counsel for your helpful

>> coming up on "washington journal," your calls and comments live. and then mark zandi discusses the state of the u.s. economy, and adam gelb talks about crime trends in the u.s. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning. it is tuesday, november 21, 2023. the debate over cameras in the courtroom is our topic today,

and we are talking about courtrooms set to host criminal trials against former president donald trump. we want to know if you support or oppose televising the former president's upcoming federal trials on retaining classified documents. the phone lines are open to call in and as usual by political party. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can also send us a text. that number, (202) 748-8003. if you do, please include your name and where you are from. catch up with us on social media, on x, facebook, facebook.com/c-span. a good tuesday morning to you. go ahead and start calling in now. this is a recent headline from "the washington post." trump and the media want a televised trial in d.c. but the

justice department doesn't. the department formerly opposed a request to make the trial the first time that courts allow tv cameras to record a criminal trial. that request came in the form of a letter to the committee on rules of practice and procedure. this is a 16 page letter. this is part of that letter. media organizations joining in on the effort to get that body of the judiciary of the courts to decide to change this rule formerly known as procedure 53 to allow cameras in the courtroom. again, for the former president's upcoming federal trial. here is a bit of that letter to the judiciary saying the case is of interest to all american voters still struggling to make sense of the 2020 presidential election and its aftermath and who has an opportunity to vote for or against mr. trump should he become his party's nominee in 2024.

if americans do not have the confidence mr. trump is being treated fairly by thice system, th a very real chance they will reject the verdict whatever it is and that faith in democracy and our institutions will be furer diminished. cent events in our nations capital take that too extreme, this sort of doubt and cynicism can lead to violence. that letter sent by media organizations to the committee on rules and practice and procedure as the committee for the federal court system that decides these rules. as we said, the former president's lawyers filed earlier this month saying they too want to open up these proceedings to cameras in the court, but it is the justice department, jack smith's office, the special prosecutor, wants to keep to the precedent set by procedure 54. they note that the former president's desires to create a carnal atmosphere from which he hopes to profit by

construcike ny fraud defendants try to do frothe charges against him as theourt has already observed in proceedings in the defendant' criminal tal, the defendant d his counsel will allow their inquiry statements to wage a public relations campaign. the former president ignores the high-profile criminal trials have long ped i accordance with the broadcast prohibition under the ru theourtand that they have garnered significant and detailed media coverage of courtroom proceedings nonetheless. they cited the boston marathon bomber trial, the co-conspirato in the terrorist attacks of the september 11 trial, and the oklahoma city bomber trial as some trials that were not broadcast in federal court and received significant media attention. so we are asking you amid this debate that has cropped up ahead of these federal trials coming, do you think there should be cameras in the federal court? what you are seeing now are the

images of donald trump in a courtroom. that is from the civil fraud trial in new york. that proceeding was broadcast, and of course, the georgia criminal trial filed against the former president, that state trial, those proceedings have all been broadcasted on youtube and media organizations have been allowed to pick that up. you have seen those coverage. we are talking but the federal trials coming up. jack smith's cases against the former president. one taking place in d.c. and one taking place in florida. media organizations asking for the trials to be opened up to cameras in the courtroom. do you support that effort? again, it is (202) 748-8000 for democrats to call in. republicans, (202) 748-8001. an independents -- and independents, (202) 748-8002. bob is in eastlake, ohio. do support or oppose cameras in the courtroom? >> i support cameras and all the

courtrooms and all of these trials. i believe they are all bogus trials to begin with, and let's see what the government is hiding. let's see what is out there. i want to see all the evidence on both sides put it on tv -- besides. put it on tv. host: have you watched the proceedings of the georgia trial? caller: i don't believe i have seen the georgia trial but what i hear in the news and stuff like that, they are all bogus cases. first of all, they are all old. they happened years ago and why are they waiting until now for that to come up? it is all about the election. they waited all this time to bring up these cases now. they want people's minds tarnished. so let's put all the stuff on tv. let's see what they got, here all the evidence, and if he is guilty, he is guilty, and if he is not, he is not. let's see it. host: when it comes to the

federal trials, the audio of those trials have been released and we have heard some of the audio here when it comes to the gag order that the federal judge has tried to institute when it comes to the former president talking about jack smith talking about this case. have you listened to any of those audio recordings that have been released on this case? caller: no, i haven't. host: some of those proceedings continued yesterday i should note. the appeals court in washington, d.c., scrutinizing this gag order. this is the story from "the wall street journal" about it. during a more than two hour hearing, a three-judge panel expressed skepticism towards the argument from the former president's lawyers the gag order infringed on the former president's first amendment rights to political speech as he called it. want to play you a minute from that gag order hearing yesterday. it was about two and a half hours.

here is the former president's lawyer arguing before the judge. [videolip] >> this is what you have proposed so i am practicing if you have a conptn of how it works. it would allow a court to still protect the crimin proceedings beyond prohibited -- prohibition on violating the law. this is your test so it seems incumbent upon you to be able to explain to me what a court could do to protect the integrity of criminal proceedings that do not violate the criminal law. >>heeavy burden of demonstrating in the courtroom -- >> you are here challenging that order and asking us to adopt the legal test. what has been crystal clear from the supreme court is they said many times recently, it is not a mechanical formution. it is anto be a balancing test, a test that balances the

interestn free speech, which arve high, and the interest and protection and protecting the inteitof the criminal process and the crinal proceedings, which is also weighty constitutional interest, so the reason i am asking this questions to see if there is any balce, which is what the supreme urt tells us to do in the test youroposed. so tell me how it balances if you cannot give me anything other than a criminal law violation that would satisfy your test. >> the phrase i believe the fifth circuit used in brown is absolute freedom. >> there is no balance. >> criminal speech obviously is bject to restriction. core political speech that is part of the campaign speech. >> i don't think labeling it re political speech says whether or not it is in fact

political speech or political speechim at derailing or corrupting the criminal justice process. you can't simply label it that and conclude your balancing test that way. we have to balance. host: again, that is the audio from yesterday's arguments about the gag order when it comes to this upcoming federal trial that jack smith is bringing against the former president. we are asking you this morning if you think cameras should be allowed in the courtroom, not just the audio released, but cameras themselves broadcasting images and sound from inside the courtroom. there is a long-standing prohibition on cameras in the courtroom in federal criminal trials and media organizations including this network asked the court to put that prohibition aside due to the historic reasons behind this case, and we are asking you, do you support or oppose that effort? democrats, (202) 748-8000.

republicans, (202) 748-8001. and independents, (202) 748-8002 . give us a call. let us know what you think. this is william out of cincinnati, democrat. go ahead. caller: hello? host: go ahead. what you think about cameras in the courtroom for this case? caller: i want to see cameras in the courtroom. i think it should be very open to the american public. we need to shed a light on it. that comedy channel, i think you have to mc that shows. host: what do you mean by that when you talk about emceeing the shows? giving a wrap up in a preview of what is coming each day?

caller: yeah. the commentary and during breaks, he can do the interviews. it is great for tv. the whole process of the proceedings, i think he was levelheaded, open-minded. he will cut to the chase. host: you are recommending -- caller: i want to watch the trials on television. i think the american people deserve that right with the seriousness that donald trump did to this country.

i cannot see myself voting for a republican like i have in the past, voting for a republican again. host: can i just ask just one more question on jon stewart, do you recommend him because you see this as a form of entertainment because of his past work on comedy central? caller: no. [indiscernible] the towers being down and the seriousness of getting cancer by going through it.

whatever from bomb threats in iraq and standing up for those people. jon stewart led a real good campaign to help the poor soldiers out. host: i should note we have covered some of those press conferences and some of those hearings jon stewart has appeared in on those issues of burn pits post 9/11. thanks for the call out of cincinnati, ohio, this is bob, independent. what are your thoughts on cameras in the courtroom here? caller: hi. good morning, sir. ok, remember what happened in 1939. hitler became close to god in

a fascist way. also, mussolini, putin, and others. just to name a few, gaddafi, saddam, xi. i mean, come on. host: what does that have to do with cameras in the courtroom here? caller: because the american people want to see the real facts. the whole world wants to see the real facts, so why stop the cameras? the whole world wants to see the facts. period. host: bob in texas. this is vernon in maryland, republican. good morning. caller: hello. good morning. my point is the cameras you are

asking, it is long-standing that there should to cameras in the courtroom. i am of the opinion that we should not have them. if we want to change that, we should change that for every criminal proceeding. host: don't make it a one time thing for this case? caller: i don't want them to do any exceptions because the democrats will have their own situation and try to ask for a solution as well, so just have it -- either have the cameras in for everyone or don't have the cameras. special treatment adds more to everything happening right now. host: vernon, this ban on televising federal proceedings was adopted back in 1946, and so it has been in place throughout the -- from the beginning of the age of television. and a long-standing tradition. as we said, this network and others have asked them to make enough caption here -- to make an exception here.

have you watched any of the georgia proceedings or the new york civil fraud proceedings? caller: yes, i have been following them closely, what is happening in the news. and what i hear from a lot of democrats is there will be a time where they themselves will be asking for this and we don't want to make this some kind of a precedent. host: thanks for the call from maryland. back to some of the many opposites that happen -- op-eds that have been written on this in recent weeks and months of the cases have started to get scheduled and filed. we will go to an august piece from a former watergate assistant special prosecutor. this appeared in "the new york times." th was his take on televis the federalrial saying no matter how experienced a judge is icontrolling the courtroom, mr. trump cld through gestures or well-timed outbursts try to use the broadcast to sway public

opinion and in the process undermine th trial. concerns about witness case certainly extend to this broadcasting trials is sometimes except it will bthis instance, because of concerns about protecting witnesses and jurors, shots and angles would almost certainly nlude their faces or the jurors's reaction but they are critical elements in understanding the witness credibility in the witness's impact on the jury. appeal made by media organizations, and again, c-span is part of this appeal, that appeal notes that if rules were made in the courtroom not to show shots of jury members or certain aspect of the courtroom that the media organizations would comply with that they were allowed to put cameras in the courtroom. again, this is a debate we are having with the judiciary right now, and we are asking you to

weigh in on it. do you think there should be cameras in the courtroom for these upcoming federal trials for the former president? carlita is in eight mile, alabama, independent. good morning. carlita, are you there? caller: yes, i'm here. host: go ahead. caller: i want to say i kind of agree with the statement that was just made because of all the intimidation that goes on with the witnesses that come up against trump and the trump organization's, that people attack them, that we need to be very careful with showing these people on the camera. however, i do feel that the public needs to have a clear understanding and view of what is going on. not necessarily through the lens of the media but actually what

the actual testimonies and things are. because i feel like depending on whichever media outlet you are looking at, if it is not televised, it is going to be spun a certain way, so i do think the cameras should be there, but i also feel that the people in the courtroom should be protected, the witnesses and things. host: the argument that the government makes here in trying to keep the cameras out of the courtroom is that there have been high-profile federal criminal trials in the past and the american public was still informed about what happened in them, about the arguments on both sides, and appointed to the boston marathon bomber. they pointed to the 9/11 trials. they pointed to others saying it is not just cameras in the courtroom that allow people to get an understanding of what happened in the courtroom. there are people allowed in the courtroom to watch and cover.

news organizations are there as well. what do you make of that argument, that we don't necessarily need the cameras to know what happens in the courtroom? caller: in those situations, probably not, but in this situation but are talking about a highly charged political situation, and again, depending on whichever media outlet is covering it, it is going to be spun whichever way. so i think for this situation and because we are talking about the highest office in the land, the most powerful office really in the world, we need to hear firsthand what happened, who was involved, to what extent, and it does not need to come through a secondhand media outlet to the people in order for us to make a decision as to how we are going to vote. host: do you think people would watch? caller: oh, i think absolutely

people would watch. if they watched the o.j. simpson trial, i think they will watch this trial. host: again, coming back to this letter we sent to the judiciary on this issue, just some stats that were cited in that letter. and i wonder what your thoughts are on how many people watched when it came to the second impeachment trial of the former president after the january 6 attack on the capitol. an average of 11 million viewers watched the opening arguments. this is across msnbc, cnn, fox abc, cbs, the folks who track those numbers. at least 20 million people watched the first day of the house select committee hearings on the january 6 attack, and an average of 13 million viewers watched the following days when it came to that investigation. do you think that is a lot of americans?

do you think that is a few amount of americans? 330 something million people in this country. caller: i want you to think about it in this term, what we are talking about the number of people who changed the election, who actually elected this last president, it was not that many people, right? or it was about that many people, so to me, that is a significant number, and for people who have not made their minds up as to who they are going to vote for, i am sure they would be among that number, so i believe it is a significant number. host: thanks for the call from alabama. greg in north carolina, on the line for democrats, what do you think? caller: good morning. cameras in the courtroom, a lot of people would watch and i were to remember transparency is a good thing, especially for our

government. maybe on the other hand it is not a good thing because it creates risk. ultimately, i do support it. i have a question for you. for the trial, are the charges different versus new york? host: there are different charges in each one of the cases the president is facing. when it comes to how those numbers are in florida, in that trial he faces 40 federal charges for the documents issued, and in the d.c. case, he faces four felony counts for efforts to overturn the 2020 election. in georgia, it is 13 felony counts for election interference in that state, and in new york but it is bribery charges, so we are talking about different criminal charges across these four trials. caller: ok. so that does change my opinion a

little bit. it definitely needs to be televised. we have not had a president deal with something like this before so that is my opinion. host: in raleigh, north carolina, republican, good morning. caller: yes, i oppose televising the trials. where was everybody when john edwards in north carolina was charged in federal court? how about senator menendez up in new jersey when he was found not guilty the first time in federal court? were you all jumping up and screaming we need to televise it? i don't they are not president, but they are still senators, and everybody is supposed to be treated the same in the court system, so where was everybody when good old john edwards from north carolina went to federal court and nobody brought up

being televised? where were you? host: in terms of that specific case, i am not exactly sure the answer to that. thank you. there has been an ongoing effort for decades at this network in among others in the news business to put cameras in the supreme court. in terms of how much impact a supreme court case can have on american life, we have been trying to get cameras in the supreme court for years and years now. not successful so far, but we have had the same day release of the audio, and that is what we have right now and that is what we will have in these cases involving the former president, these audio releases. what we are asking for is we want the cameras there as well. caller: right, ok. will you ask for that in the senator menendez trail but he has that as well? caller: i think -- post: i think

-- host: i think we would support cameras and all trials and cases. our focus on capitol hill, they are our neighbors across the way and we cover all of the supreme court cases, but i don't know about some of the other specific cases you mentioned, thomas. caller: ok, sir. thank you very much. host: this is kenny in california, independent. caller: good morning. thanks for c-span. you guys are the best thing going. you are the only one step up -- you are the only ones that offer opposing views. it is a hard choice for me. i would be dying to watch it every day day in and day out, but there is an underlining concern that we have a defendant, although he is running for the highest office in the land, that carries a certain undercurrent with him where he does not abide by anything the judge says, so if the judge were to impose any

type of limited water on what is to be said or what should not be said, we have already seen this defendant that would go walk right out the courtroom and criticized the judge that criticized -- criticize the judge, the judge's clerk's, the jury, and another is the underlining of the defendant doing that when there is a strong segment in our society that follows that defendant and will become violent. and because of that, unfortunately, and i think it is something the country should be able to watch, i oppose having cameras in the court. i think the caller clarida, she made a very good point. and i think she very much hit it on the head that a lot of it would be pinned on the spin,

which media outlet that you view. if you view fox, they will cut it and spit it their way. if you go to msnbc, they are going to cut it and spit it their way. people that follow these outlets , that is the way they are going to look at the trial, and i will and that with saying the fairness doctrine. with the fairness doctrine was in effect, you would have people on each media outlet that would have two points of view, so the public would get both sides of it every day, day in and day out. so since it is repealed, now you can go to whichever source you watch. you are going to get that spin. i think she hit it -- host: let me go back to this network, to what you brought up. you are saying certain networks

will cut it, spin it a certain way and certain networks will cut it and spit in a different way. you don't think people will watch the proceedings in their entirety. so i guess my question for you, do you think cameras on the floor of the united states house and senate have been a good thing? do you think that is happening, that the speeches that are given on the floor of the house and senate are cut a certain way from one side and cut a certain way by the other? that is our mission here, to provide anything that happens in the florida house on c-span for you to watch live and anything that happens in the for the senate on c-span2 for you to watch live. caller: sure, i am absolutely 100% in favor of cameras in the house and senate. i think it does a great justice to the country, but, excuse me, when the public views the house, the floor, or the senate, and

politicians speaking, they are not looking at it with a critical eye. they are just looking at the representative that may come and offer their position on a bill or their opposition on a bill in a certain way, but they are not looking at it with a critical eye with it being attached to a president of the united states. with it being attached to if they are going to go out that day and protest, if they are going to get revved up and say the other guys, democrats or republicans or whomever our trash and the scum of america. i don't think it has that residual effect. host: there has been worse language than that said on the floor of the house and senate over the years but i guess you are saying it is more charged around this particular figure in american history right now. caller: absolutely.

absolutely. there is nothing, nothing that i can remember that would have an undertone of violence that this has. i witnessed the civil rights era. i went through the vietnam protests. i lived through it all, and nothing that i can recall in my 70 plus years on this earth that i can recall carried the same undertone of that one individual can cause violence, that one individual can walk out of a courtroom and say, pick up arms. and i am not saying it from being anti-trump or pro-trump or anything like that, but i am saying it because of his tendency to not follow any of the rules set by a judge, none. so we have to take that into consideration.

it is only fair to the public. host: that is kenny in california. it is just after 7:30 on the east coast. in this first hour of "washington journal" today, having a conversation about cameras in courtrooms and specifically the courtrooms that will host the federal criminal trials of former president donald trump. asking you to support or oppose having cameras there for all of those proceedings. (202) 748-8000 for democrats to call in. republicans, it is (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. just a roadmap ahead today on "washington journal," in about 30 minutes we will be talking about the state of the u.s. economy. mark zandi will be joining us for that conversation. and then later today, a conversation about crime statistics and crime trends in the united states. we will be joined by adam gelb, president and ceo of the council on criminal justice. that is in our 9:00 a.m. eastern

hour today, but for the first hour today, this conversation about cameras in the courtroom. out of durham, connecticut, democrat, thanks for waiting. caller: yes, good morning, john. so i think there is a couple ways to look at this. one, somebody who has done the practice of law for a couple of years and then simultaneously tried to understand what dynamics happen in the court, i think sometimes there is the predisposition to really not gather just by hearing the audio alone, to really not gather the true substance of the court interactions, and i mean this in sort of an evidentiary every way but more the compelling arguments and statements of the defendants, simultaneously, the reactions of the attorneys, the questioning, and what is overall the process of the judge. it is sort of like by allowing

the cameras in, you get the additional sensory input that helps inform the decision. now, that can be biased, and i will say it does play a huge role, and i think some of the callers today have rightly brought up the major concern over how people articulate this in a way that is it showmanship or grandstanding, and then simultaneously, how do you protect the integrity of the system, including the process, as the judge alluded to, the federal judge yesterday, how do you protect the witnesses from that sort of harassment component that would come from it being visualized. long point out of this -- host: on the point of witnesses, the counterpoint there is that these witnesses that would be set to testify against the former president, all of their names would be known already. media outlets have widely covered whether they have made

deals with the prosecution that these people are known already, that the cameras would not make the difference here of whether these people may or may not be harassed. and the point goes further that jury members, their names are often found out after trials anyways, so concerns about that. it is a concern that happens when it comes to any major high-profile trial. think of jury members post the o.j. simpson trial or something like that. these things happen anyway regardless of whether the cameras are there or not, so why should the cameras make a difference on that? caller: well, i think two things. one, i am very reluctant to pass over the impact that has on that individual's life and the fact that they go right in front of the camera and are, their faces are seen, their testimony is bird, their expressions, so i would say that, yes, there is

information and that information makes it out in the public discourse and the stream of information, but there is simultaneously an element of that that takes some time, and people, the threat may slightly be different. to your point, a good one, there are plenty of factors here. let me not dismiss the fact that this information makes it into the stream. the question is the timing of the tenacity, and overall, the believability and truth of those individuals that are sitting there and whether or not they are being intimidated. witness intimidation is something that goes back very long in this country, and for the exact same reasons we are talking about now in a digital age where everything gets shot across the internet in a heartbeat of a second. that changes the way it should be approached at least in the short run. at least in the immediacy. john, i am telling you i am for

it. i am just weighing the components of this and saying at the end of the day, my ultimate choice would be if it were me and i was a judge sitting there, to allow all the contextual clues to be immersed and put out there in the public. in other words, allowing the camera to be in the courtroom. what lasting, but then to require exactly what has been brought up today, the spin zone. if they are allowed to cover it, they have to do almost exactly what, and it has been brought up, but it is also what c-span does, which is you must be required if you show this information on your news outlet, fox news or msnbc, that you will carry it in its entirety. and that means there will be no editorial is asian during the actual -- they can't editorialize it but they have to show the whole trial.

i think that speaks enough volume to the balance between the two. it drives the fulcrum at the edge. it does not mean they would not be able to have their pundits and all the way in because you will not be able to stop that. host: one of our viewers on x ghts in that they would be ok with it if and only if the coverage was restricted to just the courtroom and no statements from either party before or either the proceedings. but one other thought because you said you are a lawyer. you mentioned the element of it taking some time for these things to get out in the public realm when the cameras are not there. one of the arguments that has been made, even if the judiciary decides not to allow cameras in the courtroom, there is already cameras in courtrooms to show proceedings in overflow rooms, where there is overflow audience rooms. there is kind of an internal system in many courtrooms that

allow people sitting in other parts of a courthouse to see what is happening in the courtroom that is actually hosting the case, and one argument has been made to hold onto that piece of video of what is happening when it comes to the trump federal case and to release that sometime in the future as sort of a historic document, that it was a historic prosecution of a former president and even if it is not being released in real-time to be seen in the news, that it is kept and released at some point in the future. what are your thoughts on that? caller: i think there is an interesting way to approach it. i would say the delay that can happen as a result but still capturing something that is so historic is a good thing, so i would be for that, but i also do think it is important to have real-time information. i know this will sound crazy, but i am also dutch i also

practice medicine in the thing is when you see patients, you don't need to -- you can look at their lab information later on down the road after the patient has already left, some of the back-and-forth discussion you have had, but you really need to be able to be in that moment with the individual at that specific time in order to appreciate all of the sensory input that is important to make your decision, and the decision being in that case a medical decision, but in the case of a judiciary where the article three branch is reviewing and presenting this information to a jury and the jury is making a decision, that sort of timing is critical, and i just don't know if it is wise to delay that. maybe there is a chance sort of, but the moment is there, and i think the sanctity and the compassion -- the passion

that comes out which may be too much passion in the momentary experience of that is more profound so i would be for it either way, but i just think it should be broadcast. i am in favor of what they have been trying to do for years and the supreme court them and i think they have been able to start their responsibility because of these concerns over grandstanding, but ultimately, it comes down to the people have to know and this is so consequential on so many levels. but set the precedent to make it fair. host: thanks for the call. on this network's efforts when it comes to the supreme court, there is a whole timeline of our efforts over the years to try to get cameras in the court if you want to read more on that this is kelly in ohio, republican. thanks for waiting. caller: hello. host: go ahead. what are your thoughts on cameras in the court? caller: i am for them. however, the presidential

candidate kind of thing going on, it has a lot of extreme circumstances obviously. but i think we should treat it kind of like we do ballgames where they will broadcast a ballgame, record a ballgame, but they do not show it until the game is over. why not the same thing with this? let the cameras be in the courtroom, let them see everything going on, but you are not allowed to broadcast it until after it is overcome, after the decision has been made. host: so you are saying after the entire trial is over, not just day-to-day? caller: exactly. host: thank you. caller: that way there is no influence on jurors or the witnesses or anything. it is for posterity basically, just recording it for posterity. host: would you be concerned about the ultimate monday morning quarterbacking as it were of this case when that happens?

especially the decisions made and the next day you can start watching this case day by day? caller: well, that happens anyway. host: fair enough. thanks for the call from ohio. kevin in windsor, connecticut, independent. good morning. caller: yes, thanks for taking my call. yeah. this has to be televised. the american people, the country has a right to watch this. the former president having insurrection on our country, i mean, this is for future presidents too. you better believe there will be future trumps coming down the pike. i have never seen it. i am 65 years old. i went through the cuban missile crisis, watergate, but this is a must. the people earned the right to watch this live and judge it for themselves. host: are you watching any of the georgia trials, the 13

federal counts on election interference? that happening in a state court, and that is being livestreamed to youtube and networks have picked that up. caller: not on the internet or anything like that, just the stations, but the people earned the right to we never had a president try to overthrow an election before, and now this guy is trying to put his political opponents in jail and get rid of the constitution. this man is a danger to our country. host: that is kevin in connecticut. this is henrietta in florida, republican. good morning. caller: hi. good morning. i think that cameras should be allowed in the courtroom. to coin an old phrase, sunshine is the best disinfectant. for example, i saw c-span's

coverage of the gag order, and it was very, very interesting to hear the different arguments. it was completely eye-opening. when the judges questioned the prosecution, it was jaw-dropping to hear a lot of -- from a prosecutor who could not answer questions from the judge as to free speech, what is the boundary of the president or the ex-president's free-speech. it was illuminating, so i agree, cameras should be allowed in the courtroom. and i thank you very much. host: our coverage of the audio that was released on that is available at c-span.org if you want to go back and listen to

that, what happened yesterday. when it came to the gag order. two comments from social media, from x. this is rosie -- this is rosarian saying it should be filled but the footage should not be aired live e to concerns regarding the jury intimidation a corruption. and another saying it is a matter of public interest in consequence so it is absolutely necessary the american people get to watch it live. this is kathleen, georgetown, delaware, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning, john. good morning, america. good morning, c-span listeners. i believe they should let the camera in the courtroom. there is too much discourse between republicans and democrats in the minions in his back pocket. he curses everybody. he gives them names. he is so derogatory, and he is

such a rabble-rouser. he just gets these irrational radicals going crazy, and he is talking rhetoric about the government. the constitution, all of this. i do believe we have the right to listen to his own words in the courtroom to defend what he is accused of, and he is the former president. he is not the president regardless of what anybody thinks, and i think the voters have a right to listen to and judge for themselves before they vote what they want to vote and who they want to vote for according to his statement. thank you very much and have a good morning. host: kathleen in delaware, to manhattan, this is sophia. good morning. caller: good morning, john. absolutely, yes, they should

show everything. what else is missed? we know everything. they show us everything. president trump has said he wanted it televised. please make it. let him be satisfied. i have been conservative all my life. i changed two independent one year ago after watching all of them, including, i mean, fox, newsmax, news nation. i give them one minute each to what they are reporting and showing. some people got really upset about the last riot he had, former president trump.

nobody covers him but c-span. i watch one minute and it is repeated, but anyway, it should be, what do we have to lose? four years ago i said democracy is king. now, c-span, when they advertise it, i feel like i am talking. by the way, my birthday was saturday. i thought one of you would come. i have you and greta but i want all of them. it is ok. i waited for this day. you have a nice thanksgiving day on thursday, and be strong for me. don't go nowhere, ok? host: happy birthday, and you have a nice thanksgiving as well forget it to alan in mississippi -- as well. to alan in mississippi, republican. good morning. are you with us?

got to stick by your phone. this is mark in tulsa, oklahoma, independent. go ahead. caller: hey, john. how are you doing today? i will say something about c-span and then talk about this courtroom thing. c-span, interesting channel. i have called probably eight or nine times now and i think this is the third time we have talked. always a pleasure to talk to you. i respect you. you challenge the callers. it is a beautiful thing. keep challenging us, brother. i like it. i want to challenge you, c-span. make this more than three hours, 6:00 to 9:00 central time. let's make this like 12 hours. let's quit showing the broadcast of the housework with no one in there except some guy talking about a post office thing. but anyway, let me get to the reality of this court thing.

ok, so this is what i think about it, sir. first of all, the people that are controlling this government, they want a guy like trump in there. they do. like 32% of the people love him. 32% of our population lives trump. there is no way he is going to be convicted of any crime. it is a joke, but let's show it. let's show it and show what a joke this is. our government wants trump to be the next president so we can strong-arm the public and that guy can come in and dominate so we can have the central power leader dominating us. anyway, the court system in our country is lackluster. i was on a jury in oklahoma. i will redo the case. we incarcerate more people in the united states than any

country in the world. host: where there cameras in your case? caller: unfortunately not, john, because it is tulsa, oklahoma. host: do you think is a jury member you would have acted differently had there been cameras in that case? if there was cameras in the courtroom? caller: absolutely not. absolutely not. how many jurors have died in the united states of america? i thick if somebody is going to be mad about the decision, they will not take it out on the jurors? they will take it out on something else besides the jurors. how many jurors have died in the united states? it is a weak argument. they don't go after the jurors. they go after the jurors who enforce their vote. you understand what i'm saying? host: got your point. eddie in saginaw, michigan, good morning. the couple minutes left and we

want to be to as many calls as we can. caller: how are you doing this morning? host: i am doing good. go ahead. caller: first of all, but i would like to know, who got the power to decide whether or not they can have cameras in the courtroom or cannot have cameras in the courtroom? who makes that decision, first of all? host: i can give you that. it is the federal courts, the judiciary, committee on rules of practices and procedure. they are the ones that review these rules, and this is a long-standing rule of the judicial conference called rule 53 of the criminal rules and procedure. that is who decides here. the courts to make there was about how the courts are run, although i should note that some members of congress have pushed legislation to try to open up courts to cameras, and so that

is an avenue being pursued as well. caller: ok. ok, now let's look at the whole thing. ok, the man, mr. trump, is saying to the whole world that the system is corrupt, that the system is rigged against him. this is what he is saying. he is totally saying this. you agree? host: one of the reasons his attorneys have argued for cameras in the courtroom is to show whether it is a fair or unfair trial, that is the argument they make. caller: ok, right. so with that now, you got a lot of people on the left that is going. you got a lotta people on the right. so showing this whole procedure of this hearing is going to have some kind of good point, it is

going to have a negative point to it. and then just like some of the callers already said, what media outlet carries it, there are some networks that are for trump and some networks totally against trump, so with that, in the whole united states, everybody will be watching this because it might swing a vote when it comes down to the election, with the election comes up next year. this is a big deal. this is not know -- it can cause a lot of problems. it can cause a lot of things. is it a good thing for it to be televised? it could be, and it might not be.

so the public is the one weighing in on that. host: do you think the public should get to decide? caller: well -- host: in the form of being able to turn on a channel with the case? caller: well, this is what i'm looking at. i am looking at the man is always doing his presidency, saying that the media -- it is a corrupt media, so now with this, if they show it, then we as the people would be able to see if it is corrupt, but man, this can do something to the united states if it does not go right. i don't know if the powers that be are looking at the money thing of it because it will be about some money. host: got your point.

running short on time. let's get to rodney in florida, republican. go ahead. caller: morning, john. happy thanksgiving to you. host: same to you. caller: over 70 million people voted for trump. trump west president, the first president to be put on trial. it looks like the government decides, they push the scales of justice one way or another. you had willis and letitia james, jack smith all piling on trump with these charges all at once before the election. now they want to shut him up and gagged him. jack smith was originally going to go after the classified documents. that was his mission but they left it open ended, now he has changed his whole direction of this investigation for january 6. but quietly, they said this week that the classified document case against biden where he had chinatown all of these places is quietly being dropped, and i will tell you -- host: running short on time.

turning to the cameras. caller: i will get to the cameras. i am saying they are trying to gag him and shut him up. tony went on national tv and said i was covered by this business partner and joe biden took a bribe. i am telling you he was part of the deal. the fbi has never interviewed him. never hosted him on "washington journal" so it is all biased is what i'm saying. host: do you think there should be cameras in the courtroom? caller: what i am saying is you want to gag him, shut him up. you are saying he is dangerous. note. his 70 million followers to me want to shut him up and pile on with all of these prosecutors and go after him and try to beat him in the courtroom because you can't beat him. host: news organizations want the cameras in the courtroom and sent a letter asking for an exception to this rule to try to broadcast this.

this network is part of that effort to try to open up the trial. caller: what we talk about some of biden's stuff? willis, james, you don't want to hear from tony, you don't want to hear from people that shut down the irs prosecutors that said hunter biden evaded taxes. it is biased and you want to shut up republicans, trump, and protect biden and put a gag order on trump so it is all biased. it is all biased. major media wants to ignore it. host: that is rodney in miami, florida, our last caller in this segment of "washington journal." stick around. there is plenty more to talk about today. up next, we will be joined by mark zandi about the u.s. economy ahead of a busy holiday shopping season. and later, we will be joined by adam gelb, president and ceo of the council of committal justice to discuss his group's recent

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friday and the unofficial start of the holiday season. it's a good time to check in on the state of the u.s. economy with mark zandi from moody's analytics. how optimistic or pessimistic are you now about where we are in this economy and where were headed? guest: good to be with you. i'm optimistic. i think the economy is performing well. a year ago, we -- if we were having this conversation, we probably bit did, there was concern about a recession with lots of lost jobs and rising unemployment in 2023 that did not happen. the economy created lots of jobs, almost 3 million and unemployment has remained below 4%. the thing that has been bothering americans and rightly so is the high inflation. we've gotten some good news there as well, inflation has moderated, still too high but it's clearly moving in the right direction.

stock prices, housing values, things that matter to people and their wealth have held their own despite the higher interest rate so all in all, i'm pretty optimistic. i think the country has some -- has performed surprisingly well and i'm hopeful it will continue to do so in the coming year. host: does that mean we are out of the woods for a post-covid recession? that was the conversation for a long time guest: not out of the woods yet, we cannot declare victory yet. we will wait for the federal reserve to start lowering interest rates. once they do that, they will say the coast is clear and inflation is back and some -- and everyone can feel more comfortable. when that happens, i think we can breathe a sigh of relief and feel like we've gotten to the other side of this. the risks have receded. if we go back a year ago and you

looked at the possibility of recession, i probably would have said close to even. now i would say 25%. still too high but clearly receding. host: inflation rates at 3.2% in october, the chart i can show viewers shows the direction and you know it's going in the right direction after going sharply up last year. when the history of the federal reserve efforts on price stability is written, what will it say about the federal reserve and the tools it used in its ability to achieve a soft landing which was the talk for so long about what the goal here was? guest: i think they will get a fair amount of credit for putting pressure on the economy but not breaking the economy, making sure the economy slows down and things cool off and inflation starts to move down

without pushing the economy into an economic downturn. that's tough to do, raise rates high enough and fast enough to slow growth but not so high so fast that it pushes the economy into recession. historically, that rarely has been done. if they can pull that off here which i think they can do, they should get credit for it. they didn't get it exactly right. they clearly got it wrong back when inflation was just starting to bubble up in late 2021 and they kept rates too low for too long. it's hard to be too critical because that was an uncertain time in the pandemic was still an issue and a lot of uncertainty and i think they were accused of doing too little. host: 2% inflation rate is the fed goal. is that realistic in 2023? guest: cannot this year but in

24. if we are having this conversation a year from now and you told me that it's within spitting distance of 2%, i would say that's a real possibility. i forecast lots of things, i'm an economist and some things i'm confident on and some not so much. i'm confident in the inflation outlook because the one thing that's keeping inflation elevated above that 2% target is the cost of housing services. that goes to rent. market rents are flat to down for most of this year and in construction, that will translate into slower growth in housing services this coming year. things happen and i could be wrong. i feel confident that inflation should be back within spitting distance of that 2% target by

this time next year. host: let me invite viewers to join the conversation. we are talking about the state of the u.s. economy and if you want to call in democrats (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001 independents (202) 748-8002. you mentioned housing. our folks concerned about high interest rates in this country? guest: they are high that goes back to the federal reserve trying to slow things down and get inflation back in. the housing sector, single-family housing is the most interest rate sensitive sector of the economy. if you want to buy a home, most people need to get a mortgage and in the cost of that mortgage is tied to the interest rate. it's not surprising that housing has suffered and has been taking it on the chin. my sense is that mortgage rates

have peaked. the recent peak in mortgage rates on 30 year fixed rate mortgages was just about 8% if you go back six weeks ago. we are no closer to 7.5% which is still really high but a year from now, they will settle in somewhere around 5.5% and 6% and i think that's with their -- where they will be in the long run. homebuyers should plan for that in the future. if you are a potential buyer, not a bad idea to be patient because mortgage rates will come down. you may also get a break on house prices as i expect them to moderate as well. host: interest rates coming down, inflation rates coming down are two things the biden administration is quick to point out when they talk about the economy. how do you define the term bidenomics when you hear that

out of the white house? guest: i think it's about the different policies passed in the administration to date beginning with the american rescue plan that was the support provided to the economy to get to the other side of the effects of the pandemic. that was a large plan. there is the ships act, a piece of legislation to incentivize semiconductors here and that goes to the problems we experienced during the pandemic, chip production shutdown globally. it was strategically very important because most of the chips produced were in taiwan and taiwan is under threat from china so that was a key piece of legislation. if the infrastructure and legislation, more money for bridges and roads and all kinds of infrastructure, and the inflation reduction act which is investment, mostly in green infrastructure.

when the administration talks about bidenomics, the totality of all those policies to help support the economy mostly longer run, the american rescue plan was that here and now and helping the economy through the pandemic but the other pieces of legislation are about trying to support the economy's growth long run. host: yolanda is on the line from north carolina, up first in this segment. independent, go ahead. caller: good morning. my question for mark is -- why is the food prices still so high? this is what people are complaining about. we can't afford to eat on top of paying for our other utilities and things of that nature. can he answer that question, please? guest: great question. you are right, the cost of living is much higher even

though the rate of growth in prices is slow, the cost of living today is meaningfully higher than it was two or three years ago. i will give you one statistic and then answer your question around food. the typical american household needs to spend $680 more per month to buy the same goods and services they did two years ago because of the high inflation. think about that for a second. the typical american hassle probably makes $80,000 per year and now they have to spend more per month. that is the hardship that most americans are feeling. the prices have increased for most everything but particularly for necessities. gasoline is higher than it was, rents are higher than they were and as you mentioned, food prices. the surgeon food prices to a large extent goes back to the pandemic and the war in ukraine. when russia invaded ukraine,

that severely disrupted agricultural markets. that part of the world produces a lot of wheat and corn and a lot of soybeans which are very important for soybean oil used in different parts of the world. russia is the major producer of fertilizer believe it or not. that fertilizer goes into crops all over the world. that really did a lot of damage and caused the shortages and cause prices to jump. the pandemic as well and that disrupted supply chains and labor markets, a lot of the cost of producing food is the labor is much more difficult because of the impact it had on immigration flows. i should also mention the other really big thing is the cost of diesel. believe it or not, one of the largest components of the cost of food is the cost of

transporting the food from the farm to the store shelf. diesel prices took off after the russian invasion of ukraine. lots of different things going on. droughts have recently been an issue in the midwest and climate change is playing a role here now and impacting supplies on different things and causing prices to jump. it's not just one thing, it's a range of things but the driving force here is the russian war in ukraine in the pandemic. host: you talk about the typical american household. as we head into black friday and the holiday shopping season, do we have a sense of what the typical american household will spend this season? guest: in terms of christmas sales, if you look at overall retail sales, the things we buy to put under the christmas tree in november and december, right now it feels like it will come in somewhere around 3-4% growth.

it's 3-4% higher than christmas last year. that is ok, last year christmas growth sales were that are than the year before that because of the pandemic. it's enough to keep the economy moving forward and also consistent with the effort by the federal reserve to slow things down and cooled things off. and ok christmas but not a great christmas. lots of people instead of buying stuff that you put under the tree like apply -- -- you don't put appliances under the tree but my wife does. you get clothing you get electronics, people have shifted their spending in the post-pandemic world away from stuff to travel and ballgames and restaurants, not things but

experiences so that is reflected in that softer christmas sales. i think they will be good enough to ensure that the economy continues to move forward and we avoid that recession. host: will that be felt in hiring? are retailers prepping for an ok season? guest: yes, indeed. as you know, retailers and shipping companies like fedex and ups, they really hire lots of folks in the lead up to christmas because they need to move those goods around and get them into peoples homes in time for christmas. it's that seasonal hiring which is still happening but not to the same degree it has in christmas past. we are starting to see some softness in employment in the retail/transportation sectors but not enough to get worried about but it goes back to the

federal reserve efforts to cooled things off and slow things down. they will get that in less hiring for christmas. host: williamsburg, ohio, debbie, republican, go ahead. caller: hi, good morning. i agree with your statement about the economy being a little bit better than it was last year in some areas but in other areas, it seems worse. my main concern is this is all a temporary fix because our global economies are tied into worldwide khmer food and everything else like our clothes and everything else we use is tied into the other countries. to me, it's scary to think of the disasters we have because of climate change which are real. i hope everybody realizes that now. we cannot afford to rebuild our own nation when we have

disasters and this is going on worldwide and we are tied in together with each other. i really would like people to realize that the projection, this will not change. fires and earthquakes to whatever but we are going to have to get on top of something that's going to keep us surviving down the road. thank you. guest: you are right, we are part of a global economy. we do a lot of trade and investment with the rest of the worlds what's going on overseas really does matter to us at home. in the near term, the u.s. economy it's good it's as strong as it is because we are powering growth all over the world. american consumers are buying not only all we produce here but

buying lots of things produced overseas. that's helping to support growth overseas. this is different than during the peak of the pandemic and the financial crisis when the chinese economy was kind of driving the global train. it was leading the way and that's not the case now. the chinese economy is weaker and we are leading the way. our economy is the strongest in the world. there are many things to worry about in the world from geopolitical concerns like what we see in the middle east and the relationship between china and the u.s. and climate change is a real issue. it is showing up in the form of more weather events that are extraordinarily difficult to adjust to and costly. can you imagine in the rest of the world with emerging economies that are not nearly as wealthy as ours, it's difficult.

it's one reason why we are seeing these flows of people, a lot of people from south and central america are showing up at the texas border. they are there because their livelihood was wiped out by climate events affecting the coffee crop and other staples in south america and people can make a living so they are making their way north to figure it out. i agree, i think this is something we need to address. we are making progress, a step in the right direction and the inflation reduction act is clearly an effort in the united states through tax subsidies to incent the move away from fossil fuel to green energy but it's a process and it will take a lot of time and a lot of effort. you are right, i think climate risk is a serious threat to the global economy by extension, our economy as well. host: going back to inflation,

good question -- inflation is broadly the increase in prices, the rate of increase in prices. if inflation is 2%, that means prices for the goods and services we are buying is 2% higher than it was say a year ago. the reason why prices rise goes to many factors. it can go to the cost of producing those goods and services. if i'm in the health care industry or the hospitality industry, most of my costs are centered around the wages i pay to my workers. if their compensation is rising more quickly then prices will rise more quickly because the

executive will pass that through to my customers. there's also a profit margin. i'm a business person and i say i want to charge a price for whatever covers the cost of what i produce, then i need a margin, a price above my cost to make money and make a profit. price gouging occurs when that margin is expanded or increased in a very significant way and businesses are able to do that in times of crises when there is severe shortages or other events that create the environment for them to raise their prices aggressively. there has been some evidence that during parts of the pandemic when we had supply chain and shortages, the

dislocations in the labor market that margins did increase significantly. they are coming back in. they are coming back in slowly and business people are trying to fight the margin compression but they are coming back in. one may argue that there was some so-called price gouging during the peak of the pandemic but that's quickly getting rung out as the economy normalizes. fortunately, in certain industries where potential price gouging was more significant, you saw the federal government and the federal trade commission in particular start to shine light on different sectors and different businesses saying what's going on. it causes businesses to become less aggressive in their pricing.

the meatpacking industry for example was front and center with regard to this issue back in the pandemic when we had shortages of meat because of the pandemic. fortunately, things seem to be moving in the right direction in that regard. host: about 20 minutes left with mark sandy this morning, taking your phone calls, democrats, publicans and independents. las cruces, new mexico, james, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a comment to make. i will try to clean up my languagehuh? host: just watch the language but go ahead. caller: this inflation is cleaning my rear end out. when i go to the grocery store and stuff, it just burns my rear

end up, the prices and stuff i had to pay. from what i paid a couple of years ago and i pay now for rent in every other thing is just burns my rear end. host: we got your point. i'm not sure we covered rent is much yet. -- as much yet. guest: prices for almost everything jumped in the pandemic. in the wake of the russian war in ukraine. particularly for necessities. we talked about food, gasoline prices are back down a bit but there is still a somewhat -- they are still somewhat elevated pre-pandemic. the other thing that has elevated our rent, this goes to a couple of things. even before the pandemic, we had

a very severe shortage of housing, for the housing and we still do. this developed in the wake of the financial crisis. it's hard to remember but that crisis was about the housing market in the housing market got crushed and home builders went out of business so it took a long time for builders to start being able to put up homes on scale. during that time, they didn't produce enough households for the demand and they saw a rates decline. we sent -- we had a very severe shortage. the shortage is about 1.8 million homes. that's more than one years worth of construction in the housing market when you had that shortage, that puts upward pressure on rents. the next thing that happened was the pandemic.

we all kind of stopped during the shutdown and kids went to live with their parents and people doubled up. when the economy reopen, we all immediately went out and formed households. kids living with their parents struck out on their own. immigration picked up and that's a demand for housing as well. that increase in demand bumps up against the lack of supply and rent took off. they jump significantly. up until earlier this year, that's been the case. the good news in that regard is there is more housing supply now coming in particularly in the multifamily rental market. rents have gone flat but they are not coming down. we are also paying more for rent then we were a couple years ago.

it's no longer rising and in some markets, if you go west into phoenix, you are starting to see a lot more multifamily development and rents are starting to come in a little bit. we are getting a little bit of relief but a lot of things have conspired to push rents to a significant degree and it's a lot of financial pain for many american households. host: irvington, virginia, jeff is independent. caller: how are you doing? thanks for taking my call. my question is, if the government hired you to get us out of debt, do you think you've got a plan or would have a plan to do it? how long would it take? we are $32 trillion in debt, don't you think all that debt might have something to do with all these high prices in the

world? basically, people are working two jobs to get by. and all that really means is that the government is taking in more tax money out of these people. there's got to be someone smart enough to look at this and say let's hire this guy and let him get us out of debt. host: you are the debt czar, what do you do? guest: i think i need to be king. i would be king for a day but i night -- but i night -- i might need a week or more. i totally agree with the sentiment that our fiscal problems are serious. if you go back a few years ago when rates were low, it was less of an issue because the government didn't need to spend as much servicing the debt that is accumulating. when rates are high, we know how to develop -- to devote a lot of

our tax revenue on paying back bond investors in the interest on the debt is no rising quickly. i think this is roughly right, interest expense on the federal debt is close to surpassing the amount we spend on her own defense, about $1 trillion per year so that gives you a context. if we don't address our long-term fiscal situation, things will really break. the congressional budget office is a nonpartisan group that sets the but -- that examines the budget says that the nations debt to gdp ratio if we don't make changes in policy, the debt to gdp ratio on publicly traded debt will be 115% 10 years from now, 180% 30 years from now. they stopped doing the forecast

there but you can do your own and that's just not sustainable. i totally agree with that. if i were king for a day or year, to address this problem, we need both positional tax revenue and we need significant restraint on government spending. tax revenue has to come from higher income households and high net worth households. low and middle income americans, as everyone can see are under tremendous financial pressure and that's not where the money is and it will not raise revenue anyway. it's about the top part of the distribution of wealth. on spending, here we need to really focus on things that will help us put social security and medicare, medicaid on sounder financial grandpa that's for the money is.

all the debate and handwringing and threats of government shutdowns and everything else around the so-called discretionary spending really is kind of a sideshow. it's too small and it doesn't matter, that spending is a small piece of the total spending pod. it's really about these larger entitlement programs where we need to focus and figure out how to address the cost of medical care and keeping -- making sure people get what they need for retirement but we need to restrain that spending. you need aczar and everyone is cringing listening to me. none of it's going to be fun to do. host: for our visual learners, the u.s. debt clock has the largest but it -- budget items per year.

medicare and medicaid comes out to $1.47 trillion. social security is $1.37 trillion. defense spending is at $828 billion and there is that interest on the debt, $685 billion per year. guest: there you go. host: next out of kentucky, republican, good morning. caller: tax rates of the federal level have not changed in the last two or three years. the tax collections in the last fiscal year went down 9% recently. doesn't that mean we are a private -- in a private sector recession? guest: great question. there are two key reasons for really the surprising reduction in tax revenue. i believe i have this right, i'm 90% sure. californians were able to delay

their tax returns, filing their tax return this year to the other side of the fiscal year, to october of this year as opposed to the fiscal year ending in september. that goes to the flooding that happened in california. this was a way to provide some really test some relief to californians to get their financial house in order. california obviously is a large state with a lot of wealthy households. they pay a lot of tax revenue and it got pushed into this fiscal year as opposed to the last. the other thing goes to capital gains. the stock market has been going up and down and all around. a lot of capital gains tax revenue generated in 2022, not so much in 2023 with a surprisingly small amount. that's a lot of revenue because the capital gains are wealthy

households who pay that and they pay a lot in capital gains. i think that contributed to what happened in fiscal year 2023. if you extract -- i view them as temporary factors come i think tax revenue is growing but not quickly but consistent with an economy that is expanding, not one that's in a recession. host: can you explain this headline? guest: share, i'm the chief economist at moody's analytics and part of the corporation. i cannot comment on that action but i will explain it. what moody's did, the ratings agency puts scores in the riskiness of lots of different things including the u.s.

government debt treasury bonds, they said we are going to reaffirm our aaa score which is the highest score you can get but the u.s. government debt still has the aaa rating and the other rating companies like s&p and fitch have lowered the rating but moody's has not. what moody's did was said the outlook here on this rating is negative, meaning if things don't change, the trajectory for the fiscal government remains the same then we will have to think about downgrading the debt as well. it's not an actual change in the rating, just a signal to interested parties and lawmakers that the fiscal situation is on an unsustainable path and not consistent with maintaining so-called aaa ratings. host: how often do you get

questions on that when you testify before congress? guest: pretty regularly. when i go overseas, i get it more often. if i go to china for example, host: do they blame mark zandi? guest: at the end of the day, come on. we talked about the fiscal situation, it is unsustainable. we got to change something. if you don't change it, something will break and it's not consistent with the idea that there is no risk here. that's what aaa rating means. i think everyone understands that deep down once you get below the bluster. host: less than 10 minutes left, duluth, minnesota, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i wondered if i could get moody's worldview of the cause

of the national debt. there is a lot of pointing fingers and some blame over spending. others view the draconian tax cuts for many years as a primary driver. i would like the worldview from someone as experienced as yourself in that problem which has driven much of the political discourse and finger-pointing in recent years and i will take your answer offline. guest: thank you for your question. a long list of things -- most fundamentally and this is in no particular order, we've cut taxes. the tax cuts that were implemented in 2018, the tax cuts drop dead job act caused -- i'm speaking from memory so this may not be exact but a couple of trillion dollars over 10 years in tax revenue.

spending, government spending has been very strong. take the american rescue plan, that was the plan that was passed early in the biden administration to support the economy to get through to the other side of the pandemic. that was $2 trillion over 10 years. i would say events. our problems go back to, the last time the government enjoyed if federal surplus was in the year 2000. then we had 9/11 and that was incredibly costly. think about that for a second. then we experienced the financial crisis. that was incredibly costly. then the pandemic. that was incredibly costly. we cut hit by three massive shocks to the economy and the

way we navigated through and if you think about it, we have a sub 4% unemployment rate which is quite an achievement in the face of a shock for the cost of that, we went out and barred a lot of money to support the economy. it's all those things and more. those are the top three things that are persistent to this predicament. host: this is tom in erie, pennsylvania, independent. caller: good morning. i want mark zandi to identify who is getting wealthier during the current inflation? guest: i'm sorry, i missed that. host: who is getting w guest: i don't think anybody really. some folks are hit harder than others. if you are lower income and

don't have a lot of savings or no savings at all, the big share of your budget is going to basic staples like rent and food and gasoline. you are getting hit hard. this is really painful. you have to spend more to fill your gas tank and you have to make a hard choice and spend less on something else. i think folks that have lots of savings like a checking account or deposit account or money market fund, they are probably navigating this pretty well. they tend to be older folks, retirees that have save money for their retirement. now the deposit rates and money market rates are rising and they are getting more interest in income and i'm stretching. it's all very painful for everybody. obviously, catastrophically painful for folks who don't have a lot of income. host: we want to and hearing

capitol hill in these ongoing continuing resolution fights we see in the shutdown and showdowns. what are your thoughts on how those are impacting the u.s. economy and what the latest push to a january and february deadline could mean. guest: not good. this goes to being nervous about our long-term fiscal situation. this will be very difficult to solve these things collectively because none of them will be fun. paying more taxes, no one must do that, straining medicare and medicaid spending, nobody wants to do that. we've got to do stuff like that at the e of then dayd and then you throw in the political backdrop here that's manifested in the debt limit drama and more recently around the potential government shutdown which is still playing out.

we will be facing this early next year again. congress just kick this down the road for a few months. it's going to be difficult but if we are going to end, i will end on a high note. i believe this. i will box this but winston churchill -- i will not get it right but you will get the flavor. winston churchill said something about america. he said americans try everything and then they do the right thing. that's what it feels like to me what's going on here. we are going to try everything. we will try our damnedest to do the wrong thing but at the end of the day, if history is any guide and i think it is, we will do the right thing and come together and figure this out. host: mark zandi, chief economist at moody's analytics. you can find him on x. we always appreciate your conversation and thanks for chatting with the callers. guest: take care now. host: coming up in about 30

minutes, we will talk about rising crime in the u.s. and having that conversation with the president and ceo of the council on criminal justice. until then, it's our open forum. any public policy issues, any political issue, if you want to return to the question we started with about cameras in the courtroom, we can do that. the phone lines are on your screen and you can start calling it now will get to your calls right after the break. >> live, sunday, december 3 on in-depth, author and uc berkeley law professor will take calls about the u.s. supreme court, his supported presidential power, the bush and trump administration's and more and include prices and commands, defender and chief conference fight for presidential power and the recently published politically incorrect guide to the supreme court.

join the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments and texts. in with john yoo live, december 3 at noon on book tv on c-span2. >> since 1979, in partnership with the cable industry, c-span has provided complete coverage of the halls of congress from the house and senate floors to congressional hearings, party briefings and committee meetings . c-span gives you a front row seat to how issues are debated and decided with no commentary, no interruptions and completely unfiltered. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> c-span shop.org is our online store, browse through our latest

collection of c-span products. there is something for every c-span fan and every purchase help support our nonprofit operations. shop now or any time at c-span shop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: continuing this morning in our open forum, any public policy issue or political policy want to talk about, this is your time to call in. (202) 748-8000 four democrats to call, republicans (202) 748-8001 , independents (202) 748-8002. having this open forum for the next 30 minutes on the washington journal. an announcement from the commissioner of presidential debates yesterday that the dates and locations for the three general election presidential debates although it remains to be seen whether the eventual primary winners will participate.

the nonpartisan nonpfit reprieve -- revealed his university locations for the debate. they will be held next year, september 16, over -- tober 1 and october 16 respectively. there will be one historically black college to hosted presidential debate and a fourth debate hosting the vice presidential nominees will be held on september 25 at lafayette college in pennsylvania. that announcement coming yesterday. with that, your calls on open forum. delaware, democrat, good morning. caller: i found it interesting as i listened to mr. zandi that when he named the drivers of the deficit, he said 9/11, the financial crisis, the pandemic and draconian tax cuts. it's interesting that all of those happened under republican

administrations and all of them were bailed out by democratic administrations. i don't know if that's coincidence. it seems hard to believe it would be coincidence but it was interesting to note that. host: thanks for the call. this is vincent in tulsa, oklahoma, republican. caller: uh - i'm going to say something about the television in the courtroom real fast. i am for it. it doesn't matter to me if it's in the courtroom or not. thank you. host: why are you for it? will you watch if the proceedings and federal courts and criminal cases are televised? caller: i would be more interested in watching it if he was going to jail.

host: this is barbara out of california, good morning. caller: good morning. first time caller. i've two suggestions to get revenue for this country. the first suggestion is to tax the huge churches in this country that are nonprofit and don't pay any taxes. also, we have a lot of money that was taken from social security by congress. i would suggest that we garner their taxes until they pay them back. that's all i have, thank you. host: garner the wages? guest: caller: yes, garner their wages. host: thanks for the call. you can call in once every 30 days we hope you call in again. new jersey, democrat, you are next. caller: thanks for taking my call. i feel like there are tails

wagging dogs all over this issue. i'm very much in favor of cameras in the courtroom. i watch all of it and i like to see it all and come to understand everything that's going on. i feel as though the department of justice is doing too many workarounds. i think trump should probably be incarcerated. i think there ending over backwards to not apply the same law they would apply to anyone else who is doing what he is doing. if they were to take that step and i understand logistic problems that might ensue but if they were to take that stance, they would possibly end the rhetoric and violent threats and that would probably be the correct order for things to happen. it's not happening because the department of justice, for its own reasons is not applying the same law to trump they would apply to any other individual. that's my belief. host: when it comes to putting

cameras in the federal criminal court rooms for federal trials, this network is in favor of doing so which is part of the effort to get the judiciary to do that. the special prosecutor's office is arguing they are concerned that the trump legal team or president trump would turn this into some sort of spectacle, playing more for the cameras than the case itself and they make the argument that this case will be highly covered regardless of whether cameras are in the courtroom or not and people will know what happens in this case. it's not like this case will play out in secrecy when it does. what are your thoughts on their arguments? caller: i think the jack smith initial argument was that he wanted the law applied simply as it's been written in following president. host: that's true as well. caller: however, first thing

first, i think right now what the justice department and american american journalist and everyone else are responding to is the fear because of the threats. in the event that donald trump were silenced or at least placed in some kind of incarceration, i think the threats with deescalate and i think the opportunity to have a normal trial would probably grow and i think that's with the american people deserve. first things first. host: thanks for the call. the president you referred to is rule 53 of the criminal rules and procedure. that's the long-standing rule that cameras are not in federal criminal cases in the courtroom. it dates back to the 1940's. this is john in west or, ohio, independent, good morning. caller: before anybody can speak on these issues, they've got to get independent and truthful

information. we will not get that from the fake so-called free press in the united states. i would ask people to check out some truly alternative sources like global research.ca and the great zone.com. test the gray zone.com. the people within the establishment who got disgusted with the lies and furthermore, the fact that their views are totally banned from any of the radio and television and newspapers in the united states. i have seen people like the second in command israeli military g, generalolan a few years ago, even before the escalation of the israeli

killing and persecution of palestinians. he compared with israel was doing in 2016 with nazi germany's treatment of the jews now being practiced by israel against the palestinians. i would ask people to look up cia operation mockingbird controls the media to demonize countries for u.s. attacks against them and look up cia operation northwoods which exposes -- an insider from the cia released documents which had not been told by the mass media, operation northwoods by the

pentagon to mass murder americans host: host:. we got your point. this is robert in tampa, florida, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm a disabled vietnam vet. i live in my apartment complex for 22 years, never missed a rent payment. they are giving me an eviction out of my apartment. i have no place to go. the v.a. told me i have to wait until i am evicted and then they will take action. i don't know what to do. that's about it. host: why did they say they are evicting you? caller: they gave a multitude -- some tenants said i was being verbal, i was saying things to them, made noise in my apartment. i live by myself.

i have a two bedroom, two bath, big living room, dining room, kitchen and the maintenance man told me it's not that they don't like you, it's that you only pay $861 rent. she wants you out. if you are evicted, then she can up the rent well over $1000. host: you have gone to the v.a.? caller: i called the v.a. and they test i spoke with lawyers from the v.a. and they said they can only do something when i am totally evicted from the apartment which will be november 30. in the interim, i have the flu and i have to go in to get a defibrillator replaced. i have a defibrillator in my chest for nine years. it's time for a new one. i can't find an apartment.

i can't get anyone bedrooms. host: members of congress talk about this, your member of congress in tampa might be good to reach out to to let them know you're a veteran let them know you've tried to go through the v.a.. off the top of my head, that something that comes up often. they try to do these constituent casework pieces of the job. caller: i will try again today. that's all i can do, i don't go out. my legs went out on me and i have neuropathy in my leg from diabetes which i gotten vietnam with agent orange. i've had too many diseases. i got out of vietnam in 1968. i've been sick ever since. it's one thing after another.

the v.a. has been pretty good to me. they've taken care of me but when it got to this, they don't know what to do. host: thanks for sharing your story. call back down the road to update us. caller: most definitely. host: this is brenda in indiana, pennsylvania. go ahead. caller: good morning, it's been a while since we talked. on the subject of donald trump's trial, i am opposed to live coverage. if they want to film it and show it on c-span later, i think that's great but i'm not sure what the goal is here. donald trump said he could shoot someone on fifth avenue and not lose a single supporter. donald trump t,he maga crowd will not be swayed by anything. they will not change their mind about him by live-streaming the

trial. i'm a democrat and i'm pretty convinced he's guilty of what he is charged of after listening to him speak for 15 years and knowing some of his past business history, what is being charged with, the indictments, i'm not surprised so i will not be changed. maybe the swing voters might have a chance to change their mind. as far as i'm concerned, live-streaming the trial, he will just turn into a circus. he will be playing to his crowd. it will make a mockery of the court. the second part -- host: upon the first part, do you think he has done that in the georgia case or the new york civil case? those have been covered with television cameras. we are showing you the b-roll

from the new york civil case. do you think he has been doing that in those cases? caller: absolutely. the judge admonished him about saying things outside the court and he stepped outside and gets up to the camera and talks about the judge being bias and the clerk being this and that. he is pushing the judge as far as the judge can possibly be pushed. there is a fine line. the judge does not want to be overturned on appeals so the judge has to suck up donald trump's circus act. like i said, i think donald trump would turn this into a circus. that would undermine all the more the judge's authority and everything else. host: thank you for your thoughts. just after 9:00 a.m. on these coast. you can continue to call in. free democrats, (202) 748-8000.

republicans, (202) 748-8001. s, (202) 748-8002 -- independents, (202) 748-8002. a couple of headlines from today's paper. several headlines on the late first of the united states rosalynn carter. how a love story lasted a lifetime for 77 years. rosalynn and jimmy carter built a marriage, a presidency and the legacy together. that is a feature story in today's usa today. this from the new york times. jonathan alter's column saying the formidable rosalynn carter, the headline for it. the washington post. the radical modesty of rosalynn carter, the headline of her column. usa today. this is paul costello, the assistant press secretary for first lady rosalynn carter from

1977 to 1981. rosalynn carter left her mark on america. rosalynn carter remembrances continuing today at emory university in georgia where she was a fellow in the women's studies department between 1990 and 2018. the motorcade bearing the remains of the first lady, according to axios's wrap up, will travel back to plains, georgia, the carters' home for a private service where the former president taught sunday school for decades. rosalynn carter will be interned on the grounds of the couple's private residence they have owned since 1961. axios notes they donated it to the national park service to become a historic site after the

deaths. back to your phone calls and our open forum. sid in grand junction, colorado, independent. good morning. caller: yeah. i kind of agree with the other people that said the trial should not be televised. i think people get in front of cameras, be at the judge, trump, the attorneys, everybody thinks they will be pre-madonna's. i hate to say it but when ic the c-span hearings on tv they are not trying to learn anything anymore. you have the witnesses bouncing around their personal political opinions like a ping-pong ball. they are not trying to get to the bottom of any issue or anything. that is my take. host: would you prefer the cameras not be at the hearings? do you think it would get done? caller: i hate to really say this. sometimes i think more got done

in smoke-filled back rooms than sitting in front of the c-span cameras and bouncing around political theories rather than trying to find facts. host: do you think there should even be cameras on the floor the house and the floor the united states senate? caller: i had not really thought that through. i think the same principle kind of applies. host: there are some members only first brought cameras that were concerned about that very issue. they said it would change the institution. certainly throughout the years we have had that commitment to air everything that happens gavel-to-gavel on the floor the house and senate. do you think it has been a good thing? caller: i'm not entirely sure it has. you probably get some instant gratification saying -- seeing something happening on tv.

i wonder how much the political players are actually trying to solve an issue rather than play to their constituencies and throw red meat to whatever party they think should support them. host: thank you for your thoughts. to florida, naples, florida. this is henry. good morning. caller: good morning. being republicans, he should be in jail. he is a cocky guy. he is a corrupt, cocky guy. host: anything else you want to add, henry? caller: that is the l.a. thing i can say -- that is the only thing i can say. for the things that trump is doing, they should be in jail. this guy is so cocky and arrogant. he did so many bad things to the country.

my comment is he should be in jail and desantis should be the guy. host: that is henry, a republican out of photo. shirly, a republican in pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i would like to talk about the economist you had on. in pennsylvania, our minimum wage is seven dollars between five cents. -- $7.25. every employer is willing to do that. we have people that are working 40 hour a week plus jobs. they cannot afford the health care that is offered. nor can the employer before the health care. the man made the comment. the biggest thing is medicare and medicaid. those working people that qualify for medicaid, this is the problem.

people are working and they cannot afford housing, health care which is needed. this -- when is the answer going to come? he says we are not in a recession and things are better but the town i'm living in, i'm not seeing it. i know for me i have three health cares and i can't afford to use it. out of pocket expenses are too high. the deductible is a little out of hand now. if people qualify for medicare and they are working people, what are they to do? thank you. host: do you think the government should be spending more on medicare and medicaid and more on social security? caller: i think there should be a more affordable health care

offered to businesses, the people that employ people. some employers don't offer it is all. some cut the hours so they don't have to offer it. if a person is working 40 hours, they should be able to afford, the employer and employee. there has to be some money on both sides coming in. i do want to offend anybody but they want to use the term skin in the game. if you don't pay for it, you don't appreciate it. it doesn't come from free -- for free from the employer. maybe a percent of what you earn. -- 8% of what you earn. a quarter of your earnings should not be for your health care. those who can even get it. if they qualify for it, medicaid

is public health care. government-funded health care. this tillman said that is a large portion -- this gentleman said this is a large portion of the problem. host: he was talking about the largest budget items for your for the united states. we spend 1.4 $7 trillion a year on medicare and medicaid. -- $1.47 trillion. just paying interest on the debt is approaching $34 trillion. we pay $685 billion a year. u.s. debt clock for those numbers. this is dave out of tennessee, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i appreciate your guest mark. he was pointing to a lot of issues we have.

i don't think the $10 million -- 10 million people we have encountered at the border in the last 36 months is going to improve the economic situation. we have fuel that's an average of $3.29 a gallon versus the one dollar $87 -- $1.87 prior to biden. you have to figure out who the hero is. the thanksgiving meal is 25% higher under bidenomics. 1.7 million -- you figure those are terror cells causing us all kinds of problems. nancy's january 6 kangaroos will be investigated, which is high time. since the new video release. and the government cpi

calculations are flawed. it is really twice what they have reported. our inflation is 20 plus percent since biden took office and his policies. host: why do you think the numbers are flawed? caller: it was due to a report i saw on the national desk. a gentleman was talking about how a former government employee was talking about how the government uses factors to make the numbers look like the government is doing more than it actually is. it is skewed the way they use the factors to come up with the inflation numbers. you have biden's overreach on gas stoves, which is like a war powers act. jack smith, he will be exposed

for who he actually is and what he's trying to accomplish in his political agenda. i appreciate your time. thank you very much. host: this is collin out of baltimore, maryland. republican. caller: thank you. i came from west africa. i'm not maga and i'm not a democrat either. i am foreign-born. the election was clearly -- in broad daylight. -- shredded my eyes on tv. the rules were changed. this should not have come up at all. i remember bill clinton and the

minsky. remember that -- lewinsky? the emails. biden was probably ukraine -- they are going to put trump in jail. in america? i can't believe these democrats. democracy and freedom are -- here. we are now worse than some third world countries. that is all i got to say. host: this is willie in little rock, arkansas. the line for democrats. go ahead. caller: when i look at what's going on in the world today, i look at the republican party. i see a bunch of people walking around -- the devil walking around with the bible in their hand. they lecture someone else.

the whole world has to talk to them. we got to the point where we realized it. man cannot regulate how another man lives. people will live the way they want to live. i don't give a damn what you try to do. host: that is willie in arkansas. aaron, independent. caller: thank you for taking my question. i mean michael. i don't think it is a binary issue whether cameras should be in the courtroom or not. i think in this particular case i oppose because to quote an anthropologist jane goodall, "that which you observe you change." donald trump is an actor.

a fair compromise would be to just have microphones or radio. it would require the people -- host: we have that now. we have the same day audio recordings. if you watched yesterday, there was the appeals court, the federal appeals court discussing the gag order that the federal judge in the d.c. federal case tried to impose on the former president. you can do that now. the audio recordings. caller: like i say in this particular case i think that would be good enough for the donald trump particular case. he is the one pushing for cameras, because he will act like a damned fool. he's an actor. i'm not saying he's a good actor. if you just have the audio you don't get distracted by the visual part of it. if you observe him.

everybody knows he will start throwing his hands up, sighing, maybe cursing. it kind of distracts from the issues. as an example i thought the george floyd snuff film was important to be viewed as opposed to 9/11. i don't think there was any real good purpose of showing people jumping out of windows, landing on people's he -- landing on people, heads popping open. in the case of, t -- emmitt till, that was kind of necessary. showing the results of these ar-15 shootings. it is dynamic. it is a -- we have never seen

anything like this guy. it is important that we don't let him just -- she even said it. i'm going to run the presidency like a soap opera. we are going to win our timeslot and right now the timeslot is 24 hours. why is this guy texting at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning just to win the timeslot? theater of the mind. if you focus on the words you don't get distracted by the other stuff. it is dynamic. it is not static. i guess that is all i got. host: thanks for the call. g\re -- greg from plymouth, michigan. caller: thanks for taking my call. my major concern right now is trust in government. i'm 77 years old. i remember elections back to eisenhower. i have never seen it so bad as

it is now. one of the telling facts about how little trust there is is that some of the latest polls have donald trump ahead of joe biden in the election. that means that most voters right now -- donald trump has 90 indictments against him. does the american people wanting him over biden trust the judicial system when they have 90 indictments on the person they will vote for as president of the united states? i don't like joe biden at all. i don't like donald trump very much even though i am a republican. i really don't like him. the trust in government is so poor right now due to i think the twitterfiles that have come out. some of the indictments on republicans as compared to democrats is -- some of the

things with respect to confidential information kept in their homes and things of that nature. i have never seen such a lack of trust in our institutions. our department of justice was telling twitter to turn off certain people they didn't like. the cdc was telling twitter to turn off people they didn't want to hear from. the same thing was happening with the fbi. it is an abomination. host: you said you are 77 years old. when did you have the most trust in government in your 77 years? caller: probably -- host: i lost you for second. caller: eisenhower, gerald ford and jimmy carter. jimmy carter they not have been a good president but he was honest.

-- a little bit less because of the iran-contra affair. especially gerald ford. he was honest and so was carter. if you look back to that election between those two, it was the least contentious election i overheard. they were not calling each other names. they were not showboating like they do today. the trust in government is at a rock-bottom. i just don't seeing being worse in our history. maybe it was bad back in the civil war. host: does it take a trustworthy person to change that? another carter or ford or eisenhower to come along? do you think that trust is broken regardless of whether a worthy person comes along? caller: it takes somebody besides donald trump or joe biden. the first thing someone has to do is admit it is bad.

they have to listen to the other side. you have to listen to the democrats. if you're a democrat, you have to listen and say together we have to rebuild trust. we have got to do that. it is not going to work otherwise. who is trusting the fbi these days? who is trusting the department of justice these days? people don't even trust their votes are being counted correctly. the democrats that you should have trusted us. that doesn't work. help the republicans pass a bill. it will make it easier to vote. we will make sure nobody is voting should not be. they can do that and set of his complaining that the other people should just listen to us. that doesn't work. half the nation doesn't believe in it. i appreciate you taking my call. you guys at c-span are terrific. host: this is riba i -- riva in

maryland. caller: thank you for taking my call. on the filming of the trial, i think it is necessary and this is why. the people who were hurt by january 6 where the american people. -- were the american people regardless of whether they support trump or biden or independent. they were the ones that were hurt. their democracy was damaged. their trust was damaged. i think the american people are -- have a stake in seeing the trial. what they don't have a stake in is a clown show that focuses the cameras on trump while he is sitting out in the basic part of the court. the cameras should be focused on

the witnesses as they testify. much like c-span does when there are people talking. they don't pan all over the place. they stay focused on the subject. the thing is people can come away with different opinions but it will be based on what they hear rather than a bunch of people talking about them at a lot of repetition. regardless of what happens, mr. trump will come out saying it is unfair. other people will come out saying this means this. if you hear it, it might mean something different. i think they should be aired but the camera should be focused on the witnesses. host: one thing the federal cases already do is release same-day audio. caller: right. host: that way you are not

focused on a witness over a face. caller: no, i don't. i will tell you what. people will believe or not believe the witnesses based on expressions. i think they need to be able to assess the expressions. i did listen to the court audio yesterday. that was absolutely fascinating. thank you guys for airing it. but i really think we need to see the actual crosses of the witnesses. host: thank you for that call from maryland. alicia as we turn towards the bottom of the hour. alicia out of columbia, maryland. independent. caller: thank you, john. i have not spoken with you in a long time. a point of interest. when tony bears about -- teddy

roosevelt was in office he increased the land that was taken from the navajos. he, you know, brought that land back to the people. and also, this is a trading post in arizona. the name of the trading post. i'm sure a lot of people have been there, the tourists. it is called hubble. he used to visit mr. hubble. they would go ride all the way to the hopi land and see the dances. that might be a point of interest. host: what can we take from that history today? caller: when jimmy carter -- i'm

sorry. i mean biden. when he was born in how much gas cost then? host: i don't. caller: $.10. oh, this is for the native people. when i you going to have someone talk to us about my people? he people talk about your people all the time -- you people talk about your people and all the problems you have. host: who are your people? caller: navajos. host: what would you like to tell the country about the navajo people today? caller: we are doing a lot better than we have been doing before.

there are more jobs. it is not under this administration. we have been working on it for a long time. with the covid the people have really suffered. we lost a lot of people. i even lost my brother. i don't know what else to tell you. host: sorry about the loss of your brother. we have a few minutes left here in our open forum. we want to keep taking your phone calls. linda in west virginia, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to talk about the trump trial. i think that it should be televised, because we saw how the january 6 committee ticked and she used what we's -- choosed what we saw on tv.

mike johnson released some of that video. i think it is terrible what they picked and what was actually happening then. we have got political prisoners in jail that were at that january 6. some of them on the outside that came to listen to the speech. i think it is only fair. it is only fair to put the trump trial on so it cannot be picked and choosed. i want it all out there in the public. if you want to watch it, you watch it. if you don't, you don't. host: do you want to watch it? caller: yes, i do want to watch it. host: have you watched any of the georgia proceedings so far? caller: what was shown and what you will have put out there, i

watched that. i was not impressed with the judge. i was not impressed with the judge. the skinny one in new york. i was not impressed with that judge at all. he kept putting up the pictures he did have himself naked in the bathroom. i did not like that at all. i just think it seems like they are trying to stop donald trump from running for president. i'm not saying he will win the presidency. i'm saying to stop him from running for president. we have a country where the young people want us to give you -- fix your problems. the school. going to college. what are they doing? they are doing nothing but protesting.

we have a college in west virginia, marshall university. i was told there are kids there from d.c. who are getting a full scholarship. all they do is protest. abortion, against donald trump. they are sold loud the kids in the class -- so loud the kids in the class can hear them. those are scholarships they are giving to kids in d.c. i appreciate you taking my call. i just think we should have fair elections, honest elections, and people telling the truth. host: that is linda in west virginia. maybe about five and is left. this is cruz in porterville. caller: good morning. i am a farm worker from the

central part of california. probably one of about maybe 30,000 or so from sacramento. all of us workers out here were happy to have trump as president because we could buy our gas and have money left over for coffee and donuts on our way to work every morning. that came to an end with biden. we were lucky to fill up our tent completely. -- tank completely. i was a partisan democrat all my life, from john kennedy to barack obama. every democratic president that ran i voted for, all county, state, city.

if it was a democrat, i would go for them. until barack obama. i finally paid attention ot wh -- to what -- to how things are working. having a few pennies left in my pocket every paycheck was very important to me, this specially now that i'm 81 years old -- especially now that i'm 81 years old. i'm retired now. $800 on my social security and having a good time. host: this is nat in springfield, virginia. independent. caller: i want to comment on something one of the colors from michigan said earlier about the distrust and institutions. -- in institutions. i was born in the early 1980's.

maybe there is a generational gap. maybe a gap where we are getting our news source. i don't think the institution has gotten worse in terms of being trustworthy. you can look at the fbi or any kind of agency. i think they have always been what they have always been. they have done shady stuff. back in the 1960's, the 1970's, the 1980's. the only difference is now there is social media, all these cable news. it's easier to find out now because you have the internet. you have smartphones. the system has been what has always been. it is not that it has gotten worse in terms of being dishonest or untrustworthy. it is just you have these talking heads out there that

stir things up and make it seem like -- they spin the truth of where they want to spend it. -- spin it. host: same question as we asked the 77-year-old. what was the moment in your life you have the most trust in government? caller: honestly, i would say i feel like the last time -- well, i would say with the exceptions of the trump administration, at least during most of my adult years, i have a lot of trust in the government. whether it be during the bush years, obama, biden or clinton years. at least up until the 2000's, for the most part the government, even congress itself, they were trying to work

towards something . when the 2000's come out everything becomes work intentions -- contentious. access to cable news and internet, everything just seems like it is easier to be, you know, running the government. not so much running it anymore. it is just more informative. host: 9:35 on the east coast. we will stay an open forum until the end of our program today. we were going to talk with adam gelb from the council on criminal justice about crime trends in the u.s. we will reschedule him. we had some trouble getting him on this morning. we will have that conversation and continue to have this open forum conversation with you until 10:00 a.m. eastern, the end of our program. always enjoy talking to you. we can talk about cameras in the courtroom. young going effort by news organizations, including this

network to have the federal cases against the former president donald trump opened up to cameras for live coverage. right now there is audio that can be released or is released from federal criminal trials. it is a rule of the court system, to judiciary dating back to the 1940's. rule 53 bans cameras for federal cases. this network another organizations have asked for an exception to that rule given the historic nature of this case. that is what we talked about in the first hour. we can talk about that. we can talk about any subject. open forum until the end of our program. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. deandre in baltimore, republican. thanks for waiting.

the andre, are you with us? -- deandre, are you with this? caller: i want to lay down some facts. house resolution 5736. go look that up. it was passed in 2012. everything in the corporate mainstream. it is all propaganda to find the military-industrial complex in the state department. in 1957, israel bombed the uss liberty and blamed it on egypt. come to find out they were actually responsible for 9/11 and got us into aware that never ended on their behalf. now the same thing is happening again. they have been bragging about how they snipe and kill american

soldiers for sport in afghanistan and iraq. here we are about to send troops over there for this nation called israel. host: you think we are going to send troops over? do you think we are going to be sending troops there? caller: kuwait, iraq and syria. our troops are fighting back militias in iraq and syria. we have many people already caught up in kuwait. the media will not tell you that. since 1971, israel has been the number-one beneficiary of u.s. foreign aid. $300 billion plus with adjustments for inflation. why? i'm not sure. the majority of the gop under the obama admin assertion was bought up by netanyahu to go fight a war with iran. that is when the jcpoa was in

progress. they undermined obama and said forget the iranian nuclear deal. this is how we are going to do it. the entire gop is aligned with netanyahu and israel. they were recruited a long time ago. the defective president of our country right now. -- he is the defective president of our country now. -- de facto president of our country now. caller: i'm listening to the rhetoric coming from several sites. i got through re-watching the entire impeachment on biden. which struck me odd. the republicans don't want to have any witnesses -- can you pronounce his name for me? host: giuliani? caller: yeah, giuliani.

i think it is sad when the republicans have control, they do nothing with it but do these mock trials. they waste taxpayers money. number two, i want to bring up george w. bush took $2 trillion out of social security and never paid it back. they say it is a problem. we earned this money. you brought up social security. you brought up medicare. we earned this money. we earned this entitlement. i don't understand why the other side is screaming and wants to get rid of the programs. it will not save them any money. we already paid for it. i hope i am making myself clear on that. host: on the hearings that have been criticized by the other side, do you think the select january 6 committee hearings

were worthwhile? there was a caller earlier today who referred back to those hearings saying they were so one-sided and criticizing those hearings. do you think that was worth the time and expense by congress? caller: absolutely. if you look at the witnesses, everyone one of them was republican. none of them were democrats. there were only two republicans that sat on the actual committee. it was worth it because we saw the timeline of everything going on. i don't see waste. it was a wake-up call to americans. sadly, a lot of people are not seeing that. no, i don't see that one is a waste at all. it was very fair and balanced. it showed the timestamp on the video. it showed what was going on. it's important to see that timestamp. if the timestamp is not there, it is a fraudulent videotape. host: this is otis in north

carolina, independent. what is on your mind? caller: good morning, john. how are you? this is what i want to talk about. gas here in north carolina where i met is $2.87. i agree with the lady before me about the social security. their godfather ronald reagan said a long time ago don't be with the social security. getting to the january 6, i'm saying this in a nice way. but if obama would have done half the stuff 45 has done, think about that. everybody is defending this man. he would be ok if he kept his mouth shut but he can't keep his

mouth shut. i just don't understand how in the world this man -- indictment after indictment. being with hookers and still being a christian. i don't get it. i just don't get it. if black people was up there in washington, d.c. two years ago, they would still be trying to clean the streets up. host: that was otis. this is cameron in missouri. nevada, missouri. republican. caller: good morning. i would like to say the state of our country and economy and all the stuff going on with israel has become something that is center stage and should be the main focus as far as what we are dealing with, conflict with other country. after this conflict is over will have to think about a leader

that will bring peace over there and bring balance to those nations. i'm afraid -- i'm pretty sure i know exact he was going to happen. just like it says in the prophecy of revelations in the bible. the antichrist will come. after a conflict it will be chaos. he will bring peace to the nations and be the leader. whoever that man is, we don't know yet. host: you think we are in the end times? caller: absolutely. host: amin in temple, texas. the lifer democrats. am -- the line for democrats. caller: how are you doing? i want everybody to listen to me. i don't know why we are helping everybody else and giving

everybody else money for things they did when our people was put on a shopping block, raped, and we worked for 400 years and didn't get a dime. when are we going to get our money? nobody else has suffered as bad as the negro in america. the only people that had it worse than us was the jews because hitler killed them. people should stop being hypocritical. black people are here. they are staying here and they fought in wars. but no, you did not help. you helped all these other people. israel took the land from the palestinians in the beginning in 1948. why are you helping them?

host: this is paul, south lake tahoe, california. independent. good morning. caller: good morning, john. thanks for taking my call. a lot of people calling about whining about how i can't afford food, food, food. i live on $1200 a month. i pay attention to the food ads. just simple food ads. paper food ads. digital food ads. you have to pay attention to the sales and quit whining about not being able to afford prime rib. host: paul, what are other suggestions for living on $1200 a month in this country? caller: like i said, pay attention to the food ads. many times they also have gas discounts because you bought food. there are a lot of things you can do. quit whining and buck up and be

americans and help each other out. pay attention to the food ads. host: is it social security you are on? caller: it is social security. i have medicare and medi-cal. medically i'm ok. with the food i'm good. you don't need a turkey. settle for a chicken. host: this is charles out of louisiana, republican. caller: yes ma'am. i wanted to give a comment on the bible as they have been trying to prove it wrong for thousands of years, because of what it says. every time they dig up something it just proves it. they have never proved it wrong. what i wanted to say about the

bible is that it says god knit us together and our mother's womb. he does that real quick. right at conception. at the moment of conception he knits us together. he does it in a hurry. everything that we need for life is there. what we are going to be, the color arise, the color of our hair, everything. god does that. from then on all the baby needs from the time of conception is he needs protection and nourishment. i'm 77 years old and i still need that. i need protection and nourishment. i tell you, jesus is amazing what he does. if we would just listen to him

then maybe trump could not be wanting to get back at other people so bad. i know that during his years we had the best for blacks, for women, for all kinds of people. yet now we are in -- in kentucky and elections they were bragging about the fact they had won because of abortion. is not horrible? that we want to brag about murdering a little innocent baby? accu. -- thank you. host: earl, lakewood, washington. about 10 minutes left and we are ending an open forum. what is on your mind? caller: a lot of things. mainly the fact you guys are not going to get cameras into the trump trial. the reason you will not get cameras in there is because it gives america a look at the real

two-tiered justice system. the real two-tiered justice system is the fact that rich gangster type people can sit in a courtroom sneering at the judge, calling them names and get away with it. they are totally aloof and apart from the real criminal justice system, which shackles and put you in the orange suit for petty stuff. the rich, the elite, organized crime which really runs the entire world, what is the judge to them? he is nothing. that is why you are not going to get cameras in their. you will see the real world. host: who wants to keep that out, earl? caller: the elites.

the people trump worked for to build his empire in new york. host: donald trump's lawyers say they want the cameras in the courtroom. caller: i don't believe that for a hot second. host: ok. this is roberto in central california, independent. caller: good morning there to you and your listeners. i have one thing weighing on my mind. i have been trying to hear from discussion on it and no matter how many channels i turned to i don't hear any discussion on who is going to be paying for all the repairs that needs to be done to gaza, the gaza strip and all that destruction israel has been raining down upon that land. i know israel has been receiving

a lot of money from us over the years. i heard it was to the tune of $10 million a day since 1968, which is $3.6 billion a year every year since. i don't know if that is true. i guess they have a lot of money. who is going to fix all that destroyed buildings? that land is infested by famine and disease and hopelessness. who is going to fix that? host: who do you think it will become of roberto? -- it will be, roberto? caller: the people that do the work will be the contractors and people making money. i don't know who was going to pay the money. who was going to be left with the bill. i don't know. host: this is joe in fremont. republican. good morning. caller: good morning.

i think my whole thing is -- let me use my tv. my whole thing is about the voting. i think we should go to thumbprints like everybody else. voting has been going on for two weeks in california. it is ridiculous. you don't even believe about anymore. when it comes to trump, these lawsuits. we are watching them. does anyone even believe them anymore? they go on and on. gag order's on him and his team but everyone else can go want and say whatever they want. that low your comes out every day -- lawyer comes out every day and has a briefing before he goes on trial. it is really sad to watch and that is about it. host: cedar hill, texas. this is paul. good morning. caller: good morning, america. i think it needs to be televised

so they can be exposed. these evangelicals got real quiet as these cases keep piling up on trump. you don't hear too much of them anymore. they got into politics and are writing his bandwagon. we know who he is and what he represents. they keep giving the money to the rich. corporate america runs america now thanks to the republican party. i have not seen one built the republican passed since ronald reagan. host: what would it expose? what will we see you we have not seen in the time that donald trump has been in the public eye? caller: body language says a lot. you see the body language. it is said. we can tell if our kids are telling the tale looking at their faces.

it is the same thing by watching him. he needs to get there and testify. host: that is paul in texas. a few minutes left. toshi in santa clara, california. caller: good morning. two point. my first point is absolutely it should be televised. number two is a little longer. it is why i would never vote for joe biden. there is always too much one-sided support for things instead of looking at the whole picture, especially in israel. seeing the humanity of both people. there is no real legislation passed for people of color. they have a lot of promises but nothing is ever really passed. under trump i had way more prosperity. i'm not just speaking about money. i'm speaking about opportunities and prosperity as an african-american. that is why i'm a little bit

more sided towards trump that it would be for biden. i'm not going to vote for biden. i'm on the fence as far as trump. i have to say throughout the years we had trump there was a lot more prosperity on my behalf. host: what kind of work do you do? caller: it is difficult for me to vote for biden. host: what kind of work do you do? caller: right now i am a dispatcher. host: for what? caller: petroleum company. host: you saw a lot more prosperity under the trump administration? caller: absolutely. i had a job. i continued to have a job. in 2020 with the covid-19, i lost my job. it took a long time for me to get a job back. when i did get a job back, i got a job for less money than i was being paid during the time that trump was in office.

host: that is toshi. maybe time for one or two more calls. joan from rochester, minnesota. democrat. caller: good morning to you. i wanted to say that i think former president trump is happy with the news. whether they are saying something good or something bad, he likes being in the face of people. i also feel like the man in washington that follows him -- men in washington that follow him, he's like the pied piper. i wish they would get some of their own integrity and fight for what they really know what is right instead of worshiping the man who actually has brought more dismay and sorrow to this country, and fear, then nearly any other president before. as far as being a man, i don't think so.

i think he is a puppet who wants to be in charge of everything. it's a sad thing for our country to have people truly think he has done everything wonderful. i wish he would just disappear from the tv every day, all day. then we will see something good about this country. god bless america and god bless the people who built this country. the blacks and the other people that came to this country as slaves and tilted to be the wonderful place that it is. thank you. host: our last caller in today's washington journal. we will be back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern, 4:00 a.m. pacific. have a great tuesday. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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