hopes for the future. monday, july 19, on c-span, c-span now, or c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of the convention. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more, including charter communications. >> charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best international provide. and we're just getting started. building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to help those who need imost. >> charter communications supports c-sas a public rvice, along with thesother televion providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. host: former senator bob kerrey from nebraska serves as co-chair of the concord coalition.

for viewers not familiar, what' the concord coalition? guest: the concord coalion was started by bob rudman and was started in new hampshire. and they were of the opinion and so am i, it will take a fair amount of patriotism to solve the current fiscal problem. i guess that's the only topic of nversation. host: i want to get to those fiscal problems in this country an your proposed solutions. i do want to ask about the story of the day. president biden's performance in the debatcalls r h will to st down, increasing calls among members of congress in his own party. nning for president in 1992, it is up to the candidate.

it is up to presidenbiden. i am a year younger than him so i recognize the symptoms of pushing 80 but here i am showing our age. i am sympathetic. he definitely missed an opportunity to show people that he can handle difficult questions. i feel le he will have more bad days that good -- i feel relieved that he will have more good days that bad days so i am happy he is running for reelection. host: on the record or off the record conversations have been leed at this point to the press. do you think that will increase? guest: i don't know. even when i was living in washington, i did not predict what might have happened.

it has gotten even harder. your statement is true. there is an increasing number. there are 435 members of the house of representatives, about 200 of them democrats. until you get to a point where you have triple digits people saying he should not run, it is important that they made that call but it is a relatively small number. i will say it again, the candidate is to decide. host: i he makes that decision, if he decides not to run, who do you thk would be in the best position to take on donald trump in november? guest: i don't haveguest: a favorite. we have governors and members of congress and a vice president capable of doing the job, but i don't know what the process is. i hope they don't have something that looks like it is rigged with a limited number of people who can participate in becoming the nominee of the party. the republicans already announced they intend to sue to

get anybody on the ballot that they consider to be competitive and the ballot changed. the court once again has to play a very important role if candidate biden decides he will pull his name down. again, i will say it for the third time and i promise this is the last time. he makeshat decision. not me, not you, not anybody but him. if he makes that decision, it will be a process at the convention in august in chicago. i hope it is open and fair and not rigged. host: we have focused on in past 11 days. you wrote an op-ed in the washington post saying make them answer this question from a question about debt and deficit in this country. how far are we away today from serious conversation betwe candidates in the news media right now on debt and deficit? guest: i think we are a ways

away unfortunately in part of it is the coming incumbents are not telling people what the consequences are of doing nothing so essentially we have 537 cosponsors in congress, the president, and the vice president who are cosponsors o the do-nothing plan. they don't have to answer the question. what do you say to a 60-year-old american who is looking at the do-nothing plan? oh, my god, you will cut my benefit. that is the law. that is the plan. unless you start to focus on the consequences of doing nothing and the overall accumulation of debt over the next 40 years, i you are 20 years old, that is the future. if you live as long asoe biden and i am donald trump, in 40 years that is your future. how can we say we care about our grandchildren?

how can we give speeches talking about we will preserve our democracy forever? you are not. i know. why. the only two solutions, republicans and democrats working together in the 1980's. we got to the end of that decade. we paid off debt. that happened not long ago. to get that done, we had to put caps on spending, have relatively small increases in taxes, although we decreased the capital gains task, and we watched the number. is it going down? it did and we eliminated. there are people who read their office. they ran again and the voters voted them out because they did not like what they did. they were looking for some magical way to solve the problem and there is no magical way. it is not like finding a cure for cancer. you have to have some constraint on spending and some sources of record, particularly social

security, which is relatively easy to solve. but again, 537 people right now are supporting the do-nothing plan. my own solution, being old enough to watch movies in 1976, you have to go back to network news and watch what the guy who ended up resigning said to his audience, which is we have to be mad as hell about this. it is another issue, we talk about that. you ha to get mad as hell about this. if not, it ds not get solved. host: the number is going today at $34 trillion and counting aording to u.s.ebt clock. we continue to hear warnings about we will hit -- guest: the largest increase is going to interest. we don't spend -- we spend as much on interest as medicare and naonal defense, and all of those interest payments go to people who own treasuries inside

the unit states or out. paying interest on the bonds that we so them. i am worried about china. they have $800 billion of that debt. what do you do about them? you will pay it off, pay off the interest. it is a terrible problem. again, part of the reason it is an problem is people do not understand the consequences of continuing this. how can you say you want to make america eat again when all evidence of this debt dreases our capacity to describe ourselves as great? our financial tradition is an enormous part of our strength and our ability to do well for ourselves and the world and we are ignoring it. widely assuming maybit will somehow fix itself. it will. host: how much debt is too much debt? guest: i don't know. it is too much now because it is

continuing to go up. if they can stabilize it, that would be fine. i would like to get to a point where the renue coming in exceeds the expenses that are going out. if you don't want to pay down debt, it and keep it -- just stabilize it and keep it at that one particular level. we don't have to be radical and stupid about it but we are paying down debt. host: concord coalition.org is where you can find them online. bob kerrey, former senator from the basket. guest: and jacobo republican from missouri, is my partner in crime. host: a bipartisan coalition at the concord coalition. if you would like to call it, you can do so. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. indepeents, (202) 748-8002. senator krey with us until the top of the hour.

david is in new york, up first on the line for democrats. go ahead. caller: hello, good mning. host: doing well. what is your question or comment? caller: i want to make a comment with regard to the immunity ruling they just made with the six corrupt supreme court justices who did this to keep donald trump from being in jail. what they failed to understand is joe biden is the sitting president and he now has that same authority to call -- they called official presidential authority. i beseech joe biden to use this authority to stop donald trump right now by having him removed from the ballot because he is a convicted felon. felons cannot hold federal positions. therefore how can donald trump be on the ballot for the presidency? host: senator kerrey what would

you say? guest: the is an interesting idea. if you asked me to vote on it, i would vote no. i understand why that is being proposed, but i don't think it is ever a good idea to say i know how to solve the problem, i will behave like my opponent's behavior i do not like. no, i do not support the decision the supreme court made, but they made the decision. i think it is going to encourage people to violate the law when they are president of the ited states. i don't think it is a good idea, although trump has promised to do it, trump has promised to prosecute joe biden and everyone. i think it is a terrible promise to make. i hope just on that basis he is not elected. host: what are your feelings about trust in the supreme court these days versus the time you served in the senate? guest: we have always had partisan supreme court we've aln

supreme court justices. by that they look at the constitution, they see different things. unreasonable burden is a good example. it was attached to roe v. wade. but the govement couldn't put an unreasonable burden on a woman choosing to have an abortion. i look at that and i see something different thain my day justice scalia and he was far more knowledgeable on case law. i thought something different. and i interpreted that differently. it doesn't mean he's a horrible person or that i'm not a horrible person. we just interpreted it differently. what's happened is you've got an organized effort, leading it out saying we want to appoint judges who take an originalist view of the constition. it's hard to think they're using originalist standard but they were very simple and they

promised to do the same thing if trump gets elected. in 2025 the plan, what'in there is a proposal that trump replace the two older conservative judges with two younger conservative judges and then expand the court. i hear some democrats still proposing expand the court being too rash by republicans or then get face a republican president if trump gets in was i want to expand so that i can point that becomes unalterable majority. were far better off in my view with the court that sits 5-4 slightly conservative, or slightly liberal. as we had mostly during the 1990's decision saying i don't know. but i can live with it. it's not in a radically alter the face of america. i think we are feeling that.

the argument over and over again. my state of nebraska has two constitutional amendments on the ballot. having to do with abortion. repealing road not settle the issue. >> we often talk about age and the executive branch what about the judicial branch, there's been some calls for an age limits or term limits for members of the supreme court. you support that? guest: no, i do not think it is a good idea. the court has the capacity to basically please itself. let me put it this way. be it more local, if warren buffett was president of the united states right now what i want him to be not allowed to run because people say he's 94 years old and that's too old? no. for warren buffett it's not too old. he may be too old for me but it's not too old for him.

part of the hardship of democracy is we have to decide and sometimes these decisions are difficult. they are not easy to make but we have to make it right now for a variety of reasons in the presidential contest try consider to be in my lifetime at least as important as 1968 which is an election that sent me to vietnam. >> this is max, an independent good morning. max, y are going in and out give us a call back we will t to fix that line in the meantime -- guest: i can answer a question that i didn't even hear. host: i'll let you have that one next time. in california, republican, good morning. caller: good morning, how are you. good. i often say the same thing over and er but i would like to ask senator kerry what do you feel

about the let's see first of all -- the native american people who were slaughtered and mistreated and taken their lan away. do you feel like any of our money should go to repair that wound or if unfinished, un-taking care of thing that we did? and then also for the black people of this nation who gave hundreds of years of slave labor which built the wealth of our country i believe, do you feel like they should get some money? people now living on the streets maybe like where i live and the bay area? host: we will take the question on reparations. guest: reparations is a bit mo complicated. it's important for both of to acknowledge the tremendous

progress that's been made. at least my 20's and 30's in nebraska, didn't even talk about the damage that it been done to the lakota, omaha, tribes and residencies and reservations in nebraska. it was considered to be anathema. couldn't have a conversation about leonard peltier and likewise with slavery. i wasn't really taught in school out slavery. i wasn't taught about reconstruction or jim crow. there were no black students in my high school in lincoln nebraska in t late 50's and early 60's. i thk we've made a lot of progressn understanding the terrible things we did including the japanese internment wherwe did finally get restitution. i think we have to acknowledge it. i don't think we should be self-conscious and feel like it's terrible and were facing

terrible things we've done. that's really one of the strengths of this country's that were willing to acknowledge all were trying to do is me the union more perfect. that's -- people who supported stalin and adolf hitler, we recognize we are imperfect, and the only way to improve the quality of our country ito acknowledge the problems we created with our own policies. slavery was unconscionable. 700,000 men died paid is worse today than ever before? no. we went to war between the north and the south in 1861 and 700,000 men diebecause we couldn't decide how to resolve the issue of slavery without a war. i heard the heritage foundation guy say we will have a second revolution. that is if the democrats allow it, the liberals allow it.

it's a terrible thing to do to actually push yourself into a war if you can resolve an issue. i think facing the facts of the damage we did with slavery and with reconstruction. we didn't have freedom in america until the civil rights act and the voting rights act, the housing act of 68. i grew up in nebraska d i remember we had a moment where we did really bad things as a consequence of a racist attitude towards blacks. i think it's important that we recognize the damage that's done. are we could have reparations of some kind? i'm not confident at all we can do that. i don't see how you unwind all that. i think it leads to making certain we make an effort to help african-americans get to college and get good jobs, etc..

as to reparations i've never seen something i could support. host: viewers, leaving new or viewers may not know along with your service in the united states senate you're a of honor winner, how did you end up in vietnam? guest: as with so many things that happened in my life, it was serendipity. i graduated in college finishing a five year program and i got a notice and all of a sudden i was eligible for the draft. i had undisclosed asthma the timing and did not mention it. i just read the caine mutiny and set i want to go to the navy. so i went down to the recruiting office and volunteered for the navy.

if it went to graduate school i could apply for officer candidate school which i did. underwater demolition guys came through and said you ought to join and come to san diego and train. i thought it was warm out there and i can swim pretty good so i went out there. so i went to vietnam. i wasn't there long enough to demonstrate any real capacity. if y went hunting with me it was probably a waste of taxpayer money to send me to vietnam. host: sator bob carry with us for anothe20 minutes taking your phone calls. dorothy in michigan. caller:ood morning. i have a queion. yesterday i watched the u.s. report and smithfield hams is

cutting 350 jobs and john deere is cutting 650 jobs and i believe that was in i/o a. -- in iowa. when president obamaas in seems to m and i could be wrong, that he gave loans to the ford company and once they got on their feet then they had to pay the government back. i'm wondering why president biden wouldn't think out doing -- helping some of these companies out with loanto get them on their feet and thenhey could pay them back? i will take my answer offline. guest: i think it's required everyone in the congress should

use the phrase i may be wrong. biden was vice president when that bailout of the auto industry went into effect. the car companies pay them back and are doing well. it's a good demonstration that there are times you can have government intervention that does something good. but it doesn't produce continuous funding of the problem. it was remarkable accomplishment for him to get infraructure, bipartisan infrastructure and for him to get the chips act back. both of them are spending lots of money, they want to rebuild their downtown and they are going to rebuild their downtown. so there's a lot of evidence that it's a biden initiative, so

i think he would probably be sympathetic to your question especially with the two things i cited. but having the evidence that they paid the loan back as a consequence and secondly the ve positive impact of the infrastructure bl and the chips act. >> a story out within the past hour as we've beenalking, joe biden with a letter to democrats in congress telling the end talks of him withdrawing from the race saying he's running in this race. if that is the case, do you think he will be able to make the case about things like the chips act and infrastructure act in a second debate. will he get better at this? guest: i don't know, i hope he does because it's a problem. but he should also say i was in the senate when we started to pay down and get to the point

where we could pay down debt. it wasn't easy. spending and tax increases are never easy. especially the goals to keep the economy growing. i hope he comes to the conclusion as he's campaigning we can continue -- all the plan does is it penalizes people who will face this problem once they beme eligible either for medicare or social security. it's a horrible problem and he's demonstrated the capacity to solve problems le this and i hope he pu it on his list when he gets reelected. host: this is anthony out of chicag independent. caller: always glad to be on with you in the morning. i wanted to ask you, i wanted to go back to your commentary about the data. it always kind of strikes me as a bit condescendinghen i hear

from a former polician who took significant votes during their career in congress, the iraq war vote in the regulation of wall street before the turn of the millennium there. the two votes that i say over my lifetime contributed the most to the debt that we currently hold. to then turn around and say we need to force austerity on the retirees who are taking an surviving off of social security surviving off of medicaid and medicare, that that is their assistance, drawing from those pots of funds that they need to tighten their belts while they're already just barely getting by. that they need to tighten their belts, that their benefits are to large pride we c find the

money for it. yet over the course of your career you've made significant votes that contributed to most of the debt. i want to know why it is that the debt is almost become a cudgel that conservatives, fiscal conservatives like to have around so that you can constantly turn around and say that t small benefits people survive off of are the cause for the debt in this country. host: senator kerry. guest: first of l i participated in -- when i was in the senate i cast votes to constrain spending and increase taxes which was very unpopular we were at a point when i left the senate that we were paying down debt. i did not vote on the other things you mentioned but there's no reason for you not to be suspicious of tired old man who's cautioning us about our debt and our deficit. it isn't necessary fo us to

punish the people who are on the retirement program at all. we could increase the reimbursement to more middle-class americans. the average payment is about $1000 a month. that's not enough to support a family. coupled with the decline in the nefit program after the plan was enacted. there is no reason to suspect that the can be shouldering the burden of getting to a point where debt gets paid down. but you can do this with i hope it solves itself or its spending a lot of time. the numbers show it's not sustainable. the numbers show that the do-nothing plan. if we do nothing, in 12 years,

anybody who's a social security beneficiary have a 70% cut in their benefits. i'm not proposing a 17% cut in benefits. 535 members of congress are proposing 17% cut in benefits. so i don't disagree with you, it's very difficult to find who's really responsible and i will take my share of responsibility. but you cannot take away the simple fact that in 12 years while i was in the senate we brought a 3% deficit to zero. and as a consequence it contributed very possibly to this -- positively to the economy. and the year after i left, we will cut taxes with the same old assumption that cut taxes and revenue will go up. we cut taxes mostly for upper

income and wealthy people, and we started borrowing money again. host: this is alex, aine for republicans, go ahd. caller: i want to talk about biden's illness. the democrats have been covering this up for a long time. donald trump was doing great until covid came. this country was in great shape and then they put biden in the basement. that's why people didn't get to see what he's doing and how he is. he's been sick for a long time and they've been covering this all up. they just went through radio stations the other day and they gave the woman the questions to ask. this is really something that's gone on. big coverups in this country and donald trump the other day said let's have another debate right

away. he called him out. they never wt to talk about that, another debate. guest: they have another one scheduled. host: go ahead senator. guest: you can see in joe biden's debate in 2020 when he defeated donald trump he had known the problems he had in the first debate. so it isn't being covered up. and by the way, look at the things former prident trump has been saying. do you feel confident he has cognitive ability when he's talked about electric batteries sinking in the water electrocuting you. when he talks about -- he's got plenty of evidence even at 78 beginning to have some difficulty sustaining sentence after sentence after sentence. i don't think it's disqualifying for either of them. i look at what they want to do. what's the plan coming back.

don't tell me something, tell me what you are going to do. i'm not going to cast a vote for donald trump as a consequence of joe biden's debate performance or some conspiracy theory but w've been hiding it. he said i don't walk as well as i use to, i don't spk as clearly as i used to. it's unquestionly true. it happens, but it doesn't pruce incomtency or inability to be president of the united states. it makes it somewhat harder to focus on the issues of what biden will do versus what trump wi. host: are we just at the point where even if they ha tse debates the topics you're talking about the other side justutomatically tnks that that side is lyingnd vic

vers, thate don't expect or even think the other side has any truth in their argument. guest: i love paradoxes were something happened and that confirms it cod've gone the other way. what the internet has done, and by the way every single day of my political service was before facebook, instagram, before the cell phone. i may be sort of iompetent to talk but social media but what he gives me is the ability to search and get the facts. the problem is right along with it is the paradox allows me as well to build a conspiracy theory that's based on nothing other than the desire to do damage to someone i don'like. host: a candidate said truth is always more valuable than approval. i want to play clip of that from 1991. [video clip] >> 10 years ago, i asked for

your help in a campaign to be governor of nebraska. i ran for governor because it did not make sense to me that government should avoid the most important issues just because they are controversial. as governor and senator i have tried in all things to never waver in my dedication to do what i believe is right. in government as in life, truth is always more valuable than approval. [applause] once again i come to you and ask will you help me now become the next president of the united states of america. [applause] host: what you think about listening to that clip? guest: i think it'a

demonstration the older you get the smarter you get. i don't look at that saying i wish was still 50 years old. it is a little embarrassing. [laughter] host: if viewers want to py it again they cano it on our website at c-span.org. guest: i heard an arrogant young man. because it isn't easy. one of my favorite friends in the senate was alan simpson. we did a lot of things together and it was risky for both of us. for george herbert walker bush to support a tax increase which started us on the road to our balancing the budget was brave. and what did he get for it?

he got defeated. these things have consequences. these votes have consequences. sometimes it produces a loss and sometimes it allows you to go on and fight on. but they are not trivial and that's why think it's important thinking about the debt and the ficit, do you support the 70% cut in social security that's the question that needs to be asked to biden and trump. host: this is benny in stockton, california, democrat good morning. caller: good morning. mr. kerry i watched -- i saw these served with distinction, god bless you. i did hear you say you would not support reparations and i would like to ask if you supported payment to the chinese when they bombed hawaii?

did you support giving them reparations? i just wanto say a vote for joe biden is a vote for, let harris -- for kamala harris. joe is knocking to make it through, i just don't think he's up for the task. i saw the debate. he even said we defeated medicare. i think joe biden should step aside because he's not up for the task. host: senator kerry. guest: appreciatehat but first of all with the reparation, i haven't en a proposal i would support. the earlier one that reference, the japanese attacked pearl harbor and they were not given reparations. the people who were given reparations were american citizens who were incarcerated

without any due process in internment camps. again something i didn't learn until much later. in -- fighting in italy and they finally let them in so it was the government to incarcerated american citizens. i will stay open to the qutions of reparations, i just haven'seen anything that i consider to be reasonable. it's reasonable for us to say the consequence of slavery and particularly jim crow. i mentioned earlier, probably the best baseball pitcher ever in baseball after 1968 came back to omaha to try and buy a house and he had to go to court to buy a house the neighborhood he wanted.

there's plenty of reasons to say without necessary getting into reparations. i never feel comfortable hoping somebody doesn't do well if he runs and wins, i'm confident -- i didn't think i would live to be 80 so i believe he's the one that gets to decide whethehe's in a run. >> c-span recently sat down with actor george takei who wrote a childr'book about the experience as a cld, his family being interned. thbook cled my lost freom for it that interview on our

c-sp program you can watch on c-span.org. let me just give you one or two ideas just one or two more calls. >> i can well remember when you were in the senate. there was competition within the democrats and republicans but you are a fair man and senator. how do we cut out the violence between the two parties and get somewhere back to a civil tone? thank you. host: it's not just -- guest: it's not just in politics, it is everhere. we now think it's good to behave like a villain, that insults are cool. thathey don't hurt. but they do hurt. and theyake it difficult for people.

it's not just an important question for politics. i don't have an answer other than the only person i really controis me. anytime i behave like a jerk i hope i have enough self-awareness to say that was a bad thing to do. st: that will be where we end this day on the washington journal. senator bob kerry, former senator from nebraska and cochair of the concorde coalition. we do appreciate your time. host: nice announcer: c-span's washington journal, our live form involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy, from washington and across the count. coming up tuesday morning, kurt

volker, former u.s. ambassador to nato, scusses this week's nato summit in washington, d.c. which marks the military alliance's 75th anniversary. then retired master sergeant from conceed veterans for america discusses this week's nato summiin the u.s. involvement in ukraine. and senior congressional reporter for punch bowl news on democratic divisions involving president biden's reelection bid in the latest congressional news. c-span's washington joual. join in the conversation livat 7:00 eastern tuesday morning on c-an, c-span now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. >> a great national crusade to make america great again. >> our dream has been earned. >> taxes will go up.

anyone who says they won't is not telling the truth. >> with our beloved nation at peace we are in the midst of a springtime of hope for america. >> because we are the party that believes in the erican dream. >> read my lips. no new taxes. >> i still believe in a place called hope. >> here's the question for the ameran people. who do you trust in this election? >> the real choice is whether we will build a base of the future, or a bridge to the past. >> i have unlimited confidence that the wisdom of our people in the future of our country. >> i stand here tonight as my own man, and i want you to know me for who i truly am. >> they had their chance. th have not led. we will. >> i'm john kerry, and i'm reporting for duty.

>> eight years of broad moments i could not for seat and will not forget. it is time for us to change america. >> i was not my own man anymore. i was my country's. >> i don't believe that rolling back regulations on wall street will help the small business woman expand, or the laid-off construction worker keep his home. we have been there. we have tried that. and we are not going back. we are moving forward, america. >> under my administration, mr. put will see less flexibility and more backbone. >> he wants to make america great again. well, he can start by actually making things in america again. >> we will make america safe again. and we will makamerica great again. >> here and now, i give you my word. if you and trust me with the