milwaukee. we are taking your calls. john is up first.

gold beach oregon, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i was calling to -- voice my approval for president biden. i think he's doing a wonderful job. i was a member of the carpenters union in ohio. and shout out to all my union brothers in ohio and the president got our mention plan reinstated with all the work that he's brought to the state. i just think we are very fortunate to have someone with his experience. times are tough. he has the experience that it takes to get things done. host: to ann in north carolina. independent. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i agree with the first caller. i am an independent. i have been all my life. my dad was a democrat. my mom was a republican. i always sticks out -- old

enough to vote i picked out the person i thought was the most well qualified. the most recent person that. is important to me. i'm not a raving lunatic. but i have been to church all my life. i believe in jesus christ and god. i believe in evil and good. i believe in the bible that says there is going to be a forked tongue devil this. scares me because i have grown children i love and want to have a good world to live in. and biden has pulled us out. i don't think the republicans realize how dumb -- all this money, all these things went on before he took over. and people don't recall that. they don't recall january 6. all this -- i have got to vote for biden. he's the most decent men.

they have not proved anything on him. if they do, he's still got a nice mouth. even if he does stumble now and again. i called in before. my father has stuttered when he was young and spoke exactly like biden does now and again stumbling. but he was a councilman. he was worker that held a job. he spoke all the time at meetings for the steel workers union. and he held a job in the steel workers union. i forget what he was. host: ann, let me ask you about what you think about president biden's handling of the economy? he still gets below -- caller: sorry. i think it's good because he did pull us out of the -- people would see what he had to go through to pull us out.

he did a good job. everything i have listened to every channel. they are degrading his speech. his speech and the border. we have got to get our country out of this negativity. i mean calling us srerplin. i remember when i was young, i didn't think i was english or i was irish or -- i got indian blood in me. i didn't think of that. i thought i was an american. professing my love for the american flag. that's biden, his mouth is not ugly. it's caring for people. i know a caring man when i hear one. he sounds like my daddy. i'm sorry, i can't vote for trump with his ugly mouth. it has made me physically sick. i cannot believe -- the bible will take care of everything. he will get what he's got coming to him. so i believe biden needs to go

back into office. my mother lived to be 96. she was as sharp as a tack. you cannot control how your mouth works or how your legs work. i have arthritis in my legs, it's so bad i can barely get around my house. i have got a sharp mind. i think biden does, too. and keep this economy going. host: paul next in paducah, kentucky. independent line. caller: yes, biden is probably the worst president this country had. he's the worst man to ever step foot in that white house. i'm talking about the british soldiers who burned it down in 1812. look at the economy. all right. trump, highest he had was 1.4%. lowest is 3.5%. that's not counting gas and food. biden walks around in circles trying to shake hands with the air. he doesn't know what he's doing. he's a traitor.

he's an vil disgusted bald-faced liar. host: all right. bellwood, ill joy, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning, america. i want to confirm my support for president biden. i think he's doing a great job. compared to what we had up against him. we need to stay the course with biden. it's going to make a difference to me. i'm sorry, i didn't hear you. can you hear me? host: we are listening. caller: ok. my thing with biden he ain't too old, he ain't too young, if he's got the game. we are riding with bide kwrefpblt keep rocking, joe. bye. host: take a look at what we got on facebook here. lauren says let's give him a d.

and that's mainly graded onboarder security and the economy, which him and the democrats have failed miserably. and dennis on facebook says he's giving buchanan a run for his money. this is sean who says seven out of 10. middle east could be handled better. he's doing good work on the home front, though. against republican odds trying to solve him out. ruth in indiana, independent, good morning. caller: i probably voted mostly republican all my life. when trump came along i knew what he represented. there was no way i was going to vote for the man who was morally bankrupt and incompetent among other things. i think biden has done a good job considering everything that's been thrown at him. i appreciate his experience. his empathy for people. it is shown if you look at statistics things are far better. people don't remember -- i

remember going through what we went through with trump who couldn't seem to get anything right. who inherited a decent economy from obama. then it went downhill. he just covered covid terribly bad. i just really appreciate the adult in the room that we have with biden. he seems to have people around him who are competent. i vote for him again. i voted for him before. it makes me sick to hear people thinking that trump is almost god. my gosh, look at the background of the man. thank you so much. host: all right, ruth. take a look at what minnesota democratic representative dean phillips said on cnn state of the union. he is running against president biden for the democratic nomination. >> every single poll showing out, everyone is showing him falling further behind. his approval numbers at historic lows. i'm trying to generate a wake-up call to democrats that we have a

real problem here. and rather than stifling and suppressing competition, we should be encouraging it. that's why i spent the better part of a year encouraging other candidates to enter the race. the water is warm. we need to practice democracy now. i want to make something clear, the president is not a threat to democracy. but running and suppressing other candidates is a threat when you are behind in the polls, like he is, and frankly, to disenfranchise voters in florida and north carolina which is what has happened the last two weeks is a risk. i'm pointing out the fact we should be practicing democracy. >> just to be clear, you are saying because you think he's unelectable you believe he's a threat. so you are ultimately still calling him a threat to democracy. >> those who are propagating this delusion he will beat donald trump, they collectively are a threat to democracy. i call it like i see it. that's what the country is saying in every single poll. if we don't wake up soon, we are going to be in for a tragedy this. time we know it. 2016 we couldn't believe it.

this time we better believe it. that's the truth. i want to make it clear. he is not a threat. a good man. it's delusion that he can win is a threat to democracy, yes. >> can you have it both ways, i know you are being careful. can you have it both ways? why not just say it you think he's a threat because he's unelectable? >> i think he's being deluded by others telling him it's the only one who can win, if not him, who? we should be practicing a primary now. that's why we have them. to identify the candidate best positioned to win. that's why i'm saying let's get to may or june and see what the polls say. if they say that president biden is suddenly ahead of donald trump and i'm behind, i'll pack it up, get behind him 100%. conversely, if the polls show i am ahead of donald trump and president biden is behind, i think he should do the same thing. host: that was on nbc last week. we are hearing your comments. greg is a republican in

mechanicsburg, pennsylvania. hi. caller: good morning. i'm a long-time viewer, way back at brian lamb time. hopefully he's doing well. i haven't read anything about him recently. host: he is doing well. thanks for asking. caller: no news is good news. i'm happy to hear that. as to my grade for hunter's dad. yes, i call him hunter's dad. hunter is more likely to be running the country than his father. who knows, how could somebody watch the clip you should of him in milwaukee and then a clip of donald j. and say, which guy is telling you what he thinks as opposed to what others tell him to say. or the teleprompter. it's an issue that i don't -- it surprises me that c-span hasn't

had a segment by somebody who knows about who does the teleprompter and how it's done. i have heard that he has a pseudo oval room because the real oval room can't handle the huge teleprompter he needs, hunter's dad i'm talking about. i suggest that c-span look into that and say, is there anything to this common understanding that the current president is not telling you what he thinks, he's telling you what others tell him to say. i think it's scary that he's the president. make his own decisions. host: all right, greg. independent line in new york, new york, good morning. caller: good morning. host: what do you think about president joe biden?

caller: everybody knows that. the economy is terrible. he's not doing a good job. nothing is good. when nothing is good in new york, you know nothing is good in the united states of america, period. you people -- you can not tell the truth about israel. where israel is, the palestinian is palestine. where israel is is palestine. and israel is jew -- 1948. i was 9 years old. joe biden was 5 years old. i'm older than joe biden. i know about -- i was 9 years

old in my country in africa. host: do you think since you're older than joe biden, what do you make when people say he's too old to be president? do you agree? caller: no. it's only because -- they don't understand. he's not doing a good job. nobody's old to do something. joe biden doesn't do nothing. his employees do the job. host: you mentioned the israel-palestinian war. "new york times" says a poll finds wide disapproval on biden on gaza and little room to shift gears. it's split between those wanting the war to end and those pressing for a definitive israeli victory and a divided among older and younger generations. james, also in new york, new york, democrat, good morning. host: hi. names.

did -- caller: hi. i'm a very happy man and i'm elated that there's something positive on c-span. i have been watching you guys since 1979. joe biden with such a narrow margin has done phenomenally well with all of this anger, hate, and vitriol. he could go back to f.d.r. days. the america cares act, the infrastructure, the chips act. he's giving people jobs. the economy. unemployment is down. people are at work. and i just want to say something to people. they are talking about inflation. let's just ask ourselves this simple question. during the pandemic -- i live -- we got hit really bad as did a lot of other americans with the covid. why is it that general mills and

a lot of the big manufacturing companies were showing record profits? oh, it's called shrinkflation. they posted numbers higher. remember how much the can of lysol was, $20. it's called price gouging. it drives me nuts when nobody talks about that. joe biden, he is exciting as obama? no. is he as exciting as president clinton? no. you want to know something, he's been working. donald trump has done absolutely nothing with the exception of enriching wealthy people. and the last thing i want to say before i go, black people, white people, asian, hispanic, indigenous the biggest thing that republican elites are

scared of is the unity of us all together. because i want to tell you something, republicans, the republican elites do not care about middle income caucasians or lower income. we need to unite and stay strong. biden is going to go down as the greatest president -- is he an interesting speaker? no. one more thing about age, herman woke who wrote "war and remembrance" was writing a book at the age of 102. you got nancy pelosi who is 82. you got mitch mcconnell who is 81. you got chuck grassley who is 88. give me a break, guys. it's a beautiful, glorious day. let us support biden. he's a great president. thank you. host: you have a good day, too.

let's look at what michigan democratic senator debbie dingell said about the biden administration needing to do a better job discussing matters of the economy. >> this weekdy have a chance to talk to michigan. democratic voters who supported president biden in 2020 now two out of five of the voters i talked to say they are not so sure. they cite the economy. we can see that inflation is coming down, but we don't feel that in our pocketbooks. what do you say to those michigan voters? why should they vote for biden when they say they are struggle fog tkpwroerbies? >> i know they are struggling. when i'm home and out and about in the farmers market, in the grocery stores and people are having a hard time. gas prices are coming down. food prices are coming down. but we are going to do a lot -- there are a lot of things we have to do. people know we are a purple state. i can't always convince people of that. this year these polls are

saying, debbie's right this time. i was right back in 2016. donald trump, we have to look at not words but actions. when he was president he gave the rich tax cuts. it increased prices, too. we have to talk about the economy, the jobs that have been created, the increasements going in and show what's been doing. we have to show and remind them of the actions not the words. host: representative dingell on nbc's' "meet the press." earl is up next from reading, california. good morning. caller: good morning. first of all if you don't mind i like to wish the entire country merry christmas and happy new year. listen, we supposed to have they good pot out here in california, don't know what these democrats have been smoking. they got -- 61% are supporting what i call the old biden

administration. because obama said i'm open in the office. i'd like to have three terms. he opened an office right down the street. i believe he's been -- let me tell you briefly what i see when i turn on my tv. i channel surf all the time. i see us in two wars. the president of ukraine says he needs half a million new outfitted soldiers. who do you think he wants to pay for all that? i see north korea firing missiles, two in the last week. i see two wars. i see the middle east inflamed instead of ending the war's peace. a thousand illegal aliens yesterday crossing to the united states. i see them being shipped all over the country. it's not even fair to them what's happening. my economy, ail just tell you i have a fixed income, vietnam

veteran, surgeries from agent orange. my income has decreased by 30% buying power, my fixed income. i'm trying to go back to work part-time. i'm not going to be a wal-mart greeter because i'll get in trouble doing that job. all i'm trying to say is we have to stop this insanity. you either have to get a real candidate or i'm voting for donald trump again. if he goes to prison i'm voting for him. god bless america. host: texas, republican. good morning. caller: just bear with me. i'm voting for donald trump. host: barbara, what do you think of president biden's job performance? caller: i think -- i don't understand why colorado did that to donald trump.

i mean that's election interference. i think the people should have the right to decide who they want to vote for. thank you. host: all right. margaret, massachusetts, independent, good morning. caller: hi. i'll make an analogy between president roosevelt and president biden. when president roosevelt -- he had unbearable insults. it was heartbreaking to watch an elderly man when all of us are going to get elderly. when all of us are going to get elderly and the insults. they forgot the wisdom of president biden. president roosevelt, he stayed right for four terms in office. billian men, both of them are.

i don't understand how the american people could insult that man like they have because young people fall. we are all going to get old. he must be a wonderful person to bear what he's borne in his lifetime and keep going like he is with the fight in him. host: all right, margaret. we'll check in on our social media. scott on facebook says that he gives president biden an f. he's the worst president i have ever seen. and deb on x says, he's doing an exllent job. he signed significant legislation. he brought us back to bei a respected country on the world stage. heots out of the covid trash heap trump created. he's a kind and compassionate man. and mike on facebook says,'d give him a b. he's not the best. but he has accomplished a lot and brought us back from a global inflation after covid.

and katherine said, he's doin great. when you realize what he has -- what he was handed from trump, unemployment is low manufacturing is back. wagesrep. inflation is going down. and he is for the right biden accomplished more than trump ever d voting for biden. patrick in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, a democrat. od morning. caller: joe biden is a catastrophe on steroids. particularly when you look at the situation on the border. i'm an intellectual property specialist. i studies systems and how to forecast future environments. here's the reality. it takes roughly three to five years for a person to even get to a judge for them to evaluate them as a possible citizen. within five years every american will be able to have an autonomous artificial

intelligent robot in their home. tesla is already producing them. imagine you have a.i., which is going to displace huge numbers of the estimates are between 60% to 80% of working people in this country. add to that autonomous robots who can work 18-hour days without stop. and you have eight million, eight million illegal immigrants in this country. we have an exploding homeless population. we have two wars that we are subsidizing. one of them is completely illegitimate. the insanity of this president is beyond comprehension. host: sorry to cut you off. as a democrat, did you vote for him in 2020? caller: no. i didn't. host: who did you vote for? caller: i voted for trump. host: you still consider yourself a democrat?

caller: why? host: ok. patrick mentioned the border, this is on the front page of the "washington post." it says, a historic surge of migrants and few solutions in sight. the smugglers have sawed through the u.s. border wall so many times lately that parts of the barrier look like something out of a sculpture garden or mad max move sraoefplt scraps of metal have been woven to the bars at odd angles by repair crews. a segment standing about 100 feet of the border, the wall has been cut 41 times. the broader u.s. immigration system is in similar tattered shape after decades of congressional inaction and recurring migration spikes, including record numbers of illegal crossings this month. u.s. customs and border protection is surpassing 10,000

encounters as migrants along the southern border per day. an influx likely to exacerbate strains on new york, chicago, and other cities already have new come. seeking shelter, food, and assistance. reggie is in cleveland, ohio. republican. hi. caller: good morning. how are you? i like to wish all those in america and the whole world, i wish them the peaceful and happy holiday season and a blessed healthy new year. host: what do you think about president biden? caller: i like to give him -- i say a minus, b plus, and give kamala harris b plus, she's doing a very good job as vice president. and, yes, i do consider myself a republican. i have been a republican for years. and i am ohio republicans.

i still consider myself part of the g.o.p. my grandfather made me a republican. he was an eisenhower man. that's one thing i got to say. host: what do you think when you said that you rate vice president kamala harris highly and president biden based on what? caller: i based biden on what he has done. how he got us out of things. ports was closed in california. and our rail during covid. had he to work with that. and all the different strikes this year. he helped. he was online. when you saw trump supporting people on the strikes and stuff? and employment. and the economy has got better.

and i give kamala harris grade on watching everything. even the border, even though it's not 100%. i give kamala harris watching over areas that biden can't watch or areas biden ask her to watch. or give some concern to. i give him credit. we have a team. they are not a great team but everything in. host: he did mention vice president kamala harris. here she is talking about recent polling and how she and president biden rated -- compared to former president trump. here's a portion. this is from last month. >> former president trump not only on the national level appears to be beating the biden-harris ticket, but uniquely in those five of the six key swing states.

that seems to be the case. what do you think when you see the poll? >> listen, if i listened to polls i would have never run for my first office or second one and here i am as vice president. there are fundamental freedoms that are at stake right now. the american people do understand that. again i will point out the mid terms and the most recent elections. when freedom was on the ballot, from kansas to california, ohio to virginia. the american people voted in favor. >> you think the polls are wrong? >> that's a little too simplistic, with all due respect. i don't think that we should use polling as our only measure of who we are as americans. and our values, and our principles, and our priorities. >> your ratings 38.5%, biden 40.4%. and trump is higher. ron says this, you have seen press about yourself over the years.

he says that he believes that your popularity or unpopularity or whatever rating you want to put it as is a function of sexism and racism. says that's part of the problem. she doesn't get the credit for all she's done. do you think it's true? >> the media or people? as it relates to the media, i'm sure some of that is true. host: that was the vice president. wonder what you think of that. mary in north carolina, independent line. hi. caller: hi. i would give president biden an f. and mostly because of the border. i don't understand why biden has fought so hard to keep this border open so people can flow any time they want to into this country. the only thing it reminds me of is the chinese spy balloons

flying over the country. it flew anywhere it wanted to. and biden said nothing. they were screaming their heads off, do something, do something. he did nothing. same situation at the border. the spy balloon was shot down when china said it could be shot down. the same way at the border. the border's going to stay like it is until china says it's enough. i think biden the only reason he's keeping it opened like it is, he wants me people coming in because he's taking money from someone where weather it be china or- whether it be china or group of people in mexico. host: i just want to clarify on the chinese spy balloon. the administration says they shot it once it got over water. that it wouldn't hurt anybody on the ground.

take your point on frustrations. rashad in maryland, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i give president biden an a plus, plus, plus. first and foremost for defeating donald trump who is the absolute worst president in modern history. trump gives andrew johnson is a run for his money. i'm 34. one of those middle-aged millennials. i consider myself a young voter. and i remember where we were in january, 2021. donald trump led an insurrection insurrection. in addition to president biden having to deal with that calamity. he came into office when we were in the depths of a worldwide pandemic that crashed our economy and took hundreds of thousands of lives. thanks to his leadership and that of vice president harris we now have record low unemployment. the inflation that was fueled by the covid recovery is coming down. we are drilling more oil than any nation in history. and our international policy is

now devoted to supporting free democratic allies like ukraine, israel, taiwan instead of regimes like russia when trump was president. he's been a tremendous leader for our country. i will enthusiastically, gladly, with so much joy and gratitude for his leadership of our country vote to re-elect him in 2024. then to the point about him being old, one, age confers wisdom. from someone like president biden who has been in public office for so long. not only that, but our average demographic in this country is getting older. all the candidates attacking president biden for being old,s look at the electorate, old people vote. telling them they are washed up and no use, people, president biden's age and what not, that's a really bad strategy in a country where senior citizens pretty much determine our elections. not only that, but we have a lot

of people in major positions around the world who are senior citizens. the president of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints, is 99, the pope is 87. queen elizabeth ii was 96. it's not anything unusual in a world in which people are getting older and living longer and having better quality of life as they age for them to continue to be in positions of power. i have no doubt that president biden in his second term will continue the tremendous record of leadership and commitment to democracy, to our -- the history of our country, the rights that we cherish. host: one of the -- one of the major criticisms of president biden as you heard on this program is the handling of the southern border. what do you think of that? caller: i think that the situation at the border that we have currently is not president

biden's fault directly. the problem is that -- not the problem, but the issue is that we have international agreements under our laws that relate to asylum. lots of people who are coming through the southern border, they are not getting around the border agents and going into the country disappearing. what they are doing is they are going to border agents to get themselves into the asylum pipeline. that is a loophole, if you will, that is challenging for sure. host: what do you think about what the solution might be? what would you be willing to see as far as policy changes on the border? caller: i think people who want to come to the united states and contribute to our country and make this country a better place should have legal pathways that are established by congress, which congress has the authority to regulate immigration law in this country, make legal immigration easier. the reason people seek asylum at the border is because they have

no other way of coming to the united states legally. if we liberalized our immigration laws, let's face it, we need the labor of the people trying to come into this country from -- through the southern border. especially -- people complain about the price of groceries. i wonder why groceries are so expensive. if you think deporting agricultural workers is going to help our grocery situation, prices of groceries, that's going to be a nonstarter. we need to grow up, first of all, and realize that we need immigrant labor who our prices as american citizens to be cheaper. host: got it. i got to move on. this is rashad mentioned a young voter at 34. this is the hill that says, young voters right now overwhelmingly prefer biden. according to the economist yougoff poll. you can see it here with the top number there in red for joe biden at 53%.

donald trump at 24%. other at 10%. not voting or not sure, at 9% and 4%. wally in aroara, colorado. republican. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. we are listening. caller: ok. i think joe biden is absolutely the best. the democrat party could trot out. and the devil to destroy our country. host: why do you think that? caller: that's exactly what they are doing. caller: because i read my bible. host: you think that the democrats are trying to destroy the country by making joe biden the president? caller: absolutely. this isn't a democracy. it's not a republic we were given. it's way beyond all that. socialist state and worse.

all these people coming across our southern border was prove sized a long time ago -- prove sighed -- prophecied a long time ago. host: you think it's prove sighed in the bible? caller: it is. host: wane in maine, independent line, good morning. caller: hi. joe biden, if you look at every poll, every reputable poll, he is -- regarding one of the worst presidents we ever had. i heard a couple of delusional people before me who called up and were completely team biden. one of the persons talking about the bible. we have joe biden's in charge. joe biden is leading -- he has the -- world war iii -- host: the neon cons?

caller: neoconservatives like the administration under george bush who have this crazy imperialist foreign policy. we have nazi regime that's completely corrupt. in ukraine that biden is supporting and arming. we've got taiwan. we've got -- biden's supporting genocide in gaza. 10,000 children murdered. he's giving netanyahu a blank check. he's one of the worst -- we have homeless people -- homeless population in america is skyrocketing. he's done nothing about price gouging by corporations. that's what they call inflation. he's one of the worst presidents i have ever seen. i have seen reagan, bush, w. bush, i have seen horrible presidents in my lifetime. he is the worst. host: do we need to mention homelessness we are going to have a segment on the homeless

rate in this country coming up later in the program. be sure to stick around for that. gary in new jersey. democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i'll tell you, i have a couple of concerns. one, i wish there was more diversity in our elections. i wish we -- the media have kept so much under wraps. i'm talking msnbc. i watch them all. cnn. abc. nbc. sunday shows, oh, my god. first of all nobody's getting the truth. nobody. these stations are protecting biden like i have never seen before. you know it, i know it, everybody knows t i have watched this man read postcards, literally postcards given by the news media that they know the answers already. they know how to ask the

questions. it's obvious. so they are protecting him. and his numbers are still down because people are getting in. you got to be more honest with people. i watched a rally last night on news nation, and they said biden is not going tonight candidate. he's going to pull himself out. i think he s i think he's not going to be the candidate -- host: who was that that said that? caller: bill owe riley -- bill o'reilly. he was saying that biden will pull out. and i wish the media would be more honest about this. he cannot run another term. he will not run another term. there's going to be hearings about his criminality. that's coming out. it's coming out leaking slow. the news media is quick to hide it. it's coming out. the border is killing this country. and news media, half of them

don't play it. you know it, i know t c-span, with you, too, i'm extremely disappointed with this station. i watch tefr morning. i see the slant, too. i see the people you put on as commentators and guests. you're trying. you're trying to protect biden. it ain't working. people are getting in. i'm a democrat. i like phillips. i like what he said. he's honest. i like kennedy. i really think that you got to give people more chances. it is not a democracy if you are hiding half the campaign. stop propping up biden, people. i hear them calling -- they are delusional. host: we got your point. tom in florida, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. everybody's talking about the border and everything. have you seen the news today?

it's completely out of control. people just can't handle it. i don't know. that along with giving billions of dollars to the ukraine and israel. a little bit of help is fine. don't have anything wrong with that. i spent my time -- i spent six years in the service. i just don't see where biden has done anything for this country except put it deeper in the hole. they talk about borrowing more money. how much money do they want to borrow? they sending trillions of dollars for israel and ukraine. when a lot of that money could go back to the people in this country for housing and to

upgrade things that need to be upgraded. some of the schools. a lot of things that -- everyday things for our people. host: all right. here is a text we got from john in vicksburg, mississippi. bin did a good job. now it's time for him to ti. my vote will go to anyone but biden or trump. if they are on the ballot, i will voteowballot, only. kitty on facebook says, soar pretty darn good. he is only do as much as what this contentious coneswill let him. the economy has recovered. unemoynt is way down. inflation is still coming down. right now congress is a do-nothing body. next up is rockaway, new york. independent line. caller: i want to wish you and your family a blessed christmas.

you're one of my favorites. and i must say that president biden is doing the best he can. in lieu of the congress we have. people can talking about the border. i don't hear anybody saying that the democrats, i'm voting democrat, democrat. democrats are working overtime, overtime right now trying to do something about the border. the democrats and the republicans in the senate. they are listening to the american people. they are trying to do something about the border that will give some kind of relief of the people coming over here. where's the house? where's the republican house? republicans are calling in, where's the republican house? and that's all i have to say. host: let's take a look at what nikki haley says in a new campaign ad talking about biden's age. a i'll just say t biden's too old.

and congress is the most exclusive nursing home in america. washington keeps failing because politicians from yesterday can't lead us into tomorrow. we need term limits. mental competency tests, and real plan to defeat china and restore our economy. we have to leave behind the chaos and drama of the past with a new generation, and a new conservative president. i'm nikki haley and i approved this message. host: charlie calling from california. democrat. caller: how you doing. caller: host: -- host: great. caller: you want my been about this biden -- host: i really do. go ahead, charlie. caller: well, biden projects no strength at all. he goes down to that catastrophe down in gaza an holds netanyahu's hand while he's killing a lot of people unnecessarily. he has no strength.

we need a man like senator chris van hollen from maryland. and biden doesn't even enter the new hampshire primary this year. and i'm spearheading a write-in for chris van hollen in new hampshire. and he's only entering the south carolina primary where he's got his good friend, clyburn, james clyburn down there. host: charlie, have you contacted senator van hollen's office about this? caller: yeah, i have. host: what do they say? caller: well, they don't discourage me. and chris van hollen, if everybody looked at youtube and wikipedia, they say, oh, my god. chris van hollen should be the president. in other words, the democrats all got together and they promoted this biden.

he's infectionual. he's a projection of strength. he doesn't represent the united states' strength. he goes down to gaza and holds netanyahu's hand. instead of saying cut this killing of these children and so tpo*frplt it's ridiculous to put biden in there. we have no choices there. of course you go biden before trump. trupl is a complete chaos. trump is a complete chaos. if everybody looked at chris van hollen from maryland, senator from maryland. he's 64. he's fantastic. host: all right. go to kelly in rome, georgia. republican. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. merry christmas and happy holidays and happy hanukkah to everyone in the world. i'm going to give president biden a d going into an f. probably the main reason is the

border. and mostly when i hear them wanting money for ukraine or even for israel they don't -- it's to protect their borders. yet we leave ours opened. i did hear someone say earlier where are the house republicans, the senate is doing all this stuff. as far as immigration and stuff. well, the asylum seekers, about 70% i believe are turned down because it's not true asylum. we just got a hot mess. even the jobs that have come back after covid, those don't get biden's calling because he create add job. those jobs were brought back because the epidemic ended. and people went back to work. that's what caused every bit of

unemployment to go back down. look at ennation. and i -- inflation. and i understand people don't like trump. but 3 a.m. tweets don't bother me. more than seeing a man fall down steps. fall off a bike. it's not his age. it's his mental competency. he doesn't seem to know where he is half the time. he's shaking hands. and that's going to show strength in the world? host: all right. let's talk to john next in washington, independent. caller: i'm a 37-year-old veteran. i want to talk to you about several things. one is cease-fire. i was in the 1968 at the time offensive in vietnam -- at the time offensive in vietnam when they were going to agree to a cease-fire over there. guess what happened? who broke that cease-fire?

my roommate was killed over there. i would have been with him if it hadn't been for my boss calling me down to the headquarters for a meeting. cease-fire -- now you talk about ukraine getting out invade russia. russia invaded ukraine. gaza invaded israel. killed 1, it 200 in one day. beheaded babies, everything like that. the worst thing that ever happened. what israel needs to do is demolish hamas. demolish hezbollah. and even go after -- host: john, getting back to president biden's performance. how would you rate that? caller: f. i'll tell you why. trump has north korea not firing over the gentlelady from biden

comes along, all at once, two or three times over japan now. he's weak. i don't want him in that office. and i'd rather have at least trump is in there doing a lot of things for this country. biden is either at the beach or delaware. look at the stuff that's come out against him and hunter biden. i don't want him in office ever again. host: anthony in south carolina, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. yes. biden is the smartest, he's been in politics for over 40 years. he's the one that's trying as hard to get this country together. they talking about immigration and border and all that. that border, they have been kicking the can on that the republicans and democrats. they can't even try to solve no problems with the republicans doing everything but trying to

solve some of these issues. and they always block, i don't care what democrat is in office, they do this silly stuff. people act like they blind and can't see what's going on. you got to be -- stevie wonder could see what's going ofpblt biden is doing a tremendous job. host: i want you to respond to our previous caller that says that biden doesn't project strength. what do you think of that? caller: no. i think it's a big lie because biden, he goes and talks to all those people. and he tried to figure out the best solution. you put yourself, juxtaposition in biden's place with everything the republicans doing to tie his hands behind his back. santos and it -- they couldn't even get a house speaker for a month. ridiculous. i don't agree with -- giving

this money to ukraine and israel. where's the reparations for the slavery? that's the worst thing that happened over there in israel. but they enslaved black people for 400 years. host: got to move on to kyle in truth or consequences, new mexico. republican. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you guys so much for taking my call. about biden, hi this joke i -- i had this joke i want to say before i forgot biden has made a bunch of democrats liz cheney supporters. it is really weird. i am 38 years on, am a combat veteran. i grew up in the 1990's. biden was key in the 1994 crime bill. biden voted for the iraq war.

millions of needless suffering and death. he doesn't seem to honestly care about it. there is a lot going on now but just looking at the history of this current presidency, i hate to say this to him -- system, it is not looking good. biden, recently in his term as president, calling a winter of death for the unvaccinated, suppressing medicine, which to me, as a former foreman, is despicable. we still have yet to learn covid truth. i don't necessarily put all of that on biden but he sure did do what he did. and then the genocide in gaza.

the united states, we vetoed in the united nations security council, we vetoed a call for cease-fire, and then what did we do? we voted against it in the general assembly. i am calling on the republican line. i consider myself a republican now. i considered myself a democrat for most of my life. i voted for trump in 2016. nonetheless, i have a tough time with this all because i don't think biden represents the dennis kucinich democrat that i always thought i was. it is disturbing to me, i hear so many people calling on the democratic line, and i love everybody, but there is just dissolution going on.

there is something completely wrong. when barack obama was president -- i voted for him twice -- but he started the groaning -- dro ning, trump continued it, but it is a disconnect. implied moving forward, if we are unable to connect to the truth and we are applauding people like liz cheney, i'm sorry. host: got it, kyle. that is the last call we can take for the segment but there is a lot more to come. coming up next, a discussion on the state of criminal justice reform with advocate kevin ri and colleen eren of reform nation. and then later, chief policy officer steve berg discusses the state of homelessness in the u.s. we will be right back. ♪

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play c-span radio. c-span, powered by cable. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back. i am joined now by colleen eren, there of “reform nation: the first step act and the movement to end mass incarceration." and also kevin ring, criminal justice advocacy program vice president at arnold ventures. welcome to both of you. colleen, i want to start with you. before we talk about the legislation itself, isn't it a really bad time to be talking about criminal justice reform even the crime rates in this country? guest: i think it's a really appropriate time to be talking about criminal justice reform because we have had promising data come out. homicide rates have dropped 9% this year versus the first half of 2022 which is on track to become one of the most historic drops in recorded history.

i think that overall it's a good time to be talking about this because although there was an uptick in violent crime, we have seen that decline over the past few years. we are at a position where we can now look forward to post-pandemic trends. host: let's go back five years, because that is when the first step act was signed into legislation by then president trump. set the stage for us. what were the problems in the criminal justice system that that act was trying to solve? guest: it was a modest criminal justice reform bill by any stretch of the imagination, focused on the federal system. what made it so significant was that it was one of the only federal criminal bills over the past 50 years that was focused on a muni rating additions in prison and d cursor ration. i think we had arrived at this

period in 2018 where we recognized we had over incarcerated and there was a widespread consensus that we had gone too far with our incarceration rates. the first step act was a first step to reversing those types of trends. host: kevin, you are a criminal justice advocate. tell us about your background and how you came to this topic. guest: i came to washington to work on capitol hill as a staffer. i was sort of a conventional republican, tough on crime staffer. i knew the talking points of what we believed it because my upbringing was pretty much removed from criminal activity. i worked on capitol hill, i wrote some anti-crime legislation. after a while, i went to law school, became a lobbyist, and then i became embroiled in an enormous lobbying scandal led by jack abramoff, many people probably remember.

our whole firm came under investigation, i cooperated with the government, ultimately decided to charge me. i went through two trials. the second time i was convicted of public corruption charges. i ended up going to prison myself. not only did i go to prison for 20 months, i ended up serving time with people whose sentences were longer because of bills i had written while i was on capitol hill. during that time when i was fighting the government, i was working for an organization, sentencing reform organization. as heartsick as i was about my situation, impacting my family, my eyes were starting to get opened about how i was hurting others in greater ways. i knew that i needed to make change. when i came home, i went right into advocacy, and i've been doing that ever since. host: we will open up the phone lines shortly. republicans, (202) 748-8001.

democrats, (202) 748-8002 -- (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. we also have a line for those that have extremes with the criminal justice system, (202) 748-8003. you can also use that line to send us a text. let'look at what the legislation itself owhat the first access. it reduces mandatory sentencing guidelines for certain drug felonies, allows judges greater latitude in sentencing nonviolent drug offenders, reduces mandatory minimum sentences in some cases, makes retroactive the fair sentencing act of 2010, and places federal prisoners closer to home, expands prison employment programs. that is from "the washington post" and "usa today." mandatory sentencing.

what was that like and what changed as a result of this law? guest: it's important to remember this was an attempt to reverse the move toward mandatory minimums that took place in the 1980's under the comprehensive crime control act under the antidrug abuse acts of 1986 and 1988. it was acknowledgment that that had gone too far. some of the changes were that the mandatory sentence cap was reduced from life without parole to 25 to life. i think some other changes that were important to highlight among the bill's changes were that women could no longer be shackled, for example, while giving birth and postpartum. that juveniles were no longer to be put in solitary confinement. the bill, in addition to making

inroads in reducing some of the harshest to torment mums. for example, expanding the selfie valves before mandatory minimums were triggered. we have to look at these other improvements that were under the first step act. host: kevin, you wrote an op-ed for the hill, says the first step act was not a mistake but criminal justice reformers dropped the ball. tell us what you wrote that op-ed, what your major points were. guest: it goes to your first question to colleen, how are we talking about criminal justice reform when time has been -- crime has been increased? it is the time that we should be talking about it because criminal justice reform is the answer, not the problem. a system that is turning our prisons into nursing homes, that only solves 50% of murders and fewer rates. a system that doesn't take those crimes seriously enough to solve those but instead locks up

low-level drug offenders for life sentences is completely out of whack. host: can't you do both? solve the crimes and be tough on crime so that people are deterred? guest: everything we know from the research is that people are not deterred by the severity of a sentence. what they are deterred by is whether they think they will be caught and held accountable. you don't need to hold somebody 25 years to deter especially a young person from committing a crime. that is one of the clearest findings from the evidence we have. we offer accountability. what is happening in washington, d.c. right now bothers everyone who is concerned about public safety. but we just have to be smarter. there is no solutions, only trade-offs. our budgets are finite. we are spending $80 billion on public safety. our question is are we getting the most safety for that amount? in our view, we could do better. with this rise in crime, i think

the answer has been to not defend a system that is not solving serious violent crimes that people are concerned about, not defending that, saying that we need to have more reform. we need to make sure that we are keeping people safe. host: it's been in place for five years. what results have we seen? guest: i think the results have been very promising. families against mandatory minimums have been releasing some of the statistics. 30,000 people have been result -- released as a result of the first step act. in terms of public safety, a paramount concern, only 12.3% of those released by the first step act more returned, versus 42% of those not released under the first step act. it is showing very promising results. those people sentenced under the unfair crack cocaine laws that were rectified in the fair sentencing act, that was made retroactive. we had people coming home thanks

to the first step act. also compassionate release for those that have compelling cases of sickness, illness. about 4000 people have been released as a result of the expansion of compassionate release. that is effective, efficient, completely in line with public safety, which was always one of the paramount concerns of the bill. it was a very modest conservative bill focused on risk and likelihood of recidivating. host: hey paul last month says americans more critical of american criminal justice system. here is the graph with this line saying, the question was, do you think the criminal justice system in this country is too tough, not tough enough, or about right in handling crime? the numbers are going back up for not tough enough. what do you make of that, colleen? guest: i think that is in

response to what we have to acknowledge, an increase in violent crime during the pandemic. that is real and has to be addressed. however, i think there is a danger of giving too much import to this. if we think about donald trump's inaugural address, it was about american carnage, the rise in american crime. the percentage of americans who see crime as a serious problem right now is around 63%. it was 60% in 2000, 2010, 2016. we have had these bombs even in the past 20 years when criminal justice reform is in its golden period, where we had this reform movement. combined with the decrease in homicides that we have seen over the past year, americans will begin to recognize that this was not part of a larger trend. i would just add that only 3% of

americans right now see crime as the most important issue facing the country. if we go back to the 1990's, 40 2% of americans thought it was the most important issue. even with this public opinion poll, we have to take into account the nuances and see it reflected as a time when there was a rise in violent crime, but that is decreasing. host: let's talk to our collars now. john is on the line for democrats in massachusetts. caller: good morning. . host: go ahead, you are on the air. caller: you know, i think i want to pass. thank you for putting me on the program. host: that was easy. donald in washington. caller: can you hear me? host: we can.

go right ahead, donald. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. my question primarily is for the gentleman, but all three, if not. i am calling in today. i am concerned with what president trump and others did to create this is amazing. it has changed a lot of people's lives for the good considering the 1994 crime bill. however, the issue i want to discuss is a nonviolent criminal justice reform-type of thing primarily for fathers that have been steamrolled by this judicial branch in our country.

i believe that a lot of our problems in this country currently stem from fatherless homes. i don't necessarily mean single homes but children that are completely growing up not knowing their fathers. now, my particular question and comment would be, in my eight-year battle of trying to be in my child's life, i have been arrested probably nine times. every holiday, i will spend this holiday by myself, and it all started from red flag stuff. when you don't have the money and you go to court and they

don't hear you, they won't see your evidence, as clear as it may be, i wish luck on all of you. when i hear the comments, people went to court, it will come out in the wash. i am here to tell you, they know there is a high percentage of people that that just does not work out for. host: when you say you got arrested several times, for what? caller: my original thing was a protection order on a red flag for -- i didn't even commit a crime. that was inspected, i was cleared. the order for no contact still remains today. i have gone in front of three different judges on this

particular matter in two different states. i have tried to transfer jurisdiction, i have tried everything i can. when you try to get a hold of volunteer networks that are funded, i would have more due process and more rights if i actually committed a crime. i do believe there are people out there that do that, and they do new protections, men and women. host: donald, let's go ahead and get a response. guest: i don't know much about his specific situation other than to say i think he is right about the importance of having parents in the home raising children. we know it is a crime reducer. also his experience, because i saw it, i believe in the justice system, i still largely due. the people involved in the system, prosecutors, everyone is trying to do their best.

i think the system has bad incentives, though, and sometimes creates better results. i wouldn't have known that except for having gone through it. his sounds like a similar experience. we think things are fair and then we go through the system and is then we thought. i am sorry that we have to experience the pain that he has been going through to recognize that but it happens. host: he mentioned the 1994 crime bill. what was that about? guest: under president clinton, this was at the height of the war on crime. this is where we got severe mandatory minimums. we went on a jail-building spree in this country. from 1990 to 2005, we built a new prison or jail every 10 days in the country. incredible to think about. the first step act, some of these measures now are just reactions to measure some of the harshness of what we did in the 1990's. host: jackie is next in fernanda

beach, florida. caller: good morning. thank you for having me on. i am a founder of a second chance criminal justice advocacy nonprofit called data for change. like mr. ring, i was thrust into the criminal justice system in a windfall. my son is incarcerated in florida with a very long sentence. we learned the hard way that we don't have second chances in florida. as a data specialist, i am focusing heavily on what is happening with the first step act, cheering on the data every step of the way, watching the successes that are coming out of it. one of the things that i do now in some of my measures is trying to figure out how we show and promote the successes of what comes out of the criminal justice system. for instance, we hyperfocus on

recidivism which is a measure of failure. had to be focus on the opposite of that? how do we put more numbers around the good things happening, successes coming out of the system, the people that have learned dramatically from, changed dramatically from when they came in versus what they are when they come out? host: colleen, do you want to take that? guest: sure. thanks for the question. one, i want to highlight how you mentioned second chances. one of the real successes over the past 20 years within the criminal justice reform movement has been how corporations and businesses have realized how valuable it is to have the creative and innovative folks that have been included in the workforce. the successes are being touted by all manner of corporations from walmart to dav's killer

bread. when people come out, they are eager to work, to contribute, to give back, and this is important. this is a credit to the businesses that have been a part of what they've been doing over the past 20 years. i think if you look at the data about american's opinions about crime, every year, americans think crime is going up regardless of what is happening with actual crime trends. there is a focus always because of the visceral nature of crime the harm, the negative, should absolutely be included, but focusing some of the news, the way that we talk about it, to look at the successes within criminal justice reform such as the first step act. it's ability to get people on compassionate release. the lower recidivism rate. getting people identification so

that way they can integrate more easily into their immunities, get back to work. media also has to begin focusing on this because the shift of attention always to negative is not accurate and it impacts american's views in a way that is not reflective of reality. host: you just mention public perceptions about crime rates. this is nbc news that says most people think the u.s. crime rate is rising. they are wrong. almost 80 percent of americans and 92% of republicans think crime has gone up. it actually fell in 2023. guest: i think it is very interesting to note that attitudes about crime are very embroiled in culture wars. if you look at republicans and democrats attitudes about is crime going up year-to-year? during the obama years, republicans that crime was going up the most.

during the bush years, democrats thought that crime was going up. republicans under obama thought that crime was going up. under president trump, it plummeted into the 40's. we have to see how political ideology plays into attitudes about crime and find commonality and realize that criminal justice reform is a bipartisan benefit. host: randy is in michigan on the line for democrats. hi, randy. caller: i'm happy to see what you are doing here. there is one thing that you are missing. you are in this business of trying to help people that have been in the criminal justice system. one thing that we could do that really takes care of this culture war problem, let's start taking hair samples. we can tell every drug that a person has done in their life from their hair sample, from the time they were born to when they are dead. we can tell every drug they did.

that way, a person like me living here in michigan doesn't need to worry about the cop telling me that my brother is on the street so drunk they had to find out what drugs were in his system and they found that he was just drinking. they have to bring him home, asked me if he can sleep it off year. i worked at the same job 27 years, watched this man be in treatment 11 different times. $8,800 each time. what does that cost taxpayers? his problem is alcohol. if we want to see that marijuana or alcohol is the gateway drug, my whole life, i have watched in my own family, white guys deal drugs their whole life and never go to jail. as long as you don't have money, you can deal drugs. the people in the middle are the ones that go to jail because they are the ones that get to pay for all of those drunks sitting in treatment.

when you have a person like me who has never been to jail, does things right in this life, has to stand there and listen to the top tell me that 50% of his time is dealing with alcoholism. how come he is not saying meth, heroin, crack? pot is legal here. he didn't say pot is a problem. how come we are not taking hair samples to show people what the real gateway drug is? guest: you are pushing on an open door with me if you are saying that alcohol is a huge contributor to crime in this country. alcohol is an accepted drug, many people can use it safely, so we don't talk a lot about it. but so much of crime is tied to alcohol and alcohol abuse. there have been successful sobriety programs helping to reduce recidivism. i think he is right, it is a smart area to look at.

we like to point at what other people do and not what we do, but we don't talk about alcohol. it is a huge contributor. host: william from cincinnati says it has been made clear to me, if you have enough money, you don't need to be responsible for your actions. do you agree with that, kevin? if you have enough money -- guest: of course, having resources give you a better shot, but the truth is in this country today, 97% of cases end in plea agreements. no one can afford to go to trial. i tried to and i lost my life savings and still ended up going to prison. i do think you are better off in many ways having resources but that is no guarantee of staying out of prison. there are a lot of rich people in prison. the system needs to be fixed in a million ways but i don't think that is a true statement. host: brian is calling from

buie, maryland. republican. caller: i am calling in regards to what was mentioned earlier about the piece that kevin wrote. we talk about the first step act . i wonder when is the next step, is there a second or third step? where does the issue go from here? thank you. guest: i think we have to do a lot more. we just have a template played out, and actual experiment run. when covid hit, congress passed the cares act, which gave the attorney general the authority to send people out to home confinement. normally you can only spend the last couple of months of your sentence on home confinement. under the cares act, people could go to home confinement if they served 50% of their sentence, that there were strict guidelines, nonviolent record. 13,000 people went home. only 27 have committed new crimes.

it is the most successful ent program in the history of the country. it shows us that we can do a good job of holding people accountable but still letting them back into the community, keeping a job, staying with their family, paying taxes, being productive. we don't need to have so many people incarcerated. that is one thing we need to look at. the important thing to realize is that by saving resources, getting people out of prison and into home confinement, we can spend more money on programs and personnel, police and prevention programs to reduce crime, which is something that we all want. host: your thoughts on a second phase? guest: when you are looking at the united states, you are looking at a federal system. 50 different states that have their own bills that have to be worked on. in ameliorating some of the excesses in the system, for example, solitary confinement.

shown to exacerbate mental health problems and does not rectify issues of behavioral. i think ending solitary confinement would be a step. abolishing the death penalty. we stand as an outlier amongst those who we considered to be advanced democracies in retaining it. really working state-by-state to identify what the issues are with incarceration, both in terms of sentencing and prison conditions. host: colin is in washington, d.c. independent. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i just wanted to provide a pushback about the national narrative with washington and crime. the primary driver of crime increase is actually not the perception of violent crime, it is really theft, auto vehicle

theft derived from the kia and hyundai, the viral tiktok trend went around. i will not talk about that because that is a whole other issue about corporate responsibility and the failure of governance. back to d.c., i think as a resident of d.c., we are caught in the middle of a mayor who is unable or unwilling to take accountability for her responsibilities, muriel bowser. she oversees the department of youth rehabilitation services. if you just do a cursory google search, you can find stories of guards selling to kids. supervisors being abusive towards their staff. it is just a disaster. now d.c. is being used in the national clinical sphere to spin fear about the nation's capital, donald trump drumming up fear about how he is going to wipe out the people of d.c. and make

it a city of marble. i just wanted to ask the guest today if they could provide some greater context around d.c., how we are not a state, we don't have the resources of a state, we don't have representation, senators, voting member of the house, and the people are suffering, while the mayor and the council just passes the bill. thank you for your time. host: what do you think, kevin? guest: d.c. is going through a bad time. there is theft but there is also a rise in homicides, sexual violence, and people are concerned, but we have to be humble about its causes. in a ton of other major cities, crime is falling. there certainly seems to be some sort of social contagion with these car thefts, carjackings. i think a lot of this is post-pandemic. we have a huge rise in

antisocial behavior which crime is a subset. we have high truancy rates in schools. kids are not going back to school. there are a host of problems that we have to get at. i do agree with him that congress, instead of using d.c. as a political ploy, should roll up its sleeves and help. d.c. doesn't have a functioning crime lab. the resources, congress could bring to bear in d.c. to help solve the problem. where members of congress and their staff live. i agree, what is happening in d.c. is unfortunate. instead of politicizing it, both parties should come together and fix the problem. host: evan is next. washington. caller: hi, everyone. i saw that statistic about crimes going up. we have a criminal justice problem in this country because richard nixon and ronald reagan through the drug war, they knew that if they could addict lacked people to crack cocaine them and

they could throw them in jail and take away votes from the democrats. republicans are the ones dumping guns and drugs off in the streets. republican courts are ripping down gun-control laws. extreme positions on drugs helps the mexican drug cartels cell fentanyl. it robs americans of their rights. they are putting everyone in danger with more and more guns and fentanyl on the streets. if anyone is making crime worse, it is the republican party. they have a political agenda to demonize black people to say they are criminals, but they are the ones giving them guns. i don't understand. this is not a liberal d.a. or democrat problem. republicans are giving the criminals the guns. prohibition does not work. it is racially motivated. loser gun laws have not made a safer. this fear mongering about crime is about selling guns to enrich the weapons industries to make americans fearful so they buy more guns and our rights are

taken away. let me ask your guests, with a support putting everyone -- giving everyone behind bars the right to vote? host: that was a bit of a non sequitur. guest: in discussing who we are to blame for this, i think it's important to remember that just as the first step act was bipartisan, it brought together very unusual stakeholders, strange bedfellows from the right and left. criminal justice reform in the opposite direction, the over incarceration, mass incarceration was also a bipartisan creation. with rising crime in the 1960's, democrats and republicans just tried to incarcerate our way out of the problem. i would lay the blame on both parties as far as letting people who are incarcerated in prison

vote, absolutely. that is why we need to end the loophole that would keep people incarcerated voting. that is related to the 13th amendment. host: this is from the sentencing project. the prison population in the united states. all the way back to 1925 to 2020. you can see that big spike mostly due to legislation. guest: beginning in the 1970's, and it peaked in approximately 2008. it's important when you are looking at that graph to recognize, in the 1930's, we also had a huge rise in violent crime. the homicide rate in the 1930's was almost as high as it was during the peak in the 1970's and 1990's. we didn't see this increase in incarceration in that period so it really is a failure of governance. it was a political error that

was not sustained by the crime rate itself. host: nathaniel is next, new jersey, republican. caller: honor to be on c-span again. thank you to your guests for being on. with prison reform, i worked with a lot of young people that were just released from prison. i think we have to dismantle this tough on crime mentality. it is nothing but a racial dog whistle. it has been since the beginning of time, since we got out of slavery. my next point is, until we stop -- we are going to have the same system. like the guest said, jails are continually being built, it is privatized, it is on the stock market. we cannot address criminal

justice reform until we address our jails around the country. my last point, working with a lot of former prisoners, the lack of resources is really bad, from basic id. all of these barriers, getting out of prison and jail, getting a basic place to live, job, basic things that we need to have. thank you both for being advocates for deserving people in this country, looking to make change out of prison. thank you for all of your great work. i will log off and listen to what you have to say. host: you want to take that, kevin? guest: appreciate that, and thank you for the work that you are doing with people coming back into society. i want to be -- between this and the last call, part of this

debate suffers from scapegoating. we tried to find bogeyman and say, mass incarceration is because of private prisons. are we have mass incarceration because of republicans or democrats or the drug war. most people in state prisons are therefore violent crimes. not all of them are violent people but they have committed violent crimes. if we are going to fix this problem we have to diagnose it correctly. we have mass incarceration before there were private prisons. i daresay that is a problem of us being a very punitive society, having high levels of legal violence because of gun crime. these are serious problems and we have to solve them, they are not easy. whenever you think there an easy solution, you are probably wrong. it is more complicated than that. i would urge everyone to think deeper about this because we are not going to fix it if we think there are simple answers.

guest: the low hanging fruit often is private prisons, that we should just focus on violent offenders. as kevin mentioned, that wouldn't get is very far in ending over incarceration. private prisons are only about 12%, of those incarcerated in the u.s.. we need to do more than focus there. host: let's talk to aaron next. huntsville, alabama. independent. caller: hi there. if you took money out of the equation, the ability to pay off a crime, that would solve a lot of issues. i want to start off by saying, the stabilization of the united states has been orchestrated from within by politicians who are sold out to international bankers who fund international policymaking firms like dwa joe, who we had to -- who, who we had

to endure during the pandemic. we live in a police state. after 9/11, the american people past the patriot act, where they arcing spied on by the cia. host: you are calling on the line for those with experian's with the criminal justice system. -- experience with the criminal justice system. what is your experience? caller: when a totalitarian regime takes over, the final step is to take out the dissidents. the way that our system is weaponized is to take out dissidents to the narrative. what you have is you have the plandemic with the cares act, multi trillion dollar sellout bill, that biden and confounded their buddies with. anyone that spoke against it, they pass to this. you can be accused of harassment with these red flag laws by

anyone by an unknown person. my question is how do you combat malicious prosecution when it comes to someone filing these harassment charges? that is how the government has weaponized the justice system to take out dissidents in this country. guest: i would love for colleen to answer this. [laughter] host: explain what red flag laws are. guest: red flag laws are meant to prevent individuals who have shown signs of violence and mental health concerns from being able to obtain weapons. i am not an expert in how well these work to actually prevent violent crime, but certainly we have seen from recent mass shootings, they do not operate in the way they are supposed to, didn't raise the red flags that were necessary. host: wayne in new hampshire. republican. good morning. caller: hello? yeah.

i cannot believe i heard your guest say that crime has not really gone up. in the last three years, that is all i see on my tv every night, gangs of people going into the stores, taking what they want, and leaving. in this country right now, if you live in a democrat-run city and you commit a crime, let's say you go into a bodega and threaten somebody with a knife, it is the victim that goes to jail, not the criminal. i don't know. cnn probably doesn't report that crime is not going up because of what is happening right now, but crime is going up quite a bit in this country. it is prosecutors and george soros, paid prosecutors come who are letting criminals go.

guest: 2020 saw the largest increase in homicide rates in modern history. ithappened during donald trump's tenure by the way, which people gloss over. i don't blame him for that. we had a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, largest social protest in history, mostly geared at police excess use of force. there was a loss of confidence in law enforcement in this country. it should have been no surprise that we see a rise in crime. but what matters is that it is dropping now and the reforms that passed five years ago including the first step act is not what caused that rise in crime. across the country, we have had rises and drops in crime, and it doesn't map where we passed reform. we have had reforms passed, crime goes up, reforms passed, and crime goes down. there is not a clear line that can be drawn. i think people are falling into

partisan boxes and just criticizing an issue that we cannot afford to. guest: if you look at where homicide went up -- and we didn't say that crime didn't go up during the pandemic, it did. it is decreasing. but this is across red and blue cities. there is no link between ideology and crime. the drop in crime, if you look at the 30 cities that are part of the study that showed a 9% drop in homicide in 2023 versus 2022, that, too, is across red and blue. these are large-scale trends that do not map neatly onto d's and r's. host: do we know like crime rates are coming down? what is successful in bringing that down? guest: what kevin noted is accurate. we saw this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. maybe on acknowledged is being forced to stay home and not have productive outlets.

those who are responsible for most of the violent crime are young men. afterschool programs were shut down, all types of extracurricular programs were shut down. there were obviously massive social unrest. police had stepped back. we can look at that and say it's an outlier. host: michael in plant city, florida is asking this through text. is it true there is a direct correlation between broken families and incarceration rates ? guest: i think there is a correlation, the question is causation, and what you can do to stop that. i think there is no doubt. what follows what is hard to know. we do see certain families, a cycle of incarceration, poverty, and weeding out which causes which is not always easy. but there is no doubt we are better off when we have intact families, two incomes,

supporting people. that is just pretty clear. host: let's talk to bob in colorado. democrat. caller: hello. host: go right ahead. caller: ok. i am just wondering about -- there was this a bit ago. as a democrat, i feel like the elite are starting to take over our government which will make us a dictatorship in the next couple of years if they keep going the way they are. i don't know why they are after everybody like me. i have been told i am not worth nothing because i am too old. host: that is not true. you are definitely worth a lot,

especially to us at c-span. let's talk to rick and hermann, nebraska. -- in hermann, nebraska. rick, are you there? no? david in silver spring, maryland. good morning. caller: i just want to talk about my experience living in d.c., what i've seen have been there with regard to the crime. for me, it goes back to policy choices made by leadership there. it has somewhat predictable consequences. i forget exactly what year, but they made a decision to eliminate the black squad which was pretty robust in d.c. -- bike squad which was pretty robust in d.c. in my neighborhood, there was an act getting more going on and that was the only way to get ahead of these killings and gun violence, to have people on the inside who could actually hear

the intel. that is gone. host: what is the vice squad? caller: these were undercover officers that would infiltrate the gangs. host: and why were they done away with, do you know? caller: it was a crime reform-sort of push. i don't know the exact reason. i am sure there is some memo about it. host: ok. any comment, kevin? guest: i really do not know the history of that in d.c. host: mike in reston, virginia. democrat. good morning. caller: we have more incarcerated people than china. because we have prison for profit. it is set up to put more people in prison, just to keep the system going, to benefit the

owners of these private prisons. also, prisons do not rehabilitate people like norway or scandinavia. we are one of the richest countries in the world and people come out worse than when they went in. guest: i would just say that we don't have more prisoners than china. we are second in the world, which is not necessarily the most wonderful position to be in. we are sixth in the world in terms of our incarceration rate. it's important to note about private prisons not really being the driver of incarceration because it is such a low percentage of the incarcerated population. i really think your point about the purpose of prisons is an important one, that it should be focused on rehabilitation. bills like the first step act made important inroads in that. even reauthorizing the second chance act in 2007 under

president bush which was focused on rehabilitation and reentry. host: there is a list here of those countries, if you look on prison studies.org, this gives you the ranking of the prison population rate. this is a per capita measure. the first is el salvador, followed by cuba, rwanda, turkmenistan, american samoa, and number six, as colleen said, united states of america, four prison population rate. stan in florida, republican. good morning. caller: this brings back good old memories of the 1970's and 1980's when i was try to do a doctoral dissertation on plea-bargaining. a few things that i learned, talked about this criminal

justice conference he went to, and he learned one insight. there are three institutions, family, religion, education. a family teaches a child what is right and wrong, usually based on some sort of religious value. the child goes to school, the school reinforces what the parents taught them. is that true today? not this is early. one of the things i learned about the plea-bargaining process is the fact that the system was designed to get people to cop a plea right away because the longer the person stays in the system, the more expensive it becomes. i was reviewing the brooklyn court system, over 100,000 cases. if you get them to plea right away, it costs the system a lot less. what ends up happening, once the person becomes known to the system, the person is labeled, and that label never goes away.

what i would agree is, when that person commits the first crime, bottom line, get a good case manager, understand what the issues are, try to get them through the system that makes the most appropriate way to go about the thing. this way the person stays out of the system as quickly as possible. and then like i said, finally, i agree wholeheartedly with the death penalty issue. death penalty doesn't make sense. the bottom line is, the idea is, if i commit an act, i received some sort of retribution. the idea is, the way the death penalty system works, you end up spending years appealing the case. by the time the person ends up being executed, it's about 20 years down the road, so it doesn't pay. i agree, the death penalty doesn't make sense. the long and short of it is, trying to identify what the issues are when the person

commits a first crime, and then try to have somebody work with that problem along with the family to try and address the issue. that makes the most sense. thank you very much. guest: he brought up pleas, and i mentioned that earlier. people don't understand how broken the system is. people think you do the crime, you do the time, sentencing is proportional to your crime. more often than not, your sentencing is based on whether or not you decided to go to trial. i went to trial, i contested the charges because i believed i was innocent. because i did, the government asked for 17.5 to 22 years for me even though the leader of the conspiracy, jack abramoff, got 16 years, because he pleaded. there is nothing wrong with giving people incentive deplete and cooperate, we can solve more cases that way, but the system is out of whack when the system

punishes people for exercising such a fundamental right. host: any comment? guest: there was a lot there. i think he is absolutely right. there is a host of criminal logical theory that points to the importance of prosocial bonds, as kevin was mentioning about intact family structures, the importance of feeling connected in school, and the fact that we have, as you mentioned, looking at the root causes, 70 to 100 million americans that have a criminal record. this should be a cause for trying to get to those causes and not dealing with it only by, primarily by the carson will system. caller: thank you to c-span for educating the nation since 1979. the constitution since 1791 states in the first 10

amendments, five of those amendments, four, 5, 6, 7, 8 have to do with criminal defendants and people need to understand that. i would not consent to a search today and i'm nothing to say, my lawyer is on the way. in new york we have the justice 456 program which gives the citizenship the rights. in this country is the greatest because of those 10 amendments and the bill of rights. guest: i think you raise an important point. we have a sense of evolving standards of decency. maybe that would be something i would emphasize as a concluding point about criminal justice reform today. it was an acknowledgment that we don't want to go back to the failed war on crime of the 1980's and 1990's.

we want to see the successes to recognize that we no longer execute children for instance in standards of decency and we should look more to that in the future. host: colleen, author of reform nation and the movement to end mass incarceration and kevin ring, vice president of the criminal justice advocacy program. thank you so much to both of you for coming in. later, a discussion on the -- on homelessness in the u.s. with national alliance steve berg. call in to participate in open forum and the numbers are on your screen. stay with us. ♪ >> weeknights at nine eastern, sea's encore presentation of our

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store. browse for our latest collection of c-span products, apparel, books, home decor and accessories. there is something for every c-span fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at c-span shop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. it is open forum so i will take your calls for about 20 minutes on anything you want to talk about about what's happening in washington. lexington, kentucky, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. i want to make the point about the private interests and our criminal justice system. i'm a suburban mom and republican and i support middle justice reform. i find a lot of my politicians don't seem to share my view or

feel like we went to four with reform and i worry about the special interests, the private companies involved in our system. and their political engagement and political money. i feel that's driving a lot of the opinions of our elected officials on the right and left and i want to make that point this morning. host: let's talk to bill in florida, independent. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: are we online? host: you are on the air, go ahead. caller: i just want to talk about our major problem in the country today as a common man. lawyers are like buzzards. we have to simplify our legal system. the more complicated it gets, the more lawyers we have. somehow, we have to regulate the attorney fees. that would solve our problems. regulate the fees.

in florida, we have the highest rate on automobile insurance and homeowners insurance. my agent told me that 76% of the claims are filed by lawyers. that's a major problem. we have to simplify it but the lawyers which are politicians, most of them are keeping us from that. thank you. host: glenn is next in madison, illinois, democrat. glenn? you have to mute your tv, i can hear in the background. no? john in virginia, independent line, good morning. caller: good morning, i have two points. you had an earlier caller talking about asylum and how necessary it was we had to extended to all of these immigrants.

my question is, yes, they have a right to apply for asylum that maybe you could look up the law. i wouldn't know where to look. does the law say if we cannot hear their case that day that we have to let them in like a checkout lane? could they apply for asylum at their embassy in their home country? why would they have to be let in that day like we are doing now? that makes no sense. the asylum laws as you stop at the first country. we have 180 countries that the people were pouring in and applying for asylum. we cannot be to first country. the other point and i know you hear all the time, for three years, these people have trump derangement syndrome.

i used to think it was a joke but it's obvious there is such a thing. i was wondering if you could maybe do a whole show and bring in an expert like a psychiatrist and explain how people can be that filled with hate. it's not like they just don't like trump, that's fine. everybody doesn't like somebody. but they get to the point where no factual interfere. they've made up their mind and you know -- and they know they are right. it's just getting out of hand. you almost feel sorry for people to have it. that's all i have today, thank you. host: in other news, here's the associated press -- here is president biden talking about the release of the american hostages from venezuela. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its

caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> they have american prisoners released from venezuelan prison. they are on their way home from to the united states. we've secure the release of every american held in venezuela. they are on their way home. we have no higher priority than hostage release. venezuela thus far is making a commitment. it's not over yet. we will see if they hold them but we will hold them accountable. as a matter of fact, one hostage was sent home and that's one who is going to be tried. what else do i want to say to you?

venezuela will release 20 political prisoners in 20 on top of the five. they are all venezuelans that have been let out of jail. they have a right to due process. that's all i want to say. host: we are back at open forum, taking your calls from tennessee , democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i want to call and say that everybody complains about the different races. there is only one race and that's the human race. all the problems that we've had with like people in the chinese but basically, i feel we brought the chinese here to build our railroads for us and they did a good job. we brought in all the different races to do different jobs for us. unless you are native american,

you came from another country. when i was young, and came to visit some of my family in alabama, i got in trouble be was it said blacks only. i'm black i got in trouble. there is a long line waiting at the white fountain we've only got one in front of it. i waited and i got my drink at the water fountain and i got in trouble. host: how old were you at that time? caller: i was about four or five. i was assessed a little child. being the fourth in line come i had to be sassy to be heard. i just feel that a poem i wrote years ago, hindu, muslim, christian jew, nonbelievers including you, in the eyes of our creator we are sister and brother. get on with your life and accept

one another. we very seldom all agree. one thing we do agree on is to love and accept our full lives love and there is but only one race and that is human. we are like the wildflowers god created. we come in all kinds of colors and shapes and sizes. but we are all human. host: got it, thank you for the poem. orlando, florida, independent, good morning. caller: good morning, i want to speak to the border crisis. a lot of people one comprehensive immigration but we get to the point where we are having thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people come in and we don't know where they are coming from exactly. there was a point yesterday in an interview and one woman got her asylum hearing in 2031.

the asylum law states we will take you if you are coming in for asylum from persecution. 90% of these people are coming in and just want better work opportunities. at some point, when people say this is racist or whatever, you go and you find where people are not assimilating like they used to. they will come in and they learn our culture and they learn our language and the work. no one is against that. when they come in and they don't want to learn the language and they take up all the emergency rooms and take up the school system we have to hire teachers that have to speak three languages to teach these children, this is not normal. people are acting like we are not going to do anything until we get comprehensive immigration.

that border needs to be secure. it's just getting out of hand. i would like to have someone address that and say why can we just seal the border and move on from there? it seems like people are turning a blind eye to the whole thing. now it's affecting democratic cities like chicago and new york and d.c.. now these sanctuary cities are saying we don't want these people. this was not what they used to say. these to say we'll take anyone and now they've got them and they are complaining. they are trying to make the texas governor the bad guy. it's really joe biden needs to step up and do something, thank you. host: bay city, michigan, republican line. caller: am i on? hi. want to call about denver's

ruling on donald trump. host: the colorado ruling? caller: the colorado ruling and it's getting out of hand in colorado because in addition to this, i am in michigan and i get taxed on any package that i send to my sister. i want to know how they can do this. they levied the tax on their residence unilaterally i might add in any package that comes to their house, they get text on. they don't charge them when i send a package out there, they charge me for it. this is in cooperation with united states post office obviously. they are charging all the citizens in the united states tax to send a package to their

friends and relatives in colorado. that i don't like about that state. i think it has to be looked at and also they are balloting, they do not have a legitimate vote out there. my sister keeps getting ballots for my mother that died several years ago that lived with her. and also my daughter who just died. and she lived with her. these ballots come to the house for voting every year. they were supposed to have cleaned up their balloting. i guess they must not have. host: about the colorado ruling, this is the front page of the washington times this morning --

heather is in smyrna georgia, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning, i would like to address criminal justice reform. i think the federal government needs to look at states in these local counties to see how their dealing with petty crime. i'm 58 years old now but when i was a young woman, i'm here in the state of georgia and i arrived here with two small children and i'm working at a low-paying job. i had to pay water, gas and life and the sheriff came to the house and locked me up and my children were there and i said

somebody needs to take the kids because i've no family in the state. the kids went into foster care and i went to jail for writing a bad check. i couldn't bond out because they didn't have anybody to bond out. when i got out, then i had to go to court to get my kids out of the foster system. all i'm saying is petty crime and some of these local counties within these states, the way they handle it is horrible and my girls are adults now but they will never forget being in foster care. they had to sleep on mattresses in the hallway and sometimes petty crimes are not just to find like that but that can lead to bigger issues. it's horrible. somebody needs to look into it. host: how long were you in prison? caller: i was in the local county jail for about 30 days. the bond was low but i had no one to bond me out because i was in a state by myself.

i was in the county jail for 30 days than i had to get my children out of foster care because pi had no family here to take them. i will never forget it. it's just the level of petty crime and what it leads to and the way they handle it in some states, it's horrible. host: mike is a republican in bessemer city, north carolina, good morning. caller: a couple of points if you allow me. they always call trump a dictator and he wants to be a dictator. here is the big difference on this, the biden administration is acting more like a communist country. they are using their justice system to go after conservatives, going after christians, going after everybody that disagrees with them even if somebody on twitter liked mr. trump posts, they are

going after them. that is the true meaning of dictatorship. host: when you say somebody liked one of donald trump's posts, the justice department goes after them for liking a post? caller: yes, they go after companies to find out who liked mr. trump post. about the election being stolen. it was in the paper last week. host: do you remember which paper? caller: i think it was the washington post or the new york times. one of those two liberal papers. the justice department wants to review the records on even the companies that -- the people that he liked on their thing on social media so i don't know.

host: queens, new york, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. you are going to love me because i have muted my tv. host: i appreciate that. caller: you are welcome. this is where the love ends. call you just had on in the call you had from virginia talking about trumped arrangement syndrome. this is nonsense and its gas lighting. there is a lot of things i don't like about trump and it's not hate but he is everything i was taught not to be growing up. he is a grifter, he's not faithful, he cheats everyone, the man is a malignant narcissist. he has antisocial personality disorder, he's paranoid, he doesn't hesitate to humiliate people, make fun of them and call them immature names.

he is himself emotionally immature. he is unfit for the office. please, callers don't tell me about trumped arrangement syndrome, it doesn't apply. that goes the same for the caller in north carolina. they are going after trump and they're going after conservatives if they break the law and that's for no other reason. what's up with this communist stuff as well? that's it, thank you. host: that's the last call for open forum for today. up next, national alliance and homeless cheap policy officer discusses the state of homelessness in the u.s. we will be right back. ♪ >> book tv every sunday on c-span2 teachers leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.

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>> all this month, watch the best of c-span's q&a. on sunday, prosperity gospel scholar talks about her memoir, reflecting a being diagnosed with stage iv colon cancer at the age of 35. sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen on our free c-span now app. >> all next week, book tv's afterwords is in prime time were nonfiction authors are interviewed by journalists, legislators and more on their latest book. monday night at 8 p.m. eastern, karqa fitzpatrick looking at school choice movement as the future of education american is interviewed by the washington post education reporter.

watch all next week in prime time at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. also go to c-span.org to get the complete schedule. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. i am joint by the cheap policy officer for the national alliance to end homelessness. welcome to the program. guest: thanks for having me. host: this is the wall street journal with this headline -- why did it go up so high? guest: there are short and long-term things. i think there were eight programs during covid that ended that were helping states of money to help people pay rent. those programs ended and we are seeing a lot of people,

first-time homeless but the longer-term trend is a long-term trend in housing with rental housing getting more expensive. there's the trend of modest rents for a apartment going up faster than wages in a modest job. that's been going on for decades and it's really starting to overwhelm people. host: how was this count done? how do you really count homelessness? guest: these annual accounts are done in each community as they get organized and get a lot of volunteers to come out and go out over the course of a couple of nights in january. they find people who are living on the streets to get some basic information from them and get a odount and then people who are staying in shelters or temporary housing are easier to count. the people running the shelters know how many people are there. host:

host: and families with children, that rate has also gone up. guest: yeah, and not as fast. that was particularly sort of a good news story from the covid era that because of some of these assistance programs targeting to families with kids, there were a lot fewer families falling into homelessness because of those assistance programs. but then those have ended and now we're seeing an increase there as well. host: and if you would like to talk to our guest, steve berg about the homelessness in america and that rate, you can do so on our line by region, this time. so if you're in the eastern or central time zones, it's 202-748-8000, mountain or pacific, 202-748-8001. you can also send us a text at 202-748-8003. and we're also on facebook and

twitter. what do you say to people that say, look, you know, homelessness has gone up. it continues to go up. all these federal programs and all this money that's going into it, it's just not working? guest: unfortunately, the federal programs are not funded at the level that needs solve the problem. it's interesting to compare the housing programs with health care programs, for example. the health care programs are entitlement money. everyone who's eligible for the medical program gets help. so people in nursing homes and medicaid pays for 40% of americans who are in nursing homes and anyone that's eligible goats help. whereas the housing programs, they're funded like to serve about a quarter of the people who are eligible. and the other three quarters

just go on a weight list and wait sometimes for years to get any help. so the federal funding in the housing area is really falling short, i'm afraid. host: so does what does the federal government need to do besides more funding? guest: yeah. so the more funding is important as i said. homelessness is essentially a housing problem. and the housing is expensive and it's getting more expensive and the federal programs just aren't keeping up at all. there are -- the federal government funds homeless programs in every community that help find people who are homeless and keeps them safe and provide shelters, short-term temporary housing for people and then helps them wade through whatever bureaucracy they had to wade through in order to try to get housed. those programs are important, again, not funded at the level that they need to be to really

serve everybody. and then i think the other thing that's important is health care. i mean, there's a lot of health care issues among the homeless population whether it's behavioral health care or substance abuse, mental health problems but just a lot of physical health problems. people being or released from the hospital and they don't have a place to live and they go right to the street. you see people living on the streets with serious medical conditions. host: how big of a problem is mental health issues? on the homeless population? guest: the data shows that maybe a quarter of the people who are homeless have some sort of mental health problem, a lot of times, serious mental health problems. it's not like everybody that's

homeless or mentally ill or even most people. but 25% is more than in the general population. so the homeless programs, that ends up being communities responsive to mental illness, a lot of times because a lot of people have trouble getting treatment. the treatment is, they're not available or it's underfunded or there's bureaucratic rules to try to get into the treatment. so a lot of people just end up on the streets with the mental health problem. host: so there's people that are like first-time homeless or temporarily homeless and then there's the chronic homeless. first, how do you define chronic homelessness and what's the difference in the policies that would alleviate the kind of the first-timers and the chronic? guest: so chronic homeless is basically people who are homeless a long time and tend to

be people with disabilities with health issues, behavioral health issues which is why they stay homeless for a long time because it's hard to find a landlord who will rent to people. there are sort of program models, if you will, the people who run these homeless programs have figured out over the years how marley effective for people with -- who have been homeless for a long time and have a disability maybe a mental disability, the intervention, they use the name permanent support of housing. won't be able to pay rentso they themselves so much they get help paying the present and they also get a menu of supportive services that include mental health treatment in order to stay stable in their houses. now other people that don't have those more severe problems, they

might have just fallen in homelessness recently because of a string of bad luck. for people like that, we usually find it a much shorter term intervention works really well. and then people come and help them deal with whatever they're dealing with, usually getting a job at the v.a., the department of veterans affairs runs a really good program for veterans in that kind of situation. so that's one of the models. host: and i wanted to ask you about that and we will start taking calls shortly, but the veterans -- homelessness of veterans has been going down but then you said sit went back up. why? guest: this is same reasons. people are dealing with increased housing costs. housing going -- the cost of a housing going up faster than wages. and then these other kinds of, you know, covid era sorts of

issues. so we're just seeing a lot of people falling into homelessness for the first time. host: let's talk to callers. anthony is in new york. good morning. caller: good morning, mimi, how are you? >> good. caller: thank you. the thing is i work as a homeless outreach worker as well as a social work therapist in new york state prisons. and i am coming from the angle of the psychological damage of poverty that the economy creates a lot of poverty itself. and in order to try to address the horrible cycle of self-blame and depression, sometimes in an abstract psychological way and i went into work before i did a group for the gentleman and i said gentlemen, on the way to work, i spotted a homeless

unemployed squirrel and we -- so abstract but we were all born at home and we're all born employed and i knew to take away the abstract of self-blame and depression. because the economy creates a problem and you end up homeless or unemployed and it can really is kind of silly but the reality of it -- not silly at all. i just want to address that abstract part of it. guest: well, first, thank you for the work you're doing. that's such important work. the connection between the prison and homelessness is way too prevalent and it's so important that i think more and more state prisons are having these kinds of programs to help people avoid homelessness when they get out. so thanks for your work. host: melissa is next in friday harbor, washington. good morning, melissa.

caller: good morning. i have been incarcerated. i've been in the foster care system. i've been homeless. i've had and had friends who both had addiction problems and died from their addiction problems. when i was in jail, most of the women in there were in there for drug possession, for financial crimes, check hiding, basically and prostitution. and it was pretty evident that most of them -- the cars rated system was not doing them any good. people certainly have problems who were in the prisons but nobody's doing it by choice. nobody's doing it because they're trying to take advantage of somebody and the systems that are available are overwhelmed.

they're not -- especially effective in a lot of cases and actually abusive in others. and so i just -- i would -- i think that addressing the root causes, the things that make people, not make them, because it's choice, but that cause them to feel so desperate that they have to behave in things that they know are not right are probably a better way to look at it than the sort of reactionary sort of last-minute, you know solutions that lot of people, a lot of lawmakers, a lot of advocates, even, seem to come up with. host: what do you think, steve? guest: yeah, thanks for sharing that. i think you're absolutely right. we know what to do about all of these problems.

i mean, there's places around the country where you can point to programs that are really working for people and getting great results. but unfortunately, they're not available either because the funding just isn't sufficient or people running -- make them really follow the most best and most effective practices. host: cindy in florida. you're next. caller: yes. i wanted to talk about the homelessness in florida. i want to read something. i looked at the homelessvoice.org and also around where i live and it says florida has once again found itself leading the country in homelessness with an almost 20% increase from last year by mckenna homelessness in florida.

it's up 19%. our homelessness in florida is hidden in plain sight. this is a vacation spot. the police make the homelessness get up and move out and they don't -- a lot of people live in their cars underneath the causeway and then the police runs them out because they don't want to show the vacation people the homelessness that we have here in downtown saint pete. they're destroying the homes to build multi-million-dollar sky scrape condos? i mean the homelessness here is not transparent. and it needs to be. and the hoards of transplants coming in and they are increasing the prices in florida

of $350,000 houses now are sacks. it's just incredible what is going on here. and people don't see it. it needs to be transparent what is going on here in florida. host: what do you think? guest: yeah, this is one of the reasons the issue of transparency is one of the reasons why things like this, these homeless counts are important. i mean, it's just -- it's gotten a lot of news these recent figures and in florida, it's gotten a lot of news. and we're hopeful that this will sort of wake people up a little bit to the extent of the problem all over the country. and to the fact that there are solutions. because you can look at other places even though nationwide the numbers went up, there were places where the numbers went down pretty substantial and a

lot of it is because as i said, we know what to do and they're doing what we know works. host: we got this on x. can the guest comment on using the preferred term of unhoud people instead of homeless, emphasizing humanity and avoiding sticking my accusation -- stigmatization? guest: i think emphasizing humanity is really important. the most important thing is anybody who's thinking about or talking about this problem looks deep within themselves to make sure that they are getting that these are our fellow americans, human beings who are having a really hard time. host: let's talk to sheryl in

manteca, california. caller: thank you so much for taking my call. you know, i live in california and of course, i see a lot of people that are unhoused and living on the streets. and, you know, to me, where i think the problem is is that, you know, instead of us looking at these people as human beings that, you know, need help, you know, we kind of stigmatize the situation. my solution to it is because we have homeless in just about every city in this country, why not set up tent cities? take some designated land that, you know, we have, allow people to put their tents there, bring in, you know, the facilities where they can take a shower, they can use the restroom, and

then provide, you know, transportation and the things, you know, that give them the quality of life that they would have if they had a roof over their heads because then, you're giving them a leg up, you know? and then you can deal with, you know, separating those who, you know, are going to be homeless because they're dealing with mental illness from those who just had a bad break in life and all they need is to have an address in order and resources in order to get a job so they can get a roof over their heads? right now, we're just throwing money at a situation that we cannot solve unless we look at it holistically. you know, and this country has the money and the land and the resources to, you know, do this and do it right. and that is my comment, and thank you.

host: what do you think? guest: thank you. well i think the idea that dealing with the problem holistically is very important. i mean, the cities have tried the idea of tent cities somewhere sort of out of town and it just -- it doesn't really work very well. people who were homeless, they need jobs and the jobs are not out somewhere in some rural areas. the jobs are in the cities where they are. that's the reason a lot of people who are homeless are in the cities in the first place because they want jobs and that's where they are. the programs are in the cities. the mental health treatment facilities are there. so it's important to have temporary places for people to stay until they can get actual housing, but we tend to favor

sort of buildings with roofs and heating systems for that. host: well, here's another thing that's going on. this is on fox 23 news dot-com with this headline. oklahoma town passes ordinance to ticket people who are experiencing homelessness. what do you think about that? guest: yeah, the term criminalization of homelessness is something that's, you know, people have done in this country for a long, long, long time. and what you get is a bunch of people who are in and out of jail with criminal records that was like, they send a solution give people jobs that having a criminal record just makes it harder to get a job, harder to present an apartment. so, you know, locking people up for being homeless besides possibly being against the

contribution of the united states is also very bad homeless policy because it just makes the problem harder to solve. host: and al this new jersey. good morning. caller: how are you doing? it's funny i put on the tv c-span that they always watch and i got to say, my story. i was homeless. so i know all about this. it's a failed system. if you don't have a job, i applied for social security. took forever to get my check. that wasn't enough income just to pay for anywhere to live. i applied in all the places that are low-income housing. they take six, seven years just to get your name to come up on the list. a lot of them are full. you still don't get enough on your check because of your rent and everything. because it's not enough financially. and all my friends live with

their parents. and they were many their 30's and 40's. they became homeless and applied for low income in philadelphia. it's a broken system. without finances, you are going to be homeless for a long time unless your family helps you or you finally get in low income. but that will be years to wait on the list. and i lived in my car. it was terrible. this is a broken system that needs to be re-up graded and fixed. i don't see nothing good happening. i just got lucky after so many years of being homeless. thank you. host: al, when you said you got lucky, were you on the waiting list or what happened? how did you get that low income house something. caller: i just put -- my name in the place in new jersey and it

just happen to be -- they came open at that time and i got in in about a month or two. i just -- the lady said i hit the lottery and that's just what happened. host: and are you working now? caller: no, i'm on social security disability. because of what happened it took so long for my social security to be approved and that's when i had money to pay my rent because they do a background check and the poor people don't have a lot of income or social security or money coming in, they're in trouble. because with the finances that you need to be approved, you're going to stay -- you're going to still be homeless and have nowhere to stay. host: all right. caller: yeah, everything just fell in place, but man, all my friends of philadelphia, we all put applications in low income house and there -- it was all you hear.

you got be 55 and older. you had to make a certain amount of money. you got to put your name on the list. they would call you. it was terrible. it was terrible. host: what do you think, steve? guest: this is what i was referring to that the programs are not being funded to do the job they're supposed to do. so people end up on waiting lists. the issue of social security disability, that's how people with severe disabilities are supposed to be able to meet their living expenses and be able to pay rent but that program -- one, the story about how long it takes to be found eligible are region and two, as

time goes on, the social security benefits and the s.s.i. benefits don't keep up with the rising costs of housing. that's a continuing problem. and it also hits people with disability and for people who are older, too. one of the things that we're seeing in some of these accounts and data testimonies that we pick up from different communities is the number of older people who for the first time in their life at age 50 or 55 or 60 are becoming homeless because they can't work anymore or the kind of jobs they had, they can't do any more because sort of a physical breakdown or somebody has a disability and is living with their parents for a long time. their parents die. and then they are left out on the streets. so this is an increasing problem of older adults experiencing homelessness.

host: pensacola, florida. ridge, good morning. caller: i volunteered at a homeless shelter for years and you are correct that cost for paying rent and getting into apartment is astronomical but what i see is the drug and alcoholism addictions in this country. and until we solve that, it's just going to be a vicious circle. because my friends tell me why can't they just get a job? well, they can't work an eight-hour job because of their addiction and alcoholism. and until we get that figured out, it's just going to be a continuing problem. and i thank you for taking my call. guest: thank you. i mean, that raises an important issue. not everybody who's homeless has an addiction, but the homeless

system ends up dealing with a lot of people who do. there are treatments for many of these addictions that work really well if people can get them. but just as the previous caller was talking about, the problems getting signed over by social security or the problem getting an addiction treatment program are very difficult and it takes a lot of people a long time. there's just not enough help. host: let's go to sherman oaks, california with gregory. good morning. caller: hello. i have two solid ideas, i think that would be helpful to an unhoused and homeless people. here's the first. who things that we rarely hear mentioned together. two big problems -- homelessness and climate. nobody has the minuscule carbon footprint of the homeless.

meanwhile, the rich people and the super rich, in many cases like the lady from florida said are pricing out housing for people and making them become homeless. i think that's humongous environment and carbon footprint and if we take climate seriously, that has to be taken into account we need to pry loose some of the billions that are rightfully being expended on climate mitigation and climate resilience and of course the carbonization and apply some of those funds. i mean, quite a bit of funds to homeless people because in a sense, they're doing their part. and i think that needs to be recognized in a practical way that actually helps them with the money which if mr. berg is saying, is in such short supply. and one other proposal. i live in california. the cacophony of vehicles,

recreational noise from cars and pickup trucks and muscle cars and the rest, the explosive sounds they make and the droning pickup trucks. this stuff just goes by constantly. even if i didn't have ptsd, i would get it. the state needs to end legislation of the sale. these devices and gets them out of the vehicle for the good of everybody but especially the homeless. those are two good ideas. i'd like to hear the guest mr. berg thinks of these ideas. guest: thanks to that. one thing is i think the idea of like noise on the street, that relates to a problem that people have is just the lack of sleep. i mean, we hear this from people who are experiencing homelessness all the time just

how hard it is to get any kind of good night's sleep. so people are just tired allhe time. that's just one of the things that goes with the -- that condition. and the other thing is the relation to climate change. i actually tnkhere's a number of different ways in which climate change and homelessness interact. one is just a lot of homelessness lately in recent years has been caused by some of these climate-related disasters. we have people in the gulf coast who were made homeless by floods that destroyed their apartments that years later are still living in tents or living in their cars. same with in california with wildfires. and i think right now, the disaster response that we have doesn't deal with long-term housing problems. some to have the hurricanes -- there's been recent exceptions with some of the hurricanes

where the department of housing of urban development has made money available to help move people back into permanent housing either in their communities or if they have to move somewhere else in other communities but that's still not a standard part of disaster response. so that -- this host: i will end with this comment we got on x, no one should ever have to face the poity of homelessness. the fact that there are so many people who are homeless means the government has failed at one of its functions to ensure the welfare of its citizens. the chief policy officer on the web at in homelessness.org. thank you for joining us today. that is it for today's washington journal.

we will be back tomorrow morning. thank you. ♪ middle east policy advocates discuss israel discussing military tactics and then exit scenario for the israeli army. watch live at 1:00 p.m. or online at c-span.org. welcome, my name is bradley austin. i am a ranger and we are here in baltimore, maryland.

it was here in the spring of 1826 that a young enslaved african-american boy frederick to landed to start his adventure and a new chapter in his life and he chronicles this in his first autobiography. other passengers on the ship were a herd of sheep that were sent here for the market. he had on his first pair of pants that were made specifically for the trip. this was the first town that he ever saw and after dropping off the sheep he was taken by a deckhand to meet the family that he would live with until he was

in his 20's. frederick done leslie of done a number of homes here. his second home was on bell's harbor. frederick. is teaching a young child how to read. he asked the mistress if she could teach them how to read. she had no experience of being a slave master or owner but she taught him along with tommy his abcs, small words and he made remarkable progress. after a couple of weeks she

shared with her husband what she was doing and he exploded. he said that if you teach a black man how to read you will ruin him forever. frederick done a slater wrote that this was the first antislavery lecture that he experienced and they gave him the motivation to learn and he realized that information is knowledge. in order to facilitate his self-awareness, use of resources at hand. because of his place in the house he had access to food, biscuits and warm bread. in that situation he was better off than some immigrant neighbors that needed to barter

bread for lessons from his white playmates. >> weeknights at 9:00 eastern c-span's encore presentation of books that shaped america. where we look at key pieces of literature including the life of frederick done. he describes his life on eastern maryland. watch c-span's encore presentation of books that shaped america. or go to c-span.org/books that shaped america to view the series and learn more about each book featured in the series. c-span is your unfiltered view of government we are funde