republican huddled on capital

hill taking the first step to electing a new speaker. they are under pressure to act quickly in order to provide aid to israel. the speaker battle on capitol hill and your thoughts on what is happening in the middle east. for democrats (202) 748-8000, for republicans (202) 748-8001 and for independents (202) 748-8002 you can also text at (202) 748-8003 or on facebook facebook.com/cspan. good morning everyone and welcome to our new home at the washington journal. we are in a brand-new studio, in the same building on a different floor. it has been a year in the

making. we have new monitors, new backgrounds, new desks, new lighting. one thing that will not change as the conversation we have with each of you every morning. if you want a more in-depth tour of this new studio you can go online and take a tour along with us to check it all out. for the first hour, we have a double headline with the speaker battle on capitol hill and how the u.s. is responding to the israel/hamas issue. let's begin with the meeting last night with republicans. what came out of that? guest: last night's meeting, it was more of a group

conversation. it was the start of the week but not quite the beginning of the speaker selection which will be tonight where republicans will meet for a cabinet forum. last night was a lot of reflection on what happened last week with the ousting of speaker mccarthy. there was a lot of anger towards the eight republicans who joined with democrats who caused it to happen. there are two candidates steve scalise and jim jordan who will lay out their case. we will see how that goes. host: how are each of those candidates doing of what is the vote count look like? guest: it's hard to tell. there are some that show started with a slight lead.

but the conference is pretty vague. a lot could happen. they do have the freedom caucus in the ohio delegation which is giving jim jordan a slight lead over steve scalise. host: how many votes do they need to become speaker and do either one of these gentlemen have them? guest: to become speaker they will need 215 votes which is a high bar with the mccarthy situation. to become the nominee of the republican congress which is half of the congress. presumably, one of them should be able to get there.

some in the conference are trying to change the conference rules to require 217 to move to the floor. that would draw this out in my opinion. that would take a longer time in the second, as i mentioned earlier, that is a high bar. host: why do some want to get to 217 behind closed doors before they bring the vote to the public on the house floor? guest: the argument there, they do not want a redo of january. when they had vote after vote and mccarthy could not become speaker and lead to negotiating with the holdouts. and he made the deal which

included the one vote to vacate and we saw what happened last week. republicans want to avoid a repeat of january. host: will this vote take place on wednesday? guest: the internal conference vote would take place on wednesday. whether or not we see a vote on the floor is a lot more questionable. the cabinet seems to have close to 217. it will take a little for them to get to that number. host: some of the party feel like they need to move more quickly because the house cannot act and there is this conflict in the middle east.

why can't the house act? guest: without a speaker in place there are constitutional pressures about those speaker pro tem. there are some people that believe that he can act and some say constitutionally the only thing he can do is move towards a speaker election. republicans coming out of yesterday's meeting were straightforward and the fact that they are pushing for an israel aid package but they want to get back on track and get back to these appropriation bills. and they want to elect new speaker quickly and that is likely are easier said than done because there will be a lot of

conflict. host: thank you for setting up a conversation this morning. we appreciate it. guest: thank you for having me. host: we have margaret from kansas, a democratic caller. caller: i would like to say, the coverage of the gaza, israeli thing. it has been liking -- lacking insight as to why it is happening. if anyone has been watching netanyahu in his extreme treatment of the palestinians. that is bound to happen if you have an apartheid and you hurt people. it's been disappointing with israel that they don't seem to be able to get rid of this guy.

of course it's the fault of people who go and kill like that but on the other hand, it did not come out of the clear blue. they have been treating people with the part tied conditions as long as netanyahu has been there. host: as we have said, there are double headline this morning. domestically, on capitol hill the republicans start the initial steps of electing a new speaker. they are the majority of the house and they have the majority to elect a new speaker and that started last night with airing grievances behind closed doors. they will be behind closed doors again tonight. this is all related to what can the u.s. do to respond to aid israel if there is no speaker of the u.s. house of representatives.

in the israeli left-leaning newspaper, the editorial board had this piece yesterday. netanyahu bears responsibility for this israel/gaza war. the prime minister who prided himself on political experience failed to identify the danger he was leading israel into after establishing a government of annexation while embracing foreign policy that ignored the rights of palestinians. that is an editorial in the left-leaning israeli newspaper. we have jason, a republican from kentucky. go ahead. caller: good morning. host: we are listening. go ahead. caller: this has to do with the israeli conflict in the hamas

conflict. i would like to comment about some of the members of congress and their anti-somatic comments. -- anti-semitic. it seems to me there should be some sort of reprimand for those members of congress. we have iran, and michigan. -- eileen in michigan caller: i believe when mr. mccarthy put himself in that position. the new people that were elected, he swore the men when he took the gavel.

he made them officially members of congress but they were not members of congress. until he swore the men, they did not go through the normal methodology of being sworn in and officially made members of congress when the whole vote took place. it is confusing to me how this went through. they were not members. they did not have a badge, they did not take pictures, they were not sworn in devoted. host: we got it. we go to new haven, connecticut, a democratic caller. caller: good morning. we are speaking about the war in israel. host: what are your thoughts on

that? caller: when the lady said just a few -- the lady who called and i agree with her. there are american jewish people who disagree with netanyahu. they told jewish people who live in israel to come home. they did not have space for all of those people. they took the palestinian land and that is wrong. netanyahu is in some legal trouble two. -- too. i think they should get

along and they won't do it with netanyahu as the leader. and i am so sorry israel was attacked and people died. that is pretty much my comment. host: sophia in manhattan, and independent. caller: good morning greta. i hate so use the word blaming but netanyahu has been a good leader for many years. the last seven years, completely changed when trumps son-in-law went to israel without security clearance. he went to israel, made this deal.

first trump would pardon his father. second, what happened to gaza, israel. if jared kushner, trump is not a politician. when he went there, made that deal. host: are you referring to the abrams accord? i am not following sophia. as we heard from the top there are discussions when the house speaker is elected the house and senate would move on aid to israel and that aid to ukraine could be tied to that proposal as well. here the headline in the washington post.

it is the speakers job to move legislation. mccarthy's succession must be chosen but it is not clear when they can declared victory. there have been several requests to washington including the replenishment of the iron dome and various rounds of ammunition and cooperation with intelligence sharing. that reporting is from the washington post. this came up yesterday when republicans met behind closed doors to talk about the electing of this new speaker. steve scalise, speaking to reporters as stressing support for israel. [video clip]

>> if i can get a little separation. obviously, this has been going on for days. members want to come together. we have to get back on track. this is a dangerous world right now. we stand strong with israel in the house needs to get back to work. we need total resolved to make sure we can come together quickly and get our speaker elected on tuesday. and then let's get back to the people's business. from all of our members to come together and get back on track. host: steve scalise who is vying for speakership in the house talking to reporters yesterday. there is also mitch mcconnell writing in today's wall street journal for steps for the u.s.

to help israel. first distinguish between the aggressor and victims there can be no calls for both sides to de-escalate. second, quickly provide the specific capabilities and intelligence for israel to target and destroy these savages. make america's defense of priority. while war is expensive failure costs more. and finally he writes, focus on iran. there is already information that this war was done with assistance from tehran. just as they helped with hezbollah in syria. we recognize the deepening

partnership tehran and hamas. and used by russia to inflict terror in ukraine. that was mitch mcconnell writing in today's wall street journal. in jamestown, north carolina we have dell. caller: good morning. i would like to say with the chaos regarding the speakership, the gentleman patrick mchenry if he could say give me liberty and give me the speakership. this chaos, why not just let the house take the interim speaker and make him the speaker for this time?

i am looking forward to next november when i hope and pray that he keep jeffrey's -- h akeem jeffries becomes the leader of the house. host: we have susan from north carolina. caller: i just want to say, i am ashamed of america today. after hearing on tv, they are protesting and glorifying hamas for butchering the people in israel like they did. i am so ashamed and i am ashamed that members and the democratic congress are traitors too.

i am ashamed of america. i am ashamed of this president. he is the worst president in history has ever had. there were people in the protest that had swastikas on their arms and the democrats are always calling the republicans white supremacist and nazis. it looked like the nazis were right there. host: david in georgia, and independent. caller: thank you for c-span in washington journal. the speaker pro tem, he takes over the responsibilities of the speaker. so we have a speaker right now.

this is all sensationalism you can move forward with whatever you need to. this is just a bunch of sensationalism. host: why do you think it is unclear? caller: it's not unclear, that is what pro tem means. host: we have lawrence from south carolina, hi david oh -- lawrence. are you there? caller: yes. host: we are listening, go ahead. we are listening to you, it is your turn. i will put you on hold to see if we can get back to you. chorizo in new york. -- teresa in new york.

caller: i stand with israel. i am totally ashamed of our politicians in washington, how they are supporting the non-israelis. it is breaking my heart. are we waiting for hamas to come to the united states and terrorize our country? we need to stand firm. we need to support israel. they have been our friends for many, many years. i am embarrassed of our president and those who are supporting him. please understand that we need to keep our nation safe and at the same time supportive friends and family in israel. host: the front page of the

national newspaper this morning, israel for ground assaults in gaza. the new york times israel orders a siege, hamas receives threats. if the stripes from israel continue without warning they will kill the hostages that they have. you have usa today their headline, israel's retaliatory strikes are just the start. and on the front page of the washington times, netanyahu valves historical change. -- vows historical change. [video clip] >> israel is that war, we did not want this war. although we did not start this war we will finish it.

once, the jewish people were stateless, defenseless, no longer. hamas will understand that by attacking us they made a mistake of historic proportions. we will exact a price that will be remembered by them and israel's enemies for decades to come. the savage attacks that hamas perpetrated against israelis is mind-boggling. massacring hundreds of young people at an outdoor festival. hamas bombed elderly, women and children. and just as we united to defeat isis, we hope they will support israel to defeat hamas.

i want to thank president biden for his support and those standing with israel. i want to the people in congress of the united states of america. in fighting hamas it is not just fighting for our own peace but every country standing against barbarism. israel will win this world and when we win the entire civilized world wins. host: netanyahu yesterday. this first hour we are getting your thoughts on what is happening domestically on capitol hill. the battle for speaker and you also have this conflict in israel between israel and gaza. we are talking about both of those. for republicans (202) 748-8001, for democrats (202) 748-8000, for independents (202) 748-8002

and you can all text us just include your first name, city, and state. (202) 748-8003, or on facebook facebook.com/cspan or on x http://twitter.com/cspanwj. the militant group received help from iran and they say the leader of hamas that his group received 70 million and assistance from iran. they provide 100,000,002 palestinian terrorist groups. current and former officials said iran provided technical help and manufacturer of the rockets, drones launched on

israel since saturday. hamas militants have also undergone training at lebanese camps staffed by technical advisors from has below. tom and crockett, texas. caller: i am here. they need to stop all the racket up there. matt gaetz started all that mess and all you get is fighting. the republicans fighting the democrats and the democrats fighting the republicans. and the people out in the world

hate each other because they are republican or democrats. host: who do you think the speaker should be? caller: i think someone with good sense. don't choose one of those people who wants to keep the racket going. know somebody who knows what's going on and put him in there. host: congressman kevin mccarthy held a news conference where he talked about the situation in the middle east and the need to elect a speaker it would not rule out the possibility that he could become speaker. we have roberta, a republican. caller: i wanted tell you something greta. i am upset with people who think

hamas is doing a great thing. i think it takes a lot of crazy people that hamas is our best friend. the last thing i want to say is this. i have a survey from the democratic party and there is not a thing in here about being 23 trillion in debt. there is only a thing about spending more money. i have never seen hate mail like this in my life. the republicans are going after the people if they don't win the election. i used to think this country was a great country. if my own children turn democrat i would not let them in my

house? do i make myself clear to those democrats out there? all you do is spend, spend, spend. i have lost a child and i have a child he was dying because of cancer. i still care about my country and i wish you democrats would put your own selves in someone else's place and think about the nation instead of your own selves. host: jerry in detroit. caller: i think the speaker of the house, i think the israelis should choose the speaker since they already influence our so much better. it's ridiculous. host: we have bob in sarasota,

florida. caller: good morning. for those callers who blame b iden for hamas. but with this clown show of the republicans, look what happened? that is the problem with the republicans. they need to support israel and ukraine. that is the bottom line. host: so you want to see any aid package include aid for ukraine? caller: 1,000,000,000,000%. we can't make deals with terrorists. it's like isis. they will cut heads off in public. really? host: we have lawrence in south

carolina, a republican. caller: i am disappointed in the republicans fighting each other and biden needs to decide if he's going to be an american or communist or supporting iran or these foreign countries that are against the united states. we need to support america. we need to quit bickering. we need to quit arguing with each other and republicans need to get together and fight for america or the united states of america and given all this money

to iran and hamas. these countries that are against us. i am sick of it. we need to support israel, not sure about iran, ukraine. i don't know where they stand. they are giving money to the biden's. host: catherine and burlington, new jersey. -- in burlington, new jersey. caller: i am calling in about the speaker pro tem. the speaker pro tem should have full authority to carry on the business of the house. it's like the vice president who

takes over of the president is not there. i suggest that the rules be changed that the speaker pro tem has full authority to carry on with duties so we don't have this problem. host: chris, a republican in chicago. caller: the biggest question i have, the intelligence. how come our intelligence is finding out things ahead of time. this attack, january 6, cyber attacks. how come they aren't catching that? that's the biggest problem i'm having right now. as much money we are spending for this intelligence and nothing is being caught ahead of time. host: there are pieces in the paper this morning that you may be interested in. in the wall street journal, they talk about what happened there.

israel caught by surprise and prepared for the wrong war. israel spent three years building a high tech security barrier with radar sensors. on saturday, they used bulldozers to punch through the fence and flooded in with pickup trucks and on foot. it was the largest breach on the borders since the 1973 yom kippur war. it was a shift in focus on cyber intelligence and concentration of counter attacks. they were caught off guard by

low-tech ground assault. your reaction to that? caller: that is what i'm concerned about. we spend all this money in the united states for the pentagon and all of that. they keep wanting more money but were not getting anything out of it. that is what concerns me. host: do you think that kind of thing could happen here? caller: that's what i'm starting to wonder. we know who they are and what they have in mind for us in the united states. host: ron in north carolina. caller: i wanted to mention there is a college campus in greensboro that has been purchased by the chinese and is scared to house illegal immigrants.

it is on hodge road in greensboro, north carolina and we need to find out who was there and what they are doing. host: gary in atlanta, we are talking about the race to elect the next speaker of the republican party and the pressure of gop is feeling to get this done quickly. to move on a response to the israel/hamas conflict. caller: good morning greta. i wanted to talk about the conflict that i see between america and america. when russians blow up apartments we say it is a war crime. when the israelis blow up the same apartments we call it retaliation.

there are 4 million people where they cut off water, electricity and food. if vladimir putin had been done that we would talk about that as a war crime. all of those people are not hamas. if you cut water, electricity and food you will kill women and children that have nothing to do with it. a lot of republicans talking about fiscal responsibility but the person leading in the polls is donald trump who rose the budget. when republicans get in, it doesn't mean anything. it's the hypocrisy that confuses me. host: tony in new york, and independent. caller: i just want to say, from

the river to the sea palestine will be free. i know a lot of white people in the west have a lot to say about the settlers occupying palestine . there has not been a lot about the history of apartheid, there needs to be a movement to end apartheid in palestine. we must demilitarized, the united states has push their colonialism, the united states is always trying to militarize. in general, they're trying to train police and tactics here.

host: that was tony, more of your calls are coming. back to the speaker base on capitol hill. i want to show you what congressman mike waller said about the dynamics of the gop speaker contest. this was yesterday. [video clip] >> a lot of people believe jim jordan is the right person to lead us. we will have our conversation tonight. i have spoken with their prospective candidates. we will have our conversation and see where we go from there. to me, i have said repeatedly. if there is not accountability for what just happened how do you work as a conference and how do you actually govern?

if eight people can upend what 96% of the congress believes and work with 208 democrats including reseda so we, eric swalwell and aoc and hakeem jeffries to remove a republican speaker. how do you deal with that? >> does the motion to vacate need to be reformed? >> is much bigger than that. that's procedural thing. if you don't have people who are willing to compromise within the conference and work as a unit then it makes it very difficult. this is much different than a motion to vacate at where eight republicans align with democrats to remove the speaker. this is about a lot more than that. host: that was congressman mike

lawler talking about the dynamics of play over the speaker race. republicans will meet behind closed doors again today to take another step toward selecting a speaker. yesterday, kevin mccarthy held a news conference and talked about -- or was asked if hamas could exploit the lack of a speaker or if they did in launching an attack against israel? [video clip] >> i think a number of things have transpired. the new administration did not embrace the abraham accords that went after saudi arabia and rewarded iran. secondly, the president's position in afghanistan. people did not question if

americo would be there. the culmination of this new axis of power, of evil, china, russia and iran. we watched a president that lifted the sanctions of nord stream to but got nothing in return. it was a neville chamberlain moment. we watch the attack on american energy production lowering our strategic petroleum reserve and the price of oil is up. it's almost a hundred dollars a barrel. the production in america attacking it. those are moments our time that our weakness where evil feels like they can move and that's exactly what they did. host: congressman mccarthy talking about the void left by not having a speaker. we are asking you this morning

because the gop leadership conference as well as this conflict between israel and hamas. stephanie from new jersey, let's hear from you. caller: good morning greta. that money is not going to iran directly. it was going to the people of iran and this is what i keep saying. they keep saying biden gave the money. no, he did not. kevin mccarthy, as far as him being ousted. the democrats are not

responsible for keeping mccarthy in office. mccarthy came out of the meeting and held a press conference and immediately blasted the democrats. not only that, he gave the go-ahead for them to hold a hearing on biden and they wanted them to vote for him? the democrats alone could not vote mccarthy out. there were republicans voted with them. that is what tipped them over. host: an update in the new york times this morning on the speakership raise. scalise makes his pitch to bring together a party that split over mccarthy.

a key plank of steve scalise's speech is that he is a fundraising powerhouse, he is raised 170 million over the course of his career to help win elections. he spent 112 days campaigning for members and candidates over the past five years. he has given 7.2 million to republicans and 50 millions to the national republican committee. there is a profile piece that you can find it on the newspaper's website. michelle in new york, good morning to you. caller: congressman lawler, i called his office.

what they don't get, 400 elected officials have taken the voices away from 400 million people. in poll after poll, we don't want to fund ukraine. we want our border security. we are being told what we are seeing with their own eyes is not what we are seeing. you keep quoting the new york times. i can give you 30 times that the new york times reporting has been completely false. you keep reading from the new york times. host: what should we read? caller: tell the truth. you guys for months tell us what we are seeing on the streets of new york.

should we be spending money everywhere when we have terrorists that have crossed our borders? the only situation that america needs to deal with is stop the influx. we live through 9/11, you can't tell us what we saw on 9/11 wasn't true. congress's first obligation is to stop. the day after mccarthy was released biden started building the wall. why, because they believe they would impeach him? everything that biden has done has been against the american people. i never was a trump person so i want to be clear on that. they have no responsibility to the american people. we have nothing and our

strategic fuel pile. what happens when it comes to our shores? do you think it is not going to? we live through 9/11 so you don't know what it is to have terrorist takedown buildings. hundreds of people died in the aftermath of that. you don't tell the full story of where 2400 hawaiian children are. mccarthy stood behind the representative why did 2400 hawaiian children register for school. where are those children now? we can clearly see you are one-sided. fox news, cnn, you guys are pushing us. host: where do you get your

news? caller: i don't watch fox news, msnbc or cnn. host: we heard your point. read, in north carolina. caller: i want to reiterate what some of the other people said. we are not being told on the news about what the palestinians have been going through for decades. they live in an apartheid state and they have daily problems from israel on the palestinian people. hamas is a terroristic group but that's because they have not

pushed forward a better solution. host: there are two pieces you may be interested in the washington post. this one is from daweed qatab. he said the united states should recognize appellant damien state -- a palestinian state. adjusting the u.n. general assembly without knowing where the palestinian future, they live without human rights, no say in their lives. egyptian intelligence has warned israel that there will be

catastrophe without political progress. those attacks produced atrocities i cannot be justified. no righteous cause can justify the slaughter but it also exposed that they oppose occupation. support 402 state solution is higher than for any other alternative. having a palestinian state requires recognition from the united nations in the united states has wielded his veto against the issue that it pays lip service. above that is a piece from human rights activist and former political prisoner of the soviet

union. now who comes the test of those who have the human right for self defense. later, we will find how are intelligence failed. maybe we will go back to 1990 3 and yasser arafat. we may also question from withdrawing from gaza. right now, we have to destroy the organization that seeks to destroy us. for that, we must fight a war. while leaders have denounced hamas barbarism. but what about tomorrow?

what will happen is the palestinian death toll rises the same leaders will forget that hamas is fighting on different terms. the front page of the new york times, 900 people have been killed in israel and more than 2600 wounded since the incursion began on saturday. 687 palestinians were killed and more injured. israel mobilized 300,000 military reserves amid signs that it could be preparing for a major ground invasion and the opening of another front from hezbollah in the north. we have a democratic caller from washington. good morning. caller: i won't hyperventilate

like some of the other colors that have been on. -- callers that have been on. as far as the speaker, the democrats have a stronger position. they will not get hakeem jeffries through so they should put up a name like eric cantor who has been out of office for 6, 7 years. he was part of republican leadership and he should be able to look at things from a different perspective because he is not there. as far as israel is concerned, nobody trusts netanyahu. they supposedly had the best intelligence in the medalist -- middle east but the miss this

huge attack on them. netanyahu has political interest if an attack comes to his doorstep. amongst his legal troubles, it solidifies his position to have a war campaign. are we going to sit here and watch the raise 140 miles of 2 million people. host: that is appointed accusation to make. that he would sacrifice his own people for his political gain? caller: i know, that's a stretch. it is just like 9/11 here.

bush got information before the attack and he did nothing with it. i am positively sure that israel had some inkling that an attack may be coming. host: rick, in fredericksburg, virginia, a republican. caller: i told everyone, the only thing supporting the united states is to shut the border down. being emphatic about things, nobody really knows what is going on. you have a view, maybe not a birds eye view. we are in a lot of trouble the snatch and grab in places. black lives matter has been horrific for our nation and it's

destroying us. it's the same thing over and over again. host: we will go to pete in alabama. caller: we all know who is running our country, it is not president biden, it is obama. host: when we come back, we will talk with molly reynolds from the brookings institute and bob cusack the editor in chief of the hill newspaper. we will talk about the speaker battle in the future of congress. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪

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documentary competition is back, celebrating 20 years with this year's theme, looking forward while considering the past and we are asking middle and high school students to create a video addressing this question -- over the next 20 years, what is the most important change would like to see in america? or, over the past 20 years, what was the most important change in america? every teacher who has students participate has the opportunity to share a portion of an additional 50,000 dollars. deadline is friday, january 19, 2024. more information, visit our website at kimm.org. >> washington numeral continues. -- washington journal continues. host: i want to welcome molly reynolds, from brookings

institute, and bob cusack, editor-in-chief of the help newspaper. -- the hill newspaper. welcome to our new home. let's start with the latest on this speaker race. what have we learned after the gop conference behind closed doors last night? guest: nothing is settled. they are still in a state of facts, do not have a speaker. after last week's debacle, most republicans got out of town. they are having discussions about changing the as far as motion to vacate. they do not have consensus there. they certainly do not have consensus on who will be the next speaker. the curveball yesterday was kevin mccarthy did a pivot. lastly, he said he was not running for speaker but he did not rule it out yesterday. that is another indication that this could go on. host: they will go behind closed

doors again tonight. what are they doing? guest: they are trying to get some type of consensus. they had consensus on kevin mccarthy at least with 97% of republicans back -- 90-some percent of republicans backing him. they will have a vote and say who ever wins everybody should get behind them, but this is a different party. matt gaetz and the rebels were able to so i do not think they will get to that point where they can go to the floor and have one vote and elect a speaker. will it be 15 rounds? not so sure, but you never know. host: republicans are saying according to their own in party rules that they have to have what, 211, behind closed doors, and 217 on the floor? guest: yes.

democrats will hope for you jeffrey spread -- will vote for hakim jeffries. that will be in animas. whoever republicans are holding out on, whether it is police, mccarthy or somebody else, that is possible. patrick mchenry is respected by democrats but i do not think he would get democratic votes, but he is respected in the conference. he is a possible speaker even though he says he does not want it. host: let's talk about the idea of electing someone behind closed doors versus the public seeing that vote like in january. guest: one of the challenges is that people have different incentives to take positions behind closed doors versus publicly. we have seen some push from some elements of the republican conference to try and find

everyone who is chosen behind closed doors on the floor. historically, there is no rule to do that. it was just an expectation. but we have reached a point where the divisions are serious enough in the republican conference that we are seeing this push from some numbers -- some members -- when that vote comes on the floor. host: bobby said in the past they would decide behind closed doors and go to the floor and have this vote. why did it change in january? what president was set? host: this january was not the first time we had seen members of the majority already vote for someone else for speaker on the floor. that has happened votes to republicans -- john boehner -- but also nancy pelosi when she

ran for speaker in early 2019. that is a reflection of how parties are changing and the degree to which there are divisions that are getting revealed on the floor. what was different in january with kevin mccarthy was that we saw for a -- the first time in a long time that enough members of the party defected so that we ended up with 15 rounds of voting. host: put this in historical context. not having a speaker, instead having a replacement speaker, but that in historical context. guest: the rule that allows mr. mchenry to ascend to the speaker part importing position, -- speaker pro tempore was adopted

in the aftermath of september 11. that was over continuity concerns. folks were worried about events incapacitating people. so we have not had the world out long. this is a different set of circumstances and the drafters of the role imagine. they wrote the role, they were thinking about a mass catastrophe where the speaker was dead or incapacitated. this is different. we are seeing that play out in terms of what mr. mchenry is doing within the speaker pro tempore position. there is a lot of speculation about what he can and cannot do. we know? guest: that is an open question. there are questions with the situation in israel what can he do? a lot of republicans want to

move forward. in a normal week, house republicans would bring a resolution to the floor and maybe put democrats who are synthetic to palestine on defense, but they cannot do anything. however, that is why i think the longer this goes, just like paul ryan did not want the job initially and then he did, you never know. maybe mchenry could get it. in the last congress, we had the same small majority for democrats as we had four republicans, but nancy pelosi's track record of being able to lean on her caucus and if you process, she will punish you. that is usually the case. you do not want to vote against the likely speaker because he or she could get revenge. host: let's have our viewers join us.

republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can text us as well at (202) 748-8003. you can also go to facebook.com/c-span or post on x. i will send it back to you and where this contest stands between jim jordan and steve scalise. guest: jim jordan has gotten a big endorsement in some ways, from former president trump, who was toying with the idea that you do not have to be a member to be speaker, but we have not seen that. jordan has gotten more endorsements, but mostly republican conference is undecided. a lot of them, they will pick the number two guy. that is how it works. that person is steve scully's.

-- steve scalise. fentress are the ones to watch. there are 18 republicans who represent districts that biden kindly. -- that biden won, they are not crazy about jim jordan. i think they will favor skill eats, -- steve scalise, also conservative like jordan. five years ago, mccarthy and jordan faced off against one another. mccarthy trounced jordan, won by 113 votes. that is significant in showing that jordan did not have much support five years ago. the get to two 17? hard to see, but if you had to pick one that had more momentum

than the other, i would say it is jordan now but a lot of mccarthy backers will back scalise. but mccarthy and scalise have had a falling out. unclear where mccarthy would stand it he had to pick. he did not rule out endorsing one of the candidates. host: what about steve scalise's fundraising prowess versus jim jordan's? how much of a factor is that in party contests? guest: significant. if you are the top democrat in either chamber come right you will be able to fundraising significantly. mccarthy was a great fundraiser. scalise a good fundraiser, jordan so, but if he was speaker, that would be different. scalise also has blood cancer. we saw how he survived the shooting at the congressional baseball practice. but there are questions about

whether he can do the demands of the job as well as the fundraising? the house and senate and white house are all up for grabs. money is important. guest: that is absolutely right. once you have the position, that itself brings a certain amount of fundraising prowess. but these are considerations folks are making. the number of undecided members at this point is telling and important. it does mean that if someone started to get substantial momentum, they could see a real flood in one direction. we will just have to see. they go behind closed doors again tonight. at what what will they bring this to the floor. i do not know. i think they are hoping sooner rather than later. but we will see. host: steve scalise made the

pitch to his fellow conservatives if i am not your first choice, can i be your second? do you think because you are seeing the freedom caucus go toward jim jordan that they would support steve scalise? guest: today do not have concerns with him anything philosophically -- they do not have concerns with him philosophically but they want a fresh slate of leaders. it is talked about but rarely happens. send this with the shut down. it is all in play for leverage. let who wins the behind the scenes vote, that person will have leverage to say "i won." we saw that in the race years ago between roy blunt and john boehner. blunt could not get there on the first vote and anger --boehner

was able to surpass blunt because a lot of people who support them of the first vote did not support him on the second. host: jacksonville, florida, democratic caller. caller: i say i was curious student why no democrat reached out to save kevin mccarthy. it was probably because he allowed that impeachment inquiry into joe biden to enhance, but it is interesting. i would have thought that they would have reached out, given the fact that now we will have someone that is more extreme, to the right and also another populist that will be trying to renting -- trying to run an

institution -- we trying to save institutions and keep putting anti-institutionalists like jim jordan and power. host: got it. molly reynolds, how often does one crossover and support the other on a leadership contest? guest: we basically never see that in the house. there is talk about whether we might see it now. but there are two reasons why we did not. one, it is personal to kevin mccarthy. basically every -- mccarthy has angered basically every element of the house democratic congress -- caucus. they felt mccarthy was not trustworthy. more broadly, given how far apart and help polarize our parties are, it is not sustainable for a republican to

go to a group of democrats to pop up his leadership position over the long-term. maybe he could have worked with democrats to get a stay of execution commitment for any length of time, having to go to republicans -- two democrats repeatedly for procedural votes, that would have undermined his strength with his own conference. it was not going to be sustainable. guest: it is a party-line vote. after mccarthy was removed, he had a remarkable press conference where he said he reached out between keim jeffries the night before -- reached out to hakeem jeffries the night before. at least that we know, mccarthy did not offer anything. this is a tough choice. what democrats do? would they save mccarthy? democrats would have said we are

thinking about the shutdown, not that. mccarthy at the last moment put a bill on the floor that passed the house, got to biden's desk. it democrats alike, the government is open. we are not giving you anything. why would we save you? mccarthy had said that if kevin mccarthy was in a position to save nancy pelosi in the last congress, do we think he would've saved her? no. host: what about the political follower? caerine on facebook -- republicans cannot govern. we have the vacant speaker at sea. very embarrassing. molly reynolds? guest: this does present real governing questions. there is a question of when congress need to act on a measure providing additional aid to israel.

there are big, open questions about the powers that mchenry has. at the end of the day, the powers he has already powers the house wants to give him. that is a choice for the house. we have this rule. but if he wants to do something different in the house is willing to back him, that is a choice for the house to make. but in the medium-term, we get to that november 17 deadline of keeping the government open. if we are still in this state of flux and chaos, that will be difficult. i think, you -- frankly, you will be difficult for whoever the speaker is coming given the dynamic that ousted mccarthy. host: and what is the political fallout for the election cycle? guest: significant. voters do not have a long memory, but they remember big events -- terrorist attacks, shutdowns.

they will remember this. it is unprecedented. the problem for house republicans even without this to rama -- -- drama. even ari fletcher was saying the republican party cannot govern. even before the chaos, republicans were going to be on the fence new york and california. a lot of the seeds that are vulnerable are in those states. in a presidential election year, it will be tough for republicans to retain those seats. that is why the 18 centrists are key to the majority. conservatives are saying we will lose our majority. some senate republicans were worried they may blow their chances to win the senate yet again. host: elizabeth in phoenix, arizona, republican. caller: i am calling is a frustrated lifelong republican

to express his appointment and anchor at least -- anger at these 8, extreme republicans who have held our party hostage over nothing, to die on a hill that they could never win, you create the republican party and our leadership for what? to express their point of view? it does not matter. whatever they propose will die in the senate. the president will never sign it. these people need a civics lesson. host: who do you think should be the next speaker? caller: kevin mccarthy. be careful what you wish for, democrats. guest: it is true that only a handful of republicans pushed mccarthy out, with the help of democrats.

the democratic side, they have another tough choice, if there is a motion to amend the rules on the motion to vacate, how will democrats vote? republicans will be split. in order to change the rules and raise the threshold from one to whatever, you will need democratic support. what do democrats do. is that another tough call for hakim jeffries, who really faced his biggest leadership test when he faced that decision and convinced all democrats to say that is their problem. we will not save their speaker. host: how will the spouts happen? when could we first see a vote? guest: the first vote is for speaker, the second for the rules package. we will have the speaker look first, then potentially rules. where there is a will, there is a way and you can look them.

but we are in uncharted territory. but it is getting late in the week for congress. they will have this behind the scenes vote tomorrow. that is wednesday. usually they get out of here on thursday. maybe they will stay until friday, but i doubt that. they may just try to come back next week. the longer this goes on, the more embarrassing it is to republicans. guest: in january, the house usually elects a speaker when there is a new congress. then they have to vote. they cannot do anything until the organized themselves. unlike the senate, the house does not have rules that carry over. they do not need to do that this time. it would be a choice to bring a resolution to the floor to change the motion to vacate.

but some group might try to extract from a speaker candidate, but there is not the same action forcing mechanism as at the beginning of a new congress. guest: those funds are part of it when they adopt the rules package. molly is right. they do not have to do this. host: bob, previously come up with the problem stop -- salters caucus plate a roll here on the motion to vacate? if enough republicans decide to support steve scalise or jim jordan but saving threshold has to be higher. do the problem solvers play a role? guest: we have seen that in the past. one of the rare situations where a republican almost voted for a democratic speaker is when the problem solvers -- bipartisan group, went to nancy pelosi and said they wanted to see changes to the role package and they got some.

a republican from new york said ok, you changed the rules and i will vote for nancy pelosi. but he did not go for her. those are the dynamics, very much party politics. that is what a lot of critics say, that neither party is really looking out for the other. host: david from mississippi, independent. caller: i was wondering is this the best the republican party has got? jim jordan and steve scalise? jim jordan would not even protect his wrestlers at ohio state. steve gillies says -- is this the best they got? i am concerned about this country. if they cannot lead themselves, how are they supposed to lead us? host: is there another candidate? guest: kevin hearn thought about

getting in but decided against it. the longer this goes, the more we have heard different names, patrick mchenry, tom cole, cool is well respected by democrats is welcome even though he is conservative. he is pragmatic and extremely frustrated with what has happened. when you look going back to his donald trump endorsement, even though he endorsed jordan for speaker, these races are like running for class president. you have got to have relationships. trump one at mac kyle out, but he beat rick scott. however, even though it is more prudent to get trump's advertisement in the republican primary, you are still going on the house floor. if you are not voting for jordan, you are defying trump. that does weigh in members' minds. host: is it like running for

class president? guest: a little bit. those members who are most frustrated and wanted to get rid of mccarthy are maybe less excited about doing tank is doing what trump wanted. some of them come from new york and california, these 18 republicans in biden districts. some of these members who are well respected and have more of an institutionalist perspective, even if they are conservative, they have said they are not interested in the job. we know from palmyra -- from paul ryan's experience that people can be talked into things, but what kind of member wants to run for speaker and who is saying this is not for me?

some had been tank for a year and a half he did not want to run for a different leadership position because he want to be responsible for helping to rep votes to increase -- responsible for having to whip's to increase the debt limit. host: another reluctant speaker. guest: there you go. host: pennsylvania, democratic caller. caller: earlier mr. cusak said there was a rift between scalise and mccarthy. is that long-standing? also, does mr. mccarthy have enough sway to convince other people in the house to go towards jordan or scalise? or does he not have any sway anymore? guest: unclear exactly how long -- it is the same way was

president and vice president. they seem to not get along. we have seen this mccarthy when he has been dealing with different drama, he has had other deputies who have not been in leadership -- saving garrett raise, republican from louisiana or patrick mchenry. scalise was rarely seen by mccarthy's side. i do not think it goes back many years but it has not been just within the last week usually, when you see leaders, you have their speakers, their deputies all at the same press conference. scalise has been getting chemotherapy but has also been in congress, not by mccarthy's side. mccarthy does have some sway, but a lot of the mccarthy people, even though they know of the rift with scalise, they do not like the thought of jim jordan being speaker.

they are reluctant to back him. but if mccarthy backs another candidate, i think that would have some sway. enough to get him over the top? probably not. they have got a long way to go to get to 217. host: the top party leader and their number two do not always see i live. they are always -- often going against each other. i am thinking of nancy pelosi and steny hoyer. guest: this dynamic where there is tension between leaders, especially in the house, both parties have had that. one of the big differences between the democratic party institutionally and the republican party institutionally is that when you have divisions within the democratic caucus, as we have had in the past several years, the way you manage those

is more often around policy trade-offs, giving some part of the carcass one thing that they want and a different part one thing they want.

the senate filibuster. when you need to get to 60 in the senate, it is much easier to build that coalition once rather

than repeatedly going through 12 separate bills. what we are seeing and what the caller is talking about is a symptom of broader forces in our politics. that is i think how we got to this situation the caller is describing. host: bob cusack? guest: there is a lot of frustration out there because the debt is at record levels. that was not helped write covid, but presidential candidates have not made the debt at least recently a priority. donald trump did not want to change medicare or social security. that is politically risky. if you look at elections over the last 20-25 years, we have seen massive swings here yet

barack obama comes in, he was going to unite the country. he has a 70% approval rating, then the tea party is born. obama loses the house and senate. who gets elected then? donald trump. the electorate has been swinging back and forth. that is this frustration and where democrats fell down in 2016, saying there is no way the country will elect donald trump but they did. it is because of that frustration. and at one point, we will have to tackle the debt problem. it is getting out of control. host: david in san francisco. caller: i am interested in the viewpoint of a true conservative. both of your guests have agreed that the next speaker of the house has to be -- if i were a

real conservative and i had a word of directors at a non-profit, and if you look at america is a nonprofit, and the board of the directors, that seems to be not only a conflict of interest but against the public's welfare. the idea that fundraisers will come to power and that america's infrastructure will not be rebuilt, the stability of social security administration and also our infrastructure needs are not going to be taken care of because someone is profiteering from their position of power seems like an obvious solution, but these guys are phonies and have a pretense of conservativism. host: molly reynolds?

guest: it is true that large sums of money are spent in politics and campaigns every year. the kind of fundraising we are talking about is for campaign operations. wet -- that is what these folks are doing when we talk about them being prolific fundraisers. some of that is their own skill. this goes back to what we were talking about with the previous caller. we have this crisis of trust in american institutions. any number of things are happening as part of this speakership debate that make that work. the idea that a small group of republicans can depose a speaker of the house, sending the house into, if not chaos, certainly presenting challenges to their ability to fulfill their responsibilities.

that does not help these broader concerns we are hearing from some callers about their levels of trust in governing institutions. host: bill, alabama, republican. caller: two points -- the debt got out of control two generations ago and is now beyond heuer. -- now beyond cure. we will need severe cuts in social security and medicare whether we like it or not the second thing is the possibility of a democrat voting for republicans insane, no, that cannot happen because they are putting in districts where -- republicans are voting in districts where democrats outvoted them for president. but there are many more democrats in districts that voted for trump.

it is possible you could get some of those democrats to vote for a republican port speaker, because there districts lean republican or at least conservative. host: let's play that scenario out. molly reynolds? guest: we do sometimes see members of the house switch parties but it is uncommon. the last time was the end of 2019 when jeff van drew switched from being a democrat to being a republican. but we are thinking about what it means to be in the minority in the house. when you are in the minority, you are often not that interested in helping the majority party get its act together. this is the most extreme version of that. they do not have a permanent speaker because of divisions within the republican conference. while there are a handful of

house democrats who come from districts who voted for president trump, i do not see them representing a meaningful block. they are certainly -- unwilling to change parties over the next speaker is. guest: lawmaking has changed over the last 25 years. it used to be that even newt gingrich and bill clinton can get together and pass a balanced budget in 1997. the main significant payment curves to bankruptcy. it was headed for bankruptcy and now it is again. what is the playbook now? as we saw with barack obama, who said he would unite the country but he was handicapped by the fact he had an overwhelming democratic majority. he did not have to call mitch mcconnell. they could ram steps through the reconciliation process obamacare

passed without any republican votes. trump gets in. he has a house and senate. he passes tax cuts without any democratic support. that is the playbook. his campaign is struggling right now, but when ron desantis talks about legislating, he says we will run everything. he is not think he will work with democrats. that is the playbook. that is what republicans on capitol hill are frustrated with. they only control the house, not the senate, not the white house they are like, we need to win elections. what happened last week will not help them win elections. host: what is the mood for those 8 republicans? what is their future within the party? guest: that depends on where the party goes certainly what happens with the leader of the party, donald trump, the likely nominee, certainly winning big time. that remains to be seen. is there frustration?

absolutely. i have never seen so much frustration. matt gaetz has got to watch his back. it was a smart decision for the house to adjourn last week and tempers were high. however this resolves, and i have seen tough votes and votes that go on for hours and has republicans in the bush administration being at and it took months for them to recover. this type of hangover could last into the 2020 for and certainly if they lose a house, people will say, thanks, matt gaetz. and matt gaetz says we cannot keep doing business as we have been doing it. we have to fix our debt. host: molly reynolds guest: i agree that there is frustration within the conference. some of it is in the case of mr. gates the conflict seems so

personal. it seems personal between matt gaetz and mr. mccarthy. it is not in that dimension really about policy. gaetz does talk about policies and procedures, but they are not entirely consistent with one another. this came up in the debate over the motion to vacate, but i think the frustration is elevated because it seems so personal. is it about where they want the party to be going ideologically or on a policy front? host: said in colorado, independent. welcome. caller: both parties are driving me to distraction right now. it basically goes around the so-called majority rule, where the speaker of the house will not bring anything to the floor unless there is a majority in his own party, even though the last majority of the house as a whole would vote for something.

both parties have done it forever. weiner witt -- john boehner was the last two made a few attempts of overwriting it. i enlarged this causes gridlock. nothing the average citizen can do. the leaders of both parties are in cahoots. that is mike -- my take. guest: as the caller is referencing, there has been, getting back to the late 1990's, this norm, not a formal role that a speaker will not bring something to the floor unless it has support from the majority of the conference. the challenge in the last several years has been that we have reached decisions, like keeping the government open, raising the debt limit, where the consequences of not taking action are so significant that

the speaker may need to bring something to the floor that does not have support of the majority of the conference. this is not a new challenge for mccarthy. it was a challenge for john boehner, paul ryan, their predecessors. it is not new. but it is becoming relevant as we get to these moments where we have big, important actions where if we do not take them, there are serious consequences like a shutdown. guest: mccarthy is not diverted figure to deal with this kind of issue. there was a vote issue -- recently on ukraine aid. that is a pending issue going forward. from a policy perspective, if you could take the politics out, which is impossible, democrats want ukraine aid and so do a number of republicans and so does mitch mcconnell. however, republicans want more border security.

usually in washington when you have a problem, you throw money at it. you get money from warner, you get money for ukraine and have a deal. but the politics with the house, senate, and white house being up grabs, with party looking to donald trump, he plays a role in policymaking. host: rich in wisconsin, independent. caller: good morning. question, i am dumbfounded that we will go after matt gaetz for trying to hold kevin mccarthy accountable for an agreement he made. our borders are wide open. we are throwing money at immigrants. they are getting aid with a come in. we are losing children. they are going into the system. nobody can account for what a lot of these kids are doing. it seems to me that people in

power stay in powered by handing out money to every problem instead of solving any problem. they just keep making it worse. host: rich, you were just echoing what bob cusack was saying. let's end on what you are watching in the coming 48 hours. guest: i think the closed door vote will be the biggest one. that is who wins the closed door vote among mccarthy, some still want to vote for him, jordan and scalise. that is a first step. what is that clout -- count? close to 217? that happens wednesday morning. the two candidates will make their case in the ways and means committee room. then they vote tomorrow. that is the first step. then home much pressure will be

on house republicans who are backing the loser of that vote? will they back down? will donald trump get involved and say to get behind someone? mccarthy and trump have had a rocky relationship, not as bad as trump's relationship with mitch mcconnell, which is over, basically, but matt gaetz said that in his private conversations with donald trump that he is ok with what i did to mccarthy. host: molly reynolds? guest: i will also be watching that but also how quickly they try and move to have a vote on the floor. i think they would like to avoid the same drawnout, very public caloric process that we had in january, particularly if there is discord within the conference about who the nominee should be. it would not surprise me if we

stay behind closed doors for a while longer before they ultimately bring a candidate to the floor, but the longer that takes, the more of these questions we have about governing in the house. will they keep mchenry? would the interpretation of the powers he has now, would they try to start taking action on israel or anything else? the longer it takes republicans to come to a consensus in the conference, the more challenges we get about the house functioning. host: molly reynolds, bob cusack , thank you both for the conversation. coming up, we turn our attention to the israel-gaza conflict. we will talk with michael hamlin of brookings institution about that and the fallout. later, james jacoby discusses

his latest pbs frontline film on elon musk's twitter takeover. we will be right back. ♪ >> sees bands campaign 2020 for coverage is your front proceed to the presidential election. watch as we follow candidates with me and greets, speeches, and more. campaign 2024 on the c-span networks, c-span now video or online at c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> listening to programs on c-span through c-span radio just got easier. tell your smart speaker to play c-span radio and listen to washington journal daily at 7:00 a.m. eastern, congressional hearings.

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he makes it easy to this into all of c-span's podcast featuring nonfiction books in one place. you can discover new authors and ideas. you can listen to multiple episodes with critically acclaimed author is discussing history, current events, and culture. afterwards, there is book notes plus and q&a. lesson today -- listen today on the free c-span now mobile video app or wherever you get your podcast or on c-span.org/ podcasts. >> washington journal continues. host: on your screen, michael o'hanlon, research and foreign policy program director at the brookings institute, here to talk about the israel-hamas

conflict. guest: the scope is horrible. really it is historically unprecedented, at least for a half-century in terms of israeli casualties and in terms of the sense of existential fear within israel about what is happening and what could happen in the future, especially as hezbollah remains in a state of uncertainty to the north, inside lebanon. hezbollah being an extremist group that is also part of the lebanese government, also armed by iran. hamas being the more sunni group associated with the gaza strip in particular and has been effectively running that strip of land along the mediterr for about 15 years. hamas carried out the attacks on saturday, which have been likened to israel's 9/11.

israel lost maybe 700 people out of 10 million, whereas we had lost 3000 out of 300 million on that 11 -- not to compare too much but just to give a sense of the scale and scope. now israel has a problem of a magnitude it has not had in a while with palestinian extremists. it's basic decisions under the george w. bush administration was to essentially let gaza be and let its politics play out as they would in keep gaza to be sure and you try to restrict movement of supplies and supplies that could be used in military operations, keep this to a minimum but to otherwise allow gaza to go whatever way the palestinians chose. tragically, hamas wound up in control. even though there seems to be this balance of terror and pain

between hamas and the israeli government, it turns out hamas was preparing this attack, feeling a sense of extreme frustration with his economic situation, its political future or lack thereof, and hamas has been committed to the overthrow of the israeli government and the elimination of israel as a state. it is not clear that hamas could ever be bargained with, but all that led up to the attack. last thing i will say in response to your initial question is that the big uncertainty apart from what hezbollah will do next is to what extent was iran calling the shots or highly involved in the preparation of this attack? we know iran was arming hamas and preparing its fighters, but we do not know the degree to which iran helped make a decision to launch this it -- bid.

but now iran, hezbollah and hamas share opposition to the study peace proposal -- saudi- israeli peace proposal. some really wanted to make sure that cannot go forward. hence, the timing of the attack, which otherwise may or may not have occurred this fall or ever, but probably is designed to make it impossible for saudi arabia and israel to compete -- complete their process of creating peace and recognizing each other diplomatically through the u.s. and stronger american security promises to saudi arabia. that is the final completing element of that deal. that appears to be off for the foreseeable future. it will be hard for arabs to negotiate peace with israel as it retaliates against hamas and inevitably causes civilian

casualties in gaza along the way. it is a big deal and it is pretty bad. host: the israeli prime minister yesterday was saying retaliatory strikes are just the beginning. cnn is reporting that israel is now calling a complete siege of gaza. given everything you just said, what do the latest actions on the ground mean for the future of israel and palestine and all of the geopolitical conversations that had been happening up until this point? guest: i think i can do best at your question by trying to speculate about the meaning of the word siege in this situation. i cannot quite believe it has the medieval meaning or even from recent centuries of literally starving out a population or punishing everyone

within the perimeter of the siege. there will be a certain amount of pain-and-suffering for everyone as electricity and water are turned off, but i cannot believe the israeli government wants to literally hurt or kill everyone inside the gaza strip. i think the definition has to mean that some kind of a process whereby there is no allowance for people moving in or out and there will be not the euro search and essentially a counterterrorism operation that will be intelligence-based. the israelis do not know where every single hamas leader, weapons cache or command a control may be but they will do their best to find as many as they can. to be blunt, causing this is similar to what israel

did it lebanon in 2006. israel went to southern lebanon and thought i could probably eliminate a lot of the hezbollah presence there. -- nonetheless, that process and that occupation lasting roughly one month cause enough pain on all side that nobody wanted to go down the same path anytime soon again. so far since then, until this month, hezbollah and israel have not fought at that scale subsequently even though hezbollah certainly had the weaponry to do so with missiles and rockets. i think here, it israel's goals are more maximalist. it will try to demilitarized gaza and hamas as much as possible. to the extent it fails, it will at least have frankly caused enough pain through this siege that in their view, the palestinian people should have learned that they cannot ever tolerate a group like hamas being in control and taking the steps against israel that it's

just done the past few days. that's my best sense of what's happening. what that means is that israel still has a dilemma -- who will be in charge of gaza one this is over? they also don't want to be the occupying power themselves because they got tired of that 16 years ago. who will step in and will they consider a u.n. trusteeship or at -- for ask the international community? right now, they are more intent on making sure they destroy hamas as much as possible even though it will probably not be a completed job. host: the phone numbers are on your screen. you can also join us on x. the left-leaning newspaper in israel is blaming the offense

this morning, blaming benjamin netanyahu from this. just for this. this is their analysis -- guest: that's pretty strong language and i don't suppose -- i understand the israelis have such emotions that those kind of words will be spoken. i have a certain amount of sympathy with part of the organ but i would not put it that way and certainly not as an outsider at this particular moment.

i think netanyahu is not done a good job with the palestinians. however, hamas has always been committed to the overthrow of israel. the kind of sheer, pure terrorist violence that hamas has employed this week reminds us the nature of that group. while i agree there is a lot of frustration in the palestinian population and i think the netanyahu government's approach to the west bank which is breaking it up through piecemeal annexation is completely wrong and i think immoral and inconsistent with a serious peace process, i'm not going to personally blame netanyahu or his government for what just happened in the gaza strip. there are certainly decisions the government is it of israel could have done that could lower the probability but hamas is a group that's always been committed to the overthrow of not just anyone is really government but the israeli state such as it is. it has had a maximalist and

violent preoccupation toward israel ever since its founding. in that regard, i think it's time to maintain a certain unity against hamas at this juncture even if the netanyahu government has been quite mediocre in the peace process itself. host: how urgent is the need by israel for the united states to provide an aid package? guest: as a sign of solidarity and to help with certain specific needs, we should move quickly. i also think israel has the capacity to do a lot of what it's doing and is about to do on its own. that's the greater limitation which is not the american aid, it will be the inherent political difficulty of figuring out what to do with gaza as this occupation unfolds. that will remain even if we give them support. host: tony in chicago, independent. caller: hi, good morning.

i had a quick question for you. i want to provide some context on this going back to a statement you had made earlier. one, about the bush administration's position on hamas and they were just simply kind of ignoring their political leanings. that was a one-sided view. at the same time, you could say the united states primarily has been ignoring just with the israeli government has been doing to the people in palestine, allowing -- necessitating a resisting force to have to be created in the first place. that context is important and secondly, you said something about equal terror on both sides. i want to point you toward the u.n. data on how many casualties there have been over the past 10

years on the israeli and palestinian side. i would hope c-span could put that up. but just 2018, nearly 32,000 casualties on the palestinian side with only 130 on the israeli side. that is not equal terror. those statements like that are completely misleading to the public. i think when you discuss issues, you need to completely incorporate all of the historical context, the militaristic context, the political and resistance context. host: let's give him a chance to respond. guest: i'm glad you mentioned the suffering of the palestinian people. it doesn't excuse anything hamas is done and being bent on the discretion of israel that it won't enter into a peace process. the victim here has been the palestinian people more than anybody else.

this is also the week where the victims have been innocent israeli civilians. i will emphasize that. i more than willing to blame hamas for the attacks the attacks that caused this terrible tragedy and how the israeli counter reaction happened and may wind up going too far. we should keep our eye on it closely and i share tony's view that we need to get back to a peace process in israel we should not support an israeli government that is not serious about it. israel has only had the potential negotiating art with palestinians in the west bank and hamas has never been interested and that's a tragedy. the main victims as tony rightly points out over time have been the palestinian people themselves more than anyone else in the region. host: who is the negotiating group in the west bank? guest: fasa is the group that essentially runs the government such as it is. it's a government that doesn't have contiguous territory to control. it's broken up by various

israeli settlements. there is a political entity there that over the years has been a negotiating partner for israel and i will put more blame on the netanyahu government than fasa for the failure of that process to reach a combination -- to reach a conclusion. it's been the number one problem in terms of impeding successful negotiations. i'm more than willing to be critical of the israeli government especially the netanyahu government. i'm struck by how much we miss prime minister rabin who was assassinated in the 90's by extremist israelis who didn't want to peace process. tragically, that assassination at its intended purpose and achieved its intended result. that's part of why we are reaping such violence still today. host: what should the response be of the united states to the iranian role here? guest: well, we already have a very tough policy toward iran and that should continue, clearly.

the iranian bureaucracy is extremist, militant and unjustifiable in its actions whatever historical grudge it may have against us by supporting the shot in the 60's and 70's. it's an excuse for its desire to destabilize much of the middle east. i think we will have to keep the pressure on iran. it's very controversial, this reason deal by which the biden administration released iranian funds even with typed supervision over there use to make sure that american hostages were released. it will be superhard to seek -- to see anything like that happening again because iran was involved and i would say was definitely involved. it deftly deserves part of the blame whether they were making the decision to go now or not. the historical arming and equipping of hamas puts them in a very guilty position. host: ja in north carolina, a republican. mal caller: thank you c-span.

it's very interesting. we have eastern europeans, not the original hebrews who have appropriated their whole religion and culture. then they go in and take land and assume it for themselves. and then don't want to give these people more than a sliver. the biggest test it's probably big is manhattan island and you put too many people on top of it , it's an open air prison and you start scratching your head and wondering why people are shooting bombs and why people are attacking. it's total colonization and i don't support it and i think it's wrong and i think they need to get the palestinians back there land or at least a portion of a state. it's a small piece of land to begin with.

i can't supported. host: michael hanlon, what has a two state solution look like but at this stage, is it too early to talk about that? guest: it seems like it's always too early but it's also too late. it should have happened in the 1990's. there was momentum back then. you had seen the famous handshake of arafat on the white house lawn with an israeli prime minister. there was the oslo process and we can be very bipartisan here because the first president bush helped set up that process. president clinton was i think thrilled to inherit it. it involve mediation in norway or through norway, motivated and facilitated with the united states involved in trying to negotiate. as i mentioned, the assassination prime minister rabin a couple of years into

that set us back badly. other things that as well but that was really a time when it should've happened. if it happened then, i don't know where we would be but i'm confident we would be in a better place than we are. host: chris in boston, democratic caller. caller: i'd like to remind your guest that in the 1980's when hamas emerged, they were promoted and were a counterweight tofatah i the israelis. also the peace initiative proposed by king abdulla of separate dish of saudi arabia in 2002. that if the israelis were to return to the 1967 borders, then there would be peace between the arabs and the israelis. host: let's take those points. guest: i like them. i think that israel has made a lot of mistakes historically.

it has a desire for enlarging its own territory. a lot of americans including the american security situation and our hearts are with israel and the palestinians, the innocent palestinians, this week and going forward. it doesn't defend israel's reluctance to be serious about a peace process over the years and wanting to take more territory. frankly, it's often been a cynical move by people who never wanted a peace process the first place because they wanted more of the west bank in particular for israel. i think netanyahu is clearly in that category himself. i largely agree with the caller. i just don't think they justify what hamas has done in recent days. host: what are you watching for today and tomorrow? guest: i will be watching for the degree to which israel is careful about how it conducts this so-called siege and what that siege looks like and what it means an initial thoughts on

what comes next. what comes next as to be discussed very soon. i think we have to put it on the table, the idea of a u.s. trusteeship with serious international securing monitoring for gaza. that's going to require hamas be overthrown which i expect israel will undertake and achieve. it will be hard and it's not a guarantee. those are some of the pieces of the puzzle i will be watching to see how they develop. i cannot make specific direction -- predictions but those of the elements i think will be at play in coming days and weeks. host: michael hanlon with the brookings institution, we appreciate your time. guest: thank you, kindly. host: when we come back, james jacoby will be with us. he will talk about a new documentary called elon musk, twitter take over. we will be right back. ♪ >> nonfiction book lovers, c-span has a number of podcasts

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help support our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at c-span shop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us from new york this morning is james to kobe, the pbs frontline director of a new documentary, elon musk, twitter take over. why did you decide to do a documentary about elon musk and the twitter take over? guest: i wanted to make a film to report about elon musk for a long time. kind of his purchase of twitter seems to be the right time to do it. the fact that he has been evolving politically over the past couple of years basically during the pandemic and onward and it seems this interesting new chapter in his career and life, his politics. it also gave us the chance to some serious reporting and tell the story of the people who have

been working at twitter which had been changing in the post-pandemic time. it was an opportunity to delve into an interesting strain of politics in america and also the latest chapter in his expanding power. he was involved in rockets and tesla and satellite technology. here is a move into social media and to mediate itself which is an odd move in a different move and much more about affecting the political conversation and the media and promoting his own voice to some extent and his own views on things, specifically free-speech speech in america and abroad. it just seemed like a good opportunity to delve into his story and till the story of what's been happening with twitter. host: what you learn about elon musk? guest: a lot, he is an

extraordinary innovator. he also was one of the most popular figures, political figures in america now. i have a lot of respect and reverence for what he's been able to accomplish with tesla and spacex and star link and a lot of other things. i think what happened that was interesting was that he had always been active on twitter. he has always said he loves twitter and he joined it in 2010-2011 and he has tweeted thousands of times about his observations on the world and about everything from books to technology to series of things but he steered clear of politics for a long time. then you see when the pandemic hit and tesla factories were closed during the lockdown and he got politically activated during the pandemic. as a lot of people did in this country.

learning about his political evolution and his feelings on free speech in america and abroad was what was fascinating. we can get into it but there was a lot learned here. host: i want to show one clip from your documentary. this is where you look at elon musk and how he views this platform twitter before he purchased the company. [video clip] >> space x, go for lunch -- for launch. >> it had all the elements of a perfect day for elon musk . the test launch of his latest reusable rocket, the most powerful in the world, capable of deep space exploration. it was a crucial step toward his ultimate goal, the conquest of mars. >> elon musk gets his most

pleasure out of rocket ships. at moments when the rockets go off, that's when the childish pleasure comes out. >> can you hear me over the cheering? >> he doesn't usually like having pleasure. he doesn't savor the moment but he does when it's a rocket launch. >> camera views from inside the payload very. >> throughout the day, musk provided running commentary at his favorite place to express himself, social media site twitter. >> upper stage restart nominal. >> he's a performer. he likes it. he likes playing elon musk. he thinks he is ironman. >> right on cue, the rocket discharges own cherry red tesla complete with a mannequin in the driver seat. >> elon musk has outdone himself this time. >> a new rocket launched.

it's still tripping me about. i'm tripping balls here. >> the electric car and the reusable rocket were part of a vast business empire. technology to artificial intelligence to web and satellites circling the earth that is made elon musk one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. >> space x launch control, apparently there was a car in orbit around earth. >> the app he was using to lightweight the launch would be his as well a few years let her. >> in an offer to buy twitter, elon musk. >> elon musk and twitter announced a $44 billion deal. >> he says he wants to transform the company. host: james jacoby come you also mention in this documentary more openly about elon musk using twitter for marketing before he purchased the company for tesla,

for spacex. talk about that a little bit. guest: yeah, it's fascinating. tesla does not do really any marketing. in fact, in some of their silence to the sec and elsewhere, they have mentioned elsewhere that it in part because elon musk is such a public personality and his condo is twitter that they don't really need to do any major advertising. we wanted to tell the story in part as his love affair with twitter to some extent. he has used twitter to express himself makes the joke that people use their hair to express themselves. i don't, clearly but some people may. he uses twitter to express himself. walter isaacson spent the last couple of years with elon musk as his biographer and refers to twitter as his global pride --

playground. he line musk was bullied as a kid growing up in south africa had a tough time. and in some ways, twitter which is a rough and tumble free speech opinionated environment that musk was good at and gained a lot of followers on it and he was good at twitter. he gained a huge following and had more than one million followers. he has used it to make jokes, he's used it to go after some critics of his, but in the years before his takeover, it was a major marketing tool for him. it was a major way for him to create this cult of personality and engender an audience that liked the fact that he was unfiltered and honest about his opinions and said some controversial things, made some funny jokes, some off-color jokes and i think people really appreciated that. it appealed to clearly hundreds of millions of people and was

also in some ways fascinating to see how he used twitter and how former president trump used twitter who obviously used twitter before he was president in the way to promote himself and his brand. he was very savvy at how to do things sick simply and cleverly on the medium and elon musk, whether he was using that trump playbook or vice versa, they both really master the art of twitter. we really try to tell a little bit of that evolution at the beginning of the film. host: now that he is bought the company, is at the same effective tool for him? guest: yeah, if not more so. he is experimenting at various points with how amplified he may be on the platform. we get into a strange chapter in that story in the film but i think this is certainly an effective tool now that he owns

the platform to promote himself and his views and people he sees as like-minded. i think he also wants to bring people were not like-minded onto the platform but they generally appear to be more interested in promoting himself with similar viewpoints to him. host: we are speaking with james jacoby, the documentarian and correspondent for cbs -- for pbs frontline. he will take your questions and your comments about this documentary this morning. republicans dial in at (202) 748-8001 democrats (202) 748-8000 and independents (202) 748-8002. text us and include your first name, city and state to (202) 748-8003. you can also post onx @c-span wj.

talk about renaming the company x. guest: that happened earlier this year. he always had a vision for many years, maybe 20 years to create an overall umbrella company called x. gets his favorite letter and he loves it for different reasons, he has a child he calls x. he has always seen it as an umbrella idea for what he thinks of as a super app in the same way aswe chat in china. we have many different apps on our phones for many things and elon musk wanted to consolidate things under one app. x would be a social media site, place for content creators to create content whether it's nonfiction or fiction. it would be a payment platform. he was one of the founders of paypal. he wants to make payments more easy so that combines then my

with social media app. . x was this rebrand which was a gutsy move considering twitter was immediately recognizable to eradicate twitter and createx was interesting and bold. it had its own verb. now people are rather confused as to what to say when you tweet. i don't even know what to say when it comes to x now. i think there is some growing pains when it comes to this rebrand and some confusion around. yeah, he is a long-term thinker and i think he believes we will, at one point, decide that all these apps we have, it's too much, it's useless and futile at a certain point to keep creating them so you might as well bring

them under a larger umbrella. that remains to be seen whether he can pull that off or not. host: did you talk to elon musk for this documentary? guest: he would not talk to us, unfortunately. we tried many different avenues to speak to him. he is rather particular about who he speaks to. it's hard to figure out the rhyme or reason there but clearly, frontline asks tough questions and i'm not sure he wanted to undergo the scrutiny that we bring to it. that's just conjecture, i don't know why he didn't want to purchase vaped -- why he didn't want to participate. we reached out to the executive running x and a number of other people from silicon valley are his brain trust. for whatever reason, we didn't have much luck there. host: the frontline documentary

on elon musk, twitter takeover premiere tonight at 9 p.m. eastern time on pbs and will be available to stream on frontline's website and youtube and the pbs video at. that's 9 p.m. tonight is premiering and i want to show our viewers another clip. you did speak with a current employee but what happened up -- about what happened when he took over the company. >> elon musk had taken over more than $12 billion in debt and needed to make cuts quickly. he had brought a team of friends, relatives and loyalist from his other companies to help them do just that. >> suddenly, an army of people materialized in the office that didn't have twitter nametags or computers and who started telling twitter staff what to do. the assumption was that they had some kind of authority because elon had brought them over. they knew had to build cars, they knew how to launch rockets, they knew how to dig tunnels but

they didn't necessarily know about how to run a social media company. >> teams were asked to print out code, 50 pages of code and have it reviewed by a tesla engineer. people were standing at the printer printing at their code and standing in line like a bunch of students being reprimanded by him dean and the whole exercise is not valuable. engineers who build cars to not understand the code behind social media systems. they are totally different things. that was a performance of loyalty. host: james jacoby, is x being run the same way today or has elon musk made changes? guest: it's deftly different. a few people in that clip are no longer at the company who held important positions. the last speaker rented department that was focused on

what's called ethical ai. and machine learning were basically they had an entire group of people inside twitter that was study whether the to her -- twitter algorithms were in some ways biased toward conservatives were biased toward liberals. they were studying whether there algorithms were promoting hateful content more than non-hateful content. there was a reckoning over the past five or six years with the dangers of social media, the danger of misinformation of disinformation campaigns by foreign actors like the russians. the russians during the 2016 election, the fact of their harmful effects on youth and children, there is a radicalization of young men and women in this country that's happening on social media. chawdry is no longer there

studying these issues of algorithmic bias. the other employee you heard from is the head of integrity and safety at twitter and he's no longer there. one of the big effects has been that we have this election coming up in 2024 and there is concerns about disinformation. and how prepared are the social media companies to deal with that in 2024? what we know is that there are fewer people at twitter, for instance, that are dealing with that issue than there were. elon musk might say he is creating engineering solutions to some of these problems of disinformation and misinformation and we've heard people who do this for a living that says that doesn't necessarily do much for you, you need a lot of human moderation happening to read code and figure out whether things are misinformation or disinformation

but i think part of elon musk's plan is to step back and not let social media companies like twitter have their hands on the scales when it comes to deciding was true or false. that was part of the major critique of how twitter had been run previously. it's part of the reason why elon musk wanted to buy it because he felt there was an over moderation. his belief was also that it was biased. i don't think it's true that it was biased and we challenge a number of people in the film about that. i think one of the most substantive changes that happen since elon musk took over his his trust and safety division and other things trying to promote healthy community or healthy conversation on twitter seems to a been cut back. host: washington, d.c., independent caller, you are up first. caller: thank you i have listened to this must promoting

hatred and he's doing this or that. a bunch of fbi agent seven documentary and how the federal government was dictating what could and could not be said. you are talking about hate speech, you couldn't talk about the fact that the virus was engineered in wuhan come you couldn't talk about hunter biden and the whole family was taking bribes and soliciting funds. your hate speech is basically a form of censorship and you had a bunch of left-wing liberals in their making incredible amounts of money to make sure only the left-wing view was ever documented. host: james jacoby, your thoughts? guest: unfortunately, the facts are not on your side here. the fact is that yes, we get into this deeply into the documentary about the pressure

that was put on the company by the federal government and by federal agencies from the fbi and the department of homeland security to cdc to combat what they saw as misinformation whether it was about the election in 2020 or misinformation about the vaccines and other things. there is a lot of pressure placed on all of these social media companies as there are in traditional media companies by all sorts of actors to make certain editorial decisions. twitter it's documented pushback on a lot of these requests. i think there is a legitimate conversation to be had as to what's appropriate for certain government agencies to make certain requests and ask for certain content to be taken down or to limit its reach. it's not true that twitter -- it was facebook, not twitter that

suppressed the sort of discussion about lasting theory. they admitted it was a mistake. when it comes to the hunter biden laptop, the big mistake twitter made was that it was a new york post story three weeks before the 2020 election. that was about the hunter biden laptop and twitter suppressed that story and blocked the new york post for a couple of weeks. also a big mistake and they admitted that mistake. they assumed wrongfully that was part of a russian hack meant to disrupt the election. we are talking a complicated issues here. i think the idea that there is some sort of left-wing conspiracy to conspire with the government to suppress certain views and viewpoints, it's just not borne out by the facts. i think we need to have an enlightening conversation about what's going on here and it's not easy, it's thorny. it's a terminus amount of power

for these private companies to have to be able to moderate these big conversations in these -- in these defective public squares in which they are in. i think we have to stick to the facts on this. there are a lot of wild theories out there that really are not borne out by the facts. host: is elon musk a conservative? guest: is he a conservative? he has set in the past that he is not a conservative and that he really doesn't want to be pinned down to any particular political viewpoint. i'm not going to describe him as a conservative but he is a self-described independent and if that's how he describes himself, if you look at that tacky has taken the past two years when it comes to the limitation of what people can and can't say, the conservative

viewpoint is being suppressed on social media platforms -- i think elon musk sympathizes with that. when it comes to the fact of the matter, the counterfactual to the idea that conservatives have been suppressed on twitter is the fact that some of the biggest users we have are conservatives on twitter. some of the people with the biggest followings in the furtherance reach -- and the further most reach. there are a lot of countervailing facts to that idea but in terms of elon musk's political evil leash and -- devolution, it has become more conservative. host: democratic callers next. caller: hello, good morning. i'm going to make ralph in a little more upset. james, when we pay taxes to give to president zelenskyy to arm

him and elon musk blocks the drones that go into russia and other targeted areas to defend themselves, is that a traitor or is he not american? i don't really know. guest: i want to say that the focus of my reporting is not been on star link and what happens there in ukraine or the fact that elon musk in some ways now, some of his most powerful technology he controls is the satellite technology and remote internet technology that the ukrainian government and military have used to counter the russians in the war. what i will say is some of the issues that have been raised by a fellow journalist about what

kind of power this gives elon musk in terms of the u.s. military establishment, those are the bigger questions. i don't think it's a question of whether he's a traitor, i think it's a question of how do we find ourselves in a place where our government, the ukrainian government and military are so dependent on one company, one man for remote communications? that is a failing of a system. it's not necessarily on elon musk. it's a private company that can make certain choices but how do we find ourselves with the dod that is dependent on star link in certain circumstances? that's an accountability question i think more for government than it is for elon musk. i think the one thing we do know about elon musk is that he is [indiscernible] and the fact is, do we want somebody like him having this

much power? that's not a matter of taking power away from him, it's about our government or other government saying we need to rely on multiple different companies for certain things. i would frame the accountability a little differently as to whether he's a traitor or not. i don't think he is. host: in pennsylvania, republican, let's hear from you. caller: good morning to you both and thank you for taking my call. i want to start by saying i'm very much looking forward to watching the new documentary. i love frontline most is much as i love c-span "washington journal." the important thing with twitter recently since elon musk took over, i feel like it was starting to become a one-sided conversation. since elon musk took over it seems like the two way street has started to open up again. i know there have been concerns

with content moderation but it's a very fine line in my opinion between censorship and content moderation. speaking of which, greta, i want to say the caller from new york this morning who accuse you of being biased and a political operative, i've been a big fan for seven years and i can say that couldn't be further from the truth. i have no idea if you are republican or democrat and so. refreshing in today's media host: thank you, i appreciate that. before your answer, i want to show part of your documentary where you look at and talk to a former twitter employees and they talk about how content moderation was handled under elon musk. [video clip] >> the first time i met elon musk was a few hours after he fired my boss. i assumed i was going to be fired and i was surprised it was happening in person, but a member of elon's team requested to meet with me. the initial perspective on his

team was that turn off all access to content moderation. stop all of it., nobody moderates anything >> really? >> i explained that wouldn't be a viable approach because there is lots of types of moderation that are simply not negotiable around combating terrorism, protecting children. i suggested we not shut down those lines and he agreed. i was floored. there was a moment i had been accepting not just to be fired and walk out the door immediately but instead, i was making a recommendation to elon musk about content moderation. he agreed with me and he understood what we were trying to do. i thought for a minute, maybe it won't be as bad as we thought. >> hate speech is surging on twitter following the elon musk takeover. >> most would soon be tested. >> he put up a bat signal to

misogynists and hate speech. >> the anti-defamation league spotted a worrying trend. >> we saw a surge of toxic trolling and hate speech that just blew up on the platform days after the company was bought. host: james jacoby -- guest: that was an anecdote from early on in the elon musk tenure, having taken over the company on hate speech and how he wanted to deal with it. a lot of people at that point as you heard were testing him. he came in and said he was going to make it a more balanced conversation, that he would be more inviting of a larger swath of the voices and it would be conservatives and liberals and he did invite some people who were very controversial back on

the platform. the interesting thing is -- it's all anecdotal at this point. twitter used to be extremely transparent, much more than facebook or any the other social media companies with data about what was going viral on their platform, how hate speech was being addressed and how misinformation is addressed and how were some of the ills of social media being addressed. there was less about political viewpoints and things like that. we really don't know. the data has not nearly has been as transparent since elon musk took over. we don't know what the health of twitter is so it's hard to weigh in on what's been happening. what we know is there was a surgeon hate speech when he first took over. the person in charge of content moderation at first was told by you on musk to get this off.

they said advertising is the main revenue stream. because of these kinds of pauses or boycotts, the anti-defamation league and others are rallying advertisers to stay away from twitter. we don't really know exactly what happened. from certain people who are studying his information is that the is a rise on disinformation on twitter but we don't know all that much because the company is less transparent now. it's interesting the caller has had the experience of having -- of seeing -- of thinking there was a balanced conversation previously. i think that was the intention for elon musk when he took over. but it's very difficult to know that. host: you can watch front lines documentary this evening at 9:00 p.m. eastern time on pbs.

elon musk, twitter takeover premieres and it will be available to stream on the frontline website, youtube and the pbs video app. wayne in chester, virginia, independent. caller: good morning. i think people all over the world have to have concern about people like elon musk because he calls twitter x. if people watch the attacks from russia on ukraine, is that a coincidence? billionaires and people with big money, let's stop elon musk from putting nuclear weapons on his rockets and holding the whole world hostage do whatever he wants to do. then you got donald trump that tried to turn this country over and you got netanyahu, him and trump went on a cruise together.

i think these guys need to be regulated, these people who have money and put them in places where they can not use their money to control the rest of the world. guest: i think the letter on the ukrainian takes is a z not an x so i don't think there's a connection there. is musk a security threat? could he had put a nuke in one of his rockets? i think that's an exceedingly remote possibility. i don't believe that's on anyone's radar necessarily as a concern. going back to a previous caller who had asked about star link and internet access in ukraine

for the ukrainian government in fighting the war with russia, those are serious questions. those are very serious questions about the reliance of certain governments and military on the elon musk technology to fight their wars. in that specific case in ukraine, elon musk felt very uncomfortable with the amount of power he had. ukraine wants to launch an offensive and elon musk felt uncomfortable with his technology being used potentially to spark a third world war. walter isaacson told me and has talked about it elsewhere that elon musk is in some ways concerned about the amount of power he has. i would shift the accountability and that question two government and the military rather than elon musk. it's up to them to find other contractors, other people. we may have too few of them but

we have a few major military contractors in this country and they bid against each other and each of them has their own proprietary technology. elon musk just happened to have innovated in a space with star link in satellite technology that others weren't doing in the same way so he found himself with this huge degree of power. that really needs to be addressed. host: in hawaii, independent, good morning. caller: hello there. a couple of questions -- could you guys get some people on their aboutrob malle and the iranian connection happening domestically that may have connections to what's going on with hamas? that would be good. we're interested in knowing about what you learned on the twitter files. this was a very interesting subject.

it didn't get enough coverage. obviously, there was a lot of arguments from both sides as to what it meant and there was supposed to be some congressional investigation so i don't know what took place and maybe walter isaacson had sung the essay about that, too. host: john jacoby? guest: we do get into the twitter files in this film and you are correct, the mainstream media tended to avoid reporting on the twitter files. there was a lot of inaccuracies in the reporting and a lot of unsubstantiated conclusions. however, having said that, i think the twitter files did raise important questions that our previous call referred to about showing the extent to which the federal government as well as various academic institutions study the problem

of misinformation during elections and the pandemic, stanford university had an internet observatory there and university of washington. the twitter files writers labeled this entire thing of government and colluding with the academics and colluding with the tech companies to suppress certain viewpoints and suppress certain information in some cases, true information. they label it censorship industrial complex. whether there is truly a censorship industrial complex is really up for grabs. it's up for interpretation. certainly jim jordan and his committee in congress, what he calls the weaponization of the federal government committee, they are looking into this question. it's a very serious committee with subpoena power and they have tried to subpoena different

people from government agencies as well as academic institution studying the problem of misinformation. i think they are looking for this idea that there is a conspiracy to censor. as opposed to figuring out the balance between the harms on social media of things like misinformation and disinformation when we are in the midst of a public health crisis. what is the issue with the cdc or stanford university flagging misinformation without the covid virus to social media companies that could potentially have major consequences for their users? these are private companies. the first amendment is quite clear that the government shall make no laws to infringe upon free-speech rights in this country. private companies have always had their own independent power.

for -- the first amendment issues don't apply to them in the same way. i guess jim jordan's committee is suggesting that the federal government has actually been putting undue pressure and influence on these companies to take down certain content. in some cases, jim jordan has been buttressed by recent court cases. there is an appeals court the recently ruled that the biden administration likely violated the first amendment in its effort to curtail misinformation , especially about the vaccine. this is all going to be for out in the courts and it will likely end up at the supreme court. it's an extremely important conversation to be had. to sum it all up, i think the twitter files have been quite valuable in having raise this question about what is the appropriate role of government in fighting disinformation by foreign actors during elections,

attempting to so destruction in the legitimate results of an election. also what is the appropriate role of domestic people in united states that are without evidence, saying that elections are not legitimate. what should be the role of government when that happens, what should be the role of social media companies? these are important conversations to have. the twitter files in some ways, some of the reporting was lousy in the conclusions were hyperbolic or exaggerated. i'm not sure they did themselves a favor and doing that. they were reporting on interesting things and raising important questions. host: mary lou in a post onx - deborah in pennsylvania, democratic caller. caller: a question -- i just wanted more clarity on the start link drone technology.

i watched an interview on firing line with walter isaacson, talking about his biography about elon musk. he said regarding the drone technology, he sold that technology to the department of defense because he has an individual was uncomfortable intervening with the request by the ukraine and moving forward with that, that he sold it to the department of defense. i was asking for clarity on that. host: james jacoby? guest: i hate to say this but the focus of my reporting has not been on star link in that aspect of the story. walter has done a much deeper dive on that. i don't want to go over my bounds and answer a question i don't have a foundation for for it

i would encourage you to read some of the reporting in the new yorker about this to get a fuller picture of the start link issue. especially as it pertains to ukraine. host: the documentary airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on pbs. what will viewers of this documentary learn? guest: i think they will learn a lot about the elon musk evolution in active position over the past two years basically since the pandemic, what led him personally and politically to want to buy twitter. in some ways, he was reacting to what twitter was doing and what some of the previous callers have referred to which is that twitter had really been much more proactive about content moderation. these companies were under pressure after the 2016 election

and after it came out that these platforms were vectors for foreign disinformation efforts by russians and others to so distrust in the election. i did a film in 2018 about facebook call the facebook dilemma which was about the harms of social media. these companies went after that criticism and lambasting congress for all the stuff and the threat of the regulations. a lot of these countries may have gone too far in the other direction. there were lots of harms and then they focus tremendously on safety. what i think we are ultimately having as a conversation about the balance, the appropriate balance between harm and safety. i think that some people like musk felt as though the wealth ideology, the wealth mind virus

in america, is very much about this idea of safety, of safe spaces, of this kind of censorious tendency to limit conversation and to say certain views and certain ideas are really not appropriate to discuss. it is not appropriate to question certain things, whether it comes down to transgender politics or all sorts of other things, questioning the vaccine or questioning other things. and musk is very much of the opinion that all of these questions should be on the table, that is the nature of free speech, and that twitter and other social media companies that have veered far too far toward safety and not allowing a more robust conversation to happen. there is a totally legitimate critique there. the question is, if that is your philosophy, then, as the story unfolds, you see how musk has actually delivered on the

promise of free speech on twitter and how the idea of free speech is that it should be free speech for all, even people that you don't like or it is not just free speech for me, but free speech for you too. in some cases, their anecdotes we tell in the film that portrayed his views in a different light once he was in charge. i think you will learn a lot about that and i think the previous caller that brought up the twitter files, what musk had done when he took over was that he had invited a group of writers into twitter and opened up what he called the files, the twitter files, to these writers to excavate and investigate how the company had been making some of the critical decisions about content moderation before he bought it. what they purported to find was that the government and these companies as well as these academic institutions were sort of conspiring to censor people. i don't think that they proved that.

as i said to the previous caller, and i think it is an interesting thing you will learn about, and i did talk to jim jordan and others about it, this is an important question for all of us to be contemplating. host: margaret in texas. independent. caller: good morning. what i wanted to say is that i am 95 years old. i have followed musk since he began working on maps in the garage with his brother. i admired him tremendously. i felt he was the renaissance man of our age. since has gone into politics, i have been very disappointed in him. host: i apologize, a quick answer from you on him entering politics. guest: i think that was the impetus for doing the film, which is that he had been this kind of much left controversial figure in america because he was this great innovator with tesla an