your thoughts. we will be back tomorrow morning with another edition of "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m. eastern. have a great day. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024]

♪ host: good morning. sunday, september 29, 2024. tensions continue to rise in the middle east following israel's latest strike in lebanon, which israel says killed hezbollah's longtime leader, and ukrainian president of autumn is a lenski met with both of the presidential leading candidates as the war against russia grinds on. our question this morning, which of the presidential candidates do you trust more on foreign policy?

for harris, (202) 748-8000. if you trust trump more, (202) 748-8001. if it is neither of them, (202) 748-8002. and if you are not sure, (202) 748-8003. that is also the number which you can text us if you would like to reach us that way. just please be sure to include your name and where you are writing in from. if you would like to connect with us on social media, that is facebook.com/c-span, and we are also on x @cspanwj. now there is some recent polling on what americans in general think about where the candidates stand on the issues of foreign policy. here is a headline from thehill.com. harris leads on foreign policy nationally but trump has an edge in swing states according to a poll. vice president harris leads former president trump nationally on the question of whether the presidential candidates would "pursue a foreign policy which benefits people like you," but trails him

on the same question in swing states according to a poll from the institute for global affairs. now, some details of that polling. voters nationwide see harris as better able to strongly defend u.s. interests, and that is 52% for harris compared to 48% for trump, but trump leads 56% to 44% in that category among voters in arizona, georgia, michigan, nevada, pennsylvania, and wisconsin. that gap is wider in favor of trump in swing states on the question of, who is more likely to end the wars in gaza and ukraine? but a 52% to 48% margin. swing state voters see trump as more likely to respond effectively if china makes a move on taiwan. i mentioned at the beginning the

ongoing conflict in the middle east. here is an article in the new york times this morning about the strike. hezbollah chief confirmed dead in israeli strike. his killing sets up a new course in lebanon and steps up pressure on iran. hezbollah, the lebanese militia, on saturday confirmed the death of hassan this roll up, it's non-time leader, -- it's longtime leader, which could shake up the regional order. a little further down in the article, while fiercely condemning the attack, iran's clear have not taken any direct steps in retaliation, nor have they punished israel for the killing last month of the hamas leader in tehran. that strike put the future of cease-fire negotiations between israel and hezbollah come along considered a terrorist organization by the united states and others, in doubt. up to the day of the bombing,

the biden administration and other mediators attempted a diplomat in agreement to resolve the 11 month battle between the two sides with little success. also in foreign policy news over the past week, i mentioned ukrainian president wagner zelenskyy came to the united states and met with the presidential candidates. here is vice president harris meeting with him at the white house and emphasizing u.s. support for ukraine and criticizing those in the united states who do not. [video clip] >> president zelenskyy, i am clear he started this war and could end it tomorrow if he withdrew his troops from ukraine's sovereign territory. of course, he has demonstrated no intention of doing that. instead he continues to assault civilian infrastructure and terrorize the people of ukraine.

in june along with 90 other nations at the ukraine peace conference, i told you the united states shares your vision for the end of this war. and as based on the will of the people of ukraine and the u.n. charter. we must work with the international community to secure a just and lasting peace. i told world leaders there, nothing about the end of this war can be decided without ukraine. however, i share with you mr. president there are some in my country who would instead force ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that ukraine accept neutrality, and would require ukraine to forgo security relationships with other nations. these proposals are the same of those with putin.

and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable. so, president zelenskyy, i look forward to our discussion today, and i will continue to work with you to ensure ukraine prevails and remains a free, democratic, and independent nation. welcome back again. host: and as you can see here in this article from cnbc news, biden has announced $8 billion in military aid for ukraine. this was on thursday. u.s. president joe biden announced more than $8 billion in military assistance for ukraine on thursday to help keep repelling russian invaders using a visit by president zelenskyy to make a major commitment. the aide includes the first shipment of a precision guided

glide bomb called the joint standoff weapon with, a range of up to 81 miles. the missile gives ukraine a major upgrade to the weapons it is using to start resting forces, allowing ukrainians to do it at safe distances. and a little bit later, it says supporting ukraine, which russia invaded in february of 2022, has been a u.s. priority, biden said in a statement. former president trump also met with ukrainian president zelenskyy this past week, and that was yesterday. after that meeting, trump and president zelenskyy spoke to reporters ahead of a meeting at trump tower in new york city, and it was the first face-to-face encounter by those two leaders since 2019. here is former president trump spotting to a reporter question about his expectations about the meeting. [video clip] >> look. this is a meeting.

and we have a race going on right now. just 37 days left. and we are leading in the polls so we will see how it all works out. hopefully it will work out. but if it does, we will very much work with both parties to try to get this settled and get it worked out. and has to end. at some point, it has to end. his country has gone through hell like few countries have ever. like it has happened anywhere. nobody has seen anything like it. a terrible situation. i have to say we had a great relationship. when they did the impeachment hoax, it was a hoax, just a democrat hoax about which we won. but one of the reasons we won it so easily is when the president was asked about his phone call with the president and he said he could have grandstand it but he did not do that -- grandstanded but he did not do that.

he said president trump did not do anything wrong. he said it loud and clear, and the impeachment hoax died right there. he could have said, well, i don't know, i don't know. he was like a piece of steel. he said, president trump did nothing wrong. we had a very nice call. he congratulated me on the victory. just won. i remember that. i remember that. he could have played cute and did not play cute so i appreciate that. so we have a very good relationship. and i also have a very good relationship as you know with president putin. if we win, i think we will get it resolved very quickly. i really think we will. it takes two to tango, you know. we will have a good meeting today. i think the fact that we are even together today is a very

good sign. hopefully we will have a very good victory because of the other side wins, i don't think you will will have you will with anything. we will sit down and discuss it. if we have a wind come along before january 20, before i would take the presidency january 20, long before that we can work out something that is good for both sides. it is time. the president knows that too. he wants to get something done. so we are looking forward to having the meeting. i look forward to be with him. host: and that meeting was actually friday, not yesterday. looking back, i just want to remind folks we have special phone lines for this segment. if you think -- the question of who do you trust more on foreign policy. if you think that is vice president kamala harris, (202) 748-8000. if you think it is former

president donald trump, (202) 748-8001. if you think it is neither of them, (202) 748-8002. and if you are not sure, (202) 748-8003. before we get to your calls, a little more data on what americans in general think about this issue. this is from the pew research center. what are americans top foreign policy priorities? if you look down at that chart, those top foreign policy goals include taking measures to prevent the u.s. from terrorist attacks, reducing the flow of illegal drugs into our country, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, maintaining u.s. military advantage over all other countries. and that is also if you go down a little bit more, reducing the spread of infectious diseases at 52%. but by far in the pew polling, protecting u.s. from terrorist attacks ranks number one.

now let's hear from you all on this question of about which candidate do you trust on foreign policy? joe thinks it is vice president harris. good morning, joe. caller: right, yes, definitely, 100%. trump absolutely had the worst economy that i ever lived through. he did not do anything. he lived off of obama's economy, and then he tries to claim gas prices for his inept handling, derelict handling of covid-19. the man is a liar. all he does is lie and repeat. his followers repeat, and that the media repeats. all it ever is is a lie. his whole campaign is nothing but a lie. host: on foreign policy specifically? looks like we have lost joe. all right, frank in new york, who believes it is neither. good morning, frank. caller: yes, good morning.

ok, so throughout my life -- i am 66, so i have been through the cold war, watched upper government built up its military into one of the most powerful, and we fought wars in vietnam, defendant democracy against communism. and now out of nowhere, we have decided, some of us have decided to befriend putin, which makes no sense to me other than folks are following some sort of cult leadership. i think it is just that simple. i don't trust trump at all. he has no discipline. you can tell based on how he speaks, he has a poor way of speaking. i am not great either, but he is a president. you can tell he is not a reader. he clearly says he knows anything and can fix everything on his own.

that is a dangerous person to choose as your leader. somebody who will not listen to advisors and thinks he already has the answers. that is scary. that is scary. on the other hand, harris and the democrats, they have literally been in bed -- not literally, but they have been working with corporations. the military industrial complex and war as a possible thing with investors and defense contractors, etc. so it is very complicated. i don't think either one of the candidates is that equipped to deal with what is going on. that is scary, very scary. also, one last thing. i don't think the media is very helpful either because the media, it tends to be biased, whatever. they admit things they are admitting. for example, what is happening in the middle east.

israel absolutely has the right to defend itself, but they also do not have a right to build settlements in the west bank, which they are doing and they have been doing. this has been rubbing people the wrong way so let's report that. from time to time anyway. host: ok, thank you, frank. we have a similar comment about how complicated this is from cebook from scott, who says this question is tricky. depending on who the next esident chooses as secretary of state is vital in the role. it goes without saying the next cretary of state needs extremely strong diplomacy skills because of what is happening in the world today. next up, we have frank in texas, who believes trump is better on foreign policy. good morning, frank. caller: yes, ma'am. i would just like to say down

here we are a lot of christians around here. i mean, i have a lot of really close african-american friends. they are really christians. i mean, really wonderful people. they see kamala harris for what she is. she is just a fraud. she wants open borders. it is what she has done for the last four years almost. the last four years, open borders. she is also anti-semitic. only when her polls and her election decided her and biden was going to lose the election, now she says she wants a border wall. she has always been anti-semitic. host: so -- caller: now she says she wants to back israel. host: i am curious why you think

vice president harris is anti-semitic given that her husband is jewish. caller: well, because here a while back, there is a lot of jewish people that are kind of lost too. she's -- you can be with a jewish person. some jewish people are actually backing up the palestinian killers. host: ok. dave is in idaho and believes that harris is better on foreign policy. good morning, dave. caller: good morning. i strongly support candidate harris on having a foreign policy will be developed. there is a big roundtable of military personnel and geopolitical people that understand the importance of

fighting for the democracy of ukraine. being a member of nato, we have a strong field of support and there also. vice president harris is not going to ignore that. sure, she will need some help. but she is a very intelligent woman based on her lifelong career in law enforcement and then as a senator and then as vice president. you don't reach those levels just because it is a good appointment. you reach those levels based on your experience and your mental strength. she understands that foreign policy is going to be a priority. and i have no doubt that she will put a team around her that will be good advisors. not leftovers from any other

administration. some, yes. but mostly people that are going to be forward thinking, which is a big part of her planning at this stage anyway. so i can't imagine ex-president trump having anything to do on foreign policy that would benefit the ukraine, nato, or the united states simply because of his support for the demagoguery, the leaders of russia, iran, north korea, china. those are his friends. and the only reason he wants to get in good with them is to get support for him being an autocratic dictator. host: dave, i think we got your idea.

similar sentiments from steven in gladstone, michigan. kamala harri will be much better on foren licy. she would not leave our allies to be slaughtered like trump did to the kurdish troops in syria. and then scott alsoays, that is easy. presidentrump, his foreign-policy was a master ass on how to deal with adversaries and allies and four years of comparatively relative peace showed versus the absolutely abysmal failures of the biden, kamala administration. patrick is in florida and is not sure. good morning, patrick. caller: thanks for taking my call. foreign policy, i don't get what that is. because, one, foreign policy, every country in north america and central america and south america should be a rule of law,

free-market, freely elected. canada and america fits that mode? one thing c-span really ought to look into, the usa screwed around in southeast asia. we got the south asia heroin epidemic. it was so bad, form signed social security into disability for opium uses. screwed around in southeast asia, got the cocaine epidemic. screwed around in afghanistan. got the heroin epidemic. speaking of open borders, as far as i know, california completely sealed in their border with mexico by the early 1990's. i lived five plenty of illegals come into florida. not one foot offense have ever been built in florida. no drilling off the coast of florida either.

that is good for our foreign policy. host: ok. caller: thanks for taking my call. host: in columbus, ohio, our caller believes trump is better on foreign policy. caller: hi, good morning. thank you so much for taking my call. everyone knows how our economy is directly connected to immigration, and it is very clear to me and it should be clear to everyone else too that the economy was clearly so much better under the trump administration. inflation was down to 1.4%. in the trump administration. gas was $2.39. mortgage rates, 2.8%. average weight was $1419. but under kamala, inflation was

up 1.9%. gas, $5.02. under kamala, mortgage rate, 8%. the average rent, $1739. huge difference. donald trump enters the white house with the goal of reducing illegal immigration. he was largely wildly successful in reducing immigration. the trump administration reduced the number of people aboard by at least 418,000 to 453 and the number of nonimmigrant cases in the first term through november was at a much reduced rate than what it is now, especially in the united states. i mean, i believe we are having the worst immigration in a really long time. and the numbers are much worse

than what is being reported and what is being said right now. all of these other countries are dumping their criminals into the united states. host: it sounds like we are losing you. so let's go ahead and go to the next caller. jason is in st. cloud, minnesota, and believes harris is better on foreign policy. good morning, jason. caller: good morning, kimberly. good morning, america. i happen watching c-span since the 1990's and calling since the 2000. quite a change in the last eight years. no doubt my mind harris will be better than trump. trump is a convict and a joke and leaders across the world know that. there is one set of america that knows he is a convict. there is another side that doesn't. across the world, they know he is a convict and it will be an easy thing to play him on. he said the other day, you don't like me, i don't like you. you can't have that on a world

stage. the world stage is a big place. you cannot put that out there. you will get nowhere. you need empathy. you need empathy when you are dealing with anybody, especially foreign countries. and trump has none of that. it is all about him. he is a great projector. he is a great name color. he does all of these things, and that does not make for good foreign leadership. he is in putin's pocket over nato. over nato. i think he doesn't understand the last time nato alliance came into effect to help anybody was us after 9/11. and again, we are talking about low iq individuals. donald trump, why did you seal your school records? stable geniuses do not seal their school records. there is august a lot of d's and f's and this guy's life and he is a failed man. you need empathy when you are dealing with foreign leaders. host: i think we got your idea,

jason. let's hear from jeff in nashville tennessee, who believes trump is better on foreign policy. good morning, jeff. caller: i just want to say president bush was the last border kerfuffle. i was reading john adams and thomas jefferson, route 1816 -- around 1816. host: can you talk about the present day ny trump in particular is better on foreign policy than harris? caller: i quote thomas jefferson, the leader of the democratic party, the founder of it. host: it is a little hard to understand you, so we will go ahead and move on to cutler in new hampshire, who believes that harris is better on foreign policy. good morning, cutler. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call.

this is a no-brainer. x president trump epitomizes our and mice -- our enemies. putin, china, and that is not a good strategy to go with. he is not a thinking man. he does not think things out. he does not read. he is not informed. to be a president, you have to be well-informed. and you have to understand how our government works. he does not seem to have that ability. i think harris is well educated. she is a uniter, not a divider. listen to her speak. just wonderful. the difference in listening to her and listening to ex president trump is amazing.

he says nothing but that he is nothing --he is about nothing but hate and discontent and she is about uniting and love. host: we have john in ohio who believes trump is better on foreign policy. good morning, john. caller: hi. i think the whole russia, ukraine incident was instigated when biden had the pipeline blow up going to russia. at that point, that put russia gas flow in a negative aspect. at that point, they attacked ukraine to get there oil wells. so biden pushed russia into this war. trump will have to acknowledge this and actually help russia complete the pipeline. that would create a instant peace in that area. host: next up is patrick in new

hampshire, who is not sure. good morning, patrick. caller: hello. thanks for taking my call. so, who is in the administration right now? host: go ahead, sorry. go ahead. caller: so kamala harris has been in power for four years. four years ago when she came into office, there was no wars going on. correct? so foreign policy is what is going on on foreign soil. and what is going on on foreign soil right now is israel is at war with iran. the united states, kamala harris has done nothing to stop iran, to try to stop iran. that is the whole problem with that situation of the war in israel. like, she wants to stop that. have hamas be the winner.

why does she not help the united states get the hostages held in gaza? what are they not back in the united states right now? there are overthere's over fivee who have in there since last october. that foreign policy people, donald trump would never have allowed our citizens to be left in gaza. do you know what it is like in gaza, in a basement for 10, 12 months, knowing you are probably going to die at the end of this? host: you called in on our line for folks not sure who would be better on foreign policy, but it sounds like you are leaning that trump might be better on foreign policy than harris? caller: it's just so confusing on what side we are supposed to be on. it is totally backwards, it seems like. we should be helping our ally, israel, correct? it sounds like we are pushing to set --

they just took out 45 hezbollah leaders that had led on their hands from the beirut bombings in the 1980's, you know what i am saying? host: you mentioned support for u.s. allies and i want to bring in information from the chicago council on global affairs, which has research they just put out on how americans see our security alliances. for the most part, americans see security alliances as beneficial to the united states. 64% say alliancher benefit the u.s. and its allies, then 51% sai mostly benefit the u.s., 13%. publicans are more divided on this issue than democrats, with 39% saying alliances mostly benefit u.s. allie versus 45%, o think alliances benefit the u.s. and its allies.

so if we look down here on this with more information on that, you can see the distribution of how that plays out, americans views on u.s. security alliances , mostly benefits the united states, 13% overall, 10% republican, 16% democrat, 13% independent. mostly benefit our allies as opposed to the united states, 28 percent overall, 39% on republicans, 19% for democrats, 26% independents. but a majority people seem to believe that alliances benefit both parties, 51% there, but fewer on the republican side overall compared to democrats let's get back to your calls. joyce in birmingham, alabama believes harris is better on foreign policy. caller: absolutely. i just can't get out of my mind,

remembering the early part of mr. trump's administration, that he was on the national world stage and stood with putin. he was our president. no question for me, absolutely kamala harris. host: thank you. gordon in michigan and believes trump is better on foreign policy. good morning. caller: hello. host: hi there. caller: hi. yes, you know, what all of us need to do is just try to get along with other countries, too. it was great to have nice, cheap gas -- now i'm in my mid-70's and i remember gas when it was $.19 a gallon, and our oil reserves were full. then we got into obama, and he

depleted or almost depleted our oil reserves. trump build it back up. -- built it back up. and biden just destroyed it again. what if we did have to go to war? we'd have to have a nuclear war, because we would not have money to make troops, get troops from one place to another, sail our ships. i think trump is a whole lot better on foreign policy. it's better to get along and try to work it out then boycott this, boycott that, and all the other things the government's been doing. i really think trump is the

best. host: ok. once again, our question this hour, which candidate you tru the most on foreign policy? if you think it is harris, (202) 748-8000. trump, (202) 748-8001. neither, (202) 748-8002 . and if you are not sure, (202) 748003. let's go now to john in myrtle beach, south carolina, who thinks harris is better on foreign policy. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you, c-span. harris, hands down. there is a lot more common sense there. people can't see the crapshoot that trump gave us. they don't want to give obama the credit for what he got going, then trump picked it up and turned it into a turdfest.

that's the bottom line. harris is going to be common sense, she is going to beat the people, she is going to be for the other countries, for all of us to get along and get this right. but we cannot control what other countries do. we are not the one who stops what they do. that is what a lot of people do not understand. we are to help israel take care of their problems. we are not the ones who will go there and blow people away until it affects us. that is when we stand up. and harris will do the job that needs to be done in the united states white house, and people need to get aligned to that. a woman is getting ready to run washington. host: mike is in houston and believes trump would be better on foreign policy. good morning. caller: good morning. first of all, there is nothing common sense oriented regarding

fleeing afghanistan the way we did. that is a zero credibility issue there for kamala. i wonder what it is and who it is that informs kamala's opinions about foreign policy, or domestic policy. we have never seen a transparent , open ended questions with follow-ups with kamala harris. we are not supposed to know these things. how do we have a presidential candidate that has zero transparency about who she is, who informs her, who are the people around her that she would hire to run foreign policy? with trump, he's very strong. he expects nato to pay their fair share towards difference. that's critical. no previous president was doing that. he also had the middle east abraham accords in 2020, 3 peace agreements. why is that important? because he built that on

destroying isis prior to that in about six months, or three months. isis was a terrorist group. nobody in the middle east wanted them there, but they were there. he destroyed them here that tilts credit ability in the middle east. we had more peace in the middle east at that time. their oil, strategic leverage against us, was neutralized, rendered irrelevant. but now joe biden reduced the strategic oil reserves in the united states. when will those be filled up? kamala does not talk about that. she never talks about the green new deal. all these things, the pairs of courts -- where do those evaporate? how did those evaporate from kamala harris' conversation with the american people and the voter? we need to know what she intends to do with energy, because energy is 96% of the things we purchase domestically. energy is our strategic strength. it is our strategic security. if you do not have an energy

policy that the voters know about, the voters are going to suffer from ignorance. ignorance is bliss, and we owe it to ourselves to know what her policies are regarding energy supply. that is our greatest asset as a nation -- host: ok, i hear your point about the energy conversation. let's hear from al and washington, d.c., who thinks neither candidate would be good on foreign policy. go ahead. caller: yeah, i think trump's devastating. and kamala is turning quickly into the lesser of two evils -- host: al, can you turn down the volume on your tv? we are getting a bit of feedback. caller: yeah. here's what i think about that. i wasn't sold when biden stepped back. i think biden did a much better job than trump. he called him out in the

debate. and, unfortunately, he got to be perceived as old. and kamala's turning into a good candidate, and she has good ideas, and she has the democratic leadership behind her. but i don't know if i'm sold yet. and i don't think i'm alone. and then, there's the issue of what hillary went through, when she beat trump soundly. i don't know that people are ready for a woman. that's the scary part to me, and i think she would probably be better, especially when i was watching "morning joe" this morning, and they were talking about how she is making different statements on what her policy would be. i do not see either one of them as the better of the two evils.

host: ok. dennis is in memphis and believes harris would be better on foreign policy. good morning. caller: good morning. i was listening to the last caller there, and he was talking about afghanistan. i'm more than sure they know trump is the one who made that deal with the taliban. in fact, remember? he invited the taliban to camp david. he's a good fighter, he's inviting a terror group to camp david. and he's good on foreign policy? people, come on. wake up. thank you. host: ok. alfredo inil, michigan, says i trust kamala harris. donald trump would be a puppet

in the hands of his,, b -- in the hands of his comrade, vladimir putin. and joe in minnesota, definitely trump, we had no wars and we were safer. kamalaashe last in the room in the afghanistan mess. we have two wars and alliewi no respect -- foreign cotrs with no respect for the weakness of harris-biden. we read this one already pay less go back to your calls. harold is in gary, indiana and says he is not sure. caller: good morning. i think i am pretty sure, but i do not think a lot of other people are sure. but i am kind of old school. i think, first off, thanks for

having a program like this. all i can say is you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you get -- host: what is the top foreign policy issue for you that you would like these candidates take a stance on? caller: well, they got a new program called troop. i think, you want to really look into foreign affairs, you might want to talk to some foreigners. host: ok. kathy is in texas and believes trump would be better on foreign policy. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for doing this. it's awesome. america, wake up. it's time. our country has been sold out and been bought by foreign countries.

they paid joe biden billions and hunter biden billions. donald trump is the smartest president and best dealmaker america has ever had. he is honest. he talks in words can understand. harris talks out the side of her mouth and lies everything she says. if harris wants to do good, let her go back to where she came from right now and do her job. it's time she put her action where her mouth is. go back to washington, close the border, do the things she says she will do when she becomes president. it will be too late then. it's time, america. wake up. our country has gone down the tube. joe biden brought the economy down. he has lied and is behind, i

believe, the assassination attempts. if you will pay attention, the good man they want to take out. host: you mention the border. i want to bring up comments that former president trump made saturday in the battleground state of wisconsin. he was attacking vice president harris for her policies, as well as bringing up numbers from a recent i.c.e. report. [video clip] >> there is no raider act of disloyalty then to extinguish the sovereignty of your own nation right through your border. no matter what lies she tells, kamala harris can never be forgiven for her erasing our border, and she must never be allowed to become president of the united states. and, wisconsin, you can't do it.

can't do it. what she's done is a total disqualifier. what she's done -- and so much death has already taken place. and we have some people up here. and a friend of mine in particular who suffered greatly because of it. in this has already taken place, by the hundreds, but it will take place by the tens of thousands, according to explosive data just released yesterday by i.c.e. and they've never released this before. they never talk about deaths. they talk about certain things, but they never release of this kind of information. but it was so bad -- never done, but under kamala harris, more than 13,099 convicted murderers -- so these are people who have gone through the system, they're convicted, in jails for life, some are getting the death

sentence. instead of that, they have crossed our border -- they have been taken out by their countries and set free into the united states of america. so they're free to kill again. oh, they'll kill again. they're killers. these are killers at a level you have never seen. not even your great law enforcement. they got a dose of it, though, recently. jobs have -- their jobs have become a lot tougher. rumor -- remember, they said, no, these are migrants, they do not commit crimes. no, no, they make migrants look like babies. these are stone cold killers. they will walk in your kitchen and cut your throat. kamala also let in thousands convicted of rape or sexual assault. 60 2700 criminal aliens convicted of violent assault.

everything but death happened to the people. in total, she let in 425 thousand -- 425,431 people convicted of -- and these are people convicted of the worst crimes. host: a bit more information about that i.c.e report he was mentioning. here is the headline in nbc news, more than 13,000 immigrants convicted of homicide are living outside immigration detention in the u.s., i.c.e. sa id. law enforcement official said many of those migrants crossed into the u.s. under previous admission rations, and that total includes people serving u.s. prison sentences. more than 13,000 immigrants convicted of homicide, either in the united states or abroad, are living outside of immigration and customs enforcement detention. according to data i.c.e.

provided earlier. the immigrants are part of i.c.e.'s non-detainment docket, meaning the agency has some information on the immigrants and they have pending imitation cases, but they are not currently in detention either because they are not what i sort attention, they are serving time in jail or prison, or because i.c.e. cannot find them. some officials said they are not sure how many of them are incarcerated because it is not always privy to that data from state and local law enforcement. a spokesman for the department of homeland security said the data is being misinterpreted and goes back four decades, long before the biden administration. back to your calls. martin is in arlington, virginia and believes harris is better on

foreign policy. good morning. caller: morning. so i think this current administration has done a pretty good job on foreign policy. i think she would be a continuation of that. we need to have a leader who actually values our membership in nato. i don't think trump would do that. he's indicated he would pull out the first chance he gets. we need to have a strong position against russia. we need to contain china. i think a harris administration would do that. we need to be able to hold accountable israel when it comes to foreign policy, so that there isn't chaos in the middle east. and i think we made the right decision when it came to pulling out of afghanistan, and, as another caller pointed out earlier, trump set it up so that

the taliban had more leverage than they should have had. so it was bound to end up the way it did, regardless. and i don't believe that a foreign that basically adds terrorists to all the goods flowing to the u.s. are good for the u.s. consumer, and that is what trump wants to do. host: ok. next up is carrie in texas, who is not sure. good morning. caller: hi. host: go ahead. caller: the reason i say not sure is because we have people moving here thinking it is safer in texas from chicago because of the immigration problem. i don't think they realize

that's been our backdoor problem for many years. i think this country right now is in the worst shape. i cannot think that the biden administration has done anything at all except heighten our international and our own domestic issues. i think this country right now needs somebody with pants, not p anties and not diapers. host: roger is in durham, north carolina, and believes neither candidate would be better on one policy. caller: good morning. how we doing? host: good. why do you think neither one of these candidates is stressful on foreign policy? caller: -- is trustful on foreign policy? caller: first of all, think how many humans are in the united states? how is it every time republicans

run, they come up with the same human. ain't no other republican human available to run for the republican party except for this guy, with orange hair and face? it's crazy. as far as kamala harris, i guess i prefer her more, but she is a former prosecutor, so we do not know how her feelings is runnig. it's kind of tough. but why do we keep coming up with the same people? there's no other -- let's produce more humans that can be president. it's the same guy on the republican side. host: fromempstead, north respect, so she is trusted moree that other countries.

rememb trump was left at? marcel is in missouri and believes trump would be better on foreign policy. good morning. good morning, go ahead. caller: ok. i really think trump would be better. i was listening to all the callers and was kind of getting confused with what i wanted to say, but i agree with bill from texas, everything he had to say. trump did make a good visage -- a good decision when he pulled out of afghanistan, but it was botched by the biden administration, because they did not follow the rules. he was doing a great job. look how he fought against -- he was president and had people trying to get him out of being president the minute he was elected. it's like, ok, we got to figure out how to get him impeached.

they spent four years wasting our time of letting trump be president and do all the good things he could have done, getting gas prices done. the big joke now, gas prices are going down. people tell me all the time they have no control over it. i do not believe that. you know, election time comes, and gas prices go down. as soon as it is over, they go back up. everything harris is promising, flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop. she has not been able to do the job for three and half years, and she will not be able to do the job as president. she will be a puppet. we have to do with the house and senate tells us to do and what the people say, that is what we have to get behind. i'm conservative. i think abortion is destruction. it started out -- can't go into that conversation, but i think the idea kamala runs on race and gender is a mistake people make,

when they say she's a woman, the first black woman. she's biracial. we have a vice presidential candidate, he has biracial children, and he can be the first president after trial. trump is the best one to get our economy going, our gas flowing. i don't want an electric car up yet i want to be able to keep driving my gas car. the politicians go up in planes and pollute the air with millions of airplanes. are they going to get elect? they're polluting our airway, and yet they want us down here to cut it out and run electric. but it takes so much electric -- host: i think we got your point on the foreign policy slice of that. let's go to tommy in georgia, who believes harris would be better on foreign policy. good morning.

caller: good morning. i think vice president harris would be excellent for our foreign policy, because she will continue the policies that biden has laid down in foreign policy. secondly, she wouldn't appease dictators. we keep appeasing dictators, it is only a matter of time before they have us around. we need allies. we need strong allies. we need ukraine, because we need to block russia from getting the wheat and oil that ukraine has under their land. when it comes to the border, i'm glad it finally came out that it was over 10 different presidencies, including trump. they tried to always live to the american people care when it comes to the oil, yes, we're

drilling now more oil than we ever did in the history of this country. yes, that is driving prices down. we know that. host: ok. sophia in north carolina is not sure who she can trust on foreign policy. caller: hi. good morning. respect really, i wish you do not cut off that man talking about thomas jefferson. i think he was trying to connect a quote with him -- from him with foreign policy -- host: i understand. caller: ok, anyway. thank you. i don't know. it's so complicated. you have to go issue by issue. let me start with the president is commander-in-chief. so, january 6, for three hours, during our horrible election, either trump --

which disqualifies him from being commander-in-chief, or he let this horrible tragedy go on and did not do anything. also disqualifies him. i blame mitch mcconnell and the senate for not impeaching him then. afghanistan, i think both presidents should have left a military presence there, so the afghan army could hold off the taliban. of course, there were obvious mistakes biden made, costly ones, 13 soldiers and many others killed. but trump also did not fast-track the visas to help us get all the people who helped us out of afghanistan back to the united states. and they're still there. that was bad. on ukraine -- let me just quickly get through these points -- on ukraine, i am definitely for harris. i think she will fight for ukraine and their sovereignty. i think biden-harris did a great job with nato and ukraine,

but i don't know why we couldn't, and europe, give them the f-16s and long-range missiles to actually win the war. i feels like we are doing them enough so putin does not launch a nuclear missile. i know these are very complicated, but in my opinion, we are too afraid of putin. we have to give him, zelenskyy, the power to win, not just the state of long term or -- host: we are just about out of time for this segment, so i go last to mike in vermont, who believes harris would be better on foreign policy. go ahead. caller: hi. i would like people to consider, if donald trump were president right now, there probably would not be any ukraine. on the southern border, when the democrats in congress and the replicants had come up with the toughest deal they had ever put together, what happened was donald trump nixed it for his

own personal political benefit. donald trump is not a man qualified to be president in any sort of way. he is an insurrectionist. he tried to overthrow the government. the foreign leaders think of donald trump as almost a clwon - - clown. even putin called him a useful idiot. anyone considering donald trump for president really ought to make a serious reconsideration. it would be a foolish, foolish mistake for any patriotic american to vote for donald trump. thank you. host: thanks to everybody who called in this hour. coming up next, we continue our look at campaign 2024 with larry sabado, editor of the crystal ball at university of virginia's center for politics. later, author, professor, and pastor ryan burge will going us to discuss the role religion may

be playing in voters' choices this november. we'll be right back. ♪ >> he said we should not allow weapons are used in war to be allowed on american streets. i wonder, tim walz, when were you ever in war? what was this weapon you carried in war, giving you abandoned your unit before they went to iraq? >> donald trump's running mate, it jd vance, got called out for telling vicious lies about immigrants. they asked if he did not mean it, and he said, no, i admit it, i am willing to drum up stories about fear to drum up support for us. >> watch the vice presidential debate, simulcast live on c-span , as minnesota governor tim walz and ohio senator jd vance go head-to-head for the first time. coverage begins with a preview show at 8:00 p.m. eastern,

followed by the debate at new :00 -- at 9:00. the cbs news a vice presidential, simulcast alive. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. ♪ >> weekends for new book tv, featuring leading authors discovered -- discussing their latest nonfiction books. from our about books podcast, we talk about some of the nonfiction titles coming out this fall. just as ketanji brown jackson chronicles her life and career, becoming the first black woman appointed to the u.s. supreme court, with her book "lovely one."" on "after words," journalist paola ramos, author of "defectors," looks at the rise of far-right latinos. watch book tv every weekend on c-span 2. or watch anytime on booktv.org.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. we are joined now by larry sabato, the center for politics director at the university of virginia and the founder and editor of --editor-in-chief of sabato's crystal ball. caller: glad to be back. host: we last had you on the program around memorial day, about six weeks before current president biden dropped out of the race and vice president harris became the nominee. that's a big change, but what else has changed in the race since then? guest: just to dwell for a moment on the total change you discussed, because this has never happened in american history. you have an incumbent president, who had won 99% of the delegates in the party convention, who

only had to accept the nomination. no one could force him out of the race, and the delegates were pledged to him on the ballot. this is truly one for the history books, as we say. one doesn't know if it will ever be repeated. i don't know if the full story will ever come out. that is for the postelection books. the second is somehow, the democratic party, and i woke up in the 1950's, as we used to say , quoting will rogers, i belong to know a nice party, the democrats, amazingly, the democrats managed to decide kamala harris would be the replacement, and the unified amazingly quickly around her, and they have, for the most part, remained unified. there obviously are somehow sitting americans and others who are to satisfied because of the middle east policy of the biden administration, but other than that, it is markedly united.

of course, the republicans have been united around donald trump for three consecutive national conventions. host: let's talk about your crystal ball electoral college ratings. we have the map up here. what is notable about the current map. we have this swath of dark red in the middle, some typical blue on the sides, the coastlines. what trends have you seen shift since this be, monumental change in the race? guest: one thing, obviously, is a various and sundry groups that were weakening and support for biden have strengthened in support for the new democratic nominee, because kamala harris is a young. certainly, in my book, she's young. and it's beyond that. it's the fact they do not support donald trump, so of course they will support the democratic nominee, if that

nominee is acceptable and energetic and so on. kamala harris fits that bill. the observation i would make, and it has been made many time, but it is worth repeating -- here we have 43 of the american states sitting on the sidelines, watching the seven states that are going to pick -- some might say impose --a president on the rest of us for four years. we're just sitting here. maybe one or two will be surprising and go into the competitive category, but no one is betting on that now. that helps the candidates. they only have to campaign in those seven states. they do go to other states, to collect money to use to campaign in seven states. but i don't think it is healthy for the country. we have had many elections where half or more of the states were genuinely competitive that

worries me for the long-term. i do not think it is good for the american public. but it's reality. it's what we have right now. i would say has changed, in terms of the map, not very much. we've got the same map we had, pretty much, in 2020 and, for the most part, the map we had in 2016. i'd like to see the map mix it up. host: so looking at that, and you mentioned those seven states, wisconsin, michigan, -- those swing states we have heard so much about. given the way the map looks right now, which candidate do you think has the clearest path to what they need in the electoral college, 270 votes? caller: they both have clear paths, the question is, can they reach it? can they actually do it? it is difficult, at this point, to say candidate x is clearly had a candidate y. for one thing, i don't think

many of us believe the public opinion polls. we read them, they tend to agree more than disagree, but they do show, if you do believe them, they do show that we have a very close contest. and just a point or two or three in either direction, which events could push, could change the seven from one side to the other. it's unlikely we will have a 4-3 split one way or the other. michael -- my guess is it'll be five or six of the seven states moving to one side. which side? that's to be determined. not by debates, but i other events that will occur in the world domestically. host: we will take your calls for larry. democrats can call in at (202) 748-8000. republicans at (202) 748-8001. independents at (202) 748-8002.

and, a quick reminder, our text line, (202) 748-8003. larry, what are you seeing as the most important issues for voters this cycle? guest: of course, there are different issues for each side. we do not even fully agree on the issues. the republicans are obviously going to push inflation/the economy and the performance the last four years, the border, immigration and the border would be second. third would probably be a crime here though seem to be the three issues they are focusing on the most. not that there are not others. those three are the focus. for democrats, i think it is pretty obvious that abortion and reproductive rights is really number one. number two would be the future of the democratic republic, s mall "d" democratic republic,

the democracy of america. and rapidly -- maybe this should be number 1 -- donald trump, that they are focusing on trump and whether he is competent or has the right personality to govern america and to represent america in the world. you can agree or disagree on all those issues, but i think, fairly, that's what the two parties are focusing on. host: this past week, we heard from both the candidates on their economic plans and some of those proposals. we also got some new ads that relate to that this week. let's have a listen. [video clip] >> seeing all these negative ads against me, here is the deal. they're designed to terrace apart. here's the truth. my life's work has been fighting on behalf of others. that's why i became a prosecutor, district attorney, and attorney general. i took on cartels to protect our

community. everyone is tired of the petty destructive policy. let's head for a new way forward. >> their biden-omoics lead to the highest inflation in 40 years, highest gas prices ever, skyrocketing interest rates, unaffordable housing, income is down, unemployment rising, and a recession now headed our way. yet kamala harris is clueless. >> we are very proud of biden -omics. biden-omics is working. [laughter] >> i'm donald j. trump, and i approve this message. host: how are the candidates doing at tailoring their message to the issues you laid out, the are most important for voters this cycle? guest: those were two reasonable selections to represent both sides. of course, there are many others. there are commercials of various kinds, digital and television

and so on, all across the country, focused on the seven states that matter. i think it is exactly as i adjusted earlier, they are focusing on the issues that really matter to their voters. because this is less a matter of converting people. i don't think many people are going to change their minds. rather, it's enthusing people and energizing people to get out and vote, and those issues play a big part in getting people out the vote. they're not just voting for personalities, they're voting for some sort of policy, ideology, general or maybe specific ideology. it makes perfect sense. take the economy. naturally, trump and the republicans will focus on the last four years and the inflation rate, which has been incredibly high and lasted much longer than the administration projected to begin with.

the democrats are going to focus on the fact that, finally, the inflation rate is coming down. that doesn't erase the effects of inflation over the last four years, but it does suggest the future will be more positive, and you have a decline in interest rates and unemployment remains historically low. all of those things the democrats can point out. these are a clash of ideals, clash of parties. pretty pitiful. i do not think there are many surprises in the election for president, unless any candidate makes a terrible gaffe. other than that, you pretty much know what they are going to say. you do not know how they will say it, but you know the issues they will stress. host: you mentioned there is very little movement among changing peoples minds, but it is about boosting verlander turnout -- voter turnout. what are the key blocks not may

make a difference? guest: it's their coalitions. they have to make sure each part of their coalition is being satisfied by whatever the candidate is doing. sometimes, pieces of the coalition don't agree about issues like tariffs, for example. you have to balance the tariff proposals with economic proposals that the anti-tariff people would prefer. it is always a balancing act. it is difficult to do, especially at the presidential level, because you have to put out a plurality of voters. -- a plurality. you're running 51 separate campaigns in order to get the electoral votes that matter. i was in omaha this past week, during the controversy concerning that one electoral

vote. it was amazing the degree to which both parties were focused on the issues that would affect that one el toro vote -- electo ral vote. they will remain second for a while. it looked like it would be melted to the other nebraskan electoral vote. of course they'll keep the vote separate and it is likely they will vote democratic. but it was fascinating to watch, because it was a macrocosm of what the country has been discussing in pieces, depending where you are and what the political lien is. -- lean is. host: you mentioned nebraska. on your website, you mentioned the shift in some of these electoral college changes, and you mentioned nebraska's second district was a lean democratic and now is a likely democratic rating. this is unique in nebraska, because they divvy up their

electoral votes proportionally as opposed to the winner take all votes we see in most other states. how significant is this shift in nebraska? guest: well, that district, nebraska 2, has gone back and forth. maine is the other states also divvies up their electoral votes. you can argue whether that is a good method or not, but the states are allowed to do it. each state is allowed to make that particular choice, or some other choice come about allocating electoral votes. ti's part of our federal system, whether you agree or disagree is another part of the discussion. but i would say nebraska 2 has, in this race, become more democratic. as i said, it's gone back and forth. it can vote either way. but it looks very likely to vote democratic this article are you. the reason it matters, even though it is just one electoral vote, is because those of us who play around with the electoral

map naturally come up with the most interesting -- some would say obscure -- ways to get to 270. there actually are realistic ways for votes to, as 270-268. that one electoral vote is critical. it will determine whether it is 270-268 or if it's 269-269. if ti's 269-269, the election is thrown to the house of representatives. you do not have each individual having a vote, you have each state having a vote, and the members of the delegation have to decide which way that vote goes. if you have eight republicans and seven democrats in the state, resenting the state in the house of representatives, it is obvious the vote will go to the republicans. what if you have a state with six democrats and six republicans?

it is a deadlock, and it is entirely possible you have zero votes for president. i guarantee, sometime in the future, it is going to happen. host: let's get to calls. dan in mclean, virginia, on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning morning, are you there? guest: yes, right here. caller: i've been waiting for a few years to ask you this question. i'm conservative, i believe in the constitution. it's the rule of law, individual rights, and free enterprise. you have good, common sense, no matter what the situation is. the question is -- the question i have now, and i know it's close, and you do have good common sense, and i do rely on it sometimes. sometimes i'm right, sometimes you're wrong. but why is not the vice

president the president? why have they not invoked the 25th amendment? i believe in the constitution, no matter if i am right or wrong, it has to be followed. guest: yes, well this gentleman -- and thank you for your comments there. i can truthfully admit sometimes i'm right, sometimes i'm wrong, there's no question about that. but it's a good question. go back to the 25th amendment, its origins in the 1960's. of course, you may recall, older listeners and viewers will recall, that senator britt shrine from indiana, a democrat from indiana, along with many others, but he was the primary author of the 20 for the amendment. the 25th amendment came to be, basically, because of the kennedy assassination. you had entity being succeeded

by lyndon johnson, who had had a near fatal heart attack in the 1950's. there was no way to fill in the vice presidency in those days. right behind lyndon johnson, in the order of succession, was the speaker of the house, mccormick, who was i think 73 up a time, which, believe it or not, was considered old. i'm about that age, i'm not considered old. behind him was senator carl hayden of arizona, who was close to 90. people woke up and realized we need a better system of succession. so we got the procedure for filling the vice presidency, which was actually followed through on twice in the second nixon term. first, gerald ford releasing spiro agnew, the nelson rockefeller replacing gerald ford when ford became president. i think everybody is more or less happy with that part of it. the other part of the 25th amendment is how you replace a president who has problems of one sort or another. maybe they're mental or

physical. they are simply not able to function as president. i will not go through all the details, you can read it. you can go through congress or you can mix the cabinet in with the congress and reach a decision about whether that president should continue or not. the gentleman -- i would say this to the gentleman. back in the 1960's, as divided as we were -- we are always divided. americans argue about everything. but we also have a national interest varies greatly in our sights, and we can agree on objective situations that require action. that'no longer the case. we don't have much bipartisanship anymore. you have a head full of house members and senators we can all point to and say they are genuinely bipartisan, they would do the right thing for the country. but to be honest, you mainly have ideologues.

ideologues are tough to move, even when the country's interests are clearly at stake. half of the 25 amendment is inoperative. it will never be invoked because we cannot agree among ourselves. host: lester in alabama on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: yes, i have a question. my question is, when they speak about inflation, how come they d oesn't mention deregulation, what parts that deregulation contributes to all this inflation and out-of-control price gouging we have? host: this has certainly been something the harris campaign has been talking about. guest: and the gentleman is talking about inflation. i missed the first part of his question. host: he was saying why, in the conversation about inflation, is there not much engine of deregulation -- escutcheon of

deregulation and corporate greed, basically. guest: well, i am not an economist and my other habits are good, so you will have to ask that to an economist. but the relation -- d eregulation is discussed at lenght. whether we agree on what should or should not be deregulated is another question, but i will leave that to the economists. host: dee is on the line. caller: good morning. the guy before the other guy, he mentioned the 25th amendment. that was going to be what i brought up. if a president is maybe mentally incompetent, you have to remove him, and what resulted with what we had. also, i would like to know the word you used, impose of the seven states that will pick the president.

you mentioned the seven states. why did you use the words "impose on us," and what context do you use that word? thank you. guest: well, i use the word "imipose" because the decision is being made essentially by those seven states. i can argue with myself and say, wait a minute, any of the other states can become competitive, if they chose to do so. but the demographic composition, the partisan composition of at least most of those 43 states, if not all of them, pretty much dictates they will vote one way or the other. they will either vote for the democrat or the republican. in advance, you know that, so the candidates do not visit much, they do not spend money there. they focus on the states that either elect -- could either elect them or the other candidate. the word "impose" suggests military action is involved or they're -- they're not imposing

in a way that would not be changeable. they are imposing their will on us because that is the way the system works today. that is the way the electoral college system works. it is the way the frame of mind of americans works, because we are all so partisan. eventually -- i do not know when, but eventually i think we will once again become a bit less partisan. i certainly hope that's true, because i think it is better for the country if there is more overlap and you have a bit more bipartisanship, particularly in foreign policy, but also some domestic policies. we have to work together in the country's interest on some things. but when that happens, i don't know. until that happens, i think you will have this type of division and you will end up having a handful of states determining the presidency every four years. host: next is diane in arkansas on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning.

thank you for taking my call. i have a couple questions for larry on his thoughts, and i hope you'll allow me to get them out without cutting me off. i have four. the first is the democrats' big agenda is on abortion. now, the supreme court does not make laws. congress makes laws. roe v. wade should have never been decided by the supreme court. so it was put back to the states. now the democrats are saying -- host: diane, i'm not cutting you off, but your phone line is cutting in and out, so it is hard to hear you. can you quickly ask your questions and make sure your phone is connected? caller: yes, it is connected.

what i'm saying is the democrats are deceiving people by saying that they're going to put roe v. wade back in, but it has to go through both houses to be made a law. that's why they hurried up and did the defense of marriage act as soon as roe v. wade was taken out. and so, i would like him to explain that to the callers and the people out there. they know how our constitution works -- host: diane, i don't want to cut you off, but it is really hard to understand your phone line, so i will just have to ask larry to respond to that point diane was making about abortion. guest: yes, well, of course abortion is a very controversial topic. the differences are pronounced regionally as well as

personally. as far as the roe v. wade controversy is concerned, democrats, in order to restore it, would have to have the presidency as well as a majority in both the house and senate. and in the senate, they would have to make an acception for abortion -- an exception for abortion in the filibuster rule, which also be tough here the odds are it would be tough to do it on this you have a democratic majority in the senate paid i guess you could have 51 democrats, if they decide to make an exception in the filibuster rule, which would be controversial. but the democrats would have to win all three, the i do not think that is likely to be the result in the selection the mesh this election. -- i do not think that is likely to be the result in this election.

i think it will be split or in the opposite direction of the one elected. it is a great issue to discuss on the campaign trail because people feel so strongly about it. but actually doing it is another question entirely. host: you mentioned the congressional races. let's look at your rating for the senate in 2024 on the center for politics website. it is quite a few colors on here with what states are leaning republican or likely republican, the same for democrats. a couple of states that look like they may be shifting a bit. can you explain this map and what seats are really in play? guest: sure. we could spend an hour if we include the seats that could possibly turn over.

i know you do not want me to so i will focus on the ones that really matter. there is a majority democrat in the senate. we already know west virginia is switching. west virginia has a democratic senator, well, independent but caucuses with the democrats. he is retiring. the incumbent republican governor is going to be elected to that seat. that is going to be a switch. that makes it 50/50. what else could switch? the most likely to switch his montana where a three-term democrat is running for another term, and he is running against a republican. montana has become very heavily republican. it is going to vote substantially for donald trump. it is looking like, recognizing things can change, it is looking like she will be able to unseat

hester. democrats are also fighting hard to preserve their ohio seat. it is close, he is a tiny bit ahead, but trump is bound to carry ohio. i do not know the margin. some have suggested six, others eight. either way, there might be enough coattails to elect the republican nominee in for the senate. that would be potentially 52-48 senate for republicans. there are other seats somewhat competitive where republicans

had hoped to make a strong stand. they are close enough that changes between now and november 5 could affect the results. what do the democrats do? the problem is this is a heavily republican group of seats up. there are only two republicans who are vaguely weak enough to be challenged by the democrats. senator ted cruz in texas and senator rick scott in florida. both of them are ahead in their states are substantially republican. trump is almost bound to carry both states, so whatever coattail effect there would be would help cruz and scott. that is not to say there could not be an upset. there might be an upset. but it is difficult for democrats to engineer and upset in either of those estates because they are not highly competitive at the state level. i hope that makes sense.

i did not get into the side races that might prove interesting. host: there is so much to get into. let's get back to the callers. larry is on the line for democrats. caller: tell me this. in congress, the most incompetent congress we have had in years, let's go back 70 years, this congress under the democrats have always done more for this country than any republican. that is a fact. donald trump inherited from obama the economy that he took over, because it takes several years before his procedure of doing any political things he wants to do for the country settles in. he rode on obama's economy.

republicans do that every time. they come in on hating crime, but the infrastructure has been done by the democrats. that has been for years. host: larry, what is your question for larry? caller: let's talk about the congress. who is the most productive that has been in the country, democrats or republicans? host: larry, would you like to respond to that? guest: the jim bachmann -- gentlemen just made a case for the democrats. that is a partisan perspective. he made the point, i understand the point. any republicans listening would disagree so they will have to fight it out on the campaign trail. as far as the incompetent congress is concerned, i have lived long enough to realize there's a lot of competition for the title of most incompetent congress. i would not necessarily say this one is the most incompetent because i can think of at least three or four others just in my

lifetime that would be nominated -- among those nominated for the prize. host: mike is on the line for independents. good morning. caller: i have two questions. mr. larry, it is interesting republicans are selling the shore to russia because about a month ago, the president went to russia to visit putin. my question is if you heard something about data but you failed to break it down from

president to president making it [indiscernible] do all these republicans think it is within the area of biden? it is between trump, obama, and bush. thank you. host: larry, i will let you respond first to mike's question about whether the republicans are selling out america. guest: again, that is a fiery phrase that has partisan undertones and overtones. i'm going to let the partisans fight that out. you actually have a division in the republican party. some parts of the party, including big factions in the house and senate, are strongly in support of ukraine, for example, and have backed ukraine to a great degree. it is also true president trump

for former president trump, and if he gets back in president trump, would be more inclined to lean against ukraine's interest and towards putin's. that is for the partisans to fight out. he would also have to negotiate with the factions of the republican party who support president zelenskyy in ukraine. the democrats more strongly support ukraine. i am just mentioning one part of foreign policy. i am not about to get into the middle east because that is far more complicated and we have very limited time. host: just to follow-up on mike's point about the ice data. it mentioned in the headline any portion of the article that i read that these numbers came from several administrations.

two law enforcement officials said many migrants cross into the u.s. under previous administrations and also in the article, it says, a spokesman for the department of homeland security said the data is being misinterpreted and goes back decades before the biden administration which i also read at the time i mentioned the article. let's go to mark in new york on the line for republicans. caller: your point about the 25th amendment, if you look at the 25th amendment, it is interesting. while it is very easy by majority to appoint a vice president as in the case of rockefeller and ford, it is virtually impossible under the procedure of the two thirds votes of both houses to finally resolve the question as to whether the president is

disabled, even by impeachment. impeachment is by majority and impeachment is by two thirds of the senate. in reality, the way the amendment is structured, it goes back and forth and back and forth. the president says he is not disabled. the vice president says he is disabled. and then it goes to congress for two thirds votes of both houses to determine the president is in fact disabled. do you think this has actual functionality? i do not believe in the real world, we have never convicted a president ever in one house. this would require two houses and two thirds vote. we cannot get a majority on anything. what do you think about the structure of this in the real world? thank you. guest: his analysis was

absolutely correct. he is on point. that is why i said the only piece of the 25th amendment that can work and is effective is the selection of a substitute vice president in the middle of a term. the gentleman is also correct. while impeachment is on the table and that can work given the fact you only need a simple majority in the house, conviction? forget about it question mark impeachment and conviction is no longer on the table. the supreme court has recently removed a lot of other checks on the presidency, so good luck to us. if you get the wrong person in there, authoritarianism is

only a halfstep away. host: we have a text message from john in wisconsin. y won't democrats agree to a thd bate on fox? what are they afraid of? what is the guest's opinion on tuesday's vice presidential debate and will that have any big effect? guest: the first part of the question, the debate on debates, which is a permanent part of our politics, not just presidential, but even down to the school board level, they have fights about where they will debate, what the rules will be. it is the mostly useless part of any campaign, but it affects the candidates and their chances to be elected. that is why it tends to be discussed at length. why won't the democrats go to fox? because they assume fox will be targeting them until tomorrow to

the republican candidate. there is some justification for that. republicans would say that would be true on some other networks. they would tilt toward the democratic candidate and away from the republican candidate. i will let the partisans fight that out. i do not think you will have to worry about it. it looks like to meet even though i thought there would be another debate for a while, it does not look like there is going to be another debate although donald trump has been known to change his mind and kamala harris might change her mind about where debate could be held. tuesday, everybody should watch the vice presidential debate. i know that normally the audience is much lower. it should not be. why? because vice president's have a way of becoming presidents. the more we learn about each of

them, the more informed our votes will be. that is why you watch. you want to evaluate them. you want to get a sense of them not just as debaters but as people so i would urge everybody to watch it. it is important. host: before we letouo, we have another question from x from steve who says, what ishe crystal ball say about house elections? harris can win in a landslide but if the house remains gop, her policies will be d.o.a. guest: important question, great question. they do it great job surveying races and constantly updating. what they have to say, and just about everybody who studies this, is saying at the moment it

is so close she will have another competitive congress where you will have a majority of a handful of seats, whichever way it goes. if one of the presidential candidates wins by a decent margin, i would think that presidential candidate would probably bring in enough members of his or her party to have that narrow majority in the house. but if this is one of those inconclusive elections where one person wins the electable vote narrowly and the other wins the popular vote narrowly, there is no guarantee the new president would have a majority in the house. i think the republicans may be very likely to win the senate but the house is an open question. republicans say they will win it. democrats think they have an excellent shot to win it. i will leave that up to the partisans. off the record, they will say i am not sure.

i am grateful for the honest answers because you do not always get them. host: we got them from you today, so thank you. we appreciate your time this morning. guest: thank you. enjoyed it. host: we are going to have more of your phone calls after the break in open forum, so you can start dialing and now. later, we will hear from au thor, professor, and pastor ryan burge who will discuss the role religion may play in november. we will be right back. ♪ >> in 1953, julius and ethyl rosenberg were executed after being convicted for espionage.

their sons were 10 and six at the time. tonight on "q&a," the brothers talk about their lives following their parents' executions in their efforts to clear their mother posthumously. >> all the stuff we have learned since, including the noninvolvement of my mother, and that is the reason why, surprisingly, when the judge was soliciting information on the sentence, hoover in writing opposed the death sentence for our mother. >> we surmise there is a file that says ethyl rosenberg was not a spy. when that file gets released, the puzzle will finally be complete and we will be able to show the american public that the u.s. government knew that ethel rosenberg was not a spy

and executed her because she called their bluff. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." you can listen to all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in washington live and on-demand. keep up with the biggest events with livestreams from congress, white house events, courts, and more from the world of politics, all at your figure tips. you can stay current with episodes of "washington journal" and find scheduling for c-span networks and radio, plus a variety of compelling podcasts. c-span now is available for free

today. c-span now, your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. >> he said we should not allow weapons that i used in war to be on american streets. i wonder, when were you ever in war? what was this weapon you carried into war, giving you abandoned your unit right before they went to iraq? >> senator vance got called out about telling vicious, hurtful lies about immigrants. he said i admit it. i am willing to create stories to drum up fears. >> what's the debate simulcast live tuesday on c-span as they take the debate stage and go head-to-head for the first time.

coverage begins with a preview show at 8:00 eastern followed by the debate at 9:00. the cbs news vice presidential debate simulcast live tuesday on c-span. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. we are going to be in open forum shortly. we are ready for your calls on what you would like to discuss the sunday morning. first, an update on the devastation we are seeing from the hurricane that stuck much of the southeast. here is a headline, "biblical devastation." water from the raging river rose faster and faster until it reached the yard of beverly and baxter eller. the couple fled, not a moment

too soon, to huddle with neighbors inside a baptist church on a hill. on saturday afternoon, they returned and found their home utterly destroyed. counts are out western north carolina were transformed overnight by the massive storm of hurricane colleen -- hurricane helene with landslides and overflowing rivers. rescuers said they were starlink to respond to the high number of emergency calls. this is one of many places affected by hurricane helene. yesterday, florida governor ron desantis held a press conference about the aftermath in his state. [video clip] governor desantis: there

have been 11th storm related fatalities bread that ranges from traffic fatalities to people impacted directly by storm surge. but no fatalities as of now in taylor county which is where the storm made landfall, which had the most storm surge. i think that is a credit to the folks here. a lot of residents heeded the call. local officials were working very constructively to make sure people were safe. if you told me there would be 50, 18-feet storm surge, it may have reached 20, that is possible, if you told me even with best efforts, i would have assumed we would have had multiple fatalities. as hard as it is to see a home destroyed, as hard as it is to how people displaced, if somebody perishes in one of

these, there is no way you can fix that, so i want to thank everyone involved with that. is really important -- it is really important. the folks in taylor work hard to protect the lives of their citizens in clearly difficult circumstances. it paid off. host: the associated press is reporting a total of 64 dead and millions without power after helene's dudley march across the southeast. hurricane helene left people stranded awaiting rescue on saturday as the tempest that killed 64 caused widespread destruction across the southeast and left millions without power. it came ashore as a category four hurricane late thursday with winds of 140 mile-per-hour. it quickly moved through georgia

where governor brian kemp said saturday it looks like a bomb went off. it soaked the carolinas and tennessee with torrential rain sending creeks and rivers over their banks and streaming down. just some of the news that has occurred over the past week. now, let's hear your calls in open forum. republicans, 202-748-8000. democrats, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. good morning, alexis. caller: thank you for taking my call. i can relate today and have access to either phone which i am on now, so what is being

discussed about project 2025? i do not care if you are republican or democrat or want to stay a republican because this is going to have its own flavor of nobody but trump deciding what goes on in this country, and so goes the world, because he does not give a -- about ukraine and has already said putin can have it. you guys that are worried about donating to ukraine will not have that worry anymore. you will probably also lose some of your medicare, and what is the other went, social security. i should know these. i am 76. i am thinking about you out there because i am on my way out

and i do not care when i go. there is a whole lot of people that want to stop contraception, ivf, and if they have control, they can do that. that guy that was just on explained how you have had the house and the senate and numbers, and there is no reason we cannot have that if we band together. this is the 21st century civil war. it is all about black and white. host: kevin is in virginia on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning, can you hear me? host: yes, we can hear you. caller: thank you for taking my call. i had a couple of points i wanted to make. you were talking about who would be better on foreign policy. i think it would be harris better on foreign policy because she is the sitting vice president and regularly sits in

on meetings and meets with leaders around the world as part of her daily job whereas the other person on the others, he just sitting back, he might invite some dictators to his house but he is not sitting with leaders and getting a real pulse of what is really happening out there. he talks like he does, but he does not. host: kevin, former president trump was in those meetings when he was in office. caller: that is right, and he did not do a lot about it. it was not like he had a great foreign policy. i think he basically just got lucky. remember, we had covid back then. the other point i wanted to make was people often talk about him having a better economy. he did not do a lot on the economy. a lot of things defaulted to him. we had covid back then. so, yeah, things were a little cheaper because the demand was

low. schools were closed. we were doing zoom meetings. there was not a whole demand for gas. prices could have been lower, you know, because of it. we were getting stimulus checks. all of those people saying it is so bad now, the same deal you bought when trump was in office, i bet you are still driving that same truck now, vehicle now, and you still have a job. you did not lose it when biden came in. you bought eggs back then, you are buying eggs now. they said it was going into recession, we never went in recession. he did not do a lot for the economy. covid helped him out. remember the stimulus checks. that was a democratic plan. it was not his plan. he had to sign off on it. the other point i want to make is i think women is crucial in this election. i want someone to ask, where is

the line? she knows about this stuff. all he does is call names like conrad kamala. where is melania? she is not standing behind her man. host: let's go to marcus on the line for republicans. caller: thank you for c-span. i appreciate taking my call. i am running for the first congressional district of illinois, having just turned to c-span and thank you for the open forum. i am all for making america great again. the country is in dire straits. those in office have to take responsibility and accountability for what is happening in our country. 15 million to 20 million people allowed to flood our country and they are receiving all the resources the american people are not receiving.

they are receiving resources the american people are not getting. they have to be squeezed in. the black community has been totally forgotten in the mission statement of the democratic party. i used to be a i've had enough, because the democratic party has become a perverse organization. i don't believe in having children being mutilated and their minds being told things that are absolutely evil and are totally inappropriate for them to grow up to be wholesome. the democratic party doesn't stand for wholesomeness and the working class anymore. they stand for things that are absolutely perverse. now, they say whatever is in the sight of the beholder, but i'm of the side of god and jesus

christ not only saved us, but he also saved us from sin. he also saved us from the evil of our own sins in our minds. host: ok, marcus, thank you. let's hear from phyllis in mississippi on our line for independents. good morning, phillip. caller: wow, where do we start? i mean, just lisping to these republicans oftentimes makes me really wonder what are they drinking and eating because it's so obvious the most existential issues that really face society, kamala harris and walz are trying to put together a plan of dealing with at least a human element that we can accomplish tasks. just look at the flooding much i called two months and spoke and told her, you know, the conversation about what is the most important issue, and i said

it's climate change, y'all. and i think the next day a guy called up and said the next thing, how it's going to affect us. but it seems like these people don't even understand their religion either. they're about to wish men with the wildest morals one could even think about in regards to leadership. my point is making a point about why i'm going for kamala and walz, people really need to look at what is going on in the world. from a religious standpoint, do we have an apock tip lick leader that is trying to take us further down, or are we going to choose the light of science and truth and try to work on trying

to improve ourselves in the coming years? because we really have to serious issues. thank you. host: both of our last two callers mentioned religion, and in about 15 minutes we are going to hear from professor and pastor ryan burge about the role of religion in politics. but if you want to call in for open forum, again, the number for democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. robert is in galveston, texas, on our line for democrats. good morning, robert. caller: top of the morning. top of the morning. good morning. host: good morning. caller: i just called in with a few comments. but i don't know if y'all remember, but you remember when trump was in office and his mother-in-law and father-in-law come from another country, and he fast tracked them. he made them -- they hadn't been

in the country 24 hours, and they was made citizens. so everybody don't have that connection, and i think that was wrong. he talk about people supposed to go through the process, but he didn't let them go through the process. he fast tracked them. and i think that was unfair. and then he talk about the border, and then people talk about joe biden is senil and he all that, but joe biden, if y'all can remember, when he done that debate, joe biden answered every question that was asked of him, but trump never asked the question. he always filibustered. he never answered a vital question. and then if you think about it, mitch mcconnell got up twice and had a brain fog, he didn't know where he was. nobody asked, no republican, no democrat, nobody say this man is unfit for the office because he can't get up and talk. but they just passed on biden. but yet they still want to throw biden under the bus. let me tell y'all something.

biden has done more in these last 3 1/2 years. he's done more with the infrastructure, everybody else talked about things, but this man got things done. he bought the chip act bought. he brought business back, strong union. and anybody know, anybody that's got a job, you better get with a good union. because if you get with a good union, you can make good money and they got to give you cost of living raises and the boss just can't come in and look at you and hate you and say i don't like the way you look this morning, get out of here, you fired. they got to go through the cases to get hit of you, and you got to be doing bad. but i'm telling y'all, unions pay top dollar. the unions pay top dollar. and everything is going up, and everybody crying about everything so high. every year things go up. things go up every year, but

they coming down now. host: robert, we want to get to a couple more folks before we run out of time for our segment. let's hear from samuel in south pasadena, california, on our line for republicans. good morning, samuel. caller: well, good morning. thanks for taking my call. i'm calling about, i think trump is going to be the next president, and he's going to win by a landslide. he's got a lot of people fooled out there. democrats think they're going to vote for kamala harris, but they're not. they're being quiet about it because of the border, what's happened there, and all the people coming through, cost ago lot of money for these people coming over. even the mayor of new york, he's having a problem. that's why they put the people on the mayor for all the things he's causing and everything. anyway, i like trump to win. and he's going to win, because he's been there before, and he knows how to make america great. and kamala harris, she's just not smart enough to be a president. and when they had that debate,

they couldn't even fact check her and everything, because it was fixed. and now i just like trump to win, and he's going to make america great. he's going to have the house and he's going to have the senate, and he will get things done. thank you very much. host: jay is in hyattville, maryland, on our line for independents. good morning, jay. caller: yes, good morning. there's a small group of us, avid c-span watchers who call ourselves the crazy 88's. and we have ranked some of the hosts. y'all still number one, the friendliest, getting truckers to blow their horn and trying to get people to get their purse to talk and everything. but another category along with the friendly hosts is most controversial host. and the most controversial host this period, this month, is you, kimberly. host: ok. caller: we feel that you don't let people express themselves. you hang up on them too quickly. now, i have two points i would

like to make before you hang up on me. number one, i would like to be fact checked right now, and here now, can you bring up the leahy act? because the biden and harris administration is breaking the law by providing bombs and weapons to israel. the usaid and united nations have recently disclosed that human taken aid has been blocked to the palestinians. the leahy act for bids any government agency, the state department or government itself, to provide military assistance to any foreign nation, government, that blocks humanitarian aid. can you bring up the leahy act? host: here's a summary from the u.s. department of state about the leahy law. it says the term lay lee law refers to two statutory provisions prohibiting the u.s. government from using funds for

assistance to units of foreign security forces where there's credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights. one statutory provision applies to the state department, and the other applies to the department of defense. and i think we've lost that caller. let's go to joe in quincy, massachusetts, on our line for democrats. good morning, joe. caller: good morning, kim. yeah, just on that last comment, as far as both parties are concerned with israel, i know joe has taken a lot of heat from the last caller as far as giving money to israel, but if you look at both political parties, many people in the republican party on the right are not settlementive of palestine and they kind of, they got hung up on the 1,200 israelis that were slaughtered, but they seem to forget the 40,000 palestinians that have been killed, most of

them noncombatants. but that's not the call. we have a big election coming up in about a month or so, and we have to decide between two candidates, and the way i look at candidates, any human being, how do they react in a major crisis? donald trump's crisis was covid. we all know what donald trump did during covid. it was, you know, he mishandled it in a very big way. first he denied it the first few months, and then he went on national tv and disregarded all the top medical people that he had hired were saying that the c.d.c., fauci, surgeon general, and he was discouraging people from taking the precautions that a medical community was telling people to do at the height of covid during donald trump's presidency, america represents 4% of the world's population. but we represented 25% of covid deaths on the planet. which to me is horrific, given

the fact we're the richest country with the most advanced medical situation. that was all directly reeled to the mixed message coming from donald trump and company. that was his crisis. and i think he failed miserably. that also killed the economy in the fourth year when america stopped, and then because of supply and demand, when we were bouncing back after covid, joe biden was blamed with double-digit inflation and the prices of milk and chicken and gas. everything was going up, which was all related to supply and demand, which was directly related to covid. as far as joe's crisis, that was joe's crisis. he was trying to bring the country back for the second time, because he did it the first time with obama after bush's failed policies on administration. but joe was bringing the economy back from covid. and he was doing a great job. at the end of joe's four years, america had the quickest recovery from covid related to

economic strife of all the developed countries. so joe did a fantastic job. i filled my tank with gas the other way, $2.70 a gallon. that's close to where we were to trump, and that's due to trump. presidents don't set price of oil and consumer goods. they're both victims of the economy. joe did a great job in his crisis. donald trump, not so good. think about that, folks, in november. host: clifford is in oceanside, california, on our line for republicans. good morning, clifford. caller: yes, ma'am. good to talk to you this morning and the rest of america. the fool before talking about trump and how he didn't do good during the covid, i think you forget it was trump that had operation warp speed that got the vaccines out there for all the people, and it was the democrat, nancy pelosi in particular, who was saying she haven't even going to take it because it was from trump, but

the rest of the covid, when he tried to stop the airports, the airlines from having the chinese come into america, they call them xenophobic for doing that. and here, when did you that, you say millions of lives. so i don't know why this guy is coming from, talking all that stuff about trump. it was the increased reduction act, whatever. host: inflation reduction act? caller: that was it. the inflation increasing act. because it didn't reduce no inflation whatsoever. it went up. because when you spend more money of the government, it's going to increase the inflation. and everybody was trying to tell joe biden that. but you can't tell somebody who's got alzheimer's, because it's like my mother. she's got the same problem. host: ok.

next up we have georgia, our line for independents. good morning. caller: yes, i'm a 40-year-old, i ain't really involved in politics. host: could you move closer to your phone? it's a bit hard to hear you. go ahead. caller: i've been involved in politics for a long time, and i see the biggest problem is not the president. the problem is the congress. and we give the congress a free pass on everything. it has nothing to do with the president, and oh, i guess the older generation don't understand how the government works. they put everything on biden. biden doing the best he can with what he got, but congress

keeping the other president from doing anything. and if they want to be honest about it, i think immigrants have a better economy than republicans. it's been historically that way over the years. that's my whole thing. host: ok. caller: put everything off on the president, and the president don't have any power. host: that's all the time we have for open forum. up next, we're going to hear from author, professor, and pastor ryan burge on the role of religion in the november election. we will be right back. >> attention, middle and high school students across america. it's time to make your voice heard. our contest is here. this is your chance to create a documentary that can inspire

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c-span, 45 years and counting, powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. we're joined now by ryan burge, a political science professor at eastern illinois university and author of the book "the nones: where they came from, who they are, and where they're going." and we're talking about here, ryan, religious nuns. can you explain what you mean by that? caller: nones, they describe their religion as nothing in particular. in 1972, only 5% of american adults said they were nones. and today, our best estimate is about 30% of american adults are nonreligious. amongst generations, it's north of 40% claim no religious affiliation on surveys. host: there's an article here

from axios with the headline harris-trump go light on religion in the 2024 campaign. and pointing out that it's the first presidential election in half a century in which neither candidate is openly telling voters much about their religion or faith. a lack of emphasis on religion comes as a percentage of americans identify as reasonable causally unaffiliated has skyrocketed to 27%. a larger share of the population than mainline protestants and evangelical white voters combined. what's your assessment of this take? do you think this campaign is lighter on religion than previous ones? guest: i think it's fair to say religion has not taken center stage like it has in live protection cycles. i think joe biden leaned heavily on his catholicism. he's kind of the classic white catholic, old school from the new england area. trump has always had an odd relationship with religion, to be fair. he grew up in a mainline presbyterian church in new york

city, and now when he was asked a couple of years ago, he said he's a nondenominational protestant. i think it's apparently he's not deem religious, either how he behaves or talks about religion. kamala harris is a little bit different. she's in part of a black protestant church, but i don't think she makes that -- she hardly ever talks about that from the stump. it's definitely not something i think the average voter would understand about her religious background. so it seems like neither candidate is incredibly religious or willing, at least willing to talk about the religiousity in a public way. host: what do you think that tells us about the intersection of politics and religion right now in the country? guest: i think especially for the democrats, they're in a really sticky spot when it comes to religion. if you look at the data from 2020, 45% of joe biden's voters identify as atheist, agnostic, or no religion. 45% were nones of biden's coalition. a minority were christians. so muslims in there, buddhists, hindus.

if you're a democrat, how do you try to keep all those constituencies happy at the same time? if you start talking about your faith in jesus christ, you're going turn off more voters in your own base than you're going attract to you. so i think the democrats are in a really tough spot when it comes to religion. for donald trump, i think he already understands that most 80% of white evangelicals are going to vote for him, because they voted for him. and there's no reason to think they wouldn't vote for him in 2024. if you look at how trump is talking about religion, especially issues that are related to religion, like abortion, he very much seems like he's trying to court the independent voter, the one who's not incredibly religious, and trying to bring them into the fold, as opposed to trying to keep the evangelicals in his camp. i think in many ways he's taking that religious vote for granted. host: you mentioned the support for former president trump by evangelical christians, and pew research has data on this. i'll show this chart here,

showing if you look particularly at white evangelicals, 82% support trump or lean trump. among nonwhite evangelicals, 58%, but the numbers for black protestants, for example, seem to lean in similar numbers for harris, lean harris. can you get a bit more into some of the other religious groups and where the two candidates are trying to tap into support amongst religious communities. guest: let's talk about white, nonevangelical protestants. we often call them mainline protestants. they used to represent the largest religious tradition in america. united methodist, united church of christ, american bat tises, those are the kind of people who have always been sort of in the moderate middle of american religion and american politics. and what you've seen over the last 20 years especially is that white christianity, whether we

talk about white evangelical christianity, or even white catholicism has become increasingly conservative over time. for instance, we think about 60% of white catholics are going to vote for trump in 2024, when they used to be the white catholic democrat kennedy style voters. that's not true anymore. even tim walz, for instance, is a member of the evangelical lutheran church of america, which is seen as a moderate denomination. but on average sunday, about 52% of people he sits next to in the pews voted for donald trump in 2020. to be white christian america, is meaning you're going to vote for the republican. the other faith groups, like black protestant christianity, is overwhelmingly for the democrat, about 90% of them voted for joe biden in 2020. we expect that same number again in 2024. groups like muslims, democrats do very well with, groups like hindus and buddhists, they do very well with. obviously the nonreligious vote, that's the core, that's the key for the democratic party going

forward. can they win a larger and larger number of voters in america? we're seeing religious polarization play out in the american electorate. i think both parties have sort of failed to adjust so what the new religious landscape looks like. host: what do we know about the political affiliation of religious nones? guest: atheists are going to vote for joe biden, i'm sorry, they vote for gobbet in 2020. they are incredibly politically active. that's really something people don't realize. if you ask a bunch of questions on surveys about going to a town hall meeting, do you put up a political yard sign? atheists score the highest of any religious group in america today. in 2020, half of atheists said they give to a campaign. among white evangelicals, it was only 25%. very active and very liberal

politically. agnostics are slightly less active and slightly less blue, about 80% to 85% are going to vote for kamala harris in 2024. and then the nothing in particular are really interesting. they're between 20% and 25% of america. they do lean to the democrats. biden did the same in 2020. i think that's a real key constituency for any democrat running for national office. the issue with these nothing in particular voters, their turnout is low. only 33% vote in the presidential election, while 50% of atheists cast a ballot. ant lot of them show up to the polls and getting them to turn out may actually be the difference when it comes to who wins in the november election. host: how does afill ace inform religious choice or the other way around? it seems like you mentioned how

there is definitely a kind of political identifiers you can attach to different religious groups. how does that interplay? guest: this is a really interesting change in the political science literature just in the last 15 or 20 years. we used to assume that politics was the first -- i'm sorry, religious was the first. that was our world view. we thought about how the bible teaches us how to vote and what candidates we should support. and then we look at the ballot and vote based on our theology, our religious orientation. but there's been a whole raft of research that's shown us that maybe that's all wrong, that maybe religious is the first lens in our eye, and everything lives down stream of that political world view. so instead of taking our politics based on what church we go to, now we're picking what church we go to based on our political partisanship. so we're seeing more and more republicans gravitate toward the evangelical label. so even the share of

self-identified evangelicals who attend church less than once a year has gone from 16% in 2008 to 27% in 2023. because they're grabbing on to that label because they like donald trump, they like the republican party. we're seeing that religious words have almost taken on political connotation. it seems like politics is the master identity and religious lives down stream of that. host: democrats can call in on 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. and independents, 202-748-8002. if you have questions for ryan. i do want to ask about another religious group, which is highlighted here. trump quietly prepares a pitch to latter day saints voters, with less than six weeks until election day. the latter day saint vote has become an important factor for

both presidential campaigns, and this is a week after the harris campaign launched an advisory committee to target latter day saint voters in arizona. the trump campaign is quietly preparing a pitch of his own. former president donald trump met with a group of latter day saints who work in politics and influencers at his mar-a-lago club in florida, according to an individual with knowledge of the meeting. the purpose was to strategize how to coalesce and motivate the l.d.s. vote. if we hop over here to the associated press, there is more information on that effort by the harris campaign reaching out to mormon voters in battleground arizona. why are these groups, why are both campaigns targeting this group in this way? guest: let's just contextualize alatter day saints. in the entire population, about 1% of americans are l.d.s. they're about the same size as muslims or buddhists. they are obviously concentrated in the state of utah, about 60%

to 65% of utahans are l.d.s., and arizona, about 6% of folks in arizona are members of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. and remember how close it was in the 2020 election. so every vote matters there. and if you look at the data on l.d.s., especially younger l.d.s., we assume it's republican because of people like mitt romney. about 80% of them voted for mitt romney. when trump ran in 2016, he only got about 55% of the l.d.s. vote nationwide because a lot of them cast their ballots for a third-party candidate named evan mcmull an. he's not on the ballot this time around, but it does seem like there's weakness in this alliance between the l.d.s. and the republican party. i think what trump is trying to do is shore up the 6% vote in arizona, and harris is trying to peel some of the people, chip them away, because every single

vote in a state like arizona counts. when you talk about 6% of the population, if you can win over 10% of them, that might be enough for trump to win back the state, and therefore, have an easier time in the electoral college. when you're in a battleground, every single constituency matters. the l.d.s. vote does seem to be drift ago way from republicans right now, and i think trump is a good choice to try to shore that support up with l.d.s. thought leaders. host: are there any other religious groups? guest: hispanic catholics wine the story here. they're about 65% pot democrats. that's been historically true. i just saw a poll that had hem 50-50. i've seen other polls that have them closer to of 0%. you've got to think about how many hispanic catholics are in a place like arizona. we're talking about an election that was decided by less than 100,000 votes last time. remember, there are catholics all over the country, and there's hispanic catholics all over the country.

even the battleground states like michigan or pennsylvania or nevada. so in those cases, i think if harris does even five points worse than biden did in 2020, that might be enough to swing some of the states from blue to red. and remember, it's only about a four or five-state race, so every single vote matters. if i was on the campaign for either side, i would rather start targeting hispanic catholics and also hispanic evangelicals who trend to trend toward the blue side, but repeat years, they've become more socially conservative and trump has been a little bit more appealing to them as well. so i think the hispanic vote is an especially important vote, especially evangelicals. host: howard on our line for democrats. good morning, howard. caller: good morning. top of the morning to you, everyone. my denomination is pentecostal. and i am a democrat. i take offense of you saying the majority of atheists are

democrats. where you get that from, i do not know. host: howard, i want to pause for just a moment. i'm just looking at this polling from pew research that looks at religiously unaffiliated folks, and in their polling, it shows that of the people who identify as atheists, 85% of them are saying that they would vote for harris. caller: but look, that don't mean that they are democrats. republicans are going democrat because they don't want this, who they call a running mate for the republicans. he is an atheist. for one thing, let me say this. we got a lot of people who want to say that majority of the people are democrats are atheists. what do you call white supremacists? are they atheists or do they believe in christ? because trump got a lot of them as well. and can you tell me where i can find evangelical in the world of god? and be it not religious have

with darkness, and trump is all that, and you explain that to me why they look at trump as a christ figure. thank you. host: ryan, you want to respond to any of those points? guest: i'll give you an interesting statistic. when we ask people do you self-identify evangelical, the racial group that's mostly to self as evangelical is african-americans. 45% of african-americans identify as evangelical. 4525% of white folks and only 25% of hispanic. while it's not in the bible, that's true, it's definitely a word that is part of the popular lexicon. when we talk about religious and politics in the united states. host: next subpoena d.j. in georgia on our line for independents. good morning, d.j. caller: good morning. host: please turn down the volume on your tv, and then go ahead with your question. caller: ok. i want to ask your guest why

most people who say they are religious would choose an immoral person who bragged about grabbing women and pushing for the death penalty for innocent people. i would just like to understand that. host: go ahead, ryan. guest: i think everyone has their own understanding of morality, and i think for a lot of white christians, they think that the democratic party is increasingly representing interests they don't align with on things like same sex marriage, on things like abortion, and i think for a lot of white he have jell calls, they actually are happy with the fact they voted for donald trump in 2016, because they changed the composition of the supreme court and the outcome of that was the end of roe vs. wade and the dobbs decision. i think for a lot of them, the ends justify the means. i think there's a lot of evangelicals who don't love the character of donald trump and some of the things he says, but

they would rather a republican be in the white house because they feel the average republican comes closer to representing their views than the average democrat. host: jeff is in louisville, colorado, on our line for democrats. good morning, jeff. caller: hi there, good morning to you from colorado. host: go ahead with your question. caller: since trump has done so many very obvious, unethical and immoral actions over 20-plus years, why don't evangelical churches talk about that? and condemn it? otherwise he will lose the youth vote and show that those mondaysters are very, they can be bought off. they're unethical. they do not walk as they talk. they preach win thing and do quite the other. host: thoughts on that, ryan? guest: i was a pastor for almost 20 years, and i will say this. i did everything in my power to avoid politics from the pulpit.

i think that most pastors are in the same boat i am. i don't think that, people don't realize how tenuous those jobs r. you can be fired at any time for any reason, and you basically have no legal recourse. so if you speak about politics from the pulpit, you're going to anger a significant portion of your public. and so what a lot of people are doing at this point is not talking about politics from the pulpit. we actually know that for a fact. we ask weekly church goers, gave them a list of 15 issues, have you heard your pastor discuss any of these issues over the last 12 months? everything from immigration to abortion to healthcare to even voting and the christians' responsibility to vote. what we found is one-third of people said they heard zero of those issues from the pulpit, and 52% had heard zero issue or one issue mentioned in the prior 12 months. the data points pretty clearly to the conclusion that pastors are not being that political from the pulpit. and i think they're doing it for a very strategic reason. the question is where do

politics come from? i think it comes from the bottom up, not the top down. i think a lot of people are talking about politics in bible study and before and after the church service. most pos tars go out of their way to be controversial, because they want people from left, right and center to feel welcome, and they're certainly not going to condemn those folks from the pulpit on a sunday sermon. host: david is in massachusetts on our line for republicans. good morning, david. caller: hi, i have a question. this says religious and campaign 2024. i think it should say more like ethics and morality. i don't like when people say that trump is a felon and he shouldn't be out there, because it's unethical. yet we have the democrats, especially joe biden who says he's a devout catholic, along

with ms. pelosi, and they're hypocritical when the catholic teaches that abortion is wrong. he just mentioned something about not saying anything from the pulpit. that's one of the reasons why i walked away. you don't have to discuss politics per se, but you should be discussing morality and what it says in the bible. i like to know what his feelings on that are about why he didn't do that. besides maybe losing parishioners or people that come to your church. guest: yeah, so my answer would be i think the bible doesn't support one party or the other. i think it supports certain ideas. i talk a lot about the christian concept that every human being is born in the image and likes of god, so therefore god cares about the unborn, but he also cares about the immigrant. when we talk about religion and morality, a lot of people -- again, to go back to the conversation we had earlier, your politics dictate your religion. for some reason, how we treat immigration is more important

than we how treat abortion. everyone gets to make their own decisions on these issues. i'll make two points here. one is that joe biden goes to mass with higher frequency than any presidential president we've had in my lifetime in the last 50 years. he's the most religiously active. and two, the fact of the matter is donald trump was convicted of a felony. so how we weigh those two moral issues is up to us, but reality is we think about politics through a moral lens, and sometimes we think about morality to a political end. we all have to make decisions about what we think is the most important. abraham lincoln said the most important thing is not whether god is on our side. i think that's the operating question we should have in this arena. host: tony on our line for independents. good morning, tony. caller: how you doing today? thank you for showing up today. quick question. america is built on religion. what do you feel that will make things better that may come the next election that people need

to reach out and talk about as far as religion-wise? guest: great question. i think religion is an essential part to a functioning democracy, especially american democracy. if you look at religion over time, it used to be amazing meeting place. it's getting better on racial diversity. but it used to have tremendous educational diversity. it used to have great political diversity. if you went to an evangelical church in the late 1980's, you were just as likely to sit next to a republican as you were to sit next to a democrat. i think that is helping, there's all kinds of evidence that says if you know people of a different political party, personally know them, you're much more tolerant of political world view. the problem is religion has become so politically homogenous, so white christianity is becoming conservative, nonreligion has become overwhelmingly liberal. we create the worst version of the other side in our minds, and then hate that version. and we'll be intolerant of that version of it. if you look at the data, most

people are incredibly pragmatic, especially on the issue of abortion. they don't want to make it willy-nilly, but they don't want a six-week ban on the ballot in florida either. unfortunately the loudests voices tend to be the most extreme. when people don't really love abortion, but don't want to get rid of it either. there's a bunch of moderate christians that were asked, why don't you go to protests? one older woman looked at my friends and said, honey, moderates don't march. we only hear the very far left and the very far right. in reality, most of us are pragmatic, practical, middle of the road, willing to see compromise. yet our leaders have betrayed us by not being willing to seek compromise and only pushing out extreme positions on both sides. host: alabama, democratic line. caller: how you doing this

morning? host: good, thanks. caller: this is what i want to ask the guy. didn't jesus say you must base your thoughts on not what a man thinks? guest: that is absolutely correct, yes. but the interesting thing about that, bert, is that our understanding of scripture has changed over time. for instance, a lot of white christians in the south in the 1940's and 1950's use it had to justify slavery. now they don't use the bible to justify slavery. a lot of southern baptists had a moderate position on abortion in the 1960's and 1970's, and now they're incredibly pro-life on those issues. the bible doesn't change, but our interpretation, at least what the evidence from history tells us, it has changed over time. caller: let me ask you this right here. didn't jesus christ tell you he never did change, he stayed the same? guest: he did. the bible says god is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, and i believe that. but i also understand the way we

understand and interpret scripture has changed over time. yeah, i think god doesn't change, but our understanding does. host: marian on our line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. about a month ago, i saw a live shot of kamala harris on tv. she was pointing her finger at a group of men and shouting, don't you dare you use the words merry christmas. she was referring to the immigrant children, most of whom are not christians and many of them are subsidized with housing and food stamps and pads and things. there's no repeat of that clip

anywhere. so obviously it's been suppressed. host: marion, do you remember where you first saw that? i'm just trying to find what you're referencing. caller: ok, it was about the second week in august, and it was about 4:00 in the afternoon, i was just about to go out, and i saw this clip. it probably was on fox news, because that's what i usually watch. but those words were a major affront to every christian and tells me a great deal about kamala. host: before i let ryan respond to your point, i'm going to read a little bit for other folks to know what you're referencing, here's a story from "the new york post." it says harris fumed at americans saying merry christmas before illegal migrants were protected in resurfaced clip. it looks like this is the clip

you're referencing here. it says then-senator kamala harris warned americans not to say merry christmas until there was permanent status for some illegal immigrants amid a trump-era battle over protections for some illegal immigrants who came to the u.s. as children. and when we all sing happy tunes, this is a quote, when we all sing happy tunes and since merry christmas and wish each other merry christmas, these are not going to have a merry christmas. how dare we speak merry christmas, how dare we, they will not have a merry christmas. she said at a 2017 press conference, a video of which was obtained by fox news digital. speakers pushed for the passage of the dream act, which would grant a pathway to citizenship for some illegal immigrants who came to the u.s. as minors. that's the clip that she's referencing. ryan, would you like to respond to some of those points that marion raised? guest: yeah, the culture war we talk about, it's over issues

like abortion, same-sex marriage. but for instance, this thing where we can't say merry christmas, we should say happy holidays. it's more inclusive. i think those sort of distract from the bigger issues that are facing our country, right? yes, we're a country that's still majority christian. that's factually true. but we're also a country that's increasingly becoming nonchristian. i think at the end of the day, this is just one more piece of evidence that people are going to, they're going to fight the culture war until the end of time. it's evolved from pornography back in the 1960's and 1970's, and then it went through gay marriage, and now we're talking about the rights of transgender americans. this is always going to be something we talk b. the context might change, and the words we use might change, and the battle lines might change, but this is what we're going to do in the future. it's going to be this discussion of the christian world view versus everybody else. and i think that kind of divisive rhetoric and

polarization is not going to make it easier for us to govern. we have to compromise in this country to get things done. that's what our constitution is predicated on, compromise. and unfortunately, i think we're kareening toward a future where compromise has become a dirty word, and we're going to shut the government down, for reasons that some people might find justified off ridiculous, but i think we all agree we need a functioning government that can respond to domestic and international threats. i wonder if that's going to be in peril in the future as we continue to fight culture wars and harden our positions on both sides. host: we have a text from kelly in chesterfield, missouri, who it's the prioritization of that issues that makesifference christians?or so-called for example, i am primarily a socialtice catholic, but i also can toleratexceptions for abortion. other catholics might say abortion is their only voting issue. guest: yeah, i think political science wants to believe that everyone is an issue voter and

they really take great pains to read the campaign's website and try to figure out how donald trump feels about tariffs and kamala harris feels about farm subsidies. but at the end of the day, unfortunately it seems like more and more politics has has just become tribal. i'm red, you're blue, i'm republican, you're democrat. and i think we draw these battle lines, and we create us versus them. and i think really what happens is people find ways, on both sides, by the way, to justify their political vote by sort of playing up certain parts of things and playing down certain parts of things. that happens on both sides. we like everything our lives to line up f. i'm very conservative, i'm probably not atheist. but if i'm very liberal, i'm probably not an evangelical. so i think what happens is we align our religious viewpoint with our political viewpoint so we feel like we're living congruent lives, and unfortunately it's really hard to persuade voters now of a good

issue campaign is not going to win over -- even donald trump said it on the stump a couple of months ago much he did a speech and got no cheers, not much applause, and it was kind of boring. he said i know what you guys want me to talk about, immigrants, transgender, and all these things, and the crowd went wild. people want to hear about the culture war topics. they don't to want hear about economic policy. when in reality policy probably matters a whole heck of a lot more to impact more americans. that's just where we are as a country right now. host: jodie is in new york on our line for independents. good morning, jodie. caller: this may be somewhat of a segue -- host: jodie, can you turn down the volume on your tv and then go ahead and ask your question? caller: it's my husband's tv in the other room, so i cannot turn it down. but i've got mine muted here. it's muted. so i hope you can hear me. but what i'm going to do is i'm going to quote something from the king james version, and this

is -- host: keep it quick to get to your fine. caller: ok, fine, let's see, but watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, and make false proof of ministry. one thing as an independent that die believe is that god's kingdom is no part of this world. who i will vote for, well, god only knows. thank you. guest: i agree with the caller, by the way. i always say whoever wins is irrelevant in the long arc of human history. we act like every election is cataclysmic and most consequential in american history. we survived a civil war. kamala harris versus donald trump is no way close to what that election was. so let's just focus on what matters. we're going to get through this

election and survive this election cycle. we're going to come out other side. it's going to be ok. host: let's hear from january in washington on our line for democrats. good morning, january. caller: hi. i'm a christian. i'm 78 years old. first of all, i don't understand why the christians that you talk about have all adopted the name evangelical christians. evangelicals. i'm a lutheran, and i think all christians are evangelical, because that's part of our

admonition to go and spread the word. that's what evangelical means. that's only a tiny part, it's not a tiny part, it's a large part, but not as -- there's a lot of other ways to describe christians than evangelical. feet poor and take care of the widow and show love. love and grace and mercy. i don't understand why that -- it's like years ago, when jimmy carter was president and kind of came into the public knowledge

and all the sudden everyone was a born again christian. i think it kind of -- i can't say cheapens, but there must be another way to describe it. host: let's let ryan respond to some of the points you raised. guest: yeah, christianity is based on evangelismism, showing people the good news and showing people the word of god. it's existed for a long time, but the connotation that it gets in modern parlance is definitely a product of the last 20 years. i grew up in a white rural church in illinois. we were evangelical, but i didn't know it. we didn't use the word evangelical at all on sunday. i went to a christian college. one of the professors goes, we should emphasize the fact we're an evangelical college. i looked at my buddy and go, what's an evangelical? i should have known what that word meant. this is 2001, 2002.

now it's on everybody's lips when we talk about religion and politics. it's unfortunately a product of the polling industry. pew research started asking about the word evangelical about 20 years ago or so, and almost every time, and i've actually written papers on this, if you look at the discourse around evangelical, the name donald trump shows autopsy lot more around the discourse of evangelicals today been 10 years ago, 15 years ago, republican party, evangelical. what we're seeing is the word morph into this almost political or cultural term and lost its religious morass. i think that's a problem for people who are sort of traditionally theologically evangelical, because the word they use to describe themselves doesn't really describe what they're up to anymore. i would fully agree, christian life is more than just the word evangelical, feeting the poor, visiting the prisoner, but unfortunately the modern conception of what christianity has become is really about who you vote for on election day, when it's really a whole lot more than that and should be a whole lot more than that. host: frank is in pennsylvania

on our line for independents. good morning, frank. are you there? caroline: reason my motivation to tall today, i'm a very outspoken militant atheist is the way i describe myself. i never voted before, and i made a promise to myself until the candidate meets my main two criteria why, i will never vote. but i'm very angry at the republican party, because they are making me do something that i'm breaking a promise to myself, and it's because of the religion involved with the republican party. i have to finally stand up and i will be voting democrat. and i'm not a democrat. i am not a fan of democrats. but they're not republicans. and these republicans bring so much religion into politics is

so offensive to me that i have to make this decision to do whatever i can to join this one time with democrats, to try not to let this happen. for me, it's a very, very huge, it's my life's goal. because i'm also anti-theist. to me, anybody who is not christian cannot vote republican. because it is not inclusive. they are looking to make this a christian nation. this goes for other religious beliefs. you cannot vote religion. they do not -- they do not include us. whether nonreligious or religious, they're also, i'm also very pro-science and pro scientific method of learning. republicans are very anti-science, from climate change being to a hoax.

host: frank, i want to make sure we leave ryan enough time to respond. before that, ryan, i want to read a comment we received from x that silar to what frank has to say. religi iand should only be a private matter and not sometng that gets shoved down a polation's throat. how many crusades and jaddo we have to endure before we understand ts st basic fact? church and state must ever remain separate. ryan, do you want to respond to those two comments, frank's and robert's? guest: i think frank gives me a great textbook example of a concept in political science called negative partisanship. i'm not voting for a candidate, i'm voting against the other candidate. so in his case, he's not voting for harris. he's voting against donald trump. what we're seeing is increasing amount of negative partisanship in america, which is i just hate the other side and i would never vote for the other side. i don't care who the other party puts up, i'm going vote for them anyway because they're not the party i strongly dislike.

you cannot completely disentangle religion from politics. it's completely impossible. at the end of the day, if we look at where our laws come from, they do come from a religion ethic. you can't say that's not true. how much religion plays a role in modern america is definitely up for debate. what kind of laws we enforce accident what kind of laws we enact, how we think about issues, that emerges from something, whether it be religion or somewhere else. the reality is we live in an increasingly polarized and pluralistic religious nation. we used to be over 90% christian 50 years ago, and now we're about 60% christian. i think for a lot of christians, they're having to come to terms with the reality they can't dictate policy anymore. and how do they become a religion that's under as opposed to over the average person? i think that's going to lead to all kinds of interesting debates about what role religion plays, both from a civic standpoint, but also a legal stand point.

can we privilege religion going forward? can churches have wide berths to sidestep certain rules and laws that private businesses can't? these are debates that are only going to continue to accelerate as the nones continue to rise and we see an increasely number of nonchristian people out there. this is what democracy is supposed to do. it's supposed to evolve with the changing landscape of the people it's supposed to represent. in many ways, i'm hopeful in the future our government can respond to how much we've changed from a religious standpoint on the ground. host: thank you so much, ryan burge is a political science professor at eastern illinois university and author of the book "the nones: where they came from, who they are, and where they are going." thank you so much for joining us this morning. guest: thanks. appreciate it. host: and thank you, everyone, who called in today to share your thoughts. we will be back tomorrow morning with another edition of "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m. eastern. have a great day.

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