♪ host: this is washington journal for saturday, august 3. this week vice president kamala harris won enough virtual votes

from the delegates to become the presumptive nominee and president -- former president donald trump has faced criticism for suggesting that kamala harris misled voters about her race and three prisoners have returned to the united states after the biggest prisoner swap with russia since the cold war. we want to hear your top news story of the week. the line for republicans, 202-748-8000. democrats, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. if you would like to text us you can at 202-748-8003. be sure to include your name and city. you can also post a question or comment on facebook at facebook.com/c-span or on x @ cspanwj. in addition to campaign 2024 news and the return of the u.s.

prisoners from russia here are the othereadlines we have been following this week. the u.s. is increasing its military presence in the middle east amid growing tensions. the senate held a hearing examining the secity failures leading to the assassination attempt on formerresident -- former president trump and presidenbiden proposed diprima court reforms including term limits for justice we will be spending this first hour hearing from you and what your top news story of the week is. you can start calling in now. one of those stories we mentioned is vice president kamala harris securing enough delegate votes to secure nomination of the democratic presidential ticket. from today's "new york times," " vice president has won enough delegates to secure the

nomination. the democratic national committee set on friday, setting upmrs. harris as the first black woman and person of south asian heritage to become -- to be on the to pick. -- the ticket. this will come after the roll call ends on monday. they made the announcement during an online meeting supporters while delegates were still voting in a virtual process devised to formally name the nominee before the convention next month. the article goes on to say that the party said that the virtual rollcall would ensure that a nominee what in place by august 7 to avoid potential legal headaches in ohio. the other option was the president. vice president kamala harris and the new presumptive nominee called in shortly after the nomination was made and here's

what she said. [video clip] >> lesson we approach our campaign with the same spirit including that this is a people powered campaign. and i would not be on this call right now and with you all were it not for your support and trust. for which i am deeply grateful. i am honored to be the presumptive democratic nominee for president of the united states and i will tell you the tireless work of our delegates, state leaders and staff has been pivotal in making this moment possible. and your dedication cannot be overstated. your dedication to our country. i know we all feel this way so strongly, we love our country and believe in the promise of america and that is what this campaign is about. of course i will officially accept your nomination next week, once the virtual zoning period is close, but i am happy to know that we have enough

delegates to secure the nomination. later this month we will gather in chicago united as one party where we will have an opportunity to celebrate this historic moment together. [end video clip] host: we are hearing from you about the top news story of the week. the lines if you would like to call in. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. and independents, 202-748-8002. we will start with bob in anderson, indiana. on the independent line. go ahead. caller: good morning. i think that i want to talk a little bit about the assassination attempt on the former president. i really believe that the

attempt was -- they should have had -- they should have had somebody on the highest point in the area, which would have been the water tower. they should have had a -- should cure -- security should have put somebody -- in other words the team that was involved in this to secure the area is -- it would have been impossible for someone not to have somebody on that water tower.

host: did you watch the hearing this week? caller: yes. i watched the hearings. host: what did you think? caller: that if -- it just seems like to me that nobody is really going to be held accountable for any problems that they had. and we know that that there was a security breach and -- host: ok, thank you for your call. jeff in north carolina on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to talk about people that register to vote for this year. i am a trump supporter, and like all trump supporters, 99% of

them do not trust the federal government now. how are people to tell and i know that they have to live here for seven years, they say. i do not believe that. i think there are ways around it. i have a bad feeling about this upcoming election. i think there is stuff that is going to happen. as long as there are mail-in ballots, and ballot harvesting there will never be a true election. it cannot be until you get to where -- i can see somebody disabled, what if you have a drivers license and id you ought to be made go vote. i just have no faith in the system anymore, ever since 2020. host: what would increase her confidence? in the election? caller: for one thing they fly

the men through the night. how many have they flown in? there are so many things that can happen. it is just setting up for larceny, it seems like. host: ron in pennsylvania on the democrat line. good morning. caller: i think the top story of the week just came last night where it is possible that trump took a $10 million donation from the president of egypt. this is an old story from i guess they were investigating it for eight years or so, and before it was made public. but he is probably guilty like he is guilty of damn near everything else. host: where did you see the story? caller: msnbc, last night. it will be on the other news channels probably this weekend. but as for the last caller, you do not trust the government or

the elections but you do trust the biggest lying croak in american history -- crook in american history? how is that? host: susan from massachusetts on the republican line. caller: hello. i have two topics if that is ok. in the dead of night, it is unusual how she got the delegates. i thought it was going to be open and transparent. not the democrats, these are the most corrupt people i have seen. but what they do with all of these things just to make them back down. it is amazing. do you know why he came out? because there are 100 whistleblowers saying that. they are talking and i am so proud of every one of them. it was a complete job when he went into that arena with those

three hacks, those journalists. everything was conspiring against drug and then -- trump and then you get kamala who is trying to be made up to be obama in a skirt. a few weeks ago she was unpopular and now she has the greatest and all of the scrap. and trump is going to debate her but do not cry. it will be december 3 and it will be a live audience. this should be good. the democrats are saying about democracy and it was a coup against biden. but oh bible or -- obama and chuck schumer said that we can be united or we can give you the 25th amendment, can you believe this? host: susan in massachusetts. she mentioned the hearing held this week in the senate about

the secret service failures that led to the assassination attempt on president -- former president trump. here is part of the opening statement from the acting secret service director. [video clip] >> as you are aware there are multiple ongoing investigations in the attack and the security failures that occurred. i pledge my full support to those inquiries so the secret service and your committees and the american people have a thorough and complete understanding of what happened leading up to and during july 13. i will not wait for the results of those findings to assess where we fail that day. i have taken and will continue to take immediate steps to ensure that we do not repeat those failures. since my appointment as acting director one week ago identified gaps in our security and i have implemented corrective actions. one of my first actions as acting director was traveling to the butler farm site to

understand how our protection failed. i went to the roof of the building where the assailant fired shots and i laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight. what i saw made me ashamed. as a career law enforcement officer and 25 year veteran with the secret service i cannot defend why that roof was not better secured. [end video clip] host: another story in "the wall street journal," related to the secret service answering question as to how the assassination attempt happened. "tech glitches played secret service at rally. spotty cellular service, well-functioning technology and unused equipment contributed to a major communications breakdown during the rally where a gunman tried to kill donald trump, just when law enforcement needed to share information the most, the

top secret service officials said. among other problems there were no secret service agents inside a command post set up by local police ahead of the july 13 rally meaning critical information could not easy get to the -- easily get to the agency charged with protecting the former president. it is plainly obvious to me that we did not have access to certain information set acting service -- secret service director ronald rowe. moreover a technical issue kept them from deploying a counter drone system sooner that might have helped locate the gunman who flew his own drone within two hours of the rally. officials meant to start using the technology at 3:00 p.m. but could not get it operating until after 5:00 p.m. the agency also declined an offer from the local police force to launch a drone. the agency's review would examine why that offer was declined." harold in livingston, texas on

the democrats line. what is your top story? caller: first of all i just want to say to be grateful that we have all of those people back this week. so thank you president biden for all of your hard work. the big issue is the project 2025 and i wish that people would start reading it more. it is going to do away with social security and every right that a woman has. this is the most dangerous thing. it is probably -- the most dangerous thing that has been written since the beginning of time and it is terribly dangerous. another thing that tomorrow we will go to church and we will set and people will come out and worship a man bit -- that has been convicted of rape. churches are dying and that is the most important thing in our country, our christianity and

religious rights. but the big thing is this project 2025. i wish that c-span would start digging into this thing. it is so dangerous. it is like having a loaded gun to your head. it is pitiful what is happening. i appreciate your people for letting us call in. without you guys we really do not have a voice no more. have a blessed day and take care of yourself. host: rob in michigan on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. a comment and a question regarding the exchange of prisoners. iish we would take a hard line with the people who visit hostile nations or any nation and violate their laws. i would not try to take a handgun into canada and expected is legal in my country i should do that here. the question i have is if a serviceman is court-martialed

and then receives a less than honorable discharge, are they an ex or former marine and maybe you can check the specifics of that. thank you. host: andy in new york on the republican line. good morning, what is your top news story? caller: the top news story is that u.s.-russian prisoner swap. they had russians out of released from captivity that also some key united states players were released from foreign captivity through the exchange. that was easily four to five generations of policy and politicians coming together to get that result. if it did not happen these people would be imprisoned overseas. so count the losses as a win, that clearly was a -- was good for a lot of the news journalist agencies. they were all pleased with that kind of outcome. so i think that was a top story

of the week. i think it is a great that it got accomplished this week. host: marianne in new york on the democrat line. are you there? caller: yes. yes. look, i do not care what nobody said, the republican said that trump did everything and we are going back to 19 41. when hitler put all of them jews and put them in the oven and burnt them up and killed them. host: georgia in gonzalez, louisiana. independent line. caller: good morning. my top story is what i read about the ssa exchange and login password.

everyone needs to look at the social security administration be sure that you change your login and the way you do business with the social security administration. the second one is donald trump. he will not give credit to no one. but what he did and what happened to him on the 13th was a fraud. look at his ear and you see no indication that bullet or shrapnel went through. it was a fraud because he has to be the center of attention. thank you. host: kanas -- kenneth in canton, ohio on the republican line. what is your top story? caller: i would like to know if c-span has a show where former president trump says he will eliminate the taxes on tips and social security. and also, when people call in and say that trump never served

in the military, well bill clinton, obama and joe biden never served either. and biden got deferments. host: do you think that the commander-in-chief should have military experience? caller: no. i do not think that is a requirement. i think that common sense and intelligence are the two main things. and also, when people call in and say i am going to church tomorrow, could they pray for the unborn babies being murdered all the time? host: nika in north carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: hello. i have a couple of topics and i'm glad someone else brought it up. project 2025. i called in and talk to some the

about it and they claim that it helps protect individual freedoms and rights, however very early on in the document they want to take away or make it illegal to discuss lgbt topics in schools and libraries. sorry, i am out of breath. and what happens to a transgender librarian? are they going to be arrested for being transgender. on page 196 they want to take away their right to serve in the military. i am a transgender army yet -- veteran. i felt like i was spit in the face. the last thing i want to bring up. the algerian boxer in the olympics and the attack she is receiving for being transgender are false and put her life and change her because in altieri -- in algeria it is a crime to be homosexual and much less transgender. so why do they think they will send a transgender person to

represent them in the olympics? that is all i had to say. host: carol in new jersey on the democrat line. good morning. caller: hello. host: you are on. caller: i was calling. there is something that has never been said. when israel was assigned to be the capital, right? and the democrats and republicans told trump not to do it because they would be taking sides. and he did it anyway. and they said it could be a possible war and he could start a war but they did not listen. and i was concerned about that. and jimmy carter when he was president he made peace on both sides and guaranteed that there would not be any wars, -- not wars but interference with the

united dates. now when trump ok'd israel to be the capital, he started the war. it has never been said on c-span. and i was kind of curious about that because the four years that president trump was president, he was the worst that we had ever had. it was obvious. i watched him every day. and the things that he said and everything and then the virus came in. and the way he handled the virus was ridiculous. that is all i have to say. i just wanted to say that. host: joe in tampa, florida on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning young lady, how are you? host: doing well.

caller: just a little bit about butler, pennsylvania, the director of the secret service had to resign because she thought she was in the wrong. the guy that should have been hung over the entire thing was the on scene commander at the site. he is the one responsible for the corrections and the surveillance around the area. i do not think anybody else should have been hung for it. thank you very much. host: sarah in pennsylvania on the independent line. go ahead. caller: hello? host: you are on. caller: i needed to ask a question. we know what trump is about, but why don't we know what harris' policies are to give us a fair chance to vote if we like them or not? host: what kind of policies are you looking for?

anything in specific? caller: i know her abortion policies but what does she believe about the border? and a lot of other little things like that. we have heard nothing. i hope that they will not try to keep her in the basement like they did joe biden. she needs to go out there and tell us what she has for and against. because otherwise they are just playing things on. and what we are seeing is really scary. host: jim in california on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. what i wanted to talk about was that 2025 and some of the peripheral things going on. in the l.a. times they carried a story on the former member of trump's cabinet who was being paid $100,000 to do research on political enemies of trump that

are in office or in position of service to the people, they are bipartisan positions, civil servants, lifetime civil servants. they are seeking these people out to throw them out of office. when i started reading it i downloaded it as soon as it became available and i cannot believe some of these things that these people were saying. my position is that this is a systematic name that republican --game that republicans have played for years. the point of view is look at the supreme court justice says. their opinions and actions against the american people drives me crazy. i do not understand that the people that we are supposed to respect the laws that they dictate to us, they cannot even abide by the basic principles behind being responsible for the position. that is all i have to say. host: a couple of other callers

bringing up 2020 -- project 2025. another new story from this week was the head of that project stepping down. from "the associated press," the director of the project 2025 vision of a complete overhaul of the federal government stepped down after blowback from donald trump's campaign which has tried to disavow the program created by many of the former president's allies and aides. the heritage foundation president kevin robert says that paul dans accident -- exit comes after the project completed what it set out to do. roberts emerged as a chief spokesman plans to lead project 2025 going forward. and just a note, if you are interested, we did have paul dans on the program talking about the project in june.

you can find the interview on our website at c-span.org. just type in paul dans and you will be able to find all segments relating to him. let us hear from ryan in new york on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. regarding america's citizens traveling in becoming prisoners. i do think republicans have a better -- a better track record of coming to get you. the barack obama presidency that had the student in north korea. he was tortured for one year, brought home and had to pass away in front of his parents, it was so bad. i do not feel safe with democrats. brittney griner took so long. thank god our prisoners are coming home republicans i trust to come and get you. unless you just want to not be in the country.

god bless. host: spencer in illinois on the democrat line. what is your top story? caller: good morning, i just have a question. if i was a convicted felon today get a job -- could i get a job in the white house. but i get an answer to the question. host: that was spencer, and a reminder to everyone calling in, when you are talking to the screener they will remind you to turn down your television and listen through the phone. we get feedback and it can be difficult to hear. if you are waiting on the line or you are going to be calling on the program just a reminder. tom in daytona beach, florida on the independent line. good morning. caller: the number one story of the week was the assassination of the hamas leader. that was a real stunned. i do not know how they pulled that off. it paralleled the attack on pearl harbor in 1941.

yamamoto intercepted an airplane in the south pacific and the fighters went out and absolutely assassinated him. he designed or figured out how to bomb pearl harbor. the united states took him out. the israelis took out the guy who did the october 7 attack on southern israel. i think that was a top new story of the week. host: art in ohio on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. my worry about the news of today is that a lot of the news that is being said to a lot of -- fef communities on the democrat side and a lot of the, i guess, news anchors are using a race card against trump again. for whatever reason, i guess

using the race card against trump seems to be a big attraction. i can hear it on your show there that a lot of folks are concerned about that. it is my belief that trump is not a racist. i think he has proven by his record, in the short time that he got to be a president, four years is a short time, of course . a lot of the negative that he inherited by becoming president from all these people wasn't good on his presidency. but to me, he is a good man. they assassinated his character. they try to assassinate him. and on top of that, they are trying to indict him for everything they can find in their bank of crimes against him , which aren't used on most

americans in the same situation. now, i'm not saying anybody is above the law. not even the president. but obviously, they are using everything they have in the justice system, whether it be federal, state, local, to not make him able to be a president again, which we all know is a good possibility he will become president again. they are going to find out that he is a good man. i support him. i really apologize to him for the -- for the cruelness he suffers. i thank you for allowing me to tell you that. host: art in ohio talking about the treatment of former president trump by the media

during the national association of black journalists interview earlier this week. he was interviewed by rachel scott. they had a heated exchange. here is that clip. [video clip] rachel: mr. president, we appreciate you giving us an hour of your time. i want to start by addressing the elephant in the room, sir. a lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. you have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from nikki haley to former president barack obama, saying they were not born in the united states -- which is not true. you have told four congresswomen of color who are american citizens to go back to where they came from. you have used words like animal and rapid to -- and rabid to describe black general attorneys. you have had dinner with a white supremacist at your mar-a-lago resort. my question, sir, now that you

are asking black supporters to vote for you, why should black voters trust you after you have used language like that? mr. trump: first of all, i don't think i've ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner. first question. you don't even say hello, how are you? are you with abc, because i think they are a fake news network. a terrible network. i think it is disgraceful that i came here in good spirit. i love the black population of this country. i have done so much for the black population of this country , including employment, including opportunity zones with senator tim scott of south carolina, which is one of the greatest programs ever for black workers and black and printers. i have done so much, and i say

this, historically black colleges and universities were out of money. they were stone cold broke. i saved them and i gave them long-term financing. no one else was doing it. i think it's a very rude introduction. i don't know exactly why you would do something like that. let me go a step further. i was invited here and i was told my opponent, whether it was biden or kamala, i was told my opponent would be here. my opponent is not here. you invited me under false pretenses. then you said you cannot do it with zoom. she is going to do it with zoom and you are not coming pure you were half an hour late. just so we understand. they couldn't get their equipment working. rachel: i would like for you to answer the question. mr. trump: i am answering the question. i have been the best president for the black population since abraham lincoln. rachel: better than the voting rights act?

mr. trump: if you start a question and answer period when you are 35 minutes late because you couldn't get your equipment to work in such a hostile manner, i think it's a disgrace. host: this reporting in the hill, the headline, trump interview delayed over fact checking dispute not audio issues. the president of the association said wednesday that the interview with the former president trump was delayed over a fact-checking dispute, not because of audio issues as the gop presidential nominee claimed. he told axios that he was called back to address an issue moments before trump took the stage. the former president did not want to be fact checked live and was refusing to begin the interview. the article notes that he told axios that there were audio technical difficulties, but they were resolved very quickly. we have a little over 20 minutes left in the first hour of the program.

you can also text and send us a comment on facebook. a text in fromva says that the top story has to be the "now the party of democracy has selected their presidential candidate, this cycle, without single primary vote from the people." we go back to the phones. like in new york on the independent line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i am 76 years old. i drive a school bus part-time, for a part-time job. what i had to go through, it took me almost a year to get a license, fully certified. my company wanted to know what i did all the way back for high school. it is amazing what they put you through. if trump were to apply for a school bus license, they wouldn't even consider his

application. he can't drive a school bus but he can run for presidency? a little confused. thank you so much for taking my phone call. host: sharon in silver spring, maryland on the democrat line. caller: i was wondering, what are the medical records of mr. trump's alleged assassination attempt? he staged the whole thing. everyone knows it. it is a lie. ronny jackson said that he was hurt. who believes ronny jackson? unbelievable. host: priscilla in florida on the independent line. good morning, priscilla. caller: good morning. i have a comment on the assassination attempt. has anyone considered the possibility that the gunman put his gun on the roof prior to the day of the assassination

attempt? they said that he was there, that he visited the area a few times before that day. that is just my comment. thank you. host: did you watch the senate hearing this week? caller: i did part of it. did they mention that? host: they did mention similar logistics of it. caller: ok, i missed that part. host: steve in wisconsin on the democrats line. good morning, steve. caller: i have a comment. on january 6, as the republican party and/or donald trump, have they paid to the damages for our capitol? if they haven't, why haven't they? they were the ones who caused all of this damage. i hope that they were held responsible. host: rich in ohio on the

republican line. what is your top story? caller: good morning. a great conversation. it's interesting. we don't learn from our past mistakes that so many other people have done for us, we kind of let go by. in chicago they had a fire. one thing they had was lumber, no fire breaks in the buildings. thank goodness we have learned people around the world about that. we have wood right now on fire because we have no fire breaks in them, and we are losing all kinds of lumber there that could have been harvested and taken care of, jeopardizing people's lives. the other is the wisdom of the constitution when people came into our country. we have limits to how we people can come in. they are supposed to be for our country. not by everything, not trying to blow it up like china, north

korea, russia. we let these people, don't know who they are, remember, those poor people just went to work and were attacked by another country. i will hang up and listen to your answer. thank you. host: justin in new orleans on the democrat line. what is your top story? caller: yeah, my top story is -- i am 70 years old. all my life i have been black and around. ever since they said white is no longer the majority, republicans have lost their mind talking about stealing the election. when will they learn to shut their mouth? they make no sense. they talk very stupid. that is just my opinion, but the republicans are so-called righteous and believing in jesus, they need to shut their mouth because they are telling

nothing but lies. host: just a note, that one thing that was brought up in the senate hearing on the security failures at the president trump rally where the assassination attempt was made, the headline from the associated press fbi says that trump was indeed struck by a bullet during the attempt. we have had a couple of callers mention that that did not happen. the fbi has confirmed that trump was shot. we will hear from william in miesota on the independent line. good morning, william. caller: good morning. normally i would not call into something like this, but peoe calling in saying that the assassination attempt was false anset up? go, people. what more do you need? anyway, my only message is, if you don't believe the politicians, belie yourself. look at your pocketbook,ook at

your wallet. four years a compared to now. lookt the price of gasoline. look at the price of anything. look at the crime, the crime rates. look at the sohern border. come on, people. use your brains. host: perry and bellflower, california, on the republican line. caller: good morning. i think the subject should be put to rest now. for the last few years when you talk about donald trump we have heard democracy is gone because of donald trump, and yet here we have kamala harris. i live in california and she was my kamala for 25 years. we have her getting the nomination in a very undemocratic way. there is no reason why there should not have been an open convention. when i talk about democracy with donald trump, i think democrats need to look in the mirror.

thank you. host: james in missouri on the independent line. what is your top story? caller: my top story is about the hate these people have for each other. i believe that anybody that can ask jesus christ for forgiveness , and he says go and sin no more, why can't people that believe in that, jesus can do that, why can't other people learn to forgive? i mean, there is too much hatred in this country on both sides. host: sean in new york on the democrats line. good morning. caller: yes, i want to talk about kamala harris, the vice president. i want to talk about what i think she did as vice president, because i don't know anything

that she put her name on. she didn't stand by anything in her stance as vice president. i still want to know what she did. i want her to get on things, say the things she accomplished as vice president. as far as i know, she didn't accomplish anything as vice president. if anybody is going to run for president, at least they have to have a background for it. she has to say what she did and didn't do. we know what president biden did, but what did she do? host: who are you planning to vote for this november? caller: if biden will run i am not voting for anybody. host: president biden is not running for reelection. the nominee will be vice president kamala harris. what accomplishment could she have that would make you vote for her?

caller: she needs to do something. she never did anything. if she did she never said she did anything. if she did, she said everything that biden did. president biden did a lot. she needs her own accomplishments to be president. host: kim in south carolina on the republican line. what is your top story? caller: good morning. for eight years we heard the democrats bashing president trump. they bashed him when he was president. they bashed him now after biden was president, and they continue to do so. tell us what kamala harris has accomplished in the last four years, exactly like the last color. what has she done? now she is saying that she wants to do immigration reform. she was the border czar. she wants to go out and continue

to bash trump. i want to hear her plan of how to fix the runaway inflation. i want to hear what she wants to do. so far, all we've heard from her mouth is trump this and trump that. thank you for michael. -- thank you for my call. host: tom on the independent line. caller: good morning. i am an independent, but what i see of the snapshots, what i'm looking at, is completely terrible. hostages were brought back over, the first thing that happened is they would get off the plane and the families would be right there at the end of the stairs with their arms out waiting for them. for some stupid reason, it happened to be joe biden with the families in the background and kamala harris stepping up to the plane, and joe stopping and

letting kamala harris go to the front of the plane and greet them first. then talk about how she had a lot to do with the discussions on releasing the hostages. we know absolutely she had nothing to do with it. what a picture op. that was disgusting to meet them before their families. she cannot speak without a monitor in front of her. when you hear her speak without a monitor, she is completely lost. this lady who has been selected and not elected is illegal. whatever they do if she becomes president is invalid. she was selected, not elected. and that's that. she can't be president. she was selected. that is against the constitution. thank you. host: john in washington, d.c. on the democrats line.

good morning, john. caller: yes, i am a lifelong democrat. as i look at what has happened through this whole electoral season, it has come to my attention that maybe we need to change the system some. i am suggesting that perhaps we should select our next president through public lottery like a powerball lottery. given the costs and issues with the electoral college and other things, we might be better off just relying on the luck of the draw to have somebody run this country. and limit, of course, the term to a reasonable amount and whatnot. i really do think it might be a better way to go. host: john in washington, d.c. one of the other stories this week was president biden's announcement that he is supporting supreme court reform.

from the associated press, the article that president joe biden said monday that extremists on the u.s. supreme court is undermining public confidence in the institution and called on congress to quickly establish term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the court's nine justices. also called on lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity. president biden made that announcement during an address at the lbj presidential library in austin, texas. here is him talking about those proposals. [video clip] pres. biden: on top of the extreme decisions the court has a crisis of ethics. the justices have caused public opinion to question the court's independence.

to basically carry out its mission of legal justice under the law. for example, their documented reports of a decades long effort to reshape the judiciary, including a supreme court backed by shadow special interests who also support project 2025. gifts to justices worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy benefactors who have interests before the court they are contributing to. conflict of interest from those connected to the january 6 insurrectionists, and a blatant attack on nominating justices. when justice scalia died in when he 16, the republicans blocked president obama's nomination to fill that vacancy for nearly a year. they made up an entirely new standard that there would be no confirmations of the court

during an election year. then when justice ginsburg died in 2020, republicans rushed for president trump's nominee. at the same time votes are being cast in an election that trump would lose. it's outrageous. host: let's hear from randy in kentucky on the republican line. good morning, randy. caller: good morning, thank you. maybe a couple of things if i could. one of the things that has been in the news a lot lately has been about communism. there is only one mechanism to have communism. that's taxation. we talk about democracy. so, they steal my money and buy other people's votes with it so we can have democracy against me. how does a republican ever win an election? when i was a kid they would give

liquor to the voters to vote for them. that is vote buying that way. another thing i've seen on the news is the oath to the constitution. everyone who takes an oath to the constitution, police officers or judges or whoever it might be come due -- whatever it might be, do they know what they are swearing the oath to? do they know what the bill of rights are in the constitution? to the police officers know how to protect my bill of rights, my rights? it is shocking that nobody knows these things. they are not taught it, they don't study it, they go to school for three or four months or something to be a police officer, to enforce the law, to have the power to kill and they don't know people's rights and the law. host: chris in topeka, kansas on the independent line.

what is your top story? caller: what kamala harris could do to help her election is maybe pick pete buttigieg for vice president. then we can have a real cocksucker in the white house. host: on the democrats line, good morning, brent. caller: that was pretty typical republican, that last statement. what i was calling about was it is rich how you republicans: about the primary process that the democrats went through. during the primary president biden has his vice presidential candidate, which was kamala. there was never any cheating going on as far as the primary. we knew who the both candidates were going to be. we have a mystery vice president, like donald trump did , but the bottom line is

republicans should try to be a little nicer. try to find some nice words. maybe some kindness in your hearts instead of your vitriol and hatred all the time. thank you. host: diane in jacksonville, florida on the republican line. what is your top story? caller: good morning, hi. i am one of the nicer republicans that respect all citizens. for those who think if you don't love or vote for donald trump you are not american, well i am an american and i will not be voting for donald trump. as far as the gentlemen worried about the election for the democratic primary, when do we worry about them going through the democratic process? if they choose kamala harris, or if they want kamala harris, then

that is their choice. it is not our choice. we picked our candidate. why are we worried about someone else's candidate? as far as -- there was so much said. host: you said that you were not going to be voting for former president donald trump. who are you going to vote for? caller: no way. this man has 34 convictions. this man has been accused and found guilty of a sexual assault. i am a true republican. i am not the on again, off again , worshiping anyone republican. host: did you vote for president trump in 2016 or 2020? caller: in 2016 i did and in 2020i did not because i saw the real donald trump. you know, a lot of people voted

for him and 2016 because we didn't know the man. now, once you learn the character of the person, it's up to you if you want to follow that character. no, they can't even convince me -- i might as well vote for kamala. not because she is black, but this is a well-educated lady who climbed her way up. i don't care how they want to phrase it. this lady has not only been a district attorney, she has been an attorney general, she was a senator, she is the vice president of the united states. you want to tell me she slept her way all the way up? no. she had to be well-educated and qualified. i'm voting on her based on her qualifications. thank you very much. i'm a true republican and i'm

not trying to prove it to anyone, but i will not be voting for donald trump. host: kathy in new mexico on the independent line. what is your top story? caller: good morning. i am calling because i want to comment on the excerpt you had a president biden talking about the supreme court. i would say as an independent, i am fine with whatever structure they give the supreme court, as long as the senate and congress does exactly the same thing. if they want to have integrity put back into the supreme court, which i don't believe that it is missing, they ought to look at the integrity of washington, d.c. for both the congress and the senate. there is such dysfunction there.

the idea that that was ever sought as a profession, that they would go in and stay forever, is ridiculous. they did their service to their country, they went back out into society and became a citizen is like everybody else. when you go there and you get rich like they are getting, you get pension funds that no one else is getting because you can serve one term and get all that. that's ridiculous. fine, if they want to attack the supreme court, whatever provisions they put on the supreme court, let them put on themselves. host: jim in georgia will be our last caller for this hour. good morning, jim. caller: thank you for taking my call. good morning to you as well. you had someone on, maybe a week or so ago, who had a book about kamala harris.

i have to tell you, i think kamala is a marvelous dancer, the way that she waltzed into that role. i think the name of the book was "amateur hour" or something like that. he is like kamala is not the right person. i agree. i would have been a democrat, but the democrats -- i don't know what is going on with them either. they are -- i cannot vote for kamala, i just can't do it. but peter and laura are running for the american solidarity party and are not in the ballot in georgia but i can write in their name. i think that jill stein is running for the green party. i could vote for her. in fact, you are asking earlier what is the biggest issue. i think that i heard it right, a 1000% increase in the number of

forest fires that we are having this year at west. wow, that's significant. in fact, bigger than all of these other political stories going on, the climate and the environment, man, they have to be way up there in the top 10, top three, top list. there is one other party that i think i could vote for. that is the forward party. i'm not sure who their presidential candidate is, but anyway, peter skoronski of the american solidarity party and i think his running mate is laura onac. host: that does it. we will be back in a few minutes to talk with edchoice president and ceo robert and slow to discuss the 1-2-3 of school choice and efforts to expand school choice programs later in

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expanding school choice and some of their recent works. robert, welcome to the program. guest: thank you for having me. host: why don't you start by telling us about edchoice, its mission. guest: it was founded by milton and rose friedman in 1996 with the simple purpose of improving the quality of k-12 education by allowing parents to choose the schools that work best for them. in 2016 we changed our name to edchoice and have gone on to do three things. we do policy, research, and legal and litigation work. our goal is to help support parents and their ability to choose the schools that work best for them. host: explain the types of school choice programs and how they are different from each other. guest: there is no one-size-fits-all. the first type is housing. people buy house and they go to a public school of their choice by choosing a house of their

choice. that is the first type. and then there are vouchers, which are basically public money set aside for a kid to go to school. you can choose to go to a private school. tax credits are you can get reimbursed for your expenditures on k-12 education. and then a new product for scholarship accounts allows families to customize their education are not just about attending a private school, but attending any kind of environment that works best for your kid. you want to go halftime to a school that is great math you want to do english on your own. it is allowing parents the freedom of an educational environment. host: there is also a difference between the school choice program that your organization works on as well as charter schools and magnet schools. how are those different? guest: i love that you bring that up. we look at educational choice share, how many families are

choosing all of the different types across america? magnet schools are in one way selecting public schools and districts. you have to test in or there is a certain skill, like arts or something like that. they are traditional public schools but a more selective environment. charter schools are independently run public schools managed by different organizations or individuals. they are more traditional schools, but are quite different than private schools. i like to put it this way. public schools are publicly funded government-run schools. charter schools are publicly funded independently run schools. private schools are publicly funded privately run school choice program. what we are seeing with school choice in the esa form is you now have publicly funded parent-directed education. host: how many students are using -- are enrolled in the school choice programs?

who is using them? what type of student? guest: great question. outside of the charter school in public school choice sectors, in the private school choice programs we have topped the one million mark. 2020 four, there are more than one million children using public funds to attend a public or private independent school of their choice or customizing their school of choice.it is a huge number . we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of kids eligible. fully 40% of tilden in america are eligible to go to a private school on a school choice program. we are seeing one million kids, about 2% of the overall population. we are seeing a ton more kids being eligible. host: we want to invite our audience to join in the discussion. the phone lines are little different. if you are a parent or a student, (202) 748-8000.

if you are an educator or administration, your line is (202) 748-8001. all others, (202) 748-8002. robert, you talked about the number hitting over one million. what factors are driving enrollment in school choice programs? guest: great question. one of the things that we know, we have been doing edchoice pollin sinceg february 2020, right before the pandemic. we have been researching parents views and issues every month since 2020. parents are very frustrated with how their schools are treating relating to bullying, stress, academic rigor. there is a great desire for families to have more customization. almost half of families would be ok with their child being

educated outside of a school building once a week. you are seeing a lot more if we are calling family-friendly family policies. we think that families are telling schools, you have to give us something different. more options, more flexibility, and for god's sake have our kids stop being bullied. host: if a parent or guardian decides to pursue a school choice option as opposed to public school, what is the process? what qualifications? does it guarantee that a student would be able to enroll in one? caller: every state has -- guest: every state has a program that is different. there are programs in 33 states, the district of columbia, and puerto rico and they are all different. the last two years, every child is eligible. just like a public school, if you have a child you have an option. 12 states have that option,

including places like florida, arizona, west virginia, iowa, indiana, ohio, and states like that. the goal is to say that there is no difference about where you go. your school type should not matter to your educational process. what matters is that you can choose. the goal is to allow families to choose. there are different reasons for people choosing, but in those 12 states everyone can choose. in other states, for the large majority, the private school movement was only for low income families. the movement started in 1990, the modern movement, in milwaukee, wisconsin when you had a bipartisan group say we want to help low income children get out of schools that are not working for them. that was the dominant theme of the school choice movement until more recently. the primary beneficiaries of the programs have always been lower income families. all we are really trying to say is that we want the same thing public schools have. we want all families to be free to choose. we don't care where you go.

host: we have added from philadelphia on the educator line, our first caller for the segment. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call today. i am an educator and have been for some time. i actually have experience teaching in the charter school and public school systems. i am familiar with the organization, and i was interested to see this gentleman talk today. i guess i will try to be polite and would like to point out that the founder of edchoice was milton freeman, an economist who had interesting ideas about privatizing every part of our society. if there is a reason why public schools are struggling, it is because of people like this gentleman here. if you look into edchoice and the amount of people who receive a lot of these vouchers, especially in states like ohio and indiana, they open it up so people who make more than

$200,000 a year can use these vouchers for their kids to attend religious schools that they were going to attend anyway.a lot of the stuff is miscommunication and misdirection, it costs a lot of people a lot of money, and it costs kids the education, which is the most important part. not everything should be commercialized. some things are done for public good. thank you. guest: i would like to say thank you so much for being a teacher, first of all. in our country, if you are a wealthy person and you buy a house you get a free public education. we are paying people who are wealthy already to go to traditional public schools.all we want is the ability are all families to get money set aside for their kids. what we know from recent data, we published the 1, 2, 3 school choice, our goal is to find out if the programs are working. do they help families? are they more satisfied? are the kids doing better on test scores?

how are the kids in public school doing when you have a choice program? how are the physical effects? our public schools losing money? there are 180 eight high-quality studies that we have tracked, really high-quality studies. very few done by groups like ours. they were done by an independent academic. 188 have been done and in 94% of those studies are showing positive or neutral effects. meaning that there is no harm or there are positive benefits. i appreciate ed's point and concern. we do believe that public education is a public good, but that is different from saying government-run schools. we believe educating the public is an important good in america, but that doesn't need to be done merely in government-run schools. host: mickey in chicago on the others line.

can you turn down your television in the background? caller: absolutely. i meant to do that. how do i do this? i wanted to ask -- ok, how will project 2025 affect the department of education if trump does get in? it seems as though he wants to eliminate it. i assume that would eliminate efforts to expand school choice as well? guest: project 2025 is something that edchoice had nothing to do with. in many ways on the education side it is older ideas such as eliminating the department of education, which has been around for a long time. the reality in america is it is a state-run effort. of the $800 billion or so we

spend on education, a massive amount is from state dollars. in every state, about 50% of your tax dollars go to k-12 education, 30% to 40% of your local dollars. if you look at k-12 education from the federal government, 9% to 11%. the driver of k-12 education is the states, and that is where we believe it should stay. host: rex in andover, minnesota, also an educator. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span and i really like the job you are doing. you are amazing. all of the hosts on c-span are amazing. i am thrilled to be able to have the opportunity to call. it is actually andover, minnesota, 20 miles north of the city's. i am a retired educator. i taught school for 20 years.

i started my teaching career in milwaukee and was part of the historical thing that the gentleman was talking about where private interests became the prevailing theme for moving low income children out of the failing -- they called them failing schools, etc., etc. i was one of the building representatives for one of the schools where parents came in and represented a private concern and succeeded in gutting the school of veteran teachers. it was a very unfortunate circumstance. i was part of it. i had to deal with the blowback. i will never forget it. it was a life-changing experience for me. the idea that i'm talking about here is if we go back a few years to where george floyd had the problem in minneapolis, all of a sudden people started crying defund the police. there were reasons for that. if you look at the way that things have been going since roughly 1990, what has the republican agenda been?

defund the education system, defund the schools. you don't like it when people say defund the police because that distracts us from the real issues of the funding that we need to maintain the systems that are in place to help people, to help society, to move society forward. you start talking about defunding schools and privatizing things, shifting the responsibilities for funding these things away from the public, where most of the taxpayers are involved, and start going more private, that is where we start to have the problem. it is not the failing school that's the problem. it is the lack of resources being put into those schools. i would like your gentlemen's comment on that. thank you very much. guest: thank you for teaching for so long and i appreciate hearing about your experience in milwaukee. the data on some school funding is straightforward as far as i understand. we spent more on k-12 education than ever before.

we continue to spend a ton of money on k-12 education. the question of where the difference lies is we believe in finding students not systems. we believe families should be free to choose, much like what happened in traditional public schools. if i was in one school district and i bought a house in another school district, the money follows me. all we want is the money to follow families to whatever school type works best for their child. we don't put our thumbs on the idea of saying that the school works better for child or that school. we think that families should be free to decide. they should have the choice. the dollars should follow them, just like it does when it goes from one public school to another. the logic of the argument being made is if we believe that parents should not be free to choose, then we should not allow families to buy a house at another district because that would ultimately defund a public school that a child needs and goes to. or we believe in funding students, not systems. this is where it gets tragic.

we have a system like we have in america now, the traditional government-run system. you have more non-teachers in education than teachers. that is made at local school districts across the country about staff. all we want is the money to follow families to go to the schools that work best for their kids. if that is a great public school, we think it's fantastic. charter school, also great. we want dollars to follow kids like they do in traditional schools. host: tim in pebbles, ohio on the other line. caller: good morning to you. i wanted to say, i am totally and unalterably to giving all of this money to private schools and religious schools. i am in ohio. they do that in ohio. because of that, i stopped voting for school levies and

will never vote for school levy again. i am a property owner, but i will never vote for school levy again as long as they do this giveaway. that's just me. guest: i appreciate that. you are one of the states that has had school choice the longest. two points that i would make about that, when families are choosing in their independent choice to go to a nonpublic school that happens to be religious in nature, what happens to their civic values and tolerance? there is a belief that somehow if we are in a traditional system the kids would be more tolerant, more open to different ideas. unfortunately, the data shows that the opposite is true. if you're sending your kid to a religious private school, the data shows that they are more tolerant of other people's opinions and ideas. it is possibly counterintuitive, but the data is interesting.

particularly a recently done meta-analysis by the university of arkansas showing families in these programs and religious schools have better civic results. the second point is, look, again, we believe families should be free to choose and have the money follow them. there are lots of government programs out there now that allow families and individuals to choose. think about how we choose food stamps. milton used to make this argument all the time. we get families in need the ability to get groceries and use them for food stuffs, but we do not run government-run grocery stores. in the same way, we are saying family should be free to choose whatever school and they don't have to run the schools. our argument is simple. there are a ton of government programs that operate like school vouchers do in ohio and no one seems to have a problem with those. we should have a problem withschool vouchers, in my opinion .

-- shouldn't have a problem school vouchers, in my opinion. host: good morning, mike. caller: i taught in the akron school system for over 30 years. i substitute taught. as a young person i attended public and private schools. public until eighth grade and private after that. i wondered if you could answer this one question. many people to your point of view will compare a private school and public school one or two blocks from each other. the private school has a lower income average and perhaps more non-white students yet they do better than the public school nearby. do you know the number one reason why one school is better than the other? it has nothing to do with income or racial makeup. there is one other factor. do you know the factor that determines whether or not the school is failing? if you don't know, let me tell you. it is the mobility rate.

most private schools have a mobility rate of less than 5%. even in the inner city it is less than 5%. maybe up to 10%, possibly. at the public school a few blocks away the mobility rate is 50%, 80%, sometimes 100%. that is the number one factor. not the racial makeup or average income, mobility rate. i had friends who taught grade school. i taught junior high. in grade school is easier to see because you have the same kids all day long. teachers in grade school say that they have 25 kids in september and by june only five of them are left, 20 of them are brand-new. you don't see that at private schools. guest: mobility rate is very important, and that is an argument for school choice. the idea of a school, the ability to meet that child, and the child will say -- if you say they are coming from the same

low income background because they aren't moving, that says something about the school type for that child. we should be trying to find an education where every child can fit in. we should get every child to fit in, get in where they fit in. if that is in a private school, that's great. a charter school, that's also great. the goal is to provide enough options for another family so that the mobility rate is near 0%. host: robert, earlier this year during the 2024 state of the state address, the alabama governor kay ivey spoke about the efforts in that state to increase school choice programs. we want to hear from her and then get your response on the others. [video clip] gov. ivey: school choice is a spectrum. we realize to expand our options in alabama we had to first improve our existing options. charter schools and the alabama accountability act.

you accomplished that. thank you. next, the next step now is to provide our parents, beginning with those most in need, education savings accounts, which will further us on our journey to become the most school-choice-finley state in the nation -- school-choice-friendly state in the nation. [applause] passing an education savings account bill that works for families and for alabamians is my number one legislative priority. i am proud to have an education -- the choose act. once we get this legislation across the finish line, we will

prepare for the program to begin in 2025-2026 academic year. it's first two years will be helping families who might not otherwise have the option to afford to send their children to the school of their choice through these $7,000 education savings accounts. for the third year and beyond, all families will be eligible for the program. as additional families choose to participate in the program, and as our revenues increase, we can grow the program responsibly so that it can be fully universal. host: robert, what do expansion efforts look like across the country? where is it having success? where is it not moving as much? guest: that is a great question. i love hearing from governor ivey.

her comments were well received in the school choice community. to make sure they have all the skills and accountability they need to improve their existing system and give families options. i think they are getting universal. it will be an exciting program. the data shows that public schools and schools in states with school choice get better faster. we are excited by that. this is going on with florida with governor desantis and in arkansas with governor huckabee sanders. there is a ton of movement around the country. if you look at west virginia, which will be universal done under governor justice. north carolina, even with a democrat governor they have universal choice. we are beginning to see school choice is getting bigger and broader everywhere. even pennsylvania, governor shapiro has expressed support for families having more options. it is happening across the country.

12 states have gotten universal eligibility in the last two years, and we expect that to increase. we expect states like texas, idaho, and others will join the fray. the goal is getting family choice, join the family. it is happening all over the country. it is happening in blue states, too. california is one of the most charter-rich states in the country, massachusetts, new york.the goal is to give families greater options, and i think that's working. host: ari became the first state in the country in 2022 to enact universal school voucher programs.how many have it now ? guest: 12. i don't mean to correct you but it was tiny west virginia who did it first in 2021. i think that west virginia was the spark that lifted the movement nationally with senator

patricia rucker who is a hero in school choice. she said even in west virginia we can get these programs passed. the next year arizona did it, then florida, and now 12 states have universal eligibility and we expect at least two to three more in the next years. host: arizona has it, and i went to get your reaction to this statement from the national education association. a statement tey h in february on universal sc vouchera portion of a per-pupil account parents can tap intandan pay for a generously approved private school tuition. an analysis revealed the most univercipits in arizona live in an area with median meange from $81,000 to $178,000. 5% come from zip codes where the

median income is under $49,000. a grand canyon instieport found 80% of applicants did not attend a public school meeting, private school or beingattending homeschooled. izona's voucher program is projected to cost $950 millio next year. $320 of which -- $320 million of which is not budgeted. guest: i hear that all the time about arizona. if the cost is busting the budget in arizona, why is the department of education releasing data that they have a surplus? the esa money in arizona comes on the department of education. that budget is being told was for the superintendent that they are in a surplus. it is not budget busting if the department of education has a surplus.

that's a factual conversation. the 80% conversation about whether kids are going to be in private school or getting in the private school is a much more nuanced and important conversation to have. in the state of indiana where i live there is a robust voucher program. it serves about 6% of kids. if you surveyed the families you would hear i want a voucher and i have gone to private school. they would say that kid has always been in private school. they are not asking whether the child would attend a private school without the program. we know the answer to that. the answer is they wouldn't. if you're looking at the data based on in the last year have you attended a public school and they have been on the choice program from the beginning and that it held the access choices, of course they will be an existing private school student. does it matter? we want our families to be educated. that is the goal, to make sure

kids are educated in america and they are being educated in america. who knows that most is families. in our most recent poll families were telling us they are the most pessimistic about k-12 education than they have ever been. only 32% think the public education is going on the right track. we can have debates and discussions which i do every day about the right thing to do is. when families are telling us is not working we need to do something else. the other think about the median income conversation is, why not have this argument about traditional schools? if we believe families who have money or getting a private school education and that's wrong and we shouldn't allow that, why are we allowing families of money to get a free public education often at two times the amount we are spending on a private school education? we need to stop focusing on the dollars and start focusing on the kids. the kids need to be educated. we don't care where they get educated. we care that they get educated. host: let's hear from a parent,

michelle in wisconsin. go ahead, michelle. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question to you, sir, all i keep hearing from the republican side is they went -- want to privatize education with private schools and stuff. my question to you is, what about the special needs children who need the education, who rightfully have the right to education and where i live the private schools do not have special ed programs or special needs children in their schools. what happens to those children going through school when the schools do not offer any programs for those kids who still have the right to an education? guest: i love that question.

i think it is super important question to ask. i am the father of a special needs son and was lucky to get an education that works best for him. making sure we are handling special needs families in a way that is both respectful and dignified and they get the education that works best for them, that is number one. that's one of the reasons why the largest growth in the voucher program in the mid to thousands was for special-needs families -- 2000's was for special-needs families. if you look at the voucher programs in the mid to thousands, they were -- 2000's, they were to make sure special-needs had options. we want to make sure traditional schools are able to educate the kids that need it the most in terms of special-needs. we want to make sure families have options. a lot of times a traditional school does not work, like it did not work for me. this is what esa has been in

special-needs communities. that is what we want. to make sure kids get the opportunity to get into a system that works best for them. in states like indiana, private schools that have not traditionally done special-needs services, as i have got more open to the choice in the state they are beginning to serve more special-needs kids. the goal here is to get the child the education that works best for them. we don't care it is. we care that they get it. host: tim in delaware, and educator. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: you are on. caller: i'm an art school teacher. i love my kids. it's a pleasure to give back to people and see them light up and start to get it. i have been on hold for a little while. my point has changed. i would like to say i think it's unfortunate we are pretending this tournament who was a salesman, not an educator is

doing anything but talking in circles. that woman who called asked a reasonable question and he did not answer it. these people are auctioning off -- why did kay ivey say that esa's were a primary goal? why doesn't just go straight to the schools? why don't we adequately fund education? earlier i heard this to them and say people had choice, like they could pick up and move and buy another house and another school district. you use some kind of convoluted backwards logic. the people that are down here, who stay there, they also deserve an education. no matter what their kids are. some people have no choice. these vouchers, there is no evidence that they work. this is a scam. this man is a scam artist. guest: i appreciate your opinion and everyone has the right to their ideas. let me answer that this way. one of the reasons i do what i

do is because i think the idea that a family can't move and can't afford to move and to low income to find a school district is terrible. the idea that we will have a kid forced to go to a school where we say it will get better in five years were given more money and let's figure it out, i think that is a terrible thing to do to families. i do. i'm in this program. if it's a great school and works for the family, that's fantastic. if they can't afford to move, why should the income and their zip code determine the quality of education? i get passionate about this part of the conversation. it is one thing to say i have an opinion or i have a point of view. i do, but there are millions of families that are stuck in schools that don't work for them. i think it's terrible to say you keep trying. keep hoping you gets better. we do believe competition might actually improve it.

i think competition will improve it. i think the data on the whole shows it works. if anyone looks at the data, look at yourself. go read the studies as i have. is a perfect? nothing is perfect. families need options. it is disingenuous to say keep waiting around. let's keep trying to add more money even though we added more money than ever before and hopefully it might get better for the family who can't afford to move. we need to do it now. our kids are not getting educated now. i will do everything i can to make sure all families have the freedom to choose. host: jeff in spring hill, florida, a parent. good morning caller: thank you for taking my call. i agree with 100% with tim. first of all, what makes a private school private? the answer is money. what you are doing is taking money from the public collection

to keep the entire child raising of education, that he has a way to get that education. you are giving money to the rich so it cuts the cost of private school in half. guest: to be honest with you, that is not what is happening in educational choice for the last 25 years. i challenge you to look at the data. look at your logic. if you're saying the same thing, you would not support food stamps or food vouchers going to anything except government run grocery stores. the reality is families have all sorts of different options through different government programs. you don't have a government running the schools. our argument is simple. it works better when families have choices. we know it does. it is why florida has seen great improvement in its results.

it is what arizona has seen great improvements in its results. there's a connection between the ability to choose and the ability to get better results. if you are saying it's a scam, let me ask you why is a black child in indianapolis who goes to the indianapolis public schools -- $15,000 to go to a traditional third-grade classroom. it's $8,000 to $9,000 to go to a charter school and get a choice program. why is it $10,000 less? we need to have all the money follow the families wherever, including private schools. host: robert, i want to ask about your organization. 2024 edition of the schl choice tell us about the blication and where you're getting information from. gues what we do as an ganization is try to collect resources to find out wt working and what's not working.

sometimece does not work and we want to be honest about that. we are what are one of the only organizations that will say here is where it is working and here's where it is not working. one of the things that sets organization apart as we don't publish just positive stuff. we want to understand was happening. we take the compilation of all the highest studies we can find, the studies that are basically placebo studies if you think about that. in a drug trial they give it all the variables except the pill. those of the highest quality studies that you can find. there is matching studies and random assignment samples. we do our best to get all the high-quality studies on a number of topics. how kids doing on test scores? how are kids doing after graduating? are they graduating? how are kids in public schools doing? how are families doing? how are kids behaving? are they behaving different?

are they more tolerant of other people's opinions? is it better for public schools or worse for public schools? the preponderance of the evidence is that children are doing better as a whole under choice programs. is that always true? of course not. that's the same in any system. we know it's happening now in america whether education. we know from school choice programs that 180 cities have been done -- studies have been done. 163 found a positive effect and 11 found negative effects. that's a decent race we can learn from. there are places where we have mixed results that we need to figure out. test scores. kids see a slight increase depending on the study look at and when. we will see more over time. indiana will see a study that shows kids have come back from their losses. the goal is to connect and collect all the data necessary to find out whether school choice is working in american

education. we believe it is. that is why we are supporting the idea of family freedom. it is a passionate subject. i am passionate about it as well. i think families should be free to choose. host: robert, one of the areas the study you mentioned was public school students test scores. 29 studies in that category. 26 showed a positive overall impact on public school students. explain why. guest: this is a great question. the thing about milwaukee, you are in a city that has a ton of choice options. private schools serving low income families. they are in a neighborhood that has multiple options. public, private, charter. they found that kids that are going to the traditional public schools in those areas, the public schools improved faster because there's a great deal

more competition for the students. the more competition you have for students the better the results are going to be in the traditional public schools. this is one of the things we don't talk about enough. it is one of the findings in the academic findings about school choice that very few people disagree with in the academic world. at the very least school choice is proving to have a positive result on public schools. that in and of itself to be a positive thing. the reasoning for this is kids in areas where there's lots of competition, the schools have to do more to make sure parents are coming to them, that the qualities is improved and they are getting better communications, their teachers are more responsive. it is all the things you would think need to happen to make sure schools are getting better. host: we have time for one more call. darlene in illinois on the other line. caller: hello. i would like to say i think this is all simply a reason to

denigrate the public schools. charter schools are not necessary if we are successful in directing our public schools in the first place. just how much money is going to private religious schools? as far as i know there should be no public money going to religious schools. guest: i appreciate your point. here is what i say. i don't know how long we can continue to wait. it is not denigrating any kind of school system but we can't wait forever to try to make sure the system that has not been working for a long time . there have been a million kids dropping up for the last 15 years. that is not acceptable. we can say it's about money. it is continuing to happen. this is not about an individual school or individual teacher.

it's about whether the system can solve the problem of our country, which is to make sure kids are educated. if you can't read and can't write and can't compute and can't understand history, who will govern the affairs of our country? my goal is to make sure we have a country here in 40 to 50 years and not worry about whether it is done through a system that does or does not work. the last thing i would say is the goal here is not about whether one school is better than another school. it's about whether kids get educated. we know in school choice there is 2% of kids in america using the funds to go to private schools. that's only 1% of the total money. 1.2% of the total money. the vast majority will be spent on traditional schools. we are arguing over 2% of the kids in america that are using an option to go to what is best for them. they seem to improve public schools.

it seems to make sure test scores are better. it makes more cynically tolerant children. i find it -- civically tolerant children. our goal is to improve all the systems. host: our guest robert enlow, president and ceo of edchoice. you can find their work online at edchoice.org. thank you for your time this morning. next -- later on washington journal we will be joined by “popular information" author judd legum. he will discuss his newsletter and political news of the day. first, we will hear from more of you during our open forum. you can start calling now. here are the lines. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002.

we will be right back. ♪ >> political party conventions. we head to chicago for the democratic national convention. watch live beginning monday, august 19, as the party puts forth their presidential nominee. hear democratic leaders talk about administration's track record and their vision for the next four years as they fight to retain the white house. the democratic national convention, live monday, august 19, on c-span, c-span now, for online at c-span.org. -- or online at c-span.org. watch our full coverage of the 2024 national convention. you can catch up on past

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york. at 6:30 p.m. eastern, the market enterprise institute with his book american covenant about the power of the u.s. constitution and its ability to bring americans together. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, gretchen whitmer with her book talks about her life, leadership and journey in politics. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2, andind a full schedule on your program gde or watch online anytime at booktv.org. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back. we are in open forum for the next 25 minutes. we will hear from mike in youngstown, ohio, democrat line. good morning. caller: how are you doing this morning? host: doing well. caller: that's good. this country is too divided.

i'm 70 years old. i've never seen so much hatred. i don't like it and it scares me. it is too crazy and too divided. i attribute that to donald trump. have a good day. host: kendra in richmond, virginia. independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling about the top news story, what my top news story of the week would be. as an african-american woman my top story is the supposedly overwhelming support for kamala harris. apparently this election is no longer about policy and it's only about three things. those three things are race, gender and your love or hate for trump. nothing else matters to people who lack common sense.

have a great day. host: ken in tulsa, oklahoma. republican line. caller: good morning. what a great call, the lady that just spoke about common sense and how we are going down a path of personalities as opposed to our living standards in our life. kamala harris's record is to the left of bernie sanders, a socialist, which means big government to people. the loss of individual freedom. everybody's try to make it about, as the lady said, trump, race and gender. instead of what matters. open borders, inflation, all the things that the big difference

between the democrats and republican parties. the democrats, big government. the covid mandates shows what happens when democrat leaders have an excuse to control people's lives with churches having to wear masks and all that kind of stuff and bars do not. we really are faced with the most significant election really this time in our history. the experiment of socialism. venezuela was the most prosperous country in south america. now they are the poorest all because they went with socialism over normal individual freedom and elections. that is what we are faced with. it is simple this time. host: that was ken.

iris in michigan on the independent line. caller: good morning everybody. i'm in total agreement with the lady who called when you first open up this subject. we are becoming prejudiced in this country. we don't talk to each other. politics are not on the table anymore. families can't even discuss it. i would like to know why the plane that brought the two gentlemen into this country came in and the dark -- in the dark. one of the reporters had mentioned it was totally dark. i did not know that he was even legal to bring a plane and without guidance. that bothers me. i also noticed that kamala harris has taken the name of her husband. also takes credit for ringing the place down on insulin at

$35. i could have gotten that down much cheaper. host: jim in winter park, florida, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a little breaking news. i saw this on msnbc. they announced they have done an investigation by the smartest trumped arrangement syndrome. donald trump is the elgin son of vladimir putin. experts have secured a dna specimen they collected, a covert operation that collect the needles from the walgreens in mar-a-lago. host: good morning, jasper. caller: i wanted to address the young lady who called a couple of calls ago. she said she was african-american. we can tell very easily by your voice, the accent.

these republicans are calling in and saying they are african-american. let's be honest. call in on your line. kamala harris, i'm scared for her to run because everything is so divided. she's doing a lot better than i thought she was. i did not know about her until the supreme court confirmation hearings. she's been doing impressive work. thank you for taking my call. host: james in pittsburgh on the independent line. good morning, james. caller: hello. i have a question for the other viewers. there is a clip going on social media that shows after kamala harris congratulated joe on getting the hostages back on the tarmac there, replaying the

empty plain the hostages came in on. is that a real thing that happened? if so, does that imply he's out of touch with his situation and thought he was getting on air force one or something? i think people are doing a great disservice not evoking the 20 for the moment if in fact -- 20 for them, to be having those kinds of problems -- 25th amendment if he is having those kind of problems. it is scary if we have another six month with him in charge. it would be better if kamala was in charge. host: james mentioning social media. that headline in this morning's washington post. justice department sues tiktok, alleging it violated child privacy laws. the article says tiktok, which has 170 million u.s. users made it too easy for children to create accounts and then collected data on those who did.

a massive scale violation of the children's online privacy protection act. the justice department said friday in a legal complaint. the claim follows years of outspoken suspicions from federal officials that tiktok could pose a national security threat by potentially exposing american personal data to the chinese government. tiktok said it has never given such information to chinese officials. the united states has not provided evidence to support that claim. the article goes on to say tiktok disputed the justice department's claims on friday and had practically removed suspected underage users and invested in parental controls and other privacy protections for young users. in a statement, a spokesman said, "we disagree with these allegations. many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have

been addressed." andy in south carolina on the republican line. good morning, andy. caller: good morning. i appreciate c-span. i am kind of a -- kind of nerdy because i enjoy the congressional hearings and stuff. early this week, the democratic national committee had a vote on reassigning the delegates. do you remember that one? host: yes. they had some rules. she did secure the delegates, yes. caller: 142-11 vote to allow her to reassign the delegates. right before the vote someone raised the point of order about whether it was -- whether it was valid. the parliamentarian said the

vote is out of order because they have to wait 30 days before amending the charter, which can only happen at the convention. i'm just trying to understand, because you guys broadcast it, but how is she, kamala harris, the nominee won the point of order was made during the live virtual meeting that the whole vote is out of order/ -- out of order and they will take it up at later time about amending the charter? could a parliamentarian or someone call in or you could host to fix plane that to all of us -- explain that to all of us? thank you. host: john in new york on the

democrats line. good morning. caller: yeah, i would like to agree with the woman from virginia. she's right. it has become about gender and race and set of inflation and secure borders. it is a shame. my comment is i think an opportunity has been missed with this -- what race you are came up this week after trump's meeting with the national black journalists. is there some problem with being biracial? i don't understand. we have 35 million, from the statistic i heard, 35 million biracial people. that is what you are. you are not just black. you are biracial. i never looked at president obama, who i thought was great,

voted for him twice, as a black guy. i looked at him as a biracial guy. it is not an embarrassment. i don't understand why. host: james in arkansas on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you so much for taking my call. one thing that comes to mind for me is it seems to have been a time when we as related to politics it was policies over personalities. what was interesting to me is that a few weeks ago during the republican party convention two prominent items that used to be on the platform, abortion and sanctity of marriage was no longer mentioned or mentioned very little if at all. to deny at this point character,

doesn't no longer matter? it seems as if trump, if elected, he wants to do away with our system of government, our constitutional separation of powers. it's really interesting time. i think we really need to look at this thing as we go forward. host: you are calling on the independent line. do you know who you will be voting for november? caller: i'm not sure at this point. definitely not trump. host: former president trump is holding a rally in atlanta today. the aicle says former president trump and newly need vice president will nominee setoj.d. vance will be in atlanta saturday for a campaign rally. the visit will be in the same venue as a similar event held by esumptive democratic presidential nominee vice president kamala harris. the campaign event was held at

the georgia state univeit convocation center on tsd. the event, you can watch it le on c-span today. will have coverage starting at 5:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, onli at c-span.org, or you can watch on c-span now, our free mobile app. darrell in arkansas on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to say this get back to policy instead of gender and race. this remark by president trump was not appropriate, i don't think. it brought up a very hot topic. even though i will vote for him because of his policies. i think his policies are good for america. that will be all.

host: let's hear from lisa in massachusetts. good morning, lisa. are you there? caller: i actually saw msnbc last night, yesterday. they were talking about a real thing that happened where the egyptian government gave trump $10 million. so, there you go. you people, i'm so sick of hearing about trump dilution. he made that up, trying to disclaim anybody that doesn't like him. please. give me a break. i here use your head all the

time. -- hear use your head all the time. kamala harris. she is not as liberal as he is tried to paint her. host: are you going to be voting for vice president harris? caller: yes. i will be voting for kamala harris. i feel we all have to vote together and vote trump never to be president again, because he is -- my goodness. i can't even say all the things i want to say. he is misleading, misguiding, misdirecting. we voted him out the last time. no, he did not leave. he wants to put himself in the middle of everything. fix the economy? he doesn't want the economy to go well. he wants to be horrible so he can dance on the issue. the border? try to fix it? they don't want to fix it.

they just want to run on it. i am so -- we have to vote him out. host: kevin in illinois on the republican line. good morning, kevin. caller: good morning. god bless you. your show was amazing. i would like to say that if all the religious people and everyone would pray that god in trump can save our country -- and trump can save our country when they act we don't understand that two and two is four. common sense. they are showing the people by the thousands invading our country. you don't have to be smart to see that. it is obvious. as far as kamala harris, she was put and given her position. she did not earn it. she did not have any votes from the public, from the citizens. the democratic machine with obama and clinton pushing her on

through because of trump. trump took a bullet for us, for the people, for the country. he is fighting for what is right. he is doing what is right. he can prove it with facts. he can prove it with numbers. trump is our only hope, because we cannot feed 15 million people walking in our country. would you want them in your front yard? do you want to buy your house when you have no idea who they are? god is the answer and trump is the other answer. please pray for trump to win, that we can have security in our country. that we can have peace. that we can have love. host: that was kevin in illinois. bill in florida on the independent line. good morning, bill. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. i'm calling because i'm a little bit surprised at the lack of discussion regarding senator

robert menendez having been convicted on 16 counts of bribery for favors to the governments of egypt and qatar. that seems to be an issue that does not make much of the mainstream news. i think a lot of it was overshadowed by the trump trial new york. i was wondering if there were segments i might have missed on c-span that had any discussions of senator menendez and his convictions and subsequent resignation that will be effective on august 20 and his sentencing in october. thank you. host: one note he mentioned. senator menendez of new jersey. another note this morning. the washington post, the front page of the metro section. virginia loses seat and primary

recount. house freedom caucus chairman bob good lost a last-ditch effort to hang onto his seat in congress on thursday as a recount in his rural central virginia district confirmed his narrow loss to john maguire iii in the june gop primary. good, one of the hardest right figures in congress petition for the recount after the state certified result in the june 18 contest put him 374 votes behind maguire, the state senator who painted the incumbent as insufficiently loyal to former president trump. good was behind by 370 votes after the election officials across the fifth district completed the recount. congressman good posted a statement about those results on his facebook page. he said "while and disappointed in the ultimate outcome, it has

been my honor to serve the congressional representative -- serve as the congressional represented for the fifth district over the past three and half years. i will continue to serve my constituents to the best of my ability over the remaining five months of my term and will continue to fight for the principles and values upon which our nation was founded." a few minutes left in this segment. tim in michigan on the democrats line. good morning. caller: who is that? host: it is you. caller: my name is sam. i wanted to see if the republicans want to put the rapist in the white house, the convicted rapist. 34 felons under his belt. meanwhile, joe biden, sleepy joe, 15 million new jobs.

unemployment rate was at 3.7%. the lowest in 50 years under his administration. 46,000 new infrastructure projects. the american rescue plan. bipartisan infrastructure plan. chips and science bill. lowering drug prices. oil production as the highest rate ever in a making history. -- american history, unlike what donald trump is spewing which is drill, baby, drill. he don't do anything but lie, baby, lie. why is everybody in his administration during his four years in office either in jail or just gotten out of prison? if he such a wonderful guy? host: al in gardner, massachusetts. independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling this a trump is a convicted felon. in some states he should not

even be allowed to vote. less represent them as a president of the united states. the man has no moral content. the man has no compassion for people. his wife doesn't really like him. everybody that sees him knows that. he grabs her hand and she shoves it away. she don't come to his event because she has seen firsthand that donald trump is a total waste of human skin that needs to be put in when sentencing comes. never mind him being the president. he committed a crime in america. without the judicial system we have no country. we can talk economics. we can talk anything but without a true judicial system we will have no country. trump needs to be in jail. there is no need to argue about that. no need for the republicans to

pretend like he has not done anything wrong. as far as the shooting is concerned, i got shot at. i didn't see no cameras for me. host: we got your point. we will go to the less caller, carolyn in tyler, texas, democrats line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to talk about those who are calling in complaining about voting for kamala harris because of her race, gender and against trump. i am voting for kamala harris because she believes in many of the ideas and i support her policies and what she supports. i voting for her because i want to hold onto our democracy. i believe hundred trump our democracy will become unrecognizable. all you have to do is read project 2025.

i'm not voting for her just because she's a black woman and a woman. however, do keep in mind that race and gender has been front and center in this country because up until 2008 to be elected president he had to be white and you had to be a male. thank you for taking my call. host: that does it for our open forum segment. next on washington journal, our spotlight on podcasts. we will speak with judd legum about his newsletter “popular information" and political news of the day. we will be right back. ♪

>> c-span has podcast for you. the same to authors and influential interviewers on the afterwards podcast will and on q&a hear wide-ranging conversations with the nonfiction authors and others who are making things happen. but note plus episodes are hour-long conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. the about books podcast takes you behind-the-scenes of the nonfiction book publishing industry with insider interviews, industry updates and best sellers lists. find all of our podcasts by downloading the free c-span now app, or wherever you get your podcasts, and on our website, c-span.org/podcasts. >> sunday on q&a, stephen khan shares his book "lies of the land," which argues the reality of rural america today is vastly different from the way it is often portrayed by politicians and the media.

>> one of the things i discovered, much to my own surprise is that a great deal of american automobile manufacturing now takes place in what we would call rural areas. especially the japanese companies, toyota and honda, who built these plants starting and the 1970's and 1980's but out in the cornfield. rural people are not farmers, statistically speaking at all. they are factory workers. they are long-haul truck drivers. they are doing all these things that are connected to our industrial society. >> stephen khan with his book "the lies of the land," sunday at 8:00 eastern on q&a. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> the house will be in order.

>> this year see sin -- c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress. since 1979, we have been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government. taking you to where the policies are debated and decided all with the support of america's cable companies. c-span, 45 years and counting, powered by cable. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back. joining us now is judd legum, the author of popular --“popular information." tell us about “popular information." when and why did you start it? guest: i started it six years ago now. it is focused on accountability journalism. there's a long tradition of journalistic outlets that are focused on holding power to account.

that is what i tried to do. we have a two-person person staff, three including me. we are a small group. we look for ways to inject ourselves in the conversation and look for powerful people or entities and see what we can dig up. host: when you say it focuses on accountability journalism, for people not familiar with the newsletter, give us examples of the type of reporting and the issues you are looking at. guest: well, for example, you're going back some years ago to the outset of the pandemic in march of 2020. we did an extensive report on darden, the parent company of olive garden, how another employees were receiving any paid sick leave, which is honestly a more salient issue in the midst of an emerging pandemic. as a result of that story, which

got considerable amount of attention, the company then announced they were shifting their policy and providing paid sick leave. i think that is the kind of thing that we are looking for. we also do a lot of more especially political stories as well. host: -- explicitly political to resist well. host: as well as general news, how do you choose what to write about? guest: i think we look for that through line of corporate accountability, accountability for powerful politicians. anyone who's in a position of power, we are not looking to punch down. we are looking for people who have accumulated power and who are potentially abusing that power. there is no science to it. it's more of a feel. i have been doing this work for a couple of decades now and seen where we can have the most impact.

we are not going to compete with the associated press or the washington post. we have to pick our spots because we have a limited number -- amount of resources and we will focus on where we can put those resources and have the biggest impact. host: there are a lot of newsletters out there these days. who should read and subscribe to “popular information?" guest: everyone. i have a history and progressive democratic politics. i don't hide that. it is listed on the about page. i also respect every single one of our readers. no matter what your political perspective, you can read the newsletter and you know where i stand. there will also be all the links to the primary sources, all the factual information so that you can come up with your own opinion. i'm not writing this in order to impose my opinion. i am writing it to share the facts, mostly to share my perspective on the facts but then the readers can make up

their own minds. host: what kind of feedback to you get? guest: lots of feedback of all sorts. everything from people saying how wonderful the newsletter is and how i am -- wonderful i am. certainly any factual errors we know right away. you sometimes get dozens or hundreds of emails. also people who are disappointed with the coverage or want me to shift the coverage to a different topic. i try to take that as seriously as i can. host: let people know where people can find your newsletter. guest: popular.info. host: we are talking with judd legum about his newsletter, “popular information," and also political news of the day. if you have a question or comment from him, start calling now. the lines, republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002.

turning to political news of the day, you had a piece recently talking about the potential attacks on kamala harris as she becomes the presumptive democratic party's nominee. talk about that piece and what your take away is from what you saw this week at the donald trump interview. guest: i think right now it's an unusual situation because we have kind of dropped a candidate into the middle of the height of the season. normally the lines of attack would be established. i think right now yeezy donald trump really searching. one of the main lines of attack i focused on in that piece was connecting harris to various people released on bail because she once tweeted encouraging people to donate to a bail fund

during the racial justice protests in 2020. a lot of the stories really don't pan out when you look into them specifically. some folks are these awful people released were found not guilty. one person was in fact of police brutality and won a million dollars settlement against the police. as far as that interview goes, i think it showed they are still searching. donald trump, if you look at his history with obama, even before he was ever running for president, looking to stoke these kinds of racial tensions is something he's quite comfortable with and turns to. he is trying that out. whether or not that becomes a long-standing part of this campaign i think is to be determined. host: the present of democratic

-- presumptive democratic nominee kamala harris is expected to announcer running mate in the coming days. narrowed down to a couple of governors entrance rotation secretary pete buttigieg. those names there on out there. who would she benefit from? who would maybe help her the most? ? what is she looking for -- what is she looking for? guest: i think she has shown she is very focused on winning, which is something a lot of people probably in both parties are looking for in a candidate. i imagine they are doing lots of polling, lots of focus groups to see who can get -- give her an edge in one of those key states. whether it is pennsylvania or michigan. i don't think that necessarily means you pick the governor of that state. that's a little bit reductive. you want to pick someone who appeals to the types of voters,

the specific types of voters you will try to swing in the states. especially when it is likely the outcome is going to be determined by a few thousand voters, a few tens of thousands or maybe a few hundred thousand voters. it's a fairly big decision even though the ultimate impact on the outcome is probably going to be fairly small. host: you have experience working in campaigns. you work on hillary clinton's 2008 campaign. she was the first female presidential nominee for a major party. your reaction to seeing now kamala harris stepping up to that role and becoming the first black and south asian women? guest: i think one of the things -- you see a lot of similars without women are treated when they reach this level of the national stage.

a lot of focus on the fact that harris occasionally laughs, which i think among -- in most circumstances is viewed as something that is a human reaction to things when some thing funny happens and somehow this was viewed as annoying or shrill. there was a lot of -- as someone who had to observe virtually 24 hours a day of coverage of hillary clinton, a lot of the same kind of things. just picking apart every little reaction that goes on throughout the day. i think it is unfortunate. we maybe -- that seemed to be fairly quickly dropped as far as something that was used over and over again. maybe we are moving beyond the point where that role of calling them and shrill or annoying is an effective political tactic. i hope so. host: as someone with a lot of experience in being completely

absorbed in the new cycle, what are you watching for now with kamala harris and her campaign? guest: i think she's had by all accounts probably a more successful rollout that even she maybe would have suspected. the shift in the perception of her as a fairly unpopular vice president to a significantly more popular presidential candidate i think surprised a lot of people, but one of the things i have learned in politics is that things can change very quickly. the world in november is going to be very different than the world now. can she sustain the momentum and keep the narrative focus on the stories that she wants them to be focused on? that was really the issue with biden. it was not necessarily that the criticism of his age was convincing new people but it was the inability to move on to any other topic. it was not convincing any

additional people to vote for him. that is a similar challenge harris will have. she will have to not get waylaid into these racial provocations, not get waylaid into some of the other attacks and beat them back efficiently and keep the focus on the issues that she knows can bring out the voters that she needs, which are probably issues like abortion rights, economic equality, other issues host: let's hear from our callers. first up is carma in oklahoma. caller: i have a couple of quick comments. i think abortion should not even be a governmental issue. i think it should be taken out of politics altogether. it is between a woman, a man, and their doctor.

i don't think it is for any of us to judge or to pass issue on or the state to get involved. if you want to leave it up to the states and not the government itself. i hear republicans ignore women's rights and all, but i see that the liberal side is giving all the women's rights to men which i find even more disturbing. they are taking away us being women. we fought for it. now they are giving them away to the male gender. where does that leave women in sports or miss america contests or women of the year, in fact? lastly, journalistic integrity, i would like to hear facts from all the newspeople, not just one or two. it would be nice to have the truth and the americans can sort it out. maybe we can have the candidates

on light detectors when they are debating. i think we are facing world war iii and we need someone who can stop it and i don't think kamala harris has what it takes. host: ok, we will get a response. guest: that's a lot to take in. i do think it was a fairly insightful view into a lot of the issues that are on voters' minds. certainly, these gender issues are very salient. i don't think anyone is trying to prevent people, prevent women from being women or replacing that. i think that is something you are hearing the trump campaign talk a lot about, that they want to bring to the center. it will be an important task to communicate that in a commonsense way that people can

understand from harris' perspective that she wants to be supportive of lgbtq rights, but she's not looking to radically transform every single person's lives. it is about respecting everyone's individual's choices instead of imposing some new world order. there is a fear in some areas of the country that that is what's going on and that is something people will have to deal with. host: christian in philadelphia, pennsylvania on the democrats line. good morning. caller: hi. judd, i just wanted to say i appreciate your focus on fact checking and making sure that the truth gets out there. i think nowadays, some very influential politicians kind of just say whatever they want to say and make up their own "facts." i just kind of want to know why

do you think that is and why do you think people blindly go ahead and agree with these non-facts that are just said? guest: that is an excellent question. probably one of the key questions of our age. and, i think part of it has to do with how much the media has changed even in my lifetime. whereas before, a politician could say something but the only way in which someone found out about that in an era where there was not 24 hour news, no social media, that it would be mediated through a small group of media outlets and they could essentially vet these claims before anyone heard them, before they even got to any significant number of people in the public. now, politicians don't have to

deal with any of that. they can reach people directly, instantaneously, repeatedly. they can reach them through mechanisms where there is no fact checking. there's not even anyone else who are raising any concerns. that is why it has become so much more prevalent. that is why i think -- think of how to get back to the newsletter -- it is important to find trusted sources where you know this is someone you trust. that is a decision everyone needs to make for themselves, who do you trust? i think moving forward as you are looking for the next 10 years and trying to become a news consumer that maintains your sanity, you cannot just let everything wash over you because there's going to be so much in there that is unreliable. you've got to find people that you trust and focus on that as the core of your news and then you can expand out from there. host: when talking about fact checking, how impactful is it?

is it effective as when you are working on something in your sourcing it, as you are providing the source for it? is it changing anyone's mind once the fact-check is out there? guest: it depends. i think in certain cases, you can shame folks into getting off of something that is not true. for instance, even in this fact-check we put out there and other folks put out there about harris and this one person who was charged with attempted murder, but later acquitted and was found the victim of police brutality. that has now been dropped from the trump ads and from their social media posts because every time it came up, people started bringing that up. now, hasn't made the biggest difference in the world? no, there are other ads with misleading anecdotes but you keep chipping away. again, these are things that are decided at the margins. my view is every little fact you

can get in there and correct and give people a more accurate understanding, that is getting you a little closer. is it getting mutual lace where everything is true -- is it getting you to a place where everything is true but it is getting you to a better place, and that is how i do this every day, every week. host: dave in new york on the republican line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. good morning, judd. i wanted to ask you why if kamala harris is biracial, she speaks so little about her south asian heritage? i see pictures of her. her name kamala is an indian name. it is a hindu goddess. she seems to be pandering to the african-american community, talking with the southern drawl

for a woman from san francisco. at her father is jamaican -- and her father is jamaican. he came out and said he was against her support of cannabis. i wanted to talk about christopher steele and get your honest thoughts about fact checking, where mr. steele wrote that dossier. as well as antony blinken's letter that got 51 national security experts to endorse the fact that something he claimed on the debate that was russian disinformation or had all the trappings of. i'm going to hang up and say thank you for taking my call today. in this era of conspiracies, people running across roofs, people saying that trump made this up, democrats have to look in the mirror and say who is causing these conspiracies?

thank you and have a wonderful day. guest: a lot there again. i worked for the 2008 clinton campaign. that is the one she lost to barack obama. i don't have any more information on the steele dossier. i wanted to address this issue of harris' biracial identity. it is something that speaks to me personally with my own family but a lot of people's families. harris did not choose to be biracial. she was born that way. i don't think there's any evidence she has done anything to hide any aspect of her identity. ultimately, it is up to her to decide how she talks about it because it is something that is personal to her. so, this idea that because she is biracial, that it is somehow a manipulation of other people or something that should be viewed as a negative about her,

some flaw in her personality i think is very offensive. i think if this continues, i imagine that a lot of people are going to react negatively as i do to that kind of argument because so many people, there are so many millions of people who have different aspects -- really everyone, whether it is racial or some other way, how people express that should be left up to them. i think that applies to harris but it applies to all people. host: chuck in alabama on the independent-minded. -- independent line. caller: good morning. i want you to fact-check three statements that the democrats are using against trump. i am an independent but lies are lies. biden said when he ran, he ran

because of what was said at charlottesville. that was a lie because he was talking about statues, he was not talking about the nazis and all that. he said it was going to be a bloodbath. it was talking about a bloodbath -- the car entered street went all electric -- car industry went all electric, it would destroy the car industry. that is a bloodbath. the third thing -- i forgot that one. explain those two things. guest: ok, i am happy to explain a couple of things. i can do it briefly. i think that the bloodbath comments, he was talking about the auto industry. he also said it would go beyond that. charlottesville, this has been debated ad nauseam, but there were a lot of neo-nazis there who were marching with torches.

there is some claim that some of the folks in the midst of that marching were actually there for good reasons. i think a lot of people think if you are part of that group, whether chanting about how jews must be replaced, and really didn't matter why you attended to go there, that is what you were doing. everyone will have their own perspectives and those kinds of claims are things that trump is talking about. that is still resonating with a lot of people like the last caller. host: you publish four times a week. one of your pieces from last week, the headline "a comprehensive guide to j.d. vance's view on women and children." it is something we have seen a lot of backlash on, his comments about childless women. tell us about this piece. guest: i think the famous one was one that was made on tucker

carlson's former fox show where he talked about childless cat ladies. i think part of this is really trying to appeal to the tucker carlson audience, be edgy, be kind of, don't really care what people are thinking about you because you are on tucker carlson's show and you are saying what you believe. what we did was track how over the years, these and similar comments were made again and again and again, and that j.d. vance has really viewed the kind of disparagement of people who didn't have children as part of his core political message, kind of centering himself more in the realm of family values and people who are supporting a nuclear family. so, i think that was really the purpose of the piece, to put it in context and show this was not a one-off comment. this was something that if you look back, go through the

transcripts, the tweets, everything, you see it is something he really leaned into as part of his political identity when he was transitioning from this explainer of rural america to the whole population when he put out his book to a more hard right republican who is somebody that donald trump might want to select as his vice presidential partner. host: robert in galveston, texas on the democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: we are doing well. caller: i just called to ask a question. biden in his debate with trump, biden's answer to every question to him -- trump never answered a question. he even brought up a story about he got insurance down to $35 a

month and we know that is not true. i wonder why everyone was so hard on biden to just go home, but if you can remember, last year, mitch mcconnell lost his train of thought and could not remember where he was and they had to go to the podium and rescue him. why did nobody asked him to retire? it is a big difference. it seems like was good for the goose is good for the gander. i tell you something else. trump and his running mate, they are hollering about made in america, but when both of them got wives from other countries. why didn't they marry an american woman? that is the $64,000 question. guest: a lot going on there as well. host: they are throwing a lot at you. guest: i am someone who -- i

don't hide my political views. that 2008 campaign i worked on, there were over two dozen debates. i think as someone who appreciates that biden has accomplished quite a bit during his presidency, that was one of the worst debate performances in history. it was something politically that he was unable to recover from. i don't think that was a media creation. i think that was something that tapped into the existing concerns of voters in a way that was so damaging that ultimately his election couldn't continue. i agree with the other thing that the last caller said that president trump said a lot of things during that debate that were not true. it was noted after the debate, that certainly received some

coverage, but did did receive the same amount of coverage where we were still talking about a week later, two weeks later, a month later? no, we were not. and that is something trump can take advantage of, the fact he can say something, it cannot be true, people can note that and then you just move on. that is a dynamic to our political conversation that is very damaging, but it's something that trump is very skilled at exploiting. host: on the topic of debates, reuters reporting that trump says he will debate harris on fox news on september 4. in a truth social post, he said "the debate will be similar to the debate with sleepy joe, but with an audience." your expectations for that debate. host: my expectation would be

that harris would not agree to a debate on those terms. i left my phone and the other room. my understanding is she has not accepted yet. if you look at the history of fox news -- and i have reported on some of this -- you look at their role in pushing the lies that trump told after the last election about how he actually won. there was a hundreds of millions of dollars settlement they had to agree to in order to move on. i think it would be a mistake to allow fox news to hold what would be seemingly the only debate between harris and trump. i certainly think it would be great to see them debate. i think harris has said she wanted to debate. as a prosecutor, she is quite skilled with that. i remember being impressed with her even though her candidacy in 2020 was not that successful. i think she performed well

during a lot of the debates, but that is not a forum i would expect her to accept. if that is the only forum trump would accept, there might not be a debate. host: gregory in fort washington, maryland on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. on the issue of kamala harris' ethnicity -- i tuned in late so you might have already mentioned this -- if we just look at people, take them on their appearance, she would be taken for black. and the fact that in this country if you have one drop of black ethnicity, you are considered black. i don't really understand what the hullabaloo is about with what she claims to be or what she reported herself to

be. she's both jamaican and of indian ancestry. in this country, she would be perceived as being black. that is my comment. guest: we talked about that before, but i agree with that. host: let's hear from tom in illinois on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i called during open forum and i was running behind. i just want to make it open comment. good morning, judd. i'm not sure what your background is, if you are democratic or republican. first of all, i just want to say -- the january 6 issue, could you clear it up? all of you announcers do fact-check. could you tell everybody that nobody died as a police officer on january 6?

we know that because nobody got death benefits. there is your case for knowing no police officer died on january 6. when someone calls up and says that, can you correct them like you correct everyone else? host: you talked about fact checking already. what are some of the challenges to fact checking every claim? guest: well, i think it is we are constantly reinventing history. there were police officers who died as a result of the violence on january 6. i think what the caller is trying to say is well, did they die on that day or did they have injuries that then caused them to die on the next day or the day after? that gets sort of spun into, well, this was not violent at all. it was a violent day, but i think that no matter how many times we go over it, a lot of these misconceptions persist and

they have a strong hold on not just one caller, but millions of people believe those things. it is not an easy thing to figure out, well, how do we get people more on the same page? hopefully, we get there at some point. host: anthony in pennsylvania on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning, judd. i have a couple questions, maybe you can answer. donald trump alleviating millions of seniors from paying taxes on the social security is an idea that has been thrown out. do you think kamala harris and the democratic congress should support this idea to alleviate the burden of paying taxes on social security for about 40% of people who do get social security benefits?

number two, do you think that kamala harris should get credit or discredit for being a border czar and letting 15 million illegal immigrants into this country? please don't talk about the bill that went to congress that had 5000 people a day coming through. that was not a good bill. that is only an excuse for you guys at that point. do you think she should get credit for being the border czar? host: let's get a response. caller: the social security tax issue is very new. guest: i don't suspect harris would support it because it would deplete the social security trust fund very rapidly. one of trump's economic advisers, stephen moore, was talk about the reason why it is such an interesting idea is because it would deplete the trust fund so rapidly, it would have to raise the retirement age

and have seniors work longer. i don't think that is a direction that harris is going to go. i'm forgetting the second part of his question. host: something else related to headlines you have recently. the extraordinary duplicity of musk's $180 million to support trump. the other headline is the reclusive who has become the biggest donor in 2024. guest: money and politics is something i write about a lot. the elon musk pac, america pac he started is fascinating because if you follow him on x, the social media platforms that he now owns, he talks extensively about how voting early or voting absentee is a recipe for fraud. this pac is actually focused on canvassing door to door and

convincing people to vote early or vote absentee. so, it completely contradicts everything he's saying about those things publicly. now, he has since backed away from this idea but he's going to do $45 million a month. there are tens of millions of dollars and he now said he created this pac to do the kinds of things he's saying are a recipe for fraud. i thought that was something that people should know about. if you want to know what people really believe in politics, the money is what tells the story more than what they are saying. that is why we spend a lot of time looking at how the money is spent. host: that is big donors. the headline from politico, harris was expected to have fundraising trouble. here's why big donors are lining up in droves. there has been huge numbers coming in for her in her early days of her campaigning.

does that tell us anything about potential success or just the fact -- i think you mentioned even they were not expecting her launch to be as great as it has been. guest: part of it is people think she has a better chance of becoming president that they might have thought two weeks ago, so they want to hedge their bets at bit. i do think -- this is something i talked about in the newsletter as well, that in the business community, there's a lot of angst about joe biden's administration because he seen as being very aggressive, particularly on issues like monopoly and mergers. and there is hope, and some of these large donors are saying this publicly, that maybe harris will take things in a different direction. i think the biden administration's taking on these big corporate behemoths are one of the more politically innovative and interesting things he has done. and i don't know if there's

really any indication harris will abandon that. maybe she is, maybe she isn't. i think that is what these donors are hoping for. host: randy in oklahoma on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. always glad to be on and god bless america. you mentioned that maybe kamala should not go on fox for that debate. i was curious -- you know, cnn, they put on the last debate, i believe. they pushed the dossier and they pushed the collusion and they pushed -- they pushed all that stuff. trump went on there. trump's not scared of you liars. trump will debate anybody, anywhere. trump will be your next president, so get ready. god bless america. guest: well, he might be right.

trump might be the next president. i am not in the prediction game. the idea that trump will debate harris anywhere in any forum is not true. they had a debate that was agreed to when biden was the nominee on abc in september and trump has said he's now dropping out of that debate. he agreed to that debate in may. he sang the reason why he's dropping out is because he's in litigation with abc, but the litigation started in march. trump has very specific conditions for the debate. we will see if harris accepts them. i have expressed my view that it might be a mistake to accept these terms but we will see what happens. host: our guest, judd legum. you can find his work online at popular.info. thank you so much for being with us today. guest: thank you for having me. host: that does it for today's

washington journal. thank you to our guests and everyone who called in. we boy back tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern, 4:00 a.m. pacific with another washington journal. enjoy your day. ♪ ♪ >> c-span's washington journal, a form involving you to discuss the latest issues in politics, and public policy from washington and across the country. we will talk about campaign 2024 with the president of the center for american progress action fund. and henry olson of the ethics and public policy center, and the executive director of george mason's center discusses efforts

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families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers. giving you a front row seat to democracy. ♪ host: this is washington journal for saturday, august 3. this week vice president kamala harris won enough virtual votes from the delegates to become the presumptive nominee and president -- former president donald trump has faced criticism for suggesting that kamala harris misled voters about her race and three prisoners have returned to the united states after the biggest prisoner swap with russia since the cold war. we want to hear your top news story of the week. the line for republicans, 202-748-8000. democrats, 202-748-8001.