mobile video app or online at c-span.org. we would like to thank all of you, our guests and viewers for another great washington journal today. we will see you again tomorrow morning for another addition -- edition of washington journal. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023]

" starts now. ♪ host: good morning and welcome

to "washington journal." the fight between israel and hamas is contorting this we can with israel widely expected to launch a major ground offensive against gaza, intended to demolish the palestinian militant group, but is also expected to cost hundreds if not thousands of lives. president joe biden visited israel last week and pledged american support and foreign aid to the country while calling for humanitarian support for the palestinians. he is asking for support for ukraine in the fight against russia, something republicans are fighting against. our question for you this morning, what is your view of president biden's handling of the israel-hamas conflict? we will open up our regular lines this morning, which means republicans can call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats, your number is (202) 748-8000. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002.

keep in mind you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always reading on social media on facebook, on x, and you can always follow us on instagram. once again, the fighting between israel and the palestinian militant group hamas continues this weekend. let's get quickly an update on ig on with the war right now from "the new york times." here is what "the new york times" says this morning. as israeli forces amassed on the border with gaza sunday ahead of the ground invasion a splitting clashes on israel's northern border with lebanon along with strikes in syria and in the israeli occupied west bank raises fears on a widening regional conflict. israeli authorities say they were expanding a state-funded evacuation plan to be presidents

from an additional 14 -- plan to move residents from an additional 14 locations. israel's military said sunday it is contending with increasing attacks from hezbollah, the militia that controls southern lebanon that resulted in civilian and military casualties. amid concerns the conflict could spill over, an antimissile battery and been telling a patriot ground-based air defense systems were dispatched to the middle east following recent escalations by iran and its proxy forces. violence has been surging across the israeli occupied west bank. the israeli military carried out a rare airstrike overnight against what it described as an underground terror compound beneath a mosque in a city. two people were killed according to palestinian health officials. that is from "the new york times" talking about what is going on right now in the middle

east, and the fight in the middle east. once again, we want to know what you think about the handling of the israel-hamas conflict by president joe biden. here in the united states, the president is looking for funding to help both israel and ukraine with two major wars going on in the world right now. i want to read a chouse is look. the white house on friday released a sweeping set of proposals to bolster israel and ukraine in the midst of two wars, as well as invest more in defense manufacturing, humanitarian assistance, and managing the influx of migrants at the u.s.-mexico border. the total cost of the request was just over $105 billion. president joe biden hopes congress will move urgently on the legislation as he made the case for deepening support for its allies during a rare oval

office address on thursday night. for more information about what is going on at the white house when it comes to the israel-hamas conflict, we will be joined by a white house campaign 2024 reporter. good morning. guest: good morning. host: so, first, what is the white house planning this week to try to mitigate or to help in the israel-hamas conflict? is the white house planning anything in particular? guest: president biden had a very busy week last week in terms of the u.s. response to the war in israel, and he started that out with a primetime speech in which he called israel in crisis and compared hamas to isis. it was broadcast all over the u.s. as well as widely watched in israel.

he also went to israel to meet with netanyahu. that was significant and fairly well received as well. as for this week, we don't know what schedule will be just yet, but my expectation is that he will continue to have calls with his national security advisor's as well as -- advisors as well as with foreign state leaders. and he may do a little less travel as he has domestically. he will be very focused on the war once again this week. host: $105 billion supplemental, is there any chance of congress moving on this anytime soon, especially with what is going on with the republicans and the house speaker? is this just a wish for something we can expect to happen sometime soon? guest: well, you know, we have got more than two weeks without a speaker of the house. and house republicans still don't seem any more likely to getting a speaker.

you have, you know, many, many republicans who just entered the race as it seems jim jordan was not able to get enough from his party. and so all of that needs to be resolved before the house can really move on this funding request from president biden. and once that is there, biden still needs to get both ukraine as well as israel's funding, and that is posing some problems for some house republicans, so the short answer is we will have to see and it certainly will not happen imminently. host: we are talking but the house and what is going on with the house speaker, but what is the opposition in the senate to linking the israeli funding and ukrainian funding? is it a problem in the senate with that? guest: i think in the senate there is more consensus among

democrats and republicans. there are a few republican voices here or there that are opposed to more ukraine funding or some sort of ukraine funding, whether they don't want military funding or humanitarian funding, but as a whole, there definitely will be enough votes in the senate to pass that package through the senate. the issue is really going to be in the house with some house republicans, especially on the far right, who have felt the u.s. has spent too much money on foreign wars. some say the u.s. has been funding both sides. they say there has not been enough money for americans, so why should we be spending on these foreign wars? host: you also have been covering campaign 2024.

is there space between the republican nominees for president when it comes to israel and ukraine? are they all saying the same thing? guest: there is actually quite a bit of variance between candidates. when it comes to ukraine, there really is this big divide between some of your more establishment republicans including nikki haley, tim scott, chris christie, and folks for president trump and ron desantis. the other group as opposed to ukraine funding. they say no more for the same reason the house republicans say no more ukraine funding. on the issue of israel, we are starting to see more of a divide here. the same establishment republicans, they are saying we still need to be supporting

israel. and on the other hand, trump, dissenters, vivek -- desantis, vivek, they have not been writing a check for israel. they want to see an elaboration on what the endgame is in gaza, especially after hamas has been eradicated. they want to see more of a plan. they really don't believe in sending more money just automatically. host: are these two conflicts causing any challenge on the democratic side or an antiwar challenge to president biden? or does he not have any real competition for the next presidential election on the democratic side? guest: you know, i think in terms of the party, there are some challenges that are emerging. there are a lot of progress of democrats in the house that have called for a cease-fire or for de-escalation.

even at least one democratic senator calling for de-escalation, and that is a very different tone than the biden white house and administration as a whole has been taking in response to the war. we saw some pro cease fire protesters who were at the capitol last week. we have also seen letters from progressive democrats written to president biden -- to president biden. we saw a resignation from someone who really disagreed with the way in which the biden administration been responding to the war. he felt like there was no option for any other dissenting voices. biden has taken a very staunchly supportive stance with israel, and there are definitely some folks in his party who disagree with his position. host: there is the big state

dinner with the australian prime minister coming up this week. why is this notable? guest: well, you know, this is a state dinner with a foreign leader happening in wartime, so it is really important for biden now as well as at the state dinner and in the coming weeks and months to project strength, to keep his allies close to really show he is a stable hand, that he can stabilize the world during the conflict. it is a make or break moment for him so a lot to be watching. host: and for our last question, tell us one thing you are looking forward to or looking at this week as something that will make news. guest: yeah, so i have been watching how the 2020 for canada's have been responding to the work desk

202 -- 2024 candidates have been responding to the war regarding the refugees in gaza. there has been a lot back and forth between candidates, including former president trump, so i will be watching to see how the republican candidates -- their views on the war as well as these issues will continue to evolve. host: we would like to thank the white house and campaign 2024 reporter sophia cai to come with us this morning and walk us through the week we will have. then you for your time this morning. guest: thanks. host: once again, we want to know what your view is of president biden's handling of the israel-hamas conflict. let's start out by talking to lee from ohio on the democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. yeah. i voted for biden, but in this

case, his handling -- he is handling this stuff pretty much wrong. just giving unconditional support to israel. you can't give them additional support when they are not treating the pales israel was a mistake the way it was created. it was created in 1948 and they subjugated the palestinian people to the israelis and the only was and they were able to do that is the u.s. hoped and the u.n. the u.s. in 1948, we were a separate society so we did not think twice about making israel that way, that was a fatal mistake that caused all the problems ever since. until people recognize that, until biden starts talking out against the way that israel has treated palestinians in their laws and the way they are, this will not go away. host: let's go to jeffrey, who

was calling from greensboro, north carolina, on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking the call. really interesting subject. and i want to say thank you on how you host your show and bring real matters, important matters to everyday lives in our country. first off, i want to say about the caller that just called, it is definitely connected on his statement where a lot of that conflict goes back well beyond two weeks ago. the fairness of having to live a life or that the countries were segregated to the point of trying to line up what he said, that is a very important matter that needs to be resolved somewhere. and with biden, on a public

stage like that, it is not a win-win on any aspect because as it is, you cannot forget the other innocent lives and just damage that is being done to the palestinians like they do not exist or don't have a right, and that is just unfair. here in america, all of this situation that is going on in our country where the republican situation, they just automatically act like the indictments don't mean anything, it is a mess in america right now with the politicians and the situation that there is no real dial. it is dangerous because i just follow the news and try to hear what people say professionally that are very much smarter than

me, but it makes no sense to know a person can be in such harsh responsibility of legal law matters and don't go to no debates and half of america is signing onto this threat. it is a real issue. it is a real issue where we find money for wars and you have to put in america living on the streets, under bridges, homeless. host: let's go to robert, who is coming from greenville, texas, on the independent line. robert, good morning. caller: good morning. yeah. i just thought i would call in and touch in on this one. i appreciate both of your first two callers. they had very good points there. i tend to agree with both of them on the fact that we need to reassess our situation in the middle east. i think the brunt of the

response really to this whole thing, and i hate to say it, it is on israel. they were granted a substantial piece of property in the middle east back in the late 1940's after world war ii. and rightfully so, supposedly it was their homeland. i get that and everything, but i mean, if they really believe in american values and a justice system and freedom of religion, freedom that all people were created equal, if that is our real belief in our constitution, those are the thoughts we ought to be conveying to israel, that we need to bring the palestinians into the fold of israel, or israel go into the

fold of a palestinian state. either way, but constitutional guarantees in israel seems like the most logical way approaching it. but there is freedom of religion and a judicial system which they just recently got rid of, the checks and balances, and convey our thoughts of what our country and what our constitution are due to uphold the rights of the citizens. put it on the palestinians. put into a referendum. put into a vote. instead of war, vote, and let them determine how they want to integrate into the system. so instead of eight tit-for-tat war back and forth that seems to go on forever, come up with a political solution, whether it

is amending the constitution, whatever, but bring these people into the fold. give them a choice in government. give them a choice and share in the prosperity that israel has created. host: president biden has decided that he wants to link support for israel to support for ukraine, which has been fighting against russia for quite a few months now. so president biden came out on thursday night and said he would be setting a supplemental of $105 billion to congress that would support both israel and ukraine. here is a portion of what president biden said in his oval office speech on thursday night. [video clip] >> it israel, 20 once of war, tragedy, and brutality, inflicted on the people of ukraine, people that work badly

hurt since putin launched his all-out invasion, but we have not forgotten the mass graves, the bodies found with signs of torture, the weapons used by russians, and thousands of ukrainian children forcibly taken into russia stolen from their parents. it is sick. hamas and putin present different threats but share this in common. they both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy. completely annihilate it. hamas does not represent the palestinian people. hamas uses palestinian civilians as human shields and and is families are suffering greatly because of them. meanwhile, putin denies ukraine had or -- has or ever had statement. just two weeks ago, he told the world that if the united states and the allies -- if the united

states withdraws, the allies will as well and ukraine will have a week left to live. i know these conflicts can seem far away. it is not too late to ask why this matters to america. let me share with you what is real and you succeed is vital for u.s. national security. history has taught us that when terrorists do not pay a price for their terror, when dictators do not pay price for their aggression, they caused more chaos and death and destruction. they keep going. these threats to america keep rising. host: we want to know what your view is of president biden's handling of the israel-hamas conflict. let's go to louis, wh was coming from cincinni,hio, on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good rng, pedro. you to know i watch this exclusively.

but i have one quick question. first of all, to answer your question, i believe president biden is doing an awesome job. he is doing the best he can with what our country has been dealt in support of our allies, our main ally, israel. but my question for you, why is it impossible for israel to open its borders and allow palestinian americans in as we are asking egypt to do? seeing how much we are supporting israel, it just seems logical. the backs up against the wall. egypt is taking its time dragging its feet. why can't they come through israel's border? like i said, seeing how much we are supporting israel. thank you. host: all right.

let's go to body who is calling -- bonnie, who is calling from lancaster, pennsylvania, on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, pedro. thank you for taking my call. i have been all through the middle east and i don't think the middle east will ever be at peace because it is all about religion. all people are good. the palestinians are good. but they elected hamas to run their government. and the hamas are terrorists. 20,000 palestinians a day cross the border and go into israel and work. that is like mexico sending 20,000 into the united states legally each day to work. israel provides the water and the electricity. i am not jewish. but there goal, hamas's goal,

iran's goal is to eliminate the jewish people. jordan does not want the palestinians. egypt does not want them because they are afraid. they have been raised to kill the jews. and we don't have the money to be over in all these countries and try to help people that is never going to be satisfied. and lastly, the orthodox jew s are the most religious people. they are like our amish. they mind their own business, raise their own food. why on earth would they pick going in and killing 200 plus of the jewish people who are peaceful to start this? thank you. host: let's talk to curt, who was calling from mount union,

pennsylvania, on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, pedro. how are you this morning? host: i am not pedro, but go ahead. caller: all right, well, my first is i take umbrage with the question bidens administration. i don't think biden is really making the call on anything. i think i would like to know who is actually pulling the strings and pocketing him. the men cannot climb steps. he cannot even walk without tripping. so somebody behind there is running the country and i would like to know who it is. host: ok. what do you think the white house should be doing now? caller: the white house should be finding a true leader. because obviously biden is not the guy. host: if you had to tell the leader of the united states what to do right now, what would be

your suggestion for them? caller: my suggestion would be to support israel. they have always been our ally. now, if you look at the opposing side, which we have somebody protests here in favor of the palestinians and hamas. hamas embraces the islamic religion, which the islamic religion, they would have death to the lgbtq community. they would just slaughter them. i don't think a lot of americans realize the true values of hamas. they slaughtered children, innocent people. yet you have americans, this shows the ignorance of americans come out protesting in favor of it. host: all right. once again, we want to know what your view is of the israel-hamas conflict. how do you think presintiden is doing? we want to hear from you. republicans, (202) 748-8001.

democrats, (20-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. appearing on fox news after president biden's there's the knight speech, gop presidential candidate tim scott from south carolina attacked the biden foreign policy. here is what tim scott had to say. [video clip] >> one of the things we need from this president is clarity. he does not seem to be able to speak clearly. he made a speech tonight. member, our ally israel was bombed by a terrorist organization, and tonight's speech focused more on ukraine than it did on israel. unbelievable, number one. number two, if we are going to send the kind of message that has strength in it, we need the gerald ford and sixth fleet prepared in the mediterranean as a deterrent, telling iran consequences are coming if you

bomb israel. >> what the words of joe biden -- would they take it seriously? would he back it up? would he mean it? i am not sure. >> you raise a really good point. look at his past actions. i would say as i got spent time in financial services, but you did in the past can indicate what you do in future. the afghanistan withdrawal, devastating, number one. number two, telling putin don't attack these areas from cyber warfare. number three, a small incursion might be ok. number four, let's get the russians to work with the iranians on a new deal, and number five, the first message he sent after the conflict started on october 7 was to tell israel to stand down. my point is solid as a rock. the weakness of the president has called chaos and conflict around the world, so we need a

new commander-in-chief so that what we say we mean and that means there are consequences that follow. if we are not loyal to our allies, no one believes we will be lethal to our adversaries. host: once again, we want to know what your view is of president biden's handling of the israel-hamas conflict. let's talk to lucy calling from california. good morning. caller: hi. this is what i have to say, and this is for everybody who watches this program when you say biden is still not paying attention or he is not for this position or things like that. what about moses? god chose him. aaron took over later. moses stuttered. what is wrong? maybe god is in charge of biden right now and everybody says he does not know what he is doing. that is what they said to moses,

so just listen for a little bit. this war is going to go on until the day of the terrible victory is over. jesus, look at all of these walls and buildings. he said when the fig tree is over, you will know i am on my way. host: what do you think president biden should be doing right now? caller: what i think he should be doing, exactly what he is doing because i think if anything -- did you hear what i said earlier? i thought i was on. host: go ahead. caller: ok. what i think you should be doing is exactly what he is doing because the one that is in control is god and nobody else. host: let's go to william, who calls from sarasota, florida, and the independent line. good morning.

william, turn your tv down. go ahead. all right. let's go to mike. mike, who is calling from new jersey, on the democrat line. mike, good morning. caller: good morning. i listened to the gentleman who said that israel is our friend. but remember -- another thing he said was that the slab hates the lgbt community. they keep mixing up hamas with a slam -- islam. hamas is not islam.

i don't know. host: let's talk to kathleen, who is calling from las vegas, nevada, on the republican line. kathleen, good morning. caller: good morning. i agree with the gentleman that called that joe biden is not fit to run anything at this time. as far as israel goes, they have the right to defend what happened to them. these are terrorists. we need to start calling hamas terrorists. that is what they are. they came in and they murdered men, women, and children. host: all right. on the democratic side, there is a bit of a flip in the democratic party about how to handle the israel-hamas conflict

, and there was a story that talked a little bit about the split happening in the democratic party right now. i will beat a couple paragraphs of that story to you. with democrats reveling in the dysfunction of republicans unable to agree on how to replace the house speaker, the growing crisis in the middle east is exposing long simmering tensions within the democratic party. younger voters especially tend to take a more critical view of israel. a poll released tuesday found 21% of voters aged 18 to 34 backed biden's policies to support israel compared with 37% of those age 34 to 49, and 60% of those aged 65 and older. more than half of voters under 35 were opposed to the u.s. sending military aid and weapons to israel in the aftermath of the october 7 assaults by hamas

while the majority of democrats issue statements denouncing hamas and saying they stand by israel some progressive members of congress have been critical of israel's response and are urging the biden administration to call on its ally to exercise restraint as idf troops appear to be preparing for a ground assault. once again, that is coming from roll call with roll call saying there are simmering tensions in the democratic party over the israel-hamas conflict. also, in the senate, republican senators are coming out against president biden's budget trying to link president biden's -- president biden's supplemental trying to link israel and use

-- and ukraine foreign aid. i want to read you a letter from the gop senate leadership calling on the leadership to oppose the supplemental. t is critical we give pr consideration to any request for financial aid or otherial based on the breath of responses from members of congress, there is a sha urgency to consider such a r. that being said, wew the will no doubt be efforts to attach any funding to israel tomoid t uaine in excesse already 113 billion dollars congress has provided ukraine these are two separate colict that it would be wrong to leverage support of aid to israel in an attempt to get additional aid for ukraine across the finish line. once again, that is coming from a letter that republican senators sent to their own leadership calling for them to oppose the supplemental asked

for by president biden that would give money to both ukraine and israel at the same time. once again, we want to know what you think about president biden's handling of the israel-hamas conflict. let's go back to our phone calls and talk to donald who is calling from raleigh, north carolina, on the independent line. donald, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i just want to say the morning began as a very nice and enlightening conversation from c-span callers. and i was really encouraged when i heard the first two calls who kind of agreed and the third caller who called in. the morning on c-span was shaping up to be for me a really enlightening thing. and then it is like the guy that called in and started talking about biden, you could smell

them coming a mile away. you could almost literally see them reaching for their backside when he calls in. we don't need that kind of stuff. you can be looking at a basket full of horses and there can be a thousand horses in there and after a while you see there is one horse that looks kind of funny and before too long, that horse will raise up on its front legs and do a kick and you say that is a donkey. thank you for taking my call. host: let's go to larry, who is coming from washington, d.c., on the democratic line. larry, good morning. caller: i just want to say thank you for that description. by but he has a mind full of data, history.

he knows the reasons and the world much better than anybody else out there, so this alone qualifies him. it is the knowledge in his head, not the words coming out of his mouth. what does he mean? is he articulating? can we understand him? clear enough. i understand him. sometimes he stumbles a bit. a little bit of what did he call it? senior moments. they happen to you. but that does not take anything away from his knowledge. he knows the ukraine and russia situation better than most. certainly better than a tv game show host. host: let's talk to todd, who

was calling from ohio on the republican line. good morning. caller: hello. yeah, biden is an absolute criminal. he is destroying this country faster than anybody i have ever seen. he is handling israel the same as the rest of the foreign policy, just a disaster for this country. he is just a mess and needs to be put out of office and put in jail along with obama and the clintons. host: all right, let's talk to purvis calling from morgantown, west virginia, on the democratic line. good morning. caller: thank you so much. i appreciate you taking my call. i really appreciate it. from morgantown in west virginia. i think the president is doing an excellent job. the man is experienced. he knows what he is doing. and to me scott is like clarence

thomas, a disgrace to the race, point blank. tim scott, clarence thomas, not happy with either one of them. i believe president biden has done a great job, him and his whole administration, they are doing the right thing. i believe the bombing should stop. it is hurting the palestinians. that is not sanctified, i don't believe. and with the hamas leadership, you have good intelligence and can find those guys eventually, but the palestinians as a whole are suffering from the indiscriminate bombing. that i cannot support. i agree with them being mad. that was wrong to assault the outputs they had, but the occupied territory is not the answer, and that is the solution to the problem. we cannot carry on that way. host: let's talk to troy, who is

calling from south carolina on the independently. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say, frankly, first of all that the president is doing the best job and he is not a criminal. let's not deflect. we know that -- we know who that criminal is. we see how the lawyers are in georgia. you know the facts are not the facts, ok? biden has done the best job we have right now. to put biden with criminals or obama with criminals, if that was the case, they would have had obama locked up before he got any year -- in year two or three. tim scott is delusional. there is racism. the other point is that if we talk about scriptures, god said the palestinians would be a thorn in israel's side.

that war will never be solved, ok? i think israel is taking precautions. they are not just wiping out, ok? like they really are taking precautions because they want to get rid of hamas, not the palestinians. let's make that clear and not deflect, ok? the last point is tim scott is delusional, just like the whole party. host: president biden once again came out and spoke to the country on thursday night and called for a supplemental bill that would provide money for both ukraine and israel, so here is president biden from the oval office on thursday night talking about the four and a proposal he is going to send to congress. [video clip] >> i am going to send to congress and urgent budget request to fund america's national security, to support a critical party including israel and ukraine.

it is a smart investment that will dividends for american security for generations, help us keep american troops out of harm's way, help us build a world that is safer, more peaceful, and more prosperous for our children and grandchildren. in israel, we must make sure they have what they need to protect the people today and always. the security package i am sending to congress and asking congress for is an unprecedented commitment to israel's security and will sharpen israel's qualitative military edge, which we have committed to. qualitative military edge. we will make sure that the iron done continues to guard the skies over israel and other hostile actors in the region know that israel is stronger than ever and prevent this conflict from spreading. at the same time, president netanyahu and i discussed again yesterday the critical nature to operate by the laws of war, that means protecting civilians in

combat as best as they can. the people of gaza urgently need food, medicine. yesterday in discussions with the leaders of israel and egypt, i secured an agreement for the first shipment of humanitarian assistance from the united nations to palestinian civilians in gaza. pump us does not divert or steal this shipment, the shipments will provide an opening for sustained delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance for the palestinians. as i said in israel, as hard as it is, we cannot give up on peace, we cannot give up on a two state solution. israel and palestinians equally deserve to live in safety, dignity, and peace. host: once again, we want to know what your view is of how president biden has handled the israel-hamas conflict. you see the numbers on the screen. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000.

independents, (202) 748-8002. we want to know what you think, so call in. let's go to william, who is calling from sarasota, florida, on the independently. william, good morning. caller: good morning. i just can't get over the cavalier attitude of the manslaughter of palestinians. it is almost this colonial mindset, the same reason we call natives here, indians, because we are in india. i don't know if anybody knew that but this is not india but we still call these people indians. it is the same colonial mindset. those people all came from poland, germany, and came and took that land from the palestinians through the declaration signed by england and the united states. i read the bible over 15, 20 times, and i have never read about the u.n. charter or the

commission bringing the children of israel back into the land that was promised to them. and in fact, it was joshua that was supposed to do that. but he keeps on misquoting scripture. that is another bible passage that everybody should know. it says my people are destroyed through the lack of knowledge. it also says the study approves of the lord, not just take what the pastor is saying these people are murdering palestinians. murdering them. and we are standing by. just like what you just said, we are giving a weapons package to these people to kill more palestinians these people have been held in the world's largest open-air prison since 1948. and i would think you would want to lash out if three generations of your family have known nothing but suffering and oppression. these people are getting shot at on a regular, killed with impunity from the settlers that

are constantly stealing more and more land. it is ridiculous that we are that cavalier about another people's oppression. host: let's go to james, who was calling from washington state on the democratic line. james, good morning. caller: the man that just talked had it right. he knew his stuff. biden is doing the best he can with what he was dealt with coming into this. first, he had to deal with putin invading ukraine. look at all the massacres he has done. he is a war criminal. and netanyahu, he is just another trump, you know? i hate to say we have agreed to help israel, yes, but the

palestinians going back to 2006, they had no right to vote. they voted, but if they voted against hamas, they would have blown up buildings. that is how hamas came to power, republicans. if you did your homework, you would know this, not just watch fox news. if you really want to find out the real truth, free speech tv, tom and randy, any of them. thank you for letting me speak. host: let's go to steve, who is calling from san jose, california, on the republican line. steve, good morning. caller: permit me to make two very important comments. number one, i would certainly like to see two guests at the same time on c-span, which you occasionally have.

one supporting the palestinian point of view, and the other one supporting the israeli point of view, because i would like to see my tv melt down in front of my eyes. point number two, this was all predicted in the bible in genesis chapter 16 and verse 12. it is a very curious verse. it is the story of abraham, sarah, abraham's wife, and hagar, abraham's concubine. and ishmael was the son of abraham's concubine, and here is what it had to say about him. this was the son of the nation of the arabs.

and he will be a wild man and his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him. as we all know, there are treats that are -- there are traits that are genetically passed down from generation to generation. we breed dogs for certain traits. i truly believe as well as a lot of christian people that this trait of a wild man and every man's hand against him and he will be against every man was a trait that is indicative of the arab nation. host: let's go to don calling from las cruces, new mexico, on

the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. first of all, i would like to make a suggestion for programming. i would like to have you bring on raz segal. he is a historian whose area of specialty is the holocaust and genocide. i am basing my comments on something that he said what is happening in gaza is nothing other than genocide and ethnic cleansing, cutting food, water, energy, and medical supplies is genocide. forcing one million people to move from the north to the south is genocide. bobbing gaza with the equivalence of bob's in one week that we use in one year in afghanistan is genocide. the president of israel said

that everyone in gaza is an enemy is an enemy combatant is genocide. calling palestinians animals is genocide. host: let's go to crystal, who is calling from wilkes-barre, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. as you stated, i am calling on the democratic line but i don't agree with anything right now, and i decided not to vote for him. i will sit this one out, but let me make two points. when president biden gets up there and says that we are in support of ukraine from being invaded by russia that is ok, and then he goes and says that we are ok with israel invading palestine.

to me, that is not ok. another thing is that a person on twitter made a good point saying that we are after all of the how mass and isis-like terrorists as you call it. then why did we not go bob saudi arabia when they bombed us? this is the hypocritical stuff that i do not like. i do not like what he is doing. all human life is important. right now, i am standing with the palestinians, and i am standing with the israelis who want peace and who want a cease-fire. i do not like what biden is doing, and he has lost my support 100%. host: after president biden came and offered up the supper mental that would support ukraine and israel, j.d. vance went on fox news and responded to his address by saying the war

it israel should not anyway be used get more funding from ukraine. here is what the senator had to say. [video clip] >> right now, america does not need client states. we need real allies. if they will not step up and carry their fair share, they are not real allies. they are basically depending on our generosity, and right now, we just cannot afford it, and we cannot support the weapons necessary to fight a two or god forbid a three front conflict if china invades taiwan. we know right now that there are artillery shells the israelis need for their operation in gaza that we have sent to the ukrainians. when we allowed our industrial capacity to get to the point where we do not make enough artillery shells to support our friends? and given that reality, why is joe biden going on national television and selling people on a ukrainian escalation where joe biden is talking about the terrible tragedy in israel?

whatever your view on ukraine, it is a separate country and a separate problem. i think with the president it is completely disgraceful. if he wants to sell the american people $60 billion more to ukraine, he should not use dead israeli children to do it. it was disgusting. host: once again, we want to know what your view of how president biden is handling the israel-hamas conflict. let's talk to ernest. caller: yes, hi. joe biden is no good, ok? for one, a wall to be put up in this country, he did not work with that. when he became in office, he denied the wall from being put up, so i do not appreciate how he is doing things in this

office. things have totally been corrupt. this country is going to hell due to joe biden. host: all right, let's go to byron calling from north carolina on the independent line. byron, good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. this is -- i have a lot to say and will try to be quick. this dirty little secret that america has been hiding forever, the american media has not put this out there because they know how wrong israel was, and the media includes c-span because i called in before a couple times and said, what you have stories on israel? most of the people that do, you do not let them call back in. not you, but somebody on c-span.

they are forced now to put it out there, and now people are really seeing what this whole thing is, because they have been hiding it for so long. but, jesse, the pitiful thing is if we put this out there and did not hold it back, this dirty little secret, we probably could have gotten this problem settled. by hiding it, netanyahu came into power. over half of the people were against this guy coming in. he was a wannabe dictator, one of trump's best friends. they protested for 11 months. and on the same scale that if america protested for that many people, there would have been 3 million people a day. this guy tried to get wind of part of their constitution and become a full-blown dictator. i disagree with biden and he embraced this guy.

i think he should have demanded that she had a perfect chance for israel to go all the good jews side, the ones that want peace, and get rid of him before they did anything and got someone else in there. but by him going along with the netanyahu guy, netanyahu is going to end up the big hero, and he will probably end up getting elected again. if that happens to me could guarantee trump will get elected over here. host: let's go to christopher, who was calling from valley forge, pennsylvania, on the democratic line. christopher, good morning. caller: thanks, i have two quick comments. the first is when i hear people coming in and talking about israel's right to defend itself, i want to ask those people, why don't you go live in gaza for a year? go live there for a year or two and you can lecture us about what it is like and talk about it after you lived under the israeli gulag. my other comment is i have an

unusual theory about why antisemitism exists. it will probably always exist. the jewish people actually like antisemitism. it is counterintuitive but you have to understand the psychology of the jewish people, which is they have been and are obsessed with the idea they have been persecuted. this has become a core part of the religion. the roots of this are the jewish people think they are a little smarter than everybody. they think they are better than everybody. and they think antisemitism is caused by that, that everyone is jealous of them for being smarter. they can't let that go. so the antisemitism will exist because the jewish people need it. host: we would like to thank all of our callers who called in for our first second. bring up next, we will be having roundtable discussion here in in studio

on campaign 2024 in thnews of the day with democratic pollster nancy and republican pollster brian. later, the atlantic council -- will be the -- here for the latest in the israel hamas conflict. stick with us, we will be right back. ♪ >> this week on the c-span networks, congress returns to the battle over the house speaker ship continuing. the senate plans to vote on the nomination of michael whitaker to be the next the faa administrator. on wednesday, president biden and first lady jill biden will host a state dinner honoring the australian prime minister.

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campaign 2024, the israel hamas conflict and the political news of the day. brian we will start with you, president biden went to israel and give a major street -- speech from the oval office just a couple of days ago on the conflict. is this helping in any way shape or fashion. >> looking bold and assertive and wanting to stand up against terrorism and these unimaginable actions of cruelty that happened to the israeli people puts them in the type of light that makes presidents look presidential and gives them a chance to use the power of the oval office. about 22 million people watched this on thursday. it was 130 6 million people turned out to vote in 2016. it certainly did do a lot of favors, a lot of the electorate was probably watching football

or doing other things. but it did give him an opportunity to look presidential and look tough and be -- and thoughtful. >> i tend to agree that most people are probably -- the average american is probably not very focused on the president upon reaction to this. most people are probably making sure they are picking up their kids from school. i want to resist the tendency to put this into the context of american electoral politics in this moment specifically. i think that it flattens the discourse and is probably not helpful for anybody. not only are people having a hard time figuring out what's going on, the average american,

they also increasingly have conflicting information in front of them in their social media feed and from legacy media as well. that's something that's overseas, a conflict that is half a world away. it's hard enough for people to be able to stay on top of policy issues that are in front of them here in america right now. to be sure there are people who are meeting this moment with well-informed opinions, whatever they may be. in general i believe most people are horrified by what they are seeing and just trying to figure out what's going on. such of the extent the president is helping them feel like they can better understand the situation and have some context for the horrific images they are seeing it's a good thing. host: a good start, so what the

white house be doing right now? is the white house doing exactly what it should be doing or is there something more president biden should be doing or saying right now? >> luckily i am not a foreign policy expert i am just a pollster. right now my job and our job is not to inform policy advice it is to listen to voters and to try and ask the right questions as well. right now a lot of the questions being asked in polling are flat on things like israel. are we talking about the concept, the people, the government? when they say palestine are they talking about hamas, the people or something else. asking the right questions don't get rid of the nuance would be unhelpful for understanding public opinion and could make for bad foreign policy and communication about foreign policy. our job is to ask the right

questions and listen to voters. we will be doing that in the weeks ahead. host: what are democratic voters saying right now? >> a lot of people are not making this their top priority right now. it does not mean people don't care about this. people might have some opinions about this, it is important for many people. if you look at the tracking, 8% say that foreign policy was their top concern. so while it is important that the president is communicating and making people feel like they understand what's going on and doing good foreign policy it's also important they are speaking to the priorities most americans have which continues to be things like the economy and cost-of-living. protecting abortion rights prayed immigration, health care and so on. host: what are republican voters talking about? >> the general republican voters

, the top concerns for them are economic, still focused on the cost-of-living inflation, those kind of issues are driving a lot of the republican electorate. i think on the specific issue, your earlier gas talked about the dichotomy of this. the wing that's more traditional party that says we should immediately be passing some sort of significant a package to israel. tim scott saying we should be repositioning major military assets to deter iran. you've got another wing of the party that says we need to look at a more judicious way about spending money and let's not cut a blank check but look at this. you'll see a little bit of conflict in the republican party as this goes on of that sort of traditionalist wing that sees israel as an ally and wants to take bold and immediate action and the other side that wants to

be more judicious. >> there was an earlier story i quoted during the first segment that said there is a generational difference between support for israel and the united states. can you talk a little bit about what you are seeing there? >> a lot of the generational issues. if you are older you can remember back to the creation of israel and the seven days war and all these things, the iran hostage crisis. things were real americans were in peril and things needed to be dealt with in a decisive way. i think if you are younger your experiences more being stuck in the wars in afghanistan and having bad things happen and maybe you are a little more all -- cautious. so i think you'll see that conflict sort of bear out, your

memories and your recollections often inform your views and if you've had a viewer you've seen a lot of bad things happen, you can to be reluctant to have troops in that part of the world again. >> are using the same generational divide on the democratic side? >> yes. in addition to the different experiences and memories of conflict in the middle east and israel. there's a good deal of sympathy for the palestinian people and desire for a two state solution. some of the texture shaping the democratic response to the president's actions. host: this is a good point for me to remind viewers they can take part in the conversation. we will open up our regular lines. republicans you can call 202-748-8001. democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. independents, you can call 202-748-8002.

you can always text us at 202-748-8003. we are always on social media, on ask and you can follow us on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. back to you for this one. there seems to be a bit of a divide between the progressives and the liberal wing of the democratic party when it comes to the conflict in israel -- between israel and hamas. are you seeing that division amongst democratic voters as well? >> i think we are may be overplaying the division within the democratic party, i thing most of the congress is unified in wanting to support israel. but also wanting to prevent this from becoming a wider regional conflict and wanting to prevent the loss of innocent lives in

israel and gaza. so i don't know that we actually see the amount of conflict within the democratic party or coalition that may be as suggested by a few loud voices. host: there seems to be a conversation at least going on in the republican party about tweaking the support for israel with the support for ukraine. what do you see happening on the republican side, we see that from lawmakers and congress. do you see that from republican voters as well? >> i don't know if we have naked pulling on it from the republicans. but i think you can certainly see the merit of linking those together. here's two countries under attack from nefarious enemies. some were both of them have detractors and maybe we can put them together, congressional coalitions to say let's both get

help for someone -- something we think is really important. and build support that way. i don't know if there's enough data to see how that looks to the average republican voter. host: let's move away from the conflict and talk about the conflict inside the u.s. capitol. there is a bill about who's going to be the republican speaker. republicans still do not have a speaker yet after quite a few votes at this point. do you see this as affecting the republican party's chances of keeping the house or retaking the senate when it comes to november of next year or will all of this be forgotten by the time people get around to voting in november of 2024? >> i don't think this will be a decisive issue for any meaningful voter. most likely concerns are either the economy, jobs, cost-of-living, inflation. or broader issues like foreign

policy or things that are much larger than some interparty squabble or fight about who will be the speaker. it certainly is challenging just to have a house that's stalled out in this situation. i think you have to look back at the bigger picture and what this shows is this is a big tent party. we have members from maine, florida, california and everything in between. they are all ideological wings of the party. in a situation where you have a narrow majority and there's fewer people that can answer the call of the chair it can make for a rough-and-tumble situation. there's a lot of times in history where they ended up with a candidate who was awfully good. it certainly has the opportunity -- they certainly have the opportunity to elect a speaker in the next few weeks.

but voters want to know if they are doing something about inflation and not reporters having to hang out in the hallway or wait for the news that night. host: do you think democrats will let this go and let voters forget about the fact we don't have a speaker right now. >> i want us to resist the urge to cut ads talking about the votes for different house speaker candidates because these things are not would most americans are thinking about. i don't think many people will remember this. i think it might be moralizing for some republican partisans to see this continue to happen but likely voters this is sort of a process argument. they probably won't pay attention unless it starts to impact them. ask yourself this question. but there something the republican congress was going to do otherwise?

if they had a speaker? no because they weren't trying to pass a legislative agenda. when you take that into consideration, think about the first time you probably expect to have this impact on voters would probably be around the time we are getting to another shot down. maybe voters will pay attention if there is a shut down and it starts to hurt people. host: i will aim this for both of you. what do you think american voters want to know right now? we are months away from an actual vote of the next major elections, what did the american people want their politicians talking about and doing right now regardless of whether they can do it or not? >> would've most all voters want is to look you have an understanding of the problems they are facing and having some sympathy. there's no way to legislate out inflation are making the economy

grow in a better way but for a lot of voters that's the concern if things cost too much or more, i'm economically anxious and that anxiety, you maine past something that says inflation can go up anymore but certainly looking like someone who cares, the sort of bill clinton ask i feel your pain, george w. bush understanding, what it's like to be someone in that situation of how do i make things -- worrying about how will i pay for my bills, i think that is something that people would like more than i think broad strokes about other things. it's a situation of making the economics and if you look sympathetic and trying to make legislation that speaks to that

perilous situation. host: nancy, what do voters want politicians to talk about? >> i don't think they want to hear politicians talking about anything, they want them to do something to make their lives materially better. the reason we have record numbers saying they don't trust politicians, they don't trust either party, they don't think that politicians understand their life is because things don't actually get materially better for many people and when we do pass policy that does help people, it's to try and communicate those things to voters, when they vote, that we can -- that policy does change and that it helps them to have a better job. so i don't think it's necessarily about what do they want to hear it's about what they want us to do, they want us

to reduce health-care care costs, to be able to afford to live a good life. they have a good job so why are they seeing their paycheck get a little bit last month after month, their health insurance keeps going up a little bit more month after month. their childcare costs are increasing and so on. feeling like you are not falling behind really inspires things to change. host: let's let some of our viewers take part in the conversation. douglas calling from eagle rock california on the independent line. douglas, good morning. guest: good morning. my name is douglas from eagle rock. i am an 89-year-old veteran. i've been around for a little bit and would like -- somebody told me a long time ago stop and take what you have now, what you

had last year and are you better off. i would say no. one of the reasons why is because this president we have here started right out in front too shut down the petroleum situation and start going with the electric thing, at least here in california. most of our batteries come from china, the place that they make them. so that is detrimental to the people here and also it doesn't do anybody any good when you are paying six dollars a gallon for gasoline and they are charging $10,000 more for an electric car. it is ridiculous that this

president is just not in the game. the young lady there that's evaluating things she should know that the people are evaluating what they have and what they don't have. one thing they don't have the wages that they did have and they don't have the money to buy food and gas and electric to pay for these things. it is a vicious circle. >> thank you for the question and thank you for your service as well. i agree. people are hurting, luckily the democratic congress and joe biden did pass huge investments in energy production and will create and reduce the cost of clean renewable energy.

gas prices, i understand his pain and other americans, profits for oil and gas companies were at record highs. democrats tried to pass a legislation that would prevent price gouging from oil and gas companies that would help everyday americans be able to afford the gas they need to get jobs, to be able to drive their families to soccer practice and so on. that really starts to add up. going down the street you see the price of gasoline and democrats tried to do that, republicans were not interested in stopping priced dowsing -- price gouging but hopefully that something that would be on the democratic agenda in 2024 if we are trusted with the congress and the white house again. >> i had a hard time hearing the entirety of the question but he did sound, here's someone in

california got up at 5:00 in the morning to talk to us and he's not concerned about the speaker vote, not concerned about that, he's concerned about things costing a lot more and it's hard for me to get by. that's where a lot of voters are. we can talk a lot about bigger picture things but for a lot of people it's what does my budget look like every month especially with rising costs. host: the economy. let's talk to wally from iowa city, iowa on the democrats line. good morning. guest: good morning. i want to thank the people who come and talk this morning and the young lady nancy, she really points out well with the democrats and biden have been trying to do for the american people. i am disappointed how the republicans will turn -- tried

to portray biden as inapt and he gave a speech the other night and seemed very stable and was knowledgeable about hamas and israel situation. at the same time on the others of the aisle the republicans have trouble even getting a speaker in their except for the ones who want to be election deniers or insurrectionists they put in there and doubled down on the dysfunction. even under president trump, which he is running for reelection gaining most in the polling, republicans are just ready to reelect the guy after criminal investigations and civil investigations and federal charges against him, it's very disappointing how the

republicans just portray biden to be the way he is not, he is a decent guy looking to help the american people. that's about all i've got jesse. host: sorry he was sort of asking about trump and legal issues. >> i think this is a situation for as much sort of wrangling we've certainly seen people in these situations where the prosecution lays out the case and it looks so perilous and terrible for them but ends up not being convicted of anything. the post ran a nice profile of jack smith today. he's famous in circles for being willing to the absolute length of it purred sometimes to his peril. i think you don't like to see

headlines about any candidate, republican or democrat facing a lot of legal peril it gets a lot of wrangling to go with what's going on with president trump and i think we are a lot better off for the courts to bear that out than anyone else. host: respond to what wally said there by the way. >> thank you wally. i think a lot of people have fatigue from trump investigations and trump indictment's at this point. that's my concern. i think about what the next year will look like and how pertinent it is for democrats to be able to talk to the issues that matter to voters but the entire rhythm of 2024 will be completely different because it will be trump will be the republican nominee in and out of

court rooms and the news media covering these cases. when i go to talk and voters people are confused which one is this, which court case are you talking about. even republican voters and i ask does this make you concerned about his chances. they don't even understand the question. they are like he survived so many things that were supposed to be his demise. i worry that people kind of become unphased by all of this stuff and it becomes the leading thing they hear about when they turn on the tv and it makes it harder for us to have substantial conversation which is what people will be making decisions on. i -- what is it the joe biden and democrats would do to make your life better. that means we have to break through the noise on trump's

antics in court and whatever the news around his indictments is of the day. host: despite all of his legal troubles, seems to be -- he seems to be far ahead of the other candidates for the republican nomination. is this a done deal that former president trump is the nominee? he's leading not only in polls but also in fundraising. >>guest 2: i think there is no doubt he is the clear runner. in 2008, i spent a whole year, raising a lot of money, the national polling leader "new york times we were -- leader, you know, we were pumping the staff up, so, you know, it

certainly looks inevitable at this stage. a lot of things look inevitable october the year before, and, you know, voters could come out. certainly the president has a setback, and if trump has a setback in iowa, the native sun from south carolina, you certainly could see a scenario where he gets on a couple state losing streak and may be voters. guest: robert -- host: robert kennedy junior has decided not to run as a democrat. he will run as an independent. does this hurt democratic chances at all when it comes to the national presidential race? guest 1: actually, a recent survey was conducted where they offered him a third option, and it turned out he took a little

bit from both sides but more from trump. if you look at his favorability, democrats, independents, and republicans, it is republicans who are most favorable towards him. it turns out it is more harmful for trump's chances than for biden's chances, having him as a third-party candidate. there are a number of hurdles, making sure he can get on the ballot. and maybe some of this is not as well thought out. people who want to have an opportunity to vote for a third-party candidate, they are provided an option in the survey, maybe they like one or two things he says, but they don't really know him that well. in general, we see the third-party candidate forget

that little bit inflated in surveys. host: i will bring this question to both of you, because i have been having this question around not only by house but my place of business as well about third-party candidates. i keep hearing about ross perot, ralph nader, and how this person would have won if this third-party was not out there. do you think third-party candidates have a chance of ever winning in the united states, or, two, are they reason why, can they spoil an election for a major party candidate? brian, i will start with you. guest 2: given the way the u.s. political system is set up, it is a most impossible, you can count on maybe one hand, two hands the number of candidates who won statewide office, virginia, minnesota, maybe a few other places. it is ballot access and is the

nature of getting over the hump, for a third-party candidate to win nationwide is essentially unthinkable. i think a great example of where a third-party candidate looks like, do they have none of the candidates option? they often fare welcome if it has been a rancorous campaign, i won't want to vote for either of them. often times the third-party candidate functions as a none of the above situation, like something you mentioned, joe manchin,, it becomes a personal issue. i don't want to vote for this candidate or that candidate, so here is another option for me. guest 1: i agree, you know,

obviously, if they don't like the other candidates from the major parties, that is why you are looking for another option. in some cases, i don't think people actually think that hard about who they are, you know, it can be more like a protest vote than anything else. the question is whether or not these are people that, without, you know, having that green party or libertarian party on the ballot, will he support democrat or republican? and if ballot access is such a big question, so being fine on the ballot, and one of these guys, you know, states in 2016, would all of they have still voted for hillary clinton, or with a has not cast a ballot at all? those are questions that we try to ask different ways in surveys, to better understand what it is that voters are deciding when they go to the

ballot boxes for third-party candidates. host: all right. let's go back to our phone lines and talk to david who is calling from ohio on the republican line. david, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? host: we are doing great you go ahead, david. caller: i'm a republican, and i think seriously we should not be giving israel or iran any money at all. that is what is feeding the war. we are feeding the war, and we should not be doing that. you want to give away 100 billion dollars? get it to the american people. we know how to spend it. host: all right. do you want to tackle that, brian? guest 2: sure. we have talked about this before. i think there is a real divide in the republican party. you can certainly look at the deficit, you know, financial problems. a lot of people are suffering. to say hey, let's write a blank

check to find something abroad -- fund something abroad. i think when you look at the bigger picture, i think israel is america's best ally in the middle east, recently on their attack from a nonstate terrorist organization, but this is absolutely the type of country that needs assistance from the united states did i know that is challenging and frustrating for somebody who is maybe looking at paying their bills, but there are some situations we have to kind of look at verses saying hey, let's look to help our allies the best we can, and i think the aipac they talk about is a reasonable way to do that. host: do you want to answer that, nancy? guest 1: donald trump really gave voice to this, this caller and others like him, going to michigan, hearing white

working-class voters saying, why is my money going to pay for a hospital or school or rose being built in another country? i need that here. there's a lot of concern about the debt and spending, it was the idea that, like, our school and our hospital and our road is not in good condition, and i want you to fix that for me, please. why can't you do that here? let's fix us first, and then think about the other side. it is interesting to see what happens if you get to a point where, you know, nikki haley and donald trump are really able to have this conversation, these two different sides of this argument within the republican. i also know that biden really try to make, you know, the case that brian was speaking to a second ago, that this is a good investment with his oval office speech the other night, advocating for these aid

packages. also mentioning that it also creates american jobs as well, which i was not expecting to hear. host: as far as the $105 billion supplement weight package, there was money in there as well for border security. how much of a concern is border security to democrats? republicans talk about it all the time. how much of a concern is border security to democrats, and what you think about what president biden has been doing during his term about a? guest 1: when you ask people what the issues are that they are most concerned about, immigration at the second most, right after the economy, most important issue for republican voters. it is far less of a concern nationally for democrats, however, i am from texas, so a lot of voter communities are represented by democrats. they have very nuanced ideas

about the border, but that does not mean that they want to have a wall erected across their property, but there is a desire to better address the flow of immigrants across the border. there is a desire for a more humanitarian approach to our immigration policy, and i think that sometimes we don't listen to the actual voices of the democratic areas that are along the border when we are talking about our border policy mission. host: brian, i'm going to assume that border security is one of the top issues for their publican party, or am i wrong? guest 2: i think that's reasonable. this is certainly an issue that is on fox news, which is big for republican voters. and i think there's a real thought of, we have a good number of members, you know,

from texas, from these border states, that cv situation -- see the situation firsthand. they go across the border, largely undetected, and sort of escape into the country. when you have a country, you need to have borders, you need to have an orderly immigration process, in which you, you know, make thoughtful decisions about whom and how you admit them and not just a situation where everybody can come across, is now here, you know, getting some sort of nebulous court date they might be given. that is a real concern, that these border states in particular, accepting the vast influence of immigrants crossing the border illegally. how you deal with infrastructure is another thing. it certainly an issue for the republicans and for people like ted cruz and like other members who are border state republicans.

host: is anybody in the republican presidential field standing out on this issue, or are they pretty much parroting the same lines? guest 2: there's a fair amount of agreement among the party. as we can, i think an awful lot of democrats and republicans agree with a broad framework, you know, we ought to have a more secure border, will have a more orderly process for how we feel about immigration rather than figuring out some humane and thoughtful way of dealing with how people are here illegally. that is where a live people are, certainly among publican presidential candidates, i think being tough on the border and having a border that is more enforceable is certainly an issue across all the candidates. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to steve who was calling from niagara falls, new york, on the democrat line. steve, good morning. caller: good morning.

i would like to talk to manzi, democratic strategist and pollster. what is most frustrating for me is you say a lot of good things. president biden is doing a lot of good things, but the democrats are not getting that out to the people. explaining what you said a little while ago about the gas. the republican is complain about the gas prices and everything like that. you explained that, the reason why the gas prices are like the way they are is the democrats wanted to stop the gouging, and the republicans were against it. tell the people that. explain to people that. that is the thing that is most frustrating to me. get the message out. the thing about the insulin, $35 for insulin, the democrats wanted to give it to all the people, right? the republicans blocked it, right? not to give it to all, just to give it to the elderly people or whatever. another thing, too, when they go

to these ribbon cuttings, a republican will show up a ribbon-cutting or whatever, which they voted against, but they will try to take credit for that. let the people know, well, this person is here, but they voted against what we are doing here. so that is the main thing -- get the message out to the people. , you know, the republicans, you know, fox, they keep telling garbage, as far as i'm concerned, but the democrats have got to get that message out. just wait for president biden to say something, all the democrats in the congress, in the senate, get out there and tell the people what the democrats are doing and that the republicans are blocking a lot of this stuff. that's what we have some of the problems we've got. host: he seems to think the democrats have a messaging problem. do you agree? guest 1: this is so hard, because i promise you, you know,

many of my colleagues are trying so hard to actually do this. it is just so hard to break through now. information, our media, the system is completely fractured now, so it is harder to tell you story to the american people, especially the people we need to know this information, to hear it. to a certain extent, as i said before, people need to feel this before they can, you know, believe that any policy has made them better off. like, if you don't feel it, you know, we are just talking at you. "why don't you feel better? why don't you know we passed this policy?" yeah. but i'm still struggling to pay my groceries, right? it's not helpful. so to make sure people are feeling this, this is a problem that, you know, i cannot solve, but when it comes to trying to

figure out how to navigate the fractured media system, there's a lot of money that is going to get spent in a campaign. a lot of people are not really paying that much attention between our elections, so that is why we spend hundreds of millions of dollars communicating to people, to make sure that these messages reach them where they are. and so that is what you are going to see next year, as we are leading up to election day, there's a lot of money, a lot of people, and it is going to be telling them what democrats have done and also what they will do. host: brian, steve thinks the democrats have a messaging problem. what about on the republican side? are the republicans getting their message out to people who need to hear it, and are they doing it correctly? guest 2: i think so. like every member of congress, elected official has a team of people who are on press and outreach, public outreach.

it is very hard to get the message out. nancy sort of touched on it, but in my lifetime, ronald reagan, george w. bush would go on tv address, three channels in tbs, 80% would carry a speech, 80% of americans would see that speech. titan was on -- biden was on on thursday, and the american people were watching football. it is very challenging, you know, i think we do a better job of having, you know, fox and talk radio and other things that do sort of speak to more silos republican voters come of it is very challenging for anyone member to speak out, because it is just, you know, there's such a broad and diverse landscape of media now, it is hard to say we will do this at this time and know you will get the majority of the electorate watching it. host: let's go back to the phone lines and talk to susan, who is

calling from ohio on the independent line. susan, good morning. caller: good morning, everybody. this is from sun shining struthers, ohio, and i believe in my heart they should not have the republican trump in there, because i don't like him. he's a liar. he loves to lie. and that's all he does is lie and get himself out of it, which he should not do. host: ok, i will let you tackle that one. [laughter] she does not like former president trump. guest 2: i won't marker down as a potential republican. [laughter] yeah. she speaks to a larger situation. we talked a little bit about third-party party candidates, their performance in 2016, and part of what fueled that is president trump, usually you get the election, and both presidential candidates have a positive, favorable rating, and people, there's a number of people who like both the

candidates, besides these imperial things. who is more fun to go to a baseball game with? what happened in 2016 and 2020 is both candidates had unfavorable ratings that were higher, and people would say, i dislike both of them. which one is less onerous, which one can i sort of live with? or, you know what? i'm going to go ahead and vote for this third-party candidate. maybe i don't know anything about them, but they can't be worse than these two candidates. i think that will be a real challenge. president biden's approval rating is upside down. president trump's rating is upside down. it is a challenging thing for any politician. guest 1: yeah. i totally agree, both with brian and also with susan. [laughter] yeah. so, i think that is why it is really important for us to, if

president trump is going to be the nominee, to begin to remind people what it was like when donald trump was president and why people came out in record numbers to make sure he did not have a second term. it has been four years, and as much as, you know, he was sort of ubiquitous before, you know, he got these platforms, and it has been a little while, and, yeah, there was coverage here and there, especially around the various indictments, but he has not been the first thing you hear about when you wake up in the morning, like he used to be, and, you know, all you hear about when you're watching the evening news. there was such a problem almost withdrawn, there was so much, that it was hard to focus on what was most important for voters to know.

why they should not vote for him. i think we need to put him back in the center. he will be the nominee. we need to remind voters why it is that they voted against him. he is a liar, and we need is not to be a choice between a liar and some other person everybody likes, but it will be between two people who a lot of dislike, both are disliked by a lot of people, as we've heard over and over again "lesser of two evils," we've heard a lot in the focus group. we need to draw a parallel between these two people. host: there is a general knowledge among political journalists, and you can say within this is true or not, when it comes to devoting electric, you have 45% democrats, 45%

republican, and you have a 10% in the middle, not third-party, persuadable voters that the candidates are really talking to after the primary voter. first of all, do you think it is true, that there is a small group of persuadable votes that need to be convinced by either side to vote for them? is that true? if it is true, what does the democratic party need to say to them? what is the republican party to say to them? guest 2: i think certainly our national polling, the persuadable group has gotten bigger. people have gotten frustrated with both parties. that group may be in more of the 50% to 20% range. certainly a national campaign, persuadable voters, they are much larger turnout. there is a lot of competing where you have a strategy of, what i really want to do is, you know, crank the red base up to 11, and let's get every republican through the

turnstile, let's get them excited and energized, and maybe bring along some of these persuadable republicans who are highly independent were highly undecided. but i do think coming up in a presidential race, it certainly would be a focus on how you will be people who maybe are persuadable. but how you can provide them some security, i'm going to look out for you, and i understand the financial problems you are having them and i'm going to look out for the situation. president trump should say i'm going to fight for you, i understand your problems. that kind of message of understand your problems, and i will go to washington. host: nancy?

guest 1: actually, it goes back to a fundamental view of, i don't think there's a set number of democrats and a set number of republicans, and here is this group in the middle that we fight over, and it could go either way. i think we are not just engaging in persuading, we are often persuading people to participate as well. so i'm persuading them to vote for me against them. consider a lot of young people. we have to put in a lot of effort to persuade them to vote for a democrat. they might never vote for a republican. but we still have to convince them that they can trust us and persuade them to turn out, for example. many white working-class voters turned out for donald trump who did not vote in primary elections. he persuaded them to turnout. there are a number of people in the middle, particularly college -- we often talk about college

educated, suburban women, but there are men, and they are little more reliable voters, but that may be what we are traditionally talking about when we talk about persuasion targets as well. those are people who will always vote, and the question is more of who to vote for. but i can't to see these things along the spectrum of the persuasion. host: let's go to frank,: from west palm beach, florida on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i called before. chaos, chaos, chaos in washington. my take on it is 80% of the government is made out of attorneys, and i believe that the attorneys run the government. they make the laws, they make the rules, and it is chaos, and they love it.

-- and that is why this is the way it is. and i believe that firmly. thank you. host: anybody here a lawyer? [laughter] i did not quite make it myself. guest 1: i did not go to law school. host: i went to law school for nonlawyers. i attended that. what do we think about -- let me rephrase that -- what do you think the top issues will be for republicans, and this november, there are often elections this year. what do you think it will be for republicans this year and then going into november 2024, brian? guest 2: i think we are doing a little bit of work in both mississippi and virginia, and those are states where this concern about the economy, education. those seem to be the big issues, people either, you know,

particularly in virginia, am i going to have a role in my tyler posey education? or is the state going to continue growing economically, things like that. looking into next year, i think you will have a lot of voters, if inflation stays, that are going to be looking at that very personal situation of, you know, i've got bills. my money is not going as far as before, you know, what can be done about raining this in? people have 3% mortgage rates now that, from the distant past, and looking at now interest rates are 7%, 8%, that makes homebuying less affordable, carbide less affordable, makes people less able to get credit to expand their business. things the government can do to bring the economy back around. host: nancy, what are the topics are talking about this november, and what you think the topics will be when we get to the

bigger election in november 2024? guest 1: they will be totally different. right now, we are talking about off your elections, statehouses ,, state legislatures up for grabs. virginia, the number one issue is abortion-rights, one vote away from being able to pass ban. not had votes on this. this is going to be a really important issue, a place where we can take on republican incumbents. also education, and, you know, brian is talking about parental rights, and that is a phrase you're going to hear a lot maybe on the right. if you ask the average voter with a care about it comes to education, they want to make sure that their public schools are funded well, so that is actually what most people are caring about when they talk about education. they want to have well-funded

schools. and also crime. this is something that is traditionally every publican issue, but it is really important to democrats, especially democrats of color. so when talking about crime, and a lot of that has to do with the availability of guns, so there's things that people, democrats, will be able to say to people about keeping guns out of their communities and out of school. we have had some examples of gun violence, you know, terrible incidents in schools in virginia, so people are concerned about gun violence prevention, and that is one way that democrats are able to talk about crime and public safety. these are things i think will be most important when it comes to state legislative races, particularly in a state like virginia. completely different set of issues when we are talking about the national elections. i still think the number one issue will be the cost of living and abortion-rights. ended it depends on, i guess,

where you are, if you are a little bit more on the republican spectrum, and maybe immigration. democrats will be more concerned about health care costs, climate change, and the environment. but also, we don't know what is going to happen. we did not have covid-19 in a top issue of importance. they did not realize that we would have, you know, abortion, which is typically at the bottom of issues, because people thought abortion-rights were secure, now they are at the top. i can't tell you about the future, but i can tell you the ones i mentioned to be among the top issues of importance. host: we would like to thank both of our guests for being with us this morning, nancy zdunkewicz and brian nienaber, we would like to thank both of you for being here and for gracing our show with your knowledge about politics in washington. thank you. guest 1: thank you. host: coming up next, later on

"washington journal," atlantic council's matthew koenig will be here to discuss the latest in the israel-hamas conflict. but coming up immediately next, we will take more of your calls and comments in our open phone segment. you can see the numbers on screen. please start calling in and we will take your calls and just one moment. we will be right back. ♪ >> monday, watch c-span series, and partnership with a library of congress, books that shaped america. it will feature mark twain's novel come adventures of huckleberry finn, written in 1884. the novel was controversial from the beginning because of the subject matter and use of dialect. the book has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, and it has had a profound impact on american literature. library congress quotes ernest

hemingway a saying, all modern american literature comes from one book from mark twain call "huckleberry finn." andrew leavy has taught classes on huckleberry finn for many years. he will join us to discuss the books. watch "books that shaped america," monday live at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video outcome and online at c-span.org . also be sure to scan our qr code to list or podcast to learn more about the featured authors. >> diana henry gate is the author of five previous books, including the wizard of lies, bernie made off, and the death of trust, originally from bryan, texas and rona virginia, ms. henrique spent 20 years as a

reporter with the "new york times." in her latest book "taming the street, she writes "i need to describe one of the achievements, clearing out the jungle that was the nation's financial landscape in the 1920's and replacing it with a well tended terrain where ordinary americans cansay with confidence >> diana henriques, available where you get your podcasts. >> a healthy democracy does not does look like this, it looks like this. americans can see democracy at work, with citizens are truly important, a public thrive. get informed straight from the source on c-span, unfiltered,

unbiased, word for from the nation's nation's capital to wherever you are. because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back and we are in our open forum segment, where you can call in and talk about your most urgent political topic of the day. we are going to open up our regular lines. republicans, you can call (202) 748-8001. democrats coming your number is (202) 748-8000. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003, and we are always reading on social media, on x @cspanwj, and on facebook at journal@c-span.org --facebook.com/cspan. let's get right to telephone calls, pack, calling from

missouri, on the democrats line. pat, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have an issue with voters in general, ok? we are looking at a historical moment with the republicans not being able to come up with them by for speaker of the house, and i'm hoping that voters understand some. it is not putting people in there that you think is going to fight for you but also people that's going to reach across the aisle. none of these republicans that's in there right now want to reach across the aisle, because they want to stir up a problem that "joe biden is the problem." and i hate that this man has been belittled and bludgeon so

badly. if the sun don't shine, his administration is a sponsor before that. it is just terrible that voters aren't looking at who we are putting into those positions. host: let's go to david, who is calling from south carolina on the republican line. david, good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. i have three points here. the state of alaska suing the administration for canceling the oil and gas leases. answer that question. number two, are you cutting me off, jesse? host:no, go ahead, david. caller: we've got family in new york. terrorists are already in our country. they are coming. they have left the border wide

open. terrorists are in our country. be ready, people. host: all right. let's go to homer calling from florence, massachusetts on the independent line. homer, good morning. caller: yes, good morning, sir. i'm calling because, in the 20 midterm elections, the democrats played the fear card, and they said oh, you cannot vote for these maga republicans to day will take your rights and freedoms away. well, when the new congress came in, they conduct the government was interfering in social media to see what you can you not see. -- could see and not see. the fbi and justice department violated the pfizer court more than 160,000 times and designated parents to -- went to

school board meetings as domestic terrorists into the same things to catholics who wanted to have a latin mass, and i have not heard one democrat, not one, say any of that was bad. and i'm wondering if that is because they are really ok with all of that or whether it was because the republican congress was finding all this out. all this is true. it is under oath. it is not speculation. thank you very much. bye. host: let's go to brenda, who is calling from houston, texas. brenda, good morning. . all right, let's try fred, who is calling from port charlotte, florida, on the republican line. fred, good morning. caller: i was hoping to get a

hold of the lady that was just on, the democrat talking points out of the side of her face about the use -- host: we lost fright, let's go to brenda. caller: yeah. hello, it's me. can you hear me now? host: we can. go ahead, brenda. caller: good morning. i want to speak directly to the young black people that are calling against israel. please remember that it was the jews who fought and died for our cause here in america. they paid with their blood and their finances. ask your grandparents. it is the jewish people's problem at this time, and hamas. trump is ours. please join me in understanding how and why they left israel and why they have returned to their

land that god gave them. i get so sad with people being upset with the jews, because they think god favored them. he does, to a degree, in that he saw something in them, and he gave them the word. they were chosen to spread the word, spread the word of god. read and understand. bibi is the problem, just like he came over here and insulted our black president. i've had no use for him sense. bibi is their problem. they see it, and they will be rid of him soon. please, people, get an understanding. host: let's go to fred, who is calling from port charlotte, florida come on the republican line. fred, good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. thank you very much. i wanted to talk again about the oil and how the democrats blame the republicans.

and they are just talking out the side of their mouth. it is the first administration that did shut our oil off, and you keep saying it is the corporations making all the money, but during the pandemic, they were making zero money, and we are on a global market. our corporations are not the only ones. it's a global. one more thing about ukraine, this administration is funding a war, and we are going to get it, right here on our soil, very quickly if we don't do something about our border. and in fact, everyone is talking about trying to take our guns. anyone that's trying to take our guns in the federal government, they took a nose to protect our constitution. so if you are talking about taking our guns, then you are against our constitution, and you should be removed

immediately. in fact, right now, the way our country is, you should be passing out guns to the american people to protect ourselves. thank you. host: let's go to alexis calling from wilmington, north carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for having me on your show. guns are not going to do anything except cause more deaths. i think they also should be registered and background checks and all of that, with every sale, whether it is in store unconcerned about the republicans in position right now that voted against the election of 2020 and said that

it was not true. it is all coming out now that not only people cheating, ultimately cheating, people are turning over now, the power has turned over, and they are going to tell the truth. and these are people that were republicans, are republicans, and had the power, and they misused it. they lied, all to try to keep donald trump in power again, and they thought they would get power with the fallout.

now we have the problem, trying to ruin our country by not allowing someone in a leadership position to take over the speaker spot, so we can get a continuing resolution followed up, that is coming up on the 17th. we need to be prepared. the jews in israel, i had a friend -- i am 75 -- she was in her late 80's. unfortunately, she passed now. she was in the holocaust, a teenager, working in a bakery, when the holocaust ended in 1948, millions of people had no

place to go. and they went to palestine. england gave men place in palestine. -- them a place in palestine. well, they got along, initially, everything was fine. but unfortunately -- and netanyahu had a lot to do with -- just started bombing, bulldozing, and build more structures for more jews and pushing the palestines away. thanks a lot for letting me talk. host: let's go to kristin, who is calling from new york city on the democratic line. kristin, good morning. good morning. are you there? all right, let's go to john, who is: from arizona on the independent line.

john, good morning. caller: good morning. three things. one, we have the border, 8 million people have come across, take 1% of that, and that is how many troublemakers have come in. two, trump is too old. we need new, young blood in our government, and number three, i was out driving the other day, and my wife and i sat down, she had a sundae and i had a piece of pie. i cost met $29.13. that is a lot of money for a chocolate sundae and a piece of pie. host: when did you get this sundae and pie from? i agree with you. that is a lot of money for

basically a milkshake and a piece of pie. where did you buy this from? caller: we bought it just south of sedona, a nice little restaurant that we used to go there, when there were reasonable prices, but this was insane, and they said it is the cost of living. host: let's call them out. what restaurant was this? caller: i don't want to put out their name, that is not fair, but it is just the idea that it cost that much, but i have grandchildren that were helping, i'm on the far side of 70, ok? i'm 77. i'm on a fixed income. my son and his wife have two jobs, just to make ends meet, so that is the reality of things. gas, gas in arizona is pretty

good compared to california, which is insane. the primary thing is, you know, putting food on the table. you can say anything you want. i was listening to the earlier one. it was nice to see individuals that you had, you know, discussing things, but we just have to get some new blood in there. host: i have to say, john, i fascinated by the $29 pie and sundae. did they tell you how much it was going to cost before you ate the pie and the sundae? caller: actually no. [laughs] we did not even look at the menu. we just wanted something simple, very easy. and i said, you know, all right, i expected some money, but not that much. host: all right. caller: now, the other thing is,

i hate to push on this, but my children, all of whom are working seven days a week, and they all have two jobs in order to make ends meet. that is insane. it really is. so when it comes to our president, just like his live speech, that was not live, that was memorex. everyone is talking about his cadence and speed in which he was making his speech, that was prerecorded, that will think. i don't know, maybe i'm crazy, but as a 40-year plus person in the medical field, he's too old,

so is trump. i want somebody who is younger, dynamic, new ideas, you know, none of this old stuff. i'm sorry. oh, when it comes to the house? that -- we -- our government shut down through the back door. people are being paid, but yet at the same time we are slowing the government down. i don't mind it at all, because they can't spend. all they do is spend. i'm sorry. you have a good day, and you do a great job. host: let's talk to cornell, who is calling from englewood, new jersey, on the democratic line. cornell, good morning. caller: hello. how are you doing? host: just fine. go ahead. caller: ladies and everyone in general, i have to say this, and i called last year and said the same thing, the biggest problem we have in the world are weather and men.

men all over the world have a problem, and we need to talk about this. there's no reason we need to be this violent and this crazy. the reality is, most people think women cannot do the job. ladies, let them know. you can take care of business. you don't need men in the way, making decisions. think about it. most of our government, they are amateurs. none of them went to school for social economics or anything. they are all people who have some kind of idea, they think they will make it better, and often they don't. now here is the biggest thing i say to people. first of all, ladies, step it up, all over the world, step it up. but local, i hear people complain, there's not enough work, this and that. that is usually a local problem. here in new jersey, we have plenty of jobs. so in your area, you have to decide, who is doing the right thing? the price of gas and all these things are related to the fact we have poor government, they

are all amateurs, and there's too much money. we need to have a set budget for every election, and you live within that budget. we all do, and that should be the case for people running for office. set a budget. i mean, say hey, you want to run? it's cool, it's fine, no outside money coming years a budget. if you can do this, they can elect you, if you have good ideas and good budget management. but the biggest thing is getting men under control, all over the world. all over the world. and here's the last thing i'm going to say. we must get out of china, for the sake of the united states. and that means every time you go to the store and you see this product is not made here, not made in a from the country, do not buy it. talk to the store, emailing, gets an american or any other allied products in these stores. anytime you pick up a product at ss china, you are helping them

develop their army. over 3 million men in uniform -- for what? who are they getting ready for? this is not good. all right, everyone, try to have a nice day. host: all right, well, we would like to thank all of our callers who called in for our open forum segment. coming up next on the "washington journal," the atlantic council's matthew koenig will be here to discuss the latest in the israel-hamas conflict. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> live, sunday, november 5 come on "in-depth come co-author and former aclu president nadine enjoys book tv to talk about

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for serious readers. >> a healthy democracy does not just look like this. it looks like this. where americans can see democracy at work, where citizens are truly important, a republic thrives. get informed straight from the source on c-span, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word, from the nation's nation's capital to wherever you are, because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back and we are joined by matthew koenig, who is the vice president and senior director of the atlantic council center for strategy and security and the council's director of studies. he is with us this money to talk about the latest in the israel-hamas war. matthew, thank you for being with us this morning. guest: always a pleasure.

i'm happy to talk with you this morning. host: talk to us about where the conflict between israel and hamas stance. guest: over the past couple of weeks, israel has been conducting air strikes into gaza, and it is also preparing for a ground invasion with the goal of eliminating hamas. they are amassing tanks on the border. in the meantime, you have conflict in the north of israel, has blood from a different terrorist group, is conducting rocket attacks. israel is taking steps there, including airstrikes into syria, probably meant to prevent iranian shipments to hezbollah. and also just yesterday, there was a strike into the west bank. but a major front is with gaza, but there is a risk of things escalating to a broader conflict. host: tell us more about this planned ground invasion. what exactly does israel plan to do, and what are they, i guess,

pitfalls and consequences of sending troops into gaza? guest: israel has says it will conduct a ground invasion with the goal of limiting hamas, capturing and killing hamas's leadership, and that goal i think is understandable, given the attack they had just suffered. but as you point out in your question, there are real challenges, so conducting a ground invasion like that is going to be bloody. the israeli defense forces, the ids, will likely take heavy casualties. hamas has dug in, it has a war in tunnel, it is preparing for this. it's going to be urban fighting in gaza cities, slightly block to block, house to house, so israel will likely take heavy casualties. in addition, the palestinians will take heavy casualties, and there are many innocent civilians caught up in this, already 4000 palestinian deaths from the airstrikes is the estimate. and as i mentioned before, there

is the risk of broader escalation. does it stay confined to gaza, or is there a new front opened to the north or in the west bank? and finally, there's a big, strategic question of one's israel goes in and succeeds in limiting hamas' leadership, which i think they can do that, what happens next? do they occupy gaza, which has real rest? do they pull out which also has risk? they think about these longer term, strategic questions as well, but the focus now is on the ground invasion. host: hamas, when they attacked israel, i think around 200 hostages, if not more people. will these ground invasion to be part of a rescue plan, or are these people considered expendable at this point in the face of this ground invasion coming? guest: it's a good question, and there are americans and other

international citizens believed to be held hostage as well, so this is a priority for the white house and also for the israelis. but it is difficult, so there have been efforts to negotiate with the government in qatar,, that has ties to hamas. two americans have already been released. realistically, it is unlikely that all these people will be released. hamas wants to hang onto than to have leverage, so i think that is part of the military objective, may be to try to rescue them, but there are real risks, and i think it is unlikely, unfortunately, that they will make it out alive. host: if you are a palestinian and you are not a member or supporter of hamas, and you are in the gaza strip, where do you go? guest: so the israelis have said they will concentrate their activity in the north of the country, so they have asked palestinians to move to the south, and you have many of

near this border crossing with egypt. they are hoping the egypt and will open the border crossing and let them leave gaza. the egyptians have so far been unwilling to do that. real challenges with doing that. up to one million people displaced leaving their homes moving into southern gaza and so just another one of the humanitarian downside consequences of this con -- conflict. host: viewers can take part in this conversation. we will open up our regular lines. republicans can call in at 202-748-8001. democrats, your line is 202-748-8000. independents, you can call in at 202-748-8002. you can always text us at 202-748-8003. we are always on social media on x and on facebook.

where does the united states stand in all of this? president biden visited israel last week and gave a major address from the oval office on thursday night do you see the u.s. and the troops president biden wants to send more foreign aid, but where do you see the u.s. going as far as this israel hamas conflict right now? guest: president biden has come out strong on the side of israel and says it has the right to defend itself and if it does -- and it does back israel to go after hamas. they are also clear israel needs to abide by the law of armed conflict. it doesn't prohibit military operations to defend oneself but

requires combatants discriminate between civilian and military targets and are proportional in their use of military force and that's what the biden administration has requested of israel. the biden administration is providing military aid to israel and in the past couple of days in a speech you mentioned announced a new aid package that would combine aid to israel, ukrainians, there is money for humanitarian relief in the indo pacific as well. the idea would be to provide munitions to israel so that it has the munitions it needs for the operation. the biden administration has been clear the u.s. is not going to provide troops to israel. the biden administration does not want the united states to be directly involved in the conflict. the support will be limited to providing israel with military assistance. host: where do you see the u.s.

going overall when you talk about the middle east? a story from fox news this morning where we are apparently sending another aircraft carrier into the region. the secretary of defense announced the u.s. department of defense plan to further bolster deterrence efforts in the middle east amid the ongoing conflict between israel and hamas, reiterating the departments depends -- defense of israel. following detailed discussions of president joe biden. the secretary said the u.s. -- uss dwight d. eisenhower combat strike group will join the gerald ford group which has recently moved into the eastern mediterranean following the unprecedented assault on the israel hamas area. it's out that we are sending people to the region. even though they are not particularly going to be involved in the actual fighting. >> as i mentioned before even as

israel concentrates on the ground operations in gaza there is the concern of this escalating into a broader conflict with -- conflict. would iran, the country that backs both hamas and hezbollah get directly involved. the show force from the united states with the aircraft carriers is meant more as a deterrent message, reminding them the united states is a military power with a presence in the region and they would be better off not to get involved in the conflict. there is the possibility that if iran or someone else attacked u.s. forces in the region that the united states could get dragged into it but that's not the biden administration's intention now. the show force is meant to be a deterrent. >> we saw at least two of the american hostages held by hamas released earlier in the last few days.

they are supposedly other americans that were kidnapped by hamas during their attack on israel. is the u.s. government doing anything beyond negotiations to get those hostages back. >> administration has been reluctant to go into detail about what their plans are which makes sense pray there's a concern if they reveal the state of the negotiations or plans that might spoil them, but i think the negotiations are likely continuing and will likely 60 seed -- succeed. i would be surprised if there's not some kind of military planning going on in conjunction with the israelis, how might we be able to rescue these people with a special operations forces raid for example so i suspect that's going on but if so the biden administration has not publicly said that. they are keeping their cards close to the chest. host: let's let some viewers take part.

let's talk to sarah calling from westchester new york on the democrats line. caller: good morning. on friday there were two young women on the program who were talking a lot about the palestinian issue and their comment was -- one of the comments was and i think they both agreed was that many of the palestinians support the -- support hamas. and if that's the fact that they support hamas basic premise that they want to destroy the state of israel. so how can there be a solution, how can there ever be a solution when the people i feel terrible for people who are innocent in this, but if there are majority of people in gaza who support hamas and this premise, then

there will not be a solution. what do you say about that? guest: good question and i would make a few points. hamas was elected to govern gaza but this was back in 2006 and since then have run it's not as a democracy so we don't have elections or public opinion polls so it certainly the case that a large number of palestinians to support hamas. i think it's also likely that many of them do not and we do not have good public polling data on that. the other point, the long-term solution is a great one. the united states and others have been trying to negotiate israel he palestinian peace for many decades. and we have always come up short. there's questions of what is a long-term solution. there was a statement from the israelis a few days ago that may

be something like what pertains in the west bank where the israelis would conduct this operation and then once hamas is eliminated turn control of gaza over to some kind of palestinian authority. a non-hamas governing authority like you have in the west bank. i think we are months and maybe even years away from that because this ground operation that israel will conduct is unfortunately not to be over in days or weeks. it will take longer than that. >> we have mentioned qatar and its releasing the hot -- roll it -- in releasing the hostages. what other players should be looking into. guest: qatar is an important one and the top leader is in delhi or is believed to be in delhi and so that's a big policy issue right now.

should the biden administration be asking them to extradite the leader of this terrorist organization. he currently has safe haven there. the broader regional picture is interesting because before this the major development in the region was the so-called abraham record -- abraham accords negotiations. you have a number of countries beating to normalize so it started under the trump administration, recognizing israel between the countries opened up. the biden administration negotiating between israel and saudi arabia about a possible normalization of israel and saudi arabia ties. so that could have really been transformational and so why does this attack happened now. we are not quite sure but one theory is that iran was worried about israel normalizing relations and so conducted this attack to throw this off.

that is a big question. what's good to be the future of that deal. is it definitely dead or can it be revived even after this attack. >> i would ask where iran fits in. >> starting big picture, iran has been an enemy of the united states since the islamic revolution and the state department has long recognized iran as the world's biggest state sponsor of terror. so around created the hezbollah terrorist organization to threaten israel in the north. we know provides hamas with weapons and support. there is debate about whether iran directly planned and had hamas execute this attack or not. hamas leaders themselves said it did help. the biden administration said it's not clear evidence of that. this is another big policy issue. you have some republican lawmakers saying the fact we

know iran supports hamas conducted an attack that killed 26 or so americans, that that's enough for the united states to hold iran accountable but the other big issue with iran is their nuclear program and the biden administration has been negotiating a nuclear deal with iran, a major piece of their middle east strategy. that's what the administration is trying to balance now. how do you hold them accountable but also keep the possibility of the nuclear program alive. host: let's talk to kent from illinois on the republican line. good morning. caller: the main thing that biden is concerned with is to keep loosening so they can keep pumping more and more oil rather than use the oil that loses out of the ground here in the united states.

these greedy fanatics that biden is in charge of think that they can control the weather and destroy our oil energy, but will use the dirty oil from venezuela. biden has already said the most critical thing in the world is climate change. so he jumped through hoops to get iran's oil and if it means may be a few million people have to die to further his green agenda, so be it. guest: climate change is a major priority of the biden administration and several officials have said climate change is the biggest threat facing the country. and ensuring the free flow of oil and energy resources out of the middle east has been a u.s. priority for some time.

as it relates to iran i think the biggest priority the administration seizes the nuclear program and coming in they wanted to reenter the 2015 joint comprehensive plan of action. that proved more difficult than they expected. but it seems like they've reached some passive agreements with iran where iran is voluntarily self-limiting the program. and you are right that in exchange the biden administration has used some -- eased some of the financial pressure on iran so there oil production is up from what it was a few years ago. the administration has also released some frozen iranian funds. the bigger priority is the nuclear program and less on the iranian oil. host: let's talk to dennis from stone mountain, georgia on the independent line. caller: good morning.

in defense of what israel is doing in reference to protecting the territory. my question to you guys is does the palestinian have a right to set up defense like israel and since the united states packs israel why can't the palestinians also have people or other countries back them? we look at the difference between the west bank and gaza. israel -- israelis continue to bulldoze and take land and not give the palestinians any rights. the question is what is the difference. peaceful in the west bank but still being killed.

what's the proportional response when israel killed palestinians. it seems like we here in the west think that because this issue arise to now -- it's not what was in the past. we continue to support israel blindly, give them our tax dollars. we expected palestinian to just lay down and rollover? my question to the guest is what are the palestinians to do? just lay there and be killed each and every day? guest: thank you dennis. the real challenge of course that we face in gaza that the palestinian people face is they are led by hamas, this terrorist organization and so i think the palestinian people have been some of the major -- the people

who have suffered the most under hamas and so given that hamas launched this brutal attack i think there is widespread agreement israel has the ability to defend itself. i would take issue i don't think the u.s. supports israel has been blind if you go back to before the attacks, relations between biden and netanyahu were pretty frosty and biden was complaining about netanyahu's attempts to reform the judicial system within israel, raising concerns about the state of israeli does not -- israeli democracy. also putting pressure because of the settlements in the west bank. i think the united states has tried to balance supporting what is our closest partner in the region with also trying to behind closed doors nudge israel in the right direction. and then of course act -- after this horrific attack two weeks ago that really change things.

i think the administration calculated that now is not the time to complain about the differences we have with israel but given that israel just suffered this horrific attack to support israel as it takes steps to defend itself. host: what type of support for the palestinians not connected to hamas is there out of the white house? is president biden pushing for humanitarian aid, for israel to evacuate the innocence out of the way? what is the white house saying if anything about the palestinians not connected to hamas. guest: the biden administration has said we want to get aid to the palestinians. the first trucks have been let through it the costing -- crossing with egypt. the spending package biden announced in his speech earlier this week there was one hundred million dollars for aid to the palestinians.

i think that's the biden administration's goal is as israel is taking steps to eliminate hamas that we can abide by the laws of our conflict and provide support to the palestinians. one of the challenges is how do you get that in. israel is besieging the gaza strip as part of its wartime strategy. egypt has tightly controlled its border crossing with gaza for a variety of reasons. i think there will be real questions and logistical challenges of getting that aid in. the biden administration's hope is that they can provide aid to the public. host: is this something the strategy is through the united nations. guest: there is the u.s. support but i think there will be broader international support efforts to get aid into the palestinians as well. as long as it is food and medicine, i think there is support for that. but there have been questions if

there's other type of aid, how do we know that's not going to be taken by hamas and used in the war effort so this becomes a controversy in washington. but again i think the biden administration is hoping we can get basic food and medical aid to the palestinians. host: let's get back to our phone lines and talk to robin on the democrats line. caller: good morning. a few quick questions, once israel enters the northern part of gaza and how long it takes for them to accomplish their objectives there? does he have any insight about what they will do with the southern part of gaza, all the people who are migrated there? what kind of agreement does israel have with hezbollah? it doesn't seem like much of an

agreement because hezbollah is shooting rockets over israel as well. guest: good questions. israel hasn't made clear what it's plans are for southern gaza. once they go into the north and the goal is to focus on gaza city where the hamas leadership is believed to be and the goal is to eliminate hamas, so do hamas fighters go to the south if they have safe haven. i think that is likely. i would expect israel will then have to have some kind of plan once it's achieved what it wants to do in the north they have not been clear about what that is. hezbollah was founded by iran really to threaten israel from the north and so that's what they are doing.

there have been rockets attacks. you talked about an agreement with israel. there's no real agreement. they are rivals. the challenge hezbollah has is on one hand they do need to strike against israel, that's why iran founded them. if they didn't they would kind of lose face. on the other hand they are worried if they go too far could it lead to a major war with israel. that would be very destructive to hezbollah. if they go too far they will lose theirea so usually what hezbollah tries to do is calibrate the response to strike back but not to hard but do they have the ability to calibrate. we will see because that's what it looks like they are doing. distracting israel with these rockets attacks in the north. israel has announced it will move israelis living in 14 towns

and villages near the border, move them out of the way to a safer locations and so essentially hezbollah strategy is succeeding in forcing israel to worry about it security in the north even as it conducts this operation into gaza. host: president biden gave a major speech on thursday where he linked foreign aid for israel with foreign aid for ukraine. a topic that is not exactly popular amongst republicans in the congress right now. do you think connecting those two conflicts will delay money getting to israel in its current conflict? >> biden gave this address correctly to the american people a few nights ago and i would -- i think it's good for the president to make that case for the american people why do these things matter to you. i think he was right to connect to them so we know that iran --

is providing weapons and drones to russia as it wages its war against ukraine. there is closer collaboration between russia, iran, china and north korea. a new access of authoritarian. i think the president was also right. he said america is the glue that holds the world together and i think american power and allies and partners in europe in the middle east have on balance been a source of stability. so i think he was right on those points. i would've liked to see him make the case more directly to the average american, why does this matter to you sitting at your kitchen table in missouri where i grew up. i think he could've taken a step further. overall it was a good speech. directly to your question, the president has decided to lump

these together. i think in part to make it difficult for republicans to vote against him because of some republicans want to vote against aid to ukraine does this force them to vote against aid to israel which would politically be more difficult. you already have republicans saying no, we need an up or down vote on each issue. so we will see how this plays out. to your question is it possible that could delay aid to israel unless republicans and democrats in congress fight this out. >> we just had two republican and democratic pollsters in here who said the normal american voter doesn't yet care about what's going on in israel and its fight against hamas. why should american voters care about this conflict? guest: i think they should care and the united states has a lot of interests in the middle east. one is just kitchen table pocketbook issues.

the united states is trying to transition to green energy but the reality is we still depend on fossil fuels to heat our homes, the power of modern economy. the middle east is one of the greatest sources of oil and gas and so the global economy does depend on the free flow of energy resources out of the region. when those are disrupted prices go up and hit the pocketbook of average americans. second we have seen in the past that terrorist groups in the middle east have attacked the united states, u.s. interest abroad and so countering terrorism is an important u.s. objective. supporting israel has been a long time u.s. bipartisan objective. the united states does have supporting interest as i pointed out. we don't have a lot of great partners, a lot of our security partners in the region are

autocracies. we share interests but we share interests but we do not share values. israel is may be the region. so the fact we share interests and values makes that an important partnership. for those security reasons and economic reasons the average american does have a stake in what happens in this conflict. >> let's talk to naomi calling from baltimore on the independent line. caller: good morning gentlemen. good morning c-span and the viewers. just seeking clarification on some things. i did a simple google search the other day to find out exactly what israel stands towards the palestinians had been prior to this atrocity committed by hamas. what i found was quite shocking.

israel had committed war crimes. i won't detail any further. but there's a question whether they are truly a democratic nation state. or whether there is something else going on there. there are blockades, there had been blockades and still are now. for good reason. but i question why palestinians don't even have free movement within their own little tiny area where they are packed in so tightly. i think 100 million per square mile. they have, they have no freedoms. that's all at israel's command. i'm wondering whether netanyahu has intentionally provoked this response in order to actually

take over palestine. people were told to flee to the south and then israel bombed the south. guest: thank you for that question. it's a good opportunity to talk about the bigger kind of strategic picture and what are the long-term options for the palestinians. the international effort for many decades has been a two state solution. there were negotiations to that. two sides were never able to reach an agreement. the other possibility and fear -- a theory would be a one state solution where israel would just grant citizenship to the palestinians to the israeli state. the problem with that is israel was founded as a jewish state after the holocaust. israeli leaders want to preserve the jewish character of the state and the palestinians were

granted citizenship into israel would become a majority muslim state. that scene is a nonstarter. with that solution hitting difficult -- two state solution becoming difficult, the strategy for israel is been to manage the status quo with the palestinians and then focus more on peace with its southern neighbors through the normalization of relations through the abraham accords. to the heart of your question there really is unfortunately no good long-term solution that i can see. netanyahu provoked this intentionally? i think not. this was a horrific attack. 1500 israelis killed. the israelis held hostage. i think this is a tragedy for netanyahu and not something he would've wished on the israelis. host: we would like to thank matthew, the vice president director of the atlantic council

scott croft center for strategy and security and the director of studies for walking us through the latest on the israel hamas war. thank you so much. to continue the conversation we want to remind you that on monday former government officials and others will discuss during an event hosted by the heritage foundation. you can watch that live on c-span2 or c-span now, our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org. we would like to thank all of you, our guests and viewers for another great washington journal today. we will see you again tomorrow morning for another addition -- edition of washington journal. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023]