a divisive issue. there's a lot of people like my self, i'm not the one that needs the law. i can have my opinion about it,

but it is up to women. host: i share your opinion this morning. we are diving into this survey on american views of the supreme court. more from the reporting and survey. they say in sections of the supreme court ideology half of americans use the supreme court's as conservative. only 7% describe the court as liberal. this ideology has not changed much in the past year since 2020, however the share of american say the court is conservative and it has increased 20 points. that was middle-of-the-road and while 30% view the court as conservative, 12% thought it was liberal. here is gary on the democrat line from jacksonville, florida. caller: hello. how are you today? host: doing well, thank you.

caller: the supreme court is beyond corrupt. thomas alito, and others are billionaires. when he overturned roe v. wade, he said it was kicked off and that's how he would handle it. it is unbelievable and they have no desire to look into that responsibility. it is disgraceful. host: go ahead. caller: here is the story. the supreme court had it for 60-70 years. everything was going their way as long as it was liberalism. it is republican.

we are wild and crazy about who -- the impact is so bad but we got the biggest crook in the history of the united states who took 20 plus million dollars he showered with his daughter, he raped a girl, and we are talking about the supreme court? let's get this civil war going. democrats talk. bye-bye. host: in texas. hello there. caller: hello. i do have a comment about the supreme court and the supreme court seems to be the overall problem by the existing parties.

-- a solution i think would be to -- recognize that the reason the supreme court is so imbalanced with the party domination is that they had the justices to the supreme court for a lifetime. and we take that power away that should be the sole power of the people of the united states. they said earlier in the program they have no watchdogs but they have one which is the people of the united states. i appreciate [indiscernible] the house. yes, everyone vote against this

party domination and join -- movement. host: we have a headline from usa today. following the judiciary committee ethics bill. dead as fried chicken is what it says, -- here is senator john of louisiana. x this bill -- >> this bill is as dead as fried chicken. is going to be out of commission. it does not have votes on it and it sure cannot pass the house. so i do it? why do it? why beat the living krapp --crap

out of the united states supreme court? i just don't get it. i just don't get it. my democratic colleagues tried to expand the supreme court. -- there is another way to diminish the value of the republican integrity of the united states supreme court. imagine, we have the provisions in this bill. it is so outrageous. imagine if you want to shut the senate down, allow anybody who wants to vote to file a complaint against the senator if the complainant thinks the senator has a conflict of interest and requires the

complaint be resolved before you vote. that is what this bill does in the united states supreme court. how many complaints do you think there's going to be? every single day. the whole way if they can't expand -- host: richard blumenthal who propose the bill. he addresses problems by coming forth with a code of ethics. he has repeatedly failed to do so. if his import will not impose ethical standards it themselves

congress can and will. -- the american should have confidence that the supreme court making the decision in the interest of what is best for the country not in their personal interest or the interest of their wealthy friends. democrat floyd in baltimore. pillows your view. -- tell us your view. caller: in a perfect world the government would not be arresting and murdering journalists. politicians would not take bribes.

and supreme court would have responsibilities but it is not a perfect world and so i think we should look at this. host: lay here from bill on the republican line in ohio area good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call i appreciate c-span and your oral arguments that you broadcast. they are really enlightening. for the separation of powers argument, if they have ethic rules for the supreme court, why can't the supreme court make rules for the president or the senate or congress? there are issues with insider trading in congress. if they have a problem with justice thomas is wife, why isn't there a problem with the president son and his family? host: some could argue that the supreme court does have

oversight of what the executive branch does certainly laws are passed by congress and executive orders and decisions i the administration. caller: yes, that is liability there should be a separation. i do not believe that congress should be able to impose its will on the supreme court. host: this is from the washington post reporting last week about justice thomas. influential activist helped fund big campaign lion icing clarence thomas. the anniversary of his confirmation to the supreme court is approaching which would draw attention to his accomplishments on the bench and the misconduct that nearly disarray is ride. -- there was an hbo film recounting the sexual-harassment allocation. that spring a flurry of opinion

articles appeared in news outlets and buy a d.c. lawyer who worked with george h w bush white house during the confirmation. celebrating thomas's career and attacking his longtime accuser. and a twitter account using the name justice thomas van account. he would have flattering -- commentary. he is intimate in sharing his feelings, laughter and so on. this was not apparent at the time, but the rush of favorable content was part of a coordinated and sophisticated public relations campaign to defend and celebrate thomas according to a washington post examination of internal records and interviews with people. the campaign stretched on for years and it included the creation of -- advertising to boost positive content about him during internet searches.

a publication about a book of his life in it was financed with 1.8 million dollars from conservative nonprofit groups. -- we are hearing from you and your view of the u.s. supreme court. the lines are democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002. john is in boston. independent line. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i would say that the roe v. wade decision -- began 50 years ago. 50 years ago. i look at it as though there has

to be change. we have changed over 50 years. martin luther king gave his life 50 years ago to get where we are today which is a lot better where we were 50 years ago. as far as the group in the supreme court, as a they been very heroic in being able to make these decisions because things have changed so much. we go to the extremes so much with different things like abortion. why we needed it 50 years ago but we do not need it the way it is today because they abused the law to the point where it was just embarrassing. as far as the ethical standards, year not going to have too many

congresspeople talk about the ethical standards because there would be total hypocrisy. host: hypocrisy because congress does not base the tough ethical standards, is that your you? caller: sure. there's probably not one congressperson who has not taken a trip here or there that is taken care of by whatever. that is reality area and it happens. it is just hypocrisy. as far as the term limits, the people, there is a guy from new york who i do not have any respect for, the senator that wants to stand out in front of the supreme court and threaten these people. that is just idiotic. they are doing their job. the whole group of them i think our -- they are very heroic in

the decisions they have made because the world has changed in 50 years. and -- we will do a lot better. host: we started out showing you some video this morning with israel's protest continuing in the nation over proposed changes to the country supreme court. and that draws a criticism of the biden administration as well. the early vote is underway. that is the reporting from the wall street journal about that. they say that israel on sunday pushed ahead with plans to vote on the first part of the judicial overhaul. as mass protests intensify military reserve say they will refuse to report or duty. they control 64 out of 120 feet

in israel's parliament. they are determined to pass the bill as early as monday despite widespread calls to find a compromise for those -- including president biden. and warning that the domestic unrest would have significant national security implications. let's continue with our calls from you. susie is on the line, democrat, from texas. caller: i think it is duty that you meant. host: i am sorry yes, go ahead. caller: -- i think -- my suggestion would be we lower the supreme court so that there are four republicans and four democrats guaranteed seats.

it would mean that they could not pass anything in less they could get one person from the other side to go along with them. there would not be a majority that could be abused by special interest and shove things to the supreme court because they been -- they know they got a willing ear there. the justice would be of weighted -- determined to be appointed by two committees, one from republicans and one from democrats. they would to put this person up. whatever person what in at the time would dominate both of them and go through the same process of being vetted by congress. they would serve 16 years which would be for presidential term. in order to get down to that, well, let me back up. each presidential election year prior to that in the summer prior to the october session, a

new one from each side would be appointed and the one who has been on the court the longest on each side within rehire. 16 years would be the total amount that they put in. where we have younger and newer ones coming in. it issue now would be eating it down to eight people. it would mean that the oldest, the one who has been on the court the longest would have to leave. on the republican side, that is probably thomas and alito. i think alito has been there longer than roberts but i am not sure. we would be down to four with roberts and the three on that side and another would be added to the democrat side. now we are four and four. anything that comes up but have to be pretty middle-of-the-road because they got to be able to persuade somebody from the other

side to come to their side to issue it. i think it would help getting rid of the shadow card and all of the shadow dockets -- the only problem of it is is the next time around in 2028, robert and i think sonya's son of my aura would be the one rotating off. and each side would hate to lose one of their people but to keep it fair they would rotate and one new one comes in and the one that has been there 16 years rotate off. host: it sounds like you've given this a lot of thought. one of the things you pointed out was eight-member in the supreme court. it would have to operate more like a consensus model and you certainly would have to get a majority but he would have to have a consensus builder in that model you proposed of the supreme court. caller: yes, that is exactly it.

i think we could aluminate on the lot of problems that way. there would be no issues about how long they stay. everyone is limited to 16 years. there cannot be any confusion or anger about it. i think it would take care a lot -- of a lot of problems. host: thank you for the idea we go to jack in washington -- pennsylvania. republican. caller: yes so many issues involving this. first of all the ethics. i think the lady that called earlier said basically it should be decided by the supreme court and the people on the suffering work. -- this supreme court. with affirmative action on dogs -- the dobbs decision -- these decisions were basically not overturned they were just burnout.

-- just thrown out. they did not have a right to make that decision that is not in the constitution. they just made about trying to find a privacy clause to get it in. and what you have now is a lot of liberals trying to and the court to 13. i guarantee you, if donald trump was president now they would not want to do that. it is political what they are trying to do and i think they will keep the politics out of it and make sure the supreme court stays with the constitution. i'm sure people will have different decisions on -- opinions on that but that is my point of view. host: americans want the supreme court to stop behaving like this. this piece was published on friday saying republicans are sare furring from acute and possibly terminal case of

backstage disorder. that is a delete -- disease that allows them to say things among themselves like events with the federal society funding gap -- only to be forced out when they find themselves on stage. and that is visible to the voters they -- represent. individuals insisted the current supreme or is a temporary band of merry centrist. it's a perfect example of how trying to deny in public the very same thing you give out awards for in of it cannot be sustained. eventually individuals find out you spent many decades and billions of dollars to manufacture the supreme court. he bought it, you broke it, deal. they say the problem with the backstage politics is that at some point enough voters caps on

to what is happening via climate disaster, gun violence, reproductive injustice, or fair pay concerns. -- the procedures were broken. the right-wing supreme majorities spent two years -- that is from slate.com. our opening topic is your view of the supreme court. democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002. in chicago, larry on independent line. caller: good morning c-span. host: good morning. caller: i am phoning from the same district as justice -- she

is a circuit judge for chicago. surprising enough dick durbin is also. i have a supreme court case on the docket that regards my right to engage in a lawful occupation to practice law and exercise a religiously lawful manner. i filed the amicus brief in 1989. 118 pages. they actually read it because some of the advanced sheet report used my citations. so i am betting that we can solve this business about constant bickering by going back to the constitution and good behavior. that is the standard from anybody from the public office to preserve and protect the constitution. if i am right about what i am doing, c-span may actually have a voice in the courtroom.

and when justice amy was an intern, i sent them something and about set the stage for the dobbs decision. host: how many amicus briefs would you say you filed with the court? caller: a two case brief in 1989. i had a temporary top of the chinese theater in hollywood. -- same as bill clinton but i do not have his baggage. i am hoping that they will take the opinion of mayan -- mine -- and if they do it we can set the court back on path without nastiness. that is my thought. host: democrat line. caller: hello.

i am retired, but in the past i have worked for several organizations that carry pretty significant value. government contracts. i was in a position to make a decision as to which contractor would receive work. i was required to sign a disclosure if i should take so much as a lunch, a free lunch from one of these contractors. my pay was pretty good i never felt tempted nor did anybody father trying to brat -- bother trying to bribe me. but i cannot get over this discussion. why is it being a supreme court justice enough to go down in

history for your decisions? you know, i don't have to go for a trip in alaska. thank you. five. bye. host: here's another headline. mccarthy pushed to expunge -- the current speaker kevin mccarthy accused of bowing to the former president. mourning the expungement of his two impeachment. trump was impeached twice in during the imposed speakership for abuse of power and obstructing congress and inciting the u.s. capitol right it there is the warmer speaker on the state of the union. >> we had no choice. the president undermined our national security. jeopardized the well-being of our country. i was very careful about bringing any impeachment

forward. when the president made that phone call in terms of ukraine, there was no choice, we had no choice. he must be impeached. and then with politics, it is not even clear that you constitutionally can expunge those things. if he wants to put his members on the spot, his members in difficult places on the spot, that is a decision he has to make but it is not responsible. this is about being afraid. as a said before, donald trump is a puppeteer and what is he do all the time but shine a light on the strict. these people look political -- pathetic. host: nancy pelosi returning tomorrow for what could be the last meeting before their august recess. we will talk about that more in

the next half-hour on washington journal. opening the program asking you about your view of the favorability by the supreme court. the research group and their latest polling on the issue -- comments on social media and twitter. i am not understanding why republicans are so against ethics, honesty and integrity in our political system. something has gone seriously wrong with their already. -- eight justices, a great idea look for a breath or a that decide nothing. and we hear from brenda on republican line. good morning. caller: good morning thank you for taking my call. host: you back. caller: several people mentioned that the new justice committed perjury by saying yes, we believe -- what we do not seem

to understand is that is settled law until the majority of this court has a change of opinion. they are allowed to do that. i just noticed in your below sea speech that there was never anyone more divisive who created more problems than our government and nancy pelosi. she has some nerve talking about anyone being a troublemaker or indecisive. the problem she calls in our country are immeasurable. they are just crazy. not only that, as long as the court -- the democrats are thrilled with the court. as long as they get their way, you will notice there's not any problem, but the minute they do not get their way, everything -- they want everything changed. we want this agreement court

changed, they want, just anything. host: brenda you think we are doomed to always have it that way when we have a liberal majority in the supreme court in there was a conservative majority in the supreme liberals want it changed as well. caller: i do the numbers have changed off and on, but i believe it is set up as nine. the same reason the lady from texas said. so they have to convince other members of their opinion. it is not conservative, it is constitutional. if they can prove that something is not constitutional, then go for it, but that is not the case with any of these issues. having 13 justices. i don't believe that is constitutional. i believe it is a long process and there needs to be a convention of state for these things to change.

host: we go to scott, florida, independent. caller: yes, the problem with the supreme court there is none. just the democratic party. they committed treason, high crime. we have the report from ag and we have the report for john durham. -- the fbi, cia, doj -- they are in big trouble. taking money for policy. host: -- politico headline says senate majority leader chuck schumer has yet to say how he will coach his supreme court he -- supreme court already --

after ethically questionable behavior. lawmakers in senate democratic caucus are eager to the republican colleagues on this road. they suspect that it will not go further than the judiciary committee. any action beyond that would be a waste of time. this is all guaranteed to be filibustered. it would be dead on arrival in the gop house. but dozens of humors democrats challenge that wisdom. they say they are looking to force republicans to reject the ethics measure and pay the political price. let's hear from anna in new york. democrat. caller: hello. i would like to say one thing. everything keeps going back to israel. i just want to remind everyone

that israel does not even have a constitution. there supreme court situation is completely different. canada, israel, saudi arabia they do not have constitutions. our situation is different. sometimes the media is reported differently. i want that to be something that we go back. it was reported two minutes ago [laughter] whatever israel is going through all of his but they do not have a constitution. host: thank you for pointing that out. caller: sorry i just wanted to say that because i was listening it was right around another person. but the reason i am calling in is i am voting democrat most of the time and i believe the supreme court needs to stay at nine a. we are very political as a country right now and i almost feel like the democratic party is holding us hostage area being

a democrat, i still feel that way. i am hoping there is a third already person that runs because there are a lot of us that are lost. and i think by what you are saying with the supreme court in is just another situation where the democrats seem to always want to add and go up to 13 and do something different. as a person who is a female living through this. i do think abortion goes a little too far if we are waiting for bidet the baby is born. i do feel that we are politicizing the supreme court. i love the checks and balances because when we as democrats got a little too out of line there was somebody to pull us back in and vice versa. we are on a completely different trajectory course. i don't even know where we are going.

we are like a balloon losing air. we are all over the place. we've got people, there was a green party, but now democrats say don't do this. electric cars, there is no moderation and we are human beings and this is overwhelming. even overwhelming for people who are liberals. i don't know which boys we are listening to but i don't know if listening to one person's voice is the best way of doing it. it is closing our country so that we are literally just relief like a balloon. host: on the politics story we have the wall street journal, biden struggles -- he stood in a shipyard in philadelphia.

the colony remain strong. he says it is my economic plan and action -- the latest stop on his nationwide record burnishing tour saying we are together burning the country. some say that they are not feeling the impact of his campaign. high prices in inflation have turned economic concerns into headwind. everything is more expensive as it was. a convenience store manager says he opposes former president donald trump who the leading polls for the nomination over his inflammatory comments on race and allegations of sexual assault. he is likely to vote for a third party candidate next year instead. he is concerned about bidens age and feel conditions in the

country have substantially improved since the 80-year-old took office. we hear from jill on the independent line chicago. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling basically to make clear as an independent how interesting it is that the republicans cannot stand that the democrat are making comments. they did not seem to pay much attention during the years where president obama was not able to get hardly any justices, federal justices appointed because mitch mcconnell would not allow the vote to be held. he would not allow hearings on president obama's nomination. it just goes to show why we --

money became the ruling in this country. and for citizens united. they are republicrats and i'm not sure what's gonna -- we need to talk to one another instead of at one another. because we have republicans fighting about why would you say anything about the supreme court. but when you think about when mitch mcconnell held at several of ms. during the obama administration. and president trump, in four years was able to appoint more justices than obama did in eight years because mitch mcconnell would not allow the appointments to even have hearings or meet with the nominees that came to this. host: thank you for your comments. one quick look at the survey on the supreme court. the views of this report --

roughly half of americans, 51% in the supreme court think that they have -- think that the supreme court has the right amount of -- too much power. in california, republican. good morning. caller: hello. host: yes, go ahead. caller: hello. i wanted to talk about pioneer day for mormons. that is coming up monday in utah. i was raised in the mormon church and when we talk about we want an independent party, i do not think the mormons really know what they can do if a switch their way of thinking. they are so too the right thinking. i think if we could just focus all you people in utah get with an independent party and we can

get things done. host: going to jonathan, ellicott city, maryland democrat. caller: thank you for taking my call the first thing to address is the democratic caller who called a few minutes ago i am not buying she was a democrat. you do not refer to yourself in the democratic party. i would hope almost everyone in the no elective abortion up to birth. there never has been. with regard to the supreme court, they are clearly -- there are clearly ethics challenges. it does not look like they can do it themselves. they seem reticent to impose any ethics rules, and make them public and hold themselves accountable. i think congress somehow needs to step in, with regard to the court and the court's decisions. i find it incredible that the court is skewing so far as to put individual religious beliefs

above civil rights. i think all americans showed and hopefully do hold dear. we should not be allowing discrimination in the name of religion against any group in this country and they have not just permitted it, they have encouraged it. dobbs was the first domino, as well as affirmative action. i think they are probably going to go after marriage equality, and that concerns me greatly and it should concern everyone in this country. host: thank you, jonathan. if you're interested, you can read the latest survey on the supreme court. it is at pughresearch.org. coming up, we are joined by new york times congressional correspondent luc broadwater. we will take a look at potentially congress's last week ahead of the august recess. later in the program, both

parties on capitol hill have introduced legislation to overhaul elections. we will take a closer look at the competing bills with john fortier, senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. ♪ >> c-spanshop.org is c-span's online store. browse the latest collection of c-span products, apparel, books, home decor and accessories. there is something for every c-span fan. every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. shop now or anytime at c-span shop.org. >> listening to programs on c-span through c-span radio just

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>> if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates and other events feature markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. -- headlines they appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. . scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's points of interest. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are joined by luc broadwater, congressional reporter for the new york times with us this half hour to take a quick look at what is ahead in congress, what is supposed to be the last week in the house and senate before the august recess. let's start with the house. what are some of the main issues? guest: scheduling is a little

bit in flux right now. the main thing i am watching for is whether the house republicans can get two of their appropriations bills moving across the house floor, as your listeners probably know. kevin mccarthy, one of his priorities has been to not just pass a big omnibus budget at the end of the year, but to pass the appropriation bills one by one, all 12 of them. this is a promise he made when he was attempting to become speaker. it is something the republicans want to see happen. they might try to move two of these this week. we will see if those can get ready in time. one is agriculture and the other would be for military construction. they would be the culture war debates we have seen in this congress, about whether abortion restrictions should be in, dei restrictions, things like that.

that is going to be the first two they try to move. host: you said potentially those would be the first two this week and he made the promise to get through all 12. each time, he exposes himself to potentially losing votes from his caucus on those pieces of legislation, correct? guest: right. this is a difficult task. congress has gotten into the habit of passing one huge omnibus at the end of the year and i don't think anyone really believes it is going to be an easy task to get all 12 done. there is just not a ton of time. it takes a long time to get these bills. there are so many policies involved. there is sort of a gun to the head of this congress. in the debt limit deal, if they don't get these done, there will be a 1% cut across government. all government spending will be cut by 1%. none of the republican policies would go into effect.

they would be stuck with nancy pelosi's policies from the last congress. there is pressure on both sides. democrats don't want to cut and republicans don't want hello see's policies -- don't want hello see's public debt pelosi's policies. guest: the national defense authorization act, every year, this is one of those must pass bills that has to go through congress. what it does is it really sets the roadmap for how the military can spend money when it is appropriated. a version of this bill has already passed in the house. it had all of these extra provisions added in, culture war issues. fanning the military from using dei officers -- banning the military from using dei officers, strict and's for

paying for travel for abortions and another -- and a number of other issues. we are headed eventually if this does pass the senate, for a conference committee and that could be quite contentious as well because kevin mccarthy has already said that he wants to have marjorie taylor greene, one of the more far right members of congress, on that committee. it could be interesting to see how those appropriations go. host: tell us about the hold that senator tommy tuberville has on military nominations and how this may come into play, this week with the ndaa discussion. guest: this is probably the second biggest issue if not the biggest right now that the senate is encountering. close to 300 promotions or nominations in the military are being held up for admirals and generals by a single senator, tommy tuberville of alabama.

what he is objecting to is a policy that the pentagon has put in place recently that would pay for travel, out-of-state travel for abortions, if a military service member wants to have an abortion. this comes in the wake of roe v. wade being overturned and inferring state laws going into place. he say it -- he says it violates the hyde amendment and federal law that can't pay for abortions, but paying for travel is akin to paying for the abortions. he is putting a hold on all of these promotions and is angering the democrats and the biden administration. they are saying it is hurting the military at a deep level. tempora ville is demanding they change -- cover ville -- tub or erville is demanding they change the provisions. host: -- a vote on the abortion issues in exchange for releasing his hold. guest: it is interesting.

schumer is offering a vote on two possible -- to rebuild policy -- tuberville's policy. what he wants is a vote on the other so that they put -- proactively saying this is our policy. it is sort of a war of words, and neither side seems like they are winning. host: that language did pass in the house version, right? guest: but it could not pass the senate. host: we are talking with luke broadwater, congressional reporter for the new york times. we welcome your phone calls and comments. (202)-748-8000 is the democrats line. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. for independents and all others, (202)-748-8002. you may have heard luke in the last half hour, nancy pelosi on this potential vote, the issue of the house expunging, the

proposal by mortgage -- marjorie taylor greene and elise stefanik to expunge the impeachment decisions against former president donald trump. what do you think will happen? guest: kevin mccarthy has said he is for this. we know elise stefanik and at least three republicans are for this. my understanding is it does not have the votes, that there is some skepticism within the republican conference in the house. it would be a largely symbolic effort. unlike say a criminal record which can be expunged, you can band the box -- ban the box. this happened publicly. everyone knows about it. there is no come in the record to expunge. it would be a purely symbolic act. if they are going to go forward with it, right now they don't have the votes. maybe at the fall at the

earliest but that is not something we will see this week. host: in addition to the work in the house this week on the two appropriations bills and other measures, what hearings are you watching for, this final week before august? guest: the big one from my perspective is a leon drove mayorkas, the home and secretary will be on the hill wednesday in front of the judiciary committee. as you know, the house republicans have been ramping up a potential impeachment of mayorkas, doing a five-part investigation on his handling of the border. i expect him to be grilled intensely about the situation at the border. i do think he has some facts on his side. it looks like some of the biggest fears about record border crossings are starting to come down. not as bad as they once were. he has some positive things you can point to. there is the issue about whether or not he lied to congress. he says he did not.

they are using a legalistic definition that does not really match operational definitions. i expect there to be a fight about that as well. this is a precursor to see whether or not republicans will try to go forward and impeach him. host: the house to dish your looking at impeachment charges against the attorney general, merrick garland. what is their allegation? guest: for those who watched the irs whistleblower last week in congress, there is this key dispute about whether merrick garland lied to congress or not, when he said that he had basically deputized a u.s. attorney in delaware to have full authority to make charges anywhere he wants on the hunter biden case. what you heard from the irs whistleblower last week was that that was not true. he did not have full authority and that he was limited in where he could charge and what his powers were. there is a bit of a dispute.

garland is telling the truth or the whistleblower is. what kevin mccarthy said was, if it is proven or we do find out substantial evidence that merrick garland lied to congress, then he would begin impeachment proceedings the next day. it feels to me right now that it was a little bit hot right now. passionate anger on the side of the republicans. maybe that will change on wednesday at this hearing. the republicans i'm talking to over the weekend were really fired up about garland. host: our guest is luke broadwater who covers congress for the new york times. we welcome your calls and comments. (202)-748-8000 for democrats. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. for independents and others, (202)-748-8002. you can send us a text if you like, that's at (202)-748-8003. a comment from -- he says that hunter's former business partner

will testify under oath. hunter got his vice president dad on the phone 24 times to talk business. guest: my understanding is that the oversight committee has been working for weeks to try and schedule this business partner to come in. i'm not sure if that is happening today or not. some who talked over the weekend said he is trying to postpone again. i'm not sure where that stands. i did hear some rumblings that might be postponed. he has delayed that interview several times. the oversight committee is pressing forward with this investigation. they are giving lots of bank records, they are bringing in lots of witnesses and trying to get people close to hunter biden on the record in the committee. host: are you getting a sense of their timeline of when they want to wrap it up?

the reality is that this investigation goes back to even when james comer was the ranking republican. that investigation began during a democratic congress but they have continued. are you getting any sense of when they think the investigation may wrap up and be able to present their findings? guest: they are pressing forward. i think they are digging deeper than they initially thought they might. some of these bank records have led them to other bank records that led them to other bank records. . this could be a lengthy investigation. obviously they need to finish by the end of this congress. that is key. they will want to keep going for as long as possible, as long as they keep getting more information. host: let's get to calls. first up in louisiana it is darlene on the independent line. good morning. caller: first of all, marilyn garland couldn't live his life

depended on it. the people are watching everything. these two guys on the irs agents. they discriminate against hunter biden. because they were for the republican party. i'm sorry, i'm a little nervous. all of this conflict needs to stop. mcconnell is a snake. clarence thomas needs to get out of there. i'm very embarrassed about the republican party. host: luke broadwater, anything you want to add? guest: i couldn't really hear what she said. host: we will go to kansas city, missouri and hear from paul on the republican line. caller: hello. i work in the government for almost 40 years and if it is not in writing, it didn't happen. i think the attorney general, if

you would just produce the appointment orders, giving the special authority to go outside his district, it's got to be in writing that merrick garland appointed him, jack smith has appointment orders, that is a simple thing. just produce the document that told the u.s. attorney of delaware that he could go outside his district. appreciate the show, and great dialogue. host: luke broadwater, will there be such a document, is there such a document? guest: i think the u.s. attorney in delaware said in one of his letters to congress at least he strongly implied that he reached out to prosecutors in the district of columbia and in california and spoke with them about potentially partnering on a case against hunter biden in those jurisdictions. from our reporting, we know he

was turned down and there was no interest in the partnership. the next step and this may be some of where the dispute is, is both weiss and merrick garland said he could have asked garland for special attorney status and then take those cases himself, and he did not do that for whatever reason. whether he was blocked or whether he made the independent decision that those prosecutors don't think it was a strong case. weiss has said he will testify on the hill at some point. i think we need to hear from him directly, and merrick garland directly before we can know what happened. host: will he testify on the record at a public hearing? guest: in one of his letters, he offered to testify when appropriate. i guess when the hunter biden case is in court. we know there is a court date this wednesday. . if that wraps up, we could

potentially hear from weiss on the hill. host: i asked about some of your most recent reporting on the organization that has brought some of these whistleblowers. the headline on your piece published yesterday, former republican aides shepherd whistleblowers through congress. a group of lawyers including former aides to senator chuck grassley, part of a constellation of groups facilitating gop investigations in congress. what led you to do this -- what led you to this story? guest: when one of the irs whistleblowers wants to come forward initially with his allegations about what he was seeing internally on this investigation, he knew that he might be potentially committing a felony, that these tax records are so secretive, you can't just give out somebody's tax returns, you can't just share tax information. he had to figure out a way to do this legally. he approached the former federal

prosecutor he had worked with in the past, who is now in private practice. they needed someone who could help them get through the byzantine rules of congress, understand how to get this information to the hill legally. who better to do that then a former staffer for chuck grassley, who in some cases wrote the whistleblower statutes and understands the way congress works? there was this very technical process they had to go through. some had to be deputized as agents of congress of the could receive tax information. then they had to arrange for an interview behind closed doors, only the ways and means committee could handle it. they had to authorize a vote to release the information and only then could they do these interviews. need a high amount of technical knowledge and skills about how congress works with legal codes to begin the whistleblower process.

that was the part of the story that interested me. host: do you think this group is unusual or that there are similar groups out there working, for example, during democratic congresses? guest: absolutely. any time you have a divided congress, oversight becomes pretty premium. legislating becomes less important, because basically they can't get together. when oversight becomes the number one game in town, you see more groups working on it and that is true of democratic congresses and republican congresses. what makes this group unique is they have represented four whistleblowers have gone before congress and they do have this unique skill set with their connections to chuck grassley. host: were all of those whistleblowers related to the biden investigation? guest: two are with the fbi, speaking out about things they saw and the justice department.

two are with the irs, specifically with the hunter biden case. host: about 10 more minutes with our guest. we go to the nation's capital, democrats line. caller: hello. good morning c-span. i just want -- i'm a little speechless because there is a lot of american business that is not being dealt with under this congress. this congress reminds me of -- it is almost like you are watching a reality tv show. i think that if more people like jason lee or those bloggers actually investigated political parties, this country will blow up. the same way they investigated athletes and entertainers. they need to start going after politicians. i'm so sick and tired of

knickknack patty wack give the republican a bone and the democrat a bone. i have not heard one positive thing going on in our nations capital since this morning. i'm so sick and tired of it. what is going on in texas, with the school system is a hot mess. you guys need to start investigating -- stop investigating things like biden. look into the $2 billion that trump's son-in-law got from -- you know what i'm talking about. host: several things there. guest: she is raising a point that democrats often raise, which is that there is all of this intense focus on hunter biden and his business dealings but we are talking about a fraction of the kind of money that some of the trump family members were able to bring in

through their work with foreign countries, especially in the middle east. a huge investment fund that jared kushner has, president trump's son-in-law which brings in tons of money from the middle east and other countries. if it is bad for hunter biden doing international business deals, why isn't it bad for trump's family members? that is a frequent point you hear from democrats. i think her broader point was that congress has really become sort of a bloodsport, fighting all the time. a lot of people would like to see more collaboration, less fighting, and working together. host: our guest, luke rod water -- broadwater, cut his teeth with the baltimore sun for 10 years or so and his investigative work winning a pulitzer, for several things. now in your role as a

congressional reporter, do they give you time to do deeper investigations and take you off the daily beat or has that been set aside? guest: it depends. there are times when the daily grind is so much that that is what you are doing. following daily news in congress and writing about things as they happen. i do have some leeway to do investigations as appropriate and that is the kind of reporting i love to do. i love enterprise stories, i love long profiles of people, i like to do deep investigations. that is what really motivates me. host: when did you know you wanted to be a newspaper writer? guest: i really wanted to be a baseball announcer when i was a kid. then i got into sports writing and started out in sports writing and overtime, through various jobs i've had, i shifted more into hard news reporting,

covering trials and all of that stuff and then into politics. i have a passion for it, i love covering it and it is a lot of fun. host: onto pleasant view, tennessee. good morning ray on the republican line. caller: good morning. these two young men, so-called whistleblowers, these people are working people. they were doing their job. the federal government is bloated with people. we need to cut them out and pay the deficit down. these people are afraid of their jobs. the democrats keep pushing more people, more money, put out, put out. you gotta stop and look at the money we owe. some to china. everybody else in the world. this government is bloated and

this administration is crooked as anybody ever. host: your thoughts, luke broadwater? caller: i think ray is watching the -- guest: i think ray is watching the whistleblower testimony. they are coming forward with serious allegations and we need to hear the other side. host: a comment from jimbo in california. can mr. broadwater explained the various methods the freedom caucus might use to sabotage speaker mccarthy's agenda this week? you touched briefly on it earlier, the appropriations process. guest: the freedom caucus is an interesting group. 35 people or so, but some of them have become more aligned with speaker kevin mccarthy. jim jordan for instance, one of the founders of the caucus. others have been more of the people who stand in the way and

try to block certain things the speaker is doing. we saw this come to a head a few times in this congress when they have shut down the floor. it really depends on whether they want something specific out of mccarthy before they shut down the floor, because they wanted a vote on legislation about this gun brace or pistol brace. if there is something they want out of one of these bills, they have the votes at any time to shut down the floor. they have enough votes to do that. i haven't heard any rumblings that they are planning to do that this week, but definitely the freedom caucus can use legislative tools and their votes to try and get certain demands out of the speaker whenever they want. host: onto california, and the san fernando valley, on the independent line. caller: good morning. what i want to say is, first i want to make this comment. i spoke on pedro's show once and

he had a gentleman talking about the banks being backed up or whatever. this is just a comment. it was concerning to me that wells fargo bought $40 million of gold? ok. think about that. all of this other stuff that they are playing games. they are not playing chess or chinese checkers. the people will come to an end when they find out that this is just going to get worse. it is not going to get better. because the things that are right are going to be wrong. host: going back to where we started with the appropriations process, what about the senate? when congress comes back in september, they better deadline. where is the senate in their process of appropriations?

guest: one thing we've heard from the senate is that they also want to be considering individual bills, especially on the public inside. that is big with susan collins, the top republican handling spending matters. she really wants these to be individual bills. they are chugging along and working through the process. as i said earlier, i don't think we are going to see all 12 bills ready to go by september 30. i don't think anybody thinks that is realistic. you will probably have a continuing resolution at that point which is a short-term extension. if not, we could see a shut down at some point. that would not surprise me. the house freedom caucus feels taken advantage of during the debt ceiling deal. they felt like they didn't get the bold policies they wanted.

i could see them staging a rebellion at some point and us having some government shutdown at some point. host: you can read luke's reporting at nytimes.com. thanks for being with us on the program. guest: thank you. host: still to come, at 9:15 eastern this morning, we will take a deeper dive into competing bills on capitol hill, election overhaul bills recently introduced in congress. john fortier is with us, senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. coming up next, we will open up our phones to hear from you on items in the news you are following an open forum. democrats, it is (202)-748-8000. republicans, (202)-748-8001. independents and others, (202)-748-8002. we will be right back. ♪

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c-span, your front row seat to washington, anywhere, anytime. >> "washington journal" continues. host: open forum here on "washington journal." issues in the news that you are following this morning. (202)-748-8000 for democrats. republicans, use (202)-748-8001. for independents and others, (202)-748-8002. we started the program asking about the u.s. supreme court. we started looking at some of the video from this morning in israel, protests around the changes in law proposed in that country on their supreme court. some of the reporting hear from cnn. is really lawmakers to vote on weakening supreme court amid protests as netanyahu leaves hospital. is really lawmakers are set to vote on the first part of the government sweeping plan to weaken the power of the countries courts. despite six months of street protests, parliamentary

maneuvering and increasingly urgent warnings from the white house. prime minister netanyahu who left the hospital after being fitted with a pacemaker has been pressing on with his plans for the judicial system overhaul, even as protests against them show no signs of easing. let's get back to your calls. first to el paso, texas. on the democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning c-span. love the fact that republicans are losing their minds over the barbie movie. it turned $155 million over the weekend -- it earned $155 million over the weekend. i haven't seen it yet but i do have tickets for this next weekend, i'm going to take my granddaughter to see it. host: you said they are losing their minds.

why do you think they are losing their minds in your view? caller: they consider it chinese propaganda, the nine dashes does not mean anything. it is just so interesting that they have that take. host: marty in texas, thank you. this story about a soldier who apparently fled into north korea. an update from nbc. talks begin over u.s. soldier detained in north korea. the u.n. confirms. united nations is in talks with north korea over the american soldier who fled across the heavily militarized border and into the secretive state last week. a top you an official said on monday.

travis king was about to fly back to the united states from south korea for possible disciplinary action after refusing to pay a fine for allegedly damaging public property. he slipped away from his military escort at the airport last week and managed to join a guided tour to the joint security area, a piece of land between the north and south that is managed by the u.n.. despite no public word from the north koreans about king, the u.n. -- in talks with the north about the runaway soldier. quote, the primary concern for us is private king's welfare, said a british army officer serving as deputy commander of the united nations command, known as unc. open forum here on "washington journal." (202)-748-8000, the line for democrats. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. for independents and others,

(202)-748-8002. robert is next in west virginia, democrat caller. caller: three times, republicans have threatened to shut down the congress, shut down the government. in 2008, when they shut it down, we lost $40,000 in investments from our 502 retirement accounts. every time they have run this through, we have lost money and we have never gained even a portion of that back. it is really frustrating that they want to shut it down again. i'm just an ordinary person. we both work for our money. now they want to shut the

government down, and that would do it again because every time they shut the government down, or run through these great threats, we lose money because of the investment market. host: thanks robert. mississippi, dana is next on the republican line. [breathing] host: you are on the air. caller: yes, thank you. explain to me why they are spending millions of dollars on aliens when we need our veterans and people who can't afford their rent anymore to be taking care of. could you explain that to me please? host: just to let you know about some of our life programming coming up today on the c-span networks. later today at noon, we will bring you a conversation on transparency in the economic

marketplace. part of that event was the federal trade commission chair. an event posted by the economic club of new york. that will be live here at noon on c-span. also on our mobile app, c-span now and c-span.org. the federal reserve chair, jerome powell is holding a news conference today, coming up at 2:30 p.m. eastern. we will show that for you on our c-span now mobile app, which you can download for free. later this evening, former republican congressman will talk about conservative principles. he is speaking at the young american foundation national conservative student conference. live coverage begins at 7:45 eastern on c-span, on the mobile app c-span now and at c-span.org. it is open forum and we welcome jeff from bowling green, kentucky, on the democrats line. go ahead. caller: purported irs

whistleblower jerry shapley has been given certain protections per whistleblower statutes. this is true even though he made protected disclosures if at all, after they started the investigation into him. my question is this, should the classification of whistleblowers be decided by members of congress or independent agency? host: on to san francisco and the independent line. nicholas, hello. caller: hi. i'm calling, just wondering why we spend so much time on hunter's hog. host: on what? we lost our caller. this was a piece from the hill. gop and mccarthy on expunging trump impeachments. they write that house republicans increasingly find themselves on a collision course

over efforts to expunge the impeachments of former president trump, a battle that pits hard-line conservatives who are pressing for a vote against moderates already warning gop leaders they will reject it. the promised opposition from centrist republicans all but ensures the resolutions would fail if they hit the floor. it puts speaker kevin mccarthy in a no-win situation. if he doesn't stage the vote, he risks the fire from trump and his allies. if he does, the measure would be shot down, validating trump's impeachments just as his legal troubles are piling up. the issue is the latest in a long string of debates challenging mccarthy's ability to keep his conference united while trump, the gop providential front runner who is also facing two criminal indictments hovers in the background. that is at thehill.com. next up is bill in bryan, ohio on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning.

i don't know how i became aware of this. i'm wondering how many other people were aware. if our congress people need something to do, they could look at this. did you know there are five states where there are no minimum requirements for how old you could be to get married? california, mississippi, new mexico, oklahoma and washington. two states you can get married at the age of 14, massachusetts and new hampshire. 15 in hawaii and kansas and 23 states you can get married at 16. i don't know, i think 16 might be the limit for me, but really? host: why do you think congress should take that up and not be left as a state issue? caller: well i don't know, because apparently some states can't handle. i mean, no limit? could you imagine a 10-year-old getting married? why, for what reason? in massachusetts and new

hampshire, they allow 14-year-olds to be married? for what possible reason? i don't know but apparently the states can't take care of it. under the government doesn't need to be getting involved in more stuff, but it was shocking to me. i didn't know if people were aware of this or not. host: christopher on the line next from new york, republican line. caller: i was calling to see perhaps if we could get some type of bill passed by the senators or congress that can protect people from bad air quality. me and my mom and my family are within close proximity to my neighbor as he burns his woodstove and i was thinking more like a 100 foot common sense law that if you are when 100 feet of a dwelling, you don't have the right to smoke somebody out. it would be a commonsense practical measure that could protect the lives of some of the

citizens here. i went through the town which i reside in and they seemed to wanted to just do nothing about the issue, but it's about time we are to thinking about air quality and what the damages of woodsmoke can do to people. i've been hospitalized over this issue and it is a pretty big issue. i'm hoping the republican can join on to not just protect babies and abortions, but doing something about air quality for people with them 100 feet of a home. like only passed the law with children in the car, they can't smoke with a child in the car. i can't move my home any farther from my neighbor. it has to do with distance. host: i appreciate the input. it is open forum on "washington journal." (202)-748-8000 is the line for democrats. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. for independents and others, (202)-748-8002.

items in the news, issues you are following, open game, fair game in open forum. we saw comments yesterday, talking about the group no labels. two republican -- two governors, one from utah and one from denver spoke yesterday on cnn about working together. here's what they had to say. [video clip] >> working with universities, trying to understand the science and we know that politics is downstream of culture. this is not something that is going to change overnight, but we do believe it is absolutely critical. the good news is there are some numbers out there, pulling numbers that show there is a growing majority of americans that are tired of the toxic disagreements, the divisiveness. they are looking for something better. governors are uniquely positioned to take this on because we actually have to get stuff done.

we work together, we learn from each other, we are the laboratories of democracy. we are going to take messages like this, and many of our fellow governors will be doing similar ads like the one you just shared. we will do everything we can over the course of the next year to elevate this conversation. >> what is your party need to do better? -- what does your party need to do better? >> it is about the individual level. we need to have authentic conversations with those we disagree with. it means don't question the motives, republicans, democrats, independents are good americans. talk about what works and doesn't work and use data as your guide. this initiative doesn't mean everybody needs to agree on every topic, but it means we should have conversations and disagreement at a better more effective level for the future of our country. host: the two governors with the national governors association. open forum here on "washington journal."

we are joined by aaron dority, political reporter with axios updating us this morning about campaign 2024. welcome to the program. guest: thank you so much for having me. host: the biggest watch on the republican side of the ledger this week is the potential third indictment for former president donald trump. has that affected his campaign or campaign schedule that you know of? guest: not in the short term. as you mentioned, this is a big week for a potential third indictment. we don't know when it could happen. it could happen this week or over the coming weeks. former president trump last week indicated that the indictment was imminent on his truth social account. in the short term, i think we are all just waiting to see when that happens.

it hasn't really had any substantial effect on the republican primary at this stage. he is still the clear front runner in the republican primary. some of his republican rivals in the 2024 field, they haven't really shifted their posture amid a potential third indictment. in the longer term, a third indictment, or we could see -- we are getting a better sense of when his previous two indictments, windows trials will occur. one will be in march of 2024. a judge last week said that the trial relating to his classified documents case will be in may of 2024. if those dates stick, we are seeing mr. trump potentially campaigning, navigating a campaign and balancing at least

two trials on the trail. host: there were stories over the weekend about the campaign, not the front runner but the second place republican, florida governor ron desantis. reports about him retooling his campaign. can you tell us any more about that? guest: we've been seeing over the last week to 10 days, florida governor ron desantis sort of having a reboot with his campaign. ever since the reports last weekend, we saw that desantis had gotten rid of a couple members of his campaign staff. last week he had an interview with cnn's jake tapper. this week, he is doing a two day bus tour through iowa. we've been seeing that he might be trying to shift away -- in

the beginning of the campaign he was emphasizing his success within florida. i think he be me -- i think he might be running a more national campaign, focusing more on the national level going forward, and doing more mainstream media, rather than just media that is for a smaller audience. we will continue to see how that plays out. i think he is trying to have more visibility on the trail and get out more. the bus tour in iowa, he will be connecting with voters all across the state. host: it is now less than a month to august 23, when the first republican debate will happen. is there any indication the former president, donald trump will participate? guest: it still seems unlikely that mr. trump will participate. it does not seem like he has shifted his leaning toward participation.

he has said previously, he is the far and away front runner, what does he have to gain from a debate? i think the rnc has said, the chair has said that she has talked to mr. trump about potentially participating in the debate at this point. we have seen -- we are separately away from trump in the debate, we are starting to see which republican candidates are starting to qualify for the first debate. over the weekend, we have seen that with desantis, nikki haley, tim scott and chris christie have all cleared the polling and fundraising threshold. over the next several weeks, i'm sure we will see other candidates announce they have cleared one of the others if they have not already. host: what about the presumptive

democratic candidate, joe biden? any plans for him to campaign and does his campaign continue his focus on selling his economic success, his so-called bidenomics? guest: i have not seen any big changes on the campaign. what we can expect is to see him continue to tout and highlight his legislative successes so far, and talk about his bidenomics. over the weekend, we have seen his comment on a potential third indictment of his potential competitor, mr. trump. whether he stays silent throughout the last several -- whenever mr. trump has faced

different legal trouble, i would not expect that to change in the short term. we are also seeing vice president kamala harris. she was in florida last week, slamming the florida department of education's policies. we are continuing to see harris go out and speak on democratic issues. host: how has the biden campaign handled the fact that even though he is not in close contention, robert f. kennedy, jr. has appeared before congress and been on several national programs and getting a fair amount of media attention? how is the biden campaign handling robert kennedy jr.? guest: i think the strategy has remained relatively unchanged, despite what the media appearances and different public events that kennedy jr. is doing. they have not directly engaged

with him and i think we will continue to see him -- see the biden campaign continued the strategy of highlighting and touting his legislative accomplishments and not necessarily going on the attack with robert f. kennedy, jr. at this point. host: aaron dority covers politics for axios. you can follow her on axios.com. thank you so much for being here this morning. guest: thank you. host: we continue with our open forum here on "washington journal," up until about 9:15 eastern. (202)-748-8000, the line to call for democrats. republicans, use (202)-748-8001. independents and all others, (202)-748-8002. donald is in omaha, nebraska on the independent line. good morning. caller: i had a question for that young lady that was just there. is there any truth to what aoc said about trump giving the

manhattan d.a. $85,000 to drop charges against his children? host: our guest is not with us, but i will leave your question there we will go to conway, arkansas to hear from dan on the republican line. caller: thanks for taking my call. it seems to me that the democrats are trying to stack indictment on top of indictment against donald trump. my question is, and i read this somewhere, i don't know if it is true or not, that no other presidential candidate in history has been under indictment while running. is that true? host: i believe that is true. caller: any comment about it? it seems again that the democrats are doing everything they can, coming up with charge

after charge, trying to find something to hang trump with. i don't think that is how the judicial project -- process should operate. i've heard it said that a grand jury could indict a piece of toast or something like that if they wanted to. of course the mainstream news media has grabbed it and run with it and story and story, day after day, it is all anti-trump this and trump has done this or that. meanwhile on the others, nothing is said about what is going on with joe biden and his son and ukraine. our country was built on honesty and integrity in government, and

also in the news media. it just seems that there has been -- honesty and integrity has just disappeared. it's all about a drive toward socialism with the democrats and mainstream news media, and they are running roughshod over traditional america. host: dan in arkansas. one update, to an announcement we made earlier for the news conference with fed chair jerome powell. that is not today, it is tomorrow afternoon. we will have live coverage. that will be available on our free mobile app on wednesday afternoon. getting a day ahead of myself. mary on the democrat line in

potomac, maryland. caller: hello. i'm calling. i would like to address the last caller. built on honesty and integrity? we all witnessed on january 6 how trump incited the crowds to go to the capital, even saying he would follow them. but at the end like a coward, goes back to his white house. how could something like this, by doing something like this, he should have been behind bars a year ago. why is he still walking around, getting money from people who are following him without any evidence of integrity on his part? he would do anything to get connected to the white house. but it is up to the people to

look at things clearly. and also there is a book. if anybody loves america, they should read the book "blowback" by miles taylor. he is an insider in the trump organization and has given a clear account of how horrible this man trump is. i don't know why he is still walking around instead of being behind bars by now. host: the lead story in the money section of usa today. rents rising again. tenets hoping to catch a break on their rent may not be successful anytime soon. rent prices continue their march up for the fourth consecutive month in june since autumn out in february, president from may

to june grew by 1.4%, have increased by more than 3% since last april. over the last year, march saw a greater monthly growth in 2%, monthly price changed at this. prices are below the last summer's peak. among the 10 states with the highest year-over-year rate increases, all experienced above 6% in growth and rent increases. south dakota had 27%, mississippi, iowa, north dakota, new york, arkansas, nebraska and new hampshire, wisconsin in indiana. more than 27% in some cases. on the republican line, it is open forum. go ahead, peter. caller: i wanted to comment on

something someone said about two weeks ago in reference to talking about the durham report and how during his testimony, durham said there was the predicate for the investigation on the collusion with russia was not founded in good procedures. that the whole thing was predicated on the true truth -- bad judgment. this woman made a comment about implicating president obama in the issue. she could not -- you asked her what you have in regard to president obama's participation in the collusion hoax with russia and she could not give you an answer. so i'm going to give an answer. what happened was in the first week of august 2016, john

brennan, the cia director met in the oval office with president obama, vice president biden, the attorney general and james comey, the head of the fbi. he briefed them on a plan by the clinton people and group that there was a plot or a plan to discredit candidate trump with russian collusion using the steel dossier she was financing. apparently, they knew at the time that it was illegitimate. but apparently, president obama did nothing without telling his attorney general to squash the whole thing is there was no basis in it. president obama and vice president biden at the time of

the collusion between trump and they russians was baloney. but jim comey took it to the next level. the pfizer applications and everything. just go ahead and continue this hoax on the make and people. that is all you have to say. host: to the democrat line, maryland, james. caller: good morning. i think the supreme court has messed up with affirmative action. we will see within about 15 years all of the chinese anchor babies are able to come here and apply for college. one thing about the chinese state, this was just a gift for them. there will be so many chinese

anchor babies here and there will probably be implicated. it is one of these things where i don't even know. it is frustrating to me as a black person. i was looking for education, reparations for black people. how are you going to have this alone in 50 years, saying it was equal? but i want to see what the republicans are going to do with a chinese anchor babies over here and cap the birth rate dutch kept their birthright and what it will be then. host: about 10 more minutes and open forum, it is (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001

for republicans and (202) 748-8002 four independents. could be changes ahead at twitter, at least on the logo. from yahoo!, musk sized twitter to change logo to x from the bird, it could come as early as monday. elon musk said he plans to change logo twitter from the famous bluebird, marking what would be the latest big change, since he bought the platform. he is looking to make the change worldwide as soon as one day and we shall bid a due to the twitter brand and all of the birds, he wrote on his account. we will see -- we keep looking.

brian in crossroads, iowa. caller: good morning, how are you doing? host: good morning, doing fine. caller: i am an independent. i see both sides, i take my daughter to the barbie movie. one thing i notice at the barbie movie was, you go to a star wars movie, so the like that. they got the helmets for the popcorn. i take my daughter to the barbie movie and there is no rv corvette told the popcorn. i think it was misogynistic. you have a movie traditionally made for boys, but you can get a barbie popcorn holder. if you think that is a little misogynistic, thank you. host: shirley on the mcgrath line.

-- democrat wine. caller: this is about -- it has nothing to do with the presidential election. trump has said they want to look at what is going. it has been 11 -- since he went to jail, trump tried to put in office. these are the type of people he wants to run the country. be careful about the russians. [indiscernible]

of all his cronies that have went to jail, the company corrupts them. host: a story from politico, talking about the efforts in israel. biden urges netanyahu to slow down on judicial overhaul in israel. the council prime minister benjamin yahoo! of israel against the legislation on a traditional overhaul package that has led to massive protests. from the perspective of the united states, the current judicial reform proposal is becoming more divisive, not less. given the range of threats and challenges confronting israel now, it is not make sense for israeli leaders to rush this.

the focus should be on pulling people together and finding consensus. ed on the

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scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's point of entry. >> washington journal continues. host: with us, currently the senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. he is here this morning to talk about confidence in elections and about a couple of pieces of legislation introduced in the house on election law reform. we want to start with a recent poll done by the associated press and north on the confidence in the 2024 elections. only 44% of all adults have a high confidence, highly confident the votes will be counted accurately. that is 71%. democrats believe that. independent, much lower, to any percent. and 22%. if you look at the past

elections, there has been very little proven fraud. what is behind the confidence -- lack of confidence? guest: we all wish we had more confidence. there is a good system that we should be more confident in. one thing to watch in those numbers that reflects who is in power is when you win in an election, the party in power tends to be more confident and when they lose their less. publicans could say it is worry about fraud, but they are also out of the white house. it is not always the best measure. i do think we are polarized, more than ever on the types of voting we want to do. and there are some worries out there. we should address those worries but also i think we should tell the american people there is a pretty good system.

maybe we could make it better but it runs reasonably well. host: every election is run by states and localities. what are some worries in your research and reporting that you hear from americans from localities and states about elections? guest: the divide between parties is a big divide between excess and integrity. emigrants worry about issues of access. times when it may be harder to vote and people don't have all of the options they might have. publicans worry more about the integrity, perhaps people are voting that should not or that the system is not very good at being able to catch people who would get into those. some specific issues sometimes you find are less than you think. like voter identification, which is very polarized at the elite level.

it tends to not be quite as polarized on the popular level. there are some issues you might not think fall into that dichotomy. but certainly big issues between access and integrity really drive this. host: the issue of voter id. you said there is a disconnect between your average democratic voter and the way the party generally views states and localities who use voter id. why is there a disconnect? guest: the big picture is they might be an obstacle to people voting. as reflected in some views of the democrat party, the losses are doing that point. republicans think it is a needed security measure. they show it in the airport and

daily life. you may think even though i am a democrat and believe in access, maybe this one is not quite in my thinking as to what -- access integrity, but this issue is not as big of a divide as you think. host: former president and his supporters, the most prominent politician questioning the very nature of how elections are run in this country. has that become increasingly more of a problem over the last few years? guest: the temperature has been raised significantly by the arguments of the former president. 2020 election, we ran under very different conditions where both sides -- the way we run, the middle of the game, there are very different.

i think the temperature has been raised significant a. we see the debates in the states. but again, we can have some confidence that historically, how we prove since the elections, we have generally improved across the board. they may disagree from one policy to the other. the ark of where we are going has been good. host: the settlement and the dominion case against fox. is that something that will increase confidence in elections, that was a defamation lawsuit. but a lot was on the line with dominion's performance. guest: we have heard worries from electronic voting machines, sometimes not from republicans and more regionally from her publicans. we have moved away from voting

machines that don't have paper. spike the heat on this issue, the fact that we have paper ballots in almost all of the jurisdictions and most of the places where you vote, they are a backup. it is not rely similar on technology. that was not the case 20 years ago and it is something they can give people confidence that even if you don't completely trust the machines, we have a backup that people can look at and confirm. host: john fortier is with us, talking about confidence in voting particularly in 2024. would love to hear your thoughts, (202) 748-8000 is the line for democrats. (202) 748-8001 four republicans, and (202) 748-8002 four independents and others. if you have concerns, what are they? what have you seen at your polling places? what are those concerns? we are going to talk about

legislation introduced by republicans and soon to be by democrats as well. the headline from the hill, republicans, conservative electric bill, it heads to the house floor. the confidence in voting act, republicans, american confidence in elections act, a bill that would get state and county election officials access to social security death lists to aid in the purging of voter rolls. it would require voters to present id before casting a ballot. including one that included d.c. elections. and it would prevent the irs from -- what is your view of that legislation? guest: you will remember that our primary legislation on

federal elections is at the state level. so we have differences in every place and that is historically in the constitution that that is the first place to go. the constitution also allows the federal government to provide a national standard. we have done that, voting rights legislation, after the major reform. sometimes more recently in covid, overseas and military voting. we have reached some consensus. but most things are done at the state level and we have significant differences. this reminds us of the democrat bill that they brought forth and after the 2020 elections, there are a month of priorities that are probably conservative being done in some red states. but there unlikely on the federal level.

but to divide the government with the senate and more than a 50 vote -- 50 vote threshold, i don't see this as it stands being able to proceed just as democrats were not able to proceed with their very large set of priorities. host: which changes in states and how they run their elections, mail-in voting, additional days to vote -- which have proven that continue on, into the 2022 elections and likely in 2024, in which have been tossed out? guest: the issues whether you vote by mail or early on election day, we saw a trend of increases. the number of people voting by mail and going down on election

day. we saw increases of voting by mail and election day going down. what we are starting to see in 2022 and probably in 2024 is some pulling back from that. but higher numbers than we would have had before 2020. some states, democratic states especially, some of them were more old-school. they're probably going to keep that. but you see republican states and in person and early voting. the trend is still up but we will probably not hit that high watermark of 2020 issues of where you vote and how. host: georgia change their election law for the 2020 vote. but the turnout, particularly in 2020, turned out to be higher. a change in 2018 and the turnout in 2020 was higher than ever.

what did critics get wrong about george's attempt at election reform? guest: if you step back and look at the data, there may be differences about particular practices. should we vote by mail, open up the cactus? both parties tend to exaggerate the effect it will have on voter turnout. democrats think it will lead to many more people voting and republican think the opposite. or it turns out the effects are not as great as you think. we should not have expected some of the restrictions in the georgia elections. it was not particularly strict or going back. it took back some of the things he did in the 2020 election, the

urgency, but they were not looking to go back to district rules. host: we look at the house republicans legislation. the democrats are planning to reintroduce the bill. there is the counterpoint to the republican plan. the freedom to vote act, it was extending voting by mail, it would increase cyber security measures for voting machines, provide more money for additional poll workers and introduce nonpartisan postelection audits and strengthen donor disclosure requirements for super pac. guest: similar to what they have introduced in the last couple congress is. republicans have a large set of priorities. but it is unlikely to go

anywhere. if the bill could not pass when democrats were in charge of the house, the senate and the presidency, it is unlikely to pass now in the biden government. these are happening at the state level. in many states, these are reforms that democratically led states are doing. some republican reforms are being done in republican states but the idea that we are going to see federal legislation setting a standard on all of these issues is very unlikely. host: i want to get to a text, a question from randy in michigan. would you ask your guest how we had fair elections for the first 150 years when there were not drivers licenses? when i first voted i only had to show an electric bill or a phone bill with my address on it. >> the photo id aspect, even though we talked about polling, is one hot button issue that people often see. one thing that we said it was that in those earlier days, if you really want to go back, we tend to people -- no people at

the polling place. when you shut up, your community would know you. so there are a great variety of ways that would show who you are. others state their name and address. there is a debate about what we should do. i do think it is kind of a hot button issue. but it is probably not as significant in either direction as some of the other things. if you have phone or the voter id, it might be helpful showing who showing up. but if you want to get it, more than cleaning up of the election, you look at the voter rolls and make sure they're clean and people underlying those ideas are who they say they are. i think those types of reforms, improving the voter registration system would make it more comprehensive and more active. that is a better set of reforms to hang your hat on and voter id. it can work if done right but it is not likely to have a huge effect.

host: and the processing of the voter rolls, part of the republican legislation to allow access to your death rolls. let's go to the independent line. caller: i am concerned about the validity of real id. i have heard the crack house have false real id. and i also think we are losing the privacy of the voting booth. mail-in voting. anybody can be looking over your shoulder and when you're at home or wherever, that is why you should have the privacy and the voting booth and one day voting only. that is my opinion. host: john fortier. guest: viewers may have noticed

that when you get your license renewed, you have to do a new process. it is to show that you are a citizen and for some of us it is hard to do that. not primarily related to the voting process, but many believe it will have an effect that will help clear up to some extent and make sure that you have only u.s. citizens on the voting rolls and not people who are not u.s. citizens. whether it can be fixed as the caller suggested, i have not heard that. but generally speaking, over time it will help improve the accuracy. on the second question, i wrote a book on absentee voting 50 years ago which was more historical. it was back to the early days. that was a great concern in the 19th century. that voting was more public and the city bosses and others would watch how you voted. that is one of the reasons we

adopted the so-called australian privacy booth, the simile are things we're saying. you can argue whether you like that or not. there are states that try to do the best at trying to preserve privacy. there are other procedures and i do think in a polling place, occasionally you see places that don't have the curtain. there something we said about the voter having that privacy. we are tracking a balance with all of the voting we are doing right now. host: to baltimore. bob on the line, republican. welcome. caller: thank you for your commentary. you mentioned about voter ids and presented it in a way where it is a nonissue or passé. but if you look at that history

and talk about the history of voting in this country, certain groups of people have been restricting people, they are subject to the barriers to keep them from voting. you think of those southern states in many states pushing for these voter id laws, they are doing it for a good reason. it might be misleading to people. it is really a gateway to suppression. once they passed voter id laws, there will be some restrictions within those states, and you can only have this type of id, if you travel to this one location to get that thing on a certain day at a certain time. and you have to not have this. and you've gotten the report card and they high school. this is a gateway to suppression. it sounds reasonable on the surface. but when you look at the history, this is something that

voter id, the voting rights act law tried to keep in check. they are currently from under the requirement. these states are closing polling statements and limiting mail-in voting. host: a response from john fortier. host: there's a history -- guest: he's right. there is a history of restrictions to keep people from voting and some of them have been benign. alliteration tax put in place, seemingly control but really it has the effect of putting black voters off.

but i will say in our jurisprudence on the voter id laws, we cannot require their be -- we can require their be free ids. often states have many options of how they present the types of ids you can present, whether an older id, expired, other state id. and often there are other failsafes that you can have an affidavit that you will get one, if you forgot your id, a provided process to get one on the spot. i'm not saying we should not look at this and figure out some of the details. but i think that broad direction is to allow people to get ideas in a way that will make this too much of a hassle. host: matthew in new york, democrat line. caller: mr. fortier, i have to

ask you, do you believe that the last presidential election was fair and honest daca could you answer that? -- honest? could you answer that? guest: i believe the result of the election was that president biden won the election and president trump lost. we can argue about a little thing in the election, but the broad results were consistent with a well-run election. caller: which party do think is trying to expand voting rights and which one is trying to curtail voting rights? i have never had to show my id, a paper bill or anything to vote. open their books, i signed my name, i vote. it is simple. there has not been any problem in regard to that. so i'm trying to find, why are

we beating this dead horse? it is over. look at michigan. can you tell the audience about michigan and what they have just implemented? host: thank you. guest: as i mentioned, i do think the parties have different broad views and how to run the elections. and underlying this, i think each state has come to a set of rules and laws. generally speaking, they provide a lot of options to people and they have some security measures. we can argue about how far each side goes but i don't think we are in a place where either we are limiting the vote by the practices we have or limiting it. we are not seeing a lot of voter fraud, the types of fraud that

sometimes people claim is widespread. that does not mean these issues are not important. there are issues that are important as to how we run elections well. there are significant issues you can point to on the integrity side that might not go as far as you want -- as far as fraud, but you have the not as good voter registration. we have questions about who handles the absentee ballots and i think there is reasonable rules for this. it is reasonable to have the conversation and the states are doing it. host: what do you think of this story of texas, the headline from politico that says the texas bipartisan voter list, they say texas is leaving the electronic information center,

and leaving the bipartisan program, they are saying the second most popular state is expected for months. and just five republican leading -- leading states are still members. guest: after the 2000 election, we were required states to update their lists. we don't really have a great way for arizona to talk to colorado and figure out whether they are people who move from one state to another, whether they can update each other's information. there been voluntary programs and the most prominent and most of his ticketed one divides data to help people get registered. here are names of people not on the list who eligible, as well as some questions about whether people have moved, change their

address, people have died at should be taken off the list. it is a good source of information and has been very helpful to the country. we see a number of republican states pulling out of this program now. their argument is that the program means to heavily on the seeking out voters part. they spend a lot of money mailing and others. there was the most efficient way, more voting integrity measures, checking databases. and democratic states did not want to change the program. republican states have pulled up. the republican states that have pulled out will lose some of the information they have gotten about voters who have died or moved across states. i think the program did some good but i do have an argument about what the balance of that program do that would have

republican states pull out of the program. host: on the independent line, from minnesota, john. whatcom. -- welcome. caller: thank you. i agree with the voting rolls and your contributor, john. there are ways at least in wisconsin, they have like 40% extra residents on the voter rolls then there are in wisconsin. that sounds weird. two, the 2020 election was a debacle. but we have never had drop boxes. they were not passed by the state legislatures and people just put them there. there is proof, i've seen in the news in arizona and detroit of

people pulling out ballots from under tables. there are affidavits from poll workers. so to say there is no proof is an incorrect statement. it is all your opinion of whether it is enough to return collection or anything. there is proof. i live in minnesota. we have valid collection -- ballot collection in minneapolis. it has been reported many times that they collect eyelets. there are a lot of irregularities that are white people are unhappy with the voter integrity. the question is, how many extra votes r.o.k.? --extra votes are ok? guest: you mentioned wisconsin had more people on the registration list then eligible voters.

roughly speaking, we have improved the registration lists a lot. the bush election, we had a very few states with strong statewide election voter rolls. they tended to have lots of little lists. but there are rules and regulations as to how you can take people off the rolls even if you know they are not eligible. you have moved away, they have not said they wanted to be taken off the list and you need a couple of elections of them not responding to take them off the list. a state like wisconsin, which has same-day registration, that can lead to people who show up -- an old name or address might be floating around on the list as well. there are some things we can do going forward to improve the quality of those lists but we have made a lot of progress in the last 20 plus years. this is something that became a hot button issue in the last

presidential election. there are places that a voter can take a mail-in ballot and rather than put them into the mail system, i think it can work and they have done quite well. but i think the voter is right. in some states, this was done an emergency basis without a law being passed. there is worry this is done on partisan basis. states are going to do much more in person early voting, election day voting. these types of options are not as necessary or you would need fewer of them. finally on ballot collection, there is another issue with voting by mail which became partisan in the 2020 election. republicans are more skeptical. it is an issue. there are ballots out there. there are rules for reasonable

regulation as to how those ballots might be collected. there is a limit on how many an individual can collect. someone point for that need for a family member or someone to help them, that is also a factor one should way. there is regulation that balances those priorities of ballot collection and it is an issue that regulation might take care of. host: on the issue of election confidence in elections, (202) 748-8000 free democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. for independents and others, (202) 748-8002. yorktown, virginia, the republican line. good morning. caller: there are so many issues, it is hard to know where to start. i would like to correct the impression that might have been given that the real id is exclusive to citizens.

it is not. it's an plea verifies that you are who you say you are and is given to all types of noncitizens in the united states. the second thing i would like to say is that there is a nonprofit that lacked transparency. it also allowed another nonprofit, the statement, access to the voter role, unbeknownst to many citizens in the state. and there are data breaches. we would not be notified. when this was released into the michigan what is later, it was a data breach. i bet you that nobody in michigan knows that there voter in frustration -- voter information and anything out that was given to eric was released. republicans are just jumping out willy-nilly, there is a reason for that. i could go on but i won't.

the last point i would like to try and bring up is that section 611 of usc eight requires citizenship in federal elections. but this goes out of their way to contradict the law in that it restricts the from requiring document terry proof of evidence at time of registration. this belief down the road of the debate, if they would allow proof of citizenship and registration, then the id issue would not be so critical. so until this is fixed at a federal level, until they address with legislation, efforts to help people who may have a problem obtaining a proof of their citizenship, because it is quite costly to do so if you have lost all of your document asian in a fire. i agree with that. but no stomach for trying to help people get their proof of

citizenship but rather throwing the baby out with the bathwater and saying because it is difficult for some people, nobody needs to provide it. thank you for the opportunity to comment. post: thank you. -- host: thank you. guest: you're right about this. while it is true you are not required to be a citizen in all states to get forms of id, you're often showing documentation that shows whether you are a citizen or not. some states are using it and collecting it like the new voters, those who have registered before, to include the records and have some evidence that they are citizens. while it is not comprehensive, states go out on the information for many who go through the process and might be voters. second, i think you are right that there were other concerns republican states had. the big one though is that they

do not believe that the program had enough of a focus on the cleaning up of the list. and the money they had to spend was primarily in the area of sending mailing to people that were not that efficient not -- in terms of getting them to register to vote. there were concerns about the republicans. but it is a loss for losing some of those, but data that helps republican states determine whether they are in a state, died, or they can clean this up. there is a balance between this information and things they may have wanted. finally, the question of citizenship data. i don't think that is going to be done at a federal level. there is the mixing and mismatch of various laws. there are some ability of states

to address these issues. but some points in the republican bill are asking for use of the federal databases. i don't think we're there the federal level. we do not have agreement from both parties to move in that direction. host: from delaware, kathleen, mccright line. -- democrat line. caller: good morning. when it comes to voter registration and id, it seems simpleminded. but it seems to me that a picture id card with your address or something legitimate on it and a handprint, they have little silver boxes with a screen that all you do is lay your hand down on it and recorded. kids can get this, i find it

hard to duplicate a handprint. when it comes to the means, so many states have a different ballot. i have been in delaware and they vote on a piece of paper and you write your exes on those. you put it in a box. i forget what george bush, florida had something called hanging chads. no one knows what those were. finally, in new york state when i voted there, they had a machine. and he walked up to the machine, stepped in, pulled the lever that closed the curtain behind you. and there was a name board. each competition's name and party was right there.

all you have to do is reach over and push down the lever and you get the names you want, you push the lever down, when you're done you pull it back. the curtains open up. host: we are having a throwback moment. recalling the voter boots like that. but we talked with the privacy. what else would you like to respond to our color on? guest: they talked about other forms of id, handprint, retinal scan. we have not figured out the way to implement them and the privacy concerns, we are looking at other forms of id for the near future. in the voting booth, you are right. you mentioned several forms of voting which had disappeared after the 2000 election. it was the first time after which we provided federal money to all of the states and ate a lot of that went to voting technology. to eliminate the so-called

undercover ballots. also those machines when i cast my first vote. those were not a secure is today. today we had pretty much filling out the piece of paper, something that scanned, and we had fewer and fewer but other machines. most of us have the paper backup a few don't. we moved to a few technologies. one other thing to note is compared to other countries in the world, there are more complex. have a long ballot and you might enter many ballot questions. sometimes it goes on several pages. other countries tend to have a simple one office per election by hand. and what our complicated elections means is that we need this technology and it breaks up some other issues. host: our guest has written three books, two of which deal with election processes. if you were to write a book

about elections today, what area would you focus on? guest: i did write about voting absentee and early, which was an issue back into thousand six and it is still important. but i think i would look back to that 2000 election that we had. it was controversial and some of the changes we have made since then. there are a lot of things we argued about. there has been notable progress. we have had elections in the voter turnout that has followed from that. looking at the course of history in the last 23 years or so, marie made some improvements, would be something we get. host: do you think voter turnout will be as strong as it was in 2020 for 2024? guest: despite these questions of how you vote and voting technology, the real driver is intensity, polarization, 2020 was under very strange

conditions and elevated detentions. i expect a high turnout election, is high-stakes. it is a little bit of a fall back from 2018. we might not have quite the levels we saw in 2020, but maybe the second highest. wobbly not as high as 2020. -- probably not as high as 2020. host: john fortier, from the market at a price. great to have you back with us on washington journal. that will do it for the program this morning. we appreciate your participation in the conversation. we hope you are back at 7:00 tomorrow morning as well. enjoy the rest of your day. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> today on c-span, north

carolina party chair anderson clayton, the youngest of the country, has a virtual event with the washington post. just after 11:00 eastern this morning. and at noon, at conversation on transparency in the economic marketplace with federal trade commission chair lena con, hosted by the economic club of new york. later today, former state department officials talk about strategy for iran. the event is hosted by the jewish institute for national security of america. at 7:45 p.m. eastern, allen west speaks about conservative principles at the young america's foundation national conservative student conference. you can also watch our network using the free c-span out video

out or go online to c-span.org. >> congress returns tuesday for legislative business and votes. the house will consider its first 2024 spending bill, funding the able cultural department, fda nva for next year. current government funding expires september 30. senate gambles in at 3:00 p.m. instead -- eastern. once live coverage of the house -- watch live coverage of the house and see spent. you can watch all congressional coverage with our free video out c-span now or online at c-span.org. >> tell the democracy does not just look like this. it looks like this, where americans can see democracy at work and citizens are truly informed. every public stripes. get -- a republiciv