>> dick cheney will be voting for kamala harris. [applause] ♪ host: it was former representative liz cheney told an audience that her father,

former republican vice president dick cheney, was going to vote for kamala harris. former vice president under george w. bush said the decision was done to "put country above partisanship, to defend our constitution." we will show you more and the reaction it got. to start the program we will get your reaction to this announcement. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. and it is (202) 748-8002 for independence -- independents. if you want to text us your thoughts, that you can do at (202) 748-8003. you can post on our social media sites too. it was in austin, texas that during the texas tribune

festival, which is held every year, which they invite people of note to comment on issues. one of the invites extended to republican representative liz cheney. this is the headline from the texas tribune this morning coming out of that, saying that dick cheney will vote for kamala harris and she personally will support democrat colin allred in the texas senate race against ted cruz. liz cheney endorsed harris this week. she was one of donald trump's chief critics. that was one element of news, but also the other element was about her father, his intentions for this fall. here is that whole clip from yesterday. >> dick cheney, your father, a beloved figure among democrats for many, many years. [laughter] do you, if you know who he will be voting for, do you care to share with those who he might be voting for? >> dick cheney will be voting

for kamala harris. [applause] >> wow. words i never expected to hear. >> yeah. [laughter] you know, if you think about the moment we are in, and you think about how serious this moment is, you know, my dad believes and he has said publicly that there has never been an individual in our country who is as grave a threat to our democracy as donald trump is. and that is the moment we are facing. and so, i think recognizing that , and let me also say, you know, obviously vice president harris and i have had policy disagreements on some issues.

but i have been really impressed watching, for example, the democratic convention, listening to her speech at that convention , learning about her life story, learning about, you know, the story of her success and the extent to which it is an american story. and i think we all have to walk ourselves back from this abyss we have looked over in our politics and work together to build a future for this country. host: that was yesterday. if you want to see that interview with the former representative, liz cheney, you can go to our website at c-span.org and also our app at c-span now. we will spend time starting the program -- speaking of which,

dick cheney putting on a statement himself yesterday, in lighhat his daughter said, saying this. in our nations h there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republican dtrump. he tried to steal the last election usi ls and violence to keepimself in power after the voters had rejected he can never be trusted with power again. as citizens we have a duty to put country above partisanship, to defend o cstitution. that is why i will be casting my te f vice president kamala harris. we -- we are going to get your reaction to it as we go throughout the morning. let's go to beth in florida, republican line, on ts reaction from dick cheney. go ahead. caller: good mning, pedro. thank god dick cheney came o and did what he did. and, liz, and adam kinzinger, all of the republicans that showed up at the dnc. finally i can call in on the

republican line and you are not going to ask me why i'm calling in on the republican line. because i will be voting for kamala harris too. i am a kat with a k lady. i have been a republican since 1972. i have worked on campaigns for republicans, and for both presidential candidates, bush and bush, on either side of clinton. i worked as a five-year-old with my parents on the campaign for eisenhower. and i have been voting in every election, in the primary and in the general election, since 1972. host: what did you think of the vice president's comments? and relate that to your own decision. caller: i'm glad he has finally

come around and stood up for the constitution. because what is it that makes america great? it is our constitution. what is it that made america the first in the world? it is our constitution. and project 2025 is wanting to undo the constitution. host: let's go to melvin in richmond, virginia. democrats line on vice president dick cheney's announcement that he is going to vote for kamala harris. caller: thank you, pedro. thank you for taking my call. it is very good news. i don't think any democrats will be upset about the fact that dick cheney is going to endorse kamala harris. the thing is, where are the rest of these republicans who claim that they want their party back?

we need to get out there. we need not only some of these people who are no longer in office, but we need to get some of these people in office to show some chutzpah, some balls, if you will, and come out and say that they are going to vote for kamala harris, you know, and put their jobs on the line. everybody says how bad trump is, but they never say it officially. they will tell democrats, republicans will tell democrats, we know he is bad, but what can we do? we want to keep our little cushy jobs. you know, it should not take the fact that they have to get fired like they did to liz cheney

before they stand up. they need to come out and protest against trump if they want to save their party. host: rob is joining us on our independent line. he is in new york. caller: i don't care what a war criminal has to say, and that is exactly what cheney is. he tortured people. so, him voting for,, big deal. -- voting for kamala, big deal. she is married to hamilton brown, one of the biggest slaveowners in the history of jamaica. her family is responsible for slavery, just like what cheney has cremated -- created in the middle east. this is low hanging fruit. the border is still open. as a matter of fact they just caught a gang member that killed 23 people in new york. and you guys want to talk about

this garbage? the border is open. there is illegals here killing and raping people. wake up, c-span. host: the "washington post" analysis includes this, saying, "cheney's statement makes him the highest-pro republican, at a time when many in trump's party have expressed reservations about him but have stopped short of using their positions to advocate for his opponent. it puts the spotlight on other republicans who have not endorsed trump or harris, including george w. bush, former white house chief of staff john kelly, and utah senator romney, who was the gop presidential candidate in 2012." speaking of donald trump, he putting on a statement on truth social yesterday in reaction to the news from dick cheney. it says in part, dick cheney is an irrelevant rino, along with his daughter.

they cannot get scooter libb he, o did so much for them but was unfairly treated, pardoned. he is the king of nonsensical wars, wasting lives and trillions of dollars, justike comrade kamala harris. if you want to read more you can go to the truth social site and read it for yourself. this is eric in florida, republican line. you are next up. good morning. caller: good morning. so, if you take a look at what is happening, prominent republicans coming out and supporting kamala harris, this is the evidence people should look at and say, yes, there is a deep state, uni-party of people that behind closed doors, even though they have a d or r beside their name, they are working

together to keep this government graft going. and if people would just wake up and say, why would a republican like dick cheney, who just 10 years ago these same democrats that love him, called him a warmonger -- and still call him a warmonger -- how do people not see what is right in front of their eyes? that donald trump is the only politician in history that has had both sides of the aisle attack him like this? and why? because he wants to return the power to the people. that's all i've got. host: eric in florida there. it's here from carol in new jersey. democrats line. you are next up. caller: hello. i love lives -- liz cheney.

i am a democrat, but i really like this woman. she's got guts to go against trump. i watched trump for four years, and trump was not a good president, that is for sure. it was a lot of chaos in his being president. he made me nervous every day. when we got joe biden in everything was different. host: as far as the vice president's endorsement of kamala harris, what did you think of that specifically? caller: i think she -- i'm kind of nervous right now. you will have to excuse me. i think she is good, because she is one of the good republicans. i like republicans. the good ones, not the bad ones. the bad ones are for trump, and that is not too good. host: ok.

paul in florida, republican line. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. i believe the cheney people, the bush people, they are all rinos. i woke up. i have changed. the republican's party is a people party. all of this happened when barack obama became president. he deceived the white people. say he is going to fundamentally change this country, and this is where we are. kamala. her name is kamala. host: do you think the endorsement of the vice president or liz cheney has any large impact? caller: people are waking up now. i woke up years ago. 15 million illegal people are in this country because of her.

she could not do one job. and she said she is going to do it on day one. today is day one. she can do it right now. host: do you think the vice president's endorsement of liz cheney has any impact? caller: we don't care about these rinos anymore. i woke up several years ago. i know how the party is. host: let's go to gary in pontiac, michigan. caller: good morning. me, myself, personally, i am an army vet. i could not care less if dick cheney supports kamala harris. this is on a personal level because i cannot support donald trump, because of his speaking against veterans at arlington fiasco. just all of the things that i cannot support with this guy. host: you called in regarding

our question, so you must have some thoughts about these endorsements from yesterday. what do you think? host: for me, like ash caller: for me, like i said, it is more on a personal level, being a veteran and the way this guy just cozies up to these dictators and people of that nature. i just can't stand the guy. so that is pretty much all i have to say. i don't see how any veteran can support this man, and i want you to talk about his answer about childcare at the economic conference. that was a disgrace. this guy doesn't know what he is doing. host: we will leave it there. the "washington post" adds this, saying the cheney's endorsements come after past republican standardbearers such as bush, pins, ann romney in milwaukee. one of the callers brought it up earlier.

the democratic convention in chicago included appearances by barack and michelle obama, as well as ill and hillary clinton, as well as republicans who formally supported trump. getting your thoughts in reaction to it. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. and independents, (202) 748-8002 . bonnie is up next, independent line in north carolina. hello. caller: hello. host: hi. go ahead. caller: i can't believe we are still talking about donald trump. he is such a loser. and i just watched his interview -- host: before we go too far, let's stick to the topic of dick cheney, and what do you think about this announcement yesterday? caller: i think it is wonderful.

he might have a mechanical heart, but he certainly has the kind of hard we may be looking for work he a young man and running again. host: what do you mean by that? caller: i mean, he is a person of integrity, and we see so little of that in politics now. we see so little integrity and donald trump has the least amount of integrity and honor that i have ever seen. running against anyone. host: ok. bonnie in north carolina. vice president dick cheney's announcement garnered a reaction om t harris -- walz gn, saying, the vice president is proud to have the support.

backing the vice president andns her patriotic asian of america. because, as vice pre cheney said, the future of our republic is at stake. american understands thistt donald trump poses to our democrd constitution this ce president harris will be a president for all americans. she will keep working to earn the support of every american. that was the statement from the campaign, the kamala harris campaign. reaction to news from dick cheney. in new york, staten island, we will hear from joe, republican, on this news from yesterday. hello. joe in staten island, hello. this is rudolph in rochester, new york. caller: hello.

listen, i was in the air force myself in the service. but that statement is not being in the service, it has nothing to do with what i think the caller. i think it was heroic for former vice president cheney to make that statement, to support kamala harris. i mean, it takes a person putting everything else aside and do the right thing. it hits you like that if you see the right thing is happening. before i leave, if you remember, if you even looked at the tv or read it in the bible, you know god used -- what's his name? god used --

host: rudolph, we will move on. mississippi, republican line. you are next up. caller: yes, what i would like to say is i had been a republican for a long time, and i think that any endorsement that she gets, especially from dick cheney and his daughter and other republicans is a plus. all of this rhetoric and all of this craziness -- host: are you republican or you said you had in republican? -- had been republican? caller: i am a republican and i will be voting for kamala harris. host: go ahead. what did you think specifically of the vice president's endorsement of her yesterday? caller: i think it was good, and i feel like it is going to carry a little weight in his estate. that is what i feel. host: in wyoming? caller: right, right, right. you know, i feel like for him to

make that decision, i feel like it speaks volumes. like i wasn't saying, i'm going to end on this note. all of this rhetoric and craziness donald trump doing is just ridiculous. and i thank you for giving me a chance to talk on c-span. host: that is william in mississippi. the associated press, a story from late last month adding this to the mix. not specifically to the vice president's endorsement, saying more than 200 staffers of previous presidential nominees have endorsed kamala harris' white house bid, saying that donald trump is untenable and will hurt everyday people and in an open letter that was written on monday. that was in "usa today." 230 people who worked for former

president george h.w. bush, former senator john mccain, former senator mitt romney called on their fellow moderate republicans and conservative independents to join them in backing harris and her running mate over president trump and his vice presidential pick, senator jd vance. adding that, of course, we have ideological disagreements. noting the significance of a handful of battleground states that prove crucial to joe biden's margin of victory. that is to be expected. the alternative, however, is untenable. joining that list, former vice president dick cheney. his daughter making that announcement yesterdn part of t. if you want to go to our website, find out more, also our app at c-span now. as far as the vice president's announcement, dick cheney, this is and in west virginia.

go ahead. -- ed in west virginia. go ahead. caller: i'm not surprised. i am an independent and i'm not a trump fan. i never voted for trump in either election. but i remember that liz cheney did anything for the republican party. at number two, the main thing is, i haven't heard where her dad said anything. she said it. until i hear him say it, i will not believe it. host: they put out a statement yesterday to the press which we read earlier on. we will probably show it to you. you said you were not surprised, why is that? caller: well, my god, liz cheney ain't done nothing but play democrats for years now. when they had that thing she was on the democrat side. she tried to get trump --

whatever it is, they kicked the president now. i'm 89 years old and blind, so i cannot remember her doing anything for the republicans. host: are you surprised by dick cheney's endorsement then? caller: i don't believe dick cheney said that until i heard him say that. his daughter is out there preaching that. i don't hear him saying that. host: as we showed you before, here is the statement from former president dick cheney. he will just show it to you as we take calls, but it starts off, there has neen an individual who is a greater threat to the republic than donald tru like i said, we will sw u those as we take our next call. s from patrick in pittsburgh, republican line. go ahead. caller: no, in theistory of this nation there has never been a greater evil actor than dick cheney. and i'm saying this as a registered republican.

i changed political parties in 2020 to vote for donald trump, and what happened? it has been one gigantic catastrophe for the nation. derek "the jet -- dick "the jackal" cheney said, sometimes you need to go to the darkside. the indian man who called in, he expressed the reality of what is taking place, and that is that the republican party is the party of the people. dick cheney sat in the bowels of the white house while the entire nation was being obliterated. anybody -- and i mean anybody -- voting for this actor in the white house who -- she cannot even take an interview. she is dodging virtually every single solitary interview that is being brought forth. so, let me be very clear.

the fact that dick cheney is endorsing her -- run. run to vote for donald trump. run to vote for any republican. these people have walked away from the constitution. they have declared war on the foundation of our country. anybody who endorses these people is living in an alternate universe. you have two choices now. you can vote for the presentation of the democracy of the united states or you can vote for tier any -- tyrany. host: that is patrick in pennsylvania. also to his point about the interview that she participated in, mark in north carolina, independent line. caller: hello. good morning. host: you are on. caller: i was going to say that

i think it will make a difference. primarily with people who are traditionally republicans. particularly people who support the republican philosophy. those people, it is not going to make a difference with them. it was people in the republican party who were supportive of conservative ideas, who have a very pro-business stance. i believe that protection of the constitution, or even the old-time republican party, it will make a difference with them. they need a permission structure to move away from this racist maga movement. on top of that, i think that any republican who has not read liz cheney's book "open honor" would

do themselves a service i reading what led up to january 6 and all of the horrific things. this was not just a one off. this is a planned event that donald trump and his supporters that led up to january 6. this is an overthrow the government. where are republicans that originally supported the constitution? in this idea that the keep throwing around the constitution when they don't even understand what the constitution is. it is just, to me it is mind-boggling. i don't understand. there is a huge disconnect. they throw around words like, this is going to be the end of the republic and this is going to be the end of this. the end of the republic was when january 6 occurred, and donald trump stood and essentially try to overthrow a fair and honest

election. host: we will go to art in ohio. republican line. you ahead. caller: thank you. my concern is that everybody is throwing rocks at donald trump, or former president donald trump. about the issues that were created during his tenure. if you go back and think about that tenure, from the day he took office and days prior to it, he was attacked. another attack such as that, it would be equivalent to 9/11 on america. host: ok, so, regarding dick cheney's endorsement of kamala harris, what do you think? caller: the main thing about that was, cheney was, the boss of the war also profited from the war through halliburton.

so he has a lot to hide. he has a lot of issues with that, because the company he ran for years -- host: what does that mean as far as his endorsement of kamala harris is concerned? caller: trump has promised he is going to uncover a lot of that stuff. and that is a nervousness for him. for cheney. and cheney's family, because they keep saying how trump's family benefited. what about cheney's family? you don't think they benefited off of the presidency? host: that is art in ohio. this first half-hour done, we will keep going. if you want to give your thoughts on this endorsement, dick cheney, the former vice president to george w. bush,, news which was made by liz cheney and followed up via statement from the prize -- from the vice president himself. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202748001 for republicans.

independents, (202) 748-8002. pick one of those numbers. if you have called in the last days, if you can hold off from doing so. pick the line that best represents you out of ththree you can. you can also text us your thoughts too. that number is (202) 748-8003. and post on social media. this is a steve from x saying the former vice president is considered part of the deep state by the maga crowd. his endorsement will not change anything. and then dennis in ohio sayi, dick cheney supporting kamala sheat americans have choices. trump wants ttake your freedom awayndnyone who loves putin, careful how you vote or you will lose your freedom. again, that is from our text. if you want to text us your thoughts this morning too. bonnie is in mississippi, democrats line, on this endorsement by dick cheney of

kamala harris. caller: hello, how are you doing this morning? my thought is on, yes, i am a democrat. but far as i'm concerned dick cheney and kamala harris, they both have got records that i disagree with. letting all of the illegal immigrants in. i worked at a company where they had 300 employees, and over half of them was illegal immigrants. my thing is that wrong follows wrong, so with his war record and her agreeing to let them all in, we've got to think about this. they giving them money to buy food and, you know, medicare. we are paying for that. we have citizens that need the help that they giving them. so, my comment on that, wrong follows wrong.

and i hear dick cheney, no one on her party talking about what they are going to do with them taking over colorado. it is like new jack city. they sleeping in police stations. you have people sleeping outside in the park and they sleep in the police station. i lived in chicago for 50 years. what i'm saying is, yes, wrong follows wrong. host: neil is in pennsylvania. independent line. caller: hello, this is neil. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: i am independent. on the question at hand, i'm sure like most parents out there when our current president hardens his son in december most will understand when dick cheney follows the lead of liz cheney, you know, i get it. i understand. the last caller talked about wrong follows wrong. i agree with her wholeheartedly.

as far as what liz cheney has done for the republican party, it was just 2022 way she lost by the second-largest margin of defeat, running as an incumbent. i could talk all day. i am an independent. i'm going to watch this interview on abc and hope they are fair and see what this kamala has to say about illegal immigration and the border. host: ok. neil in pennsylvania. mentioning liz cheney's run for reelection in 2022. during that time her father participated in an ad leading up to the primary. it was critical also. former president trump. here is that ad. >> ir there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than donald trump. he tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. he is a coward.

a real man would not lie to his supporters. he lost his election, and he lost big i know it, he knows it, and deep down i think most republicans know it. linda and i are so proud of liz for standing up for the truth, doing what is right, honoring her out to the constitution. so many in our party are scared to do so. liz is fearless. she never backs down from a fight. there is nothing more important she will ever do then lead the effort to make sure donald trump is never again near the oval office. and you will succeed. i am dick cheney. i proudly voted for my daughter. i hope you will too. >> i'm liz cheney and i approve this message. host: that is from 2022. let's hear from john. he is in ohio, republican line. caller: good morning. good morning. i am definitely a trumpeter -- trumpster.

i started out a democrat because my parents were. and the democrats, they have gone away from being for the people and they are for greed and themselves. if you look at everything they have done, look at the biden presidency. his son just pleaded guilty to keep from bringing out all of the information of how much they have taken from china and the other countries. and that is the only reason he is counting on his dad to pardon him. host: how does that relate to dick cheney, please? caller: well, dick cheney, you know -- host: john, are you there? caller: i'm right here. i said, i was with bush and that, when he started his second term. he just went liberal on us. he was not a republican anymore.

i don't want to talk about cheney. he is not good for the united states, that is for sure. and neither is his daughter. if his daughter was so honest she would not have done the january 6 that stuff. she would not have backed all of the information they are to be involved in the january 6. they held all of the videos of that showing how peaceful -- peacefully people walked around the rotunda and all of that stuff. the rotunda and that. tucker carlson brought it all out, but nobody has believed him now, even though it was obvious. you could see it was no think -- the only problems caused january 6 was by planted fbi agent's. host: john in ohio. let's hear from maria in washington, d.c. democrats line. caller: hi. wow. the alternative reality is amazing.

i cannot believe this. whatever. here is the thing. don't get me wrong. you will find very few democrats who will think dick cheney is a good thing, you know? or that suddenly harris will, because of the endorsement, kind of agree with dick cheney on anything. but here is the thing. when your candidate, when trump 's delusions, when his fantasies of dictatorship are too much even for a guy like dick cheney, even for a warmonger, even for a torture apologist like cheney, that's got to tell something to republicans. you have gone way, way, way too

far. that is what i think about that endorsement. when he is so bad even for the likes of dick cheney, that even dick cheney cannot endorse him, that has got to tell you something. thank you. host: that is maria in washington, d.c. our previous caller had between vice president harrisek and former president trump. a quick reminderweill have full coverage of that te next tuesday. that is abc news's prtial dete. our coegs at 8:00 and at 9:00 the abc news debate simulcast following the debate we will take calls and gretion to it. watch that coverage on t, c-span now, and online at c-span.org. by the way, we want to know from you if you think debates matter. let impact you are both this fall? we are conducting a poll you can participate in.

you can vote in that by going to c-span.org/pole or use the qr code on the screen if you want to capture it real quick if phone's camera. it will take you to our poll, and you can participate. as it currently stands, from the results we have gotten so far, for those of you who think it matters, 70% of you saying, yes it does. 22% of you saying it does not. if you want to but dissipate you can goad to c-span.org/poll, or use the qr code and participate in the poll. let's hear from michael in ashburn, virginia. you are next. caller: good morning, how are you? host: i am well. go ahead. caller: i guess i'm not surprised. i'm actually happy that he came out and said that, because it shows his true callers.

it shows that he will vote for anyone that is going to continue the war and the weapons companies and all of the money he is going to make off of it. so i'm not surprised. the only thing trump is a threat for is their pockets and bank accounts, and that is about it. host: independent line, mike in north carolina. caller: yeah. i forgot what i was going to say, but [indiscernible] cheney is as senile as biden. that is what i was going to say. host: anthony in new york, independent line as well. go ahead. you are next up. caller: i go back to what maria said about cheney coming out and

saying a warmonger, for him to go against, you know, support, -- support kamala. what if you go back to democrats, someone like jfk coming out to support trump, that's got to tell you something, in my opinion. host: how do you relate the two between the vice president and rfk junior? caller: in other words, when maria was talking about how, you know, cheney, a warmonger, republican, yada yada, supporting, going against donald trump, it kind of tells you something when a democrat like rfk, with his family background would support trump. it tells you something about the democratic party right now. to me. host: that was anthony in new

york on our line for independents. fox news hailing the fact that the harris campaign reaching out to republicans, possibly to get their support, saying the harris program launched last month. that included endorsements from former massachusetts governor bill weld, former new jersey governor christine whitman, and former gop illinois presented of joe walsh. the campaign also telling fox news digital that it has national and public -- has a national republican engagement director who is dedicated to furthering the campaign's outreach to independence. -- independents. that is from fox news as part of the efforts of engagement by the harris campaign. this endorsement yesterday by dick cheney also from texas. if you want to see that interview with liz cheney, by the way, go to our website, go to our app.

that is where she initially said that her father was going to support kamala harris, and as well the former vice president putting out a statement to that effect. this is from terry. democrats line in atlanta, georgia. hello. caller: good morning, pedro. thanks for taking my call. i just want to say, none of the notable republicans are supporting donald trump. when donald trump first came out, said he wanted to be the republican candidate for president, hands they were against him. and they switched. i think they threw their moral compass out the window. the cheney's remained very loyal to the values that the republican party has always held. and when you look at who is

supporting donald trump, major players in the republican party, trump, when the republican party had a moral compass, those people are not there. the bushes are not there. romney is not there. so, i think, let's stop all of this anger on republican side. they are so angry, and they continue to mispronounce vice president's name and i think you all on c-span, you know how to pronounce her name correctly. yet you continue to let people call in and call her everything, the mispronunciation of her name, which is kamala. if someone called you something other than her name, wouldn't you correct them? so please correct these people when they mispronounce her name intentionally. caller: why don't you talk about

who is supporting trump? suffolk county police, the sheriffs. how about that? because this place is a third country over here. if i ever had the money i would get the hell out of here. this place is a mess. host: that is their endorsement, but what do you think about cheney endorsing kamala harris? caller: she is a rino. will you stop it? this guy is the only guy who is going to rescue this country. you have all of these academic people on their that don't know what reality is. why don't you get me on there? why doesn't fox news get their cameras over here and see the results of this illegal immigration? host: jim, you are participating in the process, as many of you have participated as well. keep on calling in. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002.

here is more from liz cheney yesterday. >> he is not a conservative. and when you look at the contrast in terms of policies, for example, when it comes to things like nato, when it comes to things like the support of ukraine, when you look at the proposals he has made to massive tariffs, for example, i think there are a whole range of policies that raise very serious concerns. but, you know, we would -- sometimes you hear from from supporters that they want to just let trump be trump. i endorse that. let that guy go. [laughter] because the more people see him and -- you know. at the end of the day i think women around this country, like, we have had enough. we have had enough. [applause]

and i think what that means is, people have got to step up. again, look at what jd vance says on an almost daily basis about women. that man has a real women problem. i don't want to psychoanalyze him. and there is a lot of eyeliner jokes to be made in there. [laughter] but i think at the end of the day if you listen to what he says about women, you know, and you look at donald trump and what donald trump has done and what he says about women, these are not people we can entrust with power. that means women and men, but we have to get out there and vote. have to make sure people are registered. you have to drive people to the polls. it really matters this time. host: we will hear next from gus in ohio, democrats line. caller: yeah.

if you listen to what liz cheney is saying, she is absolutely right. you know, a lot of these right wing also bakes -- bolshiveks keep calling in and calling our country a third world country. what are they talking about? they live on fear. there is not a thing wrong with our country. if it was not for biden we would have been in a heck of a mess. host: as far as the former vice president's endorsement, what do you think about that? caller: to tell you the truth, if you listen to what she has to say about trump, and she is probably right about everything, they don't want to hear it. i'm glad she is endorsing kamala harris. because she knows what is going on. cheney was right there in the front line when they attacked the capital. she was right there and saw the whole thing.

and yet people don't care. they don't want to see the truth. all they are doing is nothing. so, hey, what are you going to do? kamala, liz cheney is correct. her information is correct. if you don't like it, you can go to hell. thanks. host: bob in tennessee. you're up next. caller: you talk about morals, saying republicans don't have morals? well guess what you democrats are, pedro? give me my shot now. these are baby-murderers. you support men and women's sports. now you are into pedophile child mutilation. host: let's stick to the topic at hand, the endorsement from dick cheney yesterday. what do you think about that? caller: the what? host: the endorsement of kamala harris by dick cheney yesterday. what do you think about that

yesterday? caller: i think she is stupid. host: a seemingly you called in about the vice president, dick cheney, endorsing kamala harris. what do you think of that specifically? caller: i think she is stupid, because how can you be for what i just sounded off? you are a conservative? you ain't for murdering babies and raping -- allowing men and women's locker rooms and beating our little girls. host: we will go to tom in washington state. independent line. hello. caller: hello. i want to go back to the beginning. before donald trump ever announced he was going to run for president he would go on fox news every chance he got. and he would call in, and he made this big claim he had, barack obama's birth certificate, so he could show the world that he was not born in the united states.

host: before we go too far on that, dick cheney and his endorsement of kamala harris, let's start there. caller: so you don't want to start -- talk about where he started this? host: we are talking about dick cheney. tell me where you are on that. caller: donald trump doesn't have anything to do with this call? you got these guys calling in saying, well, trump, and we think that everybody is perverts except for us because we believe in donald trump, and you don't think donald trump is part of the conversation? host: i don't know if he is or not. i assume he is because of the endorsement by dick cheney of kamala harris. make the connection. caller: can i make the connection from the beginning? host: we don't have that much time, so make the connection. caller: you want me to make the connection to dick cheney? host: yes. caller: i don't trust most of those people. that is the problem. that is why i'm going back to the beginning.

because you cannot trust donald trump because he said he had barack obama's certificate and he never showed it. everybody believes he must have because he claims he did. guess what? he doesn't do anything, he just says thanks. host: ok. deborah in georgia. democrats line. hello. caller: hello, how are you? host: fine, thank you. go ahead. caller: i am a veteran and i commend the chain is for endorsing kamala harris. and i also believe that democracy is for america. we are not a part of dictatorship. we do not want a part of it and i commend everyone for stepping up and actually allowing us to continue to be a democratic country. host: when you say you commend them, specifically why? caller: because they are doing what is right. they are doing what is right,

and that is what i understand. i was in the military for 24 years and that is what i fought for and that is what i believe in. host: let me ask you this. when it comes to the former vice president dick cheney or his daughter, would you agree with them on anything else, other than their dislike of donald trump? caller: no. i just believe this man is not right for this country, and they believe he is not right for this country. regardless of what happened before, when we fought a war with iraq -- i'm not worried about none of that. i'm worried about the future. in the future is that we remain a democracy. and i'm fighting for that and i'm going out to vote and i'm going to work for her election, kamala harris. and that is my statement, and i'm definitely sticking to that. host: ok. kenny in kentucky.

good morning. caller: good morning. dick cheney supports kamala harris? why did he send his daughter? why didn't he say it himself? why didn't he stand up and boast about, everything? host: why do you think that is important? caller: i think amanda -- a man, if he is going to speak up for someone, he should be behind his words. and if he is going to back someone he should do it on tv just like trump does. when he likes someone he does it. host: like we have shown you with his daughter, who made the initial announcement, the vice president put out a statement. what do you think about the endorsement itself? caller: i think it is full of holes. host: why is that? caller: because any democrat speaks, they are speaking a lie,

i believe. that is just me. nothing they have done in the last three and a half years, what have they done? destroyed america. host: caller, one more chance, as far as, the endorsement by dick cheney himself, make that connection. caller: dick cheney, he really didn't do nothing for us when he was in there. you know? that is all i can say. host: ok. kenny in kentucky. one more call, and we will take this call from steve calling in from california on our independent line. go ahead. caller: hey, good morning. i'm watching the show and trying to remain hopeful for our country, but the ignorance of the callers on both sides never ceases to amaze me. in my effort to remain independent, i find a source of information i can trust, i have

come to the "washington journal" show. i just discovered you guys, so it seems a little bit right-leaning -- excuse me, left-leaning, from what i have watched this morning. i appreciate what you are trying to do, but the country is in real bad shape right now. i'm going to switch over and vote for donald trump. i am got into the emotions of the people, what they think of the personality. i am very big on what he did for us when he was president. host: appreciate the call, but as far as dick cheney's endorsement of kamala harris, what do you think about specifically? caller: dick cheney is not a very credible man, so i don't give it much weight. your last caller, the democrat -- host: before you go on, he is not credible why? caller: he was mr. halliburton, right? he was very much a warmonger when he was in office.

that is one of the things i did like about trump when he was in office. he did not want to have wars. he kept us out of wars. so, i am not impressed with dick cheney. i think his daughter is obviously who she plays to be now. she now has been kicked out of the republican party. she now is going to pander to the democrats and she has done a good job of that and they have embraced her. host: that is steve in california calling in and finishing off our hour of calls. again, if you want to see more from liz cheney, in which this announcement was made, go to our website, go to our app. two guests joining us throughout the course of the morning. first up we will be joined by political correspondent victoria guida. she will discuss the release of the august job numbers yesterday. how it could pack -- could impact future rate cuts and the role economic policy will have in 2024.

later ron george washington unersity's barbara kowalcyk on food safety and the role of the usda and other government agencies when it comes to keeping food safe. those conversations coming up on "washington journal." ♪ ♪ >> book tv, every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. history professor andrew carl argues that from reconstruction to the current day, america has used unfair tax laws to disadvantage black people in his book. at 8:0p.m. eastern, former trump economic and trade

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>> the house will be in order. >> this year, c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other, providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government, taking you to where the policy is debated and decided all with the support of america's cable company. c-span, 45 years and counting, powered by cable. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: this is victoria guida joining us. she's an economics correspondent for politico to talk about the state of the u.s. economy. good morning. thanks for joining us. victoria: good morning. thanks for having me. host: new numbers out this morning. when you look at it for august, 4.2% is the unemployment rate. what do those numbers tell you? victoria: it was kind of a mixed report. on the one hand, you know, we

did add 142,000 jobs, according to the estimate, which is a little bit less than expected. it was a little on the weak side. it shows hiring is slowing. unemployment went down because the on employment rate had jumped up a bit in july because of temporary layoffs. a lot of those workers were then rehired, so unemployment may be was not quite as bad as they were originally thinking. it sort of shows that the labor market overall is continuing to slow, hiring is slowing, but nothing to panic about yet. host: when it comes to panic, your story relating to it says this is the first line, the u.s. labor market is deteriorating, but federal reserve chair jerome powell still might be able to save and. can you elaborate? victoria: the fed has kept interest rates high in an effort to tame inflation. inflation is coming back to the 2% target and unemployment has not really gone up too too much.

it has gone up but not, you know, 4.2 is still a low rate. so basically, the fed is now reaching a point where they are going to cut rates because those rates are cutting into growth and that's what's causing the labor market, in part, to deteriorate. the idea is, hopefully, if they start cutting rates later this month that that will be enough to sort of ease off the labor market so we don't end up in a spiral. host: these are some of the numbers jerome powell look set to make these decisions. as far as the cut itself, what is estimated? victoria: investors are expecting a quarter of a percentage point cut. we still get a little bit of data between now and them but the jobs report was probably not enough to make the fed panic so they will probably start with a standard sized cut. they have not taken a larger cut

completely off the table. host: back to the jobs numbers themselves, when you look at the breakdown, who has benefited and that 100 -- benefited in that 142,000, full-time work, part-time work? victoria: we have seen a huge increase in part-time workers. part of that is because the unemployment rate is low, and labor force participation is high. if you think about a labor market that a lot of people are employed, a lot of what you then add on his part-time work. there is still a huge share of those workers. i don't know the exact breakdown of this particular month. but in general, the job growth that has happened recently has gone heavily to part-time workers. host: generally, when it comes to the part-time work that's created, but when it comes to the sectors, is it still the case that manufacturing is low and retail is higher? or how does it breakdown by sector as far as who is doing well these days? victoria: right. so, we saw sort of a slowdown in

hiring across a lot of different sectors. we saw wages did go up for retail workers. there is some positive signs there. but you know, overall across industries, hiring is slowing. host: jerome powell takes a look at these cuts may be in the next month. will that be the only rate cut we see this year? victoria: probably not. the fed has kept it close to the vest as to exactly how quickly they are going to cut rates. but rates are pretty high and they want to get them down to a level where they are not necessarily cutting into growth. they are not going to go all the way back to zero. that's where you go when the economy is in really bad shape. they want to put it in a more neutral setting, where it's not stimulating or restricting the economy chris waller yesterday said there will probably be a series of cuts. we could see two, maybe three

this year. host: when the cuts happen, what is the lag time between the actual cut and when it hits the economy? victoria: it's totally variable. there's a lot of things that react more quickly. the mortgage rate, the average mortgage rate, has started to come down already in anticipation of the fed cutting rates. you have a lot of market-based rates that react more quickly. if you think about how that feeds through to hiring, that gets to the point where maybe if you are employed by a company, that next year is going to have to refinance debt, maybe it will have more room because it campaign the rest of its debt costs, may be it will have -- can pay the rest of its debt costs. , some of the effect the stock market, for example, tends to get excited about rate cuts. host: victoria guida with us and

if you want to join the conversation about the economy and the current state of the economy and how it could impact the election later this year, it is (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. and independents, (202) 748-8002 . if you want to text us your thoughts or comments, you can do that at (202) 748-8003. when people call the show, they hear statements from the administration like the lowering of inflation but they still talk about higher prices for food, gasoline. can you talk about those two things? victoria: inflation is sort of a tricky term. what economists mean by inflation is how quickly prices are going up. inflation has come down, which mean prices are not going up as fast. we are getting closer to the fed's 2% target, which they think is high enough that it gives the economy a little room to breathe but it's low enough

that people do not necessarily notice it day-to-day, which is sort of the sweet spot. but we have had a lot of inflation. . the overall price level is very high. you look at things like rent, electricity, groceries, things that are basic to people's lives, those have gone up say 20% over the last few years. even though we are not continuing to see prices rise as rapidly, at the absolute level when you walk into a store, you know, you are still sort of unhappy with her price you are looking at. more recently, wages have been growing faster than income. but you know, it will probably take a little while for that trend to continue before people feel a little bit better about where things stand. host: victoria guida on board for this discussion. this is steve in florida, democrats line for our guest. go ahead. caller: hello. thanks for taking michael -- my call.

i get very frustrated when i care the reasons for inflation because there is one great big factor that never gets mentioned and i will give you an example. here in volusia county, florida, there is a private equity firm that buys up all the land. and they start building these starter houses. they price the houses $50,000 over the existing median price range. and they basically create their own monopoly. and i think that this causes inflation in every industry that a corporation can, you know, now that they are so large that they basically own the vast, the highest percentage of the industry. that they have no incentive to compete, they just form a private equity firm, create a monopoly, and it's a concentration of corporate power

and nobody ever mentions this. they talk about lowering rates and the interest rate, which i know affects it. i guess my other comment is, i lived and worked in youngstown, ohio back in the 70's past black monday and we all got laid off, 40,000 jobs in a year. inflation is bad but i feel bad for these young people because unemployment is much worse. host: ok, steve there in florida. he talked about corporations, their role in it. this is something the harris campaign is focused on when it comes to price gouging. talk about that. victoria: this is sort of a nuanced issue, the extent to which corporate power contributes to inflation. we know corporations are motivated to make profits where they can. you had a situation out of the pandemic were not only did we have supply shortages, but also people had cash because, you know, incomes were going up and we also have government aid, so

that allowed people to spend more, and that give companies more flexibility to raise prices. you know, in terms of the specific thing that you are talking about of private equity and starter homes, i mean, there are a lot of markets, including housing, where, you know, when it comes to sort of the neighborhood level, there probably is some of that where they have some significant price setting power. i would say that nationally, you know, rents and home prices are much more, nobody really owns enough of the market to really be able to completely affect rents. but as you mentioned, you know, there are situations in which there are companies that there are bottleneck points where they are causing problems. for example, the biden administration is going after this rental website because they

feel like they are affecting how high rents are through collusion. that's the accusation. and so, you know, for a lot of markets, the inflation itself is not necessarily caused by corporate power, but there can be sort of additional pain points where companies do have may be a little bit too much power. host: john joins us from california, republican line. hi. caller: hi. yes, i've got a couple things. the first is i don't know what to believe coming out of the government about these numbers because i know in order to make kamala harris look good, they need to lower the rates. the economy is great, we are hiring, all this stuff. now we over counted jobs by 800,000 and it's almost a million fewer jobs? but the unemployment rate is still at a good pace and all

this stuff. but we can lower the rates now. and so, part of me, i don't really believe it. the second thing i have to say, kamala harris is calling tariffs an unfair tax on americans, it's going to raise the price of foreign goods and cost americans. that's a bad thing. but in the same breath, she wants to raise the taxes on american corporations, which as your economist or their nose, corporations -- economist there knows, corporations don't pay taxes, they collect them by raising the price of their goods. the exact same thing she is attacking trump for for wanting to do to foreign countries she is doing to american corporations. i don't see you guys sing squat. i really don't believe very much out of you guys. it seems like you guys are all in the tank for the democrats.

host: part of the reason we invite the people to the show is to walk through some of the issues you brought up. go ahead. victoria: i'm glad you brought up the jobs or visions numbers and this is a big question. and it's totally understandable that people are like, wow, they were off by 800,000 jobs, that's quite a lot. there are annual visions -- revisions in august always. we knew that there was going to be some sort of revision. the number was quite high but it wasn't, you know, the highest that we've ever had. just to kind of walk through it in the, so the way that the bureau of labor statistics calculates how may jobs are added is they survey, they survey businesses and they survey household, and then they basically have models to extrapolate based on that how much the overall employment has changed in the coming. and based on that -- in the economy. and based on that, they need to

know certain other information. for example, how many businesses exist in the country, which sounds like it might be a straightforward number. but you know, the u.s. is a very dynamic economy and it's been especially dynamic in the wake of the pandemic where we had a lot of business deaths but we also had a huge surgeon business births. one of the things that might have contributed to the fact that it was much more off was that they were not totally accurate in estimating how me businesses country has. we have also seen seasonal adjustments are a big factor, where if you think about what happened with covid, where there was a lot of strange data because the pandemic completely overturned the economy, that's probably going to affect sort of seasonal adjustment in a lot of data. we also have immigrants where it's not totally certain how many immigrants have come into the country. and so, you know, the cbo has

estimated that there are millions of workers that have been added, so that can also affect the numbers. the revisions, what that comes from, is that we then get, the more over time you get better, higher quality data, then you can revise and say, ok, based on this data, which is, you know, harder evidence then, you know, just surveying, which is the best you can do in real time. now we can say with much more certainty where we are at. it's actually a sign of intellectual honesty that they put out those revisions and say, hey, based on newer, better information, it seems like we were off in these ways. you see that in all sorts of data. host: you touched on the lowering of rates, possible connection to help vice president harris as far as her election is concerned, if there a political aspect to the lowering of rates?

victoria: this is one of the questions around the central bank always because, you know, what they do affects the entire economy. i mean, i will say regardless of who was elected in november, they are going to want an economy that's healthy. that's actually the benefit of having a central bank that's a little bit insulated from short-term political pressures, is that they are supposed to do what's best long-term for the economy. if we are heading into a situation where the an apartment rate might start to go up more quickly, that's not something that either president harris or president trump, whoever we are looking at in the white house, is really going to want to be dealing with on day one. it is possible it could contribute to a boost in economic sentiment. but unfortunately, you know, if they don't cut rates if they think they should just for political reasons, that would be political.

you know, for them, they talk about how once you start taking politics into account anyway, that just sort of throws the whole game out. they are just going to cut when they think they should cut. host: i want to take this call for manager, he's in texas, democrats -- call from andrew, he's in texas, democrats line. caller: big fan of c-span and big fan of politico. i'm a teacher in texas and i was wondering if the guest would comment on wages and what sectors wages have been stagnant in and where they have risen. here in texas, because of some of the political issues with the state government, our education has not been funded over the last few years, so wages for teachers really have not grown much. fortunately, in my district, over the last year, we were able

to get just a 2% raise. and the year before that, we were able to get a 3% raise. i have considered leaving education and may be trying to go into a different industry so that i could be able to have steadier wage increases over years. being a teacher, you know, is based on your experience, it's not necessarily based on the quality of your teaching or how much the students love you. we are on an experience scale. i was just wondering if the guest wouldn't mind commenting on that? thank you very much. victoria: yeah. so wages particularly over the last few years have gone up actually more for, i mean, if you think about coming out of the pandemic, the places where we have labor shortages, a lot of those were industries like retail, hospitality, hotels, restaurants, and so, we actually during the pandemic, and in the years following it, have actually seen income inequality

go down. because actually, the faster wage increases have been for a lot of lower income workers because those were jobs that were sort of high-risk and that a lot of people moved out of because they didn't want to have to be dealing directly with the population. you have this massive shift around and then you needed to bring new people into these lowering jobs. more recently, we have actually seen faster wage increases there. also, i will say industries that are unionized have often seen, you know, quicker wage increases. teachers generally, i am not exactly sure what teacher pay has been over the last few years. i do know that, you know, public school teachers are often paid higher than private school teachers because of, partially because of unions.

but we are now seeing a situation where, like i said, wages continued to increase. i think last month was particularly retail, and health care has also seen big wage increases. that's actually a huge portion of the economy and a portion of the workforce, and obviously, in the wake of the pandemic, we really needed to pay health care workers more. that's where a lot of the wage increases have come. the labor market, like i said, is sort of slowing down. we will see whether wage growth is able to sort of stay higher. host: i don't know if this as anything but the bureau of labor statistics said the average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by $.14 to $35.21 in august. i don't know how that factors in. victoria: that would not include, you know, state employees like teachers. host: from mohammed in maryland,

independent line, you are on with victoria guida of politico. you are next. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i just wanted to bring a point that when i go to the mall, i can see the prices. anyone can see that the prices are high. i think mostly for the consumer, they are frustrated because they are not seeing an increase in their income and their cash flow is less than compared to 3, 4 years back. they are getting less. that's the reason for the frustration. the interesting thing is, of which i'm watching grocery stores and building material stores, a lot of places, you know, if they have not increased the price, they reduced the size of the package or they have reduced the size of the serving. event some restaurant -- even

some restaurant, i saw that they are not displaying the price in their menu. they are charging the way they want, there is no control. so, that is the thing which are hurting the consumer. and i have no idea that who is going to control that. but i think there should be some rules and regulations on certain things, you know, so people will feel that, you know, that someone is monitoring and there is no, like, you know, unfair increase in the price. host: that is mohammed in maryland. when it comes to the economic proposals of the vice president, one is a federal ban on price gouging when it comes to groceries. what would it take to make that happen? victoria: the idea is still sort of, you know, vague. but basically, the idea would be that congress would pass a law banning some standard of price

gouging. if companies were found to be price gouging, the federal trade commission would impose penalties. how do you determine price gouging? a lot of states have laws against price gouging in emergencies. that's a little bit more straightforward because you have a very specific starting and endpoint. this is what the price was before the emergency, during the emergency, this is how much we raised it. in general, calculating airfare cost is a lot more difficult than it might sound. it really comes down to pricing strategies. if you think about over the pandemic, companies that had the price of their input, you know, might be changing and fluctuating. they knew there was inflation, they didn't know they would be able to get what they needed to produce what they were producing. also, they didn't know how the price was going to change over time, so maybe they set the price a little higher to smooth things out.

they did not bring the price down if their cost ended up being as high as they expected. i think that actually setting some sort of specific price gouging standard, you know, you could come up with economic models. economic models have limitations. so, it would be a very, i think it would be tough to actually get something like that through congress. but that does not take away from the fact that, you know, this is a discussion that is worth debating, of you know, what kinds of pricing behaviors are unfair? what kind of pricing behaviors should policy step in on? we were talking earlier about corporate power, you know, it's a situation where you don't have any one company to have too much pricing power. that is something where you have seen the biden administration going after some companies, they are challenging a merger between kroger and albertsons.

it's complicated. people are unhappy about high prices. host: willie is in arkansas, democrats line, for our guest. caller: yes sir. i read in the paper talking about how high prices. i can go back and remember how it was in the 80's. it was a lot better in the 80's than it is now. they talk about how high food is. live in an area where we have all because of grocery stores, we have kroger, walmart, sam's. between all those stores, if you really want to save money, all you got to do is shop around. we can find anything we wanted. [indiscernible] if you see something that you think it cost too much, you

don't buy it. and if you don't buy it, the store gonna go down on the price. so, i am just letting people know. we are a lot better off now than we were four years ago, because we don't have these people dying like we did four years ago. we ought to be thankful for that so thank you very much. victoria: i do think this gets to the competition issue, that if you have the ability to go to a lot of different places, it really does increase your ability to save costs. one thing i do think is also very sort of came to the fore during the pandemic was this notion of supply chains. which as we have gotten very used to being able to get whatever we want whenever we want it. there are circumstances where you have supply chain disruptions where it might be more difficult to get a certain food, certain produce that's not in season.

you know, and so, you might have to pay a higher cost. that is something we are sort of grappling with in a way we have not had to in a long time. host: president biden was in ann arbor, michigan yesterday and one thing he did was comment on the jobs numbers. i want to have you listen to what he had to say and then we will talk about it. pres. biden: earlier today, we learned of the economy created another 142,000 jobs last month. [applause] that is 42 straight months in a row, every single month increasing in jobs to a total of 16 million new jobs since we took office. [applause] they told us we couldn't do it. over 1.6 million jobs in construction and manufacturing.

where in the hell that america cannot lead the world in manufacturing? we are leading the world in manufacturing and we will continue to. unemployment is down, wages are up. inflation is way down and will continue to come down. i predict it's going to come down a little bit more. we added 250 new energy jobs, clean energy jobs, growing faster than any sector in the economy. host: walk-through what he said and what's the reality when it comes to job creation? victoria: the numbers that he is talking about, the 15, 16 million jobs, so, that's accurate. but you know, of course, you have to factor in the fact that a lot of that was sort of a bounce back from covid, where you know, we had millions of people that lost their jobs. it is one of those things where it is a little bit difficult to parse out as to, you know, how

much he can take credit versus how much the economy would do anyway. i mean, i think the argument that the biden administration would make is that, you know, they passed legislation like the american rescue plan that was designed to sort of get the economy going and it brought people back into the labor force more quickly. that is one of the reasons why they are, you know, they especially can take credit for. its an eye-popping number. but you know, it's one of those things where you also hear president trump talk about the high gdp growth as he was leaving office. that was also a function of the pandemic. they both sort of can point to these numbers that are actually completely accurate. but you sort of have to factor in the fact that, you know, there was some effect from covid that is hard to separate out. that said, i think that the

labor market did recover more quickly than people were worried about. you think about after the 2008 financial crisis, it took a really long time, years and years and years, until we finally were getting to below 4% an apartment. and we got -- 4% unemployment. and we got back to that point pretty quickly. i do think they have a good record to tout. like i said, it has been such a screwy moment, it is hard to know exactly what to take credit for, and you know, how much the economy sort of would have been on its own. host: this is politico's victoria guida joining us for this discussion. this is john up next, independent line. go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. the largest growing sector in the country currently is baby boomers, who are retiring at an extremely high rate. and being one of them, when you

retire, you end up on a fixed income. i retired right before the pandemic and i base my retirement basically on two, 1.5 to 2% inflation annually. when the president just touted all of his inflation reduction act bill and everything else, that's what caused the inflation, was the overspending. majority of the people in the voters office right now, i am not getting as big a raise as people that are still in the workforce. matter-of-fact, i am not getting a raise at all, the last four years since i retired. there is millions of people out there who are just still going down the letter, even though the rate of inflation increasing is going up less. the actual rate of the inflation does happened for prices to come down, that's what needs to happen. how people like me in our

situation, because the prices went up, so the rates are slowing down but the prices are not coming down at all and i don't know if they ever will because of the cost and the increase in the sellers. already -- in salaries. are you kind of following where i am going? i think the biden administration is to blame for it because of all the extra spending on the green new deal instead of the inflation reduction act, which is actually what he really finally called it sitting in front of that desk a couple days ago when he cited. he's like, well, they should have called it the green new deal, what it really was. victoria: in terms of fixed-income and its relationship to inflation, i mean, it depends on how you get your fixed income. for example, social security is adjusted based on the consumer price index. we have also seen for people that own bonds, rates have been high. that's because, as we were talking about earlier, the federal reserve has kept rates higher.

you know, you can earn 4% or 5% right now, that's going to decrease over time as the fed starts to cut rates. rates are going to be a little bit higher than they have been over the last couple of decades. there are sort of outlets to earn that money. this is why inflation, you know, causes problems. right? this is why inflation is a hardship for people. host: what's the relationship, to the caller's point, what's the relation between government spending and inflation? victoria: this is also a debated point. i was talking about how president biden can take credit for a lot of these jobs. a lot of these jobs were also covid. similarly, inflation, it's a little bit hard to separate out what is, you know, the government spending piece of it,

what is just supply chains were screwy? and also, people were shifting their behavior. this was also a huge problem during the pandemic. where all of a sudden, people were buying laptops for their home offices, or like sweatpants, or you know, they were not going to movies, they were buying different types of food. it made it so that companies were completely unprepared for the shift in consumer behavior. even, you know, after the pandemic, we've seen a continuation in terms of consumers just behave differently than before. it took some time for supply chains to adjust. certainly, part of it was, as i mentioned earlier, that people had cash to spend, and that gay people room to, companies roof -- gave people room to, companies room to raise rates. inflation also has been high

globally. and actually, the u.s. has, you know, had pretty rapid growth compared to a lot of other countries. and inflation has come down pretty well. and that partially tracks, you know, if you look at supply chain stress indexes. that said, you know, it's not like government spending didn't play a role, it was just sort of part of a mix of factors. it's a little bit harder to say we would not have had inflation if it wasn't for this level of spending. after the pandemic in 1918, there was inflation. it's complicated. host: one of the complicated things we talked about is tariff policy. another former president mentioned a lot. why is it a discussion point this time around? victoria: one of the callers actually mentioned this earlier and we did not get to it. but you know, so we have had

this sort of re-think in trade policy in part because of president trump. there was an era where we negotiated a lot of free-trade deals over multiple presidents. president trump moved away from that and wanted to use tariffs as more of an active negotiating tactic. what he's talking about this time is putting across-the-board tariffs on, you know, 10%, 20% on all goods coming into the country. i will clarify, because the caller earlier said it was a tax on foreign countries. technically, it's a tax on importers. whoever is in the u.s. is buying it. who actually bears that cost is variable. right? it might be the person that they are importing from affects their present. but usually -- pricing. but usually, it gets

distributed. it could be passed onto the consumer, which is one of the arguments that vice president harris has been making. there is a whole debate because, you know, for a lot of things that we import we don't really make here, and they are used as inputs into things that we do make here. there is a whole question of, isn't that just sort of shooting ourselves in the foot? president trump has said, and certainly people around him say this is sort of a negotiating tactic, and that he is not actually going to do this for countries that don't negotiate with us. nevertheless, it is the type of thing where it is a time when people care a lot about costs and tariffs would definitionally increase the cost of whatever they are applied to. you want to be thoughtful about what products you are putting them on and why. host: let's hear from david in

georgia, democrats line. caller: can you hear me? perfect. i will be real quick. two quick questions. trump brags a lot about his economy, what he's done. a friend of our family is actually unaccounted for a large corporation here in atlanta. they said even if you didn't do anything at all, that he actually rode the obama-biden economy into office and then messed up once covid hit. is there anything that trump did actually do that actually made it to what was? and second real quick question, with the jobs revised i think last month, it added over 800,000 jobs, took away 800,000 jobs, rather, as far as the jobs report. how can that happen? how can they mess up like that? and i wanted to get your opinion. i wanted to see if it was either the people actually do that find

that out, or if it was on the biden side? how can that happen? victoria: on the trump economy, it was a very good economy under president trump. i will say, you know, in general, the effect that a president has on an economy is probably less than people expect just because the u.s. economy is so huge and dynamic. like, for example, something that i think people do not really think about is that every month, more than 5 million people leave their jobs and more than 5 million people gain jobs. the sort of net is what we report as jobs numbers every month. i was talking earlier about the businesses being created. the churn in the u.s. economy is just huge. policy does have an impact on it but it's also sort of a, you know, it is a barge, it is not a cruise ship that a president can just sort of adjust. you are saying here adopted the

obama-biden economy. i would say he adopted an economy that was on a better trajectory. the reason is, so the 2008 financial crisis erect the economy -- wrecked the economy and we took a really long time to get out of that. we had steady but pretty slow, sluggish growth for a long time. but it ended up being the largest expansion in u.s. history between the financial crisis and the pandemic, when we had obviously, a brief, but very deep recession. we had a high unemployment out of the 2008 financial crisis and then it was slowly coming down, slowly coming down to the point where it was getting into i think it was the in fours when president trump took office ended ended up dropping below 4%. one of the things he particularly benefited from was just the fact that the expansion

was really long. now, i mean, every president does have some impact. certainly, i think you can say that business confidence was pretty high under him. i think that people kind of knew that he wasn't going to impose a lot of new regulations, which tends to, you know, help businesses spend more. we were talking about tariffs earlier. there was a sort of an interesting dynamic where the republicans cut taxes, but them president trump was waging his trade wars, so it's possible a lot of that money did not get invested as efficiently as it might have been because companies were not sure where to put their money because they were not sure how the trade wars would shake out. host: one more call from rob in oregon, independent line. victoria: icu -- caller: i see that you are in economics correspondent for politico? are you an economist?

victoria: i am not. caller: maybe you can answer my question. second question would be, what is going to be the impact on the average person with the unrealized gains that kamala harris is presenting? my primary question was about taxes. i would like to know if we had a tax, a single tax on the federal side to tax both buyer and seller on every financial transaction, any transaction on wall street, what that tax might be? i will take my answer off the air if you could do that? thank you very much. victoria: unrealized gains, what that refers to is, so if you own a stock and the price goes up, if you haven't sold that stuck, you have not seen that -- stock, you have not seen that money yet. that's what's known as an unrealized gain.

what vice president kamala harris has talked about, which is actually, it is really a president biden proposal that she has endorsed, is this notion that if you make over a certain amount, i think it's over $100 million in income, that you would tax unrealized gains. and the notion there is that, so the ultra-wealthy, they can use those assets and borrow against them where they don't necessarily have to sell the asset in order to get income from it. the concern would be that that would really affect how people invest, right? because you want people to invest in productive assets and hold onto them. and so, it sort of i guess, on the one hand, it is basically trying to make sure that rich people do not get out of paying taxes when that's where a lot of the money is.

but then on the other hand, where you don't want to interfere with sort of productive functioning of financial markets. this sort of gets to what you are talking about with the financial transactions tax. i think there's been a lot of different studies as to like, you know, the extent to which a financial transaction tax would make it so that people trade less. which would be, you know, potentially damaging for markets. it depends also on what level you set the tax at. so i think that that debate is still sort of in its early stages. but yeah. host: you can find our guest's work at politico.com. victoria guida serves as an economics correspondent for politico. we are going to have a discussion about food safety with george washington university's barbara kowalcyk. but before that, we are going to go to open forum. and if you want to participate, call the lines, (202) 748-8000

for democrats. republicans, (202) 748-8001. an independents, -- and independents, (202) 748-8002. we will take those calls when "washington journal" continues. ♪ >> discover the heartbeat of democracy with c-span's voices 2024 as we engage voters ahead of the first debate between vice president kamala harris and former president donald trump. asking, which issue would you like them to address and why? >> the issue i want to hear more about is women's rights and protection of women's and children, especially within cities. >> i am from denver, colorado

and i think the issue most important to me is abortion. >> we need to do something with these guns, these people with these guns. a lot of innocent people losing their lives and they must stop. it has to come to an end. >> i would like to hear them talk about childcare in the future as well as housing prices since that's the future that i a lot of us would like to get into. and i would like to know how best i can go into that in the future. >> c-span's voices 2024. v.a. part of the comfort -- be a part of the conversation. >> since 1979, and partnership with the cable industry, c-span has provided complete coverage of the halls of congress, from the house and senate floors to congressional hearings, party briefings and committee meetings. c-span gives you a front row

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lines, text us or post on facebook or x. the washington examiner reporting the new york judge agreed to delay sentencing of former president donald trump in his hush money case. that will push it back to november the 26th. the decision follows a multi prong effort by the trump legal team to postpone his september 18 sentencing, arguing that proceeding before then could unfairly affect his campaign ahead of the november 5 presidential election. that's the story. the former president was in north carolina yesterday getting endorsed by a police union and it was during those comments that he referenced this decision. here's former president trump from yesterday. pres. trump: the good news today is that the manhattan da witch hunt against me has been postponed because everybody realizes that there is no case because i did nothing wrong. it's a witch hunt. it's an attack by my political opponents in washington dc. and comrade kamala harris and

radical left opponents, for purposes of election interference, that's all that was. it is a case which should have never been brought, should have never been brought. but nothing like that has ever really happened in the united states, that we know of at least, and it is strictly third world, banana republic stuff. the public understands this and so does every legal scholar. host: if you want to see more of those comments, go to the website and the app. this is george in virginia, democrats line, starting us off. good morning. you are on. go ahead, george. caller: yeah. these guns is one thing. we need to do something about them. i don't know what the topic is they are talking about today. but our kids are the future. and you know, [and discernible

-- [indiscernible] host: that is george in virginia. rich in ohio, republican line. hi. caller: the best way we can. on inflation, have we factored in the thefts that we have problems and all these stores and how much it costs into the cost of things? on the riots, stores did not come back because they just cannot do it. the cost of inflation on that stuff, people just trying to have a business. the other is on houses when we were selling houses in 2008 and asking nothing down for three years. canadians charge 20% down, which is high come but they had skin in the game.

we had people with no skin in the game and that's when we run into big trouble. we are going to do that with businesses. people that have no skin in the game, they get weird money and that's when we blow up the system. that happened in housing. i will hang up and listen host: to your answers. host:our jury is in bangor, maine -- audrey is in bangor, maine. good morning. caller: the only reason that i pay $70 a month for basic cable is so i can get c-span. otherwise, i would get everything over the air. but the most important thing i would like to say is, please, for all of you politicians out there, please do not use those of us who are living solely on social security. please do not use us as a political football. i have been on social security

only because i have been unable to work for the last 33 years with a hell of an illness that has no end to it. i cannot work. there is no 401(k), no pension plan, there is nothing other than social security and we desperately need a race. -- raise. host: go ahead. caller: i am trying to get by, trying to keep a house and a car in my life on track on $1800 a month and it is insane. host: archery there in -- audrey giving us her thoughts when it comes to money, when it comes to politics. this is "washington journal" this morning. the campaigns have put out how much they have raised. the harris campaign said it raised a combined $361 million in august with the democratic

national committee and joint fundraising commute, tripling former president trump's $30 million combined haul. the vice president's campaign says it ended august with $404 million in the bank while the trump campaign said at $295 million at the end of the month. bob is in milwaukee, independent line. go ahead. you are next up on this open forum. caller: yes. the other day, i witnessed on tv biden admitting that he only created 6 million jobs. he also admitted that the inflation reduction bill was nothing more than a green for green projects, have nothing to do with inflation. you've got to watch fox to see this. and i am pretty sure your guest new this, too.

anything from politico, please. host: odie is in massachusetts, republican line. hi. caller: good morning. thank you c-span for taking my call. i would like to first start off and ask c-span if they can put up a gauge or a thermostat or something showing that the american people is supporting c-span. you don't have to say how much you are looking for, you just put up something to show that the american people is supporting c-span. that will give you peace of mind to show that c-span is not going to go off the air. i will be very disappointed if it does. moving on, i am wondering and confused who the congress works for. they have the call to take money out of our checks. seeing the playbook be in full

swing from our elected officials is quite disgusting. i am from louisiana, born, raised, and grew up as a democrat, until the democrat party left me. that's the truth. now, i am not one of those ultra-maga right wing extremists, but i am one of those ultra-maga freedom -- right wing, freedom taxpayer citizens. because here in this country, we don't need interest and debt. look forward to putting my money in the bank and donating to c-span and getting my popcorn and casting my vote for donald j. trump. thank you for taking my call. host: as far as funding, we are still around and going to be around. as you know, c-span is funded by cable companies. though in this day and age, we

are looking at other sources of revenue for that. in fact, if you go to our website, we've talked about this for several months as far as your ability, if you wish, to donate to the cause of c-span and what we do. if you go to the main page and hit that donate number, it gives you everything you need to know but we appreciate all of you who watch and contribute on various fronts. brenda in new jersey, democrats line, you next step. caller: hello. caller:good morning. thank you for taking michael. -- taking my call. i am just calling to let the people know that it is a fact when democrats are in office, ok, the economy grows and it increases. but when the republicans are in office, the people, i am just talking about the people, the common people, the working class people and the middle-class people do not benefit. it is the corporations that

benefit, the big businesses that benefit and it does not grow. and the other thing that i wanted to say is that this lady from the host from politico, what she did not describe is that she said donald trump had a good economy. he got the economy, a good economy because president obama had taken the economy out of a deficit. and since he was in there for twook? and then donald trump inherited obama's economy and that is what she did not say. when he left office the economy went down the tubes. you cannot blame covid. yes, covid was the problem. but because he did not handle covid like he was supposed to. many people died under his

administration, the economy also died. and people should know that. and then president biden took his bad economy and brought it up. and then inflation came in. so, inflation, basically, came in and it can come into any administration. you cannot hold inflation as a, how do i want to say it? you cannot hold inflation as -- like administration is to blame with inflation. host: let us hear from greg in chicago, independent line. caller: good morning. how are you doing? caller: you are on. go ahead. caller: the comments are basically two, it is based on the insurance companies who are constantly raising prices on vehicles and homes.

and i do believe that politician should regulate them because they will be doing that everywhere. and, based on the politicians right now, i will respect honest politicians that i do not think there are any out there anymore. ok? hello? host: go ahead and finish your thought. caller: i am sorry. for me, for them to spend money like that just hold office is that based on power. now, for me the real politicians for the people are supposed to be representing the people. most politicians are representing themselves. now mr. trump, i would suggest that he goes back to russia because he is advocating for russia and every followers that he has. i have nothing against russia but thank you very much. host: when it comes to the preparation for the debate next week between vice president

harris and former president trump, "the new york times" highlights what is going on behind-the-scenes saying that " the vice president is hold up doing highly choreographed debate preparation sessions. there is replica the lighting and full method acting mode, but inhabiting him wearing a boxy suit and tie. the former president -- president's preparations are more improv. nobody is playing ms. harris. his aide sit at a long table and pop questions back and forth or other times he pulls up a chair to them. he has held just a handful of sessions in -- interrupting one at las vegas hotel so he could wash -- watch the convention speech. a quick reminder pa

will have full coverage of the debate on on abc between the vice president and the former pre c-span coverage starts at 8:00 east the simulcast begins and the followte we will take calls and get your reaction. you can watch that covon span2, c-span now and then online at c-span.org. in connection we want to know from you if you think that debates matter. it would impact your vote this fall. you can vote and participate. a couple of ways. you can go to c-span.org/poll, or take your phone's camera and hit the qr code and it will be connecting you with the results and it will show you all weekend. we have been collecting them and if you want to see what people think as far as debate matters you can go to c-span.org or the

qr code. mike in missouri. democrats line. go ahead. caller: yes. i am a first time caller andrew tyler -- retired cattle farmer. i live in a rural part of missouri where i am outnumbered 10 to one. i am a democrat everybody else are republicans. but, the economy in my view is pretty good. and how you can tell this, all of the neighbors around here are buying stuff and building new fixtures including me. i am not living in those gloomy times that everybody describes that we are having. everything is joe biden's fault, that is ridiculous. yes, i think a farmer has always had to really watch what he has done to make it.

and, not to spend over your means. but you hardly ever get a farmer calling in. grain prices are down, but the crops, bumper crops are going through the roof. when you have supply and demand and you have a great crop you will have lower prices. here is my point that i want people to listen to. under trump cattle was half the price they are now. in the cattle market is absolutely floating the farmers along. they are out of sight and they have never been better. and i heard newt gingrich griping about the price of hamburgers up 20%. guess what, this time the farmers are getting that 20%. host: independent line. mary in st. petersburg, florida. go ahead. caller: good morning. i am basically calling to bring up the fact that the cost of

utilities has gone through the roof. and normally when i listen to the phone calls and the various guests that you have on, because i watch all the time, it is very seldom that this expense comes up in discussing the economics of what is going on. it is house insurance, car insurance. my car insurance for six months went up 80%. and i have never had a take it or nothing. i drive 1100 miles a year. you know, that is costing me. i have a 21-year-old car. my house insurance, i live in a mobile home went up from $825 until 15 -- to $1550. i have it insured for $30,000 in

one year. and it just seems like none of those expenses are really discussed to any great extent. i might be wrong, but i thought that there were certain parts of the economy as far as utilities are concerned that the federal government or a commission of some sort kind of oversee those expenses so they cannot raise them exorbitantly. another thing that is crazy is cable, which you almost have to have anymore if you want television. in -- five years ago the same thing i had of now was $139 a month. now it is $217 and that is in five years. so that is what, an 80% increase?

i am not against companies making a profit. but some of these profits that are now taking charge customers. host: that is mary in florida. tom also in florida. jacksonville. democrat line. caller: hello, i appreciate c-span much. if you could as a moderator maybe one day have an economist on to discuss some of the macroeconomic studies by the rand corporation, harvard, or london school of economics about the failure of supply-side economics and how it has transferred $50 trillion up the ladder to the top 1%. and how the middle class has not shared in the prosperity, making it hard for people to pay their individual bills.

those are three economic studies. if you could have an economist like steve ratner or larry summers to explain to the people how most of the prosperity is going to the top 1% and that is why they are suffering. that is the end of my comment. thank you very much. host: "the wall street journal" looks at policy proposals and campaign promises, if you will to see how they play among american and how much they like or dislike them. when it comes to things like capping insulin prices, widely enjoyed by both sides. illuminating taxes on social security and tips for service workers as well, it leans more on the democratic side for campaign provinces such as capping out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs and penalizing companies that engage in price gouging and providing a

$6,000 tax credit to families with newborns. republicans enjoying the promise of making the 2017 trump tax cuts that expire in 2025 permanent. democrats enjoying largely giving first-time homebuyers $25,000 debt towards a down payment. and partially reversing the corporate tax cuts and imposing a tariff on all reported -- imported goods, republicans like that one more. there is more when it comes to those various promises heading to november and how they are being enjoyed by the public at large. west virginia, republican line, arnold. hello. caller: hello. i have a couple of things that i would like to find out more about. it was a wild back that ms. harris said that she was going to way with fossil fuels and gasoline for vehicles and i have not heard too much more about that. i want to say something about

she says that she will have a republican on her cabinet and liz cheney turns around and turns out to be a democrat or a supporter. and there are some awful strange things going on. and the car plants are switching over to electric vehicles, a lot of them are. and there is going to be something happening that the united states and less trump gets in there. i cannot see trump keeping his mouth shut because that is what is getting him in trouble. but, people do not realize what will happen if ms. harris gets in there. maybe i am wrong but i would like to find out more about that. she definitely said she was going to do away with gasoline for vehicles and these car plants are going over to electric. what is going to happen with all of these batteries whenever they get rid of them? i am of the understanding that

the main parts of the battery is are coming from china. that is scary to me. i do not understand what is going on and that is what i have to say. host: this is patrick, in new york. independent line. caller: thank you for doing your job, you are doing a great job. the economy is far better than the way when trump was in power. yes. host: you can continue. do not pay attention to your tv. go ahead with your thoughts. caller: whenever the republicans get in power they oftentimes try to break up the middle class. all the time the economy was better when obama was here. yes. the economy was better when obama was here. and when he left it for donald

trump, he destroyed it. the guy's father gave him money and he destroyed it. how can you give money for the wall of america, he would destroy it. that guy is not good for america. those are my thoughts. thank you very much. host: one more call for denise in ohio. republican line. go ahead. caller: i was calling about the property taxes in ohio have been raising a lot, significantly in the last three years. and i was listening to the governor from kansas talking. and, that was back when they had the governor thing back in january or february. they were raising the taxes in kansas to pay for all of the nonprofit hospitals. so now we have all of these illegal aliens going to the hospital because they do not have doctors or anything like

that. it seems funny that our property taxes are going up when they actually fund the nonprofit hospitals. people need to think about that. that has something to do with your property tax going up. here in ohio, this is set up for the funding of the schools is the poor the child is or if they are not as that of a student, the school gets more money. so when the school gets more money who makes more money? the teachers. it seems funny to me that what should be an incentive for people to do better in a community like here in akron, we had a mass shooting on june 2. i will put that out there. things in akron are getting worse. there were 30 people shot, i believe, only one dead. the police tried to break it up.

there is a lot more crime in this area than there used to be. i just want to put it out there, i feel less safe under biden and kamala than trump. i have never felt this way in my life. host: that is denise finishing off the open forum. thank you to those who participated. our last guest will talk about the topic of food safety. you sigh recently asteria al -- outbreakonnected to deli meats making people sick. this prompted us to be joined by barbara kowalcyk of george washington university who takes a look at the topic of food safety and how the federal government deals with it. we will have that when washington journal continues. ♪ >> attention middle and high

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>> watch the abc news presidential debate simulcast live tuesday on c-span2 as the candidates go head-to-head in their first debate since securing their party's nomination. coverage begins with a preview show at 8:00 p.m. followed by a debate at 9:00 p.m. eastern. the abc news presidential debate simulcast live tuesday on c-span2. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics powered by cable. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us now is barbara kowalcyk of george washington university, the director for the institute of food safety and nutrition security. thank you for giving us your time. we invited you because of the outbreak for listeria. if you could remind the viewers about this outbreak, what

happened and how was it cause? guest: this outbreak is associated with boar's head deli meats caused by listeria. this is a foodborne pathogen that can be very serious, particularly for pregnant and postpartum women, people over the age of 65 and anyone with a compromised immune system. it grows naturally in the environment and it is a big problem in ready-to-eat products like hotdogs and soft cheeses and deli meat. the way this happened is that there is contamination in the establishment that was producing this product and it has caused so far nine deaths and 57 hospitalizations. and over 7 million pounds of product has been recalled. host: when the stories came out, one of the stories that you saw was he actually plant -- was the

actual plant itself, just to show you the headline, bugs, mold and mildew being found. where does it get to a point where that is being found in a place that puts together food. guest: that is a great question and one that a lot of people in the food safety community have. in a ready-to-eat establishment like the one producing that product it should be sanitized and cleaned every shift. multiple times. to see mold which takes a long time to grow, that suggests that it was not being cleaned on a regular basis and it should have been. i have read all of the noncompliance report cited by the virginia department of agriculture sciences. i was appalled. they talked about taking the cover off of one piece of equipment and the room smelled rancid. there was meat around the equipment caked, and that should not happen.

these violations were going back a year. it raises the question of where was the management and the establishment at boar's head, where was the managing with the regulatory agencies and why didn't they do something sooner? host: how do the inspections come to play when looking at the places that manufacture these products on the local, state, or federal level? caller: -- guest: boar's head is federally inspected because it crosses state lines so it falls under the jurisdiction of the u.s. department of agriculture food safety and inspection service. the safety inspection service does sometimes enter into cooperative agreements with states and virginia is one of them, where they have been deputized the inspectors in the state to conduct the inspections for them. under federal inspection regulations for meat and poultry, if you are producing

these products you have to be inspected on a daily basis. but someone has to inspect regularly. if you are slaughtering animals, then it has to be continuation inspections, a usda or state inspector has to be there continuously. but in inspector would come into -- an inspector would come into the establishment and they would look at equipment, the walls, the coolers, the floors, they are looking for potential problems and listeria we know is an environmental pathogen, it is out there and grows at room temperature and in cold temperatures and we know that it likes to live in drains and water. one of the things that an inspector would look for is is there, -- condensation dripping onto product, are there dripping pipes or a leaky roof or drains that are flooding. all of those are documented in

the inspection reports from that establishment. host: one of the reports mentnewhat you said, this is sang that "a public affairs specialist said that the usda said the plant remain closed until the establishment is able toemonstrate it can produce a safe product. this facility is inspected by the virginia department of agriculture and consumer services as part of the talmadge -aiken production program. the state's progress -- program must be at least equal and approved by the usda." guest: one of the questions is why wasn't the ute -- the unity -- usda auditing the program and where was the breakdown. was it that they did not move the complaint up? because typically, 69 different instances. this is going back to august of 2023. these illnesses and deaths could

have been prevented that they were not. so we -- so where in the regulatory process was the breakdown? all of the data collected were going into the usda inspection database. why wasn't anybody looking at the data? and i have a lot of questions for the regulatory agency and we have been asking them. but i want to be clear, boar's head had the ultimate responsibility of making sure that they were producing safe food for consumers and they failed. and we need to hold them accountable. host: if you want to ask her questions you can call the lines. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. independents, 202-748-8002. if you want to text us, 202-748-8003. the questions that you would ask questioningly, what would be the chief of them? guest: one of the questions that

many of us have is typically, establishments are supposed to test for listeria or a contest for an indicator organism of the species. so where are the test results? why wasn't the plant testing, why wasn't the testing done by the regulatory agencies? and if they did test positive and i cannot imagine given the conditions of the plant that you would not test positive, why didn't they take action sooner? it raises questions about there is another system in place that in my opinion failed, so most plants are audited by third-party auditors. and these are certification schemes and there are a lot of different ones. and they want to make sure and many buyers who buy boar's head products or other products will

hire suppliers to have the certification audits completed staying devastating that they are making food safety standards. this plant got an excellent rating and may of this year on one of those scans. the question is why didn't the scheme find the problem? you have a breakdown at the plant, management, the virginia regulatory agency, the usda, and you have it within the buying community and within the certification schemes. and they should not have happened. we know listeria is a big problem in ready-to-eat products. back in 1998 we had a huge outbreak from sarah lee. 2008, another one from maple leaf foods. the question is when we are going to learn our lesson. host: if and expectorant shows

up on any -- on any level does a complement -- does a company automatically have to grant them access? guest: yes. the company cannot say you cannot come into the establish. if they are not operating they could ask the inspector to wait until operations begin. they cannot deny an inspector coming into the establishment, not if they want to have the usda mark of inspection. host: our guest will answer the questions. this is steve starting off in pennsylvania. republican line. you are on. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i work in the food safety industry. i work for the various food industries and i have several different meat plants, big industrial scale like the one in virginia. your description of what the usda inspectors are supposed to

do is spot on with my experience and what they should be doing. the fact that a plant can have that much -- that many violations when it comes to mold and listeria hits and drains is totally unacceptable and also sounds criminal to me. but, thank you for your spot on analysis of what should be going on. guest: yes. and i thank you for your comment. and honestly i agree with you. i think this does go into the realm of being more than just a breakdown in failure. if you are in the business of producing food, you need to realize you have a moral obligation to produce the food as safely as you can. this is a product that people will take and put into their bodies and it will directly impact their overall health. and the producers here need to

be held accountable. host: let us hear from barbara in the bronx. democrat line. caller: good morning. the first thing that occurred to me is that if this plant was producing caviar, i wonder if the inspection would be so lax. and the second thing i thought about was that i am died in the wool democrat. i listen to trump saying that he wants to get rid of a whole bunch of government bureaucrats. and i am beginning to believe that maybe he is right. people will not do their jobs they will never get fired and never get punished. why do we keep paying them? nothing ever changes. i remember a couple of years ago it was peanut butter. and the same thing, a disgusting sanitary situation in the factory and nobody does anything and you never hear about them getting fired. what is the use of having these

inspectors? thank you. guest: a lot to unpack. but, first of all i want to say that i know a lot of people who work in the food safety regulatory agencies and they are good people. and they are very dedicated to protecting public health. a couple of points. our food safety oversight system in the united states is very fragmented and that is part of the problem and why you see failures. usda regulates meat, poultry processing and catfish. the fda regulates everything else. and often they delegate things to the states. most retail food inspections and the inspection of restaurants and so forth are usually conducted by the states and local level. unfortunately and if i had graphs with me i can show you

that the funding for these agencies have been pretty flat over time. and that is one of the challenges is that they do not have the resources needed to hire inspectors. and inspecting jobs are really tough. you travel a lot and you often live in rural areas with a lot of -- and you need a lot of education. the pay is not that great. and so they have trouble recruiting people to work as inspectors. i am going to go back. personally i would not advocate for getting rid of the public health agencies that oversee the safety of food. they catch a lot of problems that you do not hear about. there is a lot a prevention that does go on. ultimately the company is the one responsible for this overall failure. they did not have a culture of safety. so, as the earlier caller said who worked in sanitation and

hygiene, the fact that there were sony problems happening suggested that they were not prioritizing the health and well-being of their customers. in my opinion it seems like they were not -- they were prioritizing profit over that. host: you talked a little bit about money. july 15 usda says we will have 1% less in the budget. the budget will be about $1.24 billion up by 33 million dollars that year. as a figure that is big but not big enough? guest: not big enough. so again, a lot of our surveillance systems and the public health agencies got a huge influx during the pandemic of funding which was very helpful and that funding is starting to go away. they have been under resourced for a very long time. these incremental budget increases that we are seeing are really playing catch up. host: did covid impact the

inspection system itself? guest: in several ways. any of the state and local health departments and agricultural departments that were charged with overseeing covid response are also the ones charged with overseeing restaurant inspections. so they did in some cases stop doing restaurant inspections and the fda did stop doing some inspections. just to be clear, the usda meat, come -- poultry, eggs and catfish plants have to be inspected on a daily basis by and large. the fda is a completely different regulatory paradigm. before the food safety modernization act which was passed in 2010 and is still being implemented today, sad to say, they before that were on

average once every 10 years. it is now hitting once every five to seven years. and if you look at the number of food businesses in this country, there are not enough inspectors to be able to go to each one. and that was part of the problem with peanut corporation of america is that that fell under the jurisdiction of the fda and they before the food safety modernization act was implemented did not even have to register as a food facility and now they do. so peanut corporation of america has food can -- facilities that the regulars did not know about that. host: barbara kowalcyk from george -- george washington university. independent line. hello. caller: i worked in construction for quite a while and we have to do regular tests on concrete and wells and other structures and if we fail to do the tests and they fail, and someone is killed as happened several times

through building collapses we could be held liable for gross negligent homicide. do the same rules apply to the food companies who fail to test and and people get sick and die from outbreaks? guest: a great question. i wish it happened more often than it does. so, in peanut corporation of america, the leadership of that company was tried and did receive criminal charges and they are in jail. and that was one of the first instances of that. typically there are lawsuits filed by those people impacted and their families against the company itself. so a $10 million lawsuit was filed yesterday on behalf of a woman in georgia who was impacted by this outbreak. the problem is is that that often -- you hear about that but

there are many cases that do not ever make it to litigation. unfortunately it is a good stick, but not an effective one. sometimes it is really impactful and i do not know if you are old enough to remember, there used to be a chain called chichi's and sizzler and they no longer exist because they had outbreaks and the lawsuits that ensued put them out of business. that also brings into questions about insurance requirements and the insurance industry trying to make sure that their clients are meeting the best safety standards. host: i know you said it is fragmented depending on if it is a plant or restaurant, who sets the sanitation standards? guest: the sanitation standard is set by usda under the regulatory framework. if it is a restaurant it is set

by the state. so the fda has a model food code and that is developed and implemented by the conference for food protection. and then each state can adopt or have a modified version of that food code and that is what the state inspectors regulate to in the restaurant business. again on the fda side when you have a peanut corporation of america, those inspections are set by fda. host: rick from pennsylvania. republican line. you are on. caller: hello. where i go boar's head is popular. are they pulling just some of the meats from boar's head or are they pulling all of them? thank you? guest: that is a great question and i would occurred you -- encourage you to ask the retailer if they have pulled the appropriate products.

7 million pounds have been recalled with certain production dates. but sometimes retailers miss them. there have been cases where they have recalled products that are still being sold. it should not be. if you are concerned at the other thing i would encouraged -- the other thing i would encourage you to do is check your refrigerator because the sell by date is into october. if it is in your refrigerator thrown away or take it back to the retailer and be sure to clean and sanitize your refrigerator. listeria loves to grow at cold temperatures. so most pathogens if you put stuff in the refrigerator it will kill the pathogen but the pathogen will not grow anymore. listeria is not like that and it can create biofilms, and that is one of the challenges they will

have in cleaning the plan. my concern is that the listeria is so well-established that there are biofilms in place and they are hard to break down once they have gotten started. host: the whole refrigerator and not just the deli been? guest: take out the entire -- clean out the entire refrigerator. clean it with warm, soapy water and have it -- and sanitize it with a bleach that she -- solution. and then wipe it down again. do not want any condensation sitting in your refrigerator. if it is there it will help it grow. host: richard blumenthal talked about this and what he wants congress to do. i want to play what he had to say and get your response. [video clip] >> 69 sector violations -- separate violations and no enforcement act. none. that is outrageous.

and i want to know why. that is why i have written to the inspected general of the department of aji -- of agriculture asking for an investigation by an independent investigator. the inspector general who has the responsibility for exactly this kind of failure at the department of agriculture. this listeria outbreak could have been prevented and should have been. the deaths and sicknesses were avoidable and i am asking the inspector general of the united states department of agriculture to tell me why there was no wood -- no effective enforcement action to close this facility and cause it to improve the facility to avoid the mildew and mold that eventually caused listeria to have this tremendous opportunity to infect the meat products that were sent around the country and eventually

forced a recall of 7 million pounds of product. [end video clip] host: what do you think about the route? guest: there needs to be an investigation to understand where the breakdowns were. as i mentioned i think they are multilevel. and i think we need to make change to ensure it does not happen again. host: cindy in kentucky. democrats line. go ahead. caller: yes and thank you for c-span and for this food safety program that you have. i moved from florida to kentucky and there is a lot of farmland around. and the only really grocery store, there is the walmart and miser and aldi and i do not like those. i have been going to kroger and there are several times that i have walked into that kroger and

it smells like farms. and then i went to go in get springwater, a case of springwater and i ended up not buying it because they had it sitting on pallets that smelled like a newer. -- manure. and now i saw the article where kroger will not bring down prices and less -- unless they merge with albertson's and they are holding the americans hostage to higher costs, i am boycotting kroger. i will drive 20 miles out of my way to go to another grocery store. but i would like to know about that safety of water being on pallets. host: thank you. guest: so, obviously sanitation and hygiene is super important in any food retail facility or food processing facility or food producing.

i cannot really comment on the pallets and the water. but, you know any time see something like that and i am not shy. when i go to the grocery store i have seen things that are questionable and i asked for a manager and say hey, i am concerned about this. i often have to tell them i am a food safety expert and they need to do some retraining. but there are ways that when you see something concerning in a food retailer whether it is a grocery store or a restaurant to report that to the state or local health department because they are the ones who have jurisdiction. and you can inform them. usually that information is on the website. host: deborah ross, a democratic congresswoman from north carolina who wants to push through legislation that would

keep americans safe by giving " the fda the statutory authority to share important information with state and local regulatory agencies which conduct most food safety inspections." you would think this is happening already. guest: unfortunately it does not happen like it should. many government agencies you other government agencies as external parties. and this has happened before back in 2007 and 2008. there was a tomato salmonella outbreak and you had the public health departments in a specific state who were not willing to share information with the cdc. it happens all the time and it happens both ways. i agree that there should be better ways of communicating between agencies. i served on a panel one time and we were looking at sharing of information from public health departments to to the federal

regulatory agencies and they could not upload it electronically so they had to fax it over due to firewalls. and it had to reentered at the federal agency. the challenge is we hear about these hacking events and things which also makes it hard to share data when you need to. host: philip in new york. independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. everything in this country is elated by money. over 20 years ago the government passed a law or they were supposed to pass a law where they are not supposed -- supposed to put nitrates in packaged meats, ok? but aust -- oscar meyer and boar's head are still allowed to put nitrates in their meats. and nitrates are well-known to

give people can't -- pantry -- pancreatic cancer but nobody says anything about it because somebody has been paid off. you are feeding your children bacon and staff and it has stuff that causes people to come down with pancreatic or liver cancer. and they were supposed outlawed. there is obviously money talking. guest: yes. so, i do not know a whole lot about the nitrites. i know there is a huge concern and people should limit their consumption. i will say that would fall under typically the jurisdiction of fda, because anytime you have food additives those fall under the jurisdiction of the fda. it could be strengthened. in terms of looking at generally recognized as safe, that system

does need upgrading. in my opinion it is not risk and science-based. and we need to do more work but i cannot really comment on nitrites in specific. host: if tainted food gets out to the public what determines when it is safe to eat it again, but what determines how do you find that food and how it does not become a danger anymore? guest: this is one of the challenges. i work on microbial food safety. you cannot see, taste, or smell these things. a consumer relies on the producer and the regulators to be doing their jobs properly. you can certainly do safe food handling, things like cook foods to a proper temperature and use a food thermometer. do not rely on color or smell. also, cleaning, watching

cross-contamination in the kitchen. washing your hands before and after you prepare raw meats and poultry products. but there is not much that consumers can do. you can ask the retailer. if you are ever concerned and you know there is an outbreak and you do not know if the product is still being stole -- sold you can go ask the manager and say hey, i saw about this outbreak, where you part of the recall? host: joe in new york. republican line. caller: i have easy questions. my question is my problem is why isn't there a law on the expiration dates of the products that we buy in the store? if you do find the expiration date on bread, it is on the tag

and you throat away you cannot find it on the package. there are also a lot of packages that have the expiration date on it but you have to have an ocular eyes to find it -- bino cular eyes to find it and if it is printed it is probably printed on top of more print. there are many times where i bought products without any expiration date on it. and is there a law that should -- that all foods should have an expiration date on it and make it where you can visibly see it without searching for it or throwing the tag away? that is my first question. my other is my daughter last week was talking about the red dye that they use in food and she was saying that it is bad --

banned and a lot of country but not this country. and my other question is that why don't we have a roundtable on this show? i think it would be fantastic. thank you. host: he started off talking about expiration dates. guest: great questions and a lot of confusions about expiration dates. so there are certain things where the different agencies require in terms of labeling but it is always hard keep up. one of the biggest issues is it is really confusing. you have the sell by date, used by date, best by, and it is always very difficult to set -- to understand edges for quality, so how well does it taste and the texture versus safety.

so, in terms of canned foods. canned foods have expiration dates on them. most food safety people do not worry about the expiration dates on canned food if it is commercially canned. it just means that beyond that date it might not taste as good as it otherwise would. and companies want you to consume the products when it still tastes good. but, for example and similarly if it goes beyond that and if it is stale or moldy, but those are not safety issues but quality issues. use by dates tend to be about safety when you want to pay attention and not use it beyond that. if you see used by dates on fresh meat and poultry products or fish products you do want to pay attention to those. of course if you ever open any food product and it smells bad you probably should not consume it. that bad smell comes from

spoilage organisms that will not make you sick except for the taste or the smell. but it also could be an indication that the product was abused and there might be other pathogens that you cannot see or smell or taste. and that might make you sick. host: two years ago you wrote aps called remember -- a peice called remembering kevin there is no accountability. would you talk about that? guest: i began my career working as a statistician doing clinical research in the pharmaceutical industry. in 2001 my 2.5-year-old son kevin contracted e. coli and went from being perfectly healthy to dead in 12 days. we did matt -- the strain of the pathogen matched a meet recall

in the state that we lived in which was wisconsin. unfortunately that is not sufficient to prove product liability, we had to prove that he consumes the recall to meat which is hard to do because companies are not required to keep track of where their product is going. so they sell it to a distributor who then sells it and they do not have to keep track of that. so, we were represented by a leading food board -- foodborne illness attorney in the united states and he spent three years investigating and ultimately we drop the lawsuit because we could not prove that he ate that recalled meat. even in the state of wisconsin because of tort reform, he was only worth $1 million. host: when you go through the process at least on the legal front, what is the success rate for people like yours?

guest: that is the point, a lot of people here about the success stories --hear about the success stories where there is a lawsuit and the family gets compensated but there are many stories like mine where there is no accountability. that plant is still operating today. they have had additional recalls and outbreaks and every time they do my husband and i get upset. i will say we did not go after it for the money. it was not about the money. we wanted this company because they had had ongoing safety problems and to change the way they did business or get out of it. if litigation was the only way to do that then that was what we are willing to do. host: thank you for sharing that. we are hearing from jim in missouri, the democrat line. caller: not long ago it was made public that some of these plants

were using underaged children to do cleanup at night. that might be a problem. donald trump has long railed against regulations. well we are talking regulations here. deconstructing the administrative state, it is the administrative state that enforces these regulations. that is about it. guest: yes. so, great point and i would agree with you. i think we need to strengthen food safety oversight, not go backwards. we have had a lot of improvements over the years, and even since i started working in food safety i have seen improvements. i say we are running a marathon and not a sprint and climbing up a mountain while doing it. incremental changes are important. but the whole reason the fda exists is because of upton sinclair's "the jungle," and the

problems they found in the meatpacking industry in chicago. and i am afraid we will go back there. it is disheartening to me about the children that have been employed in some of those plants by the sanitation crews. i read some of that. so a company typically hire somebody outside of the company, a sanitation and hygiene company to come in and clean the plan. my understanding is what happened is that he sanitation and hygiene company is the one that was hiring these children. and the reality is is that we have a lot of immigrants who are working in these plants. and a lot of immigrants who work in our field taking the blueberries or strawberries and produce and/or harvesting -- and

are harvesting leafy greens. and we need a way to help and protect them. host: one more call from sylvia in california. democrats line. caller: yes. a great topic today. i worked in the food industry, cannery and poultry. my question is, when i worked in the poultry business, the usda used to say defrost the turkeys and repackage them as fresh turkeys. i actually brought it up to one of the usda inspectors that were there, and the packaging -- the frozen packaging was on the floor and he said well, these are fresh turkeys.

and i said look at the packages on the floor. my question is, who is watching the weed -- the usda inspectors because obviously they had a plan going with the company. host: we are almost out of time so we believe your question there. guest: yes. great question and this is something that came up in this outbreak with boar's head is typically inspectors should be moved around. they should not stay for an extended period of time because i may get chummy, and then you get situations where people might say i might look the other way right now but you do not want them to do that. one of the questions we need to ask in the boar's head situation in particular is how often do they move the inspectors. it is also really difficult again, i mentioned earlier, inspectors typically work in rural areas. they are not paid well and so it

is really important that we educate them -- train them i should not say educate, they have a lot of education. train them properly, and retrain them. one of the things of the things that the boar's head outbreak demonstrates is that we need organizational culture change. we need organizational culture change within the industry and organizational culture change within the regulatory agencies. host: the website is foodsafety atgw.edu. thank you for your time. that is it for our program today. another edition of washington journal coming your way what -- tomorrow morning. if you are interested in following along there is a lot going on. we invite you to go to the website, c-span.org to follow along with the events for both vice president and former president trump. we will have another edition

coming your way at 7:00 tomorrow morning. we will see you then. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]