came to our reunions and spoke and we all applauded him. >> rolf slen, 100 years old, father, grandfather, veteran, great grandfather, uncle of c-span's peter slen. thank you. mr. slen: thank you. >> all q&a programs are available on our website or on as a podcast on our c-span radio app

♪ host: good morning. is monday, august 12, 2024. a three hour "washington journal

" is ahead. we begin with new polling on voter satisfaction with their candidates this election cycle. with kamala harris as the democratic nominee and in the wake of the assassination attempt on former president trump, voters in both parties say they are more satisfied with their options in this election than they were months ago. this morning, we want to know what you think. phone lines as usual, call in by political party. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can also send us a text. that number, (202) 748-8003. if you do, please include your name and where you are from. otherwise, catch up with us on social media at x @cspanwj, on facebook at facebook.com/c-span. and a very good monday morning to you. start coming in now.

with about 85 days left until election day, we are asking whether you are satisfied with your choices in campaign 2024. this question coming from the new york times-siena poll. and it showed that overall voters are more satisfied with their choices compared to three months ago among all voters. 58% said they were satisfied, very, or somewhat satisfied with their choices back in may. today, that number has jumped to 73%. and it is up in all categories among all voters. among democrats, it is up 27 percentage points. among republicans, it is up 5% since may. voters now saying they are more satisfied with their options in campaign 2024. that is what we are asking you this morning about, asking you to call in about the options you

are being presented with this election cycle. it is (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. independents, we want to hear from you as well. (202) 748-8002. we will begin on that line for independents. andrew is just across the potomac river in alexandria, virginia. andrew, good morning. caller: good morning. i am on the side for the harris-walz ticket. i am happy with the choices. i think just putting harris in there just ignited the ticket. both she and walz, they are both populists. they seem like they will be for the people. they are prone worker -- pro workers, good wages, benefits,

just everything, pro expanding health care. host: andrew, you say that as an independent. you say you were on fire for this ticket. were you on fire for the democratic ticket when joe biden was the nominee? caller: i hate to say it. i think president biden is a sweet man, a grandfatherly, uncle type of man but i was honestly not on fire. i have sort of ignited myself to vote for president biden or possibly a third party, but when harris was put at the top of the ticket and then walz, it ignited a flame. i am ready to support them. and i think this is the ticket. host: you said you had been somewhat open to a third party option this election cycle. i wonder what your thoughts are

on rfk junior's campaign. that camping suffered in recent weeks and months according to polls. in february, he was close to 10% in polling. down to 4% in late july. caller: yes. i have looked into rfk junior. i know he was a lawyer and he was fighting for -- it seemed like he was very pro worker and was fighting for workers' rights and against bad labor working practices. so i was really looking into him. i also was definitely looking at cornell west. he is pro worker, pro almost sort of like a libertarian stance. pro personal freedom as much as possible. i was looking into them.

but when the harris-walz ticket, i think you just set that course on fire to me in my opinion. host: that is andrew in alexandria, virginia. you mentioned you were not as excited about a ticket with joe biden at the top of that ticket. joe biden was interviewed by cbs on cbs sunday morning yesterday. this is part of the interview. he talked about why he had to step down. this is what he had to say yesterday. [video clip] pres. biden: polls showed it was a net connect race that would have gone down to the wire but it showed that they thought i was going to hurt them in the races and i was concerned that if i stayed in the race, that would be the topic. why did nancy pelosi say it? i thought it would be a

distraction, number one. number two, i ran the first time. i thought of myself as being a transition president. it is hard for me to get it out of my mouth, but things got moving so quickly, it did not happen. and the combination was that i thought it was a critical issue for me still, and it is not a joke, maintaining this democracy. but i thought it was important because although it was a great honor being president, i think i have an obligation to the country to do the most important thing you can do, and that is we must, we must, we must defeat trump. host: joe biden in that interview that aired on cbs sunday morning. back in may among just democrats, 39% at that time said that they were not satisfied or not too satisfied with their choices in this election. today that number down to just 12% of democrats.

we are asking that question this morning. are you satisfied with your options in campaign 2024 as the tickets have come together? this is arthur in florida, republican. good morning. caller: yes. yes, i am very satisfied with my choice for president. one of the major reasons is that we need to as much as possible take care of america before we start trying to build out everybody else. and yes, i am very satisfied with my choice for president. thank you for your time, sir. bye. host: arthur, a republican in winter garden, florida, on the issue of satisfaction. former president trump and his campaign team releasing an ad in recent days harkening back to the 1980's presidential

election -- 1980 presidential election in which reagan asked "are you better off today than you were four years ago?" here is the new ad from the trump campaign. [video clip] >> please welcome president ronald reagan, has a few questions for you. >> we stand there in the polling place and make a decision. i think when you make that decision, ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago? is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? is there more or less unemployment in the country then there was four years ago? is america as respected throughout the world? do you feel our security is as safe, that we are as strong as we were four years ago? if you don't think that this course we have been on for the

last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then i could suggest another choice that you have. >> president trump, he will make america great again. host: that trump campaign ad out just in the last couple days. former president trump tweeting it out early this morning to try to get more exposure. we are asking you whether you are satisfied with your choices in campaign 2024. this is ed, another independent, grand rapids, michigan. good morning. caller: morning. i am not satisfied. i have not been satisfied since it started. i don't really see -- i don't understand why people are all of a sudden jumping on board with vice president harris. she was the most unpopular vice president in the history of the nation, in the history of polling i guess.

donald trump has some flaws, but i may end up holding my nose and voted for him. she is completely trying to change all of her positions purely for the election. and if it is that dishonest, i cannot vote for that individual. host: this question we are asking coming from that new york times-siena poll. michigan was one of the states that the poll looked at, one of the key swing states. what do you think of the polling that showed harris ahead in that state? caller: i don't know. the polls by and large reflect certain decisions. by that, i mean they will ask questions that will be weighted either democrat or republican. so i don't know that that is the case. anything i can say about it is only anecdotal because i don't have access to how the poll was

taken or anything of that nature. it is possible, but you know, i mean, people have not understood what she is all about. she has not taken a position on anything except no tips for service workers. she has to carry the biden-harris record. wars, two wars, tragedy in ukraine, tragedy now in the middle east. she has to carry that. she has to carry the economy. it is definitely much more difficult to make ends meet for a lot of people. and that was all what they did. and the border. my goodness. you cannot start a problem and say i will solve it. that is the dishonesty of her campaign. end of the day, i am still

holding my nose and going with trump. host: ed in michigan, you mentioned vice president harris, no tips for service workers. it was at a rally in las vegas in which she announced that over the weekend. it was saturday. here is about a minute from her comments that night. [video clip] vp harris: and the culinary union as everybody in the van knows, they helped lead the way in our country for workers rights and workers dignity. i was proud to work by your side when i was an attorney in california. we worked to crackdown on wage theft. when i was the united states senator, we fought together for paid family leave and medical leave. and earlier this year right here in vegas, we celebrated your historic contract win.

and it is my promise to everyone here when i am president we will continue our fight for working families of america. [cheering] including to raise the minimum wage. and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers. host: vice president kamala harris over the weekend on saturday in las vegas. that specific plan getting a response from former president trump, who back in june also in las vegas floated a plan to eliminate taxes on tips for service workers. this is when he posted on truth social, saying that kamala harris's honeymoon period is ending and is starting to get hammered in the polls. just copied my no taxes on tips policy. the difference is she will not do it, he said. she just wants it for political purposes.

this is a trip idea. remember, he said, kamala had the largest -- he said, kamala has proposed the largest tax increase in history. it won't happen. back to your phone call, asking if u.s. had a side choices in campaign 2024 -- asking if you are satisfied with your choices in campaign 2024. this is roy in baton rouge. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. in the spirit of the olympics, i am so tired of trump and his grievances campaign. i wish someone would ask him, what is his policy? does he still think america is so weak when we brought home the most golds from the olympics? thank you. host: to bob and, minnesota,

independent. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i live in the great city of west st. paul. the thing i have with this election is it is what it is. my grievance right now with it is you can hear -- excuse me -- trump all over the place. he is doing interviews left and right. your previous caller had a point i was going to make. we don't know where she stands on issues. so i wish the nora o'connells and george stephanopoulos, excuse me, and the lester holts of the world, come on, put some pressure on for interviews. in the new york times for example with the editorial page that pushed out the president. come on. push the point that we need some interviews. host: bob, to that point, let me

just show you this headline from the editorial board of the washington post. it is in today's paper. miss harris cannot afford a basement campaign, saying if she hopes to prevail, she needs to present her ideas. the media and the public have legitimate questions, and she should face them. that is the editorial of the washington post today. caller: you know, i will give you an example. i don't believe in gotcha interviews. i don't believe in interviews on what is the best color for your pantsuit outfit. what i would like to know is, madam vice president, if china is surrounding taiwan and there is an imminent invasion, what would you do as president? what would you do at the border? the economy seems like it is going in the right direction, but when you go to a grocery store, it is out of line. what would you do with that? in other words, policy questions

as if she was president of the united states. come on, let's get out there and find out more about what she would do. get off the teleprompters. get off whatever you want to call it, and start interviewing. and let's find out what you are all about. host: that is bob in minnesota. the new york times in one of their stories today noting she took five questions from the traveling press pool over the weekend, though she has not yet agreed to any sit-down interviews. former president donald trump set to have an interview with elon musk today. this is joe in virginia, democrat. good morning. caller: can you hear me? host: i can joe. go ahead. caller: i am satisfied with the ticket with harris and walz because it is a younger ticket. they were always saying on tv that joe biden is too old.

donald trump is all. that is old news. we need something fresh and younger now. one thing i cannot understand, they say no felony can vote. how can a felony run for president of the united states with 34 indictments? what kind of law? do we have any law in the country? you can run as a felony -- you can't run as a felony but you could run for president as a felony. i don't understand. somebody has to explain that to me. host: it goes to the constitution of what the requirements for being president of this country are and not having a felony is not one of those requirements. caller: oh. that is what i hear all the time. a felony cannot vote in this country. that is what i was hearing on tv, that somebody cannot vote. as a felon, you cannot vote.

that is why i'm asking, why can a president run as a felony? host: requirements for running for president are different from some state requirements, but the requirements for president are in the constitution. this is daniel in texas, a republican. good morning. caller: they have a socialist platform. socialism is the same thing as marxism. marxism is the same thing as communism. so washington, d.c., is turning communist on the american people. and they don't see it. and i don't understand why they don't see it. host: daniel, are you satisfied with your choices in this campaign? caller: illegals are running around our country. if you love america, that is fine. if you hate america, move. host: daniel in texas. this is ed in ocean city, new

jersey, independent. good morning. caller: yes. the overwhelming majority of americans are satisfied, totally. but the solution is a constitutional convention in charlottesville, virginia, to start the whole government over again. it does not work. but i am a third-party candidate for president, first columbia university graduate. write me in. host: why do you think the overwhelming majority of americans are not satisfied? and i asked because that polling even back in may at the height of the number of people who were not satisfied with their choices only had it at 40% of americans saying they were not satisfied with their choices this election cycle. caller: i don't agree with that poll, but it is a good question because people are not getting along with people. there is addiction. there is homelessness.

there is problems in interpersonal relationships. i think we are one second away from 1932 depression. the government does not work, but the whole world is a mess. so you have to start it over again. host: ed, as an independent, what you think about this trend in politics where earlier in a campaign cycle people say they are much more open to voting for an independent and as get closer and now we are under 85 days until the election, people come home to the two parties, saying it has to be a pick between one or the other? you say you are a candidate for president. i know the numbers on rfk junior. at his height, he was close to double digits and today he is under 5%. caller: well, i am the one with the biography because i have been in charity work for 55 years and i know how to solve the problems in the inner cities in these problems that are question people, but you have to

write me in. i am not on the ballot. i don't know. thank you. host: ed in new jersey. this is into diamond dale andrew, diamond dale, michigan, good morning. caller: good morning, john. good morning, america. i was calling this morning. i was watching your program. i have been watching for 12 years or more. i just wanted to say thank you for all you are doing there. i am very nervous, by the way. i got through, now i am nervous. host: it is all right, andrew. what do you think about the question, are you satisfied with your choices? caller: yes, i am. i am voting for kamala harris for sense, love, peace, and harmony in this country come our great nation. i wanted to thank c-span for favoring republican colors all the time and allowing us to be exposed to their viewpoints. host: we don't favor one caller or another.

we literally just rotate lines as the calls come in. caller: i understand that. i understand that. it seems to me it seems to pile up on us democrats, and i apologize if i am out of line here, but what i am trying to say is one candidate served in the justice department and one has fought against the justice department's whole life -- department his whole life. i am a potter. i make pottery. i have common sense, and i can figure this out. i want america to regain stability and love your neighbor. we lost family members in my family because of this due to covid and misinformation. this cannot continue. misinformation is out of control. no programming on 2025 to speak of. not a whole hour of two sides on that. once america gets a good dose of 2025 for one year if that were

to happen, i am sure america would be realize we made a huge mistake. i will let you go with that. host: andrew in michigan. this is dale in north carolina, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i tell you why i -- what i am not satisfied with. i want the american voter to realize this. there is over 6000 illegals that got put on voter registration, registered to vote in virginia. nothing done. you don't hear about nobody getting in any trouble. somebody made a boo-boo. over 60,000 dead or moved out had to be taken off. i want the republican party to wake up and see what they got to look forward to this upcoming election. wake up, america. host: that is dale in north carolina. this is jeff in michigan, independent.

good morning. caller: good morning. i think the main problem is i don't care what party you want to belong to, claim to belong to. i am not trashing your media because you do try to be fair. what goes on is people get so emotionally wrapped and entrenched in their own thoughts . i happen to be an old guy but you have to keep your mind open. we just have to not get brainwashed. let's call it brainwashed because that is what it is. i just take cnn. they all do the same thing. there is only three major companies that rule major media. host: jeff, on presenting new ideas, do you feel like you are

hearing that with the two tickets that have come together with kamala harris and tim walz and donald trump and j.d. vance? is this ticket, these two tickets giving you new ideas? caller: yeah, it is great. but right now, this is the best. this is what we have. but people have to start doing their own research and realize that the people that are running for office, they are people just like us. they got faults. so we are not voting for our minister. you know? host: how did you feel about when joe biden was in this race? caller: i'm trying to be polite, but not thinking of his mental

and physical things. he has been a career politician. and then it is the old other story. plagiarist. i will just come out and say it. i respect the office of the president of the united states and him being a senator. i just wish he did. host: that is jeff in michigan. president joe biden on cbs sunday morning. another question he was asked was whether he will be on the campaign trail in the months to come before election day. here is that part of the interview. [video clip] >> you are part of this record. we see you out on the campaign trail for vice president harris? pres. biden: yes, you will. her running mate is a great guy. he is my kind of guy. the israel. he is -- he is real. he is smart. i have known him for several decades. >> to those who expressed

skepticism about how much you will be on the trail or the rest of your term, raised questions about your health, what do you say to them? pres. biden: all i can say is watch. look, i had a really bad day that debate. i was sick. but i have no serious problem. i was talking to governor shapiro, who is a friend. he and i are putting a campaign tour in pennsylvania and other states as well. i will do whatever kamala things will help the most. host: president biden with cbs sunday morning. back to your phone calls. asking you in this first hour of "washington journal," are you satisfied with your choices in campaign 2024? clifford in birmingham democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i was listening to this conversation you have been asking. i am satisfied with the ticket

with harris and walz. i don't understand the republican party. they listen to the incoherent rambling donald trump goes on and you want to talk about harris? they talked about obama, the teleprompter. these people, you cannot understand the conversation. trump is an incoherent -- he is deranged to me. he makes no sense to me. he gets to babbling and rambling. as far as the border, they had a bipartisan border deal that republicans crafted. democrats signed onto it, and donald trump said don't do it because this will give joe biden a win. if this man cares about fentanyl or the rapists and murderers he was talking about, he would have gone along with that. but biden said you can take credit for it too. we can both take credit if that bothers you. but it has to be about donald trump. everything is about donald trump. me, me, me, not as.

it is about me. he sticks his chest out like he is all this. he is not about america. he is for donald trump. i don't understand why republicans can't see that. thank you. host: that is clifford in alabama. also on the sunday shows yesterday, donald trump's running mate j.d. vance of ohio talked about this issue, immigration, and specifically the trump-vance plan for deportation should they assume the white house. this is part of that interview. [video clip] >> we have to start with the fact that we have a wide-open southern border because our borders are actually set a lot up or policies. oh, that was with the media called her. she had control over a lot of our border policy at the time. look, let me tell you this, they were suspending deportations. they stopped donald trump's remain in mexico policy, and

they instituted catch and release. they basically threw open the gates of our country and that we have a ton of fentanyl, a ton of people. >> how you get 20 million people out of the country? >> the first thing you have to do is stop the open border, get kamala harris out of there, and read the remain in mexico policy, rebuild or finish donald trump support, and you do that and stop the bleeding. once you do that, want to stop kamala harris' open border policies can we have to do something with the people that are here and you take a sequential approach to it. you will have to deport some people. if you are not willing to deport a lot a people, you are not willing to have a border. >> 15 million people. >> that is the wrong attitude to take with it. i think there is a wrong attitude towards it. there are 20 million people here illegally. you start with what is achievable. you do that and go onto to what is achievable from there. i think if you deport a lot of

violent criminals and you make it harder to hire illegal labor, which undercuts the wages of american workers come you go a long way to solving the illegal immigration problem. president trump is absolutely right. you cannot have a border unless you are willing to deport some people. i think it is interesting that people focus on, how do you deport 18 million people? let's start with one million. that is where kamala harris has failed, and we can go from there. host: j.d. vance on abc this week yesterday. back to your phone calls. this is janice in new hampshire, republican. good morning. caller: why did they open the border to begin with? that does not make any sense. he never made any sense to me. he was not very smart. that is for sure. host: janice, it works better next time you call in to lower the volume on your tv and speak through your phone. we can hear you a lot better

that way. this is mike in ohio, independent. good morning. caller: hi, good morning. i tell you what, let's talk about kamala harris. she polled 1% and dropped out. now all of a sudden she is the queen she is going to end. what does she do? she brings in walz, who left his unit because he did not want to go over and fight for freedom. come on, people. you know, we are in a hell of a mess. the reason i am voting for trump, i will be an independent and will not change, is because the government building behind you is allowing me to choose the lesser of two evils. i went through four years of harris. she supposedly is going to change everything? she helped create it. just like a typical democrat, they create the problems and are willing to give you the solutions, and they could care less if it is crushing your family, crushing your wallet,

and crushing your neighborhood. people, we have to wake up. if we don't get trump into office, we are in deep trouble, people. the only people we have to blame is ourselves because of our confidence and not paying attention to what is going on. the guy from michigan, it is true, the media has been bought and paid for like everybody in that building behind you. they don't want trump in. you know why? because he will start hiring them and cleaning house and making that government work for we the people, not themselves, not their family members like the bidens. we are in trouble. host: this is jerry in minnesota, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. the only thing i want to say, and i choose harris and biden -- walz, excuse me. the comparable thing i want to make that everybody should look at right now is not all be 34

charges of fraud that he had in manhattan and all of the other cases that got pushed aside and all the ones he got exonerated for. but here is the one thing i president should not do -- our president should not do. the president should not have a sexual affair with a woman while being married to his wife and having a child. and that is what i wanted to say. that just is the worst thing on earth. that is what i wanted to say. thank you. host: that is jerry in minnesota. some of your comments via social media. this is angela in maryland. the question we are asking, are you satisfied with your choices in campaign 2024? angela saying i am happy the democrats covered other old guy. if republicans were smart, they would do the same thing. this other post by troy peterson on facebook saying nobody chose

harris, and bob saying i am quite happy with harris and walz . they will win in a landslide. i wish the republicans gave their younger generations a candidate. this is mark in newport, kentucky, republican. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. the only thing i have to say is about the border. it was open when joe biden and kamala took over. i just want to know as far as the democrats, how many more do you want to come across that border? and with the raping of the girls and killing people and all that. i just don't understand why. the president will shut it down, get this world back to where it used to be four years ago, and that is all i really got to say. host: st. paul, minnesota, rob, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. it is really all about common sense.

if anybody just uses common sense, you would know who to vote for. the problem is the number one virus we have in the nation right now is trump derangement syndrome. we get rid of that virus and trump wins in a landslide. host: you say that as a democrat? caller: no, i am an independent. host: calling him -- call in on the independent line next time. it is easier that way. this is glenn in illinois on the line for democrats. caller: morning, john. hey, that beautiful building behind you, what they have done to that was terrible. i spent my 65th birthday in there, walking them hallowed halls. you have never seen anything any beautiful. and the second thing is what trump has done with his big

airplane, he is flying to these fields, getting out, and waving but there is nobody there but the runway. i don't know what he's seeing. people are not there. host: can i ask you, why do you want to spend your 65th birthday at the united states capitol? caller: i had a brother-in-law out there working, and we went out to visit them. and we got the tour of everything up there. host: what was your favorite part of the tour? caller: pardon? host: what was your favorite part of the tour? caller: the wall. the capitol building, when you look at the ceilings in there. absolutely gorgeous. and all of these statues and everything.

it is just unbelievable. if everybody would go and take a tour through there, you would not have all of this fighting and carrying on. you would see these guys backing trump that ought to be kicked out of there. there was about 13 or so still in there. they took the oath, but i don't think they know what they did. ok. i will let you go, john. thank you. host: that is glenn in illinois. he mentioned the statues that are in there. the latest addition to the official u.s. statuary hall collection is the statue of billy graham. he died in 2018. a billy graham statue now standing as part of that collection. you can watch the unveiling of that statute and the dedication

ceremony on our website, c-span.org. we showed it as part of our american history tv coverage. it is available again on c-span.org. i was hoping the video would get to the point where they pull the cover off the statue but it is a little bit further into the video. we will let you unveil it as you watch if you want to watch again, c-span.org. this is frank in new york, republican. good morning. caller: good morning, john. by the way, john, you are such a fine guy and a fair guy. i am a retired elected official. i spent 20 years as an elected official in new york in putnam county. i have seen it all. i am 81 going on 82. it is just unbelievable how the mass media, and your organization is fair and a lot of respects, but it is unbelievable the brainwashing

that is going on. the guy that said he had sexual relations with his wife when the child was being born, no proof. just believe whatever you want to believe. it is just sad because they don't check the record. you know what he did in the four years. no wars, low taxes, no inflation, border was secure. and yet the media continually tries to demean him, put wrong ideas in the minds of the people. we had that a lot of times locally here in new york, but it's gotten to the point where people are trying to save their jobs. it is not about helping the people, solving problems, using common sense. i think, john, what it is, they know they will lose their positions. he will clean house. he's got only four years to do

it. but it does not matter with them, john. host: what do you say to the folks who ask, because you are not the first person today who said he will clean house, he had four years clean house the first time? why are you sure he is going to clean house this time? caller: because he did not spend much time in washington, and i can understand that. he is a businessman. he was involved in his own business with his children. so when he got there he relied a lot on different people. unfortunately, he was given bad advice from some of his appointees particularly wray in the fbi. you know how devious they have been, how they lied about trump and protected by did in previous campaigns. to get back to your point, he knows the people now. he does not take any money from these lobbyists who control

these senators and house members . so he is going to be able to put good people in there who are only caring about the working people, not the lobbyists and globalists making money and laughing at all of us people to the bank. go ahead. host: what do you think about him harping back 44 years at this point to the 1980 campaign, the ad we showed at the top of the segment, ronald reagan asking that question about jimmy carter at the time? are you better off than you were four years ago? caller: yes, and i think if he sticks to that same theme, just talk about the particular things he accomplished and how he is going to solve the problems, stick to the issues, because once emissions even a silly -- once he mentions even a silly thing in his rally, the press are going to make him out like a double, a mean person. he is a very kind man.

i know him personally. host: how do you know him? caller: so many people that nobody really knows about. the good work he has done for people. this is a "me" generation. it is all about me. i am just sorry to say, john, that like this gentleman said, i don't always talk like this, but this guy is really going to save our country. host: how do you know him personally, frank? caller: i am in new york. i have seen him coming you know -- him, you know? in that sense. i have read about him over the years. i have not been in his company but i kind of read and follow him for many many years. i know him, and i know people who know him that have told me the stories we are hearing -- different people who actually

sit with him, talk with him. i have access to these people who i trust. host: that is frank in new york. this is david in independence, louisiana, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. man, it hurts me to hear the uninformed people barking up the wrong tree. i am really satisfied with mr. trump. i believe that he is the right person. i just know it in my heart. i would like to say one guy called up, a democrat, and he goes on about trump's lack of morality or just how terrible he was with messing around and being married and this and that. a democrat position, if i understand it, they will accept anything. any kind of sexuality. any kind of marriage. you can call yourself a boy or a

girl. you can dress, look like you want. they can accept anything under the sun, but they will draw a line when it comes to trump. they can't handle him because he is not good enough. anyway, then had another caller said he would vote for harris and them because joy and hope and laughter and all this. my friend, god love a democrat. my wife is a natural born democrat. she is wrong a couple times a day. but they are fixing to attack israel. if they wipe out israel, they are going to do it here. they are already here waiting, ok? you are missing with international thugs like russia and china, korea. when they come here, they are going to be so amused at the lady president that can't stop

laughing. ok. when the pottery guy -- he ought to watch "seven years in tibet" because then people were a simple and kind and loving -- them people were simple and kind and loving and china stepped all over their artwork. you better stand up like a little man. take your medicine. host: david in louisiana on israel. this column in today's washington times. it is one of their columnists there saying the survival of jews is at stake in this election, saying that they might consider the republican ticket for president donald trump and his running mate j.d. vance who said if you beat up a jew and don't face consequences, the attacks will continue and get worse, praising donald trump for the abraham accords, saying the jewish instinct may have awakened.

noting the poor that shows donald trump slightly ahead of kamala harris among new york's jewish voters. this is roy in florida, democrat. good morning. roy, are you with us? caller: hello? host: go ahead, sir. caller: yes. yes. to me, it is pretty simple. this is all about the american dollar. politicians should be about the american people. the best example of that is social security. it was started when our grandmas and grandpas were after a depression losing their homes and being thrown into the street and we all decided to get together and take some money in a fund and take care of them. since that time, it has blossomed into it takes care of not only grandma and grandpa but

the handicapped, the mentally retarded, orphaned children. this is for the people. the only real problem i have with social security is the funding. because the people that make over -- once you make $165,000, you no longer have to pay into it. the head of boeing makes $22 million a year. so he pays less than 0 .0001% of his income into social security. host: roy, what does election 2024 mean for social security? caller: well, i pray that trump gets in. it will be hacked. i was at donald trump's wedding.

he turned his back on everybody that was there. host: you were at donald trump's wedding? caller: pardon? host: you were at donald trump's wedding? which wedding? caller: the last one. host: how did you get there? caller: i was there kind of by accident. but that is a long story. we don't have time for it. host: i want to know how a broken bridge led to you being at donald trump's wedding. caller: i was unable and could not get through so i had to stop before the bridge in front of trump's place there in the trump tower. host: in mar-a-lago? caller: right across from mar-a-lago. there were two of us that were coming down and the bridge was broken. could not get through. we end up spending up the nightmare. host: so you watched the wedding from the boat? caller: yeah.

yeah, they all came out. bill clinton, the presidential -- not the presidential nominee but the secret service and all of the the reason i sat with binoculars and watched them come out after he got married, henry clinton, his best man, and the head of the bridesmaid. he stabbed both of them in the back along with his wife. i am not even going to go there. he has the morals of -- there is nothing that has worse morals than donald trump in my opinion. but it is a thing of the people that are making above $165,000 a year are less of americans than those below it because all the social security is funded by the lower group, not the upper

group. if everybody paid the same into social security, we could cut what you pay into social security by 50% and have twice as much money there to do things with. host: that is roy in florida. this is ron and baltimore, independent. good morning. caller: hi, good morning. good morning, c-span. i think over the past 408i was, we have seen kamala harris trying to reinvent herself. i think now she is trying to play more moderate in regards to illegal immigration when in actuality, she actually caused a lot of what we are dealing with now as far as the 20 plus illegal immigrants in our country. on the flipside, i am an independent. but on the flipside of that, you hear donald trump and

vance saying they will have a mass deportation, which is impossible with pretty much every single industry in baltimore county. i don't care where you go, you will see predominantly hispanic illegal immigrant neighborhoods that have popped up out of nowhere. so at the end of the day, unless america gets serious when it comes to corporate greed and businesses hiring these illegals and not hiring americans, then nothing is going to change in our country. so again, i hope trump wins. just with illegal immigration we have a serious problem. black america is being hurt by illegal immigration. if it is bad now, you wait. host: that is ron, an independent, and baltimore. this is brian in pennsylvania, republican. good morning. caller: hey, good morning. the last caller was right on the

money there. i am not happy with either choice but i will vote for donald trump for the simple reason when he was in there, he tried to get business back in this country, this industry. when he was putting the tariffs on, he had to fight back from both groups because everyone was raising hell they are going to raise the price of this, they are going to raise the price of that. that is the cost of business. but the illegal alien problem has been a problem for 20 years and the reason democrats want them in here is because of cheap labor. they have kept the blue-collar worker, not just a black man, the blue-collar worker in general, keeping their pay down to minimum because you have cheaply were coming in working for under standard wages or under legal wages, working under the table, not paying into the social security system, not paying into the unemployment system. that has to stop. this country needs to be turned around. it can be turned around. somebody has to get in there and i think it will be donald trump.

that is kind of where i am coming from but that is the blue-collar worker writer. host: brian in the keystone state. to west virginia, this is carol, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. let's talk about democracy. i am tired of every democrat telling me we have to save democracy. democracy gives you a choice. yeah, kamala harris not received one vote. she was selected, not elected. as far as my vote, i am going to give it to trump. because when he was in there, if you look at the pay charts, the pay rate was going up from the bottom to the top. people were making more wages. their wages were going up. because as far as the illegals go, not the legals, the illegal immigrants, they was being

deported and they was coming in. we are never going to close that worker completely. but there was not as many coming across. and he was cracking down on businesses and stuff. and i want to know, how come nobody, neither one has brought to the attention, why do we have seven, seven indices that have closed hunter biden? how many have closed under trump -- seven embassies that have closed hunter biden? how many have closed under trump? i just cannot get people when they talk to me about democracy when the democrats and whoever is supporting kamala harris, they did not have a choice. they chose president biden. but they did not choose kamala

harris. and everybody is just accepting it like ok, that is ok. it is the process. if they wanted to switch to kamala, then they should have waited until they had their convention and then the electors at that time would have went to the microphone and said we give this money for kamala and this many -- this many for kamala and this many for president biden. that process was not done. thank you. host: carol and west virginia. you mentioned the wage charts. i assume you mean the median weekly real earnings, one of those federal reserve reports that come in. the bureau of labor statistics reports that. this is the website that shows the bureau of labor statistics report on wage earnings the first quarter of 2016 here. wage earnings across the trump

presidency. you can see what happened when covid hit in 2020 by the time joe biden takes over in 2021, wage earnings had fell from their peak, dropped, and started rising again. again, that available for anybody to look at through the bureau of labor statistics or the federal reserve. both good places to go for those numbers. this is babylon, new york, john, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning to america. america, we need to stand by each other. kamala is going to bring down the prices of food and everything on day one. she is already there doing it she could be doing it. what has she done in three and a half years? you want open borders. they opened the border.

hr2. stay in mexico until you are vetted. 5000 people coming in before they shut it down. it is all a joke. every immigrant will be in your backyard. host: john in new york. to the steel city, this is tonya, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: doing well. caller: i mostly have questions because i am very confused on our government overall. we have a former president whose supporters -- who actually to storm the capital. to me, that is treason. i'm confused about how we are letting someone run for government that committed treason. i'm very confused. then, make america great again. what does that mean? to me, it means he is trying to take us backwards into the caste

system we had in place, where the african-americans are at the bottom, whites at the top. that is what they want, put us in our place. latinos, asians, he wants to put us in our place. that is my opinion of what is going on with trump. there is no way he should be put in office for committing treason. host: that is tanya in pittsburgh. anthony in new york. republican. good morning. caller: i am calling on the democratic line. i made a mistake. host: ok. go ahead. caller: this is not republicans, these people, this guy told 162 lies at that campaign rally he did from mar-a-lago. then you have the other guy saying that they love him in new york.

he is from putnam county. i am from the borough of queens. this is insane. he got $10 million from egypt that was dropped by barr. nobody says anything. this guy doesn't care about anybody. it is the same old talking points. host: coming back to the question we started with, are you satisfied with your choices? were you satisfied when it was joe at the top of the ticket, has that changed? i understand how you feel about donald trump as a democrat. caller: i can sleep at night. nobody has to worry about nothing as long as we have kamala or any democrat. with trump, it is horrific. host: you are satisfied with any democrat as long as it is not donald trump? caller: she made the comment, let's congratulate putin for

letting the hostages back that he had for over 10 years? if we come out of nato, we are done. listen to the trump supporters, it is when you are listening to fox. they say how kamala has not done anything. go to the website. she has done a lot. i am shocked at the stuff that she did. i don't care, he divides. he has always been like that in new york city. that guy from putnam county, we love him. that guy destroyed so many people's lives, especially black contractors. he wouldn't let black pipefitters work in any of his buildings but the media will not tell you that because it's about ratings. we are done if he gets in there. everybody better get ready if he gets in there. but he will not. kamala is going to win in a

landslide. i will let you finish. thanks. host: anthony in new york. our last caller in this first segment of the washington journal. plenty more to talk about this morning including, we are joined by the national coalition of the participation, melanie campbell, to discuss the role of black voters in this year's election. and then later, the manhattan institute's heather mac donald looks at the issue of race and crime and the issue they control that is the role they could play in this election. we will be right back. >> richard werkheiser has written and edited for the national review magazine for over 50 years. he's also written books about george washington, james madison, john marshall, alexander hamilton, and the founding father he calls a gentleman revolutionary, governor moore's.

now comes his latest blessing. live between 1756 and 1843, most famous for his four very large paintings about the revolutionary war on the walls of the rotunda in the u.s. capitol building in washington, d.c. >> richard werkheiser with his latest book "glorious lessons." on this episode of book notes plus. book notes plus is available on the c-span now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what's happening in washington, live and on-demand. keep up with the day's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearings from the u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns, and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. you can also stay current with

the latest episodes of washington journal, and find scheduling information for pbs networks and c-span radio. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. scan the qr code to download today or visit our website, c-span.org. c-span now, your front row seat to washington, anytime, anywhere. >> washington journal continues. host: conversation with melanie campbell, president and ceo of the national coalition on black civic participation, an organization founded almost 50 years ago to do what, ms. campbell? guest: good morning. to really leverage the power of the boat, -- vote, protect the vote, organize initiatives about civil rights at all levels of

society. host: what are the biggest barriers to black civic dissipation in this country right now? -- participation in this country right now? guest: you still have voter suppression laws in louisiana making it more difficult to vote, making it harder for organizations like mine to register people to vote. when shelby versus holder took place in 2013, you had several states that passed laws to make it harder for people to -- people standing in line, you could not give them water in georgia david it is those things, continuous barriers, we still need reform. we still need congress to pass the john lewis voting restoration act, freedom to vote act, so we can correct some of those 21st century suppression laws that had been passed in several states. host: your organization

registers people to vote. do you target certain areas, states to do that, how many people have you registered to vote ahead of campaign 2024? guest: we have state affiliates who do that work on the ground. we are in 11 states plus the district of columbia. many of them in the south. florida, louisiana, mississippi, south carolina now, pennsylvania, ohio, michigan. i may have left some out but those are the states where we do our work. our state leaders have been doing continuous voter registration, and they do that year-round. we are a 365 civic engagement organization. host: when you do that voter registration, do you specifically target black voters? guest: black and underserved.

primarily black communities, but in many cases, whoever needs to be registered. in a place like clayton county, georgia, where you have a larger latino population that has moved into the county, it is whoever shows up to register. there are no discriminatory practices in that regard, but our primary focus is african-american. host: do you do anything specifically on election day when it comes to trying to get people to the polls, getting people to the ballot boxes? guest: on election day, we have what we call a unity power to ballot campaign that we do during presidential elections and midterms mostly, national campaign. we make sure that we get people information on how to protect the vote. we are one of the founders of the election protection coalition. we provide, encourage people to volunteer as poll workers, poll

monitors, we promote the 866-vo te hotline, seven things you need to know to protect your vote. right now we are about to launch are you vote ready so that people can check their motor status. sometimes you get purged. in some cases, that is another reason why we need reform for voting rights in this country. we don't wait until election day. we try to get people prepared to vote. v are youote ready? if you are not, you have an opportunity to do with online or in your local community. make sure you know where to go and vote. the things that tend to happen, over the years, election protection was launched. people don't know where to go. practical, boring things to some people, but it is those things

that you can do to help somebody, inoculate yourself from your vote being suppressed, or getting a provisional ballot that will never get counted. host: does what you do before or election day count as ballot harvesting? guest: no, we are not harvesting anything. [laughter] we are just getting people the power of the ballot. if you don't know the information, especially new voters, there is an intimidation factor that goes along with that. if people have good information, they have a better chance of making sure that they vote and that their vote is counted. host: conversation with melanie campbell, conversation on the national coalition on black civic participation. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8002.

as folks are calling in, what do you expect black voter turnout to be in election 2024? for comparison sake, what was it back in 2020? guest: the vote turnout in 2020 was not as high as it was in 2016. many times what happens, it depends on the race. competitive race increases turnout. i don't care if you are talking about presidential down to school board member. if there is a competitive race, people have more interest and they show up more. in the united states unfortunately we still have a good turnout, 60%. but that is 40% of people that do not vote. i am encouraged by what we are seeing an interest -- in

interest, people registering online, on their own. there is a lot of interest in this election no matter what side of the aisle you are on, or be it independent, because of the stakes that are out there, people are going to show up. i hope it is more than 60%, but we will see. host: does your group specifically endorsed a presidential candidate? guest: absolutely not. we are not on any side. we are making sure that people exercise their right to vote, make sure their vote is protected by having the information you need, encouraging them to vote. guest: bill -- host: bill is up for us from memphis, tennessee. independent. good morning. caller: i was a member of the republicans for years, and i still lean toward republican, but i am concerned about the trends that are going on now.

they have the voter registration stop here in memphis. memphis is mostly mexican and colored and liberal whites. i think i like the way this young man runs his program because he seems to look at the conservatives more. at the same time, that is what they do in memphis anyway. host: you are talking about a group in memphis that does voter registration? caller: yes, we do registration here. i volunteered. when we went to the meetings, it looks like the mexicans and the colored took over the program. i walked out of the room. host: melanie campbell, any thoughts on those comments? guest: no comment.

host: jim in johnson city, tennessee. go ahead. jimmy, are you with us? you are on with melanie campbell. caller: yes, ma'am. there ought to be a two-day voting system where everyone goes to vote in person. there is no cheating, no mail inbox. bigger opportunity for people to cheat. if i can go up and vote, everybody else can do the same thing. i know some people have to be taken there with a car, but that's fine. we don't need all of this other stuff. two days, we would know who the president is. thank you very much. host: what do you think about that system? guest: you have senior citizens, people with disabilities who cannot leave their home.

frankly, covid, most african-americans love to physically go to the polls to vote and we were very leery of absentee ballots, things like that, thinking that our vote will not be counted. i think we have to make sure. i cannot judge a person who says that they cannot physically get there. does that mean if i have a physical or medical impairment that i shouldn't have my vote cast? that is the question each person has to ask. i believe as an organization, we should provide all of our means for eligible voters to be able to cast their ballot. host: what do you make of the comment that mail-in voting offers the bigger opportunity to cheat? guest: there are no fax to that. a lot of people are saying things, but the data does not prove it.

people tend to have their opinions, but it have to have facts behind them, and it is just not there. host: i'm in line for democrats. bill in flint, michigan. good morning. caller: ms. campbell, my question to you is the abysmal turnout of black voters. we recently had an election here in michigan. the voter turnout in the black communities, black communities, was less than 7%. what is your organization doing to increase the turnout of the voter once they are in the black community? guest: i didn't hear what state he was in.

host: michigan. guest: i will say in michigan, i know several organizations that work hard year-round to get folks registered, to turn out and vote, also be an educated voter. the biggest challenge we have doing the work, what he talked about, voting year-round, 365, as opposed to you you see a higher turnout in presidential elections, midterm elections. i am a native floridian from a small town. many years in georgia before moving to the washington, d.c. area. it's always been a challenge but i think it's gotten worse. we have a lot of work to do, but we do everything we can. the michigan coalition on black civic coalition, other organizations focus a lot on young people. the largest demographic, voting

population in this country are younger people under the age of 40. that demographic we work hard to engage. peer to peer works, you are right. local elections matter in your daily life more than anything. that tends to be less people participating in even statewide races. we have a challenge in this country. somehow we have to find a way to get back to where people believe in a lot of what is going on. so much bad information, this information, in some cases, outright lies take place. we have to make sure that we educate, motivate, encourage, and listen to people. i don't believe in voter apathy. i believe it is about people's disappointment. sometimes people don't have the information. when you talk to people between

18 and 24, they don't understand the process, civics is not taught in all schools anymore. understanding how the vote matters to your day-to-day life. those kinds of things that go on. i said earlier, they are not the sexy things that people want to talk about in politics, but they make a difference. if you feel that that mayor has an effect on your life, school board member, or that governor or state legislature, understanding how that affects one's life, that is when you see people turn on more. host: a chart on voter turnout by race and ethnicity over the years showing that black voter turnout was ahead of whites in 2008 and 2012, the years that barack obama was at the top of the ticket. the rest of the years going back to the 1980's, white voter

turnout had the highest numbers in both midterm and presidential elections. does having kamala harris at the top of the ticket, do you foresee black voter turnout rates achieving those rates of the barack obama years? guest: if past is prologue on enthusiasm, there is a higher level of enthusiasm that you see. if you look at how that plays out, not just crowd sizes -- crowd sizes never exactly mean turnout. but when you see increased levels of voter registration taking place, those kinds of things, i think you will see that. having a new regeneration of leaders running on the democratic side, republicans have a younger vp, so i think

there is a generational shift taking place in this country. we will see how it plays out. historically it does make a difference. i think we will see increased turnout. host: donald tried to court black voters in this country by taking a tough stand on illegal immigration, saying that illegal immigrants are taking black jobs. what do you make of those statements? guest: i think they are divisive, not based in fact. former president trump also talked about people taking black jobs. i don't know what black jobs are. that is why you have seen some backlash over those kinds of statements. this is a country that was built on immigrants coming to the country. i am in disagreement with that. the facts do not bear out that is the case. host: does illegal immigration

disproportionately impact black americans in specific ways? guest: i don't have any data to prove that. host: this is stephen in alexandria, virginia. republican. caller: thank you for everything that you are doing to facilitate additional participation in the political system. i am a voting republican, registered republican. i will not be voting for donald trump because i think he is a traitor, and anybody else who does vote for him is so by association. with respect to what you are doing, my main question is this, especially coming from virginia. if i have to -- if i go to the library and want to check out a book, i have to show some sort of id for that, be it a library card, drivers license, whatever. why do people take the position

that, for voter identification, that it is somehow unnecessary or inappropriate? i need an explanation for that. i wonder if i can get your perspective. guest: i think voter id has been adopted in so many states now. i am a virginian, by the way, so hi. in virginia, we have to show id. it is not at the level of concern that it was when it was being implemented. i don't agree that everyone has a driver's license. the reality is, in many states, not looking at the data in front of me, but you can see in most states have some port of voter id no. you don't hear a whole lot of that. i am not saying that it doesn't have its own barriers, but for

the most part, when people vote, they have to show id of some sort. host: cment from one of our viewers watching, tweeting, asking you, how can you find the voter purges, full locations closed in blue districts, the general disenfranchisement in red states? guest: we have legal organizations like the legal defense funds, lawyers committee for civil rights under law, even naacp organizations that file lawsuits for some of these purges that take place that appeared to be targeted. part of the challenge of having voting rights reform is things like that, no discriminatory practices. if there are purges, if they are done in a way that is fair and

does not discriminate. host: how does your group work with those groups on the legal side? guest: we work with the lawyers committee. in many cases, our state affiliate is on the ground in those states that may be a part of lawsuits. jordan is one, others. we are not a legal national organization, but we work with several civil rights organization when need be, and they file amicus briefs, things like that as it relates to building. host: eileen in charlotte, north carolina. on the line for democrats. caller: in the past, i have worked with voter registration. i have worked in the polls. when we were doing voter

registration, i found a lot of young people with legal issues are not aware of that in north carolina, all you have to do is have your court things settled. probation, parole, whatever. there is no charge for you to register. i don't know other states that do that, but here in north carolina, all one has to do is register and vote. i have been hearing people telling -- not knowing that somebody has done it -- but i have heard other people telling people that they need to give their social security number, and that is not true, not in north carolina anyway. i don't know how many other states are set up the way that we are. when i am out and about, i talk

to young people and encourage them. i asked them first of all, are you a registered voter? most of them say no, because they are just going to do what they will do anyway. i say that is not true. your only voice is your vote. i am actually too old to do this anymore, i feel like anyway, but i just encourage all young people, all of my grandchildren, gen x, all of that, you need to go and vote. or i will disown you. [laughter] voting is so important. guest: thank you for what you have done and even when you continue to do even within your family. that is what matters. really encouraging, not judging people, no matter what age. if they say they are not

interested, think it does not matters. we do listening sessions, bus tours when there is no election coming, really engage with family, mothers, grandmothers. as women, we are the influencers in our family. i use to say the secret sauce to the black vote, because we didn't just show up, but we encouraged our significant others, nieces, nephews, grandchildren. i have great nieces and nephews now. being able to influence, trying to encourage them. it does matter when parents take their children to go and vote. when they see that, that makes a difference. church encouraging members to go and vote. all of those ways to encourage. that is the key to motivating people, giving them that information, not judging.

let them know. giving people even the history. some places, our attack on black history, the teaching of black history is extremely unfortunate. i am a native floridian, where they had made it harder to teach black history. but the history of black people voting is something we have to teach each generation. there was a price to pay for being able to vote in this country, when we were killed for it, hung for it, shot it, much more. that reality, but then bringing it to a modern moment, why does it matter to me now? very important. host: you mentioned black women. a story in the new york times about kamala harris and black men in this country. the headline, a delicate issue for black men backing harris.

the story notes ms. harris has her own challenges after decades in law enforcement where she built a tough cop persona associated with the incarceration of black men, became a proxy for a democratic establishment that is increasingly behind black men, left them disillusioned. the story notes that black men said they voted for donald trump by 12% -- that compares with 6% of black women in 2020. what do you make of those numbers? guest: if you look at the data, that has been generally consistent on black men voting for republicans, not just donald trump. during the bush era, i think it was as high as 15%. although there is a difference,

there is not a significant difference. even if you say 12% of black men voted for donald trump, that means 88% voted for the democrat. i don't think there is a big difference. i work with a lot of black men who were organizing, working hard to make sure that they encourage black men. i know the 100 black men of america, initiatives in georgia, who make sure that not just for the presidency, black men that have their own unique way of looking at politics, just like black women. none of us are monoliths. we vote on interests. it is economic issues that may drive the black community in a different direction but they can

speak for themselves. i can speak for the black women that i work with. we are strategic about our vote. this election year is more about our pocketbooks than it has been in the past. under the former president, donald trump, the number one issue for black women through our poll was a concern about racism and discrimination in this country. we have a lot of attacks that have taken place through court challenges. freedom fund, a venture capital firm, which was being sued over discrimination about venture capital. black women only get 0.06% of venture capital money in this country. we know there are barriers to our upward economic mobility. we will fight hard at the ballot box to vote for those who believe that those who don't

have have an opportunity to get resources, improve their quality of life in this country. host: your expectation in 2024 is that it will be about the same as 2020, in terms of the number of black male voters who vote for donald trump, you think about 12% again? guest: i think the majority of black men will vote democrat. it may fluctuate. it is up to the candidate, both sides of the coin, to work hard for the vote. but i don't think it will be that much of a difference if history proves itself to be that way. host: question from another viewer on twitter. does the national coalition on black civic participation support house bill hr 8271, the save act, which requires

documentary proof of u.s. citizenship in order to vote in federal elections? guest: i am not familiar with the bill. i would have to check on that. i would say no, because i'm not familiar with the bill. host: southfield, michigan. republican, good morning. caller: my question was, now that there are reports that 14% of illegal immigrants are registered to vote, how do i know that they are not voting in this election? guest: where did you get that information from? host: i think we lost them. guest: my question is where did that information come from, how effectual is that? a lot of bad information out here. i don't know where that number comes from. to respond to that is just responding to a black hole.

i don't know what that is. i don't know any data that has proven it with that person has talked about. where does he get the data from, what source? everything on the internet is not true. you have to do more homework. somebody may say it at a rally, town hall, say it to you in an open forum. ask hard questions, so when you you ask, you have hard facts to back it up. caller: i want to say to ms. campbell, first, i think your organization, organizations like yours are doing a great job. i am a black man who knows his history. when you said that, i said bingo. people don't understand the sacrifices some of our people made, and white folks, as well,

made so that we could have the right to vote. if you don't think your boat is power, ask yourself, why are the republicans trying so hard to take it away from you? anybody that is listening to the show, when the election comes, you see the long lines, ask yourself, why do we have these very long lines in democratic districts and we don't have them in republican districts? that is a form of voter suppression. as for the caller that said anything about the voter id. i agree, it is easier to produce that i do know. but in wisconsin, they made it harder for you to get that id. if you didn't have a driver's license, you had to go to the dmv to get a driver's license. in the cities, they would close down the dmv's that were closer to you, so you would have to get on a bus if you didn't have a car to go to the county.

and then the dmv closes at 5:00. i work for a private college here in wisconsin. we had to change our student id's because they wouldn't use them for students who were out of town to go to the local college, vote over there. they make it harder with all of the little tricks they like to play for you to vote. also pay attention to who is in court for all of these voter gimmicks. all of these republicans who were around donald trump who tried to steal the election because they didn't like the outcome. trump, we have to get rid of him once and for all. he is a drag on our democratic republic. i have lived through republicans, republican presidents in the past, but they were nothing like what donald trump is doing. for some reason, this man is trying to destroy this democratic republic of hours. we have to get rid of him for good. republicans, my advice to you

is, get somebody who is honest. you have a man at the top of your ticket who is a convicted felon, adjudicated sexual assaulter, and he couldn't get a job at the local burger king with that on his application, and you have them at the top of your ticket talking about how he wants to run the country. keep up the work that you are doing. i remember those freedom rides, getting folks to register. i remember when those folks did for us so that we could have the right to vote. americans, i don't care if you are white or black, but specifically to my fellow black americans, if you are not voting, you are spitting on the graves of martin luther king, all those folks who marched, so we could have this right to vote. it is a powerful right, and you have got to use it, if you want to see change. if you don't use it, you have no right to talk. that is what my dad used to say. if you don't vote, you have no

right to say anything about what is happening in this country. guest: first of all, thank you for knowing how powerful history is. that is part of it. if you don't know your history, you are bound to repeat it, good or bad. knowing what that vote means. it is a unique american story for what it means for african-americans in this country. it is very important and powerful for generations to always know that part of american history that is also black history but american history. i don't really have a comment. we are a nonpartisan organization when it comes to who people should vote for. i don't want to get into that, but just make sure that you do vote. the last thing he talked about, voter id laws, you are correct. which is why we need voting rights restoration, some the

justice department can monitor these things. 2006, it was voted on to reauthorize the enforcement powers of the voting rights act. that is what we are talking about. it is still the law of the land, but the enforcement of the u.s. justice department to be able to monitor, make sure the states are not discriminating against, not just black folks, minorities, disabled books. that is what we need to have happen. i think voting rights are on the ballot as a key issue. based on our research for black women, it is high on the list. freedom is on the ballot. democracy, in my opinion, is on the ballot. based on conversations, that is a concern, what kind of democracy we want.

to be want to continue this american experiment here in the united states of america, or do we want to have autocracy possibly? it is a real decision that people are making in this 2024 election cycle. host: a couple minutes left. some news from capitol hill, a reporter with the hill newspaper on capitol hill noting, the conservative freedom caucus has released their official position today on funding for the federal government for a continuing resolution to fund the government that stretches into 2025, but they want that combined with a bill to expand the proof of citizenship requirement to vote in an election. emily brooks saying it is a shot in the bow in the funding battle that will dominate the work on capitol hill in september. what do you make of that offer?

guest: i am hearing you telling me this. if they do their job, make sure they have a proper appropriations to fund the government, not play games with the american people in this election. it is too important. i don't think it will go anywhere. it is irresponsible, in my opinion, that they are doing that. that should not happen. take care of making sure they pass a budget, so the federal government, which impacts people's daily lives -- another reason that people are cynical about election officials. when you play games with people's lives, when you are talking about a budget, making it something that is innocuous to people's lives, it is not. it affects people's daily lives. they need to do the right thing

and focus on what is important, get that job done, and not play games. host: on that freedom caucus proposal, some analysis from a long time capitol hill reporter with punch bowl news. he was responding to emily brooks' post, the freedom caucus proposal saying this will not happen. the senator whitehouse will not go with it. it will not fly on capitol hill. we will see what happens when the house and senate return from their august recess. a few more of your phone calls with melanie campbell. this is joseph in point pleasant beach, new jersey. good morning. caller: last couple phone calls, listening to your guest. i am ultra-maga. that guy that called from virginia, republican in alexandria, i believe him. he is calling me a traitor.

i don't know why you didn't push back on that. i like trump aide i am a traitor. the last guy, the african-american who said i had to wake up. i don't need any advice with anybody. host: you were on with melanie campbell. what is your comment? caller: she is upset about people getting registered. doesn't she understand that there are 6000 people taken off of the virginia roles, illegal aliens were voting? all of these struggles that the african-americans have had the last 150 years for the right to vote, and these people come here illegally, and that doesn't bother her? what president trump said about black jobs. i am second generation immigrant. my mother was from ireland, my father from italy. i grew up in the south bronx. it was a poor neighborhood when my mother was there. her father had a job that was

not considered high-end, but it was a job. that is what it means. i was a busboy. black jobs. americans that have jobs that are not supposedly rich jobs, and these illegal aliens are coming and taking their jobs. for some reason, this lady, it doesn't bother her. african-americans keep putting people in office that are hurting themselves. the great society, how did that work out? trunk is the last president in the last 50 years that have tried to help every american, black and yellow, and they are getting pushback from this lady, people calling. host: your chance to respond. guest: you have your opinion, i respect that you have your opinion, but i fully disagree. you cannot judge who i am and what i believe or don't believe, because i didn't say some of the things that you said. what i said is you have to have facts that back up what you are

saying. people can say a whole lot of things but give me the data to prove it. when it comes to black jobs, i don't know what a black job is. the former president said black jobs. what is a black job? i come from a small town, very poor, i get it. i didn't grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth either. i know black folks have worked hard in this country like others. we have a unique history of how we were brought to this country. we didn't have an option, but we found a way to do what we needed to do, make it better, and we had to fight along the way. my great grandmother, mother, father thought that i had the opportunity to go get an education. we pay taxes like everybody else. we all have an opinion, but please don't put words in my mouth, with all due respect. host: melanie campbell is the president and ceo of national coalition on black civic participation.

ncncp.org. guest: appreciate it. host: we will be joined by the manhattan institute's heather mac donald. we will talk about campaign 2024, race, crime issues in this campaign season. stick around for this conversation. we will be right back. >> next up on c-span's coverage of the summers political party conventions, we had 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 the 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, or online at c-span.org. visit our website for the latest schedule updates and watch our full coverage of the 2024 republican national convention. catch up on past conventions anytime on demand at c-span.org /campaign or by scanning the code. >> if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage, you can find it anytime online at c-span.org. videos of key hearings, debates, and other events future markers that guide you to interesting and newsworthy highlights. these points of interest markers appear on the right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. this timeline tool makes it easy to get an idea of what was debated and decided in washington. scroll through and spend a few minutes on c-span's point of interest. >> friday nights, watch c-span

2024's campaign trail, a weekly roundup of c-span's campaign coverage, providing a one-stop shop to discover what the candidates across the country are saying to voters, along with first-hand account from political reporters, updated poll numbers, fundraising data, and campaign ads. watch c-span 2024's campaign trail friday night on c-span, online at c-span.org, or download as a podcast on c-span now, our free mobile app, or wherever you get your podcasts. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> washington journal continues. host: back with us this morning is heather mac donald, fellow at the manhattan institute, author of the 2023 book "when race trumps merit." race became a part of the 2024 campaign discussion recently

especially after donald trump's comments about kamala harris' racial identity to a group of voters last month. what did you make of those comments, reaction we have seen since those comments? guest: i was puzzled frankly by the spend on them. i didn't think you needed to go there. trump keeps engaging in unforced errors. i am sincerely puzzled by why it is a racist now to point out that somebody was emphasizing one ethnic identity before, which kamala harris was. there are lots of head by promoting her as the first indian americans senator, the first indian i'm vice president nominee -- american vice president nominee. understandably this is a long tradition of ethnic politics cling to whatever audience she thinks it is more important at

the time, but i think it is worth noting, today, the accusation of racism on the part of trump is trump denying that kamala harris is black. although he was really just asking about it. the interchange has not been sufficiently played in full, where he was pressing the reporter to define dei. she kept on saying diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is not what he meant, he wanted what does that mean more broadly? she finally said do you think she was chosen just because she was black? it was at that point that trump said, well, she hasn't always been black. so he didn't answer that more direct and difficult question. but let's notice, john, in the past, american racism which was extremely real -- we were

definitely a white supremacist country -- claiming that somebody was black placed on the one drop rule. that was seen as the pariah status. what we have today, it is somehow racist to imply that somebody is not black. let us just notice that that represents a seachange in america's ideas about race, what they received idea of racism is. host: do you think it is a seachange specifically for this election, this time, or is this something that you've been seeing as you have studied this over the years? guest: definitely a much broader change. i would like to know a single black student applying for college who would even think about trying to put his race down as white because he think that will confer on him and

admissions advantage. if he does, he is completely out of it. the reality today, being black is an enormous advantage, whether it is applying to undergraduate college, law school, medical school. conversely, when you have in this case, in the past we saw in indian-american who put down on his race as black going into medical school because he knew that would give him an advantage. he had a mediocre admissions test. and he was right. that got him into medical school. the question of what skin color confers privileged today with regards at least two mainstream institutions has completely reversed. you can see it in the data with the lawsuits against harvard and north carolina university. harvard was admitting blacks with s.a.t. and grade point that

would be automatically disqualifying if presented by whites and asians, and that is true in every single education institution in our school, worryingly, medical schools. host: in your book, what prompted you to write the book? guest: a combination of sorrow and anger. i am absolutely distraught by seeing the things that i love, some of the greatest monuments of western civilization, whether it is the music of bach, beethoven, chopin, the words of wordsworth, mark twain, torn down or disparaged as simply a

outcroppings of a system of colonial white supremacy. students being given a license to hate on the basis of the idiotic trivialities of race and sex, the creators. a worry that we are fast losing sight of what it took to create the prosperity, health, the freedoms, the unbelievable physical comforts we have today. and also an anger that those things were being dismissed by people that know nothing about them. worry that unless we stand up and say western civilization is not the worst thing that has happened to the global community, in fact the best, that every other civilization has engaged in either successful or attempted genocide, slavery,

colonialism, oppression, misogyny, homophobia, that only the west gave us the intellectual tools eventually to conquer its own, to try to conquer its own pretty damn successfully, isms, the rest of the world to fight in the name of tolerance and equality, we are going to lose it. the book's thesis is the concept that disparate impact is putting all of those accomplishments and civilizational standards at risk, because right now we say if any kind of standard, whether a meritocratic standard, admissions standard, requirement that you have to have this degree of competence in the tools of medicine to get a medical license, if that standard has a disparate impact on black applicants, it must be a racist standard and we must lower it. or a criminal law standard

against theft or shoplifting, trespass, resisting arrest has a disparate impact on black criminals, it must be a racist standard, and therefore we should not prosecute the law or officers should not arrest for the law. that idea that disparate impact is per say evidence of racism, and that standards should be lowered, i think is very dangerous. and people need to start speaking the truth about why standards do have disparate impact, while we do not have full representation in our institutions, and a large region of that is a large a skills gap and a large behavior gap. host: heather mac donald is our guest. let me give viewers the phone numbers to call in if they have questions or comments. (202) 748-8001, republicans. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8002.

she is with us until the bottom of the armor this morning at 9:30 a.m. eastern, 6:30 a.m. specific, where heather mac donald is joining us early this morning. what has been the reaction to the book since you published it in the past year? guest: i have certainly gotten a lot support from scientists, medical professions, arts and musical profession, people who are not in a position to speak out as i am, because i'm not in an academic institution, so i could not be silenced or fired for speaking the truth about racial preferences or mitch mashed -- mitch match theory, which has been empirically demonstrated, how detrimental racial preferences are on their suppose it beneficiaries. i can speak out about these things. people in the medical profession who see what is happening with the lowering of standards, the

absolute overwhelming pressure by medical deans to admit students who are not academically prepared for the schools for which they are being admitted, and then to pass them on, we have already changed the grading scores for the first part of the medical school licensing exam.. we have gone from a grading system to pass fail because too many black medical students were at the bottom of the scoring range, so our response to that is get rid of the standards, rather than improve the behavior and performance. so now we just have a pass fail system, so hospitals choosing the pressure is on to change part two scoring. the pressure is on to pass through people that have failed completely, people that fail the test five, six times are still eking it out. but believe me, if somebody can't pass the medical licensing

exams after six times, they're not going to be able to keep up with the flood of new information that's coming in different medical specializations. people that are oned ground that are seeing this are very scared. they see the medical curriculum being eviscerated to make room for specious courses in systemic racism and microaggressions and white privilege. students are learning less about drug interactions and how to treat somebody who has just been rendered fully paralyzed in a car accident and they're learning more about why america will never get over its systemic racism problems, something that has no relevance what safer to the -- whatsoever to the fair and competent practice of medicine and people in the classical arts see as well what's happening with standards

of musical performance or achievement are also being lowered for the sake of diversity. so i am trying to give voice to people that don't feel like they can have the institutional freedom to send the alarm about how dangerous it is to continue lowering standards in the name of creating a diverse institution. the reality, john, is you can either have diversity at this point or you can have meritocracy. you cannot have both. host: to erica in maryland, democrat, good morning. caller: hello. i would like to say that i am totally outraged by this person. first of all, if it wasn't for

most blacks, this country and the foundational black americans in this country, there would be nothing. music -- there would be medicine. the first open hastert surgery -- hope heart surgery was done by a black person. we have been systematically pushed out of everything. this woman seems like she's blaming black foundational americans -- she's blaming us for their inadequacies, and we have to figure out why she feels

as though or she has to figure out why she feels as though black people are much less than she is when we are the people who gave you civilization. host: het other mac donald, i will let you respond. guest: i think black people can meet the standards. i don't think we need to have prosecutors saying they're not going to prosecute the law because doing so will have a disparate impact on black criminals. i think if we have a colorblind standard, they can meet it. i think universities don't have to say we need double standards for admissions. we are going to have a one cutoff score for black and hispanic applicants but if you are white and asian, you have to have one standard deviation above in your s.a.t. or lsat.

i believe that blacks can meet those standards. i think that lowering standards, not expecting them to meet standards is incredibly humiliating and condescending. there is no question that the black contribution to american music is incalculable. jazz and its offshoot in the big band sound, the great american song book, the wonderful marriage of black jazz and a jewish melodic sensibility is the greatest american contribution to world civilization. there is no question that america was founded on white supremacy, that for centuries white americans treated blacks with gratuitous cruelty and contempt. it breaks my heart to see pictures of ella fitzgerald and

duke elington dressed to the nines conforming to bourgeois values, singing the american anthem and still being told they couldn't get a room at a hotel or a seat at a restaurant. this lasted well beyond what a lot of conservatives acknowledge into the 1950's and 1960's, where again it was not a question of slavery but it was a question of doling out unnecessary sleights to show that whites were superior. i am not in any denial about the extent to which americans were in incredible ignorance about the profound contradictions between their founding ideals and their actual behavior. i am very sympathetic to frederick douglass' great speech

on the fourth of july noting the ironies of the white americans celebrating freedom and saying how can blacks participate in that holiday when we have been denied those freedoms that you are celebrating today? i think that was a completely justified view. i even find it justified for malcolm x to talk about whites as devils because back then they were engaged in this gratuitous cruelty, psychological cruelty towards blacks. that having been said, that is not our reality today. every single mainstream institution is pressuring its managers, giving them bonuses if they hire and promote blacks. every academic institution is doing the same. every faculty hiring search, anybody who is listening who is in a university today on a

faculty knows the rules. every faculty search is about one thing and one thing only, finding so-called diverse candidates to interview and hire. if you are a white male in academia, it's over for you. good luck. you are at the absolute bottom of the heap. as far as the larger issue of civilization, western science is a product of the european civilization of the scientific method, the incredible search for knowledge, the curiosity about the world, the empirical tinkering that began embodied by the royal society of london in the 17th century that spread throughout the continent with these amateurs sign 'tises figuring out anatomy. this was a western phenomenon and it was a european

phenomenon. germany was extraordinarily powerful. that is the historical reality. i do not believe that today the scientific language is close to anybody. it is a universal language. everybody can speak it. it has nothing to do with the race and sex of any scientist. those things should be completely irrelevant when the federal agency doles out science grants. unfortunately you have the national science foundation, national institutes of health today saying the only science is diverse science. here is the reality. medical research labs are extraordinarily diverse. they're a global phenomenon but what they do not have proportionally is black american, african-american scientists. why? because the skills gap is so large. this is why i say you can have diversity as we define it, black

and american blacks, hispanic, or merrick ot ra see, you can't have both. when 66% of black 12th graders do not possess partial mastery of the most basic math grade skills, reading a linear graph, 66% of black 12th graders do not possess partial mastery of those basic math skills, it is absurd to say that if a cancer research lab does not have 13% black oncologists or an alzheimer's research lab does not have 13% black neurologists, it's a racist lab that is discriminating against qualified black oncologists and neurologists but that's now the message that is being sent by the federal agencies and by many academic institutions. to create that diversity, i am

sorry, given what we know about the distribution of medical skills today this is not permanent but it is the state today. if you are going to engineer that 13% representation of blacks, you can going to have to lower academic standards. host: just about 20 minutes left with heather mac donald. i have lots of callers for you as usual when we have you on. quickly can you explain what the manhattan institute is, where you are the fellow there? guest: you are in d.c. there. you are in think tank season -- tank central, a think tank is a shorthand for a research organization that is not a university. so we don't teach. we don't have students. we don't have faculty track but the manhattan institute, like other think tanks, you have a

heritage institution, cato institute in d.c. we produce research. the mawpt institute has been very interested in urban issues. they were involved in the urban revolution of the 1990's in new york city. the policing revolution of comp stat, the welfare reform and are very much believers in the potential vitality of american cities if we can keep them safe, if we can make schools meritocratic, high behavioral expectations, and they but lib -- publish the city journal. host: emily is waiting in florida, independent. you are on with heather mac donald. caller: good morning. i just wanted to call in and say it's pretty evident that we live in a white supremacist society

when even c-span is willing to give a platform to a psuedoacademic like this is some normal part of the discourse. i guess my question for the guest is, is your favorite composer wagner and for c-span what are we even doing right now? that's all i have. thank you. host: heather mac donald. guest: actually, i can't stand wagner. i hate to let that secret out but not for the reasons you would think i should, but i find most of the music very bombastic. i like the late wagner with his har manic progressions but i am on brahms' side. but the very fact that you would apparently discard that i view my lack of taste for wagner as a great deficit on my part because every great conductor, including every jewish one that i know of,

his highest aspiration is to conduct wagner because he is viewed as having taken western music to perhaps its outmost bounds of expressivity. the jewish conductors are in the about to dismiss him for his very real views about jews. but the fact that you would i think is unfortunate. it's a complicated question but i doubt whether you have grappled with it very much. that kind of name calling, i just don't find very interesting. as i say, i hardly believe in any kind of racial inferiority or superiority. i do think that our current arrangement now does not do the beneficiaries of racial preferences any benefits. if i was admitted to m.i.t. because m.i.t. decided it needed more gender equity in a more

gender proportional freshman class and i had 650 on my math s.a.t.'s on an 800 point scale but i was given the extra boost because i was a female whereas all my peers were averaging about a perfect math s.a.t. score of 800, what would happen my freshman year? i would struggle. i would not be able to keep up in my freshman calculus class. i would probably change majors if not drop out of the school and that would not be doing me any favors whereas if i would have gone to a school where i was matched with my academic peers and had -- they all had an average of 650 on their math s.a.t.'s which is a respectable score, i would be more likely to stay in a stem career and be able to graduate, able to go on

in a scientific profession. this is what happens to blacks constantly. they're put in the cruel situation of being catapulted into academic environments for which they're not competitively qualified. i am not saying blacks shouldn't go to college. i am saying do not put them in the handicapped position of competing in an academic environment for which they're not prepared. if you don't believe me, look up an incredibly powerful statement of a mechanical engineering professor at m.i.t. published last year in an m.i.t. faculty newsletter talking about the pain and sorrow that he has gone through decade after decade with his black m.i.t. students who have been admitted under race preferences, who cannot keep up. this is a black mechanical engineer who believes firmly in the ability of black scientists,

as i do, but does not believe in the falsity of a racial preference regime that puts black students into a certain set of schools where they are not at that moment prepared for. they are prepared for college. just don't put them one rung above everybody where they should be, which puts them in the almost certain position to lag behind. the data that we have from law schools, what happens in law school classes, are absolutely compelling as far as the deer rating effect -- harmful effect of racial preferences. host: craig in tulsa, oklahoma, republican. good morning. you are next. guest: i appreciate your -- caller: i appreciate your guest,

heather mac donald. i notice since 197 they've tried to take away differing levels of discipline for kids. discipline not being a bad thing but teaching them that there are boundaries, laws and civil behavior is required and i think if you learn that in high school you learn how to conduct yourself outside of school. you don't get thrown in jail. but they say that this or that community just can't be expected to be civil. so we should reduce discipline. i wonder if you could maybe address that or had you addressed that because if you look at those schools, they put out more juvenile offenders because they're not applying discipline evenly across the board. guest: right. the obama administration, the education and justice department started suing school districts across the country for this concept that i mentioned at the beginning of my time here of disparate impact. if they had higher rates of

school discipline for black students, the teachers must be racist. this is a conceit that is puzzling on its face because teachers are the most liberal profession in the country probably. maybe social worker is one tiny step ahead but we were supposed to believe that teachers, concepts of racial privilege, microaggression, standpoint theory that they were gratuitously and arbitrarily sus is spending black students for insubordination and therefore the schools came under pressure, you can't have discipline if it has a disparate impact on black students. that resulted in increasing violence and when the family is breaking down and kids are not learning self-discipline and self-control in the home, the

school is the last opportunity to learn how to conform to rules, to overcome any kind of impulse towards anti-social behavior. as to the idea that somehow it was mere fantasy of racist teachers that there would be any greater degree of anti-social behavior among black kids, consider this. black juvenile males between the ages of 14 and 17 commit gun homicide at 10 times the rate of white juvenile males between the ages of 14 and 17. 10 times the rate in the post-gorge floyd race riot world, black juveniles are getting shot at 100% the rate -- not by police or not by whites

because believe you me, if they were, we would have heard about it. it's blacks shooting at each other in drive-by shootings. we are supposed to believe that the degree of behavior doesn't show up in the classroom but it does. i have been to inner city class rools and i have seen the chaos by teachers who are unable or unwilling to enforce order and to have high expectations for behavior. that is again the soft bigotry of low expectations. you are not helping. there are thousands of black students who want to study, who are paying attention to their

teacher. they're studying for examtion. but if -- for exams but if you have an enforced inability to discipline students who are disrupting the teaching, you are hurting all those students. you are hurting the students who need discipline and you are hurting the students who are there to learn. host: can you talk about -- you said the soft bigotry of low expectations. the historical roots of that term, where that comes from? guest: that was george w. bush and i think it was when he was promoting the no child left hyped act, which -- behind act which said that we are going to -- the federal government is going to start monitoring the success of its teaching and make closing the skills gap. it put strict regulations on schools. well, they didn't work so well.

the schools didn't really close the gap too well and there came to be a backlash against the no child left behind act. but george w. bush was saying the same thing that i have been trying to say, which is that by lowering standards, by lowering expectations for this or that racial group, you are not doing them any favors. the solution is to meet the standards. if you are not meeting the standards you have to put in the effort. beat the standards and if you do believe that you are being excluded and today i would say of course america was excluding the most competent blacks, was destroying lives, was breaking hearts. i am friend with a fantastic black conductor, violinist and composer and his father and mother graduated from howard university and they were both

pianists. the father had been in the coast guard and he was broken by racism in the coast guard. he became psychologically disturbed. he became an alcoholic. he could have possibly had a classical music career. but that man was destroyed by the white supremacy of white americans in the 1940's and that breaks my heart. but here is the solution. when jews were excluded from law firms, from medical schools, from banks, they said ok, we are going to be so good that you can't exclude us any longer. so they started their own banks and their own law firms and they competed the hell out of the white gentiles who were not add midding them to their country cl their ivy league schools and finally they became so good that they became the

dominant way disproportionate group who are now being -- asians, those parents are riding their children night and day to make sure that those kids are studying and excelling to the maximum of their capacity. if everybody did that the skills gap would disappear. host: the line for democrats. good morning. host: good morning. -- caller: good morning. very good topic. i would ask to take a minute to take the veil off her eyes, to really see what is going on with blacks. she talks about we have this advantage with affirmative action and things like that. i went to a trade school. going to that trade school, i got really good at what i do. i am an expert, very good at

what i do. but when i got out of the trade school to get jobs, do you know how difficult it was for me to get a job as posed to the white man having the same skill set that i have? in this day and time, if you don't think these things still happen to us, it happens to us this day and time. you got this veil over your eyes that you can't see this stuff still happens. you are saying it's not this way no more. yes, it is. it still hams. even when we did -- you said the jews did. you burned down a whole city of black people that this har -- had their own banks. they had their own stock market. all that stuff going on. you guys burnt that down. white folks burped that down because you didn't want to see us get together. that's what the problem is. every time that we seem to get

together or every time we seem to have some type of advantage, white folks come in and tear it down from black folks. y'all blame us for everything that's going on in america right now. let's talk about crime. white folks commit a multitude of crimes. they're killing mothers, fathers, mass murders, all kinds of stuff that's going on but you want to say it's blacks kill blacks. yeah, we do and whites kill whites. hispanics kill hispanics. asians kill asians. it's not just the black people. i really can't understand you separating us from this and that but we were disproportionate, we didn't have the opportunity. host: heather mac donald, give you the final couple of mips here. guest: the bodies don't lie. homicide is the gold standard of criminal data. and the c.d.c. which is no right wing organization, its most

recent data shows that blacks between the ages of 10 and 24 die the gun homicide at 25 times the rate of whites in that same age cohort. as i say, another c.d.c. study or another academic study showed black juveniles were being shot at 100 times the right of white juveniles. if whites were being killed at this rate, believe me, there would be a revolution. the media doesn't care. the imleed is racist. it doesn't pay attention to the black bodies. the only black bodies it pays attention to are those that are killed by the cops and that is a minute proportion. every day dozens of blacks are killed in homicides. that's more than all white and hispanic homicide victims combined, even blacks are only 13% of the population. as far as interracial violence,

if you look at all nonlethal interracial violence between blacks and whites, blacks commit 87% of it. a black person is 35 times more likely to commit a nonlethal act of violence against a white person than a white person is against a black. i say nonlethal because this is based on people reporting their crime experiences to the federal government and national crime victimization survey so if are a homicide victim, you can't report it. you can report it if you have been assaulted with a gun or rained and that's the data that the people that are the victim of crime are reporting. and the shooting rates are the same. in new york city, the victims of and witnesses to shootings report that blacks commit 75% of all shootings even though they're 22% of the population. whites are 35% of the population

and commit 1% to 2%. this is not the racist police talking. these are people in the neighborhoods where these shootings are happening who are themselves overwhelmingly black and hispanic. i have been -- i have made a career of going to police community meetings in high crime neighborhoods and giving voice to the dozens of law abiding, honest, hard-working citizens of those high crime communities who beg for more police protection. the police are in certain neighborhoods not out of some kind of race animus but because that's where the victims are and they want to save lives. as far as other institutions discriminating against blacks, i can't speak to your experience, sir, and i don't know when that happened. all i can say it is provable that in meritocratic institutions today, they are explicitly saying they are only interested in hiring people of

non-white races or females. it's quite overt and the data proves the same thing. white males with superior qualifications are being denied admission to medical schools, to law schools, to engineering schools for which they are very competitively qualified because they do not advance the diversity mission. host: mac donald is a fellow at the manhattan institute, author of the book "when race trumps merit." appreciate your time this morning on "washington journal." guest: thank you, john. host: 30 minutes left in our program today. we turn the program over to you. it's our open forum. any public policy, any political issue, any state issue that you want to talk about. the numbers are on your screen. we will get to your calls right after the break.

>> richard brookhighser has written for the national review magazine for 50 years. he has written books about george washington, alexander hamilton and the founding father he calls a gentleman revolutionary. now comes his latest, glorious lessons. he lived between 1756 and 1843, most famous for his four very large paintings about the revolutionary war on the walls of the rotunda in the u.s. capitol building in washington, d.c. >> glorious lessons, john trumbull, painter of the american revolution on this episode of book notes plus. on the free mobile app or

wherever you get your podcasts. >> on saturday, august 24, book tv takes you live to the washington convention center for annual coverage of the library of congress' national book festival. since 2001 we featured hundreds of in depth author talks at the festival. this year including the librarian of congress, doris kearns goodwin and more. the library of congress' national book festival live saturday, august 24, beginning at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: 30 minutes left in our program. it's open forum until we conclude at 10:00 a.m. eastern. republicans call 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000.

independents, 202-748-8002. with that, we will get out of the way and turn it over to you. this is donald in missouri, republican. you are up first. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, sir. caller: i am calling in favor of everyone voting for mr. donald trump for president. the democrats are just so disgusting on every issue that you can imagine. crime, international wars, taking children from their parents, little children, sometimes not allowing -- telling the parent what's going on and sexually mutilating the child. just for that reason alone, you should vote republican, people. are you still there?

host: yeah, donald. finish up what you are saying. caller: sure. i could go on for hours. every single issue, crime in the streets, mr. trump is a man of common sense. kamala harris, you don't know what you are getting. she's a laughing idiot. host: all right. that's donald in missouri. this is iris in pennsylvania, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. hello. actually i was calling for the woman that was speaking. can you hear me? host: yes, you were calling for our previous guest, heather mac donald. caller: am i late again? i was going to make a comment for her. i have a question for her. but as far as am i happy with the democrats, i most certainly am. with the choice, i most certainly am. when people speak in the manner

of the previous caller, that to me shows a willing ignorance on their part because apparently they're not doing any research on anything. that gets under my skin when they say things they have no proof of. host: this is alex in mip minut, independent. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to make a comment with regard to the last guest. i think she made some good points. one thing that stood out to me as a person who has talked to a number of races in education in america, i frequently hear the idea of school choice. i am a white guy but even talking to black people i hear them talk about choice. it provides an opportunity for people to shape their own destiny in a way that maybe being forced to go to public school doesn't. i am a public school produck. i thought it was fine but i know a lot of people don't have

opportunities. i hope people on the left will put pressure on the teachers unions to allow for more choice. i think that the teamers unions will always kind of scapegoat some other group as a way to avoid their failures but the truth is the test scores haven't risen in a long time. i think now they're instituting a lot of the d.e.i. as a way to escape from their failures. thanks for taking my call. host: alex, you are from minnesota. what was your thought on the tim walz pick? caller: i think he is a bad choice. i think there is some credibility to the stolen valor claim. i will be voting republican because the country is head inning a bad direction. host: alex in minnesota. on today's tim walz story in "the new york times," on the deep ties that tim walz has had

to china over the years from the time that he was a young teacher teaching english in that country, just a couple paragraphs from that story. the one year he spent teaching in southern china was the start of what would become a decades long relationship with the country as high school teachers in nebraska and minnesota, mr. walz and his wife regularly led trips to china in the early 2000's to introduce students to china's history and culture. mr. walz has said he has traveled to china 30 times over the years including for his honeymoon. the story going on to note that if elected vice president mr. walz would bring to the white house an unusally extensive personal experience in china, a history that his pore supporters say could be an asset at a time of volatile relations between washington and beijing. republicans by contrast have already been to seize on the governor's perm experience in

china to accuse him as being soft on a country that is the u.s.' rival. more on that story in "the new york times." louisiana, charles, republican. good morning. caller: yes, sir. i wanted to comment on the lady that was -- made the book on racism and i taught school for 30 years. my wife has alzheimer's now, but we talked when we talked that we had discipline in our classrooms and we taught all the kids. i don't care if they were black, hispanic, white or whatever. we treated them all the same and tried to educate them to the best of our ability. they had a saying when i was a kid that foolishness is bound in the heart of a child but the rod

of correction shall drive it far from him. that's written in the bible. and then there's other scriptures there that if we would go back to the bible, it tells us that we love our children when we discipline them. we want them to do what's right and not get in trouble. i think the family is breaking down. a lot of families with single mothers raising children. and the bible tells us to love each other and the man who said he couldn't get a job because of racism and he was well qualified, if we love one another, then we care about each other and it doesn't matter if you have the merit, then you get the job. host: that's charles in louisiana. california, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to speak about the author that you had on your

show. i was so disturbed by almost everything that she said, and i felt like -- i understand that c-span gives a platform to everyone regardless of their viewpoint in order to let peoplm the right speak their piece. but this morning i was actually the most disturbed i have ever been. she was completely denigrating to black people. she tried to put on this attitude, this air of being an intellectual and understanding what racism is, but she really doesn't and for her to think that just because she says oh, this country used to be built on white supremacy that she has some kind of sips sensitivity toward black people, toward racism and understapg of what racism -- institutionalize the racism is, it's clear that she doesn't. i was just disturbed that c-span actually gave her a platform and allowed her to speak almost

unchecked -- she had three people make comments in between her soliloquies, her absurd soliloquies. i am really disturbed but i hope you will have someone come on and counter what she said. i hope you'll give someone the opportunity to tell you why what she said is absolutely absurd and denigrating to black people. host: that's nicole in california. this is james in california as well, independent. good morning. caller: yes, sir. thank you. i didn't find one bit what she said was all what the last lady said. the truth hurts. as black person, we have to realize what we have to do to climb up the ladder as other people have done. the last point is until we have the black families, mother and father having kids together and raising their kids, there is no way in hades where black

children our education, our cities will never be what they're supposed to be until we solve that problem at the basics and climb up. caller: james, can i ask you, you are a black man in california, have you decided who you will vote on this cycle? i think we lost the caller. this is jay in texas, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to ask the question. how come a felon can't vote but a felon can run for president? i don't understand that. if you can explain that to me, i would sure appreciate it. host: there are some states where felons can vote but the requirements to be president are laid out in the constitution and not having a felony is not one much those requirements. so that's where that comes from. this is james in san diego, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning.

i would like to go back to your first hour and i would like to ask the question in this regard to those democrats that support the current democratic nominee for president and vice president. do you honestly believe in no borders? do you honestly believe in allowing males to get into ladies showers and restrooms? do you believe in males competing in female sports? do you believe in mandatory buy backs of weapons? do you believe in unlimited abortions? do you honestly believe in no bail for those that are waiting judicial issues for violent crimes? if you believe in those things then yes you should support the democratic ticket. if not you should see how hypocritical you are when you are saying you are supporting the democratic ticket. thank you very much.

host: another james, from louisiana, independent. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i think it would be very interesting to see if black people were to stop complaining about racism and begin to practice racism the way everybody else practices racism. nobody else complains, protests, demonstrates about racism except black people. if we started practicing racism, taking care of ourselves, racism wouldn't be so effective against us. host: you say that as a white person, a black person in louisiana? caller: i am mixed, triracial. mixed up, i hate and love everybody. equally. host: that's james in louisiana. this is lee, kansas, democrat. good morning. caller: all right, john. i keep hearing this thing that

donald trump did everything he said he was going to do. i would like to revisit that. he said he would balance the budget. didn't do that. added $8 trillion more than any united states president in history, over a four year period. he said he would whether a -- build a wall and mexico would pay for it. that didn't happen. only built 47 miles of primary wile. obama built 1 -- 640 miles. he said we could put our tax return on a post card. i did mine in april. it took eight pages. he said he would get an infrastructure bill done. didn't that get done. he said he would replace obamacare. didn't get that done. what did he do? he said he would get us out of afghanistan. didn't do that either. the agreement he signed cause the debacle in afghanistan. the abraham accords caused october 7.

the tax scam and job cuts act, that added $1 trillion to the united states deficit. so he didn't get much done. on the other hand, joe biden created 15.7 million jobs. that's more than the previous three republican administrations combined. he had the child poverty rate -- violent crimes down 15%. chips and finance act, net worth for families has increased under joe biden. uninsured americans down to 7.2%. the strategic petroleum reserve is all bought back. as i remember people said that's trees news getting rid of our oil. that's all bought back. he made almost $1 billion, something like that. he made money for the american people. let me see.

host: lee, we will take your point. this is shmuel in new jersey, republican. caller: hi, good morning. i have two points. first of all, me and my community, we often support republicans and it's not because we align with one person, not because we like donald trump's personalities or anything about him. we think he has great moral deficits. he cares about himself a lot. that being said, the one thing that's important to us being that my parents and grandparents escaped europe from the holocaust, my wife's grandparents the same thing. most of my extended family was slaughtered in the holocaust. the fact that you can have protesters -- not talking about people that want people in gaza

to be displaced. all of us care about that and we have no -- nothing against them. the problem is when it turns to open anti-semitism and people openly call for killing jews, which that in and of itself would one thing. the problem is when you have our leaders or the democratic nominee waiting a day to come out, not saying anything and understand this is for me probably the most frightening time to live in this country, open anti-semitism. over the weekend there was someone in new york stabbed, in critical condition, by someone screaming to free palestine. we don't need the headlines, but we know if it would have been the other way, a pro-israel jew going after a muslim just out of the blue walking down the

street, there would be national headlines. that's a big problem that our leadership can't call that out and that the media doesn't care enough because it's not supportive of the narrative. host: there is an on-ed in today's washington times, saying the survival of jews is at stake in this election saying they have become the proverbial miner's canary. he says the position of jews has never been more precarious in this country noting a cover story in the atlantic from april saying the golden age of american jews is ending. i am not sure if you have read that on-ed but i wonder your thoughts on his thesis there. caller: i haven't read it. but i think most people know "the washington times" is a small, conservative outlet. it's not considered mainstream in any way, and for the national news to be ignoring this and for

our leaders to be ignoring this, i am not a political person. i don't like donald trump personally. i don't like a lot of the republicans personally. every politician is in it for himself as a matter of fact. but it's just -- if it takes a day for the vice president to come out and give a half baked statement about people openly calling to kill jews in times square and all the college universities have people openly calling to kill jews and there is no cop quens for that -- consequence for that. there is a first amendment right but for there to be an outrye against this is lacking and it's unfortunate. host: less than 10 minutes this morning. new jersey, charles, democrat. good morning. caller: the education system is

set up to keep my people down. when you graduate from high school, they don't know nothing. you don't teach them a trade. in 1940 in arkansas, i went to school. they taught us how to be a cobbler, how to be a plumber, how to be a cook, how to be a mechanic. all those different trades we were taught. but then you find out as a basketball player, you can get free money off of us. so you come out with the football and basketball and keep all the money and they don't do nothing. you are still making slaves out of us. host: charles in new jersey. this is idea in baltimore, maryland, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i usually just listen to you all in the morning and i never, ever call in. but i had to call in this morning regarding the mac donald

person that called in. what i want to say about her -- she's so busy studying what melanated people do and quick to point out the disparities in our community and comparing us to other races of people. the main thing that stuck out to me was her when she was talking about having people of color attend colleges and they're not qualified to attend these colleges, they're not qualified to become doctors or whatever it is that they're pursuing, i totally disagree with her. my daughter is a physician. as a matter of fact, she has m.d. and p.t.h. behind her name and she got there through her own merits and being persistent

and going through ups and downs and crazy things that are out here that keep people from progressing. so i really -- she really made my blood boil and i am trying to be calm on this call. i want to put out this point, too. and then i am going to get off the phone. so she's saying that people of color, they're causing the schools to lower their standards. but she didn't have one word to say about the affluent people who pay for their children to get into harvard and all of these other so-called ivy league schools. so she's so busy studying us. why don't she study that? and what needs to be done instead of people talking about the disparities, do something about it. if it bothers you, do something about it. raise funds for these schools

that are calling down. i live in baltimore. the school systems are horrible. do something about it instead of talking about it. and complaining. that's all i have to say. do something. host: baltimore, maryland. this is rick in nashville, good morning. republican line. caller: good morning. i have two quick questions. i hope somebody can give me some answers. when trump said that harris isn't black, i googled because i am not in academia and most of the caribbeans do not identify as black. so there's nothing wrong with her being a caribbean indian. that would be cool, too. the democrats had slavery, they had the k.k.k., they had jim

crow. they had to write the green book. if somebody could help me why the democrats still want to stay with the democrats, they also have housing. that's not turned out well. if i could get an answer. thank you. host: rick in nashville. democrat in north carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i am referencing a lot of calls i heard going on but my thing is i am a vet for 22 years in the military and my thing is my husband is also a vet. we have concern about this project 2025. so the concern is in trying to understand a lot of what is going on with the project 2025, what is -- a lot of people that

are vets should have some concern about that. that has not really came out what the former president is -- he hasn't elaborated on that a lot. so that's concerning to me. it's about my status as a vet, what is that going to entail as far as my disability, being a disabled vet, my husband being a disabled vet. what is going to come about that? a lot of people that are veterans should have a concern. we are trying to figure out what is that going to hurt as far as our way of living. maybe someone should help shine some light on that. host: have you gone to the project 2025 website? they have -- i think it's 900

pages. they have it available to rea, broken down into different sections. veterans' affairs is one of those sections. caller: yes. but the thing is, we are -- my husband gave me some insight on it. i have a vision problem. i have to do a lot of hearing. so getting that information out to people that are vets, they need to be aware when you are voting someone in, you need to know about who you are voting for and the reason behind your vote. that's my concern. all this other stuff about the abortion rights, yes, i went through all of that. i heard about abortion rights, the border, but my thing is

project 2025. that's my biggest concern there. host: chapter 20 of project 2025, the author of the department of veterans' affairs section, a couple paragraphs, his overview of what project 2025 would mean for the department of virps affairs, he writes at the end of the balm administration -- by employees who served these former warriors eroding morale caused by the downstream effects of the health care access crisis in 2014 led to the resignation of one of the v.a. secretaries. by 2020 the v.a. had become one of the most respected u.s. agencies comparing the v.a. during the obama administration to the trump administration, soon to be the theme of the beginning of that overview, if

you want to read more, project 2025.org is their website. you can read the whole section. caller: all right. awesome. thank you. host: time for one more call this morning. we will go to our independent line, walter in north carolina. go ahead. caller: yes, good morning. i am a product of the segregated schools and i would like to respond to the previous lady that was on the air before. host: go ahead, walter. caller: first of all, when we had the segregated schools, we we also had good education that was produced as a result of that. after integration, however, that's when everything went south. host: walter, you're argue forrization of schools? caller: no, no, no, no, no.

i'm going to try to explain how we got to where we are now. so what i'm saying is, after the school integrated, black teachers could no longer punish the kids. so all punishment is out, ok? the second thing is, in addition to that, since you couldn't correct the white kids, so everything just went haywire. host: you're arguing more discipline in schools, and i've got about 10 seconds left. caller: ok, and at the same time, the system came up with a plan wherein the blacks could not recommend their own kids in their home. host: all right, that's walter in north carolina. our last caller in today's

"washington journal." we'll be back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. it is 4:00 a.m. pacific. in the meantime, have a great monday. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] >> here's a look at live coverage coming up today on c-span. at 11:00 a.m. eastern time, local officials from across the country hold a press conference ahead of the two-year anniversary of the healthcare and climate change legislation signed into law by president biden, hosted by the elected officials to protect america. and later at 2:00 p.m. eastern time, we bring you a discussion

on the challenges of political polling, with pollsters amy walter and david wasserman of the cook political report. that's hosted by the brookings institution. you can watch these programs live on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. >> the supreme court's 2024 term heard cases on a number of critical issues and issued decisions with the most wide ranging implications. the justices heard more than 6 0e cases, including blockbuster cases about former president donald trump, hot-button social issues, questions of free speech, reproductive rights, and matters of importance to the business community. >> all this week at 9:00 p.m. eastern, we're featuring discussions on recent supreme court rulings. tonight, lawyers and legal scholars review the supreme court's 2023-2024 term.