war that they adopted the 14th amendment to provide legal protection to those who had formally been enslaved. those who had sworn an oath to prevent them from holding office if they had caused an insurrection. this is edward in clarksburg, west virginia. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. nikki haley, i was taught in school the reason the civil war was started was over states rights. i do remember that we were

taught that slavery ended in 1863. i would like to tell your listeners to remember one thing, history is according to who writes it. host: david in long island, new york. caller: good morning. i wanted to say he was never found guilty, donald trump, of an insurrection. there were no criminal charges brought up about the insurrection. it's actually against the law for the states to ban him from that because it is a federal crime, not a state crime. he was never charged with an insurrection. the impeachment, he was acquitted. people just don't like donald

trump. you don't have to vote for him. you go into the voting both and pull the lever for whomever you like. i don't understand why all of these people in these states are ganging up to kick him off the ballot except for a fear that he may win. he has never broken any laws they have not found him guilty of any of these indictments. he will become president and we will see prospery. host: this is another david in maryland, a democrat. caller: good morning c-span in the american people. that guy said he had not commitd y crimes. in section three of amendment

14, the constitution has held him accountable. the legislative branches above the executive branch. i hope the supreme court follows the constitution. host: the way the this country is set up they are supposed to be co-but do you feel that the judicial has more power than the executive? caller: no i'm saying the constitution as above them. it is like a ladder, at the top of the latter is the constitution and below that is federal law. all of those bridges are beneath the constitution.

people talking about being the crime committed. it does not say that in the 14th amendment. it's a constitution versus trump, is not the american people versus trump. thank you and you have a good day. host: just about 25 minutes left in this first segment of the washington journal and at 8:00 a.m. eastern we will continue with our authors week serious and joined by kimberle crenshaw author of #sayhername. we will have that conversation from 8:00-9:00 and continue with our wrap up of the year that was in politics. we are getting your top political story of the past 12 months. from tampa florida, and independent. caller: good morning john, it's

nice to speak to you. every time i call you are always there. i like how you interact with the colors and challenge their thoughts. my top story is george santos and how republicans kept him there. the first time i ever called i spoke with you when trump first got there and he was saying make america great again. it still bothers me today, what do they mean by make america great again? i hope in 2024, explain what did that really mean and when was americo really great for everyone? i am 62 years old, a veteran.

and i remember my grandfather and he had to call young caucasian boys yes sir. as at the time they want to go back to? that's one thing i would like to know. hey john, you do a great job. host: wendy think this country was at its best? --when do you think this country was at his best? caller: the country when it was at its best was also at its worst. it had to have been before i was bored but during that time, they were still at their worst because they kept certain people out of the workforce and when

they kept certain people out of the workforce. you reap what you sow. in this 70's they kept the black man out of the house because they offered welfare to black women. now those people in my age group don't want to work and are upset. when it comes to immigration, they don't want people to work on certain jobs. i was in the military and i've been to south america. now those people are the people coming here. you reap what you sow.

the time they were great they were always bad to other people. it's confusing john but i really appreciate to get to talk to you and i like how you interact with the colors and i wish you a happy new year. host: hope wechat in 2024. this is john in yukon. what was your biggest political story of 2023? caller: all these people bashing trump will take their name out of his mouth. i go back a long way in politics. when trump was in there, my oil

was 1.07. i can't use home oil now i have to use electricity. keep his name out there, he did a great job. there was no war, we were all making money. everybody was happy except the democrats. host: you are calling in on the line for democrats. you are a democrat that was a supporter of donald trump? caller: i don't care what the republicans say about him. because who is running on the republican ticket?

the only one you hear about his nikki haley. keep the name out there, thus the most important thing. host: this is david in massachusetts, and independent. caller: good morning. my top political story is the roe v. wade thing and the problems people have with it especially the women in this country who say we have the right to do this. a man has no say in it. in 1972 it was only men on the supreme court. were they wrong because they were all men? it doesn't make any sense. a lot of black people are calling in must realize that planned parenthood was started to decimate the black community

through abortion. in my opinion, if we cannot respect the smallest and most vulnerable it waters down everything else. all of the shootings we have, where is the respect for life if you can't have it in its lowest form? that's my feeling on that especially about men not having a right and that decision when they made half of that child. i think people don't believe that as a human and they don't follow the science. and you do a great job with the show. host: next call is a democrat from ohio. caller: good morning sir what

has happened with this country with this president. i don't believe he is innocent because pictures don't mind. he is standing up behind the podium, if we lose this country we won't let them take this country back. these judges on the supreme court have a job to do for this country but the only way to clean up this mess is to limit terms on the supreme court, congress, senate everyone. they are supposed to be working for us. i'm at the bottom, i'm not rich. host: what kind of work do you do? caller: i am working for the

county. i don't want to put my name out there but i do work for the city. host: you talk about term limits, what is a fair term limit for member of congress? caller: six years. the only way you can clean up is by limiting their power. they are in there so long that they can be bought and i do believe people are getting bought by lobbyist and whatnot. and that's on both sides. you can't save the democrats are any better than the republicans because it's on both sides we need to discuss it and go forward. host: do you like any of your

members of congress from ohio? is there anyone you make an exception for? there are several members of ohio that have been around for a long time. caller: i vote as a democrat on paper but i consider myself an independent because i'm not gonna vote a straight ticket i vote for the best person for the job. man, woman and best person for the job but i do believe that you should have the term limit. you have to be fair across the board. host: this is john in north carolina, a republican. caller: good morning. i just want essay on cnn last night they had a thing about donald trump going through the

court system and donald trump not being able to be voted on by certain states we all know us middle-class people that the rich are going to get him in there and get him on the ticket they're going to allow him to run his mouth and get away with it. i agree 100% when you are in congress you should get six years and after that you get voted out. caller: who is a republican you like if not donald trump? i like nikki haley. she seems like she is on front and forward. she doesn't hold any punches. she has been out here for a long time doing multiple jobs. host: what about not mentioning

slavery when asked about the civil war? caller: any politician is going to try to sidestep that issue. if i was a politician i would've done the same thing. if she says one word wrong about black people she will be judge for it and coming from south carolina will make it that much where's because they were the first state to vote for the civil war. host: here's another john from bonita springs, florida. caller: good morning c-span my biggest story of the year is the southern border. it's wide open and a dereliction of duty. i'm ashamed the president will not confront the border and i am ashamed of anyone i can basically be ashamed of my was

happening on the border. people on the terrorist watch list are coming across the border. the kids, the trafficking. it's an absolute disgrace that we do not enforce the laws on the books and we have this on the southern border. it is amazing. i am flabbergasted that were letting this continue. there are people coming across the border who are freezing and have no method to take care of themselves. the amount of frustration and horror from the american people, i'm literally amazed by it. and secondly, i'm not a huge

donald trump fan but an insurrection? do people know what that really means. i believe the media in this country is working in propagandizing this. it was a riot that got out of control. i am shocked how easy it is to fool the masses in this country. it's very frightening. host: john on the border issue. this was last month, alejandra mayorkas called to speak on the

border with cindy hyde-smith. [video clip] >> of all the border policies are failing to work out. they have said there is a need for policy changes but the funding will do little to secure our border and instead it will throw money at sanctuary cities and inflate our asylum problem even further. this administration has a policy problem or implementation of the law problem. please explain why congress should provide you with billions in security funding if you're going to keep the same failed policies in place? >> i respectfully disagree with the premise of your question. i don't think it's a failure of

policy i think it's the failure of a broken system and under resourced department. this supplemental will assist us in further securing the border by adding critically needed additional personnel and technology what we are experiencing is an unprecedented level of global migration and that is gripping the entire hemisphere. host: alejandra mayorkas capitol hill last month. the justice department warning texans that they plan to sue over state law that will allow the local police to make immigration arrests. texas governor greg abbott signed sb four which authorizes

local police departments to arrest illegal immigrants but they have long held that illegal immigration is of the federal government and not local agencies. back to your phone calls, if we don't get to you we will continue to talk about your top political stories. this is christine, thank you for waiting in maryland, a democrat. caller: i think america was on its way to becoming great right after the civil war before the gym crow laws were enacted. is that where trump was to go back to?

or does he want to go back to when we had the jim crow laws? host: in modern times when was america at its best? caller: in modern times it was never at its best. we never had equal rights. not in modern times. host: this is bird in waynesburg, kentucky. caller: good morning, my biggest story is the upcoming presidential election. i think it's funny how the democratic party is trying to steal the 2024 election by preventing the front runner from being on the ballot while they complained that the 2020 election was stolen eliminating the opposition is a tactic used by dictators i guess that makes byte a dictator.

host: terry is next in lafayette, louisiana. caller: good morning united states. amen lafayette, louisiana. i agree with that guy. biden has changed trump policies and it's ruining this country. he's doing it on purpose because of the millions of dollars that china is giving him. all of these people are ruining this country. we are overwhelmed. in chicago, new york. you name it. they are ruining this country on purpose. host: how is this country ruined? caller: his administration needs

to be impeached. afghanistan was treasonous. he left billions of dollars of brand-new weapons over there for the taliban. i can hardly believe it. biden is a dictator and ruining this country on purpose with the millions he's gotten from china and other communist countries. host: jay from louisville, kentucky. caller: people talk about the insurrection with donald trump. he did because all of this stuff and people who say he didn't do that. yes he did. plain and simple. if they don't understand that then they are really stupid and i hate to say so.

and they are blind to what is going on. as far as anything else that's concerned, with the border issue. there needs to be something done about the border issue. host: is that somewhere the republicans and democrats can do something in 2024? caller: they need to come together and try to work something out to get that situation dealt with. host: that was our last caller in this last segment but ther's more to talk about this morning. next is our authors series continuing with ucla law professor kimberle crenshaw the author of #sayhername. stick around, we will have more of that conversation after the break. ♪

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critical race theory and cofounder of the american -- the african-american policies forum and her book is #say her name. guest: good morning. host: five days after 2014, michelle clouseau was killed in phoenix arizona, who is she? >> she was the daughter of a friend garrett. she was a sister of a brother who also. been killed her mother at that time was away from the home, actually petitioning california to release the young man who had killed her brother. there was a lot of compassion there for this young man. she went into the mental health crisis while her mother was away. the police were called. she did not want to let them in. she was fine. the neighbors heard that there

was a commotion and called fran on the phone and said the police were here and she was begging the police to allow her to intervene and calm down michelle. the police instead decided to break down her door and within a minute of confronting michelle, she was shot through the heart. she didn't say anything. the officer who shot her said the look on her face led him to believe he and several other officers that accompanied him were at risk of losing their lives. michelle died within days of michael brown but there was no protest about her, there was no coverage until fran garrett decided to take her coffin to city hall. that garnered media coverage. that garnered the attention of people to finally see that anti-black police violence is something that is experienced by

people across genders. that's when we saw michelle couseau's name and we decided to include her on our banner of black women who were killed by police. host: why are paper more familiar with michael brown -- >> rather than percy dupra. this is the reason for the book. anti-black police violence is largely seen as a problem that affects men and boys which it does, disproportionately so. that is a fact. it's also a fact that women and girls also experience police violence and they do so disproportionately. black women are 10% of the population. they are 1/5 of women who are killed. they are the only race and gender group in which the majority who are killed are unarmed when they're killed by

the police. this is a reality that falls under the existing framework we have to capture. when we imagine a problem impacting a particular group or race/gender group, we don't imagine other people being similarly affected. it's hard for us to remember the stories. it's hard for the media to figure out what the storyline is. it's not one of those situations where you start the story, a black person is in a car and they are followed and it ends with some kind of police violence. you don't have the beginnings of the story that began with somebody calls 911. we don't finish that story with -- and the police come and they see a person having a mental health crisis and they draw their gun. we don't have that is much. consequently, many of these stories end up with black women being killed start in a way people don't recognize.

that's why we started to do#say her name. that way people would learn the stories and be prepared to support their demands for justice. host: in this hour, we are talking with kimberly crenshaw and the book is #say her name. she is a ucla school of law professor, columbia law school professor as well joining us for this conversation and you can join us as well. the phone lines are split as usual by regions in this country. eastern or central time zones it's (202) 748-8000, mountain or pacific region, (202) 748-8001. one quote from your book --

it was a plea that started nine years ago with this effort. is there equality today? guest: no, there is not the quality across the board in this issue. it's an imperative that as we agitate for police reforms, as we think and talk about some of the consequences of police violence, that we make sure that black women and girls are also included in that. some of the struggle as i said earlier is conceptual. this is the ninth anniversary of#say her name. we started it when we went to the eric gardner margin washington, d.c.. tens of thousands of people were at this march. we were outraged as well that the person who killed eric garner was not prosecuted, but like everyone else, went there to lift up the names of other black people who were killed by the police. we had a banner that had the names of many black women who were killed by the police.

some people were supportive and gave us the thumbs up and some people were shocked because they didn't know any of these names. they didn't know it was a problem that impacted black women. there were a few who were upset that we were enter loping, i guess would be the thought, that this is not a black women's problem as well, it's black men and only black men. that is what made us know that we needed to say these names. for the most part, if you don't have stories to broaden your conceptualization of what a problem is, then you would see those coming in to say we have to say to misha anderson, india kaga. people wonder why we say them but if you don't know the story, you really aren't able to advocate for the kind of inclusions that we need. host: one chapter in your book

that viewers will know the name is breonna taylor. why was that story different and why did it seem to reach all of america? guest: i will add sandra bland to that. the two black people or women that most people recognize are those names. each of those moments are -- our hope was that that would be the anger to recognize the fact. what happened to briand a, what happened to sandra happens to more than just those two black women. there are many other stories but they are stories that didn't really capture the media's attention. one of the reasons that breonna taylor's name is known is because after breonna taylor was killed, the country woke up to a picture of a black man being killed.

breonna taylor's name was not part of the media for another month and a half. it was the recognition that police brutality is still a problem and then breonna taylor's name got integrated into the broader movement that 2020 is known for. other black women have been killed since then and the ability to incorporate that recognition, we haven't seen the shift that one would've hope would've happened after breonna taylor. guest: how do you track the number black women killed by police? host: that's a challenging thing. we have a chapter in the book that talks about the fact that there is no systematic way to track a many people are killed by the police across the board. that's number one. number two, those trackers that are there often don't differentiate by race and by

gender. there are some things that are on race and some things that give data by gender but to look at the intersection is a different challenge and that's what intersectionality is all about. some things happen to people because of race and gender and we don't have the conceptual tools to be able to track that. many of these tragedies are going to fall through the cracks. we have a mixed message. we use the data that are available but we also scour the internet, we scour the newspapers. sometimes family members write us and say you don't have this story. we include the story and we say this is a partial list. we have 190 as of the publication of the book, now 220. we think this is an undercount but we think it's important to begin that process of more

effective collection of data. host: the book again is #say her name. we've been talking about chapters in your book. explain with the african-american policy forum is and how long it's been around. guest: it has been around, we are heading toward 30 years soon. it was founded in the aftermath of the clarence thomas/anita hill hearing when it became clear that our history of understanding racism and sexism is not a robust history. we don't really know the stories about how african-american women have contested, how they fought against the ways that anti-black racism has played out in their lives. you had this monumental hearing with african-american women talking about sexual harassment

and a lot of people thinking that's not a black woman's issue when in fact, black women were the initial plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases. this was an example of what happens when our history and understanding about racism and sexism are mutually exclusive, the two don't come together in the public imagination. so someone like anita hill is literally illegible. people can't understand what she is talking about and they don't identify the struggle she represents as something that black women have had to deal with since we arrived on the shores. the organization was created to bring race and gender analysis, history, law, advocacy, human rights together under one umbrella. we have done work like addressing sexual harassment, violence against women and girls of color, affirmative action,

various places. if you have to have an intersectional understanding of social inequality in order to effectively address it. host: a monumental hearing with the clarence thomas hearings and you assisted on the legal team for anita hill. how did you come to be involved in that? guest: at the time that anita hill came forward, there was just a handful of african-american women who were law professors. most of us knew of each other but we didn't know each other personally. i've become acquainted with anita hill as a law professor and as soon i saw that it was in fact anita who the news reports were talking about, i immediately called her up. at that time, i was working on my second article on intersectionality called mapping the margins in that article was about how sexual violence and harassment against african-american women was an underreported, underappreciated reality in lives.

when african-american women come forward and talk about these experiences, they are likely to suffer under a whole range of allegations that reflect stereotypes, sexual stereotypes about black women. i was concerned that this was going to happen and of course wanted to support her in any way possible. within 24 hours, i was on a plane to washington, d.c. and pretty much everything that one could have predicted about how black women have been stereotyped happened to anita hill, from challenges to her veracity, efforts to allege that she was sexually deviant in some way, that she was jealous, almost textbook examples. the problem was that those who were running the judiciary committee were apparently unaware of the stereotypes and

were unaware of the way women in general weren't put on trial and black women in particular so it was a textbook example of what happens when we don't imagine african-american women as the women who are experiencing sex discrimination. host: let's go to some calls. if you want to join the conversation, the phone lines are regional, (202) 748-8000 if you are in the eastern or central time zone and (202) 748-8001 if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones. the book is #say her name and it came out this summer. kimberly crenshaw is the author from cornell university and graduated from harvard law school and is the founder of the african-american policy forum and with us for the next 45 minutes. michael in florida, broward county is a first. caller: yes, good morning.

i wanted to give kimberly a bump for her actions and -- and coordinating an de-colonize our culture. this book is just one piece of an effort she's done over multiple books. that's where the interest is, racism, sexism, classism multiple things and how they come together. the way to decolonize their institutions education, health care, housing, capitalism itself , policing which is what this book is about, if they could decon align eyes it -- if they could decolonize all of that, whether she does it now or later, she will squeak and squeal because simply grasped deeply that education, capitalism, health care, policing have zero to do with

competition, zero. students for example are not greyhounds are racetrack. if you understand where this came from, herbert spencer founded our education to come up with eugenics and founded our modern libertarians perspectives of limited government, he saw students as a means of improving, using science, the new science of evolution. this is the 19 sit -- the 1860's before the civil war. host: that's michael in florida. what do you want to pick up on? guest: this is interesting. i completely agree that there are foundations to the way we have traditionally thought about education. it's rooted in efforts to naturalize inequalities as a reflection of the inherent differences between people.

my specialization is the way that those ideas have percolated up through the law. plessy versus ferguson is the legal case that constitutionalize segregation. it was decided at a time in which most of the academy, most of the sciences believed in the idea there were natural differences between races, that african-americans were inherently different and inferior and to treat them as though they were the same, namely to strike down segregation was to give them something that they didn't deserve. when you have baselines that are predicated in the idea of inherent differences and inequalities between the races, no amount of inequality in society, no amount of accommodation of that inequality is seen as illegitimate and unconstitutional. we are challenged today to

attack and address some of the ways in which science is using contemporary society to say there are inherent differences between races and therefore inequality is just there. that is a lot of what critical race theory is about, challenging these baselines, challenging other ways their institutions tell us stories that make us think that racial inequality is just there and its natural we can't do anything about it. a lot of times, it's based on specious ideas of science with the test of time. everything people thought about the 19th century, in the 19th century has turned out not to be true. much about what we think about inequality today and what's in -- and what makes it make sense in a century will be recognized as just not true from standardized tests to the idea that colorblindness treats people equally.

that's an ideology but it's not a fact. host: denise hawkins, rochester, new york, age 18. age 93 in texas. 2021, age eight, what should we know about them? guest: we should know one thing a particular, that there is no protection against being killed by the police that we typically associate with innocence whether you're a child or you are a great grandmother. you are vulnerable to be killed. you are sleeping or awake or you're driving a car, a block from here with a baby strapped in the backseat of the car, whether your family has called for help or whether you happen to be riding in a car with the father of your child and that

person is a person of interest to a swat team. the traditional kind of things we think, mothers should be safe, children who are with their mothers should be safe, none of these things have proven to protect african-american people, african-american women and african-american children. in the book, we feature nine people, half of those women were killed in the presence of family, either parents, brothers or actually children. the idea that these women are a threat to the well-being of police officers, we tell that story so people can think critically about is it really the case that a woman who is having a mental health episode and didn't want to be stuffed in the backseat of a police car was a threat to the police officers

that required her to be killed? if we start telling these stories, we can help to create some distance between the typical narrative that we had to do it and the reality that you probably didn't have to do it. you could do it and you did do it and there is a difference between those two things. host: jamal, virginia beach, virginia. caller: good morning back. thanks for having me on. i wanted to say to this remarkable woman you have on, keep up the fight, be a hard charger and this is coming from a marine. be a hard charger in all your efforts. don't be deterred or swayed to do anything different because what you're doing needs to be done and the only reason it doesn't happen a lot is because it's uncomfortable to talk about it but we talk about children being assassinated at schools and whatnot. keep these efforts going.

i am very proud of you and thank you again for having me on. guest: well, thank you very much for that. obviously, these are not conversations that people want to have. frankly, given the fact that over the last year or two, we've heard a lot about children and the need to protect them from ideas rather than protect them from bullets. some of those bullets we might be concerned about actually come from the police. they come from moments when their mothers are being apprehended or engaged. this work is always difficult, always challenging. i am perfectly prepared to have debates about what the work is really about.

what we've seen over the last couple of years his specious arguments about intersectionality, about sexual racism, about education that really aren't preparing the american public or informing them about with the actual debates really are. host: what would be the policy objective that would make a difference in the say her name movement? guest: one of the things we make clear about our campaign is that we advance what the mothers and the sisters of women killed by the police are saying would make a difference in their lives. we don't go in with a pre-committed set of ideas. we asked what makes a difference for them. one important issue that rhonda dormeasm, the mother of corine gaines is advocating is that we rethink qualified immunity. host: remind folks what that is.

guest: it's basically a doctrine that protects police officers when they might be found guilty of violating constitutional rights based on some doctrinal toys just choices courts have made to basically say in effect that if the constitutional violation that has occurred is not one that has clearly happened before and clear rules have been developed that you can't therefore hold a police officer accountable, there are other aspects but it basically makes it very hard to hold police officers accountable. in the current case, the jury found that the officer who shot and killed karin gaines did violate her constitutional rights and issued a judgment on

her behalf, 30 plus million dollars. that was a largely white jury that looked at that case very closely and came to that conclusion. the judge overturned the case on the base of qualified immunity. this was a hot thing in the qualified immunity case argument could have been made before went to the jury. the speculation is that perhaps they didn't anticipate that a jury would say you have done wrong and the child who was hurt in this shooting also deserves a judgment. qualified immunity gets in the way of holding police officers accountable. it's one of the main things that many people who are arguing for reforms have argued about. there are other things as well.

police officers often don't have to say what happened. many times, they have a 48 hour hold which many of the mothers think the time is used to get their stories together rather than -- host: a hold on information? guest: information about what happened. this is sometimes the result of union negotiations protecting the police officers so they don't have to often say what happened until 48 hours. there have been efforts to get drug testing of police officers. certainly the victims are drug tested so shouldn't the police officers be? there are protections against that. more fundamentally, there is the fact that some of the mothers actually are forced to pay for things that are unthinkable. for example, india kaagr was killed by virginia beach police

when the police officers open fire on her in the car with her son because they were trailing the father of her son was also in the car. they knew she was there and they knew a baby was there. nonetheless, they opened fire on the car. after all was said and done, gina best, her mother, was sent to bill for the disposal of her daughter's car that they killed her in. it's that level of shocking inhumanity that the mothers tell us about and these are some of the things they want people to know. host: let's go to fairfax, california. caller: good morning. i know you are fine and you are great. i'm calling because i love "washington journal" for one thing, most of it and i love

kimberly and i wanted to say that here in antioch, california, we had a case about the police man sending racist text messages to one another. it's been exposed but the messages have not been published. the people who were involved, there is a protest there and i went with my friend leah and we are not people of color although she has five kids that are mixed race. we were very welcomed there. they had a sign with the names of all the people who have been murdered by the police. i was holding that sign. i was honored to do so. anyway, i wanted to give a quick example of what happened in my neighborhood in san rafael, california. i had a friend named darius

hewer and he was a young black guy who was blind and he had no money and no place to live. i had him in my important and before i knew it, i have the san rafael police basically pounding down my door and sticking their foot in my door. i could not get rid of them. they came in and he eventually said i'm leaving and then i said well i'm leaving, too and we both left. they had no charges of any kind. it's outrageous i guess what the police can get away with sometimes. somebody in san jose, another policeman had been quoted as saying he doesn't like black people. he wrote that somewhere in a text or something. i think this is a huge problem. host: she brings up a couple of issues. guest: first of all, thank you for being in california.

antioch has been the scene of a lot of things and that's the most recent thing. antioch was also the scene of a problem that happened a couple of years ago when african-american women were able to rent homes in fairly middle-class neighborhoods during a time when the housing crisis produced an opportunity for those who had government support section eight support to rent these homes. it was such an outrage to members of the neighborhoods that they were renting that they were able to come together and harass them with some support by the police. these families were harassed and given tickets for not bringing

their garbage in when police were called for domestic violence, sometimes they would go through the process of trying to determine who else was in the home. it was just general harassment. it all goes to show that many times, some of the things that happened reflect an attitude that african-american people have to be disciplined and contained. we have to maintain a tight leash on them and the attitudes that are behind that are not hard to find. back when rodney king was beaten, a lot of the text messages actually said he is a gorilla. they express the attitude of anti-blackness that then becomes the backdrop of the actual bad treatment.

there is that dimension of hostility. here's the point -- it's not just prejudice or the bad apples we have to worry about. it's the way the law helps facilitate the interactions that often lead to the kind of abuse we are talking about. the fourth amendment law allows police broad discretion to initiate contact and many times, it speak because of the overexposure of black bodies to this contact that then turns ordinary traffic stops into something that might be fatal or that turns noise disturbances into something that might be fatal or is a case we just heard where it's incongruent. there is a black man and a white person's neighborhood or home or apartment that becomes the predicate for initiating some type of police activity. sometimes that police activity

ends up in a fatality. you have to go all the way back to the laws that allow those engagements to happen in the first place. you need to understand that in light of the prejudicial attitudes we know some officers have. host: it's our annual authors week series. #today it's say her name, black women's stories. james has been waiting in monroe, louisiana, good morning. caller: yes, i have a question for your network. i'm curious to know that you have almost every day, somebody promoting a book and i'm curious to know, are you getting paid for that? host: it's our authors week series and we invite authors on different topics, different political viewpoints.

we've done this every year for several years. i'm short on time so do you have a question on this topic? guest: my question is, who fact-checks, do you fact-check all these books and everything people put on? they can say anything. do you believe everything that's written? host: do you want to go through your book writing? guest: sure. i have a research team. we've spent five years collecting the names and stories of the women who appear in the book. more broadly, the nine people who are featured, we have been with them pretty much since 2000 15-2016. much of the content in the book is talking about their loved ones. one of the important things we wanted to do in the book was

humanize these women's. we don't want them to be known for the worst thing that ever happened to them. we want them to be known for the lives that should have been, what they wanted to become, who they were. one of the things we do with our mothers is we bring them together live in our focus groups. we talk to them about the lives of their daughters and sometimes we just ve them tell a joke that your daughters might have told in the way t would speak. have a conversation with them. pick up the phone and that's them. what was their superpower? in doing that, it allowed them to spend time with tories of their daughters outside of the horrific thing that happened to them. it also gave us texture and nuance as to who these daughters were.

number one, it allowed us to alem t spe in their own words about their daughters. that is what appears in the book. it also allowed us to write a play. we've written a play called #say your name, the life that should've been. we imagine the daughters together where they are in a way that mirrors the fact that these mothers are together in their being together as they tell is one of the most transformative and healing things for them is many of them think they are the only mother of a daughter that's been killed. they think it's an exceptional thing. , did might daughter bring it on themselves so their ability to be together is what we want to chronicle in the book. the book is more than just a policy brief. it basically shows how you bear

witness, what happens when you bear witness and how the mothers and other family members are able to advocate for justice because they are part now of a community. host: tuscaloosa, alabama, you're on with kimberly crenshaw. caller: hello. good morning. i wanted to ask about natasha mckenna, young black woman and she was brought out of her jill's handcuffed and leg ironed and five police officers put her on the ground. when she first came out of the jail cell, she said you promise you won't kill me. they proceeded to put her on the ground naked, pin her down, tased her until she was almost lifeless. eventually, she died. is she in your book?

if you look at the george floyd brutality, this is 5-10 times more brutal than george floyd. four of these police officers were dressed in white uniforms similar to ku klux klan. host: let's go to that story for a second. guest: i'm so glad you raised her. yes, she is in the book. the natasha mckenna story, first of all, it's horrendous. it's painful. she was a person who is being held also because she was having a mental health crisis. she was held naked in the jill soap. there is a video of her being brought out as your caller says,

with five officers in hazmat attire. as they opened the door, her last words were, you promise not to kill me. they brought her out. she is in chains. and they bring her out and she is being pulled in is pulling back. they proceed to force her into a chair, a restraining chair. they put a hood over her and then they tasered her i think three times. in the process of this, one of her fingers was missing. she was unconscious by the time they put her in the ambulance. she died from that as your caller said. there was no protest. her name was not a name many

people knew. this did not begin a movement against the mistreatment of people who are incarcerated because of mental health issues. we talk about natasha mckenna and we raise it as -- why isn't this a case that everybody knows? it's not because we don't have video of it because we do. it's not because she was a danger to five police officers because she wasn't. it is partly because we don't know what to do with this case. it doesn't fall within any of the typical kind of framework that we have had. andrea ritchie and i several years ago wrote a report that said we are going to start creating some of the framework so people can recognize these because they are there. you just have to be able to see them and if you don't have a framework, and you will not be able to see that. host: when you say we are not

seeing this, the naacp is at the front of a lot of these protests once these things happen. the black lives matter movement, what's your relationship like with those groups? are they picking up on the #say her name movement? guest: after breonna taylor, there is much more awareness. they start saying the names. we will hear breonna taylor in earlier we start to hear sandra bland. sandra bland lost her life after a traffic stop in which she basically said why do web to put out my cigarette. this came about six months after we started so there is a greater awareness that we have to say some of the names of the women as well.

it's a long slog because we have thought about violence particularly police violence through a pretty recognizable narrative. it's african-american men being accosted. we thought about it through the paradigm of lynching, clearly. we haven't historically recognize the black women have also been disciplined by the police. host: what to do think of president obama's my brother's keeper initiative? guest: i am on record as a critic of its narrow parameters. my brother's keeper as some of your listeners might remember was a response to trayvon martin being killed by someone who is not a police officer but acted as though he was. our overall point was that trayvon martin was not vulnerable because he didn't have a role model, he was not

vulnerable because his father wasn't in his life. his father was in his life. the framework of my brother's keeper more or less responded to the vulnerability of trayvon martin and so these kinds of issues would fix the problem. that didn't fix the problem. these were structural problems, problems of seeing african-american people as dangerous. this was a criminal justice system problem and it was also the fact that black girls are also subject to this kind of discipline and we need to be concerned about them. one of our reports, black girls matter, found that black girls, the disparity in the in school discipline they experience in terms of suspension and expulsion is greater between them in white girls than the

disparity between black boys and white boys. race makes a bigger difference in how girls behavior will be interpreted and what kinds of consequences come out of that. that is the kind of disparity we don't talk about when we think about racism primarily in terms of how it impacts our brothers and sons. the point of all of this work is not to say that we don't need these kind of programs. is to say they need to be broadly gender inclusive. host: lots of calls for you, tennessee, you are on. caller: good morning. yes, first of all, it's tragic when anybody gets killed. this lady is trying to portray that policeman get out here and wake up. they want to go out in the black community and do prejudicial things. but that's not true.

you can look at those statistics and it shows you that's not true. i watch these programs on tv of the police department and here's the thing, if the police department tells you to sit down, you need to sit down. i don't care if you have a mental problem or what. they are in charge, they are investing a crime. when you buck up against them, they will do their job. this lady needs to be more concerned about black on black crime where they are shooting people randomly in these metropolitan areas. host: you bring up a lot of topics so our police inherently racist? guest: i appreciate this call. i think it reveals many of the dynamics that are at issue.

first of all, i don't care if you have a mental disability or not, you need to do what they tell you. that is precisely the attitude of the police officers. that is white disability is one of the most significant risk factors in losing your life. the assumption is that you are just choosing not to comply. there is the old saying that you hammer everything that looks like a nail. to a police, every moment of failure to comply looks like an excuse or justification for force. that's why tanisha anderson is no longer with us. there is a whole list of people i could name. the second thing that is an echo in that comment is the idea that the police are there to enforce order and anything that can be

interpreted as refusing to comply, whether it's what you say, the look on your face, the refusal to say who you are when you don't have to constitutionally, all that justifies coercion and force. that is unique in american policing. one of the reasons that we have that attitude is american policing came from slave patrols. the idea was we tell you what to do, our control over you is absolute and any time " youbuck" the system, that is a justification and requires this kind of coercive response. that's not inherent to policing. it's inherent to american policing.

it's the piece of american policing that makes sense if we understand initially where it came from and how it is racialized. it's been a grounding dimension of american policing. you heard it and that comment. host: he also said you should focus on black on black violence guest: it's what everybody wants to resist the idea that violence is real. they say you kill each other. most violence is interracial. it's the same with white violence. i really hear when people are talking about you need to get tough on crime. people say you need to focus on white on white crime. i rarely hear even the reality that mass shootings are mostly white on white issues. that is an ideological race card. you don't have the ability to talk about what we do as long as

you do it to yourselves. we know that's selective and we know it doesn't really tell us what needs to be addressed. we know that violence is a particular problem in a democracy we all should concerned about. host: back to california, kimberly in sacramento. caller: good morning. i cannot thank you from the bottomy heart for writing this book. i'm an activist and i've had the pleasure of sitting in the room with many of these mothers and grandmothers. when grandmotherad program and i was invited to it. it helped change my life and it's humbling. it's strong anderful and listen the daughter's voices when police violence attacks the community so harshly , it's like changing and it's part of history and thank you for writing the book.

host: how did you get involved in this issue? caller: i live in oakland and i'm an activist. i met oster grants mother in the street. they were fighting for justice that they achieved with oscar grant. there is no justice because the only justice you can really get is the life of the child. you do it so we hope we change so that many more children don't die, black and brown. it hardens my heart that many women never get the justice that they so rightly deserve. the families are beautiful and i thank you from the -- and i know they think you from about one of their hearts. so many people have come to this work through meeting uncle bobby and many of the mothers of people killed by the police.

host: what about the folks the caller brought up? guest: oscar grant, anyone who saw the movie fruitvale station knows that story. he was killed by transit police while he was lying on the ground. his family has turned that tragedy into a foundation and organizing space for other families to also -- who also have experience police violence. not all families respond in that way. the families who are part of say her name want to be clear that their daughters lost lives are not lost in vain. they want to be a source of support for other families who come into what they call the sisterhood of farrow.

they want to address one thing that was taken away from them call the loss of the loss. as your caller said, there is no justice in the sense that the persons lost life cannot be given back. the fact that it happens, the fact that a life that should've been will no longer be lived, the fact that families now have a huge hole and children and mothers and mothers no longer with them, that loss can be addressed. that's what most of the work of #say her name is about. in doing that, the mothers together create a testament to their daughters and sisters legacy. they find ways to ensure that the life that was lived continues to shape other lives in the future. host: pick up the book #say her name and they can read these

stories at the african-american policy forum. time for a couple of more calls. you're on with kimberly crenshaw. caller: yes, good morning. i agree about certain things but one of the things i disagree with is the arrest of some these black women who are suspect -- were with suspected criminals. as a foundational black american myself, i grew up in the 80's and 90's and there was a huge crack egg -- crack epidemic in black communities. when i was in an hbcu campus, that's historically black colleges and universities, there was a lot of drug dealers coming on campus.

they were dating a lot of the women that were in the university at the time. this was huge in the 80's and 90's. a lot of black women, we had one in particular who was famous and she was very emblematic of this era. her name was kimberly smith. she went to hampton university. she was dating a drug dealer and came from -- president clinton gave her a pardon. she came from a very prestigious family and she was dating a drug dealer. host: can you get to the question? guest: the question is., caller: how can the actual perception that some of these things are just fictitious and have no merit versus those things that have merit and warrant certain things the pooley -- the police do. guest: i'm also not entirely

sure what the question is but i will save this -- gina best the mother of india kagar was in a car with a person of interest to happen is to be the father of her child. they were visiting his family. the problem with that framework that i think i'm hearing is well she wasn't innocent because she was with someone who was of interest. i want the caller to read the story of gina best and reflect on is it saying -- are you saying that because she was with the father of her child that the police decision to disregard her life, the fact that she had done nothing wrong, the fact that her young son roman who now has a permanent disability because the police fired into that car, that

that's ok? that's effectively what the attitude of some of these police officers are, collateral damage. women and children being collateral damage. i would even go further and say because he was of interest, it did not warrant that level of swot level violence for someone who is a person of interest. what seems to sometimes be going on is there is a sense that the only time we should be concerned is with mistaken identity or wrong place, wrong time. the level of coercion in the disregard about the consequences of that coercion, that attitude is a long-standing attitude that has characterized policing, particularly policing in black communities. we have to be against all of it if we care about the sanctity of life and not try to cherry pick and take people out of our

concern because they happen to be dating someone who was of interest or a home, that's effectively what happened with breonna taylor. the idea was she used to date someone who is in the drug trade so she is not innocent. this is not how policing -- policing should transpire, particularly when people are not guilty of it anything that warns this kind of deadly force used against them. host: for more on the stories, the book is "#say her name: black women stories of police violence and public silence." kimberle crenshaw is the author. thank you. in our last hour of "washington urnal" we will return to the toc we began on, we are asking

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asking you this last hour of "the washington journal," for your top political story of the past 12 months as we look back on 2023, let us know what you think caught your eye as you watched the politics of this country be front page of "usa today," noting the notable passings of 2023, including former new mexico governor bill richardson, former justice sandra day o'connor, that robinson, rosalynn carter, the former first lady, also featured on the front page, along with senator dianne feinstein, a longtime senator from california pictured, as well. some of the passages of 2023, asking you what yothk the top political sto was the past two. republicans, (202)-74800

democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. this is the top political story in the country today on summer 29 of 2023, the state of maine has bar donald trump from the primary ballot, becoming the second state blocking him for running for the toy 24 elections because of his pardon insurrection on the capitol. the colorado supreme court found he could not appear on the ballot under the part of the constitution that prevents insurrectionists from running. the supreme court has been asked to review the case. both states temporarily put their decisions on hold so that donald trump can pursue his appeal. maine's secretary of state was on msnbc last night talking about her decision. [video clip] >> under the law, i made the

determination about trump's' is consent form and petitions to be on the primary ballot. however, any registered voter may challenge the qualification of any candidate within a five day period. i am required by law to hold what is called a section 336 challenge hearing. both parties come and present their evidence. they file a brief. i review only that evidence in the context of laws, the facts presented, and the constitution, and then i make a determination. i am duty-bound to make a ruling. and under the law, there is a compressed timeline evaluating this. i came to the conclusion that i

could not, unfortunately, or fortunately, wait for the u.s. supreme court to make a decision . the maine log required me to issue that decision. this is based on maine law -- based on maine law and the challenges presented in the 336 challenge. it was important to look at the evidence presented in the hearing and the laws presented under section 336, 337 and 443. it is a detail decision. we look under main laws and i am duty-bound to make this determination. i laid out that the record, streets that the evidence of january 6, 2021, which were unprecedented and tragic, where an interruption of the 14th amendment.

finally, reviewing the facts presented, the evidence, the law, history, we determined under section three of the 14th amendment that mr. trump engaged in insurrection, and therefore, is blocked. [end video clip] host: maine secretary of state last night on msnbc. that is one of the political stories. what do you think the top political story of the pastoral months was? ben in pittsburgh, democrat. caller: yes, hello? host: go ahead. caller: ok. i feel that [indiscernible] i feel that this is dividing the country too much, and i feel

that the money that was sent overseas, not that it is wrong, but you have to look at your status, what is happening day by day here. there are too many communists. then you decided to have a wall, but like [indiscernible] host: this is james in delaware, independent. caller: good morning. how are you? my story is a little bit complex. we are talking about the 14th amendment, and i wonder how many people who go to library of congress and read it. it is very short.

it seems as though the press and the attorney general's and so forth talked about committing insurrection, but the second part clearly states or aiding and abetting and insurrectionists. the clear proof is the record that president trump and several other people created -- he said the pledge of allegiance while the people locked up in insurrection saying the star-spangled -- saying the star-spangled banner. trump played it at a rally at least once, and he bragged about it, hit number one, and several other republicans bragged about it being number one, and they specifically stated it was to help the people who were currently incarcerated from the january 6. host: james, let me read section three of the 14th amendment, where the real focus is here when we are talking about the effort to remove donald trump

from primary ballots and states. section three, 14th amendment of the u.s. constitution reads open no person shall be an elector of president and vice president or hold any office, civil or military, under the knighted states or under any state who has previously taken an oath as a member of congress or as officer of the united states or any member of the legislature, executive or judicial officer of any state to support the constitution of the united states shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the state or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof, but congress may by a vote of two thirds remove such the ability." section three of the 14th amendment. caller: so much for reading it. thank you. maybe now they will hear from your mouth or aiding and abetting and insurrectionists, and that record pretty much says it. they bragged about it, plated at

the rally, talked about it being number one, and they specifically stated it was to help the people who were incarcerated as a result of the january 6. and to add to it, later on on the website, they said no funds would go to people that violated the police, but that was not there for months. host: this is deborah in georgia, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i would just like to call attention to the first section of that amendment. it reiterates the protections of due process. they were first introduced under the fifth amendment. host: section one of the 14th amendment, "all persons born or naturalized in the u.s. and subject to this jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the united states and of the state wherein they reside. no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the

immunities or privileges of citizens of the u.s., nor shall any state private a person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, so deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protections of the law." again, the 14th amendment, section one. go ahead. caller: yes. so what i am thinking -- i don't know who framed this amendment, but according to this section, it reiterates the fifth amendment regarding the due process of protections. that should apply to the following sections under that amendment. host: a great place to kind of learn about the history here and the connections throughout the constitution to various other parts of the constitution, i would point you to constitutioncenter.org.

we have folks from the constitution center on this program often and we have this question of constitutional law, but we are bringing these up in the interpretation. a great place to go to both read the constitution or yourself, and to get sort of the history behind it. kathy is next in texas, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: this is my viewpoint. i feel like the state senator in maine did their job. host: the secretary of state? caller: yes. she did her job because you cannot trust the senate, you cannot trust the house, you cannot trust the higher courts. you cannot. she did the right thing for the

country, for her state. maybe everybody needs to fall in line behind her because trump ain't going to do nothing but put it on hold. they went, they tore up the capital, they tried not to certify the legal thing for biden. she did the right thing. i don't care if you're democrat, republican. she did the right thing. host: other states that have declined to pursue this path of keeping the president of the primary ballot, colorado was the first state to make the decision to kick the president -- former off the ballot.

it has been asked for the supreme court to review it at the highest level court. the colorado gop asked the justices for the appeal by setting an argument asking the court to resolve that case. that would be on super tuesday when it comes to the elections 2024. this is gary, independent, maine. caller: good morning. i have got to comment about your site. i cannot see the capitol as clearly. i could see george washington's -- silhouette of george washington's face at the base, but i want to get to is how divided our country has become. i believe from maine, back when roz burrell was running as independent, and take so many

boats away from the and democrats, that they decided no longer would we have debates where everyone else could be in the debate to show what their viewpoints were in the united states. you are talking to somebody who voted for ralph nader for five elections. and suddenly decided that he had to start voting otherwise. i live in maine, and now that we have our rank-choice voting, which i did not like at first, but now that i like because i know the first person i vote for will be someone other than democrat or republican. and my vote will not be thrown in the trash because i know it is going to go to a second round . so, that is my point of view.

that is my comment about how divided we have become. it is a sad thing. host: on independence, what did you think of that talk earlier this year of getting a high-profile independent third-party run? there was talk of trying to get senator joe manchin of west virginia to run for president. what did you think of all that talk? caller: i think my first vote is probably going to be our sk -- is going to be rsk. they slaughtered him like what's his name from vermont, vermont. the democrats did not give him a chance. nobody wants a choice of trump or biden. i don't know what happens in other states because we have other choices on our pallet besides those two. you cannot tell me every state only has biden and trump on the

ballot to vote for. host: that is gary in maine. from virginia, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i want to bring up a story in the impeachment proceedings for president biden. i think that is very ridiculous that they have not found anything wrong he has done except that he is a little older than most people who want to be president, but i don't think they should have anything to do with it when he is doing a great job. biden's son has admitted to doing what he has done. i don't think any president should be held accountable to what their son has done or their daughter. there have been presidents throughout the history of america who have had children who were not measured up to. we did not elect the president for his children. his or her children. and i will also say that the greatest president of the 21st

century was barack obama. and the affordable care act. in president biden is doing a great job. and i think it is ridiculous in a situation where the president is doing a good job. host: on the impeachment inquiry earlier this month, the house voted to officially authorize the impeachment inquiry. though, house republican congressional committees had been conducting their own investigation, and the republican in kentucky spoke to reporters after the house authorized that impeachment inquiry. here are his remarks from december 13. [video clip] >> i think we have made our point very clear today, evidence uncovered has shown a disturbing trend by the biden family. we have spent months accumulating evidence.

have a simple question that an overwhelming majority of americans have, what did the bidens do to receive the tens of millions of dollars from enemies around the world? today's unanimous vote showed that we are united as a conference. we expect to have people honor our subpoenas. we want to wrap this investigation up. obviously, you get to the deposition phase before you wrap up an investigation. that is where we are. we are pleased with the vote today. that will make things loud and clear for the white house. we expect you to comply with our information request and subpoenas. [end video clip] host: james comer there, talking about the impeachment inquiry into president biden. it was that same day on capitol hill, december 13, that the president's son, hunter biden delivered a statement about himself, his family, his father. he was what he had to say. [video clip] >> i am here today to answer a

public hearing any legitimate questions chairman comer and the house committee may have for me. i am here today to make sure the house committee's illegitimate investigations of my family do not proceed under manipulated evidence and lies. and i am here today to acknowledge that i made mistakes in my life with opportunities and privileges i was afforded. for that, i am responsible. for that, i am accountable. and for that, i am making amends. but i am also here today to correct how the maga writers pretrade me for their political purposes. -- portrayed me for their political purposes. i am first and foremost a son, father, brother, and husband from a loving and supportive

family. i am proud to have degrees from georgetown university, and law school, i am proud of my legal and business career. i am proud of my time serving on a dozen different boards of directors. i am proud of my efforts to forge global business relationships. for six years, maga republicans, including members of the house committees, who are in a closed-door session right now, have impugned my character, invaded my privacy, attacked my wife, my children, my family, and my friends. they have ridiculed my struggle with addiction, they have belittled my recovery, and they have tried to dehumanize me, all to embarrass and damage my father, who has devoted his

entire public life to service. for six years, i have been the target of the unrelenting trump attack machine chanting "where is hunter?" here is my answer, i am here. let me state as clearly as i can, my father was not financially involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member, not in my partnership with the chinese private businessmen, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as a donor. [end video clip] host: hunter biden on december 13 on capitol hill, asking you what your top political story of the past 12 months has been. take a look echo on the year that was and give us a call on the phone lines split by political party. republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000.

independents, (202)-748-8002. about 35 minutes left in our program today, taking your calls in that time. in idaho, line for republicans, you are next. caller: there is one thing i would like to say that in this past year, i finally came to recognize about the democratic party. it is called false pride. i think that a lot of the people have egos that need to be deflated. they need to grow up, and another thing about the democrats as they cannot prioritize things. look at what is going on in our country. my god. you know, i had one other thing to say, but it is ok to be islam a phobic. just look at what is going on -- host: why is that ok? why is it ok to have that against an entire religion? caller: look at what is going on

in europe, all the people who have come across the mediterranean, all the people who have come into our country, marching on the streets for palestine, you don't think they are islamic? host: that was built in idaho. this is james, independent, good morning. caller: january 6 was an inside job. joe biden is guilty of treason. article four, section four of the constitution, the united states shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against the invasion. article three, section three, treason against the united states that exists only in enemy war against them or to their enemies, giving them in for. what has happened along the border is an invasion, invited in by joe biden, and he is giving them comfort. this is treason.

he [indiscernible] against the american people by illegally imprisoning january 6 protesters, which were petitioning the government for grievances. january 6 was an inside job. host: that was james in arizona. this is diane, florida, democrat. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: yes ma'am. caller: thank you. this week, when i was listening to the decision to take trump off of the primary election, of course, i knew that the republicans are going to be against and they were stating that it is only fair that trump should be allowed on the ballot, but the democrats also, you know, very interesting because i am a bernie girl most of my life, very interesting that the

democrats who stand up for trump, they said many of them put him on the ballot, it is only fair. at one point -- at what point do we take action and stop this man? he changed the country, the united states. we are totally against each other, the republicans versus the democrats. he has opened up this can of violence of statements that are said, on the actions, january 6, it is so appalling, why do we continue to be fair or overly fair for this man, and desantis, here in florida, in key west, we had gotten signatures, got initiatives on the ballot, we won in 2020 fair and square, santos just overturns it. the people in florida also voted , let the felons go after they

serve their time in jail. he overturned it. books are taken out of the libraries. judy blume is a writer who lives here in key west and we have to take her books out of the schools and biden, you know, biden -- when he first came in eldercare preschool, he had beautiful, wonderful initiatives, and the republicans knocked him down, so when people say that biden has not done much for the country, he has to have the support of the congress and senate, and it is unbelievable how the craziness continues. of course, we want to be fair, but this man trump -- and another thing -- host: this is carolyn in georgia, republican. we are asking about your top political storyf 2023. how would you answer that? caller: tammy, president trum has been one of the greatest presidents of all time. -- to me, president trump has

we have to be looking at what's happening in colorado. they are saying he's guilty before being prove innocent. i believe the president, before they leave office, need to pardon themselves if possible because this will be ongog r all presidents in the future, and the presidents do not divide people. pele divide people. this country has been divided for a long time. long before president trump came along. and the tax plan that hhaput in place that will expire in 2025 is going to be awful if it expires and he's not in there. we need that tax plan. it is a good one. he has done a lot for jobs and spent -- built over 400 miles of

border wall and if every president that followed him would do the same, the border wall would be completed, the 2000-mile border wall would be completed. host: to blackwood, new jersey. this is catherine, independent. what's your top political story of 2023? caller: yes. to me, the story for 2023 is the fact that president trump can even run again for president, and thank you so much for leaving that section free. it pretty much makes it painfully clear that he may not have been going through the doors into the capitol that day back on january 6 but he was most certainly a participant and it is just really concerning to me that someone with all of those criminal counts against them could even be put on a ballot.

i mean, i thoroughly understand why colorado and maine do not want him on there because i don't think you should be on there and when i came of age, it was during the watergate time, and all of the republicans then were against nixon because he did something wrong and the same applies now, but it's -- it seems like the republicans are emulating this man and that is just not right. and as an independent, a proud independent my entire life, i have voted democrat and i have voted republican. it does not matter to me as long as it is a good person with the country's interests at heart. host: who was a good democrat and a good republican who had the country's interests at heart? caller: well, let's see. i believe that a good republican

-- well, speaking for myself, in my state, i voted for christine whitman for the governor, and she was a really good governor and also i know a lot of people don't like chris christie but i did vote for him and he was a good governor for the state. as far as the democrats go, i'm sorry -- i cannot number the gentleman's name, but when i lived in pennsylvania, i voted for him for governor. i don't know. i feel so torn down because i don't know if i could even vote for a republican again and it really kind of -- it hurts me. it really does to see where we are now. host: that's catherine in new jersey. this is elizabeth in san diego on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. i think my top story this year would be the collapse of the republican party in favor of a

personality cult of donald trump. you know, one of the things about watching c-span, you are educating us bit by bit, and one of the wonderful stories i learned on c-span is how when george washington stepped down after two terms as president, he was praised by king george, saying, if he did that, he would be the greatest person in the world. so we began our beautiful democratic experience with an illustrious president and i'm afraid with donald trump, he's taking us in another direction. what is so amazing about trump is he keeps saying he won the election. a reality check -- he lost the election by more than 7 million votes, more votes than any other

president has ever lost by, yet he persists in trying to in -- to inculcate his followers with misinformation, and to talk about january 6 as some kind of peaceful attempt to stop them counting is delusional. anybody that saw it on tv can see the battering rams, the flagpoles sharpened and thrown as spears. it's shameful and the gop is participating in it by going along with the. mitt romney, in his book, even said that the gop senators were afraid to speak out what they really thought about trump because they were afraid of his followers and their violence. what's come out this week? the rnc -- ronna mcdaniel, they were trying to bribe the electors in that northern state

to change, you know, the outcome at a very low level in the county. this was horrible and also what really disappoints me about republicans is you never hear them weighing in about trump's pilfering of classified documents and a whole binder of top-secret information is missing and you never hear republicans mention it at all, and that's unforgivable. host: that's elizabeth in california. steve, were -- steve, worchester, massachusetts. caller: my top story -- i don't know if this was covered this morning. i have been in and out watching you. i'm sorry. host: that's ok. caller: my top story was the three university presidents in front of congress, and i think

this brings to question a lot of people's -- in a lot of peoples's minds, a lot of americans' minds about where we are going with education in this country. you have heard the phrase people are not being -- they are being told not how to learn but what to learn. when you have a university president -- these are highly educated people. there's no doubt about it. but when you cannot make a value judgment on genocide, i think it -- it boggles the mind. i mean, yes or no, the way representative stephanie pointed -- representatives to point it. one president got fired. there's still questions about president gay as well to you. it makes us look at our entire system. what are we teaching? and it can bring to question,

for example, this notion of tuition relief. why should we pay $1 trillion, taxpayer dollars, to give relief, to forgive tuition, which was a federal program under president obama to take over these loans, and it seems to me that all the colleges are teaching today -- and my father -- this is a little aside. my father dropped out of high school at age 16 to work in the mills. we have three doctors down here in webster. and i graduated from boston college. we worked for it, you know? i was educated. i learned geology. i went on, actually, to join the army after that, but today, it seems as if all they are educating -- i have young boys in their 30's. all they learn is dei and class struggle, this notion of class struggle, as opposed to -- i mean, i'm sure there's people

learning things that are useful too. host: that hearing that you talk about with the university presidents back on december 5, viewers can watch it in its entirety at c-span.org. the president of harvard university, as you mentioned, the university of pennsylvania, and the massachusetts institute of technology testifying on combating anti-semitism on college campuses before a house committee, one of the most high-profile hearings of the past year. again, c-span. you -- again, c-span.org. we will point you to former governor scott walker's column in today's washington times. scott walker, a long-time columnist with the washington times, as well as president of the young america foundation, often comes onto this program to take calls. this is what he writes about college campuses, college curriculums. "there's a lot of talk about diversity.

there's little taco thought. earlier this year, there was a bill proposed in the north carolina legislature that would require every graduate in a state institution of higher education to complete a three credit hour course in american history and government. it included important documents like the constitution and gettysburg address. similar action has been taken in their zone about when the proposal was announced nearly 700 professors at the university of north carolina at chapel hill signed a letter in opposition to the legislation. who could be against reading these fundamental documents? if the goal is to paint a negative picture about the founding of our nation, 'educ ators'don't want students reading the founding documents of our beloved republic." you can read more in the washington times. asking foroutop political stories of 2023. this is khy in new jersey. good morning. ll: good morning and happy

new year to you and your audience. i would just like to say, you know, i watched over the years, the democrats were saying trump was illegitimate and stuff and, you know, every chance they got, you know, he was illegitimate. now i really feel -- ok, make no mistake, the end goal with these colorado and maine decisions -- and i'm sure there will be more -- is to delegitimize the supreme court. they are trying to force the supreme court to intervene so they can delegitimize the court. host: and how would they delegitimize the court if they intervene? caller: because they think that the court is illegitimate right now too because the court leans to the right.

host: you are saying forcing them to make a decision on a controversial issue and then hold them -- hold it up to divide people about the court? caller: i'm saying for trump to be on the ballot -- this is not going to stop. i mean, insurrection. ok, there were riots in 2020. january 6 was a riot that got out of hand, just like the riots that got out of hand in 2020, but that's ok with them, and to be perfectly honest, as an independent, i have voted democrat and republican. i will never vote for a democrat again, ever, because everything they have accused trump of doing, they are doing. thank you. have a good day. host: that's kathy in new jersey. this is tom, fort myers, florida. caller: good morning, john.

happy new year to c-span and all your audience. i want to echo your very first caller this moinat 7:00 when you first came on with this same topic. the gentleman from new york ce on and said his top political story was the wonderful job that president joe biden has done for us here in america. he's a steady hand at the wheel. that's kind of why we elected him. he was a senator for 36 years. he was vice president. he knew his way around. he was the guy that we needed to get us through some very divisive and difficult times. and in this past year, he's continued to do that. our economy is doing very well here at the end of the year, it's chugging forward. i just went to sam's club, paid 2.7 nine dollars for a gallon of gas. it was much higher than that at one point.

there are certain other things that are not coming down quite as fast that they are moving in the right direction by all accounts. our treasury secretary she's doing a great job. the executive branch working together, no scandals, just doing their job, a steady hand at the wheel guiding america through some tough, divisive times. the wars that are going on, he's handled them well with ukraine and he's stepped up for our ally, israel, right away. he was right there for them when they were attacked by the terrorist group hamas. these are not easy issues, ok? in a difficult world. but again, he's the guy we selected because he had a lot of experience in these areas. host: can i pick up on one aspect of that? you talk about the economy doing well and he prays how president biden has handled the economy. i wonder what your read is of

some of these polls that show a lack of confidence by americans in the u.s. economy now and just one i would point to, the latest gallup poll from november, 50% of the country raiding the economic condition of this country as poor today. only 31% saying it's fair. 17% calling a good. just 2% of americans rating the economic condition of this country today as excellent. caller: i was going to say that the american people are wrong in the way they feel about different things having to do with our economy, but it's improving. remember the business about the transient -- that inflation would be transient and they sort of mocked that word? and i suppose it was the wrong word at the wrong time but the fact is that inflation now is down under 4%. we are approaching the target goal of 2% after just a few years now with a steady hand at

the wheel and janet yellen and jay powell, giving them credit, but in the executive branch doing the job they have to do. inflation really was kind of transient. the supply chains were out of lack because of covid and other things. so the american people are negative on the economy and that is unfortunate but we are living in an environment -- i'm trying to be positive here this morning. listening to a lot of your calls recently and this morning, very negative, very negative. it seems we are in a cloud of negativity and it's unfortunate and that will drive public opinion. i am sure biden -- he will manage his campaign. his campaign for reelection will be up and running in the coming year and they will bring these things out to the forefront.

host: that's tom in fort myers fort appeared -- fort myers, florida. to tiny in texas. caller: guest: good morning -- caller: good morning. happy belated christmas and happy new year to you at c-span. my top concern is the insurrection that they are blooming trump -- they are blaming trump for when the democrats are the ones doing the insurrection. but i feel as though and this is my opinion that they are doing it on purpose because the democratic party wants to bring down america. biden and his doj and the rest of them. host: why would the democratic

party want to bring down america? caller: why? why? why is he allowing the things that are occurring here? he opened the border up just for this reason. you have terrorists coming across there. you have murderers, people assaulting children. there are good people in every nation but what we are receiving over here and you hear them say that have the right -- coming over here saying it is because joe biden that told them to come over here. host: tiny in texas. to nevada, north las vegas, ted, independent. good morning. your next that you are next -- you are next. are you with us? go ahead.

what's your top political story of 2023? caller: i just wanted to add to this conversation. i just wanted to say basically the voters have a responsibility to get the right candidate and they clearly got it wrong with trump and, basically, most voters today do not care about moral principles, what is right or wrong. they are willing to double down and triple down on their candidate regardless of the crimes he's committed or will continue to commit. it's all about the buying power of the voters of a political

party such as the gop or other parties worldwide. if you listen to the right wing radio stations, which i have listened to for decades and decades, they sell products. they actually sell their anti-covid products. that's why they were so against covid manufacturers, who they sell their version of covid products. host: we will go to joel in newark, new jersey, democrat. good morning. you are next. just about 10 minutes left. caller: good morning. i want to suggest that is likely that the united states supreme court will bar donald trump from the presidency. i know the consensus among most democrats is that that is unlikely but i want to suggest the contrary. host: why do you say that? why? do you think it's likely caller: it's multiple reasons.

the chief justice and all of them are desperate to reestablish their legitimacy of the court. that is their personal interest. justice thomas will recuse. the recent ethics code that they put out, it includes interests of the spouses of the justices as a criterion for disqualification. it seems clear that was put forward to address annie tomasini particular -- annie thomas in particular. the court seems to have already exhausted their political agenda with regard to gun rights, abortion, the administrative state, and hopefully they are now inclined to reestablish themselves as merely deciding

cases and not establishing a political agenda. host: why would barring donald trump from the 2024 election ballot establish -- reestablish, you say -- the legitimacy of the court? caller: the 14th amendment, section three of the 14th amendment, it's quite clear. it's quite explicit. in days gone by, justices would typically say that although their heart was going in one direction on a case, they found when they tried to write the opinions, they just would not write, and i think that is the case with the 14th amendment here. it's really quite clear, the lang which of the 14th amendment -- the language of the 14th amendment. it's difficult for the clerks and justices to write opinions that are not completely nonsensical with regard to the issue. host: to linda in mountain hill,

arkansas, a republican. what is the top political story of 2023? caller: i think it has to be the border and trump. democracy is at stake. that's what the democrats say it -- democrats say. we had a revolution so king george could not say what we do. that's what they are saying. let the people have a voice. let the people vote on the border and it is an open border. hillary clinton ran on it. no borders. offeree -- all free. well, somebody has to work for it. thank you. host: jeanie in the lone star state, in austin, good morning. you are next. caller: joe biden has been in denial all through his

presidency over the financial issues that americans have. i know i am struggling financially and i don't care if things are going down. he -- there's been a big denial and for someone to say earlier, to call and say people are being negative? no, this is our life. this is what we are living, ok? and i think for him to not take questions from the press is absolutely ridiculous. it is so disappointing. i voted for joe biden and i will not be voting for him again. thank you, john. host: charles in ohio, democrat, good morning. you are next. caller: yes. i believe that the oil companies are gouging us because we are producing more oil in the united states than we have ever produced and i believe that if trump is innocent why does he want immunity? thank you. host: rose in illinois, republican. six minutes left here.

what's your top political story of 2023? caller: hi. my top political story is on 9/23/23 of this year, a federal court found the surgeon general, cdc and the white house all being guilty of breaking the first and second amendments. civil rights. when they interfered with the computer industry to silence americans. and that is my biggest -- host: what case was that comoros? caller: it was 9/23 this year. you are always attacking the republicans. the democrats are breaking a lot of laws and it goes back to obama back in 2015 when he started work with the institute to get together amazon, facebook, google, microsoft, spotify, twitter and youtube as

well as the european union, the global counterterrorism forum, the united nations counterterrorism committee, the executive directorate, new zealand -- host: ok. we will go to dave in los angeles, independent. good morning. caller: happy, happy new year. first of all, trump called all veterans losers and suckers, and he tried to overthrow the united states government. he said all the veterans -- and i am a veteran -- that were wounded, he doesn't want to be around them because it makes him look bad. the first thing he was to do if he gets back in office is take away health care. and he will cut social security and medicare. and the political point i want to make is you have all these congressmen. they have become communist dictators. so i wish you would let me talk because when you know that he

broke the law and got people killed and nobody does anything about it, we are in trouble. we are in deep trouble. he should not be allowed to run. it seems bad. i don't know what's wrong with people. all you people, all you veterans out there, he calls us losers and suckers, and the ones that were wounded, that fought for this democracy and this country. he's a communist authoritarian dictator. so that is my opinion. this country is going down the toilet if you have room. host: dave in las vegas. frank, pittsburgh, last color this morning, line for democrats. good morning. caller: yeah. president biden, when he started to back the unions, ok, that is what's going to make america great again because it will make people actually earn a living. so i know that trump keeps

saying make america great again. i think the unions are going to make the country great again. that's all i have to say. host: how do you think the year 2024 will be for unions, frank? caller: i think they are going to be great. i think everything is coming around and i think the unions are going to thrive. host: that's frank in the steel city. last call her on the washington journal this morning but of course we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern and 4:00 a.m. pacific. in the meantime, have a great friday. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ ♪

>> ns from capitol hill. according to the hill's emily brooks, the house freedom caucus is "extremely troubled." leaders are considering an agreemt with democrats to spend a higher an the $1.5 trillion statuyap for government spending for the upcoming fiscal year. a statement from the caus says the possible agreement would obscure the actual spending numbers with more shady side deals and accounting tricks. the caucus's statement comes as congress is facing funding deadlines on both january 19 and february 2 two of her to government shutdown. the house is currently in recess. the next votes are scheduled for january 9 and you can watch live coverage here on c-span. >> tonight at 9:00