we have grocery stores running on generators. the shells are just wiped clean, because they cannot get any trucks in here. it is like a war zone here. host: thank you for sharing that, chris. we are just about out of time. did you want to respond to any of the points chris raised? guest: where the challenge of, and i'm sorry, chris and i don't mean to make it sound easy for you, but one of the challenges we have in the field as we have an event, and andrew is sort of the first event where it was a massive event where we saw the federal government response, and we try to overcome that by a bunch of policy changes that we thought were going to fix the problem, and the reality is, we don't have a mechanism to touch those policy changes until the next big disaster come in and we fixed some more stuff, because it is broken, and we fixed more stuff, and then we touch it with the next disaster, so we are always learning.

there are always policies that are too problematic and burdensome for people, and we should make it as easy as possible and as smooth as possible for the people in our communities that are impacted. they rely on is to help them and we have to find a way to do a better job of helping them come all the way from the first responders a to the money that they need to get themselves, we need to do a better job. host: that is all the time we have for today. thank you so much, tim frazier, faculty director at georgetown university's emergency and disaster management program. thank you so much. and thank you to everyone who called in today and shared your thoughts for "washington journal ." we will be back tomorrow morning with another edition of the show at 7:00 a.m. eastern. have a great day. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

♪ among the top issues are voters as health care with nearly 80% of americans ranking is extremely or very important in a presidential election according to recent gallup polling. we want to hear from you. how important is health care to your 2024 vote? the number for republicans is (202) 748-8001. free democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8002.

but if you'd like to text us, that number is (202) 748-8003. please be sure to include your name and where you are writing in from. and on social media you can reach us at facebook.com/c-span and on x. now for that gallup polling that i mentioned, they asked the question of people as they are looking at issues that will probably be discussed in the presidential election care. , please tell them how important the candidates positions on that issue would be in influencing their vote for president. extremely important, very important, somewhat important or not important at all. and when it came to health care, 79% of americans said it was either extremely or very important. when you break it down to only those who said extremely important, that is 37%.

and yet it hasn't gotten the attention on the campaign trail that many americans would prefer. here's another question. do you think health care is receiving too much attention, the right amount of attention, or not enough attention during the 2024 presidential campaign thus far? 67% of americans said that it is receiving not enough attention, with democrats saying 70% of democrats saying so, 53% of republicans and 67% of independents. health care did did a bit more attention this week on the campaign trail with vice president harris releasing a new proposal related to health care, particularly for older americans. his the story about it on thehill.com. vice president harris is putting health care front and center in the campaign with a month ago

before the election, looking to repeat past democratic successes. together, tim walz and i will strengthen the affordable care act, continued to take a big pharma and cap the cost of prescription medication for all americans. here is a bit of detail about vice president harris' healt hcare proposal. she plans to an stand enhanced affordable care act premium credit, extended $35 cap on insulin and $2000 cap on out-of-pocket medical spending for seniors to all americans, accelerate medicare negotiations to lower drug prices on more drugs, establish a home care benefit through medicare, continue to work on the cancellation of some medical debt and continue to call on states to extend medicaid postpartum coverage from two months.

she also supports a federal law to restore roe v. wade's national standard of abortion legality up to viability. in announcing her proposal on a new medicare home health care benefit for seniors, vice president harris spoke earlier this past week about how she plans to pay for it. >> part of four i intend to do is to allow medicare to continue to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies which means we are going to save medicare the money because we are not going to be paying these high prices, where those resources are best put in a way that helps a family like the one you are describing. which we have already done with insulin. it has to be about seeing what is happening, and it is such a burden. care is about physical work and

helping people do what they were bright they wanted need to be able to do. host: former president trump has also talked about health care it and on the campaign trail as well as on his campaign website, and then the kaiser family foundation has a breakdown, comparing the candidates on health care policy. among those differences, former president trump says that he would replace the affordable care act, use executive orders to phase in tariffs and import restriction to encourage the production of medicine in the united states, establish an independent presidential commission to investigate chronic illnesses and expand federal support for faith-based drug counseling, treatment and recovery programs, protect medicare and leave abortion policy up to the states. again, our question this

morning, how important is health care to your 2024 vote? the number for republicans again, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. rob is in new york on the line for independence. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm glad you're on because i want to talk to you a little bit about how you police speech. i further you cancel phone calls over the words darn or crap. i don't know where you think you get off trying to correct people's speech, but it's not right, ok? if you really need to just listen to everybody -- host: next up is william in ohio on the line for independents., good morning. caller: i've got a lot to say about health care. god bless barack obama and john mccain.

john mccain for starting it, barack obama for bringing it out. i was without insurance when i was about 19 because i got sick a my parents had to retire because my dad got sick later on. health care is a very important thing and women needed. these single women needed bad. a woman's body is her business, not the government, and not another guy. they've got to get their heads out of their rear ends and give it a chance. and by the way, like i said, obamacare saved my life, and my parents. so god bless him. the first thing they do after they make you retire is give up your insurance. so it means a lot to me and i

think donald trump don't have any plans at all. he didn't have any for four years before, he probably wouldn't have any in the next four. kamala is going to stomp him good. host: at the place presidential debate, senator jd vance elaborated on former president trump's strategies for replacing the affordable care act. here's what he had to say and governor tim walz' response. >> a lot of people have criticized this concept of a plan remark. it's very simple common sense that i think tim walz knows. you're not going to propose a 900 page bill standing on a debate stage, and it wouldn't actually mean anything because part of this is the give-and-take bipartisan negotiation. when donald trump was actually president, and again he has a record to be proud of, prescription drugs fell in 2018 for the first time in a very long time. under kamala harris leadership, they are up about 7%.

over donald trump's entire four years, they were up about 1.5%. he introduced pricing transparency. you go to a hospital and try to buy something and nobody knows what it actually costs. that price transparency will give american consumers a little bit more choice and will also drive down cost. and we talked about the reinsurance regulation. with donald trump said, if we allow states to experiment a little bit on the chronically ill and the non-chronically ill, it is not just a plaid, he actually implemented some of these regulations. and i think you can make a beleaguered argument that it salvaged obamacare which was doing disastrously until donald trump came along. i think it is an important point about president trump. you don't have to agree with everything that president trump has ever said or ever done, but when obamacare was crushing under the weight of its own regulatory burden and health care cost, donald trump could have destroyed the program and its steady work in a bipartisan

way to ensure that americans have access to affordable care. it's not perfect, and there's so much more that we could do, but i think that donald trump has earned the right to put in place some better health care policies. he's earned it because he did it successfully the first time. host: governor? >> here's where being an old guy gives you some history. i was there at the creation of the aca and the reason it was so important is i come from a major health care state, home of the mayo clinic, home to medical alley. 3m. we understand health care, it is why we are ranked first unaffordability and quality of health care. under kamala harris, this is critical to give. donald trump wants to go back and remember this. the first thing he was going to do on day one was to repeal obamacare. on day one he tried to sign an executive order.

he signed on to a lawsuit to repeal the aca, but lost in the supreme court, and he would have repealed the aca had it not been for the courage of john mccain to save that bill. fast-forward. what that means to you is you lose your pre-existing conditions. if you are sitting at home with asthma, too bad. if you're a woman, probably not. broke your foot during football, like kick you out. your kids get kicked out when they are 20 six. kamala harris negotiated drug prices for the first time with medicare. we have 10 drugs that will come online. but this issue, when donald trump set i've got a concept of a plan, it cracked me up as a fourth-grade teacher because my kids would have never given me that. host: back to your calls. jerry is in tennessee on the line for democrats. caller: thank you very much for taking my call. insurance and health care have all the importance in the world.

donald trump tried to do away with the affordable care act. he tried it so many times when he was in there. imagine if you are a young person, imagine what this does to your mother, your grandfather. i'm in my 60's so a lot of us of pre-existing illness. people believe no inheritance left for their grandkids and stuff. we know how important health care is, some women can tell you that more than anybody now. but any young man out here thinking about voting for donald trump, health care is a very hard low to do away with. along with the healthy parts of you, i really appreciate you having this about health care

and stuff because it really needs to get talked about. people: and voice their opinion about this. this is one of the most important things in the world. i remember how it was before we had obamacare. you could just kick people off for having a fender bender with your car. that's where we are at. thank you people, you do a superduper job. thank you very much and have a good day. host: gary was talking about the effect of these issues on young people. gallup also broke down some of the polling based on age and how important each of the following health care issues is in determining your vote for the 2024 presidential election, looking at the categories of protecting medicare social security, lowering drug costs, reducing overall cost of health care and policies for mental health care access. especially protecting medicare and social security as people

get older, people 65 and older. a 4% saying that is a big issue for them but on these other issues such as lowering drug cost, we do see policies related to mental health care access in terms of their relative importance. back to you. walter is in kentucky on the line for republicans. caller: good morning. thank you for taking the call. i believe that health care is very, very important. every person, the elderly, i believe john mccain came out and done the thumbs down, that health care at that time was not perfect. and they had to go through a lot of stuff to make it what it is today.

donald trump had a very vital part in that, and i think that we need to come out with the truth, and the truth that donald trump done, that's another thing in this election that i wish that people could have, is the truth. a lot of things on both sides are coming out that's not correct. and i think we are getting that information from the media and i just believe that if folks could just tell the truth and what the truth is, donald trump is the one that got insulin at 35. i know kamala harris and biden claims that they did, but if you go back, donald trump was the one they got that started, and what she is promising, what you

put on there a minute ago about what she says and what she was going to do, if you go back, that was trump's plan. host: if i could pause you for just a moment, i want to give the audience some context for what you are saying. in terms of the facts about that 35 dollar insulin co-pay cap in medicare, what did the trump administration do? in 2020 the trump administration established a voluntary model under the center for medicare and medicaid innovation known as the part d senior savings model. under this model purges bedding in medicare part d prescription drug plans covered at least one of each dosage form and type of insulin product at no more than $35 a month. the model was in effect from 2021 through 2023, and less than half of all part d plans chose

to participate each year. then what did the biden administration do? president biden signed into law the inflation reduction act which included a provision that requires all part d plans to charge no more than $35 a month for all covered insulin product and also limits cost-sharing for insulin covered under part b to $35 a month. deductibles no longer apply to insulin under part d or part b and these provisions took effect in 2023, january 1. so that is just emphasizing the point that you made about this beginning in the trump administration. walter, you still there? caller: yes, yes. but he eventually was the one that brought it to the front and was going to do that.

i know it says 21 through 23, it was a good thing he got started. he had done something that was good that trump started, but you can't take credit, in my opinion. you can't just take the credit of saying that we got the $35 insulin co-pay. so all right, thank you and you all have a blessed day. host: k.c. ville, illinois, line for democrats. good morning. caller: my family, about 95% of my family are republicans. if it weren't for john mccain, i would not be talking to you right now. i had open heart, i had diabetes bad. they didn't think i would make it. john mccain did.

donald trump got very mad. i get losing offers right now, obama's to a really give the credit to. donald trump says he's got a plan. he had a plan nine years ago. i mean, and now i watch when he talks to people on the campaign, i don't know. he is older, he is like joe biden, they forget. i just hope everything comes out all right. i want people to really think about who they are taking for 2025, because when it happens,

like 2025 that they've got planned, he don't know nothing about it, but he does. i just want to tell you, i really appreciate republicans, democrats. he saved my life and i'm here today. god bless you guys. that is all i want to talk to you about. host: pennsylvania, line for republicans, good morning. caller: i just went to get a refill on my insulin and it has been discontinued. everything the government sticks their nose in, they screwed up. goodbye. host: illinois, line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, i think the health care in

foods, especially destroying the black community is definitely a dream of margaret singer. i find it impossible that a black person would support destroying the seeds of the black community. host: timothy is in albini, georgia on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, timothy. caller: -- i have some comments about donald trump. host: is it related to health care in the selection? caller: yes, it's related to

health care and other policies. donald trump is an idiot and he doesn't understand health care. he doesn't know anything about it, and he don't care about the people that need it. if he gets elected, the first thing he's going to do is do away with medicare. he's going to cut it out. host: why would you think that, he hasn't said that he would do away with medicare. he said that he would protect medicare. caller: he wants to do away with social security. a lot of the programs. host: social security and medicare are different but former president trump has had on the campaign trail repeatedly that he would protect the programs. caller: he has said it, but you don't mean it. he's the biggest liar to ever come along. host: we are getting a little bit of feedback on your end. laura in las vegas on the line

for democrats, good morning. caller: i think health care is a primary issue in this election because with project 2025 and that coming out, trump being part of it, that scares a lot of people. social security and medicare are two different programs, but they are attached to each other. social security benefits were disabled, you would not get medicare for that you aren't able to get disability if you unable to get insurance programs to help techie. consistently, republicans, especially donald trump have said over and over and over again how we are spending too much money on certain programs and how we would cut these programs. those programs are your health care programs.

he claims he saved a program that he didn't save, obamacare -- we won't even go there. trump has repeatedly proven to himself and to us that he is a liar. i cannot trust a single thing that he says. i've been able to literally sit on my couch and do nothing my whole life because my disability is that bad, i put my money into my social security, my money into my disability, and now you are going to tell me that i'm not going to be able to get it. you're going to tell me that you saved obamacare, but in reality all you are going to do is abolish that and make it where people like me with pre-existing conditions would no longer be able to get insurance, let alone be able to take care of myself. to the gentleman who said that the $35 insulin would be

discontinued, go back and speak to a doctor about a form that he needs to be on, because that is a manufacturing who discontinued that, not the government who said we are going to make this $35 and then have the manufacturer discontinuing. i think we need to be more prepared about was happening and make health care, reproductive rights, which by the way, is health care, all more part of our plan insecurity, and democrats are more likely to do that. host: a couple of folks now have mentioned this particular type of insulin being discontinued. here's a story about that in usa today from earlier this year. diabetes patients who depend on insulin recently got a financial break from the three major insulin manufacturers enacting dramatic price cuts.

they announced last month they would slash the price of -- by 65%, but the good news were short-lived. the drugmaker will stop selling the injectable flex pen version in april and will help the sales of vials by the end of december. this article was actually from the beginning of this year. and now it says that the company is not announced plans to discontinue the drug in other countries. in a statement to usa today last week, they said they would discontinued the sales because of a combination of factors including global manufacturing constraints and the availability of other forms of insulin. the company also cited pharmacy managers and insurers with limited access on drug formulas, a list of drugs insurers cover for patients. and then patients can switch to whether brands of long acting

insulin, including one sold under the brand name -- as well as others. patients often need to take quick acting insulin with meals. hudson, florida, line for republicans. caller: thank you so much for having me and for doing what you are doing. i went through helena three weeks ago, lost my house. i am actually sitting here in a hotel which i can barely afford. i am disabled. fema hasn't done anything for me. i went through and under trump, these helped us out so much. under this administration, i'm sitting here and i can't afford

anymore. i knew when i lost my house last time under trump, fema help us out. so for health care, yes. i'm disabled, i do get my disability. but under trump, he helped us out really quick. fema says i'm approved, i haven't seen anything for three weeks i. look atit that way. host: i'm sorry, scott, i do want to say that we are going to have a conversation a little bit later in the show about the fema response to the hurricane. where are you planning to go when you leave the hotel? caller: oh, gosh. i don't know.

i might walk down the street. host: i'm very sorry scott and i hope you get the resources that you need. mary is in philadelphia on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. i was there for the creation of the affordable care act because i work for the government, and people don't realize, before the affordable care act, you could not purchase insurance as a single individual. it was only available to businesses, corporations that had 10 or more employees. now you have the opportunity to purchase your insurance. now, what we had to do before the affordable care act, we had to place the person on the system under medicaid using the emergency medical treatment act

when they went into the hospital. and they put a lien on your property in order for you to pay the hospital back. now, people lost their homes in the past behind not having medical insurance. now you have the opportunity as a single individual to purchase your insurance. this is why people don't realize with medicare, you need a supplemental insurance. and that is through the affordable care act. because medicare does not pay for everything. and if you are on a higher income limit based on being on medicare, because everyone has to pay into medicare after a certain age, you could still lose your property because you

don't have a supplemental insurance available. this is why people need to realize how important medical is to everyone in this country. it's not just for seniors. it's for children, everybody. every family member. because they could bankrupt you if you do not have insurance on board. and that is based on the hospital's rules, the doctors rules. because the doctor cannot even treat you unless we place you on a medical system, and that is under the emergency medical treatment act based on their insurance. medical malpractice insurance. host: i think we got the idea, mary. i do want to follow-up on what her previous caller was talking about from florida. scott mentioned that he was

disabled and struggling to find some resources. if you are still watching, i found this on the fema website, updated fema programs the better for people with disabilities and fema funding can make certain acceptability improvements to homes, and then there's also disaster support by increasing accessibility and eligibility for affected people, families and communities. you must be displaced, need shelter or have other emergency costs due to a disaster. i'm just going to scroll down here. to apply for that individual assistance and fema, you can visit a fema disaster recovery center, can call fema. you can also apply at disasterassistance.gov.

i know a lot of folks are still without power in florida. anthony isn't detroit on the line for independence. good morning. caller: good morning. talking about health care, very important. i've had some big expenses, but i think, going to get insurance soon through my job. it's important to me, but i actually wanted medicare for all , which kamala said she supported in 2020 and totally slipped off that mat. i think medicare for all would be the best way. too much paperwork, too much bureaucracy with the private companies. host: anthony, where does health

care rank for you in terms of importance as you are deciding how to vote in november? caller: i'd say it's about number two or three, right behind all the wars we've got going on. behind that, health care is two or three. i can't believe bernie sanders, that was his big issue. look at him, he sold out. he ain't even talking about medicare for all anymore. the corporate democrats, that is why i voted third party already. host: thank you, anthony. we have a comment on facebo from bradley who says health care is important, but not at the top they need to have healthy competition to keep prices down and not turn into a monopoly andne-size-fits-all type scheme. the trump plan is to create tt competition while not allowing companies to raise prices on certain things and force them to provide essential care for

certain things like pre-existing conditions. fail is in new york on the line for republicans. phil, can you help me say the name of your town? caller: the unk, a tiny little town on long island. i have great health care, my wife has great health care. but my children do not. they are independent contractors. so although i do ok, i'm aware of the problems, i love c-span, i tuning as often as i can, but sometimes i'm just blown away at where your democratic line gets their information. i think i know it's probably the mainstream media. they talk about social security and health care and obamacare. it's obvious to me that they are not listening to anything trump says. as painful as it would be to

them, i really recommend them watching the whole podcast and rally and hear exactly what the man says instead of the little blips. in terms of obamacare, this points to the quality of the man. he was going to remove obamacare and he admits he couldn't come up with anything better, so when you're caller said he saved obamacare, that may not be completely accurate, but he didn't do away with that out of spite like that biden administration did with the trump policy on a one. and that is the difference. and the other thing i would add is now that rfk jr. is on the trump team, watch what this man does with health care. that's another person that your caller should be watching more in-depth instead of listening to the assassination, the personality assassinations that the mainstream media puts toward kennedy. he's really going to help the

country in terms of health care. he's going to do away with as much as he can in terms of lobbying. a last thing i will finish up with, health care does seem to be low on the totem pole when it comes to straightening things out and putting money toward that. i think that's because the other policies that the government -- and it is both parties, not just one that historically has cap inflation. for example, can you imagine what health care could be if instead of giving billions and billions and billions of dollars toward these wars that we support that are not on air land, we try to focus them toward health care? things could be turned around. thank you for taking my call. host: another comment from facebook, health care is extremely important personally because i will be on medicare and because i care about access for others i want the aca to be

intact and trump and his party of vandals would be a disaster for health care. that's why i'm voting straight ticket blue. howard is in indiana on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning, hope you can hear me ok. yes, i would write health care as number one or among the many number one issues in this election year, and my vote would be for kamala harris. she has supported a single payer health care for all previously. she is very intelligent and realizes she needs to generate a fraud political coalition to bring forward. i think that is still something she would pursue. my vote would be for kamala harris, health care is number

one. certainly. host: conway, south carolina, line for republicans. good morning. caller: thank you for c-span. it just seems like every other news outlet is not a news outlet anymore, it's just a commentary. i just want to tell you, the single-payer idea is great when you think about it, and when you talk about it. my friend is from canada, my partner in business. she's from canada. they have single-payer. it works really great for the first three or four years until a lot of foreign nationals come in to get health care and the weight is incredible.

incredible. six months. i mean we are up to two months, three months here the way things are running, but for them, is incredible. i have a lot of problems with my body and my health. i have spine problems, i'm disabled at this point. we are independent contractors, so i've always had health care. there was no money coming in at the start of the business, so medicaid is like, if more people take medicaid, i have to say

that it pays to be indigenous because that is who really gets medicaid. they take care of everything. my husband turned 65, so he's on medicare, and i have the supplement for him because he's not collecting, he's still working and i don't think you will ever stop working. i host: want you to finish your point but just because you are talking about medicaid, there is a chart here, the percentage of the population covered by medicaid ranged from 10% to 34%. these numbers are from 2021, but it gives you a sense of where the coverage is the most significant with these dates having 20% or more of people in the population covered by

medicaid and these light blue states with 10% or less. go ahead. caller: looked, i don't think that trump's first thing that he's going to do is to pull the insurance system out. he has too much else to worry about. insurance is working. he's not going to change it. and as to the last caller who said imagine if we weren't in all these wars and all this stupid money was going out, this wasteful money, imagine what they could do for people here. you know what i'm saying? trump is not going to change anything that is working. he has too much else on his plate. he needs to close the border. his other things that are so important, he's not going to change it.

he's definitely not going to with the stroke of a pen get rid of it. it's not going to happen. host: vicki on facebook south health care was good until hillary clinton came along making changes during the clinton administration. that is a cost of the spiral. also, keeping people on their parents health care until 26, that racy. people need to grow up, step up, and be independent from their parents. michael is on the line for independence. good morning. caller: morning. health care is very, very important to everybody. trump, all he wanted to do was repeal and replace. all he really had with the repeal part, there was no replacement. and he's got a concept of a plan after nine years. that's really not saying much. earlier you had jd vance on

there and he was talking and talking. he can pilot wards to keep on talking. sort of like when he told people donald trump was america's kepler -- hitler. now he is sucking up to this guy, it's horrible. everything he says is a lie and if you don't understand that and you actually believe them, you have trumped arrangements interim. one other thing. i've got streaming services and i can only get to sirius xm on sundays. if there anyway you can start streaming on streaming services because i don't have a able hook up anymore? don't believe trump, pse lies, lies, lies. he will never stop lying. he's out for himself, and that's it. have a good day. host: michael, you can stream up through the c-span app, which is available in most of the app stores, and you can stream our

content bear. baltimore, maryland, line for democrats. good morning. can you turn down the volume on your tv, please? caller: i have three questions. host: you need to turn on the volume on your tv because were getting feedback. all right, want to give it a shot? caller: yes. i have a few statements to make. host: we're going to try to get you back later, joe. jim is in texas on the line for republicans. good morning, jim. caller: morning, i think we need a paradigm shift. health care is expensive because we have to get a permission slip from the high-paying medical industry.

now, there are certain things that i want the experts treating me, but with ai and even with people being able to educate themselves, we are not going to be able to deliver health care to ourselves, take care of our own health. i don't see any reason why drugs should require prescriptions. i think that with ai coming along, we don't need a position to address it. -- physician to address it. until we change the question about what we are talking about, instead of talking about who's going to pay for extensive health care, we need to change the delivery system. if i have to take my car in to the dealership to get an oil change or a fan belt, be expensive.

it would be a captured market. but i can go to autozone or an auto parts, i got quite fixed my plumbing. until we have the freedom to take care of our own health, we are going to be captured by a very expensive health care delivery. i know about this, i've known about health care for four decades. also we work for pharmaceutical companies. i know a lot about this. host: speaking of pharmaceutical companies, in an interview, the head of the pharmaceutical research and manufacturers association, the group was discussing with real clear politics how the discussions about health care this election

cycle going consider patient out-of-pocket cost. here's a portion of that. >> we certainly feel that from the pharmaceutical industry, so much of the political conversation is one of the list price for medicine? and when voters say they care about is what they are paying to access that medicine. these big pharmacy benefit middlemen, they decide what medicines are covered, what who they have to jump through, and what has been frustrating about a lot of the policies lately, there's been less focusing on the real challenge that voters are experiencing. what they say they care about instead of the focus on what to do with oil prices in medicine and what we are seeing is actually that a lot of rebates and discounts that happen through a competitive marketplace, patients aren't seeing the full benefit of that. they show they are looking for

solutions that address the real pain point. host: that was the chief public affairs officer for pharma. michael in orlando, florida, line for independents. caller: good morning. first, the affordable care act was kind of failing the individual mandate. they didn't bank on that they would be enough younger people buying into it. so he actually had a choice to cancel it, but he didn't. so he strengthened it, and he left it there. i don't think that's going to change going forward. he will look for little ways to tweak it, but he's not going to do something that is obviously going to hurt his reelection. he decided to keep that and strengthen that. and number two, look what he did with the mandates for the vaccines. people forget it took 4, 5, 6

years to get the vaccine through. he cut down the red tape and got that done. he got that done in six months. and then going forward, we have to lower the cost. by drilling and getting more oil and gas back into the marketplace, once things start going back down and re-stabilizing, health care was stabilized a little bit more. but one thing i want to share is you look at what is going on with not just the prices of health care, that the insurance has all gone up. who is taking credit for insulin? from did the insulin bill before he left, and there is kamala harris and biden saying we've got $35 insulin now. trump did that. i want you to bring up the research and do a quick search

and do that because there is -- he did that, but it wasn't going to take effect until after his past administration. and there's kamala harris and biden touting $35 insulin and lower cost. that was trump, that was his doing, and he's not taking enough credit for that. and i think that is wrong. host: we did cover this a little bit earlier, but also a refresher for folks who may be joining is a little bit later because kff has some research on this highlighting that when it comes to those -- that $35 insulin cap, that the trump administration established a voluntary model under the center for medicare and medicaid innovation known as the part d senior savings model, in this model is what allowed participating medicare prescription drug plans to have the insulin at $35 a month, and

then in 2022, the biden administration signed into law the inflation reduction act which required all the part d plans to charge them more than $35 a month and here's the breakdown of the difference. the time-limited example under the trump administration did not apply to all plans, but there was a voluntary subset of plans that it did apply to, which was not the case under the biden plan, and it goes into further details on that. go ahead, michael. caller: that it even existed is my point. that's what i'm trying to stipulate. they are trying to take credit for the whole thing and i think it is just a push against big pharma. that the government and big pharma, it wasn't trump. ok. thank you.

host: philip is in ohio on the line for democrats, good morning, philip. caller: good morning, thank you for receiving me. trying to turn my tv down. i was on disability, social security and everything, and for some reason they assume -- first, i had disability for my social security. they asked me how i mistakenly said that they wanted to put me on the medicare or take me off my disability. and i'm thinking that i was going to continue along with the program the way that i was doing. host: given that experience, how

important is health care to you in deciding how you're going to vote next month? caller: well, as of right now, i'm making my decision on whether they are going to continue with my health care the way that i was receiving it before. just like the gentleman was talking earlier about how they fit their thumbs down on the affordable care act and everything, i need supplemental insurance to be able to exist because i'm disabled from my heart. right now being able to have supplemental insurance or my disability, if anything happens to me, i don't have a home or anything, i'm not going to have

supplemental insurance. and i apply for it, and the people at the jobs and family services went down there and applied for it. host: sounds like health care is pretty important to you the cycle. matt k says i wish health care could be the number one issue but unfortunately there are more imminent existential matters to address, namely democracy. amy is in pennsylvania on our for republicans. good morning. caller: i think health care is extremely important. not only as a consumer of health care insurance but also a provider of a health care professional. people need to realize that obamacare allowed more people access to health care and insurance, which also allowed more hospitals, health care

businesses to get more money. before obamacare, hospitals were going bankrupt. i don't know anyone who can provide free services and not be compensated for it and survive. health care is a business, you have to look at it that way. host: how important is it for you in deciding how you're going to vote this year? caller: trump keeps saying i'm going to get bit of obamacare, but he has no plan. he has no plan on what he's going to do. he has concepts of a plan. i'm sorry, but i can't feed myself the concepts of a plan. i'm a health-care professional, so it matters to me. you need to have a plan. host: does that mean you're going to be voting for a different candidate? caller: -- host: are you planning to vote for harris or third-party? caller: i'm definitely voting

for harris. a third party vote is a vote for trump at this point. host: next up is mike and montgomery, alabama for independents. caller: good morning. i want to say you do a great job as an impartial moderator. i want to just say that i had to negotiate a health care rate for my company and i think both political parties really need to get in the weeds on this. just say you know, to set the backdrop here, a carrier came in with a 23% rate hike renewal for 2025. but our manufacturing employees, they cannot afford the out-of-pocket that type of rate. what this tells me as their health care system in this country is broken. when we work with a monopoly and they call themselves health care

carriers, they have too much control. after some negotiation, i was able to get that 23% rate down to a considerable amount, but we had to give up a lot in the plan for that, which really diluted it. as it stands, a health care system really needs to be looked at, and i don't think either the democrats or the republicans have a solution. thank you for hearing my comments. host: mike was referencing the increase in health insurance premiums. analysis found that marketplace ensures are proposing a 7% average premium hike for 2025 and pointing to rising hospital prices and drugs as key drivers of those costs. this was similar to the 6% premium increase file for 2024, although the vast majority of

marketplace enrollees we are referencing here received subsidies are not expected to face these added costs. premium increases generally result in higher federal spending on subsidies. the justifications provided for these premium cases also shed light on what is driving health spending more broadly. and surest site growing health care prices particularly for hospital care as a key driver of growth in 2025 as well as weight loss and other specialty drugs. those are publicly available documents and hear the distribution of the rate changes. the average is 7%. in some places, places, 6% of te an increase of over 25%. a live in at 5% to 10% range. gary is in dayton, ohio on our line for democrats.

good morning, gary. caller: good morning. yeah. health insurance is important, but the issue -- they should do a government investigation on -- a lot of drug stores are closing around here. the right went out of business. they are closing of the walgreens left and right, and it is only like one cvs in the whole area that i live in. you have to go to the big box stores like walmart or kroger or myers just to get, you know, drugs. so i think there should be an investigation on that. forget about mom and pop. you used to have mom-and-pop pharmacies, but they are gone. so they should look into why we

can't get any drugs anymore. host: the federal trade commission is investigating the pharmacy benefit managers, what they call prescription drug middleman, and many of the companies that are pharmacy benefit managers also in the umbrella organizations own drugstore chains. the federal trade administration is investigating some of what you are talking about, mike. michael on access health care is very important. the u.s. needs universal health care. if government health care is good enough for our veterans, it is good enough for the rest of us. if the rest of the world can do it, certainly the greatest nation on earth can do it better. linda is in ohio on our line for republicans. good morning, linda. caller: good morning.

i wanted to tell my story. i was a nurse for 40 years. i retired at 62, with no insurance. i had been insured my whole life. i went on the affordable care act for a year. i was paying $225 a month, and the next year, it was going to go up to $303, so i dropped it, because i'm fairly healthy. i told my doctor, i cannot come in twice a year anymore, i can only visit once a year, and i can only have bloodwork once a year. but i also went to a hospital where you filled out a form of a man they would help you out. they would reduce the amount of money you had to. but trump did away with the mandate when he was president, for not having insurance. because i went, like, until i became 65, i went without insurance, and i had to pay a penalty when i got my taxes done two years in a row, which was pretty substantial, and it went up. it went from like $600 something

to $800 something. so i just tried to keep healthy. and the mandate they sent was illegal. it should have never been put down, you know, but -- host: is health care influencing your vote this year, linda, or are other issues more important? caller: other things are more important to me. but i just wanted to tell my story, that i live in a senior high-rise, and a lot of the people here, you know, they are poor, so they get everything free. so if you are very poor or very rich where you don't have to worry about paying out of pocket, but i'm still stuck in the middle. [laughs] i've been in the middle my whole life, and i'm always a day late and a dollar short when it comes to reaping the benefits of these policies, like not having to pay the mandate. host: thank you for sharing that story, linda.

debbie is in gainesville, florida on our line for democrats. good morning, debbie. caller: thank you for taking my call. i greatly appreciate it. i am a retired registered nurse, and health care is a very important issue for me. and i want to explain why kamala harris and bernie sanders are not sellouts. of course they wanted and still want medicare for all, but they are realists. 60% of american people have their catlike insurance and do not care about the other 40%. so you cannot get elected president in this country anymore, after citizens united, in 2010, they, you know, passed a law where corporations fund their campaigns, and now we are a corporate-one government. so we are just kind of having to do the very best thing we can, we are a developed democracy,

but we are not an advanced democracy, like the other, you know, democracies that are advanced, because they don't have this corporate-run government like we do. they, you know, pretty much run washington, d.c. so yes, i'm voting for kamala harris. host: is that because of health care or because of other issues? caller: because of everything, because she wants to do the best she can to help with health care, but she also, you know, wants to save what little bit of our democracy that we have left. host: ok. rr on access health care is very important to my vote. abortion is health care. trump had for years to come up with a health care plan and did not. the aca is not perfect, but it does help. deanie said it is very important to my congressional vote on health care. scott is in ithaca, new york on our line for democrats. good morning, scott.

caller: there are a lot of issues. health care is one of those issues that is critical. my current premium is $1864 a month. the chart you showed when you add up the numbers is 31% of the people in your chart add up to 15% or more hike in the premium, if you add up the numbers, because you just showed it. so for the small businesses like myself, it has become ridiculous. i did not going to the v.a. system myself until recently, but i had it with paying huge premiums. and so the mandate should be really the federal government should actually limit the premium price. that should be something that should be done. i want to bring up something about iv fluids. iv fluids are critical to the health care system, and as a health care provider myself, i use iv fluids every week with my practice.

we are dependent on iv fluids, a very small pool of companies making them domestically, and that is a big mistake. it was a mistake during covid, when they did not have enough ventilators, and they need to do something critically about having more companies producing iv fluids for the united states. that is a huge point. thank you. host: scott was mentioning the impact of the health care premiums on small businesses, on business owners. here is a story from june in axios, small businesses feel the crush of health care costs. employee health care costs are increasingly eating up a larger share of payroll costs for america's smallest businesses, according to a new analysis in the jpmorgan chase institute. they found that for a typical small business at least two employees and revenues of $600,000 or less, 12% of payroll costs went to health care benefits last year. the businesses with revenues of at least $2.4 million, that was 7%.

in the u.s. bureau of labor statistics reported health insurance on average was 5.8% of compensation costs for small businesses, defined as firms with up to 49 employees. margaret is in texas on our line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i am a 96-year-old, and i say thank god for medicare, and i want people to know, now there's a drive on by all these private companies, because more people that have been going on to -- that will be going on to social security next year. these companies are profit-making companies. social security already has their bureau intact. they don't have to pay anymore for people working there, but these private companies like united and so many of them, i want people to just stop and

think. they have to make a profit for their sales people, they have to pay for the people who work in the office, and when they offer you all these different things, they say maybe or perhaps you will get there. please, please don't go with these companies. just go with medicare. you are going to be a lot better off. and i feel like many others, that other democracies in this world have national health care, and that should be a right for everyone. everyone should have medicare. and basically that is all i have to say. but the instance you mention medicare to a lot of people or national health, they say "socialism, socialism." there's a lot of a difference between socialism, which is a political system, and social

services for the population. host: ok. that is all the time we have recalls on this topic, but coming up, we will have a roundtable. democratic strategist joe caiazzo and republican strategist rick wiley discussing campaign 2024 as well as political news of the day, and later on "washington journal," tim frazier, faculty director of the emergency and disaster management program at georgetown university, will join us to discuss fema's role in hurricane recovery efforts and challenges for emergency management. we will be right back. ♪ >> "q&a" "q&a" tonight on, nationally -- >> tonight on "q&a," an author argues that pat nixon, who was voted most admired, was largely

miss portrayed by the press. heath: this is the opposite of who she was. it was a real caricature. it was deliberate, and i think it was done to distinguish between jackie and pat, but it is also kind of a dig at richard nixon. these go after the ladies in order to get their husbands and upset them. so she was the furthest thing from plastic in real life that you could get. she was warm, personable, interested in people, not plastic. >> heath hardage lee with her book "the mysterious mrs. next in compo tonight on "q&a." -- nixon" tonight on "q&a."

>> do you solemnly swear that in the testimony you are about to give will be the truth of the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> weeknights, watch our encore presentation of our 10 part series congress investigates as we explore major investigations by the u.s. house and senate in our country's history. authors and historians will tell the stories with historic footage from those periods. monday, lawmakers from 1973 and 1974 examine events surrounding the 1972 break-in at democratic national committee headquarters at the watergate hotel in washington, d.c. the investigation led to the resignation of president richard nixon. watch congress investigates monday at 10:00 eastern on c-span. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. i'm joined for our roundtable

this morning by joe caiazzo, a partner at jcn group, joining us from boston. thank you for joining us. i should mention you are a democratic strategist as well. we also have republican strategist rick wiley with black diamond strategies, he's a partner they. good morning, rick. guest 2: good morning, kimberly. host: briefly, if you could give me your short take of where we stand on this campaign. i will start with you, rick. guest 2: well, we have a little over three weeks to go. we have polls saying it is as tight as it can be. you have pundits on both sides not sure where we are. i think it is a sprint to the finish. we had a very interesting couple of weeks. we have no debates between the two candidates coming up, so voters have to make a decision based on what they are reading and seeing out there rather than the two candidates actually debating one another. so we will see.

i think you are looking at a photo finish. these battleground states are tight. people should take the polls, throw them out, and figure it out for themselves right now, because the polls are not going to tell you anything between now and election day. host: what do you think, joe? where do we stand? guest 1: i think rick is right. i am very disappointed that there will not be any more debates. but i think rick is right, you know, people have to do their own homework. this is to be so important incredibly -- this is going to be so incredibly close. host: major natural disasters in these last two weeks, hurricane helene and milton, and both of these candidates have been making their presence known on the campaign trail with these events. many have complained that this issue of the disaster recovery has been politicized by trump and vance in particular, linking

aid to illegal immigration and making false assertions about fema. harris has responded. let's listen to both trump and harris, and then i will ask you both about how this might impact swing voters. [video clip] mr. trump: she has just led the worst rescue operation in history in north carolina. the worst. and we have another big one coming in, but the one in north carolina, georgia, alabama, virginia, pieces of florida got hit, and it's incredible. the worst ever, they say. they have no money. you know where they gave the money? to illegal immigrants coming in, many of them are killers, many of whom are drug dealers, many of them are gang members, and many of whom came out of prisons from all over the world. [video clip] vp harris: it is extraordinarily

irresponsible. it is about him, it is not about you, and the reality is that fema has so many resources that are available to folks who desperately need them. now, resources are about helping people get back on their feet and rebuild and have places to go. you are entitled to these resources. people are entitled to these resources, and it is critically important that people apply for the help that host: is there to support. rick -- that is there to support. host: rick, i would like to get your take on how the disaster and recovery might play with swing voters. guest 2: well, you have so many people on the ground in north carolina that have been impacted by this. the, you know, politicalization is this. local congressman on the ground saying misinformation is really impeding what we are trying to do out there, which is a travesty. this is a natural disaster.

unfortunately, hurricane season happens around election season every year. it was kind of a disaster in terms of just let us sizing this. you have people that you can't get to come the roads out, washed out for you can't get water to them or anything like that. it has been pretty rough. i think from a swing voter's perspective, you look at the whole, and unfortunately, you know, voters, their memory, for lack of a better term, is pretty short. i'm not sure the impact on swing voters this hurricane is going to have. it's just the rhetoric, i think, on one of the size that has not been helpful on this come and you had some republicans come out and push back, and hopefully we continue to see that. host: joe, there has been a lot of pushback coming from some republicans, but lots of democrats on the misinformation around this. do you think this is going to influence swing voters at all? guest 1: so, look, from the

moment donald trump came out, he'd try to do two things, he tried to divide us, offered his own benefit. this is one more step in that design. that is an exercise that the american people frankly are sick and tired of. the proof point of that is, donald trump has never won a majority. the red wave that was supposed to happen in 2022 never came to material. people are sick of his divisive rhetoric. government is supposed to be for you, especially in times of crisis. this is exactly when we should come together, not further divided. i think that kamala harris is absolutely right in her claims that donald trump's rhetoric and jd vance is woefully irresponsible. host: where the top issues for voters in this election is the economy. we got new inflation numbers out this past week, the last reading

of cpi until the election. here is a story in the washington post, inflation continues to cool, september extending a trend in improving the economy that has yet to convince many americans with the election nearing. the consumer price index fell slightly to 2.4 percent in september from a year earlier, according to the labor department, missing economists' expectations because of less progress on food prices. still the annual rate has not been this low since february 2021. joe, i want to stay with you, the economy has been such a common strain attack against harris and the biden administration throughout this campaign. do you think this helps them with voters? guest 1: i think people are paying more than they should, and that is a problem that falls squarely on the backs of corporate america. i also think that much credit

should go to president biden. people laughed at president biden when he said he would be able to manage a soft landing on the heels of a covert recovery. that is exactly what he's done. he's gotten more people back to work than before covid, more people are going to work tuesday morning than at any point in our country's history. host: rick, i know you said we should ignore the polls, but there is some "wall street journal" poland that shows trump has an -- polling that shows trump has an edge on harris, that he would do better in handling the economy, and that is such an important issue for voters. 16 points, voters favor trump in handling immigration and border security. do you think that is going to

translate into enough support for trump to take him over the finish line on these issues, especially in swing states? guest 2: well, we will see when november 5 comes, but this is what i do know. the american people are hurting, and, you know, you can talk about cpi, 2.4%, all of that stuff, the american public has no idea what that means. but what they do know is that when it goes to the grocery store, it still hurts. this started from day one in the biden administration feud you had the keystone xl pipeline, which was 90% plus finished, and on day one, they came in and dismantled it. what that did is it spiked energy costs. energy costs are directly related to inflation, and we seen it. it has been four years of high prices. and, you know, sure, gas might be under three dollars a gallon, but that does not mean you can get cheaper groceries. if the problem we have here is that, as a whole, nothing has worked in the biden administration.

costs are up, everything is up, insurance, you name it, so people are hurting. and when you have jobless numbers coming out of it is fantastic we have more people going to work on tuesday than ever before, i love that. the problem we have, though, is they don't feel like the economy is working for half of this country, and we will see that on november 5 when people come, and, you know, the age-old, "i'm going to vote with my pocketbook ," i think you will see that this time around. it will be hard for the biden administration and kamala harris to argue the fact that you feel better in your pocket book and your bank account is better than it was four years ago. host: rick, staying with you, you serve as a senior advisor for nikki haley in her presidential campaign. we hear about hayley voters and whether they will support trump. "miami herald" has a recent

poll, 59 percent voted for trump in 20 but only 45% plan to cast their ballots for him in 2024, a 14 point difference. what can you tell us about voters and the difference -- haley voters and a different they might make in this election. guest 2: well, it might be haley voters, beta is in general. -- but it is in general. craig gilbert, a long-time columnist in the "milwaukee journal sentinel" wrote a piece, they had an undecided pool, a small sample size, but what it shows is of that undecided portion, half of those undecideds were republicans. 40% of them were independents, and the other 10%, i think, were like soft democrats. on that, you know, in wisconsin,

where this race is going to be decided by 10,000, 20 thousand votes, trump has work to do with republicans. he has to shore up some of that rebuttal conveys. kamala harris has done that. -- that republican base. nikki haley has done that. some of the rhetoric does not help in that feud at the end of the day, we have a choice between a republican and a democrat, and i believe at the end of the day, republicans are going to look at this and say i can't do four more years because harris for years is the same as a four years, and -- biden four years, for it might be worse. host: what do you think of that, joe? do you think rick's analysis of early voters in the critical swinging republican voters might be? guest 1: it sounds about right, but what i found over the last

couple of weeks, how many of them have doubled down on 2020, denying that joe biden won the election? there is some softness within the trump base. the fact that they continue to double down on the lie that donald trump did not lose makes me think that there is an incredible effort to shore up their base, because if donald trump's vase does not show up, he will get smoked in november. he needs to consolidate at base. you need to go after your trump base. it seems like a tight rope to walk. i don't believe that the haley voters are fans of the notion that joe biden did not actually win.

host: some of the campaigns are trying to portray the others as extreme and a danger to america. we have the harris campaign running an ad featuring warnings from former trump officials about him, and then a trump-aligned group warning of harris' stance on what they call "violent illegal aliens" and "transgender surgeries for prisoners." [video clip] >> under liberal border czar kamala harris, illegals are pouring into our country, including rapists. kamala will give illegal aliens taxpayer-funded transgender surgery. vp harris: every transgender inmate would have access. >> kamala harris is for they/them. president trump is for you.

>> in 2016, donald trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his white house. now those people have a warning for america. trump is not fit to be president again. here is his vice president. mr. pence: anyone who puts themselves over the constitution should not be president of the united states. i cannot in good conscience endorse donald trump this year. >> his defense secretary with five do you think donald trump can be trusted with the nation was a secret again? >> no. a place as our nation security at risk. >> is national secured advisor with my donald trump will cause a lot of damage. the only thing he cares about is donald trump. >> and the nation's former highest ranking military officer. >> we don't have a king, queen, tyrant, or dictator without a want to be dictator. >> taken from the people who knew him best, donald trump is too big a risk for america. vp harris: i'm kamala harris, and i approve this message. host: joe, and rick i would like

for you both to respond to this idea of portraying the other candidate as extreme and a danger to the country in terms of how that is landing with voters. rick, what do you think? guest 2: i think they've been doing it since the advent of campaigns, there is no doubt about it. what we will see on november 5, and frankly, with people voting right now, a lot of people do not believe campaign ads anymore, but i will say, you know, transgender surgeries to people in jail, it raises your eyebrows, you know, so when you hear something like that, it makes you think, what on earth is happening? and then, it is not too far of a stretch to figure out over the course of the last four years, some of the crazy stuff that has been coming out on the democratic side. so it does not take a lot to put two and two together, and that is why when you see an ad like this out of the trump campaign, you're going to have the

situations where we have, you know, they sent out barack obama over the weekend because she's trailing with black males. well, when you have a party where you continually say men can get pregnant but you have a problem with male voters, that should not shock you. we paint our opponents as extreme every single election. what you are having right now is just this strangeness on the left where all of these issues that make no sense to regular voters, and they pushed them out over the past four years, now is taking advantage, and he is >> you are watching live coverage on c-span.

pres. biden: hello, folks. just been with a number of homeowners wiped out and coast guard and fire department. i'm in florida for the second time in two weeks, and to survey the damage of another catastrophic storm. hurricane milton. thankfully its impact was not as cataclysmic as we predicted. but two on top of within another

seems to be getting worse. but for some individuals it was cataclysmic. all those folks who not only lost their homes but those who lost their lives, lost family members, lost all of their personal belongings. entire neighborhoods are flooded and millions without power. earlier this morning i did an aerial tour of st. petersburg and the battered coastline. i flew over drop can into field and the roof is almost completely off but thank god not many were injured. i spoke to first responders who are working around the clock. i also met with mall business owners here and homeowners. they have taken a real beating in back-to-back storms and they are heartbroken and, -- exhausted and their expenses are

piling up. i know from experience how devastating it is to lose your home. several years ago my home was struck by lightning. the thing i was most concerned about was not just the home but was all those things pres. biden: all the pictures i saved that my daughter will drawn when she was little, family photographs and albums and things that really matter. folks, the fact is that when you lose your wedding room, old photos, family keepsakes things that can't be released and sometimes that is the part that hurt the most. i'm standing next to the mayor here and chairwoman peters. both their homes were damaged in hurricane milton. the mayor's home flooded, family

vehicles washed away. experienced significant damage in the past two storms. just finished rebuilding and suddenly back in. now they have to do it all over again. both their families lost precious personal belongings. but they stepped up not only to look out for themselves but help other families, help their neighbors. that is the resilience of the people of west florida. i want to thank them and all the public officials who suffered consequential losses but are doing things to help other people who had serious losses. it matters. the american people should know the sacrifices they are making. they have been steadfast partners as well. we have been in frequent contact and it is moments like this we come together to take care of each other, not as democrats or republicans but as americans, americans who need help and

americans who would help you if you were in the same situation. we are within united states, within united states. i also came to talk about all the progress we have made. it is a whole government effort from state and local to fema to u.s. coast guard, army cause of engineers, department of defense just to name a few. fema has delivered 1.2 million meals, over 300,000 liters of water and 2,000,000 gallons of fuel and installed satellite terminals to restore communications so families can contacts their loved ones to be sure everything is ok and reach out for help. speaking of help, so far we have 10 disaster recovery centers in florida with more to come so people can have one stop to meet with officials and get the

federal health that they are entitled to and no interest payment loans, mortgage relief and so much more and being go online to disaster assistance gave or call 1-800-621-fema. yesterday after i signed the major disaster declaration more than 250,000 floridians registered for help. the most in a single day ever in the history of this countries. 250,000. i know you are concerned about the debris removal. we are working with state and local partners to clear roads and get wreckage off properties so more folks can return home and businesses can receive much needed deliveries of food, medicine, other essentials. that is a priority for me.

power is also being restored it over 2 million people in a matter of days. thanks to tens of thousands of power workers from 43 states and canada working nonstop even more people will have more power restored soon. today i'm proud to announce 612 million dollars to six new cutting edge projects to support communities impacted by these hurricanes including 47 million dollars for utilities and another $47 million for florida power and light. this funding will not only restore power but make the power system stronger and more capable and reduce the frequency and duration of power outages we extreme weather events -- we extreme weather events become more frequent. we were able to restore power

because of things i did as vice president to enforce the grids. that means the power prosecute it is produced to homes and businesses. we have been hardening the grid by burying transmission lines and replacing wood power amaze will concrete or composite poles so they don't snap. we have other cutting technology. i'm here to personally say thank you to the brave first responders, men and women in uniform, utility workers. look at the numbers that showed,from around the country, from canada, california, nebraska, all over the country,

to come here to help. healthcare personnel, neighbors helping neighbors an -- and so many more. it is a team effort. you made a big difference and it saved lives but there's much more to do. we are going to do everything we can to get power back in your homes not only helping you recover but build back stronger. god bless you all adds -- and may gods protects our to first responders and protects our troops. i will turn it over to secretary granholm. >> i would like to echo the president's response to the first responders and utility crews who have stepped forwards to help in our time of need here and in the other affected states. d.o.e. continues to work with the utility sector to make sure you have what you need. i'm pleased to say about 75% of

the pure has been restored across florida and most believing that by the end of tuesday the vast majority will be online. the unprecedented intensity of the damage and disruptions overwhelmingly underscore the actions that the biden-harris administration has taken to harden the grid against extreme weather including the new investments the president announced for the southeast. when we took office we knew the grids were suffering in decades of underinvestment. there was dire needs for it and they got funding in the bipartisan infrastructure law. before the president's announcement today since the passage of that law the

department of energy has allocated roughly $680 million to grids resilience projects just in the states that have been affected by hurricanes mills ton and helene -- mills ton and helene and roughly doubles with matching investments in states and utilities and several were under way for example undergrounding the power lines, raising substations in the face of flooding, installing technology on the grid that can identify blackouts before they happen and shorten them when they do happen. technology that increases transmission capacity so the power can move where and when it is needed most. so, the announcements of additional $612 million the president made today will mean we will have seen $2.5 billion investment in these states it make the grid more resilient, a

combined investment from the department of network, states and private utilities and the partnerships are critical to making these projects successful and bringing resilience to families and businesses across the southeast. they are not going to prevent the next storm but they will certainly make sure that in the coming years we can respond and recover more quickly. so, to the people of florida as the president has said, we will be here for you as long as it takes. thank you. with that i would like to bring up the mayor of st. pete. >> thank you, maddux -- madame secretary. mr. president, i want to thank you for coming here today to see the devastation and destruction with your own eyes. we thank you for your support during this difficult an

historic time. like so many of my neighbors my family and i felt the full force first of hurricane helene and also milton. after the floodwaters of helene hit we thought we could begin to recover patching windows, cleaning debris and trying to get back to something like normalcy. as we began it finds our footing here comes mills ton and another wave -- mill -- milton. trees,pulled up. homes destroyed and like so many in our town, my wife and i we thought we are concerned about our safety, about the future of our town. i have walked these streets and seen with destruction and sat with families that have lost so much and seen businesses struggling it reopen. i have first happened felt the

emotional and economic toll these storms have taken on all of us. but one thing remains true. we are americans. we have been beaten, we have been battered but we will not be broken. we are resilient and we will rebuild. we can not do this without the incredible support of fema, state, county, first responders and your administration, mr. president. the resources that you have helped provide have been a life line to my family and community and neighbors. on behalf of all st. pete beach you have our sincerest gratitude. we know the road to recovery is long and today i ask for your continuous support to bridge the gap between where we are today and where we need to be in the future. we need help to ebuild

infrastructure and provide assistance to families. the urgent needs are clear. we need economic relief and federal resources and a path to ensure our community and other cities who are devastated like this town can emerge stronger tan ever before. together, with your support we can and will rebuild. thank you for standing with us. >> it is very good to be here and i love to see our first responders who have done an outstanding job. i can tell you that the county is working diligently to get our water running, sewer systems back up and with duke energy following them to cut down trees to make sure they can get the

power grids up and running. we have worked closely with the state and i cannot thank our governor and state officials enough. they have done an amazing job to helps with re-- to help us with removal of debris and get the port open to get gasoline and gets businesses running. i have spoken with the president and his staff and they are working tirelessly to send assistance and i'm very grateful to the way the president has responded. i think he's done an outstanding job and i'm truly grateful. i sent a letter to the state which will then go to the white house asking for just at a minimum to merge the two storms. can you imagine if we had to separate our debris this is helene debris and this is milton debris. there's no possible way we would be able to do that effectively

and efficiently. by merging the two into one disaster will help expedite a lot of red tape to make it much quicker a recovery. so, i'm looking forward it that announcement that that will -- to that announcement. i want to thank the most my neighbors, first responders, neighbors have been helping neighbors, i too will four feet of water in my home and lost all my personal things and clothes and memories. but what has been outstanding is every neighbor helping other neighbors, the kindness that has poured in has been amazing and overwhelming. it makes us so proud to be americans. america has always been strong and this is just an example of the resilience and strength of every one of our residents in our community and i'm so

eternally grateful for all my neighbors, police officers, fire an e.m.s. personnel. my son was in the water rescues people at night during helene and in the water rescues people in the apartment buildings in clearwater. i can't thank first responders enough. this is a story we will never forget. thank you that have been working with me to meet with the president and make our community safe again. thank you so much. and thank you, mr. president. thank you so much. climate.

host: i want you to get to your third point so we can make sure we give some time to respond. caller: the third point is the debt.

if you look at the congressional budget office, the trump administration was running less than $1 trillion in debt until covid hit. then it expanded, yes. but all of the laws associated with that were passed by congress. they passed the house of representatives. it passed the house of representatives. host: i think we got the idea of the three wines that you want us to respond to. first of all, illegal immigration undivided and why biden didn't take action sooner to curtail illegal crossings. climate change that the united states can't do anything about china and india, and then on the national debt, that trump didn't contribute all that much, the argument that trump didn't contribute much to the national debt until covid and the bipartisan legislation. joe, what you like to talk on some of the things? >> i will quickly to alter the

of them. immigration, why didn't donald trump do it? you had bernie sanders -- in full agreement on a bill that you should pass. they were ready to go on this bill which donald trump called public speaker johnson's. when it comes to the international stage, this is why it's incredibly important for democrats to hold the white house. donald trump is not a respected national leader. he is buddies with putin and these other folks who essentially subscribe to totalitarianism. diplomatic head of state, get the job done but nations like china and india going through climate change.

when it comes to debt, donald trump is not a conservative. spending is completely incorrect. donald trump cut taxes, and that is soon as covid came, was more than happy -- boatloads of cash because the american people didn't back him. post: rick, i want to give you this question for husetts that says i'registered republican and a traditional conservative that puts a high value on the rule of law. please tellwhy i should vote for donald trump and nearl the national security officials to work with him directly are telling us he's a danger to this country. why should i ignore the warnings? >> you have to make up your mind, i would let anyone influence my vote.

you've got a lot of people that don't like donald trump's style. it's been around for eight years, 18 years. there are people that don't like his style. why is it if they don't like his style he is sitting in the neck? the reason for that is -- host: i don't want to cutou off, but his point was not about style, but about his former colleagues saying he is a threat to national security. guest: sure, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. that's a very broad term. so if he could detail it down, i would be having to take a stab at it. but just because former trump officials write an op-ed and put it in the new york times of the washington post, that is a campaign tactic. they don't like them, they've said as much. so taken at their word, they are not going to vote for him, i get it. people have a choice in this

election, and it's about whether you feel your family, you, yourself is better off than you were four years ago. anything people do not feel better off than they were four years ago and they are going to vote that way. host: four years ago, kids were not in school. couldn't go to the movie theaters, couldn't go shopping. people were dependent on government checks to stay home because they could not work. the fact that people are not better off today than they were four years ago is insane. it is completely insane because of the state of the country and the world for years ago. on the notion that this is a campaign tactic, and i could be wrong there, i don't know any other situation where a former chief of staff is spoken out against the president they served. like we saw from general kelly. host: i want to get both of you to respond to this because i

think it will be pretty quick. do you believe this election is about policy or character for generations x, y and z, and this comes from cheryl in south carolina. policy or character? host: i think it is a mix. what is your vision for the future for yourself and for your family? is that the notion that tomorrow is better than today, or is it the notion that our best days are behind us? donald trump has had continued negativity. kamala harris made it abundantly clear that we can all do better we come together as a nation. and we've seen people who lay out a positive vision for the future of this country be successful. whether it is barack obama, whether it is bill clinton. people want hope, they want

opportunity, they want to believe that host: tomorrow will always be better. and rick, what do you think of the question? if this about policy or personality for the younger generations? guest: they want more money, they want a job, they want to be able to buy a house. they don't want a down payment to bankrupt them. but campaigns are about emotion. that is what this campaign is about. it's about how you feel. how do you feel when you go into that booth or when you're filling out an absentee ballot? that is the big thing. they understand where they are from a financial standpoint, they understand where they are from their health care situation. everything like that. but this is about how i feel. everyone knows the personality of donald trump. he's been around us for a long time. kamala harris has been a little bit of a mystery to people.

she wasn't a very high profile of the people the first three plus years of this administration. so she has had to sort of introduce herself to the public and that is hard to do in a very short runway like that. but again, it is more the feeling. this country is about feeling and how you feel, i does a politician make you feel? to joe's point, what is the vision for the future? you got either four years of donald trump or you've got potentially eight years of kamala harris, which one is going to make you feel better? host: chicago, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. a couple of things. first, you talk about the vice president having a role in ministration, i want to know what policies did mike pence pass when he was vice president that made a difference in this country. the second question i had is

values. i'm so perplexed that we are treating this election like a normal election. one party just wants to destroy this country, they don't care. i don't remember those and 45 was president. i don't know how people forget that. how did republicans support this? again, i want to know what vice president created a policy that superseded the president's policy. that was my question, thank you. host: i'm guessing that is for you, rick. guest: well, i mean, the vice president clearly doesn't pass laws. that is civics 101. here's the problem.

the biden administration made kamala harris the borders are and as much of the media wants to erase that term, it exists. the number one problem facing our country right now is this invasion coming over our southern border. it's not even limited to the southern border. it's the northern border they are coming across. so the problem the kamala harris has is that her own president, joe biden name for the border czar and she was nowhere to be found. so you can try to gloss over that, but trump was right and has been right to hammer her on that issue. he was in aurora, colorado a couple days ago talking about this issue. this is an issue that has permeated our country, and it's not limited. one of the things that people went crazy about was desantis and added sending these migrants to different places across the country, and when they send them into blue cities, suddenly blue city mayors were like, i can't handle this.

guess what, welcome to the border. that has been a huge problem, and it has never been solved. and be border czar has never done anything about it, and that has been the number one thing, because she was put in a position of power to handle something right in front of her face, and she fell flat on her face and does not do anything about it. host: joe, did you have any follow-up points to that? guest 1: look, donald trump was president for four years. in may of this year, according to real clear politics, donald trump was holding 47%. today, donald trump is holding at 42nd percent. the reason he keeps tumbling down is all he can do is move on to his face. donald trump does not have a strategy. if he does not extend the map,

it is not possible for him to win this election. host: richard is in washington, pennsylvania, on our line for republicans. good morning, richard. caller: hello. can you hear me? host: yes, we can hear you just fine. caller: on both sides of the coin, they set and they call each other liars on this and that. the whole thing is, how come they don't bring up evangelicals, who are voting for trump because he takes a pro-life stance. and on the others, the democrats are calling you an extremist if you take a pro-life stance, but if you take a stance for abortion, wouldn't that make you an extremist? to martyr unborn children? host: i will let you take that one, joe. guest 1: i go back to what i said earlier, donald trump said he would overturn roe.

he affected women across this country. i think donald trump, who he is, look, donald trump -- extremely productive, he should say that loud and proud, he should yell it from the mountaintops. most women in the country believe in a woman's right to choose. they need to be able to get the health care that they need. host: patricia is ending or on our line for democrats. good morning, patricia. caller: first i would like to tell mr. wiley, when he spoke about, "we know donald trump," we know donald trump's positions. he comes to still kill and destroy. i wonder how white evangelicals

can say he's pro-life when he says he wants to kill his political opponent? i'm not understanding that. how can we go for a man whose mindset is to kill? how can you kill someone just because they don't agree with you? a diplomat would be very harsh. no, our economy would not be the same, because it would be the way that the president would want it to be a, and that his trunk, and i don't understand that. thank you. rick, i will let you respond to patricia's points. joe, if you have closing thoughts as well. guest 2: i don't think i heard donald trump call for killing his opponent. that's a little bit of rhetoric we don't need. we have three weeks. these candidates have three weeks to make the closing pitch to america, and without the debate coming out, they will do it through media, through rallies, etc.

it is up to the american people to take each candidate, look at their issues, and decide how they are going to vote, and honestly, the number one issue is going to be how you feel, how your family feels. go out, do the research, figure out which candidate you are going to vote, and support them. that's the number one thing. one side is going to win, one side is going to lose, that is the way it is. but participate in this process. host: joke of any thoughts from you? guest 1: we have three weeks left. if you believe the country to a president who is going to put you first, health care, jobs, all sorts of things of those nature, you've got to consider that kamala harris is best for us. donald trump is unhinged. he is not the leader who we

need. host: joe caiazzo is a democratic strategist with jcn group. thank you so much for your time. guest 1: thank you. host: and rick wiley, republican strategist with black diamond strategies, thank you for joining us this morning. guest 2: thank you. host: and thanks for everyone who called in on this segment. later on on "washington journal ," there will be joined by tim frazier, a faculty director of the emergency and disaster management program at georgetown to talk about fema's role in hurricane recovery efforts. up next, we will take more of your calls and comments in open forum. the numbers are on your screen. you can start dialing in now. we will be right back. ♪ >> c-span's studentcam documentary

contest 2025 is here. this is your chance to create a documentary that can inspire change and make an impact. your documentary should answer this year's question. what issue is most important to you or your community? whether you are passionate about politics but the environment -- or the environment. studentcam is your platform to share your message with the world, with $100,000 in prizes, including a grand prize of $5,000. this is your opportunity not only to make an impact but also be worn for your creativity and hard work. enter your submissions. studentcam.org for details on how to enter. the deadline is january 20, 2025. ♪ >> friday night, watched c-span's 2024 campaign trail, a

weekly discussion on how the presidential, senate, and house campaigns were in the last week. reporters going us to talk about the issues, messages, and events driving the week's political news and to talk about the week ahead. watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail friday night at 7:00 eastern on c-span come online at c-span.org, or download as a podcast on c-span now, our free mobile app, or wherever you get your podcasts. a c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back for an open forum, ready to take your calls with comments on news of the week for politics in general. much of the discussion this morning has been about the 2024 presidential elections, which, in many cases on the campaign trail, is still about 2020. yesterday at a rally in johnson, pennsylvania, republican vice presidential nominee senator jd vance was asked by a reporter if

trump lost be 2020 election, and here was his response. >> yes, senator, really quickly, i watched your interview with, "new york times." you brought up corporate censorship in the 2020 election, was asked five times if you think donald trump lost in 2020. so, definitively, can you say, concerns about corporate censorship, do you believe trump lost in 2020? sen. vance: what i find -- look, as i said in that interview, and i'm going to say in here right now, i think the election of 2020 has serious problems. you want to call it rigged, call it whatever you want to come it was not ok. it was not ok. now, you guys, again, you look at president trump campaign, we

are focused on fixing the disastrous comfort put this -- consequence of kamala harris governance. why is the american public media so focused on relitigating 2020? i know what the people in this room thank. they have told you. you know what i'm a hell of a lot more worried about then what happened in 2020? i'm a hell of a lot more worried that american citizens cannot afford a good life in their country because kamala harris has been the vice president, and that is what i'm trying to change. host: all right, let's go to your calls now. we start with sandra in pennsylvania on our line for republicans. good morning, sandra. caller: yes, i would like to comment on two things. one is the abortion issue. i'm so tired of hearing about the abortion issue. first of all, there is so much contraception available to people. there's the day after pill, the morning after, and i don't understand why abortion is

an issue. aside from rape, aside from incest, and a mother's life, it should not predominately, statistics, on most abortions, why they are performed. so i don't understand why this is even an issue in our country. take responsibility for your actions. and we would not have this problem at all. and there is so much access to keep from getting pregnant, short of then three things, it is just a matter of not taking any personal responsibility for your actions. and you can't tell a society that works that way is a good thing. and the other thing i would like to comment on, i guess what the last caller said with donald trump, you know, whether i like the man or not is immaterial to make a thing when i go to my doctor. i don't care if i like him. i want to know if he's going to help me to get well, if i

need surgery. i'm a democrat, but i'm not anymore. under donald trump, i had cheap prices for gas, i could go to the grocery store and feed my children, i did not have wars, i did not have any of those things to worry about. and how can a woman and our former president -- or still the president, i should not say that come until the term is out, but they created the problem. they created the border, they created inflation, and now they talk about they are going to fix it. what in the world? it is nonsensical, the things that they say. host: we have a te fm catherine in austin, texas who says, "why should we trust anything kamala says when she was complicit tthe lie that biden was "as sharp as a tack"? why should we trust the media or the democratic about anything anymore?" faye is a in virginia on our line for democrats. good morning, faye.

caller: yes, good morning. i was listening to the lady, about health care, this is something that makes me feel icky when i hear it, it is between a woman and her doctor, and how she decides to raise her family or as her husband. so what she is talking about it so icky to me, i'm leaving that alone. but i'm going back to the economy that they seem to be bragging about under trump. it seems like people in america have it so great that they can forget so fast, but i remember four years ago how people were dying, thousands a day. i remember when shelves were empty, you could not even find food on it. i remember when you cannot even get bleach to even claim, because he is telling people to take it and even drink it. i can remember when you could not go out. i can remember when the kids could not go to school. i could remember when people were in their homes, there were

no jobs. so what did he do? he destroyed. he is the only president that lost jobs at the end of his term, so please stop telling lies, and let's be honest. and this vance person, he sounds like a used car salesman. he talks fast, he speaks with a smooth voice, and he tells so many lives, it is a disgrace. i'm so upset about this. i cannot believe how people continue to lie on one end and they talk about a man who is so hateful. i lived in new york at the time donald trump was there. he is not an honest man. he's a con man. believe me when i tell you he is a con man. thank you for taking my call. host: elizabeth is in maryland on our line for independents. good morning, elizabeth. caller: good morning. i just want to make my comment. thank you for taking independent

call. i will be voting for peter from the american solidarity party, because neither the candidates, republican and democrat, are what i need for 2024 and beyond. the republican party i cannot put trump back in office because of what he did january 6. he said he would leave those people who violated our capital, he would release them, free them, scott clean. we cannot have that. the democratic side, kamala harris's stance on abortion. host: go ahead, elizabeth. caller: kamala harris' stance on abortion, also, it does not happen overnight today lot of what happened from trump's time was from the previous time, and a lot of what happened during trump's time is from biden, come

over. yes, it is a woman's right to choose at all, but is a yes, yes, kill, kill, a baby -- anyway, that's a whole other issue. but the american solidarity party, peter sonski. host: elizabeth, i pulled out the website for peter sonski with the american solidarity party, who, you know, the areas where they are on the campaign. he is 61, married with nine adult children. i wonder what you say to people, because there's a lot of criticism when it comes to folks who want to vote third party, but they, you know, people are arguing that you are "throwing away your vote." how do you respond to those people? caller: it is my vote! no, you are throwing away your vote when you are voting the

other two. on voting. i heard a lot of people say, i'm not voting for either candidate, boom, period, so i'm not voting. wait a minute, you are not voting? this opportunity you are giving to us? that's how i look at it. you know, you have to make a choice, and if you are not voting, why? unfortunately, this is what we do have. so it is mainly for the people who don't want to vote, because they are looking at just the two candidates right there. host: next up his cabin in new york on our line for republicans. good morning, kevin. caller: good morning. if you let me get in two points, if you go back to may, i cannot room or her name, but there is a reporter from the "washington post," that penned an op-ed to

get rid of kamala harris. and is just amazing. she was the worst vice president, and now she's the best since sliced bread. then in june, she wrote an op-ed, what a great person she is. it is just amazing. host: on not able to find that quickly, but we will move on to the next call. amelia is in atlanta on our line for democrats. good morning, amelia. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: yes, i can hear you. caller: i want to make three points, and i will try to make them real quick. i've been listening to c-span for years. i do kind of pay attention, and all of the republicans call and always demonizing and being so selfish about the emigrants. and they call themselves christians. but if you are true christians,

you would know that jesus tells us to love everybody. and if anybody ever asked me a question, why are the immigrants coming here? god is in charge of everything. go has set these people hered to see how we will react, and right now, you so-called christians are tremendously failing. and the second point, the wrath is going to come by the lord, because you are selfish, you are demonized, you speak so people about these people. they are our brothers and sisters in need. think about if you were in need. how would you like for someone to treat you, the way we've been treating these people or talking about them? my second point is, i realize you guys don't know donald trump, you don't know anything about him. the first was, he was in love with his or come and he never denied it. he raped his first wife.

host: what is your third point? caller: the next thing is they all speak about him all of a sudden, republicans are calling and are concerned about the 3000 children that are missing, but these children are missing from the separation that trump did with these kids. he separated 5000 kids, so you guys never heard, never said anything. i noticed this about them. when the news is going on, they act like they have selective hearing. host: i think we have the idea, amelia appeared we will go to edward in rochester, new york on our line for republicans. good morning, edward. caller: good morning. if a person is entitled to their own opinion of another own facts. i'm african-american, and i'm really offended. this week especially, that barack obama basically telling me, as an african-american, if

i'm black, how can i vote for donald trump? i've heard that from jill biden once before. i want to say this, because democrats always talk about protecting democracy, ok, joe biden bombed out during that debate, and kamala harris was inserted, she did not receive one vote, she was inserted by barack obama, george clooney, i think it was nancy pelosi and chuck schumer, from the top down. the other thing i want to say come as an african-american, i voted for trump, because i live in the heart of the inner city, and crime is rampant. you can go, where i live that, and you can spend up to $999, you cannot steal $1000, but you can still up to $999, and the

pharmacies in my neighborhood are going out of business, because the cashless veil that democrats have instituted, that black men are indiscriminately a sentence. the democrats control every black community in america, syracuse, buffalo, detroit, chicago, memphis, tennessee, i can go on and on. look at the crime and the black community. look at the killings in the black community. look at the school systems in the black community. they are all controlled by democrats. so when do these african-americans have a choice, like martin luther king said, it is not about the white skin, barack obama, but the content of character commits about the policies, and other donald trump, i was living a lot better, ok come under donald trump, and i'm offended by people coming up with the self-hatred for this former president president, and this is what is contributing to the

shootings. joe biden think there should be a bull's-eye on his back. can you imagine a white, blue blue-eyed republican saying there should be a bull's-eye on barack obama? host: thank you. that is all we have for open forum at this time, but up next, we have joining us tim frazier, faculty director of the emergency and disaster management program at georgetown, and he will be talking to us about fema's role in hurricane recovery efforts. we will be right back. ♪ >> with one of the tightest races for control of congress in modern political history, stay ahead with c-span's comprehensive coverage of key debates. this fall, c-span brings you access to the nation's top

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welcome to "washington journal." guest: thank you. good to be here. host: can you give us a sense of the challenges that emergency managers are facing with these two back-to-back big storms and whether or not they were prepared? guest: i don't think anyone is prepared for storms of this magnitude. the very definition of a disaster is when it overwhelms the local capacity to deal with that event, and obviously we seen that with these two storms back to back. so one of the things that is always short is human capital. we are talking about communities, particularly in western south carolina, there are communities that don't have the abundance of budget to have reserves, so we are really seeing unprecedented challenges for our country. host: and in particular, i imagine if you are living in the mountains of north carolina, you are not expecting to need to build resiliency for hurricanes. guest: yeah. that is something i like to

refer to as seasonal resiliency, predominantly to winter, when activities are being cut off, they cut their wood, they get ready for winter season, but they don't typically get ready for hurricane season. host: what is the federal response to the storm? guest: there's always a challenge, and the challenge is typically human capital, resources and the local community, and when the local community does not have the resources during an event like this, what we typically do is we scale it up. it goes from the local community to the state, and when the state is overwhelmed, it goes to the federal government, than the federal government comes in and decides resources, and the state distributes those resources. it always seems to be slower than it needs to be, and we are working on that. i understand the need, the resources responsible. but it is always slower than it needs to be, particularly for

those most impacted in those areas. host: yes, we had a caller earlier in the show today who was struggling to get some aid in the aftermath of the storm, but there has been a lot of talk on the campaign trail in particular about fema and famous response to these disasters. guest: yeah. host: can you explain exactly what fema's role in the aftermath of disasters like these, what fema's is and what it is not? guest: ok. yeah. i think one of the big challenges around the country is for those living in these communities that are impacted, don't really know what fema's role is, what they are allowed to doing and what they don't do. fema it not have the authority and the right to go into a state or a community and provide any federal assistance unless it is requested by the governor of the state. the governor has to request assistance, fema low income of the federal government will go in. it is more than just fema. there are other agencies involved. they will supply resources as

best as possible for the state. fema does not do first response. they don't do boots on the ground emergency management as we typically think of ourselves as emergency management. basically fema writes checks, and that is basically what fema does. host: you mentioned that fema writes checks, but there have been quite a few narratives about how much those checks are for and who is getting them. fema administrator deann kurzweil was asked about the role of impact of misinformation going on around fema and what is going on this week. here is the answer? . [video clip] ms. criswell: yeah. the biggest thing is people are not asking us for assistance. they are not registering for the help they need or they are afraid to approach some of our staff because they are unsure of what the government is doing. i think one of the biggest ones

that i continue to here is that we are going to take their land from them. simply untrue. when you register for assistance, we give you an initial amount of money, $750, to help support of the media needs. and there are rumors out there that if you receive this money and he did not pay it back, that we would take you home. simply untrue. this is a series of assistance we give over time, those immediate needs. we've already given out over $60 million in north carolina alone for people's property losses as well as this immediate assistance. we will continue to give that money out. and as it relates to my staff, it is just demoralizing. they take it personally. they have left their families and their homes to come here and support people in need, but they are focused. they continue to stay focused on why they are here. they know their purpose, and that is to help people, and we will continue to do that. host: fema is so concerned about

the misinformation and the rumors about the response. it has a webpage, hurricane room a response, on fema's website with many of the rumors that have been circulating online, and their response to them, such as fema controls's transfer stations, dump sites, not true. that fema would provide $1200 if you been without power, that fema would only provide $750, which is also false. this is short-term assistance that administrator criswell was just referencing. fema's advice is to stop the spread of rumors by doing three easy things, find trusted sources of information, share information from trusted sources, and discourage others from sharing information from unverified sources. how does this sort of spread of

misinformation in the rumors coming out of these storms and fema's response compared to previous disasters? guest: it is getting worse all the time. i will tell you a historical narrative here. there was an academic paper written in the 1980's called social amplification of grit, and it is basically the mob mentality. we start following the power of the mob, spreading rumors, and the gossip becomes the reality, perception is reality, and 20 or 30 years ago, we would have emergency manager, and the emergency manager would tell the public what to do, and the public would follow the directions of that emergency manager. but now was social media, everybody has got facebook and

twitter, and what happened is the emergency managers are that one voice that people listen to. so people pull in all this information from multiple sources, and they become their own emergency manager. and the local message gets lost. it is really dangerous, to see the inefficiency of response and inefficiency of recovery relative to what actually needs to happen based on the truth. and so when we battered eyes the true come up to a certain extent, what we get is -- when we bastardize the truth, to a certain extent, what we get is bastardized results. it's like in the emergency room, the sickest people get the most carefirst, and that is what happens with emergency response. host: republican, you can call (202) 748-8001 -- excuse me, we

are going to do regional phone lines for this conversation. we are not breaking it down by party. [laughter] guest: that is a good thing. host: if you are in the eastern or central time zone, that is (202) 748-8000. mountain and pacific time zone, (202) 748-8001. and if you specifically have been impacted by a hurricane, that is (202) 748-8002. if you have questions or a story to share that you would like to get 10's response to -- tim's response to. if you could break down how fema aid works, specifically folks who have been affected by hurricane helene and milton. guest: there are a certain amount of aid made available, like the short term aid. you heard the fema administrator speak to that. try to get resources in the hands of people as quick as possible.

there is the direct aid coming down from fema to the state agency, to the local government, and distributed that way. and there is in direct aid. in direct aid could be coming from nonprofits of ngo's live red cross, being in the field, sheltering. there's aid from fema that is administered to the aid, and indirect aid that comes from nonprofits. host: there are other buckets of aid that are more long-term, say, loans to rebuild and things like that. but some of the funding is either inconsistent or not available for some of these programs, as we learned with some disaster aid being left out of the stopgap spending bill. does fema have enough resources for the longer-term recovery? guest: fema never has enough resources. every year, we spent all we have to looking at the level of disasters in our country keep climbing.

also climate change. the good news is the situation for fema's we spent all the money every year, which is unfortunate, but we are giving aid to people that need it, which we have more disasters. that is the bad news. the good news, congress seems to give more money to fema when it is necessary and needed. we see the budget, the reality is, disasters in our country come over the course of our history, we've been able to find money from other places and enhance the budget of fema when it is necessary, when it is needed. host: and you think that will happen? guest: it is what happens every time. host: before we get to the calls, many of the folks affected by these storms, particularly in north carolina, did not carry flood insurance, and there is a big concern about a lot of these losses being

uninsured. who is going to pay for this recovery out of guest: there will be a combination of factors. one can we have this program in the u.s., the national flood insurance program. it is a mess. we could do a weeklong show about it. so that is problematic. there is the stopgap, private insurance, and most people carry enough private insurance, particularly if you don't live in a floodplain or you live adjacent to a floodplain that is not typically flood, that is why when you have an amazing event, catastrophic disaster, this is an everyday flood event, a lot of people do not carry insurance for that. so there are uninsured people that will struggle to recover. host: we will get to your calls, and once again we are doing regional phone lines for this segment.

if you are in the eastern and central time zones, that number is (202) 748-8000. the mountain and specific time zones, (202) 748-8001. and if you have been impacted by hurricane directly, (202) 748-8002. if you've got questions about fema's response to these latest natural disasters. we will start with trent in omaha, nebraska. good morning, trent. caller: good morning. i just wanted to say a couple of things real quick. my first is for the fema guy come in a sad that donald trump and the rest of the people are listening to him and the lives spread about fema, and like you had the black guy talking about why they don't like, why they are going to vote for donald trump after all the stuff he's doing, and, yeah, the democrats are not the best when it comes down to what they are doing, but over donald trump's policies, in

the black neighborhoods? his response is the national guard to come in. his response is for them to push us from the car and give us a hard time. his response is not to find a way to help us in to help black people, his response is to put us in jail and lock us up, and those are the facts of what donald trump said. so for the black people out here who people -- like host: do you have a question for tim regarding fema's response? caller: for fema come i don't really have a -- host: we have a statement that we received via text from joan in the lobby. "i wish . criswell would realize there are scammers posing as fema who are praying on the hurricane victims." can you talk a little bit about that, tim, the risk of that, especially as we just heard from administrator criswell, as

people are already hesitant to talk to fema workers? guest: yeah. there is distrust, and it is warranted by people scamming and the prospect. i think the best thing to do is always go to local officials, so be sure when you are going to get aid, that you go to the local officials, local emergency manager, with the state, and if you work with a contractor, you were with a contractor who has been vetted by officials and vetted by the state. it is just like everyone else. we live in a capitalist country, and there are people who are very capitalist and doing the best they can to do their job, and there's always people trying to take advantage of the system. so, again, local officials, state officials, make sure any when you use for contracting and any other aid purposes are vetted through the local channels. host: let's hear from joe in iowa. good morning, joe caller:. yes, hi.

just to qualify my calling here from my experience in the state of iowa and most unknown natural disaster that i don't think people are aware of, and that is a derecho, which stressed from i believe up in canada and did like a horseshoe traveling across iowa, 40 miles wide and i believe what he miles long, and i think it also made it into indiana. the derecho is like a straight line winds, so it is like a tornado force or hurricane force standing out those miles i mentioned. we were so decimated, we lost 50% of our trees and 80% of our canopy. but the main thing is is that all the destruction and damage was all over the place. you could not get through. people's homes were destroyed. there were a couple of fatalities. and the worst part about it is

that nobody seemed to know about it. you drove south to iowa city, and they had no idea that this happened up here come up north. you go up to waterloo, they had no idea that this happened down south from them. and it was just amazing, because i could not believe the lack of response. and i think some of it fell on the local government, unfortunately, in the way that i found out later, we found out that the superintendent of the county we were in apparently turned down aid or help, saying oh, we were fine. we had no electricity, cell phones went out within a matter of probably 30 minutes. i had a chance to leave a message with some of the senators here in iowa, which i never heard back from, and the governor. and i just said, you know, things are going to probably turn. back a man they turned worse. . the cell phone service turned bad, we had 100 degree temperatures with humidity. my dad with cancer, we were taking care of him here come the

kids with asthma, it was mass destruction nobody seemed to know about it. host: jo, do you happen to know if your local officials later on called for aid from fema or other federal agency? caller: yes, i found out that later they did, but we are talking, what, a week later? don't quote me on that. but it is similar to when a child goes missing. if you don't commit action to help people, the most of the danger or the risk of people's lives and so forth is more threatened or, you know, more at risk because you need to be there as soon as possible. host: i think the story you are telling is being repeated all over the country, especially as climate change makes these storms worse and worse. guest: yeah. unfortunately, the skill level and experience level of

emergency managers and first responders vary across the country, so in place that they can hit more often, for example, have more expertise. florida is a prime example. emergency managers in florida, when katrina hit new orleans, louisiana, mississippi, emergency managers in florida were asked, how are you dealing with this? how would you handle the situation? in the response from the state was, we have food and resources distributed in warehouses around the state. we have enough to last four days. why a four days? in the response was, that is how long it will take fema to get here. there was an understanding in florida, because they had more experience in a high level expertise with emergency management on how to deal with it, but in rural states or rural communities, unfortunately, that level of expertise is not as high, and it is a lot easier to be overwhelmed.

and if the aid is not requested at the local level and the state level, it is not going to come. host: ashley is in pennsylvania. good morning, ashley. caller: good morning, kimberly. good morning, mr. frazier. i kind of have a comment into question, i guess. my comment is, something i've noticed over, i want to say the last 20 years, as it kind of correlates with a lot of this disaster relief, and this goes back to, like, katrina and everything, i've noticed that as the distrust in fema grows, so, too, does the incline of fani willis groups behind projects -- of fundamentalist groups like behind project 2025, the same kind of personalities spreading rumors across the board. specifically, i'm not sure, kimberly, if you could look up a link to this, or if mr. frazier

is familiar, are you folks really are with a group masqueraded as disaster relief called meta-core, related with the dauber family and that sphere of influence? i feel like that needs to be addressed, and i don't want to give those people any more recognition or anything, but at the same time, they were just featured hanging out with ivanka trump and elon musk, and i think if they have billionaire funding behind them, that is extra dangerous. so i guess if that is something you guys could address. host: have you heard about this group, tim? guest: fortunately or unfortunately, i have not. i do know that there are legitimate and illegitimate actors in this space of

people getting in the way, not helping, and there are people scamming and doing disaster or tourism so to speak, and they are not doing a lot of work in the field. host: i'm not able to find anything on that. let's go to washington, d.c. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i went to make a comment more than a question. it is the local officials, people are providing in our area that are taking bribes, stealing for the influence, and they just planted guilty for taking bribes and stealing money, so when tragedy

occurs or something happens, this is an opportunity for us to make money, because we are not being accounted for, when they put this relief money and federal money. and it is not fema, its people at the local, the help, you know, they are profiting off of this, and that is what helps more than anything else. the people we vote for right here in our community commit is like the green overcomes, you know, the policies, you know,, all they want to do is line their pockets. and that hurts more than anything else. you can vote for whoever you want to -- in life host: this point he is making is something that often comes up in discussions with fema and how it distributes aid, whether or not it is really getting to the people it needs to. what do we know about that? guest: unfortunately, he is right about criticizing emergency management. the great effort -- he is right

about politicizing emergency management. the great effort is to not politicize it. elected officials are always running for office, and we see that in emergency management get a prime example is hurricane maria in puerto rico. fema not getting aid there, not getting the things they needed to do. they were grandstanding to be reelected. what we typically see in our community is like the level of agency, and when we say agency, we don't me in the agency of fema or hud, we mean your ability to affect your own change with infrastructure, society, we just say agency. if you have a line of agency, you are going to be fine, post-disaster. it's the people that lost that agency that are in trouble, that rely on local emergency managers, local public officials to help them, and unfortunately,

often times, local officials are running for office all the time. host: this question we received via x who asks, can the guest explain the role of the president versus the role of congress in funding major catastrophes? guest: sure, the president can help declare a disaster and make the process go into play and can sort of make the monumental things to move the federal government, whether that be the military, dod, or whatever come into action and really do a lot to make sure the response can go on and stay strong. congress is the one that votes on it and it does give the funding. and when the money runs out, the president will have to go back to congress to get more money. so congress pays for it, the president typically oversees the federal response.

fema oversees it for the president, but the reality is, the president oversees the federal response, and congress pays for it. host: and we often see this in the form of the president issuing a disaster declaration, which opens those floodgates of funding from fema and other federal agencies to go towards individual states. guest: yeah. the process is, when the local area becomes overwhelmed, it goes up to the state, and the state makes the decision. can the state handle the crisis? within its own borders, or can they use multijurisdictional arrangements from other states nearby to help handle that crisis? or does it reach a point where the state cannot handle that crisis? and they request that the president declare a disaster, and the president declares a disaster, and the federal resources open. host: how long does it usually take, especially for some of these longer-term rebuilding funds, to go from the federal government, to say, a community

like, you know, in north carolina, where there infrastructure is destroyed and they actually have to rebuild roads and bridges and things like that. guest: it is a long-term recovery. when we say long-term, we mean really long term. one example would be when hurricane andrew hit florida in the mid-1990's, the federal government wrote the last check for andrew about 10 years ago. so it is 20 plus years for that to get sorted. and you never fully recover, because you might build a building back, and you might bring the community back to a certain extent, but a reality is all the projects that would have been being made in that community while they were doing recovery is lost. when we do recover, we talk about recover being long-term, it is incredibly long-term, and it virtually never gets back to the way it was. you miss all of the potential development that could have occurred over the 20 or 30 years you are doing recovery.

so it is incredibly long-term. the checks keep getting written for a long period of time, and we never actually really recover in the way we think we should. host: especially if additional storms hit during the recovery process. let's hear from shirley in lakeland, florida, who has been impacted by some of these recent storms. shirley, how are you doing? caller: i'm still alive. i'm going to say i'm blessed. host: how were you affected by the storms? caller: well, it came through polk county. we have the alert to evacuate. and i was fortunate enough to get into a shelter. it was not easy. the shelters were not quite really prepared, if you ask me, opening the doors come when the doors open, they were coming

from tampa. people were coming from different areas into the city of lakeland. everybody deserves shelter. so i made it in, and i just got home yesterday. the electric was out, the flooding. i understood what was happening in my neighborhood. the electric came on. they were trying to get to, you know, come out of the shelter. i wind it up in two. in fact, the first one flooded, and they got us to another shelter. but i want to state positive about this, because this was an experience that i never had to humble myself to. but on the way out, getting to fema, i started asking some questions.

people had lost their properties come and i have not heard of any casualties, but some were being released with nowhere to go. the information was not there. i mean, families nationally host: well, shirley, have you received any assistance or are you applying for anything? caller: i asked for fema. there was a lot of miscommunication in there about fema. host: tim, what advice do you have for shirley and other folks like her who are just getting back to their homes and trying to figure out what to do next? guest: yeah. what is unfortunate is the system that is in place, that i have a lot of experience dealing with this kind of system before, it shirley has not gone through

something like this before, she lacks the experience of dealing with that, and there's not enough advocates to help. one of the challenges we have is, you know, will send workers into that region to help people facilitate them applying for aid. those advocates are short, and people don't know how to reach those advocates or where to go to work with them. the best advice is to start with your local emergency manager. don't let the emergency manager off the hook. have the emergency manager, where do i go to get funding? what is the phone number? who is an advocate who can help me? do you have someone who can help me fill out the form? because what can happen and typically does happen for a lot of disasters is they will have people sitting at a table line up and go through it by the individual, an individual will help them fill out the form or the application for them. people often feel alone come and they should not feel alone. they should demand the kind of

services they deserve from the federal government and their and local government. host: shirley, do you have access to the internet? caller: you can give me all the information you'd like to save time, but i'm just saying it is very sad that fema was never reached, and i was trying to get understanding, was fema in the building, because they dumped me over on a bus that came unexpectedly, if you wanted a ride. host: shirley, if you do go to fema's website, right there on the homepage, they do have information about the individual assistance available for folks who have been affected by hurricane milton. if you click the "apply now" button, if you have access to the internet, there is federal assistance and information on how to get help, depending on what is going on with you, if

you are able to do that. and there's also 24/7 mental health hotlines as well as other kinds of information you can find on fema's website. let's go to tom in virginia. good morning, tom. caller: yes, good morning. i would like to go back to the clip you ran in the beginning with the fema demands. we had several hurricanes through virginia and north carolina, and a good friend of mine had a campground that was affected. all he needed was $120,000 to rebuild for the damage, and to get that loan, he would have to put it, it was like a 1.5 million on the property at that time. so, you know, they may not have wanted to take the land, but they certainly could should he have defaulted on the payment,

so he went elsewhere for the loan. if you could just speak to that. thank you very much. guest: yeah. obviously, that is a situation, i'm not familiar with that. i cannot speak to that. host: we will get one more person. chris is in tampa bay, florida, recently impacted by those storms. chris, how are you holding up? caller: i'm actually pretty lucky. i did not lose power, but i did have some damage. actually from the first storm, helene, and then the second one hit, milton. i did go online to fema's website. i did put in a request for assistance. i did receive three letters denying assistance, because i do have property insurance, as everybody should. i need to submit any claims to my insurance company, which my deductible for hurricane

insurance claims is 8111 dollars, which is more than the damage that i have that i would need to repair, so this is all going to be out of pocket for me. it is really disappointing when the administration is using fema to give money and rooms to illegal aliens, and i know it they say it is coming from a different fema pot, but it is still fema money, but they get money directly come immediately, here's a phone, here's a check, here's an ebt card. and in my area, there are still places that are without power. we have grocery stores running on generators. the shells are just wiped clean, because they cannot get any trucks in here. it is like a war zone here. host: thank you for sharing that, chris. we are just about out of time. did you want to respond to any of the points chris raised? guest: where the challenge of, and i'm sorry, chris and i don't mean to make it sound easy for you, but one of the challenges we have in the field as we have

an event, and andrew is sort of the first event where it was a massive event where we saw the federal government response, and we try to overcome that by a bunch of policy changes that we thought were going to fix the problem, and the reality is, we don't have a mechanism to touch those policy changes until the next big disaster come in and we fixed some more stuff, because it is broken, and we fixed more stuff, and then we touch it with the next disaster, so we are always learning. there are always policies that are too problematic and burdensome for people, and we should make it as easy as possible and as smooth as possible for the people in our communities that are impacted. they rely on is to help them and we have to find a way to do a better job of helping them come all the way from the first responders a to the money that they need to get themselves, we need to do a better job. host: that is all the time we

have for today. thank you so much, tim frazier, faculty director at georgetown university's emergency and disaster management program. thank you so much. and thank you to everyone who called in today and shared your thoughts for "washington journal ." we will be back tomorrow morning with >> c-span's washington journal, our live form including you to discuss the latest issues in government and public policy from washington and across the country. coming up monday morning, paragon health institutes dr. joel zinberg and andrea ducas with the center for american progress talk health care policy

proposals from kamala harris and donald trump your and pew research center's mark hugo lopez discusses the role of latino voters in this year's elections. c-span's washington journal, join the conversation live at 7:00 eastern monday morning on c-span, c-span now or online at c-span.org. >> later today 24 democratic presidential nominee kamala harris will speak to supporters inreenville, north carolina. the code political report with amy walter reed's rtcarolina as a tossup states. 16 electoral votes cldo to either candidate. watch live starting at 4:40 p.m. eastern on cpan, c-span now or online at c-span.org. >> tonight on q1 day historian

heath lee author of the mysterious mrs. nexen and she argues that pat nixon voted most admired woman in the world in 1970 two was largely miss portrayed by the press who characterized her as being elusive and classic. >> classic pat -- this was the opposite of who she really was. it was a real caricature and deliberate and i think it was done to distinguish between jackie and pat but it is also a big at richard nexen. these things are done to all first ladies to get to their husbands and to upset them. she was the furthers thing from plastic in real life that you could get. she was warm, personable, interested in people and not plastic. >> her book, the mysterious mrs.

nexen tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. ♪ >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government and we are funded by these television companies and more including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? >> comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers to create center is so low income families can get the tools they need. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service along wthese other tv providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> next, the israeli prime minister delivers a message to lebanon amidst israel's invasion of the nation.

speaking -- prime minister netanyahu stated that israel decided to put an end of this. pm netanyahu: this is a message to the people of lebanon -- do you remember when your country was called the pearl of the middle east? i do. so, what happened to lebanon? a gang of tyrants and terrorists destroyed it. that's what happened. lebanon was once known for its tolerance, for its beauty. today, it's a place of chaos, a place of war. israel withdrew from lebanon 25 years ago. but the country that actually conquered lebanon is not israel. it's iran. iran, which finances and arms hezbollah to serve iran's interests at lebanon's expense. hezbollah has turned lebanon into a stockpile of ammunition weapons and a forward iranian military base. just one day after the october 7th massacre a year ago, hezbollah joined the war against israel. it launched an unprovoked attack

on our cities and on our citizens.it has since fired over 8,000 missiles at israel, killing civilians without distinction jews, christians, muslims and druze. israel has decided to put an end to this. we've decided to do whatever is necessary to return our people safely to their homes. israel has a right to defend itself. israel also has a right to win! and israel will win! we have degraded hezbollahâ's capabilities; we took out thousands of terrorists, including nasrallah himself, and nasrallahâ™s replacement, and the replacement of his replacement. today, hezbollah is weaker than it has been for many many years. now you, the lebanese people, you stand at a significant crossroads. it is your choice. you can now take back your country. you can return it to a path of peace and prosperity. if you donâ™t, hezbollah will continue to try to fight israel from densely populated areas at your expense. it doesn't care if lebanon is dragged into a wider war.

christians, druze, muslims sunnis and shiites all of you are suffering because of hezbollah's futile war against israel. today i ask every mother and every father in lebanon a simple question: is it worth it? because, it doesn't have to be that way. i know you want a better future for your children. so i am speaking to all of you today. there is a better way. a better way for your children, for your cities, for your villages, for your country. you deserve to restore lebanon to its days of tranquility; you deserve a lebanon that is different. one country, one flag, when people. don't let these terrorists destroy your future any more than they've already done. stand up and take your country back. you have an opportunity that hasn't existed in decades. an opportunity to take care of the future of your children and grandchildren. you have an opportunity to save

lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in gaza. it doesn't have to be that way. each of you can take a step for your future. even a small step. you can make a difference. i say to you, the people of lebanon: free your country from hezbollah so that this war can end. free your country from hezbollah so that your country can prosper again, so that future generations of lebanese and israeli children will know neither war nor bloodshed, but will finally live together in peace. >>at today 2020 four democratic presidential nominee kamala harris will speak to supporters in greenville, north rolina. the cook political report with amy walter rates nortcalina as a toss up state and its 16 electoral vote could go to either candidate. watch li srting at 4:4 p.m. on c-span, cpa n or online

at c-span.org. >> with one of the tightest races for control of congress in modern political history, stay ahead with c-span's comprehensive coverage of key state debates. c-span brings you access to the nation's top house, senate and governor debates from across the country. debates from races shaping the future of your stay and the balance of power in washington. follow our camping 2024 coverage anytime online at c-span.org/campaign. and be sure to watch tuesday, november if it for live real-time election night results. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics powered by cable. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including wow.

>> the world has changed. today the reliable internet connection is something no one can live without so wow is there for our customers with reliability and choice. now, more than ever, it all starts with great internet. >> wow supports c-span as a public servi along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> next, a conservative activist, ben shapiro talks about the future of israel following the october 7 attacks. he talks with yale university students on how the attack impacted protests and free speech on college campuses. this is an hour. ♪ [applause] [applause] >> good evening everyone. my name is -- and i am the

>> good evening everyone. my name is -- and i am the president of the william buckley program at yale. it is my pleasure to welcome you to tonight's event featuring commentator and radio host ben shapiro for a conversation on how october 7 broke american college campuses. first i want to extend my thanks to carol brown who was with us in the audience and the young america's foundation -- for making this event possible. [applause] before i introduce mr, i would like to say a few words about the program. the william buckley jr. program is the flagship program of an organization dedicated to promoting intellectual diversity and open political discussions at yale. we've posted lectures, seminars, debates and annual conference every year since 2011. by providing yale students with a forum to engage meaningfully with serious conservative thought, the program has become an institution on yale's campus and a symbol for a more open and

representative political atmosphere, especially at a university where the mission is the cultivation and creation of new knowledge, buckley fellows believe all perspectives must be heard and examined in good faith. you can learn more about the program and how to become a fellow on our website. before we begin tonight's program, i want to emphasize the buckley programs commitment to freedom of speech. disruption of an event is not consistent with yells policies on freedom of expression as outlined in the report. i would ask that each of you respect the right of our speakers to be heard and the right of your fellow audience members to listen to the event. thank you for joining us in upholding the value of free speech. [applause] i would also like to solemnly reflect on significance of today's date. one year ago today, hamas terrorists infiltrated israeli towns and villages, murdering

1200 innocent men, women and children and committing horrible atrocities. this unconscionable act was the single deadliest attack on jews since the holocaust. -- to think about these ongoing crises. and now, our guest for tonight. ben shapiro is the founding editor-in-chief and editor emeritus of the daily wire and the host of the ben shapiro show, the largest and fastest-growing growing conservative podcast show in the nation. in addition, he also hosts debunked, his book club, the search and the sunday special. mr. shapiro is a new york times best-selling offer -- author of

over a dozen books, focusing on higher education, free speech and israel. he is a much sought after voice across the country for his incisive commentary on the state of our democracy and our nation. he's been a strong supporter of israel throughout his life and has been particularly vocal in his support of israel's right to defend itself since the october 7 terror attack. mr. shapiro was hired by -- to become the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the united states. he earned a ba in political science from ucla in 2004 and even though he graduated from harvard law school in 2007, we are stilling prettily grateful to have him here at yale. without further ado, please join me in welcoming ben shapiro to yale. [applause]

thank you so much for being here tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> it is the first anniversary of the horrible terrorist attack on israel and i know that many are spending today in morning, but others even in the united states or on yells campus are celebrating today's date. i would like to ask you why you wanted to speak on a college campus on this day and yale in particular. >> i think october 7 revealed a lot of truths about the world and i think one of the biggest truths was revealed in the days after october 7 when even before israel's retaliation began or the operation began, there were widespread protests across the west on college campuses in favor of hamas, in favor of islam, and favor of those who would remove israel from the planet and that revealed to me a cancer at the heart of american

education that i've been writing about for a long time, a rot at the core of american education and i think it is important to come and speak about that tonight, because it is not just the day of mourning, it is a reminder of what happens when the west coast to sleep on its own principles, when it imports people who don't believe in principles and want to cultivate an entire generation of people who don't believe in civilization. >> you mentioned that protests started against israel before israel responded to october 7, and there were comparatively few responses that i saw against hamas. in fact today, there was a yell student group who encouraged us not to attend class in order to quote, stand in solidarity to mourn the martyrs of palestine. could you speak to the mentality behind those who want to blame israel october 7 and what do you think about the religious language on college campuses? >> there are a few different groups that are conflicted in this particular message.

group number one would be radical fundamentalist muslims who believe israel must be wiped off the map. certainly not all muslims. i know many muslims who do not want that. there are many palestinian to do not believe that -- palestinians who do not believe that. then there is the secondary group, american leftist college students who unfortunately believe success is inherently connected with exploitation and that anyone who claims to be a victim and is unsuccessful and lives in a way that seems impoverished or violent, they must have been pushed into that by the great exploiter, it is the aqueous narrative in politics, echoes all the way back to cain and abel. it has been repeated here. the basic idea is that because israel is disproportionately powerful, successful, because israel has actually built itself into a thriving democratic country, because of that, anyone

in the region who is suffering, that must be a byproduct, it is zero-sum thinking that is not true at all. that sort of thinking leads to bizarre coalitions like you see on college campuses where you see people with signs that say queers for palestine which is one of the great mysteries of human history. the question becomes -- the answer is you have people who believe they are marginalized by the system who believe they are victimized by the system, gathering together in a coalition to fight the great oppressor. israel being the bleeding point of the spear. >> here at yale, as with many other campuses around the nation, we have an encampment, two of them of pro-palestine students occupying a common space and denying that space to other students who may not agree with those views. i'm curious what you think the mindset of students who go beyond normal rallies, normal protests. why did they feel they need to stage this more radical action? >> i'm not a psychologist.

it would take a psychologist to examine why someone would want to live in their own feces. the general plush barrette is presumably -- bush -- general plush barrette is the more you disassociate from civilization, the more holy you are. if you occupy a space in one of the most privilege spaces in american life, if you take up that space and make that space a dangerous place to be, you bar entry to that space, somehow you disrupt the will of the great oppressor. struck a blow to the great oppressor. -- the majority of people who do this are upset about the potentiality of being expelled from the college campus and whine about it the minute any consequences actually hit them. it is the same sort of dealing -- a lot of folks in modern politics, that is a feeling of virtue signaling that makes people feel a sense of purpose that they cannot find anywhere else or that it is appropriate to be alienating yourself from

the institution you are already a beneficiary of. >> do you think any universities dealt with october 7 as well? >> you've the university of florida dealt with it great. at the time being run by the president down there, said you are perfectly within your right to protest in designated spaces, and then you violate those he will be expelled. that was the end of it. it was not really difficult. and it also turns out whenever you hear viewpoint doesn't have to do with it, the universities would have let anyone do this -- we know what -- it is. to put it bluntly. if people had been in yale protesting in favor of white supremacy, they would have been expelled and we know it. >> i want to focus on university bureaucracies for a moment. zoom in a little closer to what i think the problem might be. diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are often a huge part in any university's bureaucracy. even at yale. i wonder what you think it is

dei places such little emphasis on jewish individuals in particular by the historic marginalization of jews? >> because historic marginalization is beside the point. the entire point of the dei mentality is the victim-victimizer narrative. what it essentially politics is more victimized you are, the less successful you are. jews violate that narrative, so do asian spirit which is why they are constantly discriminated against. it comes from the idea that asians are not actual minorities who expands any sort of oppression in the u.s. because they are too successful. their scores on the sats are too good and it is perfectly well within bounds for universities to openly discriminate against them, not admit them to university sprayed the same happened with jews. the idea is all suffering of the past or in the present by jews is completely irrelevant, it breaks the matrix. the minute victimized group happens to be disproportionately economically and educationally successful, the entire worldview breaks down. the only way to avoid that is to relabel minority groups that are

both victimized and successful as one. jews suddenly become members of the white superclass, and the same thing happens to agents. agents suddenly become white adjacent. because god forbid the stupid and nefarious worldview of dei is somehow broken by reality pray that has to be -- relabeling people into categories that fit the worldview better. >> do you think there is a connection between dei bureaucracies on university campuses and what we saw in the aftermath of october 7? >> absolutely i think the dei bureaucracy on campus agrees with the basic worldview of those who are protesting otherwise they would not have allowed it. if it would have been nazis protesting on campus as opposed to the new nazis, it would have been a very different story had the administration dealt with it. >> why do you think university students are inspired by palestine against israel? september 2023, azerbaijan

displaced over 100,000 armenians, mostly christians prayed i don't hear anybody at yale talking about it, or the news talking about it. >> of course, the same is true in sudan and somalia per there is great suffering around the world. the reason this has become the tip of the left-wing spear is it is almost a perfect example of an event that ought to break the matrix prayed so you have to grip it that much harder. it is the idea in sociology, which is usually a -- field that have a couple of good points. you will have to find employment elsewhere, sorry sociology majors. there is an idea in sociology that basically many of the things we do in life are signaling that we have skin in the game. for example, i wear a yarmulke, it means i have skin in the jewish game. i go to synagogue regularly. we have these things to demonstrate we have skin in the game. if you want to demonstrate you have skin in the game of the victim-victimizer narrative, you

pick the worst example of supposedly on the planet. then you declare they are the victims. take hamas, which is literally the worst people you can declare a victim. they are fascist, the actual genocidal maniacs. they habitually engage in the murder of their political opponents, in masquerade, they celebrated the murder of children. they triumphantly livestreamed all of this. and they did while siphoning billions of dollars away from the palestinian people to build hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels to hide from local civilians when israel had to go in, civilians would have to die for israel to clear the territory. these are not victims, they are just evil, the worst people in modern life. somehow, the best way to demonstrate skin in the game is to say they are actually the victims. if you can maintain that philosophy, you have skin in the game. have you demonstrated your perverse worldview if you can agree that somehow hamas are the victims in this situation. >> if 9/11 were to happen

tomorrow in the u.s., how do you think the people in favor of hamas would react? >> pretty much the same way. the movement would like to boycott the sanction in the u.s., that they have not found a way to live here five feet off of the ground floating in the air. the reality is when they take the position hamas is somehow the good guy, these are the people who declare osama bin laden was probably justified. isn't he just -- he wasn't. a goodhearted person who wishes the best for his children. no he isn't. what you get the idea is anybody who is attacking the west is doing so for good reason. because in the end, the west is bad. this is the lessons of october 7. despite the west's desperate attempt to go back to sleep, the reality is israel was attacked because it is perceived as a western country.

it was specifically chosen because it is an element of the west. it is not that radical muslims and members of hamas, the radical left, that they hate america because they hate israel. because israel -- they say it themselves. colonial outpost to the west, you are not hiding the ball. colonial outpost of the west, what do you think they think of the west directly? >> a phenomenon that came to yale in a significant way after the attack was media bias and censorship of what hamas actually did on the ground in israel. weeks after, it was well reported across the country, our campus removed papers with references to rape that occurred during the attack. can you talk about the media reaction to october 7 and what you have seen so far, how it has changed? >> the media are generally trashed, which is why i started my own media outlet. when it comes to the middle east, they are true garbage.

i think it was michael pricing who suggested if you ever want to know how bad newspapers are, read a newspaper on a topic you know really well. you will see the articles are filled with errors. the journalists and reporters don't know what they are talking about on a topic you know well. a math major, and they are writing about math, you can see 10 errors. the foreign policy page, you are like they probably know what they are talking about -- that is not true. much of the coverage has been widely skewed, incredible bias. the headlines are all determined to achieve some sort of moral equipment between israel and hamas. likely believing that israel-gaza war as if there at war with a place as opposed to an actual terror group that launched an assault on them. while azerbaijan has been providing hundreds of thousands of tons of human supplies into gaza in the middle of a war it is fighting. sacrificing its own soldiers in order to do that. it is also engaging most

targeted military urban operation in human history right now. and somehow the media come up with an idea this is a borderline genocidal action by israel. they are doing the same in lebanon. israel is delivering some of the most targeted strikes in the history of warfare. they did after that israeli beeper operation, the most targeted strike in the history of warfare. the media coverage is truly egregious, and it comes from a morally relativistic place that they have to maintain the idea that if israel is not the victimizer, they are kind of still the victimizer. even the aftermath of october 7. a week of synthetic media coverage and then it shifted back to the cycle of violence. if only we could come to a deal, if only we could craft some sort of a negotiation where everyone would go home happy. as opposed to the reality, there are fundamentally incompatible goals in the middle east. israel has this really troubling need to breathe and survive. and its enemies have -- apparently a wildly justifiable need to destroy it and kill

every human in the region. >> in that case, do you keep there is any hope for truth? these people showing the horrors of what hamas did on october 7, does it change their mind, or is it the same task? >> you have to take everyone on a one by one basis. some are open to the truth, some are not. fighting the dominance of legacy media, again, that is where we started a very large conservative media company to fight the narrative driven by the legacy media. >> a lot of people look at this conflict and have no idea what is going on, they don't know what to think or who to believe. what do you think is most purely at stake in this conflict going on right now? >> what is purely at stake is the definition of evil. the simple fact of the matter is hamas is a terrorist group that states its goals openly and outright. they are not hiding anything. they say they wish to destroy the state of israel, they

invaded israel from a territory that had effectively been ceded to them when they were unilaterally accrued from the territories. they did not attack military targets, they went into towns, including civilians from gaza who went into those towns to participate in the mass rape, murder, and kidnapping. what is at stake is whether the west even has the capacity to label evil evil at this point. i don't think the question is limited to the israel and palace and in conflict. the palestinian supporters of how authorities with hamas. the question is going forward whether the west has the strength to recognize when their actual threats to it, or whether they wish to simply pretend everyone has the same basic goals, and it is just a matter of pragmatic differences of how we reach that.

>> what do you think the best way for people who may not have a connection to israel for them to memorialize what happened what you would be? >> i think everyone has a stake in paying attention to the victims that are still ongoing -- i was with the family of a 20-year-old being held hostage. i was with his mom and dad and his younger brother today. actually with president trump over in queens. i had on my show just last week. who have a son who has been held hostage. multiple families who have kids who are still being held hostage. and understand unfortunately when it comes to the fight against hamas or hezbollah, or iran, their sponsor state, the only way out is through. war is ugly. no one wants -- particularly not the israelis. have been in constant war since

1947. every israeli at the age of 18 is drafted. that will include the religious. everyone in the israeli military. everyone. if you think their parents want them to be serving on the front lines -- in line by the way, i don't just mean people now or 20 to anyone, i'm talking anyone in this crowd who is 40, 45, parents of three or four kids on the front line inside of lebanon. if you think that is what the israelis want, or out of your mind. that is not what they want. the only way to come to actual peace is not through empty headed diplomacy where people say funny words and violate their words five seconds later. victory is the only way you achieve peace. that is a historic lesson of war. victory and the threat of a crushing victory sways people from engaging in these attacks. that is not even me making that case.

there is a book called the cause of war where every war from 1700 to 1988, he found the way you achieve lasting peace in a time of war is for once i to actively defeat the other. which is something the west is very not used to. the west has decided victory is a dirty word. >> do you think the u.s. is doing enough to ensure the return of the hostages in the creating of lasting peace? >> hell no. i think the u.s. has -- under the biden-harris administration -- the biden-harris admin assertion, which started off the beginning of the war fairly well , immediately launched into a soft stance where the idea was if aid was slow walked to israel, it would facilitate peace negotiations. hamas understands they are militarily inferior. right now, no one -- one may be alive in a bunker surrounded by hostages.

but it is not know he has serious military. the u.s. will be forced into making some sort of concession to allow him and his group to survive. the u.s. could have done something very easy, they could have done this by the way in ukraine. they could have set our allies deserve our support in a time of war. they should be able to pursue the ends necessary to achieve victory. the u.s. should not be in the position of micromanaging the wars of our allies. a stupid idea in the first place. particularly when america's enemies are watching and see every act of weakness as another sign the u.s. is not willing to stand up for its allies in the region. the reality is october 7 would have never happened if the biden administration had not immediately started playing foot seas with the islamic republic of iran. if that never happened, october 7 would have never happened in the first place. the saudi's and israelis would have signed the a bram accord, you would see continuation of the budding peace in the middle east that was until recently the actual wave of the future over there.

i think now that israel has reestablished its military, it turns in the region. >> one last question before i hand it over to the audience. -- over 75 years ago. he criticized yale for promoting secularism and collectivism while undermining traditional values. it is hostile to the principles on which our institution was founded. do you think that critique is relevant to what happened at our universities after october 7? >> just a little. >> is there hope? >> there is hope for your institutions, but they will have to -- with money. employers will have to start looking at degrees from yale in determining they are worth the paper they are written on. i'm not singling out yale. my alma mater, harvard, is having similar experiences. it is true for most of these -- it is ok. i don't like them either.

most of the major universities in this country at this point. employers are making a mistake that just because you have a degree from a top university that it makes you qualified to hold a job. in many cases it makes you the reverse of that. >> thank you for our conversation. [applause] q and day, we are now moving into the q&a portion of the evening. if you have a question, come to the back of the auditorium and stand behind this yellow line and we will be able to get your questions. >> it does not have to be on this topic. it can be anything. i have a general rule, if you disagree, you can raise your hand and go to the front. don't just do it to go to the front. >> mr. shapiro, thank you for

sharing your thoughts tonight. america, our country fought a protracted global war on terror for two decades. as you mentioned today, we have ethical problems of war, political problems, opposition, support for it. but one day seems to lay sacred in our country, the day of remembrance on 9/11. whether you are for or against the war, that is a day where we remember thousands of civilians, firefighters, and police lost their lives. given that today is october 7, what do you think the ethical consequences are of politicizing today is a day of antiwar protests, and now to be a remembrance for people who lost their lives? >> frankie, i think we celebrate 9/11 wrong. the idea 9/11 ought to be a sad

day in which we were member some people hide in a tower, as a congresswoman from minnesota might say. i think that is a grave error. it should be a reminder of the enemies u.s. faced on 9/11 and continue to face today. we have forgotten those lessons which is why we are doomed to repeat similar instances. i don't believe act of terror are equivalent to death by national tragedy. it is one thing to hold a commemoration for a national tragedy. something horrible happens in life and we mourn it happening. i think when you are talking about an act of war, which is what 9/11 was, pearl harbor, october 7. the idea you can treat that in the same way as a day of remembrance for people who died from flu pandemic is wrongheaded and foolish. you cannot take away the lesson from october 7, 9/11, or any other day and remember in some of victims of terrorism. terrorism is evil, it should be

fought. those who believe in the ideology need to be defeated. i think they are doing memorial wrong. [applause] >> my name is zach, nice to meet you. as we stand here and talk today, they are holding a vigil to commemorate people who died on october 7. this event is counter programming that vigil. most organizations wrote letters asking to hold this event at a different time. -- tells us that you can serve god or yourself. you are being paid thousands of dollars to counter program a vigil for the victims of october 7. so my question for you is how are you not serving yourself with this event? >> since there are hundreds of people who showed up to hear me talk about what is going on, i don't think it is serving myself per se. i also don't think i need the money.

my suggestion would be that there are many ways to commemorate what happened. i don't think the folks who wish to hold different events have a veto on my event. i don't have one on theirs. one even contacted me that was programmed the same time and i attempted to actually move our event so it did not conflict with that event prayed they ended up moving there even earlier and i went at 5:00. so this notion i'm somehow ignoring the wishes of the entire jewish community, by coming and speaking about the most vital issues on the most vital day of last year is insipid, and your insulting attempts to -- are frankly uninspired. [applause] it is fine. >> just provide some additional

context. hill on campus and you a later, i believe -- sent you a letter -- >> there are many organizations on campus. i don't agree with all of them politically, they don't agree with me literally. i don't give anyone veto power on my ability to speak read >> scheduling event for different hour -- >> i can easily fill a 3000 seat one. >> you are saying right now you never considered moving an event just one hour to allow the vigil -- >> i don't book the halls here. -- the administration if you are so perturbed. >> i have legitimate concern -- >> i have answered your question, i appreciate the time. >> i'm glad i got to follow that guy. i'm from here in connecticut. i want to thank you and the

daily wire for everything you do. i'm a subscriber and longtime listener. what i appreciate most is how you fight for our freedom. whether it is mandates, freedom of speech. something happened to me that was disturbing today, writing mighty knee there is another front where we have to fight for our conservative voice. chatgpt, try to do a simple graphic. i wanted to put a star of david, i asked for a jewish name and asked chatgpt for an israeli theme. it rejected me at every corner. it reminded me it is another way were we have to fight for our voices. i want to know if you have plans to help fight on the ai front? >> the good news is -- exist. you can do whatever you want there. it is great. everyone knows from elon, i think it will generate whatever image and do so quickly and they are quite amazing. i'm a big believer in ai, i think it has tremendous

potential to change the world. and there are competitors who are capable of out competing chatgpt if they decide to place limits on the images that can be created. thank you so much. >> thanks for being here. i would like to ask -- you mentioned employers and donors can do a lot to affect change on a college campus. looking at students, i'm sure there's interesting ways think students can affect change on a college campus. i want to hear what you think those are and how they can be practically implemented via student body that wants to know people is evil. >> the first thing you guys can do what is going on campus. when i was in college, i think most kids not want to be involved in politics at all. you want to go on with the rest of your life. every so often you remember where you went and that is it. maybe you could a check.

the reality is most americans don't actually know what is going on on campus. just why it was shocking when there was these giant protests that erupted on campus. getting in touch with outlets like ours, we report this regularly. there are other outlets as well. my mentor andrew breitbart said if you've got a phone, a camera, you are now a journalist. so you should be out there making stories. the second thing you can do is organizing. that is uncomfortable. it means you will have to not be friends with everybody. i can safely say as you might have guessed, not a friend's person. when i was on college campus, that was not my top priority. nor is it today. thank god i have my own cadre of friends. i call them my children and my wife. the thing you can do is organize, you can do events, and expose what is going on in the classroom. professors, administrators. there is a special window you

have in campuses that no one else does because you are on one. at ucla, i got started in this job, working in politics. i was at usa at the time. my first book was about bias on college campuses and it came out in 2004. it has been in tears. i recorded what was going on inside the classrooms. so you can do that. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you for being here. i'm actually a fan of your show. as a pro-lifer myself, i have an abortion quest just -- question some leftists bring up. if you were in a burning hospital and on one side there were 100 in vitro fertilized exit, and there were five babies who you had to say one side, which would you save and why? x ok, the traditional answer anyone would give, the five born babies prayed the reason you say five born babies is because the

embryos have a chance at life -- they are already at life -- but they have a chance of living a full life outside of the womb already. we were arguing a life outside the womb is more valuable because of viability -- but these embryos are not in a womb right now. the question was you can save a baby or i can punch this nine month pregnant in the stomach, it would be different russian. this is not on the value of life. our good reaction to what life is valuable does not define the value of life. another example, a similar example. burning building, 80-year-old person, five-year-old child, who do you save? the answer most people will give is the child. doesn't mean that 80-year-old person is not alive? i can also give an example, a hypothetical in which he would save the embryos. let's say you are on a spaceship. hypotheticals are fun. on this spaceship, you have a five year old child or 1000 embryos. the last pay ship in existence.

and you have to say one. 15-year-old child or the 1000 embryos. you save the 1000 meals because the entire future of the human species is at stake. want to say 1000 as opposed to one. the gut level reaction to what life we would save is not this positive answer to whether there is value to the life. also it is a weird false hypothetical because that is never the choice. no one is like i'm six-month pregnant, so here's my question, do i save this child or murder this five year old -- that has never been a thing that has ever arisen. >> my other question is if you support the death penalty, how should abortion be criminalized in terms of who and what the adequate punishment is? i heard you say in the case of a woman getting the abortion that they have a lack of criminal intent, they don't meet the standards for that. if you hire a hitman, would you not be punished for hiring that

hitman to commit -- >> it is a question will question in the premise where if you hired a hitman to kill what you thought was a vegetable, which is most people think when you get an abortion. they think what they are killing doesn't have any human valley. -- they are willing to admit it is human life they are killing anyway pray that is horrifying. but people approaching abortion that we are not thinking about it that way. a hitman to kill a cow, or in the viewpoint of the person who is in your analogy. so let's say you are an abortion doctor and you partially abort fetuses and they are born alive sometimes and you kill them -- should receive the death penalty. it depends on the level of egregious us of the murder. but i'm certainly in favor of the death penalty in certain cases. it is not an across the board yes or no thing.

[applause] >> hello. you quoted a book earlier, i did not quite catch it. we were talking about how peace could only be achieved through victory. >> long lasting peace. >> i'm also hoping you can give a relevant example of such a victory and defeat and talk about what victory and defeat really looks like in this case with israel. >> i believe the author is jeffrey blaine. i -- the perfect example is world war ii. world war i, it is negotiated. the versailles treaty, look how it incentivized germany to pray -- pay reparations, that led to world war ii -- if everyone had been nicer to germany, world war ii would have never happened -- the convincing one is we were a lot meaner in world war ii. when the west and the soviets completely invaded and carved

out the entirety of germany. there has been no war in germany since. -- examples from the middle east, the egyptians decide in 1973 they don't have the ability to beat the israelis and they sign a peace agreement with them. so jordan, same sort of thing in 1967. israel defeats them, jordanians never go to war with israel again. they are not just relevant examples but from the region. if you are talking about how to achieve long-lasting peace in this region, first of all, you have a long-lasting cold peace with egypt and jordan. and if you are talking about how to issue long-lasting peace to lebanon, the answer will have to be such devastatingly effective military victory that there is likely a regime change that ends

with some form of actual military governance in lebanon's ability to withhold power from hezbollah. which was the case after 2005 or 2006 when israel withdrew from lebanon. the u.n. resolution, 1701, and said that lebanon was supposed to be completely demilitarized, and that never happened. the only way to actually achieve long-lasting peace is by crushing the hopes and dreams of people who wish to attack our neighbors. such devastation that they had no choice but to negotiate peace. when it comes to gaza, israel has done that with hamas. they are trying to essentially find someone to run the gaza strip and egypt was offered it, they said no way. they offered it to saudi, jordan, nobody wants a piece of it. israel never one of the gaza strip. in 1967, there was an open

debate on whether they had to go into the gaza strip with most arguing that if they could get away with leaving it in egyptian hands, they would do it. it has always been a trouble area, so israel will probably have to militarily occupy the area and have insurgency operations for the perceivable future until someone accepts responsibility there. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you for coming to speak with us and engaging with us. my question is about free speech. i'm a leftist. >> thank you for coming, seriously. i appreciate that. [applause] >> i agree that there is a long way to go in terms of addressing free speech and the response factors, but one of the things i struggle with is sort of like this double standard of leftists

being held to, where the right claims the left is the only side infringing on free speech. i think justice is bad for the left with strongman, a few conservatives and label them all as white supremacists. it seems like they label all leftists as nazis. the same way as banning employment opportunities for leftists who express their views, and saying that the same should happen for conservatives. do you think that the right has a long way to go in terms of free speech, as well, or this is a leftist issue? >> i think everybody can do better on free speech. i think it is disproportionate the attacks on free speech in modern day and age. in 1965, they were probably more attacks on free speech from the right than the left, and today, the left and the right.

some of the examples you are using, the example that everybody on the left, i think there are certain systems, but i think it is overstated. >> for example, let's give an example of high schools censoring types of speech, or the boycott of bud light. in many ways, that is similar to how the left cancels the right. >> this is a really good question. the reason why is because i think there is a category error that gets made with regard to these questions. what i mean by that is that it is an element to free speech and leftists, too, and if people would like to boycott the speech and not, that is their prerogative. if i choose not to buy bud light, that is how i choose to use my money. when it comes to cancel culture,

a category error. there are two questions, whether it deserves to be boycotted and the answer is that it is yes. and then there's is the question of who? this is where you see the imbalance. the left in the u.s., the overton window in which you have to operate to not earn a boycott is extremely narrow. for the right it is much wider but i would not say it is completely gone. i believe in the overton window. if i'm an employer, i cannot have a moral obligation to hire people who believe that hitler's was a gre guy -- hitler was a great guy. that is not me boycotting them in a way that is a violation of free speech principles. they have a right to go and work in the u.s., they don't have a right to earn a job from me. i'm not calling them to be jailed. we have to separate public and private action in this area we are talking about.

the big imbalance on the right, the overton window of the left is narrow. you can save mild things and get "canceled" on the right but if you are on the left, it is difficult to say something so transgressive that the entire world turns on you and you lose your job. you have to go a long way to get there. [applause] >> hi, i'm a huge fan. i'm asian, thank you for the callout. [laughter] >> dude, congrats on getting in. do they know your asian? [laughter] >> yeah, i hit the box. so, i will get to serious business. three very short questions. the first one, do you think william shakespeare was an anti-semite? >> by the evidence in "merchants

of venice," sure. it is in fact an anti-semitic work. doesn't mean it is a great work? no. i have a habit of trying to read great works and then understand there are terrible things and great works, nothing new. by the way, that is an enormous number of people historically. a lot of great literature and thinkers who were not fond. >> the second, do you think the tale of robin hood promotes socialism? >> [laughter] no. i think it is a fight over over taxation. the sheriff of nottingham -- [applause] [laughter] >> one last one. i don't want to take up too much time. i don't know if you have heard of an anime character called sailor moon. do you thinks it -- do you think it promotes homosexuality and transgenderism? caller: >> i have heard of

sailor moon. i do not know what it is. -- >> i have heard of sailor moon. i do not know what it is part are you asking about anime? is that happening in real life right now? >> i used to watch it. [laughter] i was just starting to realize that they seem to promote lesbianism and transgenderism in certain seasons. >> i have no specific views on whether sailor moon promotes transgenderism. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you for coming. i'm caroline. my question is do you think israel is in a race against time ? do you have a strategic vision before the u.s. becomes beholden to the left and its anti-israel bias? >> yes. the question is whether israel

has got a short timeframe in order to ensure his own security for the future as the left gains power? the answer is yes. you have seen this slow walking from the biden administration despite congressional approval, and you have seen something similar from the harris administration, god forbid, and i think you are seeing a growing sentiment, not only on the left, but there is a growing concern on the right that is doing a routine that is counterproductive. by the way, the israelis know that, and that is why i think that they are restoring a lot of defense production and will be doing more in the near future. that is a problem for the u.s. the u.s. ought to have strong connections. by the way, and leverage. and you would like there to be strong military connection with a wide variety of allies of the u.s. because it turns out that israel does not get arms from america, and america would like to hold a leash on israel, but

what leash? i do something that offends establishment has always believed. they are in favor, at least in the modern era, of posting certain amounts of aid to israel because it gets spent in the united states, and additional military spending in israel has to be spent in the u.s. and gives the u.s. leverage over israel's foreign policy decisions. yes, israel is going to have to go and get more independent. and they know it. [applause] >> thanks for coming out today. i'm someone who used to be a democrat and became a republican after being exposed to viewpoints such as yours. thank you what you do. [applause] i'm running for state representative here in connecticut as a republican. >> nice. >> thank you so much. my question is how do we appeal to younger people on the fence that could be swayed by republican values and they are

not totally convinced by democrats but they may not think it is cool to be republican? what values or issues should be focused on? >> listen, it is not cool to be republican. it isn't. i think the values tend to be uncool. i never thought being cool was particularly important in life. as you might be able to tell. [laughter] with that said, i think the left has moved so far left that there is a rebellion. it turns out most people would like to succeed in life and thrive. most people in the u.s. wished to be lions. there is a matrix in my own head about everybody has their version of two kinds of people. here is one of those two over some publications, there are lions and scavengers. there are people who would like to go out, achieve, community, family, innovate, the entrepreneurs, work a job, and make the best of the lack provided to their family. i think that america was built

on that, and then there are scavengers, people who believe everything is owed to them, and the system in which they live needs to be torn away at, and it is a bad system that needs to be dissolved or needs to be wounded. i think the left praise on that -- preys on this anger against the system but the reality is there is no hope or building in that. once you tear away the only this time has provided prosperity, what do you do then? the property rights and the judeo-christian history of the west, once you tear that away, there's something left to build on. when you say to people i'm not here to give you a handout or to structure your life are you or to make decisions on every little area of how you ought to live, but i'm here to tell you to get on your ass, work and you will succeed in america. if you work in america, you will succeed in america. very simple three rule that offends a lot of people,

gradually before high school, don't have a baby before you get married, get a job. if you do these things, you will not be poor in the u.s. any obstacle i would like to help clear away. whether you are talking about big business pollution, the government, which i think is most of the problem, if we can tear that away and move that away so you can succeed, that i think is an inspiring message to people and give them hope for their own future. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you so much for being here tonight. you mentioned ukraine briefly earlier. i wanted to get your take on what the perspective from a foreign policy standpoint should be on the continuation of the war. i know you have been attacked by certain factions in the republican party, most notably tucker carlson, for your support for continued funding of ukraine.

i sort of would like your take on what you think the endgame is in ukraine and what should be the approach from the u.s. foreign-policy perspective achieve that. >> my approach to ukraine contra what tucker perceives my approach to be is that the u.s. should continue to fund ukraine sufficient to maintain his current orders -- borders and pressure russia. ukraine is not going to take crimea, realistically speaking. the chance they will do that hezbollah since 2014. that's nothing new. i have said since august of 2022 that the best thing the u.s. could do would be to quickly ramp up military aid provided to ukraine to pressure russia foreign offramp. and then, zelenskyy is in a bad position. you feel for him as a leader. his people have been absolutely

-- zelenskyy is not in a position where he can say i will find a deal to giveaway crimea to sign it away. those two parts of ukraine tend to be pro-russian compared to other parts of the country. what the u.s. might have to do is basically cut a deal in lieu of zelenskyy. that might be something that has to happen where the u.s. coast or russia, if russia was willing to negotiate, and says, here's the deal. we will have a mutual aid guaranteed with ukraine, guarantee their security, you will not invade their borders anymore, but those lines get frozen where they are essentially, and then you might have to console her.

and if that sounds like a hawkish perspective, it is weird because that is the issue -- position donald trump has taken on the issue. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you for being here. i would like to continue with the question about ukraine. we generally don't know the answer to the question i'm about to ask you, so i'm interested to hear what you think about it. several reasons were given by the pro-hamas activists on why they support hamas. hamas hates the west, but so does russia. israeli operations have killed many civilians, but russia use this conscript and abductees from poor countries that go and sign, with the russian military on the front lines, and ukraine is funded by u.s. taxes, much of israel's military and israel's military gets a lot of aid, and

ukraine has been a state for less time, less than half the time that israel has been a state. about seven times as many people have died in ukraine as in the entire israel-hamas or gaza war. my question is, seriously, i do not know the answer to this, but what is stopping someone who is pro-hamas and pro-palestinian from realizing this and supporting russia? >> looking for logic in these places is difficult. what is the position that is most cooler surely convenient? i don't think most of the pro-hamas people on campus care deeply and pro-hamas is not care about ukraine and they tend to be more pro-russian than the opposite because russia is supportive of hamas, hezbollah

and iran. the left-wing, this odd dichotomy between the pro-hamas position and the pro-russian and pro-zelenskyy and ukraine position, that dichotomy comes down basically, it is weird, but it comes down basically to a lot of people on the left really hate russia, not because they hate russia but they hate russia because they think they stole the election from donald trump in 2016. i'm serious. 2012, barack obama was on a stage with medvedev, telling him on a height microphone that he would make -- hot microphone that he would make concessions to putin if russia would leave off. i know you guys are young, but back in the olden days in 2012, it was mitt romney on a stage arguing against russia, and the only thing that switched was the bizarre left-wing perception that russia had somehow made donald trump president which is not true. >> thank you.

>> this will be the final question. >> thank you for speaking with us today. right is often used -- just this morning, i saw a post saying that about how today is not about october 7, 2023, and not about what happened in 1940 seven third i'm thinking, i was thinking when it was conquered by the west.

when discussing ownership or how should -- or if we do use it, how far back should we go? >> there are internal and external claims. internal claims, this is our land, a land that unifies us, and there's nothing new about that. as an external justifying claim, it tends to be a weak response, and it is not i ought to have this land because my great, great, great grandfather had this land. and someone says, well, your grandfather got it for my great-grandfather. so it is more of a counterclaim. this sort of has an easier way

to do that, with the world better if it looked more like israel, the west bank, or the gaza strip under hamas? that is a very simple question and easy to answer, nobody wants to answer it, but there is obscure patient -- obscuration and it is really what happened in 1947, or during the ottoman empire, and if you go all the way back to when this land was occupied by the crusaders, you can do that all day long. it is not actually prove anything or help anything and if you would like to go back originally, most of the archaeology in israel dates back to second century bc when it was jewish. this is particularly the claim and we know it is a week claim because nobody at yale is

proposing to give up this beautiful university to the american -- native american tribes were originally possessed the land. that sort of claim, i think, is a misdirect and a red herring. i think the people who use it definitely no that it is a red herring in order to avoid the obvious, which is everyone in the world, by the way, including israeli arabs are perfectly happy living in israel and nobody wanted to leave or live in the gaza strip or the west bank. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much. >>ater today 2024 democratic presidential nominee kamala hais will speak to supporters

in greenville, north carolina. the cook political report with amy walter rates rtcarolina as a tossup state and its 16 electoral votes could go to eitherandate. watch livetaing at 4:40 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now or online at c-span.org. ♪ >> thousand will be >> in order. >>c-span -- c-span celebrates congress like no other. since 1979 we have been your primary source for capitol hill providing balanced and unfiltered coverage of government taking you to where the policies are debated and decided. c-span, 45 years and counting, powered by cable. >> a virginia democratic senator mark warner discusses global

challenges facing the next president of the united states at an event hosted by the atlantic council in washington, d.c. this is about 40 minutes. the next u.s. president. you're watching live coverage on c-span. >> i'm fred kemp, today we are delighted to welcome senator mark warner to discuss the array of global risk and opportunities facing whomever is elected you're vice president in november. i'm sorry i can't be there in person. i'm in istanbul but hope to see you upon my return. this event is part of the atlantic council's bipartisan election year event series titled elections 2024. america's role in the world. >> through this series we examine the challenging local context for 2023 -- 24 u.s. elections. and the state of wars in the middle east and europe, the

contests for commanding heights of technological change and so much more. writing recently in the financial times the cia director and the uk's mi six director set the stage this way. there is no question that the international world order the balanced system does lead to relative peace and stability and delivered rising living standards and opportunities and prosperity is under threat in a way we have not seen since the cold war. we were delighted to host senator chris murphy of connecticut earlier this fall and we invite you to stay tuned for future events including one on october 30 with congressman michael turner, chairman of the house select committee on intelligence. since 1961 the lintel council nonpartisan values driven commission has been to shape the vole -- the commercial -- the future through construction and

collaborative u.s. leadership. in the aftermath of the second world war the united states has upheld that order throughout the cold war and to the present day working alongside allies and partners to create a more secure and prosperous future for all. as the american feet -- people consider who to elect as the next u.s. president and who to elect to congress, among other factors they must discuss who can best manage global challenges that are historic in nature. we are delighted to be joined today by senator warner. we are grateful for his longtime engagement with the atlantic council including in his role as cochair of the bio partisan commission on the geopolitical impacts of new technologies and data. before we turn to the conversation senator warner i'm delighted to invite the atlantic council board director and nana -- managing director at global head of commodity strategy. to introduce the senator and

offer these welcoming remarks. thank you again for joining us. over to you. >> thank you so much fred for those kind words. rbc capital markets is delighted to support this election series, events like this one are essential for engaging democratic citizens and shedding light on the implications of potential presidential administrations. they look forward to a vibrant conversation here today. senator mark warner joins share his thoughts on the global risks and opportunities and ex-president must confront and how potential harris administration may impact u.s. foreign policy. senator warner has served in the united states senate for over 15 years and serves as chairman of the senate select committee on intelligence where he is worked across the aisle to serve

virginians and the including by crafting and negotiating key legislation on infrastructure, cybersecurity and national security. senator warner believes strongly in democracy and election integrity and has underlined that both democrats and republicans must come together to respond to election security threats especially the pervasive efforts by russia, china and iran. stating a whole of society effort is needed to ensure our democratic processes -- we very much look forward to sharing your thoughts on how the next u.s. president should respond to emerging transform the technologies and great power competition. we are also very honored to have my very dear friend brian sullivan monitoring the conversation -- moderating the conversation. he previously hosted as anchor of cnbc's last call worldwide

exchange and power lunch and has been nominated. before i turn it over to you, a couple of housekeeping points. this event is public and on the record. towards the end of the moderated conversation we will take some questions from the audience. for those joining us virtually and in person, please submit your questions displayed on the screen now and do not forget to include your name and affiliation. thank you for joining us. over to you. brian: i must thank you for mentioning me because fred left me out. [laughter] it was like senator thank you. it's an honor to be here. fantastic person, thank you so much. let's talk right in. president biden was supposed to be i believe in angola but he did not rightly so because

hurricane milton and disaster relief. what's so fascinating, vice president biden going to angola. but what would be the urgency of that trip. if you know what angola has from a critical mineral perspective that all the advanced weapon systems we are going to do build the magnets that control rays are -- radar, all the things you know about that i don't know about senator. but this i feel like from an energy security perspective, looking at china's almost ironclad grasp and hold on all of these elements that we forgot about from high school, is that the next battleground. sen. warner: first of all thank you and thank you for those

comments. but it's great to be back. i wanted to make two comments upfront. first we will talk about all the challenges, but i just came back from two days touring southwest virginia where we were hard-hit by helene. not as bad as north carolina or other states free and what i came away with as we think about florida recovery, the incredible amount of folks, neighbors helping neighbors in the aftermath of this horrible storm. an incredible generosity the american people. it starts with committees helping, churches helping. but there is in norma's resilience and it's one of the reasons it drives me crazy some of the disinformation being

spread in the aftermath of the storms but a lot of good in this country that needs to be celebrated. at the top, i will do this in a non-senatorial way. i want to hit five spots that i think frankly even biden could see some progress on. that aren't getting the kind of attention that i think would warrant. one, and i'll move from north to south and then west. the circumstances in venezuela ought to be receiving more intention -- more attention. they voted in record numbers, it was an overwhelming defeat for maduro. we have not been able to rally states in the region and prospects for that country i think are very dim at this point and when maduro was sworn in again if we don't make some changes we could see another

mass of venezuelans leaving which would put an additional strain on the border. it goes to what you mentioned about china in terms of energy is the increasing role that australia and oceania will play. this dozens of island nations in the region, many of which we don't have -- yet. but each of these nation-states has coverage in terms of the amount of ocean they control, that are staggering and for a little bit of attention we can go a long way. brian: you've got three more to get to. you talk about a myanmar. sen. warner: on talking about papa new guinea, the solomon islands. i'm talking about nation-states that most americans frankly

couldn't identify couple years back. brian: is it because of the waterway? >> it's more the fact that small nation-state they have based upon what they claim is there ocean mineral rights. an area mass that may be larger than alaska and texas combined. undersea and we have ignored these nations. we are starting to put a little bit of time bringing them frankly broadband, partnering with our tech companies. a huge opportunity. in china the normal stuff we will talk about but i think in energy china is making huge gains on the big advocate for reintroduction of advanced nuclear. there will be a competition with china that we are engaged in. we need to move quicker. with that is what china has been

doing with life-sciences and bio. as nobly heard of huawei may be eight years ago groups going forward is beijing genomics institute. huge challenges there. in the middle east we have wars going on there's also geopolitical move that i think could be one of the most transformative of the next 25 years and the saudi's, the, roddy's, the other gulf states based upon their own decisions transform their economies to more technology-based and race for data centers and ai, they i believe will make the decision to stop playing off against china and russia and go with us because they want our technology. how we navigate that, the microsoft deal is the tip of the spear on that is something that needs more attention. a place we are spending a lot of money and time is the crisis in sudan.