♪ host: this is washington journal for saturday, september 21. republican and democratic

national conventions this summer were star-studded events. with the november election 45 days away, an increasing number of celebrities are talking about their support for the presidential candidate. to start today's program, we want to hear from you. do celebrity endorsements matter? if say yes, the phone line (202) 748-8000. no, (202) 748-8001. if you are unsure, (202) 748-8002. you can text your comments to (202) 748-8003. be sure to include your name and city. you can also post a question or comment on facebook at facebook.com/c-span or on x @cspanwj. thank you for being with us this morning. celebrity endorsements, we have been seeing a lot of them lately. do they matter? that is the question we are asking you this morning. wanted to show you an article

from morning consult, a poll that they did with the hollywood reporter from 2002. it says nearly nine in 10 people say that no celebrity endorsement would sway their vote. looking at the key takeaways, 58% of adults, 58% of democrats, and 63% of republicans said that they would be less likely to be a fan of a celebrity who publicly endorsed a candidate they did not support. that is up from 49% of adults, 59% of democrats, and 51% of republicans who said the same thing in a july 2019 survey. 89% of adults said that there is no celebrity who could encourage them to change their vote, although 19% of adults under 30 said the opposite. we want to hear from you. do celebrity endorsements matter? those phone lines are on your screen.

celebrities have been making appearances and talking about their support for the candidates, including at the convention over the summer. here is mindy kaling at the dnc convention in chicago in august. [video clip] mindy: it is not everyday that a senator comes over and i was nervous. but when she arrived, we immediately hit it off. we talked about the love we have for our moms, who both passed away from cancer. both of our mothers were immigrants from india who came to america and committed their lives to serving others. my mother became an ob/gyn. thank you. kamala's mother became a scientist with a phd who dedicated her life to trying to find a cure for cancer. [applause]

after speaking to kamala, it was clear to me that she had passed down the same optimism and fearlessness to her daughter. the thing that i room for the most about the vice president is kamala harris can cook. guys, she was so much better than me. she also knew that my family was watching. as she gently corrected my sloppy dosa making, she was complimenting me every step of the way, making sure that my daughter heard how good of a cook i am. she has no desire to be seen as better than anyone else.she just wanted my kid to be impressed with her mom. when she finally bit into my dosa, she looked at me and said "mmm, really good," and then never took another bite again.

what it is that warmth and generosity of spirit i know she will bring to the white house as our next president. kamala harris cares deeply about other people. she will fight to protect our freedoms, because those are the values that her mother passed down to her. host: this morning, we are going to hear from you. your opinion of, do celebrity endorsements matter? dennis in fayetteville, north carolina. he says yes. caller: good morning, good morning. thank you for having me on the show. yes, celebrities do matter, because you choose celebrities based on your values. so, you have a personal attachment to that celebrity. because of that, because you trust them and believe their values align with yours, you tend to trust them and listen to what they have to say.

i think there is more than a 50% chance of you listening to them according to what they say. but this morning i would like to talk about celebrities who are christians, pastors, and the like. a lot of people on your show who espoused to be christians call in and support former president donald trump. as you know, there is a large group of evangelicals who support donald trump. because they are following their pastors. if you don't mind to take this down, i am reading from the bible proverbs. this is what it says, that i am reading. these six things that the lord hate -- and i stress that were

hate. hate is not a word associated with god. most of the time it is love. these six things does the lord hate. it says, a proud look, a lying tongue, and i would like to let my christian friends know that the lord hates a lying tongue. donald trump is known for speaking a lot of lies. host: we will go to rob in new york city. he says, yes. good morning, rob. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. you're doing a great job, so thank you for that, too. i am not necessarily swayed by celebrity endorsements, but i do

really think that oprah is a very smart lady. she is very wise, a very insightful person. she is who she is because she is so outstanding. you know, i listen to her and i am swayed by her. she is someone to absorb and listen to. she is full of knowledge. you can't not hear what she is saying. i have also become a swiftie most recently. i very much admire taylor swift taking a stance and looking into her heart and soul and coming out with what she knows is right. host: you are not a fan until after she endorsed? caller: that's right. i am a swiftie now. i am too old to be a swiftie, but i am a swiftie.

the thing about fam, being in the -- about fame, being in the public eye, the former president was and is a master at publicity stunts. it started for him way back when in new york city. driving around in limos, studio 54, trying to hobnob with the rich and famous. he was pretending to be rich and pretending -- but he was able to get the fame. i think for him, fame is not enough. it is an addiction. it is a drug. he has no control. his thirst for fame and being in the public eye is as great as his thirst for power. he is all about himself, as we have heard before. he is the wrong choice next time around. he's doing much more harm than good. so thank --

host: that was rob in new york. jeff is on the no line. caller: no, i don't think it does a whole lot except for maybe the exception of oprah and her viewers. i think those people are brainwashed to do whatever she told him to do. the caller who called in first, these people who call in and act like they are preachers about what god likes and don't like, would he like transvestites at easter sunday at the white house? would he like the killing of babies all the way up to the eighth week? like morning joe this morning, they're talking about religion, more or less, on there and how bad trump is. look in the mirror. thank you. host: jason in alabama on the

yes line. good morning, jason. caller: hey. i think it does make a difference. maybe not overtly where people say, just because a celebrity says a thing i'm going to do it. but if you think about taylor swift, when she endorsed kamala harris i think what i heard was it was something like 400,000 or 500,000 people under her post were directed to go register to vote. i think even if people don't necessarily follow them verbatim, whoever they endorse, i think it moves the needle. especially in a race like this one because it is so close. you get that many more people going out to register, you don't know -- you would think that they are more likely more democrats than not, but i don't think there is any telling how it will play out. you have that many more people that are more likely to vote.

people who are registered to vote are more likely to vote. so, i think it does make a difference. as far as the polling, i think people lie. they don't want to be seen as being easily coerced to do a thing, but politics now is more like entertainment. donald trump did not get into office because he screamed about obama's birth certificate. he got in more likely because he was a celebrity. now, it is a competition of who can get attention. celebrities use their platform to get people's attention to drive politics in a certain direction. this is a new landscape. it is not like it was 40 years ago. i think they do make a difference. host: jason in alabama mentioned the effect that taylor swift had when she announced her support. she posted on instagram a -- her

endorsement. reuters did a fact check on the number of voters. several social media posts said that swift's endorsement resulted in thousands of new registered voters. vote.gov, the website run by the u.s. general service administration does not register people to vote. voter registration is done by state. the site directs visitors to their state election website for voter information. swift's instagram story drew 337,826 visitors to the vote.gov website by wednesday afternoon. orders reported that it this -- reuters reported that it disappeared after 24 hours. the verdict for the reuters

fact-check said that it is missing back check -- missing fact-check. let's hear from cam in ohio. they say no. good morning, cam. caller: yes, the celebrities are for themselves, because they want to make money themselves. this is a good way for them to get people to watch them. yes, i believe in the celebrity. well, celebrities do not necessarily live in our world today. they are there for our entertainment. you have trump entertainment and then you have the celebrity entertainment. i just don't see the

support for people saying because so-and-so says this and they are a celebrity they must know. they don't know how hard it is. they may know of it, but they don't live it. so, people with celebrity status are there just to show people, hey, i'm the best. you know, you can do this. no, you can't. you can't be a pro football player, a basketball player, you know. they are someone that you can watch and enjoy, but you can't always be in their shoes. host: is there a celebrity that you like that has endorsed one of the candidates? caller: no. i never really paid attention to it. i see it, but it never sways me one way or the other because so-and-so said it. they are celebrities. they want my autograph, fine.

i don't necessarily have to go get their autograph. i appreciate them for their entertainment for whatever they do, if they are comedians or sports, you know. it's just not right that people are swayed by the popularity of someone who has the millions of dollars. sure, what happened to all of the celebrities that said if trump gets in i am leaving the country? did any of them leave? no. i don't put any faith in celebrities, you know? i just don't see how people can jump on the bandwagon of someone because they are a celebrity. host: i got your point. one of the celebrities who has endorsed president trump, former president trump, is hulk hogan. he spoke at the rnc convention

in july. here are some of his remarks. [video clip] hulk: you know something? hulk hogan and the macho man randy savage. but you know something? i see the greatest tagteam of my life standing upon us getting ready to straighten this country out for all the real americans. even though you guys are real americans, you better get ready. because when donald j. trump becomes the president of the united states all the real americans are going to be nicknamed trumpites, because all the trumpites are going to be running wild for four years. so, with the power of donald j.

trump and all the trumpites running wild america is going to get back on track. like donald j. trump says, america is going to be great again. [applause] you know, when i look out i see all of the real americans. i think about how donald trump, his family was compromised. when i look out there and i see donald trump, i think about how his business was compromised. what happened last week? when they took a shot at my hero? they tried to kill the next president of the united states. enough was enough. let trumpmania run wild, rule

again, make america great again. host: we are hearing from you. your opinion on do celebrity endorsements matter? texts and tweets coming in. mike in woodberry, minnesota. yes, while i may motivate one person to vote, a celebrity can motivate thousands. albert in missouri says, definitely no. that said, no celebrity should be belittled for their opinion. pretty mahomes or taylor swift, for example. no celebrity endorsement of a candidate could change my vote, but what influence how i would feel about the celebrity. -- would influence how i would feel about this liberty. on facebook in los angeles, i am already decided who i want to

vote for, but i like the endorsement from the celebrity to decide if i want to continue to follow that celebrity. back to your calls. joe in providence, new jersey. he is unsure. good morning. caller: how are you doing? i'm not sure how some of these people -- for me, i don't think it makes any difference, but for people i'm not sure. if they vote because one of these movie stars say vote for so-and-so, that's crazy. they should use their own brains. not somebody else's brains to see who should go in. that goes for both sides. democrats and republicans. somebody says that you should vote for this guy or that guy, it shouldn't matter. it should make you make the difference. not the stars. that is as far as -- and one other thing that doesn't make a bit of difference is the polls. the only thing that the polls do, that is only for news people

so they can talk about this and talk about that. those polls change every single day. what is the sense of having them? it is because the news people have to have something to talk about. i guess that's about it. thank you. host: alan in mississippi says yes. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. the subjects we are talking about at the moment is complete rubbish. it should never really be wrought to the front. as far as the endorsements, yes i believe in endorsements provided that it comes from a professor of economics. what they know about economics is zero.

that goes for -- i can't think of her name, now. that is how important she is to me. but i would like to throw something in the mix. to every lady, every young lady in america thinking of voting on roe v. wade, anyone who votes on the subject like roe v. wade to put someone in power for the next four years to run this country and is swayed by voting for roe v. wade or voting for kamala harris on the abortion ticket really should be thinking twice about doing that. reason being that even if it

was to have their baby full-term, the country will not be worth living in. host: that was alan in mississippi. tracy in sugar land, texas. they say no. good morning, tracy. caller: hi. how are, y'all? i say no because i say no to everything i listen to. if i hear someone say something i like i don't just think, i like that. no, i go and check it out. if you don't you are getting light to. -- lied to. the other thing i wanted to say is there is a difference between someone telling you someone is good at, or their mother or father did that.

that makes no difference to me. as far as the line goes in the election, i tried to keep a notebook. i couldn't write that fast. thank you very much. host: jerome also in texas on the unsure line. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing, ma'am? host: doing well. caller: the reason that i am unsure is because a person is going to make their own mind up who they want to vote for, no matter if a celebrity comes on and tries to persuade the democrats or republics. it is going to be based on a person's financial stance and their family. the celebrity don't mean anything. doesn't mean nothing to me either. i'm just going to vote for the person that's going to benefit me the most.

host: that was jerome. david in tennessee says yes. good morning, david. caller: yes, ma'am. host: go ahead, david. you are on. caller: ok. the reason i think yes is because that biden endorsed kamala. biden, we have seen what biden has done in 3.5 years. if he endorsed kamala, that means we will have another four years, basically, just like biden because she is a team with biden. so, i do not think if biden endorsed her that we will have anything different than what we have had the last 3.5 years.

we will just have four more years of it. that is leading towards socialism big-time. and the country don't need anymore socialism, or they don't need the president killing more -- telling more states. with a can andcan't do . host: glenn says no. good morning, glenn. caller: good morning, c-span. how are you guys doing this morning? i will tell you, whether i love a celebrity or not why i don't listen to what they say. they have nothing to worry about. they are rich. they live in gated communities. they have the best health care.

i don't have problems buying food or paying their bills. so, no. what a celebrity says does not matter to me. you know, i'm not going to talk about one celebrity, but like i said, again, they have it made. they are rich. they live in gated communities. they have security teams. they have the best health care. they don't have to worry about putting food on the table, paying their bills, and so on and so forth. i thank you for taking my call. host: i want to show you this headline from today's new york times. the headline, livestream with winfrey covers emotional ground. vice president kamala harris harnessed the star power of one of her most powerful surrogates and one of america' is for most interviewers to lay out a pitch for her campaign on thursday as she confronted a range of

pressing issues during a livestream with oprah winfrey. the event, night for america, was hosted by mrs. winfrey and drew hundreds of thousands of viewers, bolstering a strategy that misses harris campaigned as crucial as reading voters in battleground states and beyond in november. more than 100 online groups have coalesced around mrs. harris including white dudes for harris, cat ladies for kamala. joining virtually were celebrities that included chris rock, ben stiller, jennifer lopez, tracee ellis ross, and meryl streep. another celebrity who joined the event was julia roberts. here are some of her comments during that event. [video clip] >> i heard you were so excited you wanted to be here tonight. why? >> well, first of all, oprah,

thank you for hosting this. i guess if i started a voting club it would be conversationalists for kamala. to talk, to listen, to be heard, to have this back and forth is so unique in this campaign. beautiful, wonderful, kamala harris who i had the fortune of knowing for many years, i am a mother of two kids and this is their first chance to vote in an election. i couldn't be more excited for them to have the legacy to say that their first vote they ever cast for president was for you. i have chills saying that out loud. >> are you going to the polls together?

are you organizing a party? what is happening? >> i wish we were all going together. in fact, they are in college. so, we will be separated on the great day, but in spirit united always for we believe in. i feel it is interesting. we talk so much about being americans united for something, but this has become such a global representation of our country and what we stand for. i get to travel internationally a lot. i wanti want people to say, youe american? and not, oh, how is it going over there? you know? i want to get back to that. oprah: exactly.

again, we are hearing from you. we have about 30 minutes left in this first hour. do celebrity endorsements matter? some more text and comments coming in on social media. ryan weeks from mobile, alabama, notes he is a disabled army veteran. he says the endorsement does not matter to me. what would be nice is for someone to run on the basics of getting the country back to the constitution and leave the rest of the states as it should be in a republic. derek chapman on x says, no, you are not living my life and will never be harmed by the policies proposed by the candidates they support. and one more. jody says, celebrities don't make my decisions, but i do like being on the same page as people like taylor swift, caitlin clark, and bruce the boss. back to your calls. we will hear next from richard in oceanside, california.

richard says yes. caller: hi. it is richard. you are getting some interesting comments here. i like them a lot. some people are making good points about how donald j. is a stuntmeister. that guy is all about playing games, and people are responding to it, and his publicity stunts are what is making him popular. kamala on the other hand, does have coming you know, background as a politician. she is very strong and, she has the endorsement of biden. that is going to go a long ways. additionally, i know people in europe. they are beginning to think we are chumps. we are being made to look real bad. and i was born in 1947.

my father-in-law had two purple hearts, captured by the nazis twice, escaped once. people have forgotten our history. they do not teach civics in the schools anymore. they do not know what is really happening. so now social media, internet connections, tv shows, stunts go a long ways these days. that is why donald trump is popular. it is not because he is a politician. he is a stuntmeister. barnum & bailey would show up with elephants marching down the street. everyone screamed for the elephants. this guys an elephant. good luck, everybody, but do not vote for donald, is my opinion. celebrity endorsements, they are just celebrities. the real endorsements from people like biden, there is going to be more of that. name is politicians, governors, mayors, people that really

matter are going to start coming out of the woodwork as the race gets tougher. that is my opinion. thanks for listening, everyone. good luck. host: that was richard in california. anthony in louisiana says no. good morning, anthony. caller: no, i could really care less about these elites in washington, d.c., l.a., and i think america is fixing to find out the true red, white, and blue americans that are fixing to come out and vote for donald j. trump, our next president of the united states. thank you. host: what you think about the celebrities that have endorsed former president trump? caller: i think that's ok. that's ok. host: ok. let's anthony. john in new jersey is on the unsure line. good morning, john. caller: thanks for taking my call. i take celebrities' opinions as

seriously as a take anybody's opinions. you just made me a celebrity and everybody else that has called in. and that is really all i have to say. what the celebrity says and what the people on the phone hearsay is important to me. like to know what people think. apart from that, you know, it is all pretty much equal. thank you for c-span and for "washington journal." host: that was john in new jersey. larry in houston, texas says yes. good morning, a. caller: good morning -- good morning, larry. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. yes. and celebrities indoors, we are talking about people, you know, some like when donald trump was going against the nfl, well, most of the nfl is african-americans.

in most of these guys come from where i come from, the neighborhood. and if people think celebrities don't enter, in 24 hours you have 300-something people, over 300,000 people to vote, to register to vote? so, yes, it does matter. for the guy talking about the abortion, i have a daughter, right? i am a disabled combat veteran of two wars. i've got a daughter pregnant right now in houston. and, yes, she is planning on having the baby. but what people are not understanding about them getting rid of roe v. wade is that it is not the people that wants abortions that are dying, it is the people trying to have the baby and the baby is getting messed up. and now these people are scared to do any kind of health care. that is what we are talking about, people on the right. not the abortion.

that stuff about people having an abortion at nine months, come on. that is murder. have common sense. yes, it really does matter. so all of these people talking about, why are these people worried about, the celebrities, they have money? these people have the same problems we have. because they pay taxes and most of them, if you notice, they get in tax problems. most of them really will be going for trump. host: that was a in texas. celebrity endorsements, nothing new. an article on history.com, talking about the number of celebrities over time, and it says al jolson, even before al jolson started in the first movie talkie in 1927 he was already using his voice on the campaign trail, supporting warren harding in 1920 as one of the most popular celebrities of

the era. he joined the republican senator at his ohio home as part of the politician's front porch presidential campaign, recruiting his fellow actors. jolson led a march to the candidate's house, where he performed a song, "harding, your demand for us." the tune became the official republican campaign song, with lyrics like "so it's harding, lead the gop, warren harding your demand for us. -- you're the man for us." another celebrity actor who has recently endorsed former president donald trump is dennis quaid. here is him talking about his support for the candidate. >> you have, for donald trump in the selection, and i'm a little curious about that, because a lot of people say that there would be no room for ronald

reagan in donald trump's republican party. mr. quaid: i don't agree with that. yes, ronald reagan was a man of his times. trump is also a man of his times. but i do feel that the principles of ronald reagan and the principles of donald j. trump are very similar. >> let me pick up on that, though. reagan confronted the russians. in the movie you talked about an evil empire. trump does not do that. reagan supported free trade. trump imposes tariffs. in reagan's 11th commandment was "thou shall not speak ill of another republican." i think reagan would have been appalled by trump's behavior. mr. quaid: i think you do see

trump 2.0 here as part of the public and -- as far as the republican party and him getting along. reagan was an american first, i would contend. the issues around the election of 1980 are very similar today. you had high inflation, you know? gas prices, what they were. we had hostages in the middle east. we were told we were a nation in decline. we felt that malaise. jimmy carter himself said that. and very similar issues to what is going on today. host: and a couple more posts from social media. steve lange gravelle in new york says, sadly, yes. such endorsements matter. we are an electorate, so paperless -- so frivolous and self-righteous that pop singers and hollywood are the new wise men and women.

google lincoln-douglas debate. this one from kelly in jackson, michigan. celebrity endorsements seem to mean a lot. kamala's endorsements are important because of who they are. oprah and taylor swift are influential with everyone. compare kid rock and hulk hogan to them. they were laughed at. republicans will rue the day they overturned roe v. wade. women are not ignoring. we will hear next from bradley in west virginia. bradley says no. bradley, are you there? bradley? all right, we will move on to michael in toronto, canada. michael says, yes. good morning, michael. caller: hi. how are you doing today? well, in canada we have a bit

less ethnocentric, sort of, opinions on what is going on but, absolutely. because we hear from media including bbc and yourself, and our own media, that we get a wider stream and may be more broad perspective on what is going on. if you are self-aware and admit your own foibles you realize it absolutely does matter. when the celebrities endorse candidates. but i would propose this to the undecided and the republicans on the fence. who was actually endorsing trump? forget celebrities. how about who is endorsing him? his own vice president, his past vice president, his past generals, any past president is actually stepping up to the podium and supporting him? does that not resonate with you,

with the people who know him the best? i understand the popularity of celebrities. i do. with all of the multimedia and their followers. they certainly endorse whatever they say. but what it really comes down to, who is really endorsing trump outside of celebrity? because i don't see any past republicans supporting him whatsoever. so, he is sort of a man on an island, and i would think that inside where you are sort of in the bubble, thinking that maybe i will vote for trump, who is really, really endorsing himself, ok? it is the name. which is falling apart. but it is falling apart for a reason, and it is not supporting you, it is supporting himself, ok?

i don't understand why it is such a debate there. i think outside of america we are full of confused by american populists, where, how is he still in the running? that is the question. and it is not celebrity endorsement. of course that matters. but i don't see anybody who actually knew him in the past, putting his daughter is supporting him. i don't see any past presidents. host: i got your point, michael. we will go to matt in maryland. also says yes. good morning, matt. caller: yeah. it is bladensburg, by the way. i don't think the question is very clear. it might be one, it might be the other, but some people are interpreting it as whether it matters to them, or whether it has an impact on the election.

it was not very clear. but for me it doesn't matter. it will not make me vote. now, if i have respect for someone, even in that case it would not make me vote. i would have an opinion about the celebrity, but not necessarily would not make me vote for whoever the candidate was. but i would like to say two things too that you have admitted -- omitted, two very important things. the prime example of this is taylor swift. you play the other guy, but you did not play taylor swift, who has had a much greater impact. host: she put a story out on instagram. she doesn't have a video. caller: no, but i'm saying you have not played taylor swift's endorsement has probably been

one of the most exemplary. but, you know, i don't think it matters to me, like i say. but it has an impact on the election. there is no question about that at this point. you left out the fact too that trump himself was a celebrity before he ran, and these people say, well, he's not a politician. ok, is he a politician or is he a celebrity? and you also forgot that ronald reagan was a celebrity. out of these people are morons, in my opinion. yeah, i think it matters to the election. it matters to you know, a lot of people. it matters to enough people that it is, whether it matters to me or not, it affects enough people

that it does, yes, matter. thank you. host: that was matt. and we will hear from renee in texas. renee says no. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, renee. caller: personally, i usually lose respect for the celebrity. so, personally, no, i don't think it matters. as for oprah, she is the one that asked trump if he would ever consider running she was actually quite a fan of trump. the fallout came when he left the democratic party. now, some of these people should try reading that bible instead of beating everybody else over the head with it. the bible teaches, we must stand with israel. trump does.

the democratic party has become too pro-palestinian, which is pro-hamas. there is no way around that. so, you want to know what policy? look into the bible and we need to stand with israel. that tells you everything you need to know. host: that is renee in texas. michael in fleetwood, pennsylvania says, yes. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i used to be a lifelong republican, voted for reagan when i first got out of the service. he was a celebrity. they have a voice, they are american. it doesn't matter if you are a celebrity, not a celebrity. as long as you get a voice out there and get people to vote. because the republicans are embarrassing. that is what -- why i got out of

the party. need to put their minds into helping all americans. not in a cold -- cult of trump. the republican party is not here anymore. so, where are all of his endorsements from, like, president bush? where is he? why isn't he speaking out? i believe if we can get the vote out -- because the republicans want to suppress the vote. everybody knows that. trump knows that. and for a guy who is convicted, i don't even see how he could be running for president. that is another dilemma in our society. money talks, and that is just how things work. but, yes, celebrity does matter. taylor swift -- i am not a swiftie. i don't really care for music, but she has a voice, and it is powerful. they are going to get the vote out because we all know what trump is going to do.

i mean, you know, he says it every day, day in, day out. he is going to be a dictator from day one. he is a narcissist and he is going to want to go after the people who have put him down. he said so. why can people open up their eyes and their ears and realize this is true? and he cares about himself. he doesn't care about the american people. you can hear it in kamala's speeches. she cares for people. that's what we need, and i'm excited we have a female that is running for president. and i believe she is actually going to win. i mean, it is just common sense. you have somebody that is convicted -- i mean, think about that. he is convicted and you are still going to vote for somebody like this? i don't get it, the mindset of the republicans on the hill were

still waddling in his mess. but behind his back they are talking about him. so, let's just get the vote out. let's not suppress the vote. that is what we need. so, whatever voices we can get from the so-called celebrity, so be it. host: that was michael in pennsylvania. this headline in this morning's washington post in the style section says, the popstar endorsement that could really swing the election? bad bunny. the article talks about why he could be influential. why? for one, pennsylvania, perhaps the most important swing state, where many pollsters see a dead heat between harris and donald trump, is home to the third-largest population of puerto ricans outside the island, including roughly 300,000 eligible voters. bad bunny would give them a green light, right?

said victor martinez, radio host and owner of five pennsylvania stations that recently appeared in an ad for harris. that sense of, if he is for her, then it is ok for me to be for her as well. winning over latino voters is one of harris' campaign's hardest challenges, according to a recent new york times poll. 55% of hispanic likely voters would choose harris over trump, a smaller share than the 65% of latino voters who went for biden four years ago. just 15 more minutes in this first hour, getting your opinion of the question, do celebrity endorsements matter? let's hear from ed in ohio. ed says no. caller: good morning. absolutely not. they don't live in the real world. inflation don't affect them. only low-information voters,

those endorsements matter. they are all filthy which -- filthy rich. look at that interview she did the other day, live, kamala harris. answered no questions, even from the guests, the audience ask her directly, how can you help? we are already losing our home. she says, i'm giving a 25 -- she doesn't answer. she talks about her upbringing. trump doesn't even take a salary for the last warriors. we know what he is about. this is all that matters. i notice your democrat collars, all the time they talked about emotion, low information voters. they feel good, feel good about kamala. her policies are marxist. her whole career. she is flip-flopped -- flip-flopping on everything she does say because she wants to be elected. when she gets elected she will go back to her policies. she lied for three point five years, how great joe biden was, until they kicked him out

because he was getting killed in the polls. so they put her in without even a primary vote. now, trump had the best economy. that is who i vote for. a democrat had the best economy. the lowest inflation. 1%. no wars. and i am a 30 year vet, commander. it was the first time in 40 years we had no wars going on. we had the abraham accords being put together. they took all of the sanctions off iran. that is where they made all of their billions, on oil sales. now we have almost three world wars. there is two nuclear subs of russia sitting right off of cuba, 60 miles from florida -- host: that is a lot of information. we are going to hear from steve in virginia. steve says yes. morning, steve. caller: wow. that last speaker. yes, of course celebrities matter. that is how trump got elected.

he is a celebrity and he is the billionaire that doesn't know what the common people go through. most people get their information from other people. they don't make their own choices, they don't do their own research. all of these people on tv, they are making $50 million, $20 million a year to be pundits, they are celebrities, and people watch tv all day and that is where they get their information to vote. but you have to look at the people that are not endorsing trump. i have never in my life, 78 years, never seen 100 generals come out and say, don't elected this guy. he is a danger to her -- elect this guy. he is a danger to our country. look at the people who worked for him that are going against him. and also that documentary that was on msnbc last night, lib

russia, that guy has the receipts, and that guy was one of trump's closest allies. so, yes, celebrities matter. thank you. host: richard in arkansas says no. good morning, richard. caller: yes, no. i really don't, but what i do know is that the horrors -- the horrors that await white america if you elect kamala. just look at south africa today. that is no longer ruled by white people. look at rhodesia. host: beth in east helena, montana says yes. good morning, beth. caller: yes. i think celebrities play a role in our campaign. but i think they should get out and rock the boat. i think that trump cannot even get a job as a bus driver or a

cna since his last election. but we will have to see. but, yeah, they need to get out and rock the vote. host: that was beth in montana. kinney in astoria, oregon says no. morning, kenny. caller: yes. celebrities do not phase me one bit. i voted for trump twice and i'm going to vote for him three times. and i think he is a man who can take care of this problem. the oprah show the other day, oprah had to carry harris. through those questions, because harris could not answer.

she just was a food salad of nothing. anyway, i would never vote for a woman to begin with. host: that is the last call for this first hour. but next on "washington journal," surgeon, professor, and author dr. marty makary will join us to discuss his new book "line spots," but the impact of -- blind spots," about the impact of what he calls medical dogma. later frank larkin will discuss his organization's efforts to reduce the number of veteran suicides. we will be right back. ♪ >> as the 2024 presidential campaign continues, american history tv presents a series, presidential elections. learn about the pivotal issues of different eras, learn what made these historic, and explore

their impact on the nation. today, the election of 1876. despite losing the popular vote republican ohio governor rutherford hayes defendant democratic new york governor samuel childers. it was a contentious election that had to be decided by a special commission led above the u.s. house, senate, and supreme court. the result remains controversial and impacts the country up to this day. watchistoric presidential elections, saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span2. >> tv, every sunday on c-span2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 4:35 p.m. eastern university of edinburgh professor shannon bauer argues that artificial intelligence reflects humanities flaws because it is based on human data, in her book "the ai

mirror." the son of president nicholas are cozy and the author of "napoleon's library code talks about the books in napoleon's library. and at 10:00 p.m. eastern on "afterwards," brooke harrington examines the world of finance, how it works, and its impact on the u.s. and globally in her book "offshore." she is interviewed by wall street journal u.s. tax policy reporter richard rubin. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide, or watch online at any time on booktv.org. >> c-spanshop.org is to spend's online store -- is c-span's online store.

there's something for every c-span fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now is john hopkins school of medicine professor and author of the new book "blind spots: when medicine gets it wrong and what it means for our health," dr. marty makary. welcome to the program. dr. makary: good morning. good to be with you. host: let's start by talking about your new book. tell us about what you focus on and why you decided to write it. dr. makary: smart people can develop blind spots and groupthink is a powerful force and medical signs is no different. we have missed out on a giant problem that's been going out we've not been talking about

that we should be talking about. and that is the rapid increase in chronic diseases. in my field the pancreatic cancer, rates have doubled in the last 20 years. half of our nations children are obese or overweight. a pediatrician would rarely see a case just a generation ago of a child with type 2 diabetes. now it's extremely common. rates of autoimmune diseases are going up and now afflict one in five women. and fertility rates are going down. spurned counts have gone down 50% over the last five decades and the age of puberty goes down every year. what is going on? who is asking the big questions? we have got to start talking about our poisoned food supply, engineered, highly addictive chemicals added to our food. the role of pesticides and toxins and heavy metals and seed oils. these issues have lived in a giant blind spot. at the same time, groupthink in medicine has really created some medical dogma that has resulted

in health recommendations that have now been reversed and people are not our that they have been reversed or science suggests that they should be reversed. so, i go through a bunch of those, and health topics where we have gotten it wrong in the modern era. not just saying opioids were not addictive, igniting the opioid epidemic, but also the food pyramid. for 60 years, we've got that wrong. . we still get it wrong we just had a nih study that showed that lucky charm serial is healthier than a steak. so people need to know the truth about preventing peanut allergies and cancer prevention and the side effects of antibiotics and the central role of gut health. gut health is integral to sow money parts of the body so i go through all these topics in the book "blind spots." host: i want to read this from your book. the medical establishment got the primary cause of heart

disease wrong for 60 years. it got hormone replacement therapy wrong for 22 years. it got antibiotic appropriateness wrong for 60 years. it got peanut allergy prevention wrong for 15 years. it got the addictive properties of opioids run for 20 years. this is a partial list of major errors by the medical establishment on the issues in health. the errors are not oversights of an ancient era. they are avoidable mistakes in modern medicine. and in your book, you cite all of your sources for those examples, everything you talk about, including some of the original studies that were done and these recommendations were based on. how do those incorrect recommendations gain so much traction to become what we all are told by medical professionals and associations? dr. makary: so, it turns out there's a psychology to

groupthink, and also a psychology as to why we believe what we heard first. not because it's more logical or more scientifically supported been new information but we just like to hold onto what we believe first. a famous psychologist described the sort of comfort or calm in the brain that we subconsciously like from having just one idea nested and settled in the brain. when information comes in, we don't like that discomfort of two conflicting ideas as a part of the human condition, so we dismiss new information or subconsciously reframe it to make it fit what we already believe so we don't have to let go of what we heard first and already believe. let's say you smoke cigarettes and a study shows that smoking is bad for you, the psychology of cognitive dissonance, where you will say to yourself without even realizing, subconsciously going back to these acrobatics to say, well, the new study must

have been done in a different population, or it doesn't apply to me, or they smoke more than i smoke, or i do other healthy habits so it counterbalances the downsides to smoking in my case. we will do whatever we can subconsciously to dismiss new information. and the result is we, in the real world, this has practical applications. and by the way, we all do it, it's part of the human condition. we just need to recognize that we do this and then try to actively suspend our vices as we hear -- our biases as we hear new information to can shoul -- consider it objectively. if we look at the food pyramid, once everyone signed on that this was the way to go, if we could demonize fat, we could finally address heart disease, that was the bandwagon thinking. but the purpose of science is to challenge deeply held assumptions. and so, there are people who have challenged the fact, or the dogma, that opioids were not

addictive, who challenged the dogma that hormone therapy at the time of menopause increases a woman's risk of breast cancer. and have challenged the dogma of the food pyramid and many other dogmas. the dogma that you should avoid peanuts in the first few years. often times with groupthink, there is a sort of silencing our crushing of the dissent. and there's often this allegiance to an institution or a consistent message or it may be driven by the medical industrial complex. so, those are some of the reasons why i discovered in the book this medical dogma can take on a life of its own. host: and the example you start with in your book is that young children should avoid peanuts to be safe. and that is something that was prevalent for a very long time. explain exactly what happened, who first proposed that, what the studies said, and what we know now. dr. makary: tragically,ican peac

was ignited by a medical dogma in the year 2000. medical experts at the american academy of pediatrics put out a recommendation that children should avoid all peanut products, including peanut butter, in the first three years of life. and that became disseminated widely. and they thought that avoiding peanut related products like butter in the first three years of life could prevent peanut allergies later in a child's life. but they forgot about a basic support called -- a basic principle called immune tolerance. they did not consult with the immune community or study immunology literature. it turns out that avoiding peanut related products in the first three years of life does not prevent peanut allergies, it

causes them because the immune system becomes sensitive to those peanut related products. so for 15 years, this was the dogma, and it went all the way up until 2015. some people still believe in it. some pediatricians still recommend peanut butter avoidance in the first few years of life, tragically. what happened was, peanut allergy rates started to increase and surge, and they felt like we have to double down. we have to get more parents to comply with our recommendation. it was a false recommendation. and tragically, because of that false dogma, we have the worst peanut allergy problem in the world here in the united states. they could have done the study back when they made the recommendation or before they made the recommendation. and when i asked some of the people who made the recommendation, why did you make such a dogmatic recommendation with no scientific evidence? on they said, well -- and they said, well, the public was

asking us what they should do to prevent the child from getting a peanut allergy, so we just felt like we had to tell them something. you don't have to tell them something if you don't know. sometimes in medicine, the right answer is we don't know. host: and we are talking with dr. marty makary about his new book, "blind spots: when medicine gets it wrong and what it means for our health." if you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now. here are the lines. if you're in the eastern or central time zone, it is (202) 748-8000. mountain pacific, (202) 748-8001 . and we have a special line for medical professionals, you can call in at (202) 748-8002. and another quote from your book talking about the peanut allergies says, sadly, remnants of the peanut avoidance recommendations still linger.

the u.s. food program known as special supplemental food program for women, in fincen children, wic, excludes peanut butter from the list of foods covered for infants, this despite children who are eligible for the program being at much higher risk of developing peanut allergies and thus standing to benefit the most from the early introduction. i spoke with doctor about this issue. the wic program provides a unique opportunity to prevent peanut allergies. it could prevent more than 50% of new cases of peanut allergy every year, he said. this is a modern-day scandal that is still ongoing. so, what are the challenges to countering or correcting information once it is out there? dr. makary: well, one of the broader problems we see with a small group of medical leaders

issuing strong recommendations based on no good scientific evidence but just on their opinion is that when they get it wrong, when they get a tragically wrong, as they did with the low-fat diet and avoiding cholesterol and the food pyramid and ignoring the role of ultra processed foods and pesticides, as they did with telling parents incorrectly, inappropriately to avoid peanut related products for the first three years of life. when they get a tragically wrong, you don't see an apology. you don't see a correction within the same vigor that with -- with the same vigor and public profile that you do with the original recommendation. they just kind of fade away. and what you are left with is this sort of confusion out there. people are left confused as to what to believe. they feel like they hear different things. they don't know what the truth is. so, we need to show humility in medicine. our medical leaders need to come

right out and say, look, we got it wrong, we feel badly about this, here's the truth, and put that out there with the same rigor at which they put out their initial dogmatic recommendations that ended up being proven wrong. host: we have a lot of callers. we will start with bill in georgia. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: yes. caller: basically, i am a pediatrician and i am retired. the problem that dr. makary has spoken about, the dogmatic idea that the american academy of pediatrics and those in the academic parts of pediatrics are always right, this is what has caused the real problem in pediatrics. the peanut allergy. the scare tactics with covid, frightening parents, keeping the children home and putting masks on babies and children under the age of five.

this was purely in many ways politically driven. the american academy of pediatrics has unfortunately lost the confidence of american parents because of the scare tactics. unfortunately, dr. makary, you know, putting masks on two and three-year-olds, this was just sheer madness, just sheer madness. i don't know if you know the doctor in san francisco totally agrees with me that the american academy of pediatrics just screwed up totally. and this organization should be disbanded. it no longer represents pediatricians. it represents political forces, corporate forces. and all i can say as a

pediatrician is that i am very sorry for what the american academy of pediatrics did to the children of the united states. host: dr. makary? dr. makary: the american academy of pediatrics has been under intense criticism for its becoming very political and political with a narrative in one direction. they pushed for cloth masks on toddlers for nearly three years. and they argued that there would be no developmental effects. well, it's pretty clear that was dogma, that was opinion, and they were wrong. they pushed hard for multiple vaccine booster shots for the covid, with the covid vaccine in young, healthy children. the ignored natural immunity. and many rank and file pediatricians, frontline doctors who are out there seeing folks, did not agree with these recommendations. and so, you saw a very big

disconnect between a highly politically charged american academy of pediatrics and everyday pediatricians out there. i think it's important for our leaders to show humility. when they get it wrong, when they get is so tragically wrong, as the american academy of pediatrics did, rallying schools to shut out children for one year and nine months during the covid pandemic. ultimately, what they failed to do was look at data from europe that was very apparent very early in the first year of the pandemic that there was a 10 -fold risk between an elderly adult and a young child. the schools were open free and clear after two to four weeks of closure in europe for the entire pandemic and there was no, the data were very clear, there were no differences in hospitalizations or infection rates. i don't talk about covid much in

the book "blind spots," but it is a little bit of a peek into how our broader medical establishment has functioned on so many other broader health recommendations. host: james in rome, georgia. good morning, james. dr. makary: good morning. -- caller: good morning. the trump vaccine was not a vaccine, it was some kind of therapy because it did not prevent covid. it was an airborne disease. warp speed or whatever happened, it was a failure. it was making people sick. you did not have your regular guinea pigs in order for this vaccine to be tested and we will find out years and years after that when it happened. now number two, would you delineate to the public all of the experiments that you people have used on black people here in the united states, from the syphilis to sticking the needles in the baby's head, aborting them, and letting people walk

around with all kind of different type of diseases. black people have been the primary guinea pig. just delineate all these experiments that you used on black people but you was not able to use this vaccine before you tested. we have been used as barbarians. what about, would you just delineate all the experiments? host: we will get a response. dr. makary: the caller is appropriately outraged at the tuskegee experiment, which is what he's referring to, where the medical establishment had experimented with syphilis, particularly in the black community, letting syphilis run in this trial uncontrolled into late stages in african-americans in a trial that was grossly unethical. and it was barbaric and people should be upset. and when people were angry at americans for questioning the vaccine or questioning its efficacy duration, and people

made it sound like it was the rural republicans that were primarily the number one group that were questioning this vaccine. that's not true. the african-american community, proportionately, how did the highest unvaccinated rate in mexico, and it may be infected because -- in america, and it may be infected because of these experiments the caller called into question. host: melvin in illinois. can you speak on the issue with more and more people becoming resistant to antibiotics and what it could lead to? dr. makary: antibiotics save lives. but they also carpet bomb the micro biome, that is, the bacteria that line the gut. millions of different bacteria line the inside of the gastrointestinal tract, and these bacteria are normally there and are critical for

absorption and training the mean system. some of the bacteria makes serotonin involved in mood and some of the mental health conditions. some make the active ingredient in ozempic. some of the bacteria regulate estrogen so this is an important system that lived in one of the blind spots of modern medicine. we don't talk about it but more and more research is showing that when you alter the micro by through any of a number of modern-day factors, it affects people's health, it ignites chronic diseases. it is associated with obesity and asthma. a study done by the mayo clinic that i described in the book "blind spots" looked at 14,000 kids. and among the children who took an antibiotic in the first couple of years of life, remember, antibiotics alter the micro biome and its forming its foundational time is in those first few years of life.

kids who took an antibiotic and di -- in the first few years of life compared to kids who did not had a 20% higher rate of obesity, 30% higher rate of attention deficit disorder, 90% higher rate of asthma, and a nearly 300% higher rate of celiac. what is happening here? there is a dose-dependent relationship. the more courses of antibiotics the child took, the greater the risk of each of these chronic diseases. if you look at the expansion of these chronic diseases, historically, it has paralleled the modern era of antibiotic and antibiotic overuse. and c-sections alter the micro biome. because instead of a baby having their micro biome formed initially from bacteria that cedes their gut contact through the birth canal, when a baby is born by c-section, what may cede

that babies bacteria are bacteria that normally live in the hospital. a study just came out showing an association between the rise in colon cancer we are seeing in people under age 50 and having been born by c-section, suggesting a central role of the micro by him, or gut health -- micro biome, or gut health. so, antibiotics should be used appropriately but they should not be overused, and most are overused. host: lane in virginia -- lynn in virginia. good morning. caller: the trump vaccine, that's funny. the way that was pushed, i was so hesitant about it, until i just got pressured by my family. i've been type one insulin-dependent, diabetic and also have some other autoimmune diseases and i read a bunch of stuff from nih that there were questions about people like me, and how would we react to the vaccine. of course, i developed heart

arrhythmia from it and spent some time in the hospital after one vaccine. i have always questioned the vaccines, especially the number of them. and i am not going to get a shingles vaccine. i don't get the flu vaccine because the only two times i got it was two times i got the flu. and this micro biome, oh, he is so on point with that. it is so important. i was just reading recently about how all the emulsifiers in our food, even the healthy foods, are destroying our micro biome and leading to a lot of these problems. i would also like to know if he's had any negative consequences to his career because of his, you know, speaking out about the dogma of the medical community. and i will take my answer off the air. thank you. host: dr. makary? dr. makary: thank you for the

question. no, i have not had any consequences. i had good support, good relationships at johns hopkins, where i've served on the faculty for 22 years. i've been active as a public health researcher, published about 300 scientific peer-reviewed articles, and so i've had good relationships throughout the scientific community. some people disagree and some people feel that you should not have people with different opinions expressing those opinions when it comes to the vaccine. my team did a large study on johns hopkins at natural university -- natural immunity published in the top medical journal, where we measured anti-body levels in people who had covid a year and a half, almost two years prior to look at those antibody levels. that study was well received in the medical literature but it was censored from social media. so there is a sense of, there is a movement in the united states to say we should have political apartheid. if you don't agree with us on a certain narrative, let's say a

politically driven narrative on covid, then you should not be part of the same conferences, you should be excluded and not be part of the same forum. and so, there are i think a lot of doctors now who recognize that there was a bandwagon thinking when it comes to exec the covid event -- when it comes to things like the covid vaccine booster in young children who already had covid and had natural immunity. we now know from a recent house congressional hearing that the two top vaccine experts at the fda were basically pushed out when they expressed opposition to the covid vaccine booster for young healthy children. this vaccine went on to be mandated and doctors who expressed different opinions were called anti-vaxxers for simply expressing this nuance. host: dr. makary, in your book, you talk about your uncle sam

and his love of eggs. ut at up for a discussion on the recommendations about cholesterol. one of the most common recommendations of modern medicine has been for people to avoid cholesterol. it has been foundational to public health and help shape the modern food industry. the concept sounds logical and has a broad force of expert support, including from large physician associations. they believe they have the antidote to fight heart disease. america's number one cause of death. and were busy saving lives with their message that cholesterol avoidance save lives. there was just one problem, it was never sure. explain -- it was never true. explain what happened in this instance and where the current nutrition guidelines and recommendations say about cholesterol. dr. makary: look, we got bad guidance on food and diet from the government and have now for

70 years. it's not better, it's not fixed. it is just still as problematic. over 90% of those who write the nutrition guidelines by the government are conflicted with big food or big ag. and so, we need fresh new people to tell us the truth about the scientific research. because the field of nutrition is one of the most corrupted sciences in all of science. about 70 years ago, a doctor named ancel keys told the world that eisenhower had his heart attack because he had eaten too much fat, too much natural fat and he put him on a strict low-fat, low cholesterol diet. this dr., who was very well politically connected, lobby to the american heart association and association and somata groups to demonize fat and they were successful. it moved the food supply, the way refine carbohydrate food

supply in the united states. right in front of their noses, they watched obesity rates soar as they moved the food supply to get rid of the fat and sugar, added sugar, and refined carbohydrates in archer processed foods were added, so we started to watch the child diabetes and obesity epidemic sort. they did three major studies to try to prove that fat in the diet caused heart disease. all three studies failed to show it. these were giant studies, including one of the largest studies ever done in history. unfortunately, we still have low-fat milk in schools. and people talk about it as if it's healthier. you go to a café and they still demonize saturated fat. and people have ignored the role of refined carbohydrates and sugar. host: if people are going to their doctor and their doctors are still following this, the old guidance saying avoid

cholesterol, how do you suggest they approach the conversation that maybe they should be trying something different? dr. makary: look, the reason why some of us as doctors are writing books like this are to educate people about the scientific truth on health. the science on cholesterol is pretty clear. the dietary cholesterol that we eat does not affect your blood cholesterol lipo-protein levels. that's because dietary cholesterol is bound to a bulky sidechain and it is not absorbed by your g.i. tract. the cholesterol in your body, the lipoprotein's in your body, are made by your body. 90 plus percent of the dietary cholesterol we consume goes right through you and it's not even absorbed. the irony is that people tiptoe around cholesterol in their food choices when they should be tiptoeing around altar processed foods, seed oils, highly

addictive, engineered chemicals that are added to the food supply, about a thousand of which are banned in europe and other countries but allowed in the united states. and pesticides. pesticides, if they kill pe sts, what do think they are doing to the bacteria that line the gut? it's affecting gut health. host: what do you think of some of the additives that are allowed to be in our food like high fructose corn syrup, which is a gmo additive? dr. makary: well, high fructose corn syrup has gotten demonized a lot, but it's really it's just sugar. perhaps it can be delivered in a more concentrated form. but we have to look at all of it, the entire cumulative burden of what goes down our g.i. tract. in my opinion, as a surgical oncologist and gastrointestinal surgeon, there's a reason why

the cancers that are going up are along the g.i. tract. that's because we have poisoned our food supply. so we have to look at all of. host: vincent in oklahoma. good morning, vincent. caller: good morning. i have a question for you. host: go ahead, vincent. caller: psychotropics for schizophrenia, do they work? dr. makary: psychotropics for schizophrenia. so, schizophrenia is a real mental health condition with a chemical imbalance and can be treated and treated successfully with medications. so, this is a good example of a medical condition that israel and that needs the guidance of a good psychiatrist. on the other end of the spectrum, we have psychiatric conditions that, in my opinion, represent the medicalization of ordinary life.

if a child disagrees with an adult, why do they get the diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder? if a kid cannot sit sedentary at a desk with a screwed up circadian rhythm because they are woken up to go to school at eastern time and they said under a fluorescent light -- a certain time and they said under a fluorescent light and they don't like it, that doesn't mean they have attention deficit disorder and need to be medicated. 20% of our nation's children now are on prescription medication. we have got to take a look at the bigger picture. what are we doing to children? we have a paternalism in society that says, oh, that children are being lazy or disobedient or they are on their screens too much. well, maybe we have given them screen time addiction. maybe we have poisoned their food supply. it's not that they are making bad health choices, is that we've engineered highly addictive food additives into

the food system and we have given them these food addictions. we have got to start looking at things differently. we need a fresh approach. we are going backwards in chronic diseases in the united states. we've got to start talking about our school lunch programs, not just putting every young child on ozempic. we've got to talk about treating diabetes with cooking classes sometimes, not just putting everyone on insulin. and we got to start talking by environmental exposures in our poison food supply, not just chemotherapy to treat cancer. host: cindy, austin, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to say to the doctor, it is so interesting, i just got through listening to you on the people's pharmacy, i walked through the door and here you are on c-span. so i am glad i am double dosing today. i had a question, i heard you on both programs mention hormone replacement therapy. i know you cannot speak to my

specific medical condition, obviously, because you've never met me. but in general, i have 55, i had an mri -- i am 55, i had an mri this week because i was so concerned about my mild cognitive impairment, meaning memory loss. gynecologist tells me they cannot put me on hrt. i would just like to hear your thoughts on if you had a patient who is having, you know, i will call it menopausal memory issues, does the look owner infarct or any other kind of brain incident mean it is contraindicated? and i would like to hear your answer off the air. thank you. dr. makary: it doesn't. i'm glad you brought up the topic of hormone replacement therapy for women who go through menopause. this represents the dogma that hormone therapy causes breast cancer and therefore should be avoided is probably one of the biggest screw ups in modern medicine. and it is a mistake that

continues to this day. the dogma still permeates society and our medical field. 80% of doctors still believe that it causes breast cancer, even though the claim that it causes breast cancer announced 22 years ago was not supported by the study that was released shortly after that claim was made. basically, 22 years ago, a doctor from the nih had announced at the national press club that he had just completed a study with researchers from stanford and harvard in that study was the largest ever done in the history of medicine, a $1 billion taxpayer-funded study to evaluate the role of hormone replacement therapy. he said we and the study because we found that it causes breast cancer. he did not release the data. i go through all these details in my book "blind spots." and then about a week later, the data are made public and some

doctors noticed there is statistically significant increase in breast-cancer and the actual broad data -- in the actual broad data. some doctors tried to object but they could not fight this strong current, a bandwagon effect, the groupthink that was ignited by both the announcement by doctors from prominent institutions and a media that ran with the headlines. the doctor was put on the cover of time magazine, media headlines declared that hormone therapy was no longer a miracle drug, it was now a carcinogen. women fluster their pills down the toilet. it is one of the greatest tragedies of modern medicine. because as i show in the book, there was no -- never scientific support that increases the risk of breast cancer. i interviewed the doctor. i had a long conversation i described in the book "blind spots" and he acknowledged to me that it did not increase breast

cancer mortality. to this day, 50 million women have been denied the amazing health outcomes of hormone replacement therapy and the benefits because of this dogma. and just to give you a sense as to how significant the benefits are of replacing your body's estrogen with estrogen around the time of menopause, women live on average 3.5 years longer, their blood levels are more healthy, nitric oxide levels increase, so the vessel wall is more dilated. their rate of cognitive decline goes down by 50% to 60%. the risk of alzheimer's is reduced by 35% in one study. their rate of fatal heart attacks goes down -- the rate of fatal heart attacks goes down in half. and if a woman falls, she will have stronger bones if she's on

hormone replacement therapy, reducing the risk of fractures, including hip fractures. the health benefits are overwhelming. let me be really clear, there's probably no medication in the modern era, with the exception of antibiotics, that has had a bigger impact on health outcomes of a population or has the potential to have a bigger positive benefit on the health outcomes of a population than hormone replacement therapy started within 10 years of menopause. host: this question coming via text message from vanessa in maryland. she says good morning. what the guest speak to all the advice women receive whilst pregnant? there was a long list of things i was told not to eat. dr. makary: i have a chapter in the book on childbirth and how we welcome babies into this world. and you will hear a lot of different things. of course, it's important to get your advice from a good health professional. but in general, eating good

whole foods, foods that are organic and do not contain pesticides, avoiding ultra processed foods, eating good foods that you get from good soil that are cooked, as opposed to processed foods that are packaged with a long list of ingredients. it's important to stay well-nourished. and then, when it comes time for the delivery of the baby, mothers can design a list of goals that they would like to achieve with their health professional. a sort of delivery plan. and best practices for a delivery plan now include delayed cord-cramping. when i was a med student, we cut the umbilical cord the second we could see it. now we are recognizing the benefits of that blood flowing for minutes after that babies delivered. it is pumping stem cells and

fetal hemoglobin, which has high oxygen binding properties, and nutrients and antibodies, and it keeps the baby warm. the mother should hold the baby for hours, what we call skin to skin time, or kangaroo time. some birthing centers are now saying we are going to recommend best practices with delayed cord-cramping, maximizing skin to skin time, as long as the mom can safely hold the baby. research shows that babies have a more normal blood pressure and heart rate. interestingly, a more normal glucose level when the mom holds the baby for a prolonged time after birth. why is there baby's glucose more normal? their stress hormones are not spiking as often and that changes the glucose of a baby. there's something magical about bonding. part of these best practices include not washing the baby in the first day. the baby has bacteria from the birth canal from a small protein

sort of film that covers the baby that is a bit of a thermal coat. and it is important for a baby's microbe item development to be best friend -- microbe item developed -- microbe biome development to be breast-fed. breast-feeding is better for a baby's health and microbe biome. host: we have just about 20 men slept with dr. marty makary. cynthia in pennsylvania is on the medical professional line. good morning. caller: good morning. my name is cynthia. i am a pharmacist. allah like you to address the increased use of -- i would like you to address the increased use of -- by driving

levels below 70 milligrams. and also the use of drugs to build bone in women with osteoporosis. thank you and i will take this off-line. dr. makary: thank you, cynthia. so, a woman can take all the calcium and vitamin d in the world, but if she does not have estrogen in the postmenopausal period of life, it will not matter, it will not improve bone strength. that's why it's important for women to know the truth about hormone replacement therapy. the vast majority of women are great candidates after menopause, provided they started within several years after the onset of menopause. on statins, there was in interesting study that showed a survival benefit among people who took stands, regardless if they had height level proteins or low level proteins that is cholesterol high -- high lipoprotein's or low level level proteins, that is cholesterol.

another little-known effective stands. on the broader picture, we can keep throwing medications at our struck -- chronic disease epidemic in the united states but at some point we have to deal with the root causes of diseases. and when we have a poisoned food supply and all these ultra processed foods and chemicals that go down in our g.i. tract, our g.i. tract is responding with an inflammatory response to these foods. it is not an acute inflammatory storm, it is a low-grade, chronic inflammation that disseminates throughout the body. the inflammatory response results in an inflammatory state and that affects the blood vessel of the heart, known as the coronary artery, and it is inflammation of the coronary artery wall that enables the dense lipoprotein so particles to deposit, forming a plaque. we can keep throwing medications

at all of these diseases. or we can address the root problem, the root cause behind so many of these conditions. and just as a side note on our american medical system, we have the most overmedicated and sickest population in the world. and in my opinion, we have done a terrible thing to doctors in the united states. we have told doctors to put your head down, focus on billing and coding and seeing patients in short visits, and we are going to measure you by your throughput. and that is a terrible way to treat doctors in the united states. we have not given them the time or resources to address the root causes of so many of the chronic diseases we have. and as a result, we have developed these massive blind spots of this chronic disease expansion in the united states. pharma has a big stronghold on the research enterprise in american medicine. and the nih has not been

interested in these topics. they have been not funding research on food as medicine and toxins that potentially could cause cancer and ultra processed foods. instead, they have been funding projects like bat coronavirus research in wuhan, china which they were funding prior to the covid pandemic. so we need good research and we need to change the delivery model of care so doctors can spend time addressing the root causes of chronic diseases. host: kathy in texas. good morning, kathy. caller: dr. makary, i love you. i've listened to you for years. you are fantastic. my question is, it seems that almost every menopausal, premenopausal woman that i talked to, including myself, cannot sleep through the night, has severe sleep problems. is that a blind spot that no one is addressing? because i don't hear anybody talking about it. dr. makary: yes, it is.

so, when the medical establishment had a hormone therapy for menopause 22 years ago, it was generally considered that, why do we need to teach menopause in medical school? there's nothing you can do for it. and it was so tragic because women, the old dogma by the old men that taught medical school curriculums or controlled them was that some go through menopause, some women had menopausal symptoms, but it's usually short and it is mild. well, that's not true. that average duration of menopausal symptoms is nearly eight years and for many women, those symptoms can be severe and menopause can have over 50 different symptomatic manifestations. including difficulty sleeping, night sweats, hot flashes, weight gain, mood changes, dryness, painful sexual activity. there are so many symptoms that we have blown off in modern

medicine. and tragically, to this day, a woman is more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant for menopausal symptoms than they are hormone replacement. people need to know the truth about hormone replacement therapy. the dogma that it increases breast-cancer mortality was never supported by scientific studies. and the back story of how that dogma got propagated was a fast minster to report on in the book "blind spots." a group of doctors had told this individual who made the announcement from the nih you can't put this out there without scientific support. you cannot say hormone therapy causes breast-cancer. you will create so much fear. and with something as sensitive as breast-cancer, you will never be able to undo it, and is not supported by the scientific literature. and tragically, the nih doctor ignored those scientists and colleagues of his and went ahead

and made this claim. host: i want to ask you about something as you talk about in your book and that is reporting on studies and being objective. the quote, "just because there is a study to support an idea does not mean the study was designed properly, conducted ethically, or reported accurately. when i hear people making medical claims, often take a closer look at the underlying study used to support them. sometimes, it's strong or at least intriguing. but other times, the study provides zero report further claims. one of my greatest concerns is that today's health and medical experts and certainly media have lost the ability to critically appraise research quality. if a shoddy study already supports what people believe, it's hailed as definitive signs. if a strong study conflicts with a foregone conclusion, it is ignored or nitpicked." there's always these new studies coming out and not a lot of information is usually rep organ on when it comes to the news.

so, how should individuals and media approach these new studies when research is reported on? dr. makary: thank you for that question. i tickets important for people to understand the general concepts of what makes a good study and what makes a flawed study. if you simply survey people or if you ignore other factors that may also play into the results, then the study should be suspect. and that's why people need to be, ask good questions when it comes to a study suggesting that alcohol is good for you. for example, if there ever was any benefit to alcohol to the heart, which i don't believe the data supports, it would be far outweighed by the damage to the liver. we talk about opioids and fentanyl, but alcohol kills more americans than opioids or fentanyl, 160 plus thousand

americans die each year. it's been in the blind spots of modern medicine. the old argument that we cannot go back to prohibition has really silenced any public-health conversations about alcohol abuse. should we really be actively promoting alcohol abuse, overuse of alcohol, as we do to college students? this is one of the big issues in health care that we don't talk about that we need to talk about. in the book at the end, i go through a long list of things where, you know, if we have gotten so many things wrong in the last 10, to years, what are we doing now that's in one of our blind spots? host: dalene in new hampshire, she is a medical professional. good morning. are you there? good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: hi, dr. makary.

i am wondering if the hormone replacement, does it cause blood clots? dr. makary: yeah, good question. if a woman starts hormone replacement therapy more than 10 years after the onset of menopause, which they should not do, then there is an increased risk of cardiovascular events. that's because going 10 years without estrogen will result in a narrowing and hardening of the blood vessels, increasing one's risk of blood clots having a consequence. it is not recommended for those who have a history of blood clots or are prone to blood clots. it's not recommended for thosew. and some doctors for people who don't do well with hormone

therapy may recommend a different form instead of an oral form. host: let's hear from cy in plainview, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. i had a question about the origins of the covid virus. the world health organization and other groups maintain that it did not come from a lab. china destroyed the original samples is my understanding. they also jailed physicians who blew the whistle on covid. i know probably it didn't come from the pangolin, as they originally claimed. because when they destroyed the samples and not let the world see the dna sequence. my understanding is that this sequence could not have come

by chance are mutations. also, even if it didn't come from the lab, they knew that it was highly contagious and they allowed people from wuhan to get on planes and go all over the world. they killed millions of people, i'm talking about the chinese calmness party. dr. makary: i do think the circumstantial evidence that covid originated in a lab is overwhelming. the epicenter is five miles from the lab. they did silenced the doctors, they've been imprisoning some. and they've had a massive cover-up and did not release the original data. i think the greatest piece of evidence is that the little hand institute of virology had submitted a grant to the united states government in 2018, 2 years before the pandemic, where

they detailed an experiment they wanted to do where they would take a bat coronavirus and insert a cleavage site to enable it to infect human cells. that was basically the cookbook for how to create covid-19. the united states did not find that grant but we did find the lab for other research that find the lab for -- fund the lab for other research. if they said they wanted to do it, why do we think they did not do it? dr. fauci's colleagues, who were virology experts, told him in a january 2020 conference call in notes obtained through a foia request that they believe it came through a lab, they believe it looked engineered. days later, those same scientists row a powerful propaganda article saying it did not come from the lab. they changed their tune. i think it did come from the lab. it's tragic. is the greatest industrial disaster in human history,

greatest industrial accident in the history of medicine. 20 million people and an economy that is still recovering, children that have been shut out of schools, lifelong learning loss, people have lost a loved one. the human rights violation of not allowing someone to visit their dying relative in the hospital, one of the most tragic and cruel policies of the american medical establishment. all may have been avoidable had a group of scientists not been doing this experiment in a laboratory. host: let's hear from howard in washington. good morning, howard. caller: hi, doctor, thanks for being on. i wonder if you might discuss something that probably most doctors are not trained in. it has many names, it's very

complex. it is called electromagnetic radiation nonionizing radiation. also microwave sickness. and it is damaging a lot of people in the country and around the world now. and i wondered if you could add anything to that? dr. makary: one of the problems in the consumer technology space is that technology comes to market faster than we can study it in public health. this is an example of where we just don't have a lot of good information. host: we will have time for one more call. johnny in grantville, washington. good morning. caller: my question is about antidepressants and i would like to find out if the doctor thinks they are over prescribed in the country. and i have noticed that some people who have taken them that i know quite well have, they are still as depressed as ever when they are on the antidepressants and they just seem to undergo a

personality change that is not a positive one. and i would just like to get his opinion on that. dr. makary: so, antidepressants is a very complex and delicate topic. i have spoken with good psychiatrists that i trust to have been trained at johns hopkins and are busy clinically and have a lot of experience and they do say that they do benefit a subgroup of people who take it and can benefit people significantly. but they also say that they are overused. we have two problems in general in health care and overuse. but by far the overuse problem tends to dominate the marketplaces. if we could zoom out for a second, if we could stop the building coding cycle of prescribing and measuring health care by throughput and look around us. we have more people on antidepressants than ever in history and more people depressed as we prescribed more, rates of depression have gone

up. i am not suggesting the medications cause depression but we've got to deal with the root issues. perhaps we need to talk about communities and the role of social media apps on children creating anxiety and depression. studies have shown that children will say that the social media apps and their phones are making them anxious and depressed. so, one proposal that i have put out in a recent article has been to ban cell phones or smartphones from the classroom. an average kid gets 200 73 messages a day on their cell phone, according to a recent study. when they are in class, they should be focused on the teacher. host: dr. makary, you also have an op-ed that is out in today's wall street journal. and we will close with one more question for you. you end the op-ed saying unfortunately, medical dogma may be more prevalent today than in

the past because intolerance for different opinions is on the rise in medicine, as throughout society. we can enact health care reform, close health disparities and give every american goldplated health insurance, but if we continue to recklessly issue health recommendations based on an illusion of consensus instead of proper science, we will continue to struggle and waste billions. where do we go from here? dr. makary: we have a $4.5 trillion health care economy and we got to deal with the root causes. we've got to deal with good scientific standards for our recommendations and we've got to promote clinical excellence. increasingly, you're seeing doctors now go directly to the public and explain things in ways they can understand it. presenting the latest scientific research, that's what i'm trying to do in the book "blind spots" and you are seeing a lot of these efforts not to educate the public. we need a civil discourse. in the past, there was a feeling

that we should only have one position as a medical field. that's what the small group of people at the top of the medical establishment believed. but an open civil discourse among medical experts is not only important, it is how we learn. it is how we grow as a field and we should evolve our position as new information comes in. i do believe in a civil discourse and i believe in civil discourse not just in medical science but in society at large. there's a lot of agreement in america and i think if we can turn off the polarization of all of these voices in the echo chambers, we can see that we all want the same things. we want to address chronic diseases. we want to address childhood obesity. we want to address our food supply, live healthier and we want to lower the cost of health care. 40% of all federal spending goes to health care through its official direct forms and

through indirect hidden ways. we can increase spending or we can cut the waste and focus on pro radiology. . wrote. host: still ahead on washington journal. warrior call chair frank lumber kin will discuss his organization to reduce the number of veterans suicide. first more calls during our open forum. start dialing in now. the numbers are on your screen. democrats, 202 dr. 748-8,000 independence 202-748-8000.

we'll be right back. ♪. ♪. american history tv saturday on c-span, exploring people and events. watch the series historic presidential elections. exploring what may be historic pivotal issues. this week the election of 1876, despite the popular vote, republican ohio rutherford haze defeated governor samuel till done it was a contentious election that had to be decided by members of the u.s. house, senate and supreme court. 8:00 p.m. eastern on lectures and history. university of north carolina at pem brook. stiess bohemian culture in late

19th and 20th century. convention society tall constraints. and 9:00, university of arkansas his for dran randall woods on president john quincy adams sharing decades of research and first chief executive to follow his father into office. exploring the american story. watch american history tv. saturdays on c-span 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or online any time at c-span.org/history. this week on the c-span network, house and senate are in. both working to pass a funding bill before the september 30th deadline to overt a touchdown. tuesday, the ceo of november nordisk, testifies on his companies high prices of system

pick and wagovy. and tuesday, a house subcommittee on the faulty software update and thursday the task force on the attempted assassination. into the secret service security failures and reliance on state and local law enforcement. this week live on the c-span network or c-span now our free mobile video app. also, head to c-span.org for scheduling information or watch live or on demand any time. c-span your unfiltered view of government. . host: we'll start with mutual on the independent line. good morning. michael. caller: good morning. i know you're about to have someone discussing why there's such a high rate of suicide in

the military. i was drafted and i worked in the hospital in germany. a military hospital. it was a largest and busiest in all of europe at the time. the reason for suicide in the military is alcohol, drugs and refined car hydrates and i saw it again and again and again. and another point i would like to make, when you had dr. makary on. it is law in europe, canada and japan that if you're prescribed a stat tin drug, which is a toxic drug, by the way,y law you have to be prescribed coke utane at the same time. why we aren't doing that in this country is getting scary. but i thought i'd run that information by you and even at the various military and veteran hospitals in this country won't do anything about nutrition and

getting into the biochemistry what causes suicide and depression in the military. . host: and georgia on the republican line. good morning, roy. caller: i was listening until program evidence and what it did was it was talking about how the -- first of all, if the democrats are talking about something that republicans are doing, there's a good chance that's exactly what they're doing. so what they're doing now is talking about trump and all the things that trump did. he's a threat to democracy. he's going to destroy the united states. but actually, what they're trying to do is there's a word called lone wolf and they're putting that out there because they want a deranged individual to come forth and try to assassinate the president. when you look at msnbc, cbs news, abc and cnn they're

talking about threat to democracy, a threat to democracy. and that trump needs to be eliminated. and they're hoping that someone would come out of the woodwork and assassinate president trump. that's what's going on. when you look at the networks these people need to realize they're being used by the deep state, all the bureaucrats in washington, dc. obviously, the leadership of the fbi is part of it. some of the cia, liz cheney and her dad part of the deep state. trying to get rid of president trump. host: we'll hear from johnny in alabama on the democrat line. good morning, johnny. caller: do me a favor. can you the ran for president in 74 and george wallace ran for governor in 1974 and the stuff they saying back then, ain't

nothing what donald trump is doing today. thank you. host: susan in massachusetts on the republican line. good morning, susan. caller: did you hear general mill evolve the date in the document? this was a sham, trump was right. he wanted all those to go to the capitol. i know he admitted it but where is liz cheney? did you read about that >> and your laptop if you got one? the american people. trump was right again. he wanted thousands to go to the capitol. general mill comes out and says he was right. so come on, what a sham. everything is a sham in washington. other thing. kamala. show-down grades president trump. by this character. this she can get what she wants. . host: robert from maine.

. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i don't understand how the democratic party gets away with so many you know, russian hoaxes and bringing president trump in front of all these felony charges. it's just so amazing to me that nobody holds the democrats accountable for any of these actions. i firmly believe that they're behind all these assassination attempts for president trump because it's the only way to get rid of him. unfortunately. and i really am sad to see the state of our political affairs. thanks for taking my call. host: robert mentioning the assassination attempt on former president trump. today's new york times the headline secret service bites critical failures in its inquiry on trump rally. article says secret service failed to give clear and crucial

directions to its local law enforcement partners at a july campaign rally in butler, pennsylvania, allowing a would be a assassin to climb on a warehouse and shoot at former president donald trump and agency internal investigation found the laps is one of several damming findings in a summary of an internal investigation report. the secret service released friday in response to the shooting on july 13th at a trump campaign rally where the former president was grazed by an assassin's bullet. three attendees of the event were wounded, one fatally during a news briefing friday in conjunction with the release of the summary. ronald junior the acting director of the secret service ticked off several failures including complacency by some advanced team members charged with securing the site and technological breakdowns, if it better managed could have thwarted the gunman.

let's hear from rory in california on the independent line. good morning, lori. caller: hi, thank you for taking my call. i'm hoping everybody stops normalizing what trump is doing. i've never been at an event i will vote for anybody who is for all the people. trump is for himself. period. whereas. i just don't understand why anybody would -- would -- i just don't get it. i don't get it. i don't get it at all. we have to do work together and have a hope for the future and we do that with harris, not trump. host: lynn on the democratic line. good morning, lynn. caller: i was listening to the one that came on before about

the assassinating donald trump. he's the one that's been promoting hate eight years. he's the one that lied about stolen election. when you look pertains harris and harris, she's -- how can you pick up a president that's a felon? and we sit down and we've been going through this eight years. he's been lying eight years. been promoting hate eight years. the thing about it is the one that tried to kill him was a republican. it ain't just about trump. trump promotes hate. he's been doing it eight years. maybe it's time that the chickens come home to roost. maybe that's the problem. host hov marshal on nassau, tennessee on the republican line. good morning, marshal. caller: good morning, tammy. how are you doing? the last several months i've

been reaching out to democrat voters. i really want them to understand what's going on. important 16, the democratic voters want to bring bernie sanders, the dnc and the delegates and the world of people gave them hilary clinton. in 2020 they wanted bernie sanders again and got joe biden. this time, the dnc has gone against the will of the people and installed kamala harris into the campaign. this is once again against the world of people. she has done as many interviews so that people get to know her as assassination attempts on donald trump's life. two. that's it. the biggest complaint there's nobody knows about her policies.

we are less than 60 days from election. host: marshal, when you say you've been reaching out to democratic voters, how have you been doing that? >> well, unfortunately. only through c-span. but what i've been doing is showing facts about what has gone on. in the democratic party against their will. this is not something they're choosing. this is something being forced upon them. most recently, kamala harris just the other night talking about children. and she said they belong to the community. this is a straight-up communist comment. which joe biden stated when he said these children to parents, these children don't belong to you. they belong to all of us. taking the authority of the parent away from the child i just want democratic voters to

understand and look what's going on and how they're being kept blind by 98% of the news media in this country. host: marshal. and wanted to give you a couple programming notes for coverage. we are going to be having on c-span today at today our campaign 2024 coverage continues in the key battleground state of pennsylvania where democratic vice presidential nominee governor tim walz speaks to voters at a rally in allentown live at 11:00 a.m. eastern. then live at 2:00 p.m. eastern republican presidential nominee donald trump will hold a rally in wilmington, north carolina. the political report with amy walter rates north carolina as a topic with 16 electoral votes in play for the candidates. you can watch both those events live on c-span on our free mobile app, c-span or online at

c-span.org. couple minutes left. we'll hear from david in florida on the independent line. good morning, david. . caller: hi. thanks for getting my call. a man especially president of the united states got created mankind in his moral image. moral character. should mean something. does it define their own moral character by approving supporting or ignoring the trump, rape fondling and groping women and lying and cheating. and the other things he does. those -- host brenda in fort lee new jersey on the democrats line. good morning, brenda. caller: good morning, america. i'm calling in regards to i just

feel i've always been a democrat. also voted. my feeling is with kamala harris is that she's not talking or doing anything for us americans. she hasn't done anything since she took over. my vote is going to donald trump. i am not seeing any changes in her way of doing things to make it a better america. i'm so disappointed in her. she was on oprah, and she spoke nothing that made sense. the woman is not presidential. i'm giving my vote to donald trump. thank you for listening. host: one more call. susan in florida on the republican line. good morning, susan. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. i just wanted to say i'm voting

for donald trump. i am a republican. i the democrats in the last three and a half years have made a mess. them. way or no policies at all to handle it or -- or take care of it. i want every republican to go out and vote for trump. everyone. get out and vote for trump. thank you. host: that does it for our caller. one note, a correction, the rally with governor tim walz in pennsylvania is happening at 11:30, not 11:00 eastern. you can again watch that on c-span. and next on washington journal warrior call chair frank lumber kin will sit down with us and discuss his organization's efforts to reduce the number of veteran suicides. we'll be right back. ♪. ♪.

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washington journal continues. host: welcome back. we're joined now by frank larkin, the chief operating officer for troops first foundation and the chair of warrior calls. frank thank you for being with us. it's a pleasure to be here back again to talk buy warrior call, and what we hope to do on this year's effort. . host: let's talk about warrior call your organization and troops first foundation. tell us about those. larkin: troops first came about as a result of the conditions that came about of the two war zones, iraq and afghanistan where we had veterans that were returning home with pretty serious injuries. both physical and as we're learning now invisible wounds. and an effort to initially reach out to warriors that were in theater, you know, separated from their family, friends, you

know, and all the, you know, kind of convenience of home, initially by taking some pro golfers on almost like a uso type circulation tour to interact with the men and women forward. and then basketball coaches, because of the team dynamic and their experience and bringing together folks from different, you know, parts of our society to create a team developed dynamic for basketball. and that evolved into a program called proper exit where it was a unique effort to take wounded warriors back into theater and many of them at bethesda walter reed back to the area they were hurt to have that closure. often they were hurt on the

battlefield. quickly met vacced off, you know, everything, all the possessions, you know, their uniforms, anything that they had that you know, represented that symbolic, you know, part of their service was immediately stripped off of them. and they were abruptly separated from their units. and suddenly, you know, within 48 hours in some cases we're waking up in a hospital bed at walter reed. so this proper exit program you know took them back, allowed them to many times reunite with their units, reunite with caregivers, which they also needed that healing too, you know, because it's just the fleeting moment they're trying to save these lives and next thing you know, they're off to another medivac point. but that evolved into other support that we now have provided to veterans since the wars have technically ended on

paper. we still have conflicts around the world we're dealing with. but we started a program called battle buddies, which was to provide veterans with dogs. that needed them and again, it's a pretty extensive vetting process. not every veteran needs a dog or should have a dog. we created a village outside of washington that really was a step-down platform for those families separated because their loved ones were at bethesda walter reed going through in many cases you know, many be many surgeries and rehabilitation programs. it gave them an opportunity to reunite as a family, to live in a house, you know, that was you know free for their purposes for about a year. some cases, which really helped to shore up the family dynamic

in very stressful conditions when you're dealing with a loved one that has severe and disfigured and dealing with an amputation and so forth. and there's a lot of rehab. we have a warrior called ranch outside of washington where we bring folks together to decompress, we'll hold seminars and we have alliances with some critical groups that you know, i think are as passionate as we are to try to help veterans. host: and our topic until 10:00 is veteran the organization efforts to prevent veteran suicides and wanted to let our audience know throughout this segment, we'll be running on bottom of the screen some numbers if you know a veteran or somebody that needs help, the veteran crisis line, if you're listening on our radio app now, you can dial 988, press one, you can chat online at veterans crisis line.net or you can tech

838255. that information will be running -- at the bottom of the screen throughout the segment. frank, tell us about your personal connection to the issue of veterans suicide. larkin: i'm a veteran myself. i came out of the special operations community, navy special war fare operator. came out and had a career in law enforcement. retired after 22 years with the secret service. then on to the defense department to work the counter ied you mean pro advise explosive device problems for approximately eight years. which was the main weapon system. that our enemy was using against us that created all these horrible injuries that you know, we come to, you know, to learn

about. including the fatalities that we occurred in iraq, afghanistan, africa and so forth. that led me up to capitol hill where i was a senate sergeant of arms a period of time. but what really you know, put me at the front edge of this issue regarding our veterans and the consequence of their service, spatial after 20 plus years of persistent conflict was in 2017, in april, i lost my navy seal son, highly decorated special war fare operator to suicide. he like many veterans, had come home from war. you know, he had multiple heavy combat tours. started complaining about the inability to sleep, anxiety, issues with memory, balance,

vision. he you know, stopped smiling. became short tempered. you know, he was not -- his name was ryan. and you know, he wasn't the ryan that we witnessed going into the service. and again, you expect some changes in guy and gals you know, that sign up and many of them stepped up to the plate after 9/11, it was the calling that they needed to be part of the solution. now they were coming home and the consequence that service in many cases were you know, these wounds. both visible and invisible. and so you know, it was a hard loss. you know, for somebody that has spent over 40 years rescuing other people. it's a burden i carry that i couldn't rescue my own son in the end. but he gave me a mission. and i think he might be here

with us today, you know, because sometimes i'll say things. i have no idea where it comes from. only thing i can explain is these probably poking me in the back saying don't forget to say this. and you know, make this point clear. so you know, my efforts now are really to connect the troops first foundation led by our ceo rick kel is a fantastic individual. he did serve in the military himself. but he is such a patriot that it said i'm going to use my expertise in marketing and brokering relationships and so forth to be able to provide services to these warriors who really put themselves in many cases in harm's way. or just the fact that they volunteer to serve this nation. we owe it to them to take care of them. that's what troops first foundation is all about. the national warrior called

simply a grass roots effort. we're trying to make a call to somebody that served in uniform, whether it's a military warrior or a first responder, a veteran. and to make the call. take call from them. sometimes they get into bad places and reach out. and have an honest conversation. and just like we're talking now. you know, you sense that you know, there's no in a good place. let's get them connected to resources. host: we'll talk about warrior call day more. but i wanted to show the numbers from the most recent va report on veterans suicide has figures through 2021. it dropped on the chart makes it seem like a big drop but it was

about 500 in 2018. in 2020, and then has gone back up again. looks like a big jump. it's about 100. but what do those -- i'm sorry, to 6,392 in 2021. what do those numbers tell you about how veterans are dealing with the issue of lead to them committing suicide and how is warrior call addressing that? frank. great question. it is at the root what we're trying to deal with. many cases these warrior comes home and for many of the men and women it's their first real job experience. where they, you know, many cases left high school or college and now they're becoming part of this unit, this tribe.

i like to use the word tribe. that's what it is. we're all part of some tribe. if you haven't read sebastian uunger's book, the tribe, it's a short read. they build connections sometimes those connections especially when they deploy and they're in combat theaters and so forth, that connected tissue is even thicker than your own family, your own blood relatives. but when they come home from these deployments or these experiences, many times they're, they separate from their tribe or they leave the service. and that transition point is a tough one. and whether you're enlisted or officer, you know, to leave something that you know, to leave the people that you've grown close to and suddenly you find yourself out in the space where hey, i'm not sure what's going to happen next. you know, they may have planned for their exit. many cases they don't.

and you know, what we have found especially in the transition period that that you know, when they come back to society. society largely does not understand them. i think society does support our warriors, you know, folks that have served. many cases don't understand the experiences that they have gone through and also this transition back into society from the uniformed life. that creates you know, some tensions. especially if it's communicated by some of these visible and be invisible wounds they may have sustained in service. and i would say probably one of the primary issues that we're trying to draw attention to is that when they come home, you know, they -- you know, they're very often burdened with you know, in some cases they've had exposure to traumas.

so you hear about post traumatic stress, what you don't hear is moral injury. we raise our kids for the most part to value human life. respect each other. follow the rule of law. then they get deployed to parts of the world that doesn't exactly go that way. and they see things, do things and experience things that they come home with those burdens back to a society that tends to be very judgmental, and they don't feel like they can talk about their experiences. that stays inside and chews away like little pac men, part of that is how do they deal with that? and very often they feel like they're not being listened to. even when they go to seek help within the institutions that you know, whether it's inside the military or outside of the va or other places, very often we hear nobody is listening to me. this is the case with my son.

he constantly said, dad, nobody is listening to me. something is wrong with my head. and keep telling me i'm crazy. because they couldn't see it. it was an invisible wound that he had sustained through his exposure and combat and training for combat. so i think that you know, what we try to do is grab on to these veterans, educate them as to what's going on. in the first part of what we do is listen. and that's what the whole purpose of the call is. to connect to those disconnected. they get isolated and start drifting away. they get into dark places and bad things happen. and that ultimately can lead to suicide. the military suicide piece is i think a little different than what we see in other parts of our society. suicide kind of assists over all of that. but different cohorts that represent that suicide term. which has been somewhat of a barrier for getting help for a

lot of people. as a former homicide detective back in the day, i can tell you that death investigations, you know, you clearly had evidence that it was a homicide or clearly had evidence it was suicide or an unintended death due to illness or some explainable, you know, circumstance. then you had this significant or substantial gray area, where in the shadows of our consultant opioid crisis and alcohol abuse and some other things going on, you know, we lose a veteran or a first responder and we continue exactly you know, the evidence isn't there to call it one way or another but there's definitely some tell tales that there were stresses. there were conditions that you know, you suspected it could be a suicide. i will tell you that i've seen situations whereas we

investigated some of these cases or others where they didn't want to call it a suicide. because they were concerned about the impact on the family. especially now you know, a spouse who was left with, you know, kids that may be dependant on how the death investigation ranked, you know, what the end result is. and very often if it's labeled a suicide. it's a much difficult for that wife or spouse or significant other to get the support they need. host: we're talking with frank larkin, he's the chief operating officer for troop first foundation and chair of warrior call about his organization's effort to prevent veteran suicides. if you have a question or comment, you can start calling in veterans. here's a line. veterans 748-4,000, active duty

t 748-2001. and all others 202-748-8002. we already have calls waiting. we'll start with lauren and he is calling on the veterans line. good morning, lauren. caller: good morning. i'm a veteran of vietnam. 18 months now i have cancer from agent orange. and in 74 i went for psychiatric help. 86 i ended up in a long-term program within the va system. it was managed by a doctor race field, a fantastic man. he helped me pull through it. and back earlier 70's, they offered a lot of psychotropic drug programs, eventually burned veterans, i walked away from it. i will say for these guys with

long-term tours, my heart goes out to them. good luck, guys. frank: thanks for calling in. you pointed out something things like this a lot of veterans. this is not just the global war on terror period we've seen since 9/11 that vietnam or korean vets, you know, and you know, awhile ago we still had many world war ii veterans. and you know, part of coming home, it's a tough transition. and you know, to be able to get the help you need is part of the challenge. if you're not -- if our society and if our medical apparatus does not understand what's going on, it's even you know, higher bars of entry to get that help. the va you know, doing the best

job it can. you know, they -- a lot had been thrust on top of them. for all the criticism that the va has taken, i think they've made the secretary and the folks there have taken huge steps to improve conditions and make that contact with these veterans, you know, more timely and appropriate. but these are big bureaucracies and they still resist change. and so i think if you would talk to the va secretary or secretary of defense, they would tell you within my own organization, i'm still trying to pound through that clay layer that just doesn't get it. while others within the organization are working very hard to try to solve these conditions. host: what would help? what would you like to see done? what would have helped ryan? frank. first of all, if they had listened to what he was trying to tell them, unfortunately. back then, and in the conditions

still exists now, we cannot see the level of injury that he suffered in a living person. he had blast exposure. he was a combat sniper and explosive greeter in the seal teams and during the effort train forgot combat. to be in combat and to come home as an experienced warrior to train others for combat. he repeatedly was exposed to weapons systems that had these blast overpressure issues where a blast wave, an energy wave is literally just passing through the brain and carrying the circuits at the microscopic level and carrying damage and scar tissue. at a level we can't see it with our current imaging, x-rays or mris or cat scan.

they put him all through that and saw nothing. and it wasn't until after he passed that we learned that he suffered from an undiagnosed severe level of brain injury at the microscopic level that was uniquely related to blast exposure. it's different than what you hear about with our contact sports players. you hear about cte, the chronic traumatic end september lop pathy. we've seen that but what we've learned they played contact sports before coming no the military. the blast injury is a unique pattern. the cte is as a result of multiple head strikes that over time can create deposits of protein that cause these blockages in the brain. so we're learning with my son's case, they didn't know what they didn't know. and you know, i think initially, they latched on to -- he's got an alcohol problem. he's got a problem with

prescription drugs. he's not compliant or resistant. what happened many men and women experiencing these difficulties are in pain. they're all in pain. but there's physical pain. emotional pain. spiritual pain. and they're trying to deal with that. alcohol is a quick over the counter remedy to try to numb the pain or help them get to sleep. it's not good. it really kind of masks the problem and it also impedes their ability to deal with the problem. it's our experience but alcohol is a factor. same with prescription drugs and pain killers. you know, you're fully aware that the opioid crisis that we've had in this nation. you know, created by the fact that it was a quick fix to deal with pain. unfortunately it wound up hooking our society and dragging

people down. once your brain is rewired your addiction centers are rewired. it's hard to correct the wiring. in his case. as he went to get help, they directed him to low hanging fruit. it did not work. at that point, they became frustrated. and you know, made the decision that you know, let's get rid of the problem. and then when that started to happen. he started to feel disadvantaged or dis enfranchised. he was being pushed out of the tribe. that's such a strong connection, especially in the special operations community. suddenly, you know, he found him outside the navy honorably discharged and his care transitioned from military health to the va. i will say just my final comment on this, this piece part of it

is about a year out an few weeks before he took his life, he said, you know, dad, you know, the guys are hurting. but nobody is listening to them. and he reiterated his comment something wrong with my head but they keep telling me i'm crazy. this was reenforced by the fact that almost every day we were getting new prescription in the mail. over the course of the 20 -- the two years we tried to rescue him, he was prescribed over 40 different types of medicine. everything from over the counter potions locations and cream to high trophy fixes and mood stabilize vaccers. he said dad if anything happens to me donate my brain, my body

to research and research syndrome. research relative to explosives. on that terrible day when i found him, that's what we did. and a couple months later, we got the results. he knew what he was doing that day. and he i felt you know, was going to prove something was wrong with his head in the end. he was right. all along. despite all the mental health diagnosis, all the you know, the psychiatric related treatments they pushed him towards. you know, the substance abuse you know remedies. in the end, he was hurt. he was injured. he wasn't broken. he was injured. and he was not crazy. host: let's hear from bill in illinois. also on the veterans line. good morning, bill. caller: good morning. hello, frank. my question is this. from what i've read, the number

of suicides as a percentage of higher than world war ii. number two, a lot of veterans have never been in combat. in fact, the vast majority of veterans served in capacities other than combat. i just wonder why, what common elements of the people that are committing suicides today -- why do you think this rate is higher today? than it was after world war ii? either -- what's our society or drugs? that's basically my question. frank:bill, a great question. first of all, i want to qualify that my high ground position is really going after this whole blast exposure, you know, mechanism of injury. but it's not the only reason. : we have folks challenged by

mental health conditions. that's part of it. it's not separate. interwoven into these renewable brick of challenges that many veterans and active duty warriors face. sometimes they come in to service with issues. you know, they may not have had a great you know, childhood experience. like all of us, subjected to relationship issues, financial stresses. this all plays in. i think that, you know, and then i also believe it's that basic human dynamic of how you know, how close you feel to that tribe. that connection to others. if you feel that you're not connected. again, despite the fact you're part of a unit or some type of

activity, and on the outside you don't appear to have any issues, you may very well be isolated on the inside. and that isolation is what i believe is one of the main pre cursors for some of the situations that we see suicide. i al think that social media and the current conversations that we're having within our society have impact. it's fast moving. many cases, you know, there's a lot of controversy in our society that does not help as far as you know, someone that is anywhere wrestling with issues. you know, there's no one thing. but it's an excellent question. it's one that i think that many people are still working on. depending who you talk to, if you talk to somebody within the mental health community, they've got their views. if talk to a neurologist, they

have their views. if you talk to other social workers or people working from different angles, they have different perspectives. as i said before suicide is an umbrella that sits over a number of different cohorts that experience suicide or where we've seen suicide. obviously we see it within a lot of young people. teenagers. we see it in some elderly. these are different groups and have different variables that play into that. host:. host: david in dallas on the veterans line. good morning. david. caller: thank you for taking my call. sir, i'm listening to you and i was in the 4th infantry division in colorado. we were part of desert shield way back when. and i got out of the military.

i've been battling with drugs and alcohol the vast majority of my life. i'm 60 now. i have attempted suicide multiple times. and it's only by god's grace that eventually i found the right doctor. found someone i could trust. but the problem with that is the doctors keep rotating in and out of the va. it's hard to find. you can have a constant relationship with. it was my experience, i found it hard to trust people. being in the military from the time that i was 18 years old, i was in the tribe mentality as you so eloquently stated. at that point, i have friends drinking, partying, the comradery, you got me, we would curse more than the average person in civilian life. and the work environment in the

military is highly contrasting to that of an office environment or hanging out in a factory. the military is a totally different environment. and we got along. we had each other's back. and when i got out of the military, i was just, i was lost. it's like you said. alcohol was my medicine. i felt like that fit in. even got into illegal drugs but by god's grace and help of the va, i'm clean ten years now. my life starting to come together. i'm 100% service connected that the va did save my life. frank: the va gets a lot of criticism at times i've been one of the critics. and recognized as i try to navigate the va bureaucracy with my own son, it was difficult. but we met some wonderful folks, dedicated men and women trying

to help our veteran population. and as david, you know, explained, it's so important you connect with the right person. and sometimes it's not always, you know, a good fit. and that's ok. and if that's the case, then you know, i encourage the veterans that are listening now and their families to you know, just politely call that out. i just don't think we're connecting. i would like to try another clinician or provider. i just, you know, i'm not where i need to be as far as talking about my issues. david found somebody got help. and now, you know, you heard his own words, he's doing much better. a lot of us have the solutions within us. but we need help to get there.

especially when we're under stress and you know, our radar screens cultured with a whole bunch of moving objects it's hard to navigate through that chaos. that's where the professional help comes in. that's where the tribe holds you accountable and that's where you know, family and friends and staying connected with these folks is so important. host: we have another david also from texas. also a veteran. good morning, david. caller: good morning. am i on? host: go ahead, david. caller: mr. larkin, thank you we need individuals like you. frank: please call me frank. when you call me mr., makes me feel older. please call me frank. caller: i'll call brother. frank: better. caller: i did 19 years from 74

to 94. got out in 94 and thought i could handle it. and i find it going down and sought help. and your callers are exactly right. and you are right. i fell nobody was listening. but i found a good team around me. it took me awhile. you're absolutely right. if you're not content as a veteran, keep on working on it. sooner or later you'll find somebody that will listen to you. and they were fantastic, they saved me. i told them any had nightmares every night. submarines finally caught up to me. and i consider this every veteran that joins the military, combat-related. i don't care what military. you served your country underneath the uniform code of military justice is totally different from civilian life. people have to understand that. and it's important for other veterans to seek other veterans

help. get your support groups, you know, get off the couch. put the bottle down. and go out and get help and don't get discouraged. the reason why 22 commit suicides every day you're absolutely correct. they feel nobody is listening to them. get a good support group. in fact, i seen my pt s counselor this thursday. i see my wellness center at least once a month. i keep in touch on track with them. they've supported me. kicked off the medication they've given me. i've been told i'll handle this on my own now. and it's been working i'm now 100% disability now that i'm 69. it's working. i still got a long way to go. but thank you brother frank. we really need individuals like you. frank: brother, david, thank you, you're not alone. we need you part of the team, connecting with other veterans. and you're exactly right.

you know, just not about combat. it's about service. and even into the first responder community we still see a lot of the same issues just because of the stress and unique nature of the operating environment. and for our veterans and our active duty. how could you not have, again, as i said earlier, some consequenceo your service. it's not weakness. you've stepped forward, you know, and to ask for help is actually strength. we're trying to keep you in the game, trying to keep you part of the tribe. there are other folks out there that want to wrap their arms around you, keep you connected. and they're not forgotten. i think as much as fast pace as our society is distracted as we are, people are grateful for the men and women that served both as military and first responders have done for this country.

host: one more call in. tom from california. also a veteran. good morning, tom. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. first of all, frank, thank you for everything you're doing. i guess i represent the dying breed. i'm a vietnam vet. and i guess a lot of people don't understand about what we went through. not only went through combat and being there but the time that we were there to came home was a short span of time. you're talking about -- some people i served with they were in a fire fight. they get orders. 24 hours later, they're landing at air force speed. no time to acclimate themselves back to civilian life. plus what was going on here at

home, the even war protests, basically fighting with the government. and basically that's the reason a lot of vietnam veterans good commit suicide. overdose on drugs became alcoholics. there wasn't the group, you know, that there is now within the veterans administration. didn't listen. all i can say is that thank you for all the hard work you're doing for the next generation of veterans. frank: you're spot on. each one of these conflicts had their own challenges and unfortunately in vietnam, you came back to a nation that didn't exactly recognize the sacrifices that were made during that conflict. hopefully we're in a better place now. you know, we've got, you know,

both government and nongovernment organizations, associations that are trying to fill the gaps and cover down on responsibility that we have to take care of those that have served. host: frank larkin, warrior culture, thank you so much for being with us. frank: november 17th make a call, take call. have an honest conversation and connect to somebody that may be disconnected. host: that does it for today's washington. . we'll be back tomorrow at comp a.m. with another show. enjoy your saturday. ♪. ♪.