host: and in the wake of the

recent controversy over jd vance's past, the prominent democratic women, our next guest wrote this: the made eternal constitution. that headline, the childless cat lady would like a word. what did you want to say? caller: i'm not a cat lady, i like dogs, but i don't have children. the purpose of the article, that is kind of a pushback with a little bit of a wink and nod, but this issue of people being childless is a very serious one. there are some 20 million u.s. childbearing agent don't have children. that number dropped to about 50 millions of that is a significant number of women and men in this country who either can't have children or choose not to have children and they wanted jd vance to understand that this isn't a joke, it isn't a laughing matter. reproductive freedom and reproductive health is a big issue in this campaign those of

us were unable have children, to say we are not full citizens or we should not be able to participate at the same level is rare for u.s. senators, unkind and not something that i think holton in good stead with the women of america. host: how many people are involved? guest: anybody can start a political action committee. you made money, and you can donate to our campaign, in this instance, i set it up so donate today harris campaign and support her. as many coalitions are doing across the country, you got black women for harris who by the way, started this whole thing off with a call, and then it was white dudes for harris and black men for harris and latinos and asians. now you got the cat lady and the childless chicks. a group of coalitions that really helped frame the stately together in a way that i've

really never seen before. host: how much anyways so far? guest: we just got approved and set up, we are going through a big push candidate national call. we are working on it now. host: you said it been around washington a long time. what have you done? guest: i've been on this show, i think this is my 10th time. the first time was 1998 when i was a young committee counsel working over there, and dan burton mr. chairman of my committee at that time. i fed around a long time. i was an intern in the senate, in college in the 80's, the late 80's. i've done internships and all kinds of things, i've been here a long time. host: joining us this morning the phone lines, as you go by political party, childless chicks for harris. (202) 748-8000 free democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans.

independent, (202) 748-8002. we will of course look for your text messages emails as well. you gated peppers media. i want to talk about women's role in campaign 2024. house republican conference chair elise stefanik who is trying to make the point earlier this month that donald trump has been very good for the women of this country and when it comes to their economic and their income in this country. she said the median income for women increased every year during the trump administration, reaching the highest on record in 2020. real average weekly earnings increased 8.2% under president trump. she goes on to say the unemployment rate for women overall and for black women in particular reached record low drink president trump stirred. the workforce for his patient --

between men and women strength of the narrowest. president trump made history with the most women in the workforce ever. guest: i'm not an economist and i don't have the of the to fact-check in real-time would like to do. i think that if the biden harris folks were on here, they would take exception to everything she said. in point of fact, he's had the lowest unemployment. you have to remember that during trump's presidency particularly in 2020 and the later part, covid was raging that because a shutdown of businesses, markdowns, etc. so the economy began to take anyway in that last year. when biden came in they were in what you call a recovery. i would argue that elise stefanik is not someone i consider a neutral source, she is very partisan. i want to be kind and charitable on c-span but i want to

fact-check that. i think women in particular have done much better hunter biden and harris. as an african-american woman who owns a small business and has to the last 15 years, i can tell you there are a lot more incentives and programs and things to help. a lot of people took those loans. i wish i did, i didn't. i didn't know they weren't going to make you pay it back. i think this administration has been very focused on diversity and how we come together and use it as a strength and not a weakness, not attacking people of color and particularly black women as trump's prefixes for doing. host: up first, milton, line for democrats. go ahead. guest: good morning. caller: morning.

as far as not going back to the trump economy that he had when he was president, what i want to say in lead up to the question is that going all the way back to reagan, every time that we have a republican president, they pass of the economy and when americans crash and fall to the floor, and pass it off to the democrats. when a democrat fixes it, like obama and joe biden, then they have two or three years of good economy piggybacking off of the democrats have done. when prices spike again under their watch, it falls apart again. they take credit for what the democrats have done. so my question is, why can't we somehow make that the focus as

to another reason why we can't go back? why we are not going back to republicans, especially donald trump, who can handle crisis. guest: i'm not an economist but i think common sense dictates that republicans and democrats fundamentally see tax policy very differently. republicans believe in, for lack of a better -- better word, trickle down. i will free up morels, more money, it will trickle down into jobs, it will increase revenue. the democrats don't see it that way. the democrats believe if i help the middle class and the working folks and cut child tax credits and put more money back in the hands of the people, they will spend more enabled by more homes and they will send more kids to schools, etc. so there is a fundamental

difference in the way the two parties look at economics and the way they play out. that has been consistent since reagan, for sure. host: this program, -- gave the case against the child tax cuts, concerns about it. where are you on this child tax cuts? guest: this country has got to get serious. nikki haley said, and she is right, trump has the biggest deficit of any president going back to reagan, $1 trillion. you could argue it is because of covid, and he was dancing around the facts. the fact is there a higher deficits. when you get to a place of whether or not we are going to as a country deal with this issue of tax policy and child tax cuts, while you say that -- host: child tax credit. guest: kind of the same, right?

think of a family that has four kids. if you give jeff bezos of amazon or anyone of these corporate guys were making trillion or billions and in some cases 5%, 10% of taxes, there is nothing fund -- something fun and be wrong with that. that's get honest as americans and start telling the truth and stop playing games. host: washington, d.c., this is adam, line for republicans. you are on the nelson. caller: i'm just curious on your perspective. i think objectively, the message that they pushed, the left purports to the party immunity, but yet when i listen in on fox news listen in on speeches, i see a lot of identity politics that come into play. why do surviving, black to

survive. cat baby survived, for example. why is that? guest:-- guest: so, he calls it identity politics, but i call it coalitions. black women for harris, let's start with that, they were the catalysts for all the calls that followed in the coalition. we understood, and i was on that call, that kamala harris being the first female vice president, first female of color vice president, first woman of color, she was going to need support in a way that was different because she is a woman of color. i'm an independent now, never trumper, will be to the day i die, but when i hear this identity politics, that's a straw man. the reality is america is diverse and has many different people in coalitions.

-- and coalitions. people with different thoughts, those things matter in our day-to-day lives and they come into place in our politics. how we are treated, the opportunities that we have. my hope is that -- republicans for harris is one of my favorite groups. i was proud of jeff, olivia, adam, all the people who spoke at great peril to themselves, their families, and their careers, they said i'm putting country over party. they are a coalition as well. is it identity politics because republicans are supporting harris? of course, it's a group of people not normally supportive of a democrat and they like those ideas and vision. host: maybe we buried that lead. when did you make that decision? guest: the moment that trump

became the official nominee. host: who were you supporting? guest: hillary clinton, that was hard for me. i did those investigations on the hill when clinton was president. host: i meant the republican primary. guest: 2016? i liked marco rubio. anybody but trump would have been acceptable. and then i think about people like lindsey graham, who i used to respect, who was clear that if trump took over the republican party, he would destroy it and they deserved what they got in his words are coming true. for me that process was that this is a trump driven thing for people like me and we are now politically homeless. independent is a no man's land. the republican party after this election if trump loses, i think it's in a lot of trouble. it's a shrinking party. it's very white, very monolithic, very regional in its demographics of the kind of

people that support it. it's not growing, it's not expanding in a nation that is more diverse, more female, and changing. host: taking you to the line for independents. tom, good morning to the land of good -- 10,000 lakes. go ahead. caller: yeah. inside the beltway, what has happened to the -- let's call it the republicans who were the anybody but trumpers. they are all out here in the hinterlands. inside the beltway, had they been pretty much eliminated from the scene? guest: that's a great question and yes, the people who have not fallen in line with trump, i'm one of them, they have been exiled, for lack of a better word. the party has a deep division. you saw it in the primary where nikki haley was the last woman standing. trump didn't even show up for one of the debates, which i thought was disrespectful.

you want to win the primary of your party? show up to the debate, the caucuses, the primaries. it was disheartening for nikki haley saying everything she said about trump, about not supporting him, how he talked about military families, she was pretty clear and then she flipped and fell in line. the reason she did that is because if she wants a future and whatever the republican party becomes after 2024, she's got to be able to say that i fell in line. that's a sad place. look at people like mitch mcconnell, who could have dealt with this by convicting him after january 6 and made he never returned to politics in a senate trial. mitch mcconnell voted to not convict, but then gives a scathing speech on the floor of the senate about trump being criminally liable and basically he did all of it and was responsible for it.

that's the kabuki theater of the republican party right now. it's sad. host: jack, line for democrats. good morning, you are on with sophia nelson. caller: good morning. the constitution says that congress can tax income. kamala harris wants to tax overall wealth. kamala is a trained lawyer. do you think she doesn't know that that proposal is clearly unconstitutional? host: jack, you are calling in on the line for democrats. you don't plan to vote for her or this is just one issue for you? caller: rhhhhhh, i liked bobby kennedy. i'm a little concerned when her proposals flimflam. host: what did you think of rfk junior endorsing trump?

caller: i was startled by the concern about children's health. i think that bobby has got something there. that obesity thing, foodstuff, i want to consider what bobby was talking about. host: if donald trump were to win, do you think kennedy would have a spot in a trump administration and if so, what do you think it would be? caller: i hope it would be about health. host: a couple of issues there. guest: i'm not an economist, i have no idea what proposal he's talking about, i can't give an answer to that. with the rfk situation, listen, when your family comes out publicly against you, a storied democratic family like the kennedys are and says that the things that they put in writing

about their own sibling? the hitting of the bear? the womanizing? all the other things that have come out about him, the brain worms, cutting off the hip -- the heads of whales and sharks with a chainsaw? i don't know about rfk. i'm going to say prayers for him and wish him the best. host: back to minnesota. derek, lakeland, the land of lakes, independent, good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning, america. my first comment is -- it's really funny, only in american politics does someone at 50 years old get referred to as a fresh face. that said, you said you are a creature of washington, d.c., i would like to thank you and our current vice president for not having children. my next point is -- host: i tell you what, will stop you there. would you like to comment? guest: this is why forming -- i

formed the "childless chicks for harris." abortion rights, that's a core issue. i'm a pro life center right republican christian. even i recognize that there is a problem when women who are having a miscarriage and having other challenges cannot get reproductive care at the er and the bleed out. you have seen the stories, you have heard the stories of couples and people who struggled with ivf, get pregnant, have a miscarriage and can't get treatment, leading them to infertility without proper treatment. so, i think that this kind of unkindness is what bothers me. this nastiness to say thank you -- kamala harris, by the way, that's how you say her name -- to suggest that somehow the world is a better place because we couldn't bring children into it? it's awful, mean, and nasty. having been in washington for a

long time and done the show many times, i've never heard the kind of nastiness that we have seen since donald trump came on the scene. i'm going to be direct. it's why i will never support him. it's why i am deeply disappointed in my country that a person with 34 felonies and everything else he has going on can actually run for the presidency. in my state, he can't vote as a convicted felon in virginia. he can't vote. so, i think that we have got to do better and i think that that is why vice president harris and governor walz have had these rallies and that support. why you have 100,000 republicans for harris on the call speaking at the convention. it's contagious. people are sick and tired of the nasty doom and gloom unkindness and incivility towards one another and that caller just gave you a glimpse of it. host: which republican who spoke at the democratic convention gave the best pitch to try to

win over republicans for harris? guest: i spoke to jeff duncan in georgia, adam kinzinger was also amazing. they really -- i think that kinsinger and duncan are the future leaders of whatever ends up happening after. people like glenn youngkin, though he has supported trump in a way that you probably have to as a sitting republican governor in a state like that, when you hear people talk privately about how many of these republicans really feel about trump, it's very different, right? i do think that those guys, nikki haley and others, they will try to salvage it and turn it into something, but i think that adam and jeff will have a hard time going back, as would i, to what the republican party is now. i thought that they both did an amazing job saying that there is no shame in voting for vice

president harris. she's got common sense, not dangerous, won't overthrow democracy. for most of us, we are going to be 200 and 50 years old in 2026 and we want the republic to stand another 250 years after all of us are well gone and we want it to keep going, we want it to be free, we wanted to be the greatest story ever told, as harris said. host: we ask you about if donald trump wins, rfk junior, but if donald trump loses, what happens? who is the leadership of the republican party you see? i'm not saying immediately after or january 6 of 2025 -- guest: i think that you see that positioning now. it all depends on whether he wins or loses. when he loses, and i'm saying that now, i think he's going to lose and i don't think it will be a squeaker. i think that she will handily. this is that obama coalition

reborn with different demographics, 44 million people have been added since that time. you have lost your greatest generation baby boomer's getting into their 80's now. for the republicans -- host: what happens to a mike johnson or the freedom caucus? guest: trump maga is going to be have to be -- going to have to be put down, for lack of a better way to say it. it has lost continuously. 2018, 2020, 2022. look at the numbers, trump has been a disaster at the ballot boxes. there's going to be a civil war, if you will, a fight for the soul. people like brian kemp, nikki haley, glenn youngkin, those are your ideal candidates if he loses, but i don't know, there's going to be a big fight and trump is not going to go away if he loses, by the way. he's not. host: marion, south carolina.

good morning. caller: i'm so excited i'm on the phone with you. you have a bunch of platforms that i have. i've been out there is much as i can letting people about this -- know about this documentary on donald trump. it's called bad faith. once you watch that documentary, you understand what we are going through and what we are fighting for. we are fighting for our freedom. this documentary, nobody should watch it alone. it's on youtube. you can check to make sure to see it still on youtube. i know that it is ontubi, you can watch it there. this documentary has fox on it, it has msnbc on it. host: it's a documentary about christian nationalism? caller: that's it, honey. bad faith. this is what we are against. i know donald trump.

i've had my experience with donald trump. he has heard so many people. i want him gone, i want him out of the system of politics. civil war? that's what they want. guest: thank you for your call. i can tell you are passionate about this. south carolina is my second home away from home, we have a place on the coast, the isle of palms, i love it there, it's a beautiful state. thank you for your call. i will say this, i will watch the documentary, i'm very familiar with christian nationalism in the white nationalist movement. there was a report that the secret service revealed there was a white nationalist supremacist attempt to take out president obama and the fbi was involved. a very big deal that i don't think has got enough attention. i happened to be dating a secret

service agent at the time very seriously and i remember him telling me about being surprised at the level of racism and racist threats that they saw that would come in against president obama. he got a lot more threats than the normal president. being the first black one, not a surprise. i think that this country is at an inflection point. president biden, god bless him, i met him when i was a senate intern back in 89. if someone had told me then that i would be president -- he would be president in his 80's and i would be 50, i would laugh at you. but here we are. god bless him, he had the courage to step back in after charlottesville to say that he felt the country was headed in the wrong direction and he wanted to do something about it. ended up being one termer, i think history will treat him kindly, but harris has her work cut out for her as a woman and a woman of color uniting this country in this kind of climate.

i do think you're deeply divided. i do worry that her raising her gender, it's like what they call back in the day the bradley effect. the first black mayor of los angeles. doug wilder in virginia. people said they voted for them but they didn't when they got to the ballot mocks. it happens with black candidates. people were worried it might happen with obama, it didn't and hopefully it doesn't happen with harris but people know that it's politically not correct to say that they are supporting trump, if you will, because of everything he's done, january 6, but they will vote for him every way -- anyway. this country has a serious race problem that we have got to talk about and come together, which is why i'm so excited about these coalitions for harris. trump doesn't have that, harris does. that's a good sign. host: you mentioned a deeply divided country. it's been a couple of rear -- years since you wrote this, reclaiming a divided country for

america, how do we do that in 2024 in 2025? guest: thank you for that thank you for having me on what i wrote that book on book tv, but getting back to our core principles, to the people that support trump and maca, people who feel that your country has left you or forgotten you, i think that you need to be heard as well and we need to again have dialogues about these difficult issues. these conversations that we need to have around race, diversity, equity, and inclusion around the economy, the rural economy in the urban economy, health care and taxes and tax reform. i'm an old jack kemp type girl and i believe that we should have a flat tax. if we have one rate across the board, people making 40 and under shouldn't be making any taxes -- paying any taxes, you would see amazing growth and a lot less burden of government regulation, if you will, on your

paycheck. i think that people feel that end we should acknowledge that. answering your question, part of the problem is you have got left and right and most of us fit in the center. if you look at any voting break out of the 50% that just don't vote in this country, sadly, and how people are registered, more than 50% of americans register as independent. that means that the republicans are about 30 or less, democrats are about 30 or less, the rest of us just sit right here. we are the ones that need to move this country forward and change the dialogue, change the dynamics of our politics and until we do, we will say is bitterly divided as we are right now. host: for viewers who want more about your book, it was on afterwards on book tv, sophia nelson interviewed a man by the name guest: of michael steele. guest:one of my greatest friends, a great american. host: stephen come along island,

good morning. caller: the issue of taxes and everything else, it costs millions of dollars to build and run a small farm today, not to mention manufacturing or any other kind of business. when people want to tax the rich, they are taxing those millions of dollars in if you take that money and put it towards other countries, you're guaranteed an income to put that money in their bank accounts rather than investment forms or anything else and this was the problem with the harris administration and what she wants to do. thank you for your time. guest: my response to that would be that he needs to understand economics a little better. one of the things that will help is that you have got to get rid of burdensome regulations. on that, that's where my conservative republicanism comes out and i'm pretty firm on that footing. but i think that tax cuts, etc., are not the issue.

farms need subsidies, as you know, in order to make it. because they cannot compete against of the bigger food manufacturers, etc., so the small farms in this country -- the black farmers, as you know, they just received a 2 billion dollars settlement that had been in the works for a long time. my good friend of ben crump helped with that and it is, you know, a real challenge on how we treat farmers in this country and we have to have better policy around that and that's an agricultural policy. host: we don't have to stick to just farms. what are the biggest regulatory burdens that come these days? guest: the big fight of our time is the minimum wage, what should it be? if you are a small business owner you say that if you impose on me a $20 per hour minimum wage, i cannot afford to run my business. even if i'm starbucks or whatever, $20 per hour really cuts into my profit margins, my costs, this and that.

on the flipside, if you are the consumer and you work, you and i both know that you cannot live on seven dollars an hour. 40, $50 a week at seven dollars an hour you are not making any money and you are getting taxed on that, which goes back to my point on tax policy being integral with the regulatory policy, etc. they all kind of have to be done at the same time in tandem. so, i think that the biggest burdensome regulation at the moment is this fight over the prevailing minimum wage and what it will be because that is something that as you saw, former president trump and vice president harris want to eliminate the tips tax. that would be very helpful, too, because people who made $50 in tips, they have to put that into their taxes and they get taxed on it, which is a problem because you are getting it in cash and there are people reporting -- it's just a nightmare, they need to leave it

alone. the biggest burden to regulation that people can relate to is this minimum wage issue that has to go up, people cannot live on 7, 10, $15 per hour. can you impose $20 per hour on a small business depending on what it is? can they sustain it? most will do layoffs or shut it down and say i can't. host: sounds like you fall between 15 and 20? guest: probably about there. host: less than 15 minutes left with sophia nelson this morning. mark in the garden state, good morning. you're on with sophia nelson, go ahead. caller: you are -- you speak very well, i could listen to you all day. guest: you are kind, i grew up off exit three in south jersey. caller: jersey girl. [laughter] guest: i am, i am. caller: first of all, what do you think of the project 2025 thing that is going around?

the hatred thing that you brought up is true. i'm sorry for that comment that that person made. i understand the hatred thing. i have an identical twin brother who won't even speak to me. he has a trump flag in front of his house and you know what? i'm not a hatred person. i don't want to deal with any of that. the other thing, how can a person who is a criminal run for president? i do not -- i will never understand how this is even allowed. i don't even understand it. those are my comments. host: i wrote down the question so we can get back to them, but can you tell me, at one point did you end your identical twin diverge on your political identity or political beliefs? do you remember specifically when it happened? caller: this did not start until he lost the 2020 race. host: for you and he both

supporters of trump? caller: no. no, sorry, i was. 2016, i was saying he was so great for the first two years. but you know what? if you have a brain and the top of your head and you see what goes on in what comes out of the top of your -- what comes out of his mouth? smarten up. host: i got the questions written down, mark, thank you. guest: first of all, i appreciate it, i love c-span, folks support it, it's a worthwhile public service company, i believe we only do it. project 2025 is a thing. no matter how much trump says he doesn't know anything about it, it's extreme, has nothing to do with it, the facts have borne out that his vice presidential nominee wrote the forward for the book. that kind of speaks for itself, right? you don't need to go further than that. it is a manifesto of the way that conservatives, talking arch

conservatives. the heritage foundation is as conservative as you get. these folks have been there for a long time and have a very different view of america than another more left organization or even those of us who sit in the center and i think that we should pay attention to it, number one. with respect to the trump family feud stuff, we all have it in our families. i don't think that one of us doesn't have a relative -- i have one or two that i do not like to talk about trump with them. i don't want to talk about politics with them. you cannot engage in a civil way with them. they are just on another level. i personally think that it is a cult. i tweet that way all the time. it's something i've never seen before in this country, people following this man, particularly quick -- christians who i know to be morally good people, they follow a man who is one of the most amoral people i've ever seen, objectively.

i feel for him and the best thing i can say is i hope they can find their way back to each other. trying to have that conversation is useless, i've done it, it's not worth it. on the issue of -- what else did he say? host: a criminal running for president is a topic that has come up. we talked about what's in the constitution and the requirements for someone to be president. not being a criminal is not one of them. guest: listen, the founders didn't for see this. they just didn't. in their logic and wisdom when it pertained to someone who was a former president, the impeachment clause is therefore exactly the reason it's there. if you engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors or other appropriate -- inappropriate conduct, in the senate and the house of representatives have the right in the ability to remove you to do whatever they need to to make sure you don't hold office again. i don't think any of the founders ever foresaw a donald trump because in their common sense, who would elect -- john talks about the importance of

morality in civic leadership, the moral and virtuous government. i wrote about this. we have gotten away from that model, which is a show for another day, but let me say back to the childless chicks pac, this election will be one of the most consequential of our lifetimes. we will be making a decision about which way we go and the way that we treat each other has to be a centerpiece of what we look at because the way that we treat each other now is not respectful, decent, or in order and we saw that with a caller who called and said to another human being who wanted children so much the way that i did and could not have them, not through my choice, but because of biology and fate -- it's something that is a sore subject to this day. it's still a painful thing and i don't know the vice president's story about why she didn't have biological children, but she is

a stepmom. to somehow say that if you are a stepmom or a bonus mom that you are less than? i didn't have children but i have wonderful nieces that i adore and was blessed to have in my life, that somehow i am less than or that we shouldn't participate in our government? again, it's a level of discourse i've never seen before and i'm concerned about it. i hope that we are able to do better by one another in respect our differences in different viewpoints and still be able to have a drink or share coffee or have a glass of wine and find the things that unite us, because there is a lot more we have in common, even when we disagree on some things. host: one more call in the two minutes we have left. leon, flint, michigan, fellow independent of yours. good morning. caller: good morning, yes, i would like to make a comment on how everyone keeps saying that donald trump is a felon.

felonies are not tried in district court. guest: this guy is just wrong. he's a felon, he's a convicted felon. felons are tried in any court with jurisdiction, i'm a lawyer, where you committed a crime. there are class a misdemeanors, class b felonies, misdemeanors, general court, district court, federal court for white-collar crimes, etc., the department of justice, corporate crime. yes, he is a convicted felon and this gets back to what i said about this mindset, it's not level, it's not right. they don't deal in facts. donald trump is a convicted felon who will be sentenced in a couple of weeks because the judge decided he wasn't going to wheat -- wait until after the election, as he should not. if i had done what trump did, we would be in jail waiting for sentencing and if we couldn't post bond, which i assume was significant in this case do not have to go to jail to wait until

you were sentenced and to be out on 00 are, i am a part of that -- that's just deceptive and not super true. he is a felon and i'm sorry that people can't deal with that. host: sophia nelson is the founder of "childless chicks for harris," what can they do if they want to find out about it? guest: you can find our website, we are an unaffiliated pac and we will send those funds over the ha