to nate.moore@aei.org. so john, you said you were going to talk about, and you did, language and the left. the subtitle, which i think was not mentioned, was, can words create justice. you said at the very beginning you were going to talk mostly about the left and then at some point in the middle you sort of said that again. so you didn't say anything about the right. you are not a man of the right. you've called yourself a liberal democrat. many people say and i have to say this sounds right to me that you are a radical centrist. that was definitely a radical centrist talk. so what would a talk by you or conceivably by somebody else look like, that was language in

the right? in other words what are the commonalities or discrepancies between how the left is using, or if you like, abusing language, and how the right is doing that? so language and the right, can words create justice, or for this matter, injustice. do you give any thoughts to that? john: i'm going to give an honest answer to that which is that i don't have in my quiver examples of that kind of abuse from the right. because frankly despite the complaints i have about what the right is doing these days, it's not about language. this idea is one that's been more embraced by the left than the right because it offers a way of showing that you understand that indigenous cultures, or cultures that aren't based on the written word as much as ours is, are cognitively equal to us. but the truth is, most of this

is the left. if i say it's on both sides of the aisle it's because certainly there are examples on the right that concern me less, but it means i've got it covered and nobody can say i'm exaggerating. there's plenty of rhetoric from the right, but not a lot of it is about, no, call it this, because that will give you the right thoughts. so when trump -- joshua: so when trump -- joshua: so when trump's campaign puts out an ad, kamala is for they/them, trump is for you -- john: that's very clever. joshua: it is a politically clever ad. is it fair? john: fair. joshua: it's politics, it's an

ad, it's very clever. you put a sort of modified defense of they, them, theirs, there. john: if it means the ones she's most dedicated to are those who use they/them, rather than he/she, i consider it to be clever and not slanderous. i don't think kamala harris is that far left, or at least she isn't framing herself that far left right now. but trumpians have a reason to make it appear that way. someone, not him, thought that up. joshua: at some distant or not so distant point in history, chris started talk about "1984",

three years before it was published, in 1946, orrwell wrote a names essay "politics and the english language," an essay i commend to all of you, it has a lot of problems but it is an interesting and very famous essay. in the first sentence, orrwell says something about, you know, the bad ways in which people are using english now. of course this happens generation after generation after generation. but to take just one of the examples that he goes after, and remember this is 1946, he talks about the word fascism and he says, you know, fascism has no meaning anymore except insofar as it signals something not desirable. i think that's a direct quotation. that's 1946. if you want to know what fascism is, that would be a good day to think about it. these days i'm called a fascist,

you're called fascist, many people in this room are being called fascist all the time, completely unfairly is there a difference in you don't have to jump off the word fash itch, but is there a difference between how things are now on the left or conceivably the right, now as opposed to 1946? or if you like 1846? or 1746? john: i know what you mean. there's a surface difference in that before roughly the late 1960's, one was expected to be more careful in one public's statements in terms of how you phrase things at a lectern, for example, as opposed to when you were just talking. and you can love that or you can hate it. but language wore a tie. language wore a tie when you -- joshua: not modern. john: but we can't hear people just talking as much until our

modern technology. really only about 25 years ago. what orwell gets to is that if you were listening to the great because of language at that time, you were hearing the same kind of sloppiness that we're dealing with now. not to say you can use -- you can't use fascist wrong in plint or sloppily in print. but there are all sorts of examples if you got warren harding just talking, apparently it was not a pleasant thing he just kind of yammered along. h.l. mencken talked about how he spoke the worst english he's ever known. there was a guy whose name escapes me, a candidate for mayor in new york city in the time of fiorel lo la guard yasm he's not famous now, his voice was probably never recorded in terms of spoken word. but if you see transcripts of what he said, it went from one thing to another, kind of like the way trump is sometimes

transcribed now. people talked that way then too because we can't see it in print. anything in print, including the congressional record, when they're reading from it, is formal with orrwell you read that piece, and you might almost think it was 1972, and it's because it is then what it was for a long time. joshua: since you're talking about typeface, i'm going off on a tangent and going to ask you about a capitalist. if i'm called a fascist, and you're called a fascist, and people make that a lower case f rather than capital, i'm riffing on black and black. i hadn't seen the fascist/fascist but i can imagine that. john: i just gave at "the new

york times," my editor, my wonderful editor said john, i know you don't like doing it, but i always have to change it. could you please so now i'm doing it. that to me feels exactly like the change of the word. it had nothing to do with creating change, putting food in anybody's mouth, giving anybody training. it's more of the euphemism treadmill. most people think you're not supposed to capitalize white for the contingent reason that white nationalists like it. so i haven't done it like with sweat rolling down my brow but once that came in, i thought, no aye written it lower case all my life, i'm too busy thinking about what to write every damn week, i'm not going to capitalize it. but now i'm going to. i'm not going to get in the habit anywhere else, but it's at the point where if i don'tdo it, if it's going anywhere but hi desk, i'm making somebody else do it for me.

so -- joshua: i think -- this is being recorded, i hope it isn't wrong, i think the new edition of the chicago manual of style says about white you can now one or the other. i think they're being flexible. there are certainly ones who are saying you should do it or at least you might consider doing it. and this is one of these cases that is, well, changing as we -- john: i didn't like african-american. i thought, i'm not african. you have people coming from africa, then you have some lily white person from south africa saying i'm african-american. i don't think it was better. joshua: let's go back to "the new york times," and also "the

atlantic," where you also write, capitalizes black. john: are they doing that? joshua: i believe there are pieses by you in your substak and then you wrote substantively the same thing nor the atlantic, and theirs was capitalized. so the real question is there, which i'd like to ask you, the great thing about being a linguist, or the terrifying thing about being a linguist is, one of them is that you will -- you are what you eat. if you write about politics, you're writing about politics if you write about language you're using language to do it. so you're in a kind of double bind. so what is it like to write for -- what do editors tell you to do? are there publications where you have great freedom to say what you want and to say it in the way you want? and others in which you don't?

i'm not asking you to throw various editors here under the bus exactly, though you're welcome to do so. what does that look like in a world in which language is as heavily policed, if i can use that word, policed, at least on the left, as what we have right now. john: that's a great question. i don't get asked much about my writing. people think you have an opinion and it jumps out of your head and you type it. it used to be that i couldn't get away with even the old singular they. telling students they can hand in their paper when they want to they used to correct that. once i got past 50, i started saying, i've been in this business a while. i'm a linguist. this rule makes no sense. i'd like you to let me say they. this is before the roberta is getting their hair cut day. i think that came because i got a little older. one thing that's especially fris

traiting, and this is not any particular person. actually a lot of it comes from that, you were saying the es kay from orrwell has problems, is that there's something wrong with the passive voice if you put something in a passive voice you're making a weaker statement. some of that is strunk & white, and the history of that thing, one teacher at cornell with a little mustache and a lot of teeth wrote about how he thought about language, and e.b. white liked it and made it a book. strunc has been dead for 300 years. so you don't want to write in all passive but the reason you don't want to write in all passive, things about getting language across that are subtle and quite useful and i wish it weren't thought of, lots of editors, as a kind of a

responsibility of making writing good to have the passive voice used as little as possible. because we're such -- if it were such a bad thing why do we have it and that one i find is very hard to get people to let go of. joshua: you wish people thought of it or people would think of it john: i wish it were thought of. joshua: the last time we had a public conversation, at columbia, three or so weeks after october 7. things were very bad. they were very bad at clumia and so here we are almost a year later. i wonder if you have any comments about what has happened post-october 7 in particular to the use of language, and also, although linguists often don't like to make prediction, you did make one or two up there just now, what do you think the next year is going to look like? john: to be perfectly honest,

thank the lord, i'm on sabbatical all year so i don't have to worry about it. i can be at home. of course i'm going to learn about all sorts of things going on. i think the -- a lesson that's been learned for better or for worse is the nature of what we're going to think of free speech as being. i think that's in the column of mine that dropped today. to be on that campus, columbia, god love columbia but it's the size of this room. and so if there are protests, they're everywhere. it's not just on one part of campus and you can go to the other side to listen to the kinds of dialogue that there's been and the whole question as to whether it's anti-semitic, etc., where do you draw the line. learning that there's going to be some of that and there's a meaning of free speech, then jewish students have to get used to hearing a certain amount of that sort of thing within certain parameters.

that's not something i think college students have had a that rapid a lesson about in a long time if ever, and it's something i have to think a lot about. my position has always been if anybody on a campus said "d.e.i. has got to die," two times, much less for a half-hour, they'd be sent somewhere else. that relates to law school profess professor amy wachs. how much invective are groups exped to listen to in the name of free speech? though the atmosphere at columbia was acrid to say the least, i think there's been almost, think of it as eating your vegetables, a lesson in what free speech really means in the nastiness of what's going on there. joshua: can you tell us a little bit more about what a linguist's view is, either your view as you

or your view as a linguistic expert about free speech on campus. john: this goes beyond anything a linguist thinks about, just me trying to think about and listen to the right things. you borrow from the -- bar from the notion of free speech not only crying out in a theater that classic idea, but sustained, direct atabs on individuals cannot by thought of as just free speech. constant, overt discriminatory exclamations are not to be thought of as free speech. this is common in free speech code but it's one of these where to do -- where do you draw the line? i remember one night, had a late class. i happened to be with two students who were jewish. we walked out of the building, there's a line of people going by. lights, posters, yelling from the river to the sea.

i remember thinking, they have to hear this. one of them was better equipped to do it than the other. they have to listen to this all day long is this free speech or is this too much? it's a tough one and then i thought to myself how would i feel listening to d.e.i. has got to die, d.e.i. has got to die, or something more trenchant. i thought it wouldn't bother me because there's a part of me that's kind of interior but that's a configuration of neurons. that's not something everybody has. it's a disadvantage to me sometimes. and i thought i don't know. back then i thought i don't know. today i would say, if there was a certain amount of that sort of speech being leveled by a certain group black kids, i would hope if it went too far, if it not up in your -- if it didn't go too far, if it wasn't up in your face, i would hope they could withstand it.

but i'm thinking about arrogant, cocky me and i have to get out of him and think about someone else. it's been very difficult to wrap your head around it. especially because, as i'm sure you know, most people in that debate know what they know. it all comes down to one thing and there are no questions. the hardest philosophical question i've known in my lifetime. that won't do for me it's difficult. it's hard. joshua: i wonder if we can talk more about students on campus at the moment. your atlantic colleague, rose horowitz, wrote a piece two days ago about how students at elite campuses no longer read they no longer read at all. there are of course lots of articles about this sort of thing. there have been for decades, and hundreds of years too but this one is quite damning. there's a quote in that article,

he says students come in with a narrower vocabulary than they used to. that strikes me as correct. you may disagree but that strikes me as correct. the other thing he says is that they have, quote, less understanding of language than they used to. and i wonder about that. i wonder whether we could talk a bit about whether it's the case that many of the things that you decry and that many people in this room decry are actually a result of not understanding language or whether it actually could be something like the opposite they understand all too well what it is that they can do if they manipulate language. that's what they do. john: i read that piece. it occurred to me, i used to teach contemporary civilization in the core curriculum at columbia, that was teaching philosophy and poli sci juniors

for me. i haven't done that for 10 years now. 10 years ago was when a certain tick was just beginning. everything changed in 2013. there was a sea change because of iphones and also twitter and facebook had become default, especially twitter. that generation started in 2013. and nowadays, my particular courses don't leave me assigning students whole books. but i would say, maybes that just -- this is just because i'm at columbia, maybe other columbia professors would say differently, a couple did in the article, i don't notice any difference in the usage of language from 2008 when i was there, certainly among some students there's a sense that using certain words is politics. and that, i remember noticing that even before 2013 around thinking, lohr rain handsberry and martin luther king wouldn't recognize. this this is a new way of using

language. not harmful but a new way. but definitely i can say this. 2009, if i had a bright student, and they wanted to know about something, i would tell them, and it was me imitating jaques barzon who in his books would say, the proper book to read -- i would tell students, not in that tone of voice, but read this. go read that. that doesn't work with any but a sliver now. they're only used to reading articles and bits of things. that's how they get their information. many would rather get it through the ear. they want to watch somebody talk about it. there's so much on line now of people talking knowledge. a lot of them have grown up on that. so yes, i feel, i worry that the book is becoming obsolete. except to a set of people who embrace them, i think. i think rose compared it to l.p.'s.

joshua: it was a great comparison. she says, we know, she quotes some young person or an aggregate of young people as saying, we know there are people out there who listen to vinyl and that's cool. but that's a really weird subset. that's what it is to read a book. john: i wouldn't be surprised. everything is going to get shorter. devil's advocate, maybe books have always been too listening and it's been an artificial thing, how much do you remember of any one book. but i'm bending over way backwards because just to come here, the new reagan biography, which i highly recommend and i didn't write it, reagan biography is like potato chips, i cannot put it down. even though i thought i knew enough about that man. it's heavy. it weighs as much as four shoes. i dragged it down here because i want that. i get the feeling that now makes me old. joshua: but you just recommended

it to me. excellent. john: potato chips. you won't be able to put it down. joshua: you mentioned 2013, maybe i'll close with this and hand things over to the audience. 2013, is there a linguistic -- linguistically oriented book to be written as a complement to the sorts of thing he was talking about? that is to say there's all this discussion about how iphones and so on may or may not, in his view, i would say more may, be the cause of attention deficit, blah, blah, blah. what about language? is it really true that there was some kind dropoff or conceivably some kind of linguistic dropoff just then too? and for the same cause? i don't want to put words in your mouth, you didn't quite say that but you were edging toward it. john: that's a book someone, not

me, is going to have to write someday. whether those phones change language in a significant way. getting beyond the now shopworn topic is texting language, etc. we have enough books and arls written about that. but yes, it'll be interesting to see. you have to wait until things have happened. for example, somebody in the atlantic wrote a piece during the lockdown predicting that because children were going to be home with their parents and grandparents who had been born in other places that children were going to learn their home language better than they had learned it before. that turned out to not be true at all. the person who wrote that article was me. so you have to wait and see the results of things. but clearly that piece needs to be written with a language-linguistics focus. we'll see in 10 years. joshua: ok. we have 20 or so minutes. let me hand it over to all of

you. again, if you have a question and you're watching live and you're not in this room right now, nate.moore@aei.org. somebody will come by with a mike. >> hi, first, thank you so much for speaking with us. i was reading burke's reflection os on the revolution in france relatively recently. one of his complaints about that event is that chivalry was being let go of. one could imagine making a similar statement about the rituals related to chivalry as you did about the me and i kind of distinction. that even though it might have been something that someone just made up, it continues with real, moral value and something identifying about the civilization that practiced those rituals is that an argument you find

sympathetic by those who would defend the me and i distinction or the they distinction? or is that something you think doesn't make sense in this context? john: um, i always say i don't say um, and i just said it. i think the me and the i think, and i know how weird this seems. in my next book i lay it out very carefully but unless you have all of that it seems like i'm just being a gadfly. i find it utterly useless and of course i'm wearing socks, i'm using deodorant, all it is is a fashion. that's all it is. but there's a larger point which is that there are many ways of being chivalrous in language a lot of the ones that we have in english are just hidden. so the waiter or waitress comes and says, what are we having today? notice that what are you having,

little direct. but the waiter is not going to have any food with you. the we is a form of politeness. or if somebody says to a single person, and this happens in the south, y'all come back, you here, often that -- you hear, often that is said to one person. but that's not calling one person y'all like in a bugs bunny cartoon. it's leaving the implication that there might be somebody else out in the car. it's too direct to just say you come back. so y'all is like usted in spanish, you never think of it, but no, y'all is very polite. like is very polite. people now on npr say sort of every 10 seconds. people say sort of whenever they are about to say something when it's said without an um or a like or a sort of would be pushy or dramatic. they're being nice. i'm more interested in those

chivalrous sort of things than billy and i went to the store but i take your point. joshua: did you use a microaggression there with waiter and waitress. john: i was thinking, that, but if i just said waiter, it implies they're all men. waitress? server. >> hi. nice to see you again. i have a question about they/them. so you mentioned the organic development of the language, right. but what do you think about it being demanded? when a group is demanding usage, otherwise you are impolite or even worse? john: when that happens, i think that it is poim lite to require it in such a way that if anybody slip it's considered a tort.

pronouns are so deeply seeded cognitively. they are almost not words. they're signals. they're bundles of neurons. for someone, especially over that certain age, and really that age is about 35, i know i keep changing it, but to not accept that somebody might slip is not very nice. in my experience, very few people are -- don't understand that. and most of the settings i've been in, everybody knows that, especially me is not always going to do it right. it is an incivility to not understand that when a change happen this is quickly, and it's been an unusually rapid change, that people won't be able to do it perfectly. my sense is to the extent you may have met people who are that sensors you, it's going to change as time goes by. that may be a little 2019, 2020. i hope. we'll see. >> thank you.

i've been a political writer for more than half a century, i started when i was a kid. i know, i was trained, to follow the a.p. style and otherwise to not signal in any way what my own opinions might be about someone, a subject in my writing. a lot of that has gone away over the year. one of the things i worry about, because now i can look at somebody's writing and i can, at my age, i can pretty well tell what that person's politics are just by the use of certain words instead of other words. even if they're trying to hide it, to be an objective reporter. and then that brings to one of -- brings me to one of my concerns which is in this age of a.i., if i were someone in and h.r. department in a fortune 500 corporation or someone involved in admissions to a college and i wanted to make sure that i only

admitted the people who were like me who thought like me, i used to have to read through essays or applications and sort of try to figure it out. but now i can train that a.i. to pick out which of the people that i want to discriminate in favor of and the ones i want to discriminate against. and again we're talking about, you know, these day, social credit systems and that sort of control over society. so it could be even worse than just letting you into college or into a corporation. any thoughts on that? john: that's an interesting observation. i'm afraid that's the way it's going to have to be. and there's a benefit in that people's writing is more idiosyncratic than -- and being less trained to write in a faceless way. i know what you mean and there's

a certain shimmer, a certain cleanness in the way one was trained to write an op-ed. i like that writing is more like speech. i like the idea that when you learn how to write, the idea is not to learn how to do something that you don't do naturally, based on rules that frankly somebody made up out of, you know, out of thin air a long time ago i like the idea that writing is you. i think of writing in the past, i just read, for example, "uncle tom's cabin" because who reads that now? i wonder what was it actually like. the frustrating thing about "uncle tom's cabin" is that harriet beecher stow writes in that way, it's beautiful, but almost nobody talks the way they actually would have. even when she's writing co-loak wally. i wish she had been comfortable writing the way everybody talked. and not just as linguist to me but because that reality would

be part of art itself. the cloak wall. i know what you mean and i'm on the cusp. i wasn't taught to write the way you were wright. but i was definitely not taught to write at all, i didn't learn to write in the modern culture so in between. i know a what you mean but i like people to write real. so i like it. especially the news headlines have that just and even in them. trump just doesn't show up, something like that. i get a kick out of that, but i can imagine not getting a kick out of it too. >> thank you very much. you mentioned h.l. mencken, who brought to my mind his great "on the american language" book. what do you think h.l. mencken would have made of, you know, our current situation? would he have just seen it as another american linguistic wave that we have always been going

through? john: he had a bifurcated view so he loved the vernacular and touted it with detail and love, a lot of things he writes are things we would never know if he hadn't mentioned them. but he was also somebody who crafted language very intensely. for example, the american mercury, he has dozens and dozens of people writing for it, it all sounds exactly like him because he changed the prose. he had a sense of the way one was to write, especially. and also speak. in public. and so i think it -- what would he do in terms of, i'm thinking on the fly, listening to donald trump make a speech? he wouldn't like that. he would take down the vernacularisms and say here's a sign of somebody who grew up in the 1950's in queens saying certain things. but he would think trump is supposed to keep that to when he's in private. that was the mencken-esque way. if you want to write in the old way, as in the brevity that some

editors think is very important, the con six, there's nothing better than to read something by h.l. mencken. he can say in eight words that i wouldn't be able to say without at least 17. there's an art to it. but nebraska talks like that, and he knew it. >> thanks. speaking of trump, i wonder what do you make of his speeches at rallies, the crudeness, the insult, the references to bloodbaths, the violent language, the insulting, kamala harris is mentally disabled, what does that tell us about language? do some people regard it as more authentic than a polished political speech? john: it's perfectly authentic. it's utterly unfiltered. it is utterly devoid of any kind of effort, any sense that you do something different when you're standing there than you would if you're in your kitchen. and you can do that now because

the culture is more informal. and i -- thinking of reagan, reagan was a great crafter of language, even if you didn't agree with what he was saying you couldn't help but love the way he expressed himself at the podium. i used to love listening to him. i didn't agree with anything, or very little of it. but once you have, say, george w. bush and how cloak wall he could be or would be in public, once sarah palin is taken seriously even if only for 10 minutes, you have a culture where just getting up and talking is ok. it works on a certain audience. it's funny, in the cab on the way here, my driver happened to have him, where is he today? michigan. in saginaw. and i was listening to him doing his thing. and i wasn't thinking oh good god what a sloppy speaker. i wasn't thinking oh good god he has dementia he doesn't sound like he used to. i was think, this is exactly the way people talk, including that

he is not afraid of showing his less savory side in terms of the mocking. he's a towel-snapping mean camp counselor. and thro po logically it'll be interesting in a tern number of years but i listen to him and think, he can't be bothered to make any effort. joshua: i'm going to allow myself to ask you, a few weeks ago you suggested that perhaps you were one of those english professors that he referred to. english professors think the way i talk and craft sentences is just great. did you get any followup on that? nobody has confirmed? john: i'm thinking what? i did not hear from them. nobody bothered me about it. i swear it must be. joshua: good to know. right. >> hi. so the topic is can words create

justice, so i'm interested in a possible distinction and wondering if you would make this distinction between kind of the euphemism treadmill evolution of language, where something like secretary would take on a negative connotation and then we'd say administrative assistant when there's no difference of meeping in those words but it changes the connotation potentially for late while. and then there are words like, changes like they/them for he or she. or one of my favorites, sex assigned at birth for sex. in my view, i just reread one of your "new york times" columns on pronoun change and it seems like you are pretty strong supporter of pronoun evolution and i think in that you argued that that is because it helps individuals

feel greater acceptance and more aligned with their gender identity. to me this is a political view and it also has implications for science and the impact of science, knowledge, and understanding on society and then implications potentially for policy. i wonder if you distinguish between those two types of changes and if you would say that in se the pronoun or sex assigned at birth case that that change in language is promoting justice? john: that's an important distinction. because words are one thing. what a linguist would call a full m.d. for another. pronouns are another. pronouns are deeply seeded. they're traffic cops in language. to change them, i would definitely argue, is more likely to make people aware of

different ways of looking at people than say changing homeless to unhoused. and so if suddenly you're having to address someone, to refer to someone who is adroses cross the room as they rather than he or she if there is a new way of looking at the gender binary that people are advocate, i imagine that yes, that might be something that would help to raise awareness. i think that in the alternate universe where there was no such thing as that, and yet people who were calling themselves he or calling themselves she nevertheless were pushing the gender binary, thought would change just as well because the changing gender binary manifests itself in so very many ways, but certainly when you're dealing with a piece of grammar, yes. i'm definitely, especially a piece of grammar such as a pronoun. that affects thought more directly. especially given how quickly this is happening. if it happened over 100 years, no. fit happened within one generation where all of us have to change, sure. we're thinking about things in a

different way and aware in a way that we weren't before. >> to build on that point, you say that the they/them is essentially a harmless or polite thing to do for people who want that. who may not feel they have a gender. but what about changes that are happening quite quickly and if you don't go along there's often a cost, to people who do feel they have a gender. "the washington post" style is to say pregnant women. planned parenthood says chest feeders. there's a lot of language about reproduction that simply eliminates the idea of woman from it. and not everyone is in a position to oppose that if

that's a workplace requirement. john: you know, those particular terms that many people find so very egregious as opposed to they/them, but especially these new conceptions of what a woman is, my sense is that those are exactly the sorts of things that are going to become part of a jargon. it will be irdating to find it in, say, human resources materials, etc., though i imagine they're going to retreat them. but that is only ever going to go so far. i think 2020 is a certain kind of person hoping that saying pregnant women and people with a vaginas or something like that would spread but it won't. that goes too against what ordinary human cognition worldwide is. i think that those things are going to retreat. would you agree? do you think that they're beginning to spread and have more influence? my sense is that over the past

four years, those things are more in news stories, than something that are making themselves felt beyond a certain circle in society. >> i think a lot of places are imposing language on people. from probably around 2020, 2021, between anderson cooper and alexander, she exclusively refers to menstruating people and it's like what is she talking about? am i supposed to say that? john: she won't be using those terms in, i predict, 10 years. but 2021 was 2021 and she is of exactly the cohort i am talking about. as somebody of wider influence, watch.

joshua: there's time for one last question. [laughter] >> please bear with my language but i'm trying to say something really important. i think i'm more comfortable with the things that you guys are uncomfortable because my -- one of the latest immigrants to the country. regarding pedphilia, molestation, the spread of this book festival and such, i'm from pang lore, india, i'm from a village five hours from bangalore. india is now the biggest population. in -- 30 years ago it was considered a clean city, it's becoming something else. so whatever we are doing here which i can admire the emulation of the spread of the traditional, freedom of speech and this and that, which i'm a

total believer but as i'm growing older i'm looking at it in a different lens. so it's enjoyable, i'm thankful for teaching us and letting us listen for free. where other places they are charging hundreds of dollars to attend one of these events. what's your strength or if not later on i would like you to please think about how you can influence as a social change or like an input to make the world a better place, like in my case i'm so much -- oh, you're so negative. absolutely not. happy things don't have time to talk about that. but negative things it feels like 2024 and i'm like wow they don't address this, from my small world. i do look at youtube, a little bit of internet. i don't keep a tv but i love to watch. i pay close attention and do my best homework. nowhere else, still not addressing these things.

in india. john: which dielect of tibbett tan? ok, tibbett tan is 25 different languages, really. >> [inaudible] john: i think that the answer to your question is in terms of how to get things out there, don't write a book. that's not very 2024. you should be interested in, one, tweeting despite the atmosphere of it these days. that's a way to get people to listen to you. and then podcasting. put together a podcast, get it out there, most people, by about 10 minutes from now, will prefer to listen rather than to read. that's just the way it's going

to be. put it in people's ears. >> i think i'm quite smart but i want to be like you. to be out there. john: it doesn't matter, all you have to do is practice. you get used to sitting in front of a microphone and just be yourself. which is easier now than it used to be. and you will be able to get to people, especially people who are on the young side, but if that's what you want to do. >> [inaudible] john: as someone said to me actually -- i was at the smithsonian doing an internship in 1987 and i asked a guy, how do you know all these people and know all of that lore about this subject? and he said you hang around. i said what do you mean by that? i hung around. so you just hang around.

it's not going to be today. but just hang around. keep plugging at it. and something will almost certainly happen. joshua: we're going to hang around 1 1/2 more minutes. i'll give abigail the last question. >> so in some cases progressives throw bad or offensive terms on the euphemistic treadmill and try to replace them. in other cases they reclaim these bad words and try to give them a new spin and a new positive connotation. and do you see any sort of consistency or trend or any political or moral framework to why sometimes a linguistic activist will take one rut over the other? john: that's just a matter of old days versus new days. taking a slirk claiming it and making it positive, the examples are all pro feign but we all know what they are. that is -- that's what people used to do. and i always thought of it as very psychologically healthy, including the n word thereunder there are -- and there are some

female versions. lately is the idea that you say don't use that word or change it to something else that you weren't aware of before if you don't say that something else you're not ahead of the curve. that's exactly it. they're reclaiming what is normal -- the reclaiming was normal and i think what psychologists would expect. and is also something you see in languages all over the world. the world for countrymen in italian -- thed were for peasant in russian, men of a certain class and time called each other bas cards or -- bastards in affection. that's normal. it's the modern way which one might have some questions about, versus the old way which was to take it and make it something funny and warm. joshua: thank you all very much for turning out. [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] >> with 21 days until the elections we have more live campaign coverage on c-span today. mocratic vice-presidential candidate governor tim walz speaks to voters at a campaign rally in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. that is set for 5:00 p.m. eastern. then this evening at 7:00, pennsylvania senator bob casey and his republican challenger, david mccormick, face off in their third and f debate to represent the keystone state in s. senate. all of this, live on c-span, so c-span now our free mobile app and online at c-span.org. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more including

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investigates" as we explore major investigations by the u.s. house and senate in our country's history. authors and historians will tell the story, we'll see historic footage from those periods and examine the legacy of key congressional hearings. tonight a senate committee in 1975 led by idaho democratic senator frank church examines alleged abuses within the u.s. intelligence community. watch "congress investigates" tonight at 10:00 eastern on c-span2. marc goldwein at the table, the senior vice president and senior policy director to cost -- talk about the candidates' tax and spending plans. let's talk about the tariffs and trade policies and get into what each of the candidates has said could former president wants to impose a 10% to 20% tariff on imports from all countries.

60% on tariffs from imports from china. the vice president wants to implement eight targeted and strategic tariff to support american workers. can you talk about each plan? guest: fort 60 years essentially in the united states has been reducing tariffs to the point where president trump took office there were barely any. he implemented a number of tariffs in the first term, mainly on china and on certain goods like washing machines for example. president harris stly wants to keep the trump tariffs. president trump wants to dramatically expand the tariffs in the second term and talked about at 10% or 20% baseline tariff and 60% on china and retaliatory tariffs on us, 100% on autos. he threw out a lot about numbers

but they do speak to a general direction which is you have to raise a lot of revenue from taxes on imports. host: how much revenue? guest: we have figured out $2.5 trillion to $3 trillion over a decade. it is a tremendous amount of money, anything in the trillions is a key source of revenue under his plan. host: what would be the economic impact? guest: a lot of people would look at negative. when you increase the tariffs you increase from -- on americans. but the second is when we impose tariffs on other countries, they impose tariffs on american companies and that hurts the selling as well. so the tax foundation has looked at it and said it could be less

if they are smooth or more if there is a trade war. host: what does that do to revenues? guest: we have a look at this, the first order effect is the 10% and then the 60% on china, 2.7% of revenue but produces output and then we his income taxes and payroll taxes but it won't eat all of the revenue so maybe it will eat out one quarter or 1/5 of revenue gain. host: you said the vice president wants to keep with the former president did in the first administration on the tariffs. how much revenue did that bring in? guest: that was bringing in more like $400 billion over the same timeframe. the vice president says that is her base and talking about tinkering from their, where we

were in 2021 president trump left office. host: what does that do to our national deficit? where were the numbers then? guest: i think the general rule is small taxes, small impact and big taxes big impact. the tariffs were relatively modest. we thought some areas like washers and dryers. we think we saw some reduction in the growth of gdp. the best estimates are 0.2% or 0.3%. when they are a small, it is hard to separate what is going on from the tax host: cuts. -- tax cuts. host: where is the national debt now and what has been the biggest driver? guest: if you earn a lot of income, you can afford a big mortgage. you don't earn very much you can't afford a big mortgage.

same for the united states. we can afford the debt with the size of the economy but generally it is half the size. today it is as large as the economy, 99% and within a few years will -- we will be at a record level. the record set in world war ii is a hundred and 6% and we've never passed it. and over time it is just going to keep rising. the interest rate will keep rising because we have a very expensive health and retirement programs, social security, medicare and medicaid and those costs go up and as more people retire and health care rises. the tax revenue coming in is flat and in some ways has been declining because every few years politicians come in and cut taxes. host: what about the 2017 cox cuts -- tax cuts during the trump revenue? guest: we cut the corporate rate

to 21% from 35% and cut individual rates and expanded the child tax credit. it cost to $20 over a decade. and the tax cuts in large part were temporary. most of us over an eight year period ended at 2025. if we were to extend those in full it would be another $4 trillion through 2035. host: what impact has that had on the debt? guest: if you add to trillion dollars of tax cuts, that is to trillion more to the debt. if we do another at trillion dollars that is another $4 trillion. if you look at the candidates' platforms, huge reason both candidates are projected to add to the debt is that they want to extend large parts of the tax cuts. host:his is from the former president's campaign. extend or expand 2017 tax cuts, lower corporate taxat from

21% to 15%, eliminate federal inco t on tips and social security income and eliminate taxes on overtime pay. talk about those. guest: they are all very expensive. president trump started out as you mentioned with calling for an extension of the tax cuts. that is $4 trillion. then he got into going on the campaign trail and promising a new tax cut, no taxes on tips, over time social security benefits, no salt tax. 15% not for all corporations but corporations that produced domestically. on top of that, he wants more spending. this is trillions of dollars of tax cuts. a $20 to $9 trillion of tax cuts and not only will they add to the deficit but in some cases they will significantly weaken social security.

those taxes help ndhe social security and medicaid programs. payroll taxes on overtime and tips help to fund social security. if the president's agenda would be enacted in full, not only would it at a lot to the debt but would shorten the life of the social security and medicare trust fund. host: in her life right now is that what? guest: social security is expected to round of reserves in nine months. and under the former president it could be eight or nine years. host: ensuring tes on individuals makg ss than 400,000, eliminate federal income t on tips, raise the corpattax rate from 21% to 28 percent, raise capital gains rate and impose new tax on unrealized capital gains for those worth $100 million or more. what would this do? guest: vice president harris' overall tax plan, she appears to

want to extend large parts of the trump taxes but for the 98% making $400,000 or less, she wants to extend them. that is $3 trillion. so the child tax credit right now is $2000, she wants to bring it up to $3000 and for some children, new ones up to $6,000. she wants to expand the earned income tax credit and wants a 25,000 dollars first-time home tax credit and no taxes on tips. this is a couple more $20or of revenue loss. on the flip side, she has embraced the tax credits from president biden's, this means higher corporate taxes, higher taxes on individuals especially focused on higher capital gains rate. it is not a wealth tax but

attacks on wealthy americans on the unrealized gains of income. overall her tax agenda is much higher taxes on the rich and corporations to pay for lower taxes on some elements of the middle class. host: doesn't it actually pay for it? guest: if you remove the extension spot but we don't think it adds up. not just the tax cuts but the spending increases. we think the tax increases follow $3 trillion short. when we looked at the plan as a whole, the base case, and there is a lot of uncertainty because this campaign and not legislative language. what we think she is saying is her plan would add $3.520 over the debt over a decade and we think president trump's would add $7 trillion.

host: what would he do on spending? guest: he said we are going to cut on spending but short on specifics. he says he wants to eliminate the department of education. he has talked about prescription drug savings but says -- has removed it from his website. he is talking about the real savings and talking about reduce. and we know that his plans would reduce some fraudulent reporting but it doesn't add to a whole lot. a lot of what he wants to do is increase spending on defense including higher pay for our troops including a u.s. iron dome. he has talked about more money for immigration enforcement. you look at president trump's overall agenda, spending increases and cuts but really it

is mostly tax agenda and tax cuts and mostly tariff agenda. host: marc goldwein is here to talk about the candidates' tax and spending proposals. call in now. the republican line is (202) 748-8001, democrats (202) 748-8000, independents (202) 748-8002. you can text and include your first name, city and state to (202) 748-8003. what do each of them propose on the social security and medicare and savings? guest: social security is only nine years from insolvency. the benefits have to be cut we don't have enough money. and we have to cut that and for

one year for a couple that would be $16,000. president trump would make it worse by reducing revenue coming in and getting ready taxation in social security benefits and cutting various payroll taxes. he would also increase the tariffs that would lead to higher inflation and both candidates but especially president trump would restrict immigration. president trump would do significant deportation which would hurt social security. host: can you explain that? how does it hurt social security? guest: some pay taxes legally and some pay illegally but the money goes into the trust fund to pay benefits and if you were to deport a million people from coming in, that reduces our payroll tax collection and would advance the insolvency data of social security.

so president trump's agenda as a whole, we are still working on the mall but instead of talking about 2033 would be talking about earlier. vice president harris has talked vaguely about how the rich need to pay their fair share but has no plan to save social security. and no plan is the same as endorsing 821% cut in nine years. -- and no plan is the same as endorsing a 21% cut in nine years. vice president harris has talked about doing faster in negotiations so we are currently negotiation the price -- negotiating the price of some drugs and she wants to do more and wants to get more generic drugs on the scene and things like that but is also talked about expanding medicare, covering vision and hearing and

nursing care for people at home and that will cost extra money. so vice president harris has things that will cost money and save and president trump doesn't have anything in the agenda right now for medicare. host: how have previous presidents done, if anything, and medicare what happens to medicare of the cost keeps going up and up? guest: medicare is 12 years from insolvency. so we are in trouble with medicare as well. the last three presidents or for president, maybe the last six have had plans to reduce the cost of medicare and it has been a lot of overlap between them. president trump in his first term and president obama both agree that we should pay hospitals and doctors offices the same for the same kind of care.

they want to reform the weight part d is performed. there is a lot of agreement that we are overpaying providers in some areas. there is agreement on how to solve it but democrats and republicans essentially propose the same thing and it is rare that they come together and say let's solve the problem. if we just took the policies both sides agreed to put them into law would help. host: jack in virginia, democratic caller. caller: excellent talk this morning. i see that you focus on the spending side. can you comment on the revenue generation side. heard donald trump say he is going to drill.

how realistic is that in compensating for the spending plan? also analysis on harris. and in terms of foreign policy, and in terms of the foreign policies may help to pay or generate revenue or less spending to compensate for the plans. if you could speak to those things i would appreciate it. guest: both candidates want to cut a lot of taxes. both candidates propose raising a lot of taxes. president trump mainly through tariffs and vice president harris through taxes on corporations and higher earners. you mentioned drilling for oil, something president trump talks about a lot. that could help elevate gdp and could generate leasing revenue for the u.s. government but we are talking pennies on the dollar's relative to payroll

tax. income and payroll taxes is where it is mostly generated and most of the oil is either privately owned and privately refined at least. if you look at the state like alaska that is oil-rich and has a few people, it can be a big share of their revenue but for the united states at large it will not make up a large part of the whole. host: and aid to foreign countries? guest: we spend 1% of the budget , if you count military to percent on foreign aid but a lot of that is for stuff that we actually need it domestically as well. let's say we cut that in half, we are talking about a couple hundred billion dollars of savings over a decade. it is not going to fix the debt situation. doesn't mean we shouldn't scrutinize. we should scrutinize every part of the budget but it is upsetting for taxpayers when the federal government is wasting money and so if we are going to do the tough things and say the

income tax has to go up work social security benefits will have to change, we better be going hard after the waste. it is such a small share of the budget. host: and the big solutions will be what? guest: social security, medicare, medicaid and revenue. defense is a large pot and we have to look there as well. there is no reason to think we don't have tons of waste in the defense budget. host: and we don't have audits of some of those. guest: the law says they are supposed to get an audit and they have not successfully done one yet. host: florida, jesse, republican. caller: to topics and i would like the guest's explanation. how can you have an import tax and not have inflation? it seems to me if you raise the price of goods coming into the

country you are going to raise the price to the consumer and that is going to cause inflation again. m the other topic is the immigration talk. i don't understand how we could deport millions of people who some of them are contributing to the revenue of the country and not affect the economy. both of those issues are important to me. host: ok let's hear the response. guest: you are exactly right. we have done the analysis of both the import taxes and immigration. when it comes to the import tariffs, given the size, they are likely to increase inflation but maybe not permanently but one time. if they don't it will be because the exchange rates have adjusted substantially or the federal reserve who has stepped in and said we are so concerned that we

will keep the interest rates higher. and then instead of increasing inflation it will reduce. there is no way to get around it. either the terrace will increase prices are they will reduce output and the price of everything else will start to equalize. when it comes to immigration, we analyzed both plans and both want to restrict immigration in some way. vice president harris wants to strengthen the borders. president trump plant will lose 350 billion. high-end estimates could be lower but the main reason is because immigrants take taxes. we have fewer people we will get fewer tax revenue. host: what taxes are they paying? guest: many immigrants are

either once here get some kind of legal status so they can work for they have stolen a social security number or made up. the most common is 000's and sometimes they just are checked. and that person is owed a lot of social security benefits because maybe billions of dollars in taxes paid under that social security number. we are receiving income tax revenue but when it comes to the federal finances, immigrants and up in the schools and hospitals and etc. but at the federal level, new immigrants are a big net gain to the finances. host: at the state level, what taxes are they paying? guest: the same plus sales taxes.

and there also collecting more government services. there are not a lot of federal services that go to undocumented immigrants but a lot of state and local. host: ted is in minnesota, independent. your question or comment. caller: i am just curious, this exploded three and a half years ago and it has been running wild. they are receiving debit cards and free medical and driver's licenses which will actually double as an id which will very likely be used for voting, let's face it, that was all by design the same is with the oil.

exploration and drilling stopped when biden took office and the big push was electric cars and lithium and all about china. we have real turmoil here. i don't think it was a good explanation on his revenue versus cost. host: why don't you agree with the numbers? why are you skeptical? caller: we have millions of people coming in. the schools are flooded. host: marc goldwein? guest: the schools flooded is a great place to start. that is local. that is state. we have looked at this and the congressional budget office has looked at this and you are right, we have a huge surge of immigration in recent years and that is why both candidates have put into a big part of their

platforms stemming and in one point reducing that. what i focused on was the economic at the federal level and we have a lot of questions that need to be answered about what is the best immigration policy but it is important to know the numbers behind it. host: talk about childcare because both candidates are addressing that. former president suggesting tariffs can help fund raising childcare costs and the vice president proposing raising the child tax credit is much as 3600 and giving families of newborns at thousand dollars. what is the impact and how did tariffs pay for raising childcare costs. guest: i am not clear what president trump childcare plan is. tariffs could help fund but we wouldn't see what it was funding. he did propose stuff on paid

leave but didn't really propose childcare. child -- vice president harris has alluded to a childcare plan that was enacted by congress go back better and that would create subsidies. she said she would catch childcare costs at 7% of income. i take that meaning for some people it would be 7% of income. the legislation i reference cuts off at higher income. but this could be a very expensive government program and we could talk about the five hundred billion dollars or half $1 trillion or more just to fund the childcare programs and not sure how it would work in practice. something like universal preschool, we know state and government know how to do that and have elementaries and preschools but it is about more buildings and teachers. the subsidy is creating new

infrastructure and would be a tremendous challenge to get it rolling. what she said as she wants to cap childcare costs at 7%. host: degree feel, south carolina, democratic caller. caller: -- to greenville, south carolina, democratic caller. caller: i would like to ask one question about donald trump. incident -- are you making the point that he is the former president? caller: your guests keep calling him president. i will enter the question, president of what. guest: it is traditional that once prison has been present or ambassador or senator, we use

the name in front of it, sometimes we as former president but sometimes i shorten it and i would do that for any individual. host: what did president trump do on the debt in the first term and what was the impact of his policy during the first four years. host: we have estimated this. but president trump during his four years in office signed into law legislation executive action that audited $8 trillion. to train was tax cuts we talked about. there was another roughly 2 trillion dollars of bipartisan spending increases on defense and nondefense and other areas. host: was that covid money? guest: that was before covid that was for 20 before covid for ordinary spending. if you cut taxes and you cut spending that is not what

happen. we cut taxes by $2 trillion in in 2018 we increased spending by almost as much in 2018 and 20 in 19. -- in 2018 and 2019? guest: some of it was the bipartisan budget. the department of defense wanted $45 billion a year and president obama said we will give the department of defense 45 billion and nondefense 35 billion. and that is what they were working on. they kept beating each other up and then when you put that over 10 years, that is a lot of money. it has increased dramatically. then covid came along.

president trump did not want anything for non-defense but ultimately they bid it up to be 100 $50 billion, more anyone had asked for. president trump signed more into law in nondefense then president obama had asked nondefense by about double. he added $4 trillion plus before covid and then covid came along and there was unanimous support for protection for businesses, unemployment checks and another $4 trillion. and that was a $20 trump added to the debt. host: let's talk about the biden administration. guest: president biden did not add quite as much but still pretty substantial, $4.5 trillion. he came in with the american

rescue plan which was covid relief but late stage covid relief and at that point most with saint maybe we need a few hundred billion dollars more but not too trillion. we had the bipartisan structure deal that was not paid for and they said it was. we had the chips and signs act, not paid for at all. other increases in defense and nondefense spending, partially offsetting that we had the fiscal responsibility act which put caps on defense and nondefense and affective mention all of the executive actions mainly around student debt. host: sheila in massachusetts, republican. caller: the question i would like to know, is we have something like 10 million in new arrivals here and it said the cause is $3000 a month from the

federal government and ngos and whoever, it is our money they are getting, $3000 a month times 10 million people and add that up and times it by 12. where is that money coming from? and why is it always social security, medicaid going broke but you never hear about food stamps or anything else going broke. why don't we just cut down on the surplus given to the government for the extras that they get for congress like when they gave the rays for people in congress to use more money for their office expenditures? host: i am going to have marc goldwein respond to you in and we will get your thoughts. guest: two different questions there. i am not sure what the $3000 a month refers to but it is

possible it is state and local money and possible that some is federal. but when we look at the federal level, on net the average immigrant is paying more in taxes whether legally or otherwise than they are collecting in federal benefits. when they talk about social security and medicare going broke, some programs are funded in their social security, medicare party and highways. there are some finances. social security and medicaid are supposed be paid for through payroll taxes but the issue is they are falling short and they are all running out of money. the cost of food stamps has gone up dramatically. one of the items president biden added to debt was to executive action he essentially increased the cost of food stamps and there is no question there are costs there. there are costs related to

congressional junkets and the big money happens to be in the programs. host: when you say it big money because you save money for foreign aid, 1% of the federal budget. what percentage are we talking about versus the percentage of the budget for the big spenders? guest: social security is 1/5 medicare is 1/6. social security, medicare and other health care, almost half of the budget those. host: half of the budget? guest: half of the budget for those and they are growing rapidly. defense is also large but growing at a slower case. the programs are large and growing rapidly. host: sheila, what do you think about this, programs or you want to see the savings are

single-digit percentage of the budget whereas other programs when you at the up together, almost 50% of the budget? caller: it is a penny here and a penny there adds up to a lot of pennies in the end. this immigration thing has got to stop. we cannot afford to be supporting 10 million immigrants to the tune of $3000 a month, no matter where that money comes from. we are paying for it one way or another and it is wrong. i never got an extra $3000 a month. it costs me almost $2000 a year more to support myself. i can't recoup that money. host: we will take your point. guest: i agree with the penny here, penny there. what we need to do could we have a debt approaching record levels, interest costs are

larger than the programs. we need a whole of government approach would be take a serious look at waste throughout government and lower the cost of health care, hopefully by lowering the costs but not cutting benefits. where we look at again social security solvent. a lot of it will be a penny here and a penny there and i do agree with that approach and we should start with the waste. how the american people going to access the bigger changes as they still see waste. host: why are the interest rates the third-biggest driver? guest: interest costs were low around 2020 because interest rates were low and they have exploded have exploded-exploding giveaway spend 900 billion dollars last year on interest. the first is interest rates have gone up. the federal government is paying

higher interest rates and the second is we are paying interest on a lot of debt which has exploded. so the higher rate on higher debt means interest rates are killing the rest of the budget. host: who are we paying this to? guest: a lot of it is to americans who hold the funds and also abroad to if not friendly countries. our largest foreign debt holder is china. a lot of this is held abroad and domestically, it is americans are giving money to the federal government by buying bonds and not by in the private sector in the private sector and that means less machinery, software and new inventions and over time that slows up growth. host: warren, silver spring, maryland, democratic caller. caller: what benefits do

immigrants get at the local level or federal level. so i wolves from cameroon and until my asylum came through, i couldn't get anything from federal i got it at the state. i also have three people in my house that have filed for asylum and cannot visit a doctor's office and we have to pay out-of-pocket for them. that is question number one. isn't it true that high demand and low supply because unemployment is so low. too many people get jobs. the stores are packed up and

people are buying more so supply meeting demand. if we have to have term screaming that he wants to decrease inflammation that means people have to love their jobs so demand should increase in price goes down. host: let's take your point. guest: the state and local is different for each state but most of it is the schooling. cost of inflation usually is demand and lowering supply. we had a huge surge in demand in 2020 and 2021, in large part to the american rescue plan and supply it wasn't there because of the joblessness and other

supply chain chaos from covid. now inflation is finally coming down. it is not at the federal reserve 2% target both candidates risk reigniting inflation by adding a lot to the deficit in a way that reboots demand does not create enough supply to equalize out. host: let's go to rosemary in new jersey, independent. caller: something that always bothered me was the federal government, the taxpayer ends up paying the salaries for the government employees. if you could explain that. guest: job numbers are estimated by an independent agency and they count jobs including federal state and local jobs. that is important for

statistical purposes because we want to understand how many people are working and how many people are not working. what it doesn't tell us is the fiscal impact and if we were to have a huge surge in federal employment, that would have a big cost to the taxpayer but different sets of numbers. once that focuses on the overall number of jobs in the economy and a separate set is on federal finances. the federal finances are not doing good and that is not because the federal workers but the cost of the big programs like health and retirement. host: here is jim in maryland, how much would be saved by eliminating the affordable care act? the affordable care act -- guest: the horrible care act had a lot of things in it. if you are talking about the spending associated with it, expanded medicaid in most states

and also income-based subsidies for people who don't have employer-provided insurance, simply expanding that temporarily. probably a $20 over a decade if you would eliminate that. that would be real money but would come with real consequences. they tried to do that during president trump's first term in the famous john mccain thing but it wasn't to eliminate it but it was to repeal and replace. if you are consider if there is no upside for replacement, how much would it cost? we can save money in all areas of government. there is a tremendous amount of waste. we didn't get the legislation right in 2009 but i wouldn't expect that would save the deficit. host: for viewers, you can learn more if you go to the committee

for a responsible cable companies. host: joining us this morning from london is robin barnwell, documentary filmmaker and journalist, with a new documentary a year of war, israelis and palestinians. why did you want to make this documentary? guest: i had been covering the war in ukraine. when october 7 happened, i was in ukraine and a lot of the news they ran straight away from kyiv trying to get israel as soon as possible. i was remaining there to make a documentary. i was horrified by the violence. and i thought it would be important to come back to make a film following what happened on october 7.

by the time i had finished my film in ukraine and managed to get to israel, the shift in the media focus understandably had gone toward also what was going on inside gaza with the war and the response from the israelis to october 7. so it felt important that israelis and palestinians, those caught up in the violence, i wanted to hear their perspectives and to look at how the events of october 7 and those that followed in the war in gaza had changed perceptions of israelis and palestinians about each other. so i wanted to convey these are ordinary people who do not -- they obviously have political opinions of some kind. they were moderates and people i

felt i wanted to essentially humanize the victims to find people on both sides that, whatever the viewer, whatever their own perspective, political perspective, i wanted it to come across that these are human victims, ordinary people, and for the viewer to kind of relate to them and see the humanity of each side. that was important to me. and to get across the humanity because i think sometimes the news coverage on both sides tensed -- tends to dehumanize cut not purposefully, but you can capture these news clips that do not bring out who these people are and what they have actually gone through and what they are really thinking.

that was my aim and vision. host: frontline's "a year of war" for mayors tonight and will be available to stream on frontline's website and on the pbs video app as well. given this is ongoing conflict, how are you able to find the people that you spoke to and what was that like, to go into gaza and talk to them? guest: i had been to gaza before to cover events. there is no free and unfettered accesso foreign media still inside gaza, so while we waited for opportunity to go and visit d speak to people ourselves, it became obvious around april of this year when we were

needing to start editing the film that that was not going to be possible, so welready started working with a carefully vetted team of brave journalists and producers. we started gathering footage and then when it became clear i could not go on the ground myself it became imperative that we actually asked the team to meet people we had found on social media. we had been on social media accounts and the idea was to find a small group of gazans, three in this instance, that had been filming themselves and their experiences and had gone through a great deal personally. what they had actually experienced was, we felt, in the

case that we had one young woman who wanted to be a -- in the solar energy business, she had gone through tremendous experience in the north of gaza, not knowing whether to leave her home at the beginning when the israeli army had warned people to leave. we were then looking at her family on videos she had found herself with a young photographer from northern gaza who had been filming quite a lot about his own experience of the war and then a doctor, the head of surgery at the hospital in northern gaza. we had found these contributors through some of their own social media and footage filmed by

others of them and once we had vetted who they were and made sure they were not -- that they were people we felt we could include in a film, within asked our team on the ground to meet them and gather more footage to try to compile visual looks at their experiences of the war and then we had to do these interviews remotely in two cases , the young woman who is 23 years old and we did interviews remotely in gaza and the doctor had an interesting story. he eventually left gaza and he is in sarajevo and we found him ourselves. i was able to go there myself and film all of the contributors

that we identified for the film. host: i want to show a couple clips from the documentary. let's begin with the young palestinian woman. here is a clip from the documentary talking about her family and being displaced 15 times. [video clip] >> [speaking other language]

[speaking other language] [speaking other language]

host: robin barnwell, what do you hope viewers of this documentary gain or get from listening to her story and the others? guest: i think i would like people to try to understand the different perspectives of those caught in the violence. some of those opinions have changed. some of the contributors we filmed, october 7 we have to remember was the deadliest for israelis in their country's history and triggered a significant trauma and persecution and holocaust and that deeply impacted israelis and their view of the future. in some respects, those people who were living in the communities attacked by hamas on

october 7, those were people more likely to be in favor of a two state solution or peace with palestinians, ironically. in the case of one of our characters, that deeply impacted her, one favor -- one person in favor of a two state pollution -- solution in the past. she is now worried a two state solution could mean one state thinking about annihilating the other. but i think it is important that viewers listen to people caught up in the violence because those perspectives will dramatically shape the future of the region for many years to come. i should add also for palestinians this has also been the worst year in their history.

and it has triggered historic trauma of 1948 and the events around the creation of israel and the war that took place around that time when 700,000 plus palestinians were displaced , 200,000 going into gaza. they either chose to leave or were expelled from their homes. that is a historic trauma which is now coming back again over the course of this year and the events that have happened. you hear this a lot from people inside gaza and you hear the historic trauma perspective from israelis as well regarding israel was supposed to be there safe haven. it was supposed to be the place they were safe and they are

feeling very unsafe in their land. host: back to the documentary. let's listen to a young israeli woman that was held hostage by hamas and talk about that on the others. [video clip] >> [speaking other language]

[speaking other language] host: talk to us about this young woman and the perspective she has. guest: 17 years old when the attack on october 7 happened and she was living with family in a

guest: she was in a she had beent night just walking around admiring the beauty of the place. it is a very beautiful place next to the gaza border and her family heard the sirens go off in the morning on october 7. they huddled together in the house and after five hours of attacks, finally hamas fighters broke into their home and killed her father and then took her mother and her two brothers hostage and they killed her sister. she did not see that happen, but she witnessed -- basically they

were taken a short distance, about 10 minutes for them to then go into the tunnel system across the hamas tunnel system in gaza, which is extensive under gaza. she describes the shock of -- the sudden shock because she thought she was going to die and the last thing she thought was that she would be taken hostage and that was a shocknd then she was taken over into gaza. there was a large commotion, people celebrating that hamas had taken hostages. she describes the commotion then ending up in the tunnel system and the orb are an shock of that. host: we are talking with robin barnwell, the documentary filmmaker of "the year of war:

israelis and palestinians." it will be available to stream on frontline's website. i want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation. republicans, dial in at (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. you can text instead of calling. just include your first name, city, and state. do you take a point of view in this documentary? guest: i try to stay objective as a filmmaker. i know you cannot leave politics entirely and people will always look at what is on the screen and try and interpret maybe inapplicable message behind it all. -- a political message kind it all.

my aim of this film was to show those caught up in the violence. it was to empathize with israelis and palestinians who have the worst year of violence in the conflict. and what has happened in the last year is going to have an impact for years to come. it has changed lives and views and impacted many lives, those who have lost loved ones. my aim is not to have a political message. it is try -- to try to show people. it is just from the perspectives of those interviewed and spoke into and it has given them a voice and a chance to talk about

what they have been through, what they see as the future, if there is a future for them. so that has been important for me. i am not here to give political views on the conflict. host: do you address in the documentary the role of the united states? guest: we do not. we entirely leave that alone, partly because the palestinians and israelis we spoke to, that was not the foremost thing on their mind. united states links to the region are important but that is some other film, another documentary. we were not trying to look at the involvement or policies of the administration or the views

of americans at large. host: joanna is up first in germantown, maryland. caller: if this film addresses the plight of women and children on all sides, then it is worth watching. i am not on the side of hamas. i'm on the side of women and children. i am sick and tired of these men on both sides posting and beating their chests like gorillas in the wild and the people that suffer are the women and children. i do not think they care about their kids. so i hope this documentary focuses on women and children. they are the real victims of this war on all sides. guest: we do spend focus on women and children in the film

here and there are a few men as well. i mentioned a young palestinian woman and her story losing her brother in tragic circumstances and her father and from israel you have the tragic story of her loss and also the story of a young hostage. the one thing that impacts you when you make these films, it is emotional to hear the testimony of people and what they have been through and is also sad to see the cycle of violence continue and without a visible end and the worry that the children one sees in the film will cut when they get older,

what will their situation be? will they be participants in continuing conflict? will they be victims of the conflict? it is challenging. we have focused on women and children as part of the film. host: here's one of our viewers. if you had just one point to make in this documentary, what would you want to convey to the world? guest: i think it is a slightly depressing movie. the cycle of violence -- i have been going to the region for 30 years. i have never seen israelis and palestinians so far psychologically from each other and one of the characters says in the film we both have to -- neither of us are going

anywhere. we are going to be here to stay. if we do not want to have a continuing cycle of violence and -- it is going to be -- someone has to figure something out. it is not going to be a solution which is comfortable for either, potentially for many. that is her perspective and what she shares in the film. i suppose it is the fact that israelis and palestinians are psychologically so far apart from one another and the war that followed in gaza is a momentous moment in the history of the palestinian and israeli peoples. it is worth reflecting on that and the cycle of violence th is continuing. and that does not seem to have an end. host: tom in illinois, republican. it is your turn. >> the way this thing happened

was -- caller: the way this thing happen was the palestinians came across the border and raped women and killed children. my question is, if it was our country and we have people cross the border and do this, we would send the fbi or somebody because they committed crimes against israel and i know they war is terrible, but i was watching this thing keep going. then the palestinians were going to try to get out of the way and they went to the egyptian border and tried to cross and egypt would not let them in. i was stunned. i thought, surely they would let these people in. they will not let them in because they're muslim brotherhood -- this is what is left of the muslim brotherhood. when they were in egypt, the executor their leader and other leaders of the palestinians do not even live in palestine.

they live in qatar. they are billionaires. i do not see the army of palestine or whatever you want to call them -- they built their defenses under hospitals and schools. how are you supposed to fight them? then they teach their kids to hate jews. host: how do you know that? caller: i have seen it on c-span. i have seen it on different shows. they have shown schoolbooks that the palestinians teach their kids how to hate jews. host: your thoughts? guest: i am sticking away from politics on this.

the egyptians have not -- they had originally -- they allowed 90,000 gazans to leave in the initial phases of the war, but then when the israeli defense forces basically came and sealed the border, nobody else has been able to leave after that, except in extremely mandatory and circumstances into israel. this is not part of the documentary. it is not something we have specifically covered on this particular point you are raising. host: this is another viewer in pennsylvania. why do gaza residents stay and not leave for better living places? what did they say about that

area of the country and what it means to them? guest: what gaza means to them? it is very conflicted. many causes have a strong and positive you of gaza in the prewar phase, though the conflict has been going on for decades. one of the characters talks about the fact that gaza for him -- it was his home and life. it is surprising how any palestinians will tell you they rather love the place and even though it has been under seizure for many years and there are hardships and difficulties and one of our characters make sickly or hamas does not allow freedom of speech or opportunities for palestinians

to air their views. hamas does what it wants, she says. she makes it clear that palestinians generally do not have democratic opportunities to express their views about anything else, but it is an amazing location. it has been enormously damaged by the war and the terrible destruction that has taken place. but before they wore -- the war a lot gazans would say they had an affinity with the place. host: he says in the documentary he has gone to other places around the world but feels most comfortable in gaza. what does ho mean given the situation there -- home me and given the situation there for

israeli ends and palestinians? guest: the refugee communities -- not everyone there has refugee heritage. some people were living in gaza anyway but these communities -- if you imagine 2.3 million people living in a confined area , there's a strong sense of community and close proximity to everything. that is part of their culture and there -- they are a close, tightknit community. that is one of the largest refugee camps in the world. 12,000 people have been living there for decades now, so there is a strong community spirit there. on the border, these communities

of people are also very close knit and there are farming and business communities, rather wonderful places built with strong spirit of israel in mind but also strong community spirit, so on both sides you are seeing israelis and palestinians from close to communities who have been badly impacted by this war and october 7. many of those people -- most of this people now cannot live in those areas and have had to move away. those communities have had lasting damage, not only the hostages taken from them and those who were killed but also those who are now displaced.

most palestinians in gaza have been displaced. most of that population has been displaced. those in the communities next to gaza and israel have been broken apart and forced to other places across israel and that has had lasting impact as well on those communities. host: tony is in pennsylvania, independent. caller: thank you for taking my call. very concerned about the guest's title but also the idea that he is not going to talk about politics. i would say a couple things. one is more is always political. two is this is not a war.

this is a genocide. if you look at the international court, israel is creating war crimes, so for two countries to be at war both countries need to have sovereignty and militaries. from what i can see come out the palestinian people have military but no sovereignty. the idea that this man is framing this as a war and saying he does not want to be political , it speaks of a type of propaganda that he is participating in. the next one i want to make is it upsets me when c-span repeatedly has callers call in and state miss fax like that baby's word is capitated or there were mass decapitations or babies. that has been debunked, but to allow that to go on -- there was mass rape. you allow that to go on. c-span has one side presented

and this man is masquerading -- his documentary is masquerading as some impartial thing. there is one people right now being slaughtered. this is not a war. you need to correct guests that bring up things like babies being decapitated. host: you just did what you're talking about you had the opportunity. that is the way we structure the show. you have the opportunity to call us and state your opinion. you can dispute what you have heard from callers and guests. do you want to respond to what he had to say? guest: thank you for your points. the documentary if you watch it -- i hope you will watch it and maybe take a different view of what is about. i personally did not want to

inject myself into other people -- we have interviewed israelis and palestinians. they expressed their views clearly. it is for them to talk about their opinions and issues. announcer: you can find the washington journal online at c-span.org. as we take you live to pittsburgh with a rally with vice presidential nominee governor tim walz. [cheers and applause] ♪ gov. walz: wow, thank you. wow. well, thank you, pittsburgh. this is something.

give it up one more time for will allen. thank you, will. all right. give me my moment, here. yesterday i made my first trip to lambeau field. i know. today, today, i'm making my first trip into steeler territory. so thank you, thank you, thank you. look, it's a great place to be here and i have to tell you -- you've got some great elected officials here, i want to get a couple out. i got to meet the county executive, sarah. where's she at? thank you. you're the best.

and i'll tell you what, this is how we are going to win this thing. the pic college dams and sarah. and our campaign's deputy voter protection director, which we need, mary gibson. mary, thank you. and this is a place where i have the ability to be able to measure when it comes to governors, nobody takes a backseat to josh shapiro, just so we know. and pennsylvania, pennsylvania, please, for the rest of the country, send bob casey back to the united states senate. send him back to the united states senate. now, pennsylvania, our states

share many things together. these things -- the things we share, i'll tell you, though, super bowl rings are not one of them. but give me my moment, the vikings are 5-0. give me that moment. but what is true is, our two states share a history of being at the center of building this country. the iron minds of northern minnesota fuel the steel mills of pennsylvania. it was our states that built the tanks that won world war ii. and it was our people who freed the world from nazi tyranny. and today, we're still building

the future. look, you know what. three weeks to the election. 21 days, not like anybody is counting in this room. and our team is running like you know the folks in this building do. everything really is on the line. kamala and i are barnstorming to country. i hope you see us on tv. we are on podcasts, we are on radio shows. i am one-hit away from being a regular on fox news. so look, running for president or being president takes a helluva lot of stamina. with that in mind, donald trump recently took a little enough time to take something and do something really important, to explain to us what groceries are. i don't want to get this wrong, i want to get this straight. i will save you my donald trump impression, but i will just read

you what he said. i have more complaints on grocery. the word grocery. you know, it's sort of a simple word, but it sort of means like, everything we eat. the stomach is speaking. it always does. and then, and then, there was last night. i don't know if some of you saw this. donald trump was doing a town hall. he took a few questions from the audience, totally botched those because they were things that are not that important to him like health care and childcare. but he got a little bit tired. if you didn't see this, i would not usually encourage this but go watch this guy and watch this town hall. he stopped taking questions and stood frozen on stage for 30 minutes while they played his spotify list. do you think he knows the story behind the ymca song?

[laughter] [cheers and applause] look, it was strange, but if this was your grandfather, you would take the keys away. you would take the keys away. and i tell you this, look, it would be funny if this guy were not running for president of the united states. and it would be funny if you knew that this guy, if he shuts down like he did last night, you know he is doing that when he is sitting in the situation room, or in briefings that are important. and you don't have to guess how he is going to act. he acts the same way. and when it came time to making a decision on january 6, he froze, as his supporters stormed and defiled the capitol, beat 140 police officers, some of whom died, and then he said those are just really find

people, it was just tourists. you know what he did. he did nothing to stop that. but here's the deal, pittsburgh. here's the good news on this. it's important to know what we are up against, but look, i get damn tired of talking about this guy. i get tired of seeing him on tv. and i damn sure am tired of him making decisions for the women in our lives. [cheers and applause] so if you are sick of this guy, kamala harris is offering you a new way forward and a better tomorrow. kamala and i grew up in middle-class families. she says things like, who could imagine a middle-class woman from oakland, california and a

-- you need somebody? they got her. and a kid from nebraska, middle-class kids running for president and vice president of the united states. look, when you come from the middle class, i was really grateful. i saw the wall street journal did an analysis of the financial statements of all the candidates, and they said well, tim walz might be the poorest person to ever run for vice president. so all you teachers out there, all you nurses, all you union members, that's us! that's us! [cheers and applause] i got these steelworkers behind me, that's how we work. that's how we work. look, all we're asking for and

all we know, the economy works best when it is fair. we have a statement and a saying in minnesota that i know you haven't pennsylvania. we all do better when we all do better. it's not that hard. that's why under kamala's leadership, america is investing again in working people. today, there are more factories getting built, more american energy being produced, than at any time and any day during donald trump's presidency. any time. and kamala harris has been proud to be part of the most prolabor administration in american history. unafraid to walk picket lines side-by-side asking for better

pay and better conditions. you know why? because when workers win, america wins. when the middle class wins, america wins. now i get it, not everybody sees the world the same way. donald trump and jd vance have a very different outlook on this. what i want you to be clear when you talk to your friends, your neighbors, your damn family members who tell you i don't really like donald trump but i like his policies. which ones? the ones that screw labor unions? that ones that give tax cuts to billionaires? he talks a big game, but he has been a disaster for middle-class america. a disaster. by the record, he is one of the biggest losers of jobs in american history. look, i get it, i am preaching to the choir, i understand that.

you in pennsylvania know it. under trump, you lost 275,000 j obs in the state alone as he mismanaged covid and put people's lives at risk. and you know what he would do in a second term? he has already told you. he will gut the affordable care act, cut social security, and impose the trump sales tax on everything we buy. he says don't listen to the economists. yeah, just like during covid he said don't listen to the doctors, injectable each. i will listen to the mayo clinic, not donald trump. i will listen to the economists and the middle class, not donald trump. but someone said, well, tim, don't you have anything to say about donald trump that he did on this? i will say this. he did keep one promise. he took his alter wealthy folks down to mar-a-lago and in front of a camera he said you are rich as hell and i'm going to give

you tax cut. he did follow through. again, i said this, it is somewhat fun to point out how bad this guy it is, but it is somewhat pointless at this point in time because here's the deal. he's not going to be president again and kamala harris is. [cheers and applause] we are not. we have a responsibility to tell all americans, to tell all those folks out there -- and i know it is hard for this group to believe, there are still some undecided voters out there. i am like, what in the heck are you people doing? but it is their right to wait and see. but we are getting close to early voting starting here. we are voting across the country. so we need to tell you exactly what we are going to do, so here it is. kamala harris has laid out a plan to build an opportunity economy, one that lowers your everyday costs, lifts everyone

up, and leaves nobody behind. here's how it works. child tax credit. $6,000 tax cut. you can buy a crib, a car seat, formula, whatever you need. get that kid off on a good start. and then, those of you in here know this, when donald trump and j.d. vance have no aunts or -- have no answer on this and donald trump said it is not a big deal, tell people who are trying to get childcare and big -- childcare it is not a big deal. we need to make sure we are investing in it so folks can live the lives they want to and those kids get a good start. that's what we need to do. homeownership. kamala has laid out a plan, 3 million more new homes and down payment assistance. those of you in here know the down payment is the hardest part of trying to own a home. those must like me, i use the g.i. bill and the v.a. home loan. the v.a. home loan let you do it without a down payment. she is proposing a $25,000 down

payment assistance to get a lot of young folks into new homes. and then taking on the price gouging. i just came from a farm where we are meeting with folks. look, a ritual of corn, the farmers get paid four dollars for that. it is about $10 for soybeans. milk is like $20 for one hundredweight of milk to buy that. that is the same money they were making when grocery prices were cheaper. who is taking the money? it's not the farmers. somebody is price gouging and we saw it with insulin. now that insulin is capped at $35 for a vial of insulin. look, we are free-market people. but a vial of insulin costs five dollars to make. and we are saying you can charge 35 bucks for it. before that? $800 for that.

you know what ended up happening? people like alex smith in minnesota aged out of his parents's insurance, started rationing is insulin and died. his mother came to the capital and said i will be damned if either another kid die and we camped insulin at $35. that's how you do it. and look, entrepreneurs in this group, folks that take a risk on a small business, you put yourselves out there, you have to write checks and you hire people and you are the engine of this economy. it has been for years we put too much red tape and the way of getting your business started, and tax credit was capped at $5,000. kamala has proposed cutting that red tape and a $50,000 tax credit to get your business off the ground. that's the american dream. and coming back to manufacturing, i know, i have been in michigan, wisconsin, minnesota, and pennsylvania. we are the heart of manufacturing.

we're the place that built this country and built the world. we have a plan to create an america forward strategy, one that empowers american workers, revitalizing manufacturing communities. last week vice president harris talked about something and those of you in here, if you are young, trust me, when you get to be about 60 you will start learning every damn thing you can about medicare, i guarantee you that. it is a big damn deal and cost a lot of money. this week kamala harris put something out. the idea of having health care is a basic human right and as a senior being able to get it, it is a big deal. and what she proposed was having homecare, medicare pay for home care to keep seniors in their homes. that's huge. [cheers and applause] even if you are not old enough, if you are some middle-aged folks here, you're in the sandwich generation. you are like, damn, i am just

worried about paying for child care and college. but i also have a 90-year-old mom, and as of sunday, an 18-year-old son. this is policies that make a difference in their lives. and for the older folks in here, me being included in this, can you believe -- and she proposed it, we are going to get this done -- that medicare actually covers your damn glasses and hearing aids? [cheers and applause] all right. i'm sitting here thinking, there is not a damn thing we have talked about here tonight that shouldn't appeal to those folks who wear the red hats everywhere. that is what kamala harris knows. she told me when we were up in beaver county getting off a bus, there were our supporters over here, and over here were non-supporters. they make it easy because they all dress the same. she turned around to me and she said, never forget, we work just as hard for this side of the street as this side of the

street. that's it. [cheers and applause] so look, here's for all of you. here's for your fox watching republican uncle, or in some of our cases, our brothers. clip this and send it to them, because think about this. the republican party added much to this country. they have contributed much over the years. that is not who donald trump is. because when did the party of ronald reagan decide it was ok for the government to make personal choices for you? they can't, they never did. you think ronald reagan would think it is ok for donald trump to make decisions about your health care, the book he reads -- of the books you read? when vice president harris and i talk about freedom, we mean the freedom for you to make decisions and not politicians. that is what the democratic party stands for. [cheers and applause] these guys are the party of big government, or i should say, small government. small enough to fit in your exam

room, small enough to fit in your bedroom, small enough to fit in the library books that they think you want to read. but look, when we talk about freedom, it is not just the song the vice president comes out to, although that is really cool when she does it. we are talking about the freedom in her proposal that seniors can retire with dignity, by strengthening medicare, strengthening social security. just to be clear, just to be clear, donald trump called social security at ponzi scheme. i think he would know about ponzi schemes, so he got that wrong. and j.d. vance said it was the only obstacle to fiscal sanity. oh, you mean it was in the tax cuts to billionaires that drove us into a trillion dollars in debt? but from trump's perspective, what the hell would he care about social security? he is not waiting for his social security check like my mom is. when my dad dies, and i am a teenager, my mom is a stay-at-home mom, it was social

security survivor benefits that kept her and the family going. pennsylvanians, you are tough people. we are tough out in the plaines. this idea, you should learn to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. fair enough, we just didn't have any boots. social security is the boots to help lift them up. fair enough. [cheers and applause] and i am not going to stop talking about this one. i do this both as a parent, as a nearly 20 year teacher in the classroom. i'm an eternal optimist. i worked in that lunchroom for all those years. you know what freedom means for us? freedom means sending your little one off as you dress them up warm and send them to school, freedom for them to go into that school and to learn and to be a child and to not be shot dead in their classroom with an assault rifle. [cheers and applause]

and look, i know guns. i'm a veteran, i'm a hunter, i'm a gun owner. i know most of these are cosplaying like they know guns, but they really don't. because just like kamala harris, if you're a gun owner, what you understand is you can support the second amendment, but understanding our first responsibility is to the safety of our children and our community. [cheers and applause] look, i think this might be true. well, i better check. i think this will be true, i will be careful on this. this might be the first time in modern american history that both members of the democratic ticket are gun owners. and the republican nominee can't

pass a background check to own a gun. [cheers and applause] those 34 felony convictions kinda get in the way of you purchasing that shotgun. look, no matter who you are, who you love, the family you want to have, the choices you want to make, your health care, kamala harris and i are going to fight for the freedom for you to live life the way you choose, and no one else. all right. all right, guys, good. i don't want to get you on the pollercoaster out there, because this is not about polls. this is about getting people to vote and getting it done. but we see a little difference here. we have a little work to do over 21 days, so i am speaking to the men here for just a moment. because the women seem to be getting this right, and they

know the direction we are going. but look, we got women in your lives. your wives, daughters, mothers, friends. look, their lives are literally at stake in this election. these are both because of what donald trump did with the supreme court and replacing roe v. wade. he is bragging about what he did. he is glad that my daughter, your daughter, your wife, your niece, your sister, your friends, he is glad that they have fewer rights than a generation that came before us. he is glad about it. more than 20 states have trump abortion bans. he called a beautiful thing. right now as we speak, women are waiting and being denied cares in er's and either having miscarriages in parking lots or going home to deal with it. a woman in kentucky was raped by her stepfather and impregnated at age 12.

she was forced to carry that child to term. when j.d. vance was asked about exceptions for rape and incest, he said two wrongs don't make a right. there is nothing goddamn write about her having to carry that child to term. and if you think they are done, and i know there are people -- look, hadley doesn't want to have her name out there. these are brave women that said no one else should have to go through this. no one should be put through this. but they are not done. their project 2025 is very clear. pregnancy register, access to contraception being limited, and this is the one that is personal for me and so many of you, access to fertility treatments. if you have been through the hell of fertility treatments you know what i'm talking about. waiting for the phone to ring, time after time. that's the stuff you go through.

you are doing everything because it was our choice to have a family. and i will be damned if i'm going to let donald trump or j.d. vance tell us if we can have children or not. [cheers and applause] so look, you are sending bob casey back, we are winning seats in the house, we are holding the senate. and when congress passes roe v. wade codified into law, kamala harris will sign it. [cheers and applause] again, i know i'm preaching to the choir, but look, our recital is in 21 days, people. we are about done practicing here. we have got to get this done. and if donald trump is reelected, you think what we just talked about, that was just a beginning. i believe the people around him have learned something. think about this. he will appoint two or three more supreme court justices.

that same institution that gave donald trump total immunity over everything he wants to do. they will be adjudicating the laws in this country when your grandchildren are my age, nearly. so start thinking about that. i think most of us know, but here's the thing. you are right, we are not going back. i tell you that because it is going to be even sweeter. when we wake up on madam sixth, madam president -- when we wake up on november 6, madam president -- [cheers and applause] we get to decide the future for our kids and grandkids. we get to decide if we are going to tackle things like climate change and have manufacturing back here, and move this country in a positive way. so look, 21 days. when do you ever get a chance over three weeks to make a change not for four years, but for 40 years?

when you get the chance to protect women through productive rights? when you get the chance to bring back manufacturing and protect schools and -- this is a privilege to do this. and i have to tell you what. i cannot wait until we don't have to turn on our damn tv and see donald trump on there ever again. ever. [cheers and applause] so look, when we finally had our daughter, we named her the most powerful word in the universe, hope. and my wife, who is a very practical midwest lutheran school teacher, told me this. well, hope is great but it is not a damn plan. we cannot hope we beat donald trump. we cannot hope we restore roe v. wade. we cannot hope that unions grow in this country. we have to make a plan to do it, and it starts with voting. vote.

[cheers and applause] vote early. if you are voting by mail, get the damn thing in the mail as soon as possible. follow the instructions carefully. because look, we see the world a lot different than these guys. their strategy to win elections is to suppress the vote, make it harder to vote, and confuse people. our way to win elections is have good damn policies and let everybody vote and they will vote you in. so look, you can vote early in person. i want to get this right for pennsylvania. visit your local county election office. several counties including allegheny. you can vote early in posen at additional satellite locations. am i right down here? they made me get this right. you can register to vote online.

in allegheny you can register and vote at the same time when you vote until october 21. i got that right? i am checking with my people. if you have any questions, iw illvote.com/pa. iwillvote.com/pa. look, you are going to vote. this -- they are celebrating on the others. they think they have this won. we don't think we have this won. we're gonna win, but their work is not done. in this building, you don't win the super bowl just on that day. you win the super bowl months before, the work that you do. so everybody, get out and knock the doors, make the phone calls. one or two votes in pennsylvania per precinct could swing this election, for the entire country. hell, the rest of the world is watching.

please, america, show some sanity intellect kamala harris, because they need -- show some sanity and elect kamala harris, because they need us! and i know we ask a lot of you, if you have a book or two -- a buck or two, it's kamalaharris.com. 300 paid folks, staffers, hundreds of volunteers in every single place in the reddest to the bluest places to make sure if we do the work, pennsylvania goes blue, we win the white house. [cheers and applause] and you know why you came here, put up with parking, got fired up about this. you did it because you believe in the promise of america and you love this country. it's that simple. we control our own destiny. we've got 21 days to win this thing. we are in the fight.

we win this thing and wake up, we change the direction of this country. and the vice president is right. when we fight -- when we vote -- when we fight -- that's right. thank you. [cheers and applause] ♪ [♪"small town" by john mellencamp ♪]

[♪ "the rising" by bruce springsteen ♪]

announcer: minnesota governor and 2024 democratic vice presidential nominee tim walz wrapping up a campaign event in pittsburgh and mingling with the crowd. pennsylvania getting a lot of attention from both presidential campaign in the final days before the election. republican vice presidential nominee j.d. vance and president biden were also making stops in the state today. we will show those coming up in our programs scheduled and you can find them on the free c-span now video app or online at c-span.org. one of the latest polls conducted last week reports former president donald trump with a three point lead over vice president harris in pennsylvania based on a survey of nearly 1100 likely voters in the state. however, that leads the remains within the margin of error. tomorrow, vice president harris

will be holding an event in bucks county, pennsylvania, and senator vance is holding a rally in williamsport. we will have those campaign stops available to watch on the c-span now video app as well. we will continue our live coverage this evening with the u.s. senate debate between pennsylvania senator b casey and s republican challenger david mccormick. that is live in about 15 minutes right here on c-span. . before we get to calls, texts, social media posts, pew research did a poll asking voters your thoughts on the tone of th campaign. 71% said that the campaign is too negative. only 27% sayt is not too negative. 62% say the campaign is not focused on important policy debas. 47% of those polled say that --

we can go to the next graphic. % say that it is focused on the rightne 19% say the campaign makes them feelroud of the country. 79% say it doesn't make them feel proud. 68% of voters say that the campaign is interesting. 30% say it is dull. do you agree or disagree with any of these numbers? 14% of voters say that it's clear who is going to win. 86% say it is not yet clear. your thoughts on the tone of the campaign and possible outcomes. the vice president, kamala harris, in erie, pennsylvania had this to say about the former president's phrase of "enemy within." [video clip] v.p. harris: he is talking about the enemy within pennsylvania.

he is talking about the enemy within our country, pennsylvania. he is talking about that he considers anyone who doesn't support him, or will not bend to his will, an enemy of our country. it's a serious issue, he is saying he will use the military to go after them. think about this. we know who he would target. we know who he would target, because he has attacked them before. journalists whose stories he doesn't like. election officials who refused to cheat by finding extra votes for him. judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will.

this is among the reasons i believe so strongly that a second trump term would be a huge risk for america -- [applause] donald trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. [applause] he is out for unchecked power. that is what he's looking for. host: the vice president in erie, pennsylvania picking up on a phrase that the former president has iterated at campaign rallies. the guardian with their write up of the vice president's remarks. harris called trump a risk for

america after the enemy within remarks. from the guardian's reporting in california on saturday, trump referred to democratic opponents as the enemy within saying that they posed a bigger risk to the country than foreign foes. targeted adam schiff, running for the u.s. senate in california. the front page of the new york times, a similar story written this morning relative to this conversation. this is the front page of the new york times. some believe in trump without believing him, doubting he will carry out dark threats. that is the front page of the new york times this morning. we are asking you, what do you think about the tone of this campaign? do you believe the former president when he says what he says? deborah in florida, trump-vance

ticket. let's go to you. good morning. caller: i believe he is going to carry out. he is strong, he has good policies, he puts in place good people, and he does listen. i don't believe the things that our democratic party are chanting are real. it's not logical. we need more safety. we need people in charge who know what they're doing. i run the hospital at cape canaveral. i'm not putting people in charge of those who don't know the job themselves. very disappointing what's going on. trump will carry through. host: what do you want him to carry through on, deborah? what are you referring to? caller: how about safety?

how about good schools? how about getting our prices down? how about all the things our forefathers came here to do and not pull on people's weaknesses? focus on their strength. we don't need 30 handicap spots at home depot. we need to be able to get people and get them moving again. bring them around -- bring the morale of. host: you believe he's going to follow through on his policy agenda. do you think his campaign is too negative? does the former president bear some responsibility for that? caller: are we talking about the president that is in there today that has dementia that we were lied to for four years that he can't follow through? or are you speaking of someone in the future who has proven for four years? host: deborah in florida. the former president at a town hall recently was asked about the economy and immigration.

deborah says that he will follow through on those policy platforms. here's what he had to say. [video clip] >> i was raised in a philadelphia democrat union household. as the mother of a blended family, my top issues are the same issues that face all-americans. illegal immigration hurts black americans. inflation hurts black americans. dangerous cities hurt black americans. like my fellow americans, my grocery bill has not gone down. everything is still so very expensive. what steps will your administration take to help american family suffering from this inflation? fmr. pres. trump: it is such a great question in the sense that people don't think of grocery -- it sounds like not such an important word when you think about homes and everything else.

more people tell me about grocery bills, the price of bacon, the price of lettuce, the price of tomatoes, they tell me. we will do a lot of things. our farmers are not being treated properly. we had a deal with china. it was a great deal. i never mentioned it because once covid came in i said that was a bridge too far. i had a great relationship with president xi. he is a fierce man. he is a man who likes china, and i understand that. we had a deal and he was perfect on that deal. $50 million he was going to buy for the farmer. the farmers are very badly hurt. the farmers in this country. we will get them straightened out. we will get your prices down. you asked another question about safety and also about black population jobs and hispanic population, in particular those. when millions of people pour into our country, they are having a devastating effect on black families and hispanic

families, more than any others. i think it will spread to a lot of other places. i think it will spread to unions. i think unions will have a big problem because, you know, employers are not going to pay the price. it is a very bad thing that's happening. so, they are coming in, many are coming in from jails, prisons, mental institutions, insane asylums. that is a step above, an insane asylum. whenever i go hannibal lector, you know what i'm talking about, they go to fake news. that is a lot of fake news back there, too. they always mention, you know, it is a way of demeaning, they say hannibal lector, why would he mentioned? he was a sick puppy. when you have sick puppies coming into our country, i figure that is better than wasting a lot of words. you just say hannibal lector. they say, why would you say that? i do it for a lot of reasons. i do it because we are allowing

a lot of very bad people into our country. host: the former president campaigning during a town hall recently on the campaign trail. we covered both the former and vice president on c-span. you can find all of our campaign coverage at c-span.org online on-demand. as we noted at the top, pew research did a poll that found that 62 percent say that the campaign is not focused on important policy debates. 37% say it is. do you agree or disagree with that? carol in wisconsin supporting the harris-walz ticket. good morning. caller: good morning. i can't believe all the lies in this election. over 200 people who were in the trump administration, his closest advisors, especially the military, have come out against him, including his vice president. that is why i was calling.

i was calling because trump's friend kevin roberts from heritage and jd vance have written a book called "dawn's early light." and that they will take the military and go door to door looking for immigrants. if they find an immigrant they will deport them. with the decrease in population, they are going to do away with birth control and abortion. even ivf because people might want to do ivf if they want to postpone having a baby. it is just frightening. when he starts talking about the military used on civilians, it is frightening. he wanted, according to people in his previous administration, to use the military to round up

his political opponents before, but they wouldn't do it for him. his next administration he is going to appoint people that wi ll. host: carol in wisconsin on her thoughts of the possible outcome if the former president wins another term. that is our question this morning for you. on how the campaign is going so far with 21 days left. the possible outcomes depending on who wins. dennis in hudson, indiana supporting trump-vance. caller: i support trump 100%. your last caller is clearly listening to msnbc and cnn and getting her misinformation. he hasn't said that he will use the military against migrants, against illegal aliens. there is a difference between an

illegal alien and a migrant in this country. harris will let millions more in to keep taking jobs away from americans, housing away from americans. she has already let 10 million in. now she is talking about she wants to go 3 million more houses. what, for the illegals to have? they are running the price of housing and groceries through the roof in this country. they are in our country illegally using our hospitals for their health care running up our health care costs. these people are destroying our nation and it needs to stop now. host: have you ever looked at the economic impact of immigration in this country? caller: yes, i see it every day. 13 million illegals in this country. housing prices have tripled over the last few years. rent prices have, because of all of the illegals in the country. host: ron is in pennsylvania

supporting harris. caller: these people calling up whining about how much the illegals are costing us, yet somehow biden didn't add $1 trillion to the national debt. people keep saying -- hello? host: we are listening to you. a trillion dollars to the national debt. caller: they keep saying that the economy was good under trump. it's not good now. it's actually better now, except for inflation. everything else is better. trump had a bad economy just like the last two republicans before him because trickle-down economics doesn't work but it is the only card in their deck. they keep whining about emigrants. their whole party had a chance

to shut the border down a year ago. they're just trying to keep him out of jail. that is where he belongs. host: what do you make of this headline from the front page of the new york times? harris fighting to bring back a bloc, black and latino voters have drifted away from democrats and striking numbers, according to a new york times poll. caller: if they think republicans are going to be better they are fools and they don't know history. there are more dumb cap likely -- more dumb black and latinos than i thought. i thought it was more dumb white people when you think about he's getting 55% of the white vote. host: >> we will take you live to philadelphia for the pennsylvania u.s. senate debate

between senator bob casey and his republican challenger david mccormick. [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] >> our moderators this evening, leah garcia and sherry williams and matt o'donnell. moderator: good evening and welcome to the debate between the democratic and republican candidates for pennsylvania's u.s. senate seat. income senator bob casey is being challenged by veteran and former ceo dave mccormick. moderator: pennsylvania is one of 34 senate seats decided in this election. this is one of a handful of races in the country that could determine the balance of power in the chamber. over the next hour the candidates will answer questions

posed by myself and our co-moderators. moderator: under the debate rules each candidate will get a question and one minute to answer followed by a round of rebuttals. by prior draw the first question will go to senator casey. let's begin with the economy. senator, you claim corporations caused inflation by engaging in shrink-inflation. the prices are high when you buy gas and buy bananas and a townhouse. how likely is it that economies across a variety of industries come pollard -- conspired to do this and what other factors could cause inflation? sen. casey: i want to thank all of those who are here for hosting this debate. across the country especially in the last several years prices have been way up. the cost of food and household items has skyrocketed.

you have corporations in the two year period from 2020-2022, corporate profits going up 75% five times the rate of inflation. corporations were engaged in price gouging, taking advantage of the pandemic and the inflationary pressures, and i think we should do something about it. we should pointed out, issue reports on it and pass price gouging legislation to hold companies accountable. we should rollback big corporate tax breaks they got a couple years ago. the difference in the race is i want to go after price gouging. my opponent doesn't think we should do anything about price gouging. he excuses big corporations ripping off families. moderator: let me ask you mr. mccormick, staying on the economy, you believe in excessive federal spending is the main driver of inflation. the trumpet administration set a

record for having the largest budget deficit in american history. how much responsibility does former president trump have when it comes to higher prices? mr. mccormick: thank you. this is a clear choice. senator casey, joe biden, kamala harris said the new spending would not drive inflation. democratic economist larry summers said $5 trillion is what they spent of new money and that will drive up prices. that plus a war on fossil fuels has driven up fuel prices. groceries are up 22 percent, electricity 35%, fuel 50% under the biden-harris-casey plan. i'm not saying there aren't companies that are price gouging, the problem is this is caused by bad policy.

senator casey has been a 99% vote for excessive spending policies. what we learned in the army is you have to take responsibility for your actions. these votes were going to drive inflation. it is killing working families and we need to change. moderator: what about other causes, senator? sen. casey: when you have the skyrocketing prices, corporate profits up 75%, there are a number of causes. the federal reserve told us in the time from the middle of 2020 to the middle of 2022, corporate profits caused 41% of all the inflation in america. we should do something about that. hold them accountable and help families provide a middle-class tax cut, not a tax cut for billionaires and help families with the child tax credit to offset the cost. moderator: there is a lot of lag time when it comes to the economies of the culpability of

the trumpet administration and the huge budget deficits. mr. mccormick: the difference between what trump did and what biden and harris did is they think the government is better spending your money than you are. the middle class, what senator casey wants to do is raise taxes on working families. he is supporting lifting the salt tax gap which gives tax breaks to rich people in california and new york. that is the policies they are advocating which will take our country over the cliff. moderator: do you want a rebuttal? sen. casey: the difference between us is he wants to double down on the huge corporate tax break from 2017. he wants to give billionaires, people making hundreds of millions and big corporations, another big tax cut. the tax cut for the most powerful companies will add up

to more than $4 trillion and explode the debt. it makes no sense. mr. mccormick: $5 trillion of new spending under biden-harris-casey, $2 trillion under kamala harris and her new proposals. they want to have venezuelan like price controls. they are saying the government should decide. this is socialism. this has been tried around the world. socialist price controls don't work. they will destroy the economy. moderator: to the next topic. this is reproductive rights. we will begin with you. you called the overturning of roe v. wade a huge victory for the protection of life. you stated that decisions on abortion should be left of the states, allowing each to set its own laws. a woman is a woman no matter where she lives. what is your reasoning for

supporting a system where a woman's access to abortion is dependent on the state of residence? mr. mccormick: a polarizing issue. i'm the father of six daughters and i believe it is so polarizing the courts and judges should not decide, people should decide. there are different views across states so i believe it is a states rights issues. republicans and democrats have supported the law signed into law by governor casey. i support exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother and i would not support national legislation. senator casey voted the legislation that allows the abortion up to the end of the third trimester and federal funding for it. i think the people should decide. i also think the government should get involved in helping families have children with

fertility treatment and ivf. i give every employee ivf treatment as a ceo, the company reimbursed them. i think the government should give a $15,000 tax credit for ivf so we need to talk about reproductive rights in the people need to decide. moderator: a woman in ohio, is she different from a woman in pennsylvania leaving it to the states? mr. mccormick: when you say states, you mean people. people get to decide. people get to elect officials that represent their views. you can't have it both ways and say we want a states rights issue and when the state does something you don't like, i think the people should decide on that is what happened in pennsylvania. pennsylvania has a lot of the people support and i supported as well. moderator: you described yourself as a pro-life democrat for many years but recently you have taken a stronger stance in

favor of abortion rights particularly after dobbs. can you explain to voters what prompted the shift? sen. casey: in 2022 overturned a 49 year right in the dobbs case. when they did, that was overturning roe v. wade and we have a clear choice at that moment, whether you are a citizen or member of the united states senator legislator. you had to make a decision. do you want those rights restored or not? ban abortion or not? that was the choice before the country. i voted at that moment to restore those rights through the women's health protection act. when the decision was handed down by the supreme court, mr. mccormick said the decision made him, quote, very happy. his views and his position was in furtherance of what he said.

he doesn't support restoring row, doesn't support the vehicle to do that, which is the women's health protection act, and it is a big difference in this race. the other thing i would add is that he doesn't support the ivf bill before the senate or the bill to make sure we have the opportunity to have it, have birth control is a right. mr. mccormick: you will hear career politicians talk tonight and this is a perfect example. there is no senate -- senator who has flip-flopped more on the issue than senator casey. senator casey previously said he wanted to overturn roe v. wade and said there should be one exception, the life of the mother. he was one of the most pro-life senators in the senate and has flip-flopped his position. i don't know how someone flip-flops on this. there is no one who has less credibility on the issue than senator casey and he is going

where the wind blows. so many issues where his party shifted left, he shifted with them. moderator: senator, would you like a rebuttal? sen. casey: i think most americans believe our daughters should not have fewer rights than their mothers or grandmothers. we are at a point where the country has to make a choice in terms of the senate race, and control of the senate and that will largely determine whether those rights are restored or not. i have voted twice to restore those rights. my opponent won't support that. moderator: we have to turn to immigration. the first question will be for you, senator casey. immigration reform was enacted almost four decades ago. as a journalist who serves the hispanic community i hear the community's frustrations regarding immigration reform.

some feel the issue is a political football that is only given attention during election time to court the latino vote. what steps or legislative measures would you take to ensure congress gets closer to passing an immigration reform bill? this time? sen. casey: the first thing that i hope we can do before a new congress, and new president, we should pass the bipartisan border security bill before the senate right now. i think it is possible in a new year with a new congress, we can get republicans to work with us on this because most of them agreed to support it or a lot of them did, at least. i voted for the bill twice. i say that because border security is critically important. we have to secure our border and that means hiring more border patrol, investing in the technology that will stop fentanyl at the border, giving the president new authority to shut down the border and reduce people coming across the border,

fixing our asylum system. if we do that, it will help us secure the border and give credibility back to get to other reforms. my opponent opposes that bill for one reason. the leader of his party told him he couldn't support it for political reasons. he should stand up as a social leader of his party and support this bill. moderator: mr. mccormick, we have seen an alarming rise of demonizing migrants. immigration policy proposals fall in congress. political leaders worry increasingly inflammatory and racist rhetoric about immigrants is fueling a surge in the already record-breaking number of hate crimes against latinos. if you are elected what would you do specifically to protect immigrant families? mr. mccormick: i am married to an emigrant so i'm very pro

legal immigrants. we are a country of laws and under biden, harris and casey, this is a career politician epiphany from punxsutawney bob who comes up six months before every election. there was nothing done on the border. it was a disaster. 10 million illegal immigrants, people in the terrorist watch list, the fentanyl crisis has grown. this sheriff lost a son to the wide open borders that resulted under the weakness and failure of casey, biden and harris. the fentanyl crisis is going crazy. we need to secure the border. senator casey did a commercial standing in front of the very wall that he derided and said we didn't need when president trump came into office. that is a career politician in action. we need to secure the border, go after the cartels with military,

treat them as the threat they are and embrace the fact that we are a country of immigrants. we can't tolerate hate but we can't tolerate an open border that is damaging the security of america. moderator: let's move on. you would like a rebuttal? sen. casey: we didn't hear any response to your question about the language some have used. the worst thing we can do is have politicians spend time demonizing immigrants. we need to solve the problem. the beginning of solving the problem is passing the bipartisan bill. the difference in this race is not just that i voted twice for this bill and he is opposed to it. the reason is because the leader of his party. the candidate, when he was a hedge fund ceo, invested millions of dollars in the largest producer of fentanyl in china. chinese fentanyl is coming to our country. mr. mccormick: we have an open border. he doesn't address that. the border bill proposed was an

amnesty bill. it did not secure the border. he voted for sanctuary citizen -- cities. they have failed to secure the border. in terms of hate crimes, if the senator is worried about hatred he should not endorse summer league who, that is anti-semitism. he is saying he is a moral voice. he hasn't had the courage to stand up against his own party and an avowed anti-semite. sen. casey: 20 seconds. i go back to your question. what do we do about border security and immigration? the bill i voted for twice, bipartisan bill, the strongest border bill in 25 years is endorsed by the border patrol union which endorsed president trump. they are not a democratic organization. they support the bill, he doesn't. mr. mccormick: if you look at

the border bill, which i have done, i made up my mind unlike senator casey who is a 99 percent vote. this bill is the most liberal border bill in the world of any industrialized country that would allow up to 5000 applications per day. this is millions of people coming into the economy. it is subverting what is intended by asylum and risk our security. moderator: we would like to talk about bipartisanship and civility in politics. mr. mccormick, you seek to become a member of the freshman class in washington. to many voters newer members seem interested in gaining new social media followers and cable tv appearances and less interested in passing bills and speaking to colleagues on the others. as a new senator, how will you be different? mr. mccormick: the america i know, as a platoon leader in the airborne division, i had a young man from rural alabama, an african-american man, a platoon

sergeant from puerto rico. i never remember talking about religion or politics or party. we were americans. in search of protecting one another and protecting our country. that is my spirit, that is how i come into this. i'm a problem solver. i'm a conservative. if you go to my website, more than any other candidate, you will see what i'm for and what i believe in. as a ceo and a leader, you have to find ways to compromise to get things done. i will get things done. senator casey in 18 years, 30 years in elected office, doesn't have a record he can run on which is why he devoted himself to attacking me. if you want to talk about civility, we need to get a new senator in pennsylvania who can work across the aisle and get things done. senator casey has not proven to be a senator like that. moderator: americans are fed up with instability and lack of

bipartisanship in washington. what have you done to take the temperature down and work with republicans? sen. casey: to get something done in the senate you have to work in a bipartisan way and that is what i have done. in the period of the last congress, 21 and 22, i wrote and passed more bills than almost anybody else in the senate. part of that stretch is not just through this recent time period but going back further. women on college campuses are safer today from sexual assault because of my bill i passed. children with a disability, families are permitted to save for the disability and a tax-advantaged way like they save for college because of my legislation. because of my work we invested in infrastructure in pennsylvania like we have never done before. rural areas, rural counties, republican counties like fulton county and bedford county, among the most republican in the

state, have investments in their schools, 17 or $18 million in those two counties, in high-speed internet so kids can learn more, and earn more. moderator: when you get a chance, a rebuttal. mr. mccormick: senator casey said, anytime you have two politicians the boat 99% of the time the same way you need to get rid of one of them. he votes 98 .6% of the time with biden-harris. he is not an independent voice. he has voted in lockstep with his liberal party to defund the police, not secure the border, to support biological men competing in women's sports. this is a guy who has gone off track with the values. these are not pennsylvania values and they have hurt our commonwealth. sen. casey: the work i did on the infrastructure bill is helping one of our -- every one of our counties. that bill was bipartisan.

he wants to repeal it. when i was a deciding vote to make sure we had a cap on insulin and out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors, 800 29,000 pennsylvanians will benefit. he wants to repeal the bill that capped insulin and out-of-pocket costs. who is more bipartisan? if he talks about his record versus mine, his record is a hedge fund ceo investing in china and our adversaries. minding his is bipartisan work in the senate. -- mine is bipartisan work in the senate. moderator: how would you work with each other? mr. mccormick: we have to find common ground. right now i don't see much. i think bob casey went to the senate to change washington and washington changed bob casey. he is out of step with the values and views of pennsylvanians. he voted for a series of things that made our commonwealth worse . i think he needs to be replaced

and that's why i'm running, because i think career politicians like bob casey are hurting our country. sen. casey: there are many things we can work together on. it should start with the bipartisan border deal, supported by the border patrol union. i don't know why he won't support it. he knows we can advance the ball based on the expertise of the border patrol. while i was doing the bipartisan work in pennsylvania he was investing in our adversaries. investing in china and russia. moderator: going to the rising tensions in the middle east. senator casey, the middle east is on edge for a potential escalation in the region with israel promising a retaliatory attack on iran and iran morning the u.s. saying it will retaliate. researchers estimate the u.s. has provided nearly $18 billion to israel since the attack on october 7.

how do you believe the u.s. can continue to support israel's right to self-defense while addressing the humanitarian needs of palestinian civilians and other civilians as the conflict spreads? sen. casey: we have to start with october 7, 2023 when a terrorist organization invaded israel, murdered 1200 innocent israelis and in addition to murdering all of those israelis, raped women and took hostages. that threat to the people of israel has to be defeated. it has been badly undermined so far but it is still a threat. hezbollah and iran are a threat to israel. houthis, extremist organizations, we need to support israel's efforts not just to defend itself but take the fight to the terrible breasts threatening them every day. i will continue to support israel as i always have but a difference in the race is, while

i was supporting israel all of these years, my opponent was running a hedge fund, the largest hedge fund in the world. i've mentioned investments in china and russia. he invested in a chinese arms manufacturer with ties to iran and the weapons they produced made their way to hamas. that is disqualifying. moderator: addressing the humanitarian needs of the palestinian civilians and other civilians. sen. casey: you are right, i should have added that. we should have robust support for food for people in gaza, medicine, and medical supplies. our government and the israelis have done it. we need to do more and subdue the israelis and countries in the region. i want to have arab countries stand up and help the people of gaza instead of pointing the finger at the united states and israel. moderator: same topic. you said the u.s. needs to show strength and provide israel with what it needs to finish the job.

president biden has warned israel not to strike iran's oil fields as it could lead to further unrest. do you believe israel needs to show restraint in its retaliation on iran and how do you address tens of thousands of civilians who are caught in the crossfire? mr. mccormick: senator casey has lied about my record. i want to say i'm not going to take any preaching. as a guy who went to west point, went to ranger school, went to the 82nd, went into iraq in the first wave, i will not take any preaching from a guy who spent 30 years in public office and hasn't gotten much done. i will not take preaching from you on that. and your allies, which are unworthy of you and your family and your service. so what is happening in the middle east comes from weakness.

we are being tested by our adversaries. president biden should support israel completely. israel in the fight of its life, attacked by hezbollah and hamas and iran. the original sin is the iran deal where senator casey was the deciding vote in 2015. it gave them $100 billion which they used to underwrite terrorist proxies. that is the root cause of the problem and that needs to be addressed. we needs to strangle iran and its ability to support terrorists. moderator: in regards to israel showing restraint, should it show restraint in its response to iran especially in light of the thousands of civilians who have also been caught in the crossfire? mr. mccormick: israel is in the best position to manage and make trade-offs. america should not preach to israel. i went to israel with my wife after october 7. we should -- we saw the care they are taking to reduce civilian casualties. if you want to blame people for

civilian deaths, blame hamas and hezbollah who have located missiles around civilian populations. there are not two sides to this story. there is a people that needs to be eradicated and it does threatening israel. we need to fight anti-semitism at home. this is a two front battle and we need strength and clarity. moderator: senator casey, your rebuttal. sen. casey: i agree with part of the end of the answer. this should be israel's determination about its security and went israel has to do to defend itself. but mr. mccormick said i was preaching, he is preaching at me. he mentioned his commendable service to people of our country but this is not a race about his service or what we were doing. it is about my work in the senate and his work as a hedge fund ceo and he doesn't like that i talk about his record. when i talked about those dollars going from a chinese

weapons manufacturer through the iranians into hamas, that is part of his record. i'm not preaching, i'm stating a fact. mr. mccormick: it is great to talk about records. i ran a great firm that invested around the world as many firms do. it had exposure to china. the investments were approved by the government. a career politician bob casey, approving using bridgewater, the firm i worked with and four, before i got there, all of these investments happening were happening under bob casey as treasurer. he invested 31 dirt -- trillion dollars and he takes lobbying money from firms selling drones to the chinese military. he does not have credibility on china. moderator: your rebuttal. sen. casey: he said in 2023 that the divisions -- the decisions made as ceo he has

responsibility for. he doesn't want to take responsibility for the decisions he made as a ceo to invest in china. to invest in the rise of china, after we knew china was causing job loss. he helped vladimir putin before he invaded ukraine. if he talks about anti-semitism i have the leading bill in the senate to combat sen. casey: number two is he is the one who invested in not hedge fund money but his own personal money, millions of his own personal money and a website that platforms hate, holocaust denial, and anti-semitism. moderator: that is his money. moderator:rebuttal. -- that is his money. moderator: rebuttal. mr. mccormick: he and chuck schumer don't want to alienate the radical people in their party who truly are

anti-semitic. and a valid anti-semite, bob casey just said that what her statement was was not a good statement but he actually stands by his endorsement so this is the world we are in where you say one thing as a career politician and that is the problem with bob casey and why we need to get rid of him. >> we are going to take a breath and now we have to plow through. we have more topics for you. we are going to turn to you for this one, mr. mccormick. pennsylvania, as you know, has the third most people arrested for the january 6 insurrection. many of them remain convinced that 20/20 election was stolen even though a whole host of judges and republicans say it was not. if you could, what would you tell those pennsylvanians who remain jailed for january 6 charges? >> i thought president biden won the 2020 election and those who -- many hundreds of thousands of people were peaceful protesters on january 6 but those who

conducted violence in our i think should be held accountable. to the stress just like those people destroying storefronts and public property and violence on the streets of minneapolis should be prosecuted. i think that is what should happen and our judicial system should allow for that. in terms of election integrity, we got a real problem in our country in that senator casey and the democrats in general don't support the most basic fundamental thing which is voter id and that is something i fight for day one in the senate. you need to have an id to get on the airplane, you need to have one to cash a check. democrats think you don't need voter id and that would be the one way to give everybody confidence that our elections have high integrity. moderator: let me direct that questions you. given mr. mccormick's position -- it is very small in elections. plenty of voters remain concerned about election integrity.

why shouldn't people be expected to prove they are who they are when they vote? >> nothing wrong with that. a lot of those are determined state by state and that is what the general assembly will be. what he left out of his answer are some of the people he hired. he has hired fake collectors in his campaign. he hired for collectors to run a packed and he has been hanging around with insurrectionists. he has never condemned those who brought about that awful insult to the constitution and to our country on january 6 because he doesn't want to take them on and offend them. we want to make sure that never happens again. one of the ways we can do that is don't spread lies and conspiracies about the election. tell the truth about what happened and don't intimidate these county election workers. for the first time in american history, county election workers

-- these people who give their lives to count votes and do it with integrity and they had death threats and they are under constant threat because conspiracy theories that he won't condemn. mr. mccormick: my views on this have been clear from 2020 on and i have been a strong voice on moral clarity for all of these issues. today was a great day in the sense that the washington post wrote an article about an ad senator casey has run saying that i said i wanted to eliminate -- reduce social security and medicare benefits. 100% fabrication. bob casey in his own words looks to the camera and says a complete and utter live. if you want to talk about honesty and truthfulness, you have a lot of work to do. moderator: i'm sure you would like to respond, senator casey. sen. casey: do i have 20 seconds? moderator: 30.

sen. casey: the campaign that we are in today started with this candidate, mr. mccormick, starting the race, lying to the people of pennsylvania about where he lives. how do you live about where you live when you are running for an office where you seek to represent the people of our state? he said he was living in pennsylvania. he wasn't. he was living in connecticut. the associated press wrote about it. he lied to the people about that and about how he grew up. he said he was a farmer and he grew up on a farm. if this is a question about who has been telling lies -- how do you lie to people about where you live? mr. mccormick: duty on our country is how i have conducted my life. senator casey's lies are abundantly clear on the website. they are fact-checks. he is running the dirtiest, most inaccurate campaign in modern

history in pennsylvania. he doesn't have a track record to run on. >> we will go back to his allegation about medicaid. he is trying to deny that he was part of an administration, the bush administration, that tried to foist upon the country private accounts, investing precious social security resources in the stock market and having big wall street firms manage that money and make a lot of money off of it. privatization. he was for it. moderator: our next topic is border security. let's get a direct question. you are on record supporting the bipartisan border security bill which called for more hiring of border patrol agents and also empowered administrations to be able to close the border. with persistent issues like drug trafficking including the fentanyl and record number of migrants seeking asylum, what

has taken democrats so long to prioritize this issue? >> i have been working on this issue for years. i started writing on legislation to direct more dollars to the detection of fentanyl years ago and i voted 25 times to secure the border including twice by voting for that bill this year. the bill i support is supported by the border patrol union and it would allow us to hire thousands more border patrol and change the asylum roles, making them more for seeking asylum a lot higher. a lot fewer people across the board because of that and that is why republicans and democrats support it. it was on its way to passage until the republican party said, don't pass it because it will help the other side politically. kind of like a lapdog mapping the shoes of the republican nominee. we should pass that bill because it will restore confidence in the american people that we can detect fentanyl at the border

mostly coming in through vehicles crossing our border and it would also help us with more border patrol and a much tougher approach to the border. >> mr. mccormick, senate republicans backed out of that bipartisan border security bill earlier this year. with republicans often emphasizing the need for a stronger response at the border, how do you explain to voters the resistance to advancing legislation that addresses the very issue? >> it was bad legislation. there was good legislation in the house that would have strengthened our border. i have been to the border twice in the last couple of years. i have been there more times than senator casey on the borders are and when you get there, you see that the wall stops. people walking across in the middle of the night in my particular night i was there at 2:00 in the morning, five military age men from syria and five chinese nationals. this has become a national security crisis of epic

proportion. we sell recently with a memo leaked from eyes that 25,000 convicted murderers and rapists were knowingly allowed in the country. this is not speculation. this was in an official document from the department of homeland security and this happened under his watch. the bill they propose to did not address that. it would have sanctioned two million illegal immigrants coming to our country for asylum and we have a major problem. we need to go after these cartels and treat them as the threat they are, use our military selectively. senator casey has done that and has been working on it for years for how effective has network been? we have a crisis that is destroying our country. moderator: i will allow your rebuttal first. sen. casey: the original part of the question was about when these changes went into effect by the administration and you make a good point. they should have done this a long time ago, no question about that, but my point on this is that we are seeing the results when the administration acted

with the limited authority they have, they are reducing border crossings by about 50%. they are way down. that is proof positive, a testament to why this bill is so important. the authority in this bill is authority that president trump asked for and did not get and the authority president biden asked for and did not get. we should give the president for the authority to shut down the border when crossings get to high, to change the asylum roles, to have more money for more investment at screening those vehicles coming across packed with fentanyl and also make sure that we support the border patrol union that is asking for these resources and he won't support the bill. >> listen, we had a secure border under president trump. president biden had it in his power. it is interesting, senator casey is talking about how i support president trump. senator casey is a 99% vote with joe biden so they have the power from day one to secure the

border. it was secure under president trump. they have just taken the actions now that they should have taken and it is a national crisis undermining our security and community. this was weakness. this was a liberal economic agenda that is destroying our country. >> you have 20 seconds. >> looked, when i was voting year after year on investments in the border and strategies that we know work, this guy was running the largest hedge fund in the world. he increased investments in china by 108,000 percent. after everyone knew in the world that china was cheating and manipulating currency, undermining american workers, he did that and also invested millions of dollars in the chinese fentanyl company. >> 116,000 people died last year from fentanyl on your watch, right? on your watch. that's two vietnam's. eight years of war in vietnam, 58,000 so the failure -- the fact that you and biden-harris are not standing up and taking

accountability is a true disgrace and the fact that you are finally taking action does not make the past any more palatable. >> we are going to move on to our next topic. >> we turn to puerto rico and i will ask the same question of each of you, starting with mr. mccormick. pennsylvania has the third-largest puerto rican population on the side of the island. residents have been beneficial u.s. citizens for over a century. like every other working american, they have the obligation to pay federal taxes but they don't have any votes in congress or the right to vote for president. they will hold a referendum for statehood, one of the options they will vote on. do you believe the alan should decide its future and would you vote to admit puerto rico as the 51st state should its people vote in favor of unions? >> i would not vote in favor of it being the 51st state and

listen, if senator casey is reelected and kamala harris winds the presidency and they eliminate the filibuster which is what senator casey says he wants to do, he will have two places that get statehood, puerto rico as well as washington, d.c. and additional members of justice is brought on the supreme court and a new green deal beyond anything that was ever imagined so this is tied to the filibuster which in my opinion is something meant as a check and balance regardless of whatever party is in power. it's going to change the balance of power forever if the democrats win both the presidency and the majority in the senate and i think that would be absolutely inconsistent with america's best interest regardless of what party is in the majority. sen. casey: is the people of puerto rico make that determination, we should be open to admitting them. my opponent of course wanted to talk about the so-called

filibuster rule in the senate. let's talk about that. that is the reason that ruled existing, requiring 60 votes for substantive matters, is the reason we have not passed a background check bill for common sense gun measures to reduce the likelihood of gun violence. the number one killer of children and teenagers. we are the only country in the world that has this problem. it is a uniquely american problem. if we change that will, it is not a statute or law, not in the constitution. if we change that will, we can pass a background check bill. we could pass the women's health protection act which would restore the protections of roe v. wade. if we change that rule, we could pass voting rights legislation that has broad support across the country. we could do so much to move the country forward but he wants to hide behind that rule to block progress on substantive matters the american people want to take action on. >> we have seen what happens under a senate majority and

biden-harris in the white house. we know kamala harris is far more radical in her own words and even joe biden. we know senator casey is a sure vote. 99% vote with biden and harris and so, yes, i believe that filibuster is a way to check the majority on either side going to extremes. that was what the senate was designed for and if senator casey really thinks that the problem for him not get anything done is the filibuster, i think there's lots to get a lot done. senator casey is not one of them, unfortunately. >> a lot of progress is being blocked because that rule has been a weapon to prevent progress on issues where there is overwhelming support. 90% of the american people want us to pass a background check bill. gun owners, republicans, everyone wants to pass it. it will not pass because the gun

lobby has a stranglehold on a lot of members of congress and also on my opponent. he will not support any of those common sense measures, some which i think we could pass with 51 votes p at he will not do that because he will not stand up to the gun lobby. >> thank you, senator. >> next topic, climate change and the environment. several studies by physicians and, yell university, and the university of pittsburgh found people living near fracking sites have higher incidences of nosebleeds all the way to cancer. how is your position impacting those who believe the industry is putting their lives at risk? >> first of all, i think when you consider what hours they's resources are, the advantages we have in pennsylvania, that is the reason i support and all of the above energy strategy and that includes natural gas extraction but here is what i think the difference is between my position on allowing gas extraction, making sure we have other options like nuclear or

renewable sources of energy, clean energy, we still use coal in some parts of our state for our energy base. the difference between my position and some other people's position is i support tough regulation and that is done mostly at the state level. it is mostly times on who is the government and governor shapiro will do that kind of oversight to make sure that we can extract natural gas but do it in compliance with our state constitutional obligation to ensure clean air and water and i think that is the difference. my opponent has talked a lot about energy but while he was a hedge fund ceo running the biggest hedge fund in the world, he was investing in chinese oil companies and managing money. >> same topic, different avenue. they served as a warning that the earth's climate is not well. the storm made landfall in florida last month and did more damage to remote mountainous communities in north carolina. the people in fort washington, montgomery county, are still recovering from hurricane ida

which made landfall in 2021. to those local people who are still cleaning up from a storm that happened three years ago, what should they know about your views on climate change? what of the many dump policies, our energy policy is probably the worst because we have restricted our natural gas ability to export, drill, and have pipelines for natural gas with epa mandates and all these huge subsidies to china from lithium batteries and solar panels so we have depressed our natural gas in pennsylvania when it is the key to economic growth, the key to national security, and the key to climate change. that natural gas exported around the world is how we are going to reduce global climate change by the paris accords which puts constraints on us. that is why it -- emissions in the united states are down 15% over the last 10 years so we are making huge progress on this and that is what we need to continue to do, export natural gas,

develop natural gas. i am for all of the above but i'm not for these huge subsidies for solar and wind and electric vehicles that are driving up our dependence on china and driving up the cost of energy for everyday working families. >> you may rebut. sen. casey: what he is making reference to his legislation that allows us through tax credit to invest in a clean energy economy and that is creating lots of jobs all across thousands of jobs already in pennsylvania. many more jobs in red states than blue states, by the way. a homely part of our economy opening up, huge private sector investment because of those tax credits be it he doesn't support that. i do. here is the difference paid while i was working on that legislation, he was running that hedge fund. managing money for saudi oil companies. mr. mccormick: he is antibusiness, anti-success. my career is something i am extremely proud of. go to my website to see the

truth. what they did was more than tax credits. they gave huge subsidies to electric vehicles. they had epa mandates which are hurting manufacturing jobs, not helping, and the jobs that are created are not offsetting and they are hurting working families. everybody got a 20% tax increase. it is called inflation, reaching into your back pocket and stealing your money and that hurts working families the most. that is a result of his terrible policy. moderator: time is winding down. for this next question, we will only have a one minute response so each of you, there will be no rebuttal. this is just for you to speak to the voters on this question, please. we talk about public safety and guns in this country. mr. mccormick, i will start with you. we are the only nation where firearms outnumber people. suicides make up the majority of gun deaths, and gun homicides are down significantly compared to a year ago.

mass shootings happen daily across the country and many pennsylvanians say they do not feel safe at the bus stop, at the grocery store, the synagogues, their mosque, or at school. a survey found 59% of pennsylvanians agree there needs to be more restrictions on gun access. do you agree with the majority of pennsylvanians that restrictions are needed and what will you do to address this concern? mr. mccormick: unfortunately, the violence that we see -- it had four straight years of 400 murders or more but then violence is for the most part perpetrated by those holding illegal guns. the inventory -- if you stopped all gun sales tomorrow, it would not have much of an effect on violent crime or murders that happen as a result of that. we certainly need to do a lot more so the things -- the intersection of guns and mental health. we need to have appropriate risk protections where people with mental health don't have access to guns. we need to make sure we do that with due process.

we need to make sure we have security in our schools, in our synagogues. unfortunately, it requires that we do that. i am in favor of the policy that president trump put in place of eliminating bump stocks but the problem you are trying to solve will not be solved by restricting legal gun ownership. moderator: lastly, rifles like ak-47s and ar-15's were made legal for purchase across this country. is it time for renewed federal action? >> semi-automatic rifle's, i am in favor of those not being restricted, the same rules we have now. they are used for sporting, for protection. the second amendment right is a real amendment. it is a real right that the constitution gives gun owners and we need to protect it. moderator: you changed your position from being pro-gun to wanting restrictions on gun fields and increased regulations after the deadly shootings at sandy hook. 12 years later, schools still

are grappling with this issue and three weeks ago, a school district in delaware county approved a weapon detection system at its middle schools. what have you done since sandy hook to impact real change on this issue? one minute. >> there is no question that we can take action with regard to commonsense gun measures. as i said earlier, the gun lobby has a stranglehold on one party and that meant that -- it has meant for more than a decade that we can pass a background check bill and a ban on these military style assault weapons. these commonsense measures will have no impact on second amendment rights and no impact on law-abiding gun owners who need a gun for self protection or want a gun to hunt so we can do both and that old false choice of protecting people or having common sense gun measures does not, i don't think, hold much water, but the problem in this race is i am willing to do that and i am supportive and

voted for the bipartisan gun legislation which has brought down gun deaths and has helped. my opponent will not supported because the gun lobby will not let him and he does not have the political courage to stand up to the gun lobby to support those commonsense measures. moderator: thank you, senator. i believe you addressed assault weapons in your answer. moderator: closing statements. we start with senator casey. sen. casey: thank you for this opportunity. i want to thank the people of pennsylvania for this opportunity to talk about this race and every day i have been a united states senator, i worked on behalf of the people of our state, fighting for working families and for our children every day, fighting for seniors, for people with this abilities, for veterans, trying to work every day to advance their needs and interests and i also passed legislation to help families save for a disability just like for college. a young child can be the subject of an beneficiary of a savings account and i also passed

legislation to make sure that women on college campuses are better protected from sexual assault. that is happening all across the country. they have better protections today because of my legislation. i voted for the infrastructure law that invested in every single one of our 67 counties paid i have invested in legislation to bring high-speed internet to rural areas, small towns, and big cities in suburban communities paid i will continue to do that. my opponent, while i was working on all of that, was running the largest hedge fund in the world that invested in china, chinese oil companies, chinese sentinel company that produced -- fentan yl company. and arms company with ties to iran and the weapons made their way to hamas. he is -- he has been a candidate who started this race lying about where he lives. you have the choice to make in this race between whether you will vote for a senator who is going to support your rights,

restore those rights, or a senator who will not. >> mr. mccormick. quite when i went to west point at the age of 17, i took an oath of duty, honor, country. america was recovering from a decade of decline, skyrocketing inflation, our adversaries thought we were weak. ronald reagan turned it around and he got our country back on track. i was proud to serve him as commander in chief. i retired from the army as a captain. i never stopped serving my country. i am a seventh generation pennsylvanian born and bred. i am a political outsider. that could not be more different than senator casey who was born with a political spoon in his mouth. he doesn't understand the devastating effect of prices on families. he is a status quo candidate. he is a week 30 year incumbent. washington changed bob casey. he is for amnesty, open borders, sanctuary cities pa he voted for every spending bill that created

this enormous uptick in inflation and he wants to raise taxes on pennsylvanians and lower taxes for rich people in california and new york. he has actually supported males competing in women's sports. face it, bob, you are a liberal. bob casey has been given the opportunity and he has failed us. we need leadership that is going to shake things up, to fight for commonsense policies, reduce inflation, secure our borders, keep america safe. we need leadership that will change the direction of our commonwealth and get it back on track. i am honored to be here tonight and i humbly ask for your vote. moderator: thank you, mr. mccormick and senator casey. this brings us to the end of our debate. thank you and the candidates for joining us and taking part in this and good luck to both of you and thank you to our viewers for watching tonight. we have put up on the screen right now it qr code which will take you to the elections page. they are, you will find tonight debate later this evening for your viewing on all of the 2024

races and we hope that tonight has been helpful in that it has also been informative as you decide which candidate to cast your ballot for in november. and i'm sorry. thank you for watching. >> tuesday, november fifth, election day. have a good night. >> with one of the tightest races in political history, stay ahead with comprehensive coverage. c-span rings you access to debates across the country from races that are shaping the balance of. follow our coverage any time online at c-span.org/campaign

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trump took questions such as how his plan would affect the national debt the former president's remarks came during a sit dn conversation where he defended the actions of his supporters. he was interviewed by bloomberg news editor-in-chief at the economic club of chicago. this is just over one hour.

>> let me invite onto the stage president trump.

>> have a seat. you got a standing ovation. welcome to chicago. [cheers and applause] president trump, thank you to -- thank you for doing this. the business people of chicago like a lot of the things you want to do in terms of tax cuts and spending proposals. but like many business people what they are worried about is the cost. the committee for responsible federal budget, a bipartisan outlet put out some predictions the other day. if you add up all the promises you have made then your plans would add $7.5 trillion to the debt. that is more than twice the total for vice president harris. you are on course to push the debt up to 150% of gdp. this is a very businesslike audience. why should they trust you with that? >> we will bring jobs back to

our country. i see steel mills that are falling down, some have been converted to senior citizens homes. that will not do the trick. we will lower taxes still further for companies making their product in the usa and protect those companies with strong tariffs. i am a believer in tariffs. i do not think you are. but i congratulate you and your career. to me the most beautiful world in the dictionary is tariff and it is my favorite word. [applause] >> do you think that will bring in the revenues. to use another bipartisan group it will only bring into billion dollars. that is barely the cost of two promises. trump: but for what company? i was just getting started. and then covid came and which, because i did a very good job

with covid. no one knew what the hell it was and i called it the china virus because i like being accurate. but we have hundreds of millions of dollars from china alone and i had not even started yet. tariffs are two things if you look at it. number one it is protection of the companies that we have here and the new companies that will move in. you will have thousands of companies coming into the country and we will grow it like

we have never grown it before and we will protect them because we will not have somebody undercut them. i can give you an example. a quick example. i just found out about it. i have been talking about it for the last year about detroit and how horribly it has been -- it is best -- it is horrible. detroit has been coming back for 40 years, but it has never come back. it is dependent on the car industry. they lost 60% of the business over time. what happened is that i found out, offend of mind builds auto plants and that is all he does. that is what he is good at. and he builds the biggest in the world. and for the last year and a half of anybody, i was talking about mexico and he says a tremendous challenge for us right now. china is building massive auto plants in mexico. they are going to build them and take those cars and sell them into the united states. and they will have all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages and that will be the end of michigan, south carolina and the end of everything. i have been talking to this and i set about nine months ago i said i want to do -- i want you to do me a favor john, and i will not give his last name because he might not like it.

and i said i want to go in cds. you press a button and everything works. i want to see one of the big ones and he said good. and i said i would like to go to michigan or someplace in the united states and he said we cannot do that because they are not building anything big. we do not build the big ones here. i said where? and i said in mexico, the giant plants and the biggest anywhere in the world. in mexico? they will make cars cheaply and have advantages and labor and other things and sell them into the united states? they will put michigan out of business? i do not know anything about that, if you want to see a plant we will go to mexico and show you the biggest plans in the world. that was nine months ago. i talk about it all the time because i think it is a serious threat to our country. so then i see him two days ago and i was talking at another club, a very nice club like this

except i think you people are even wealthier, ok? this is in detroit, which was appropriate. i was showing all sorts of charts, because it has just gone down and it is terrible. and i said how are you doing and how have you been? i said can i ask you how are those plans that you mentioned, those giant plants that you are building in mexico, how is that coming along, have you finish them? no, they abandon the project when you heard -- when they heard that you were running and they saw that you are winning and doing well. and i told them and i said it publicly. they are not can sell one car into the united states. and i said if i run this country and i will be president i will put a 100 or 200 or 2000% tariff.

they will not sell one car into the united states, because we will not destroy our country because i know you are anti-tariff but i am the exact opposite. there is no other way i could have stopped them other than negotiate with mexico or china? you will not get anything for them. i said i will put a 100, 200, or 300 tariff and stop them from ever selling a car into the united states. so he says, they have abandoned it. by the way they built foundations and they were going to do it. they thought that i was going to win or maybe they are just holding off. if i do not win those factories are going to wipe out this country. they are the biggest factories ever built for cars and they will wipe out my country. she does not know what the hell she is doing. if she wins, she will not be thinking about -- every speech i made having to do with cars or tariffs, i mentioned it. our country is being threatened

by mexico. now all of those things beyond the car companies, all of those things are dead. i asked them when will they start, probably not, dead as a doornail. if she gets in it will start up. >> i let you give them an example. you talked a lot about tariffs and you look at the american economy. 14 million. jobs rely on trade. if you cut that off that will have an effect on many business people here. tariffs have another side. isn't that something you have to acknowledge. trump: no. >> you could be plunging america into the biggest trade war. there are tariffs already. trump: there are no tariffs. all you have to do is build the plant in the united states and there are no tariffs. >> a lot of places like this, there are a lot of jobs that rely on things coming in.

you will basically stop trade with china. there is a 60% chance on -- tariffs on that. 100% in 200 things on things you do not like bud 10 and 20% on the restf the wod. -- the rest of the world. that will have a serious effect on the economy. you will find some people who gain individual tariffs. the overall effect could be massive. trump: i agree it will have a massive effect, positive. it is going to be a positive and not a negative. you know how committed you are to this and it must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as negative and somebody explain to you that you are totally wrong. >> president trump, 14 million jobs is a lot of jobs. trump: they are all coming back. >> 14 million jobs in america that rely on trade.

trump: john deere a great company. they announced that they are going to build a big plant outside of the united states. they are going to build them in mexico. and i said if john deere builds those plants they are not selling anything into the united states. they just announced that they are probably not going to build the plants. i kept the jobs here and john deere will stay here. and i will say if you do build outside of the united states if you want, india is a tough country. you know that china is and i would say probably the toughest. but you know it is very tough? the european union. european countries are wonderful. but if you add them up they are almost the size of us. they treat us so badly. we have a deficit. i said to angela merkel when she was there and i wonder why she is not.

when she was there i said how many chevys do we have in berlin? you have none. how many fords in frankfurt? i do not know. none. she said that is right. do you know how any cars we have, mercedes-benz, bmw, volkswagen, millions and millions of cars and then i said they do not want our farm products or anything from us. we have deficits that are crazy. and we will not have them. we will put tariffs on them and you know what they can do? mercedes-benz will start building in the united states. they have a little bit. do you know what they really are, assembly. they build everything in germany and they assemble it here. they get away with murder because they are building. they take them out of a box and assemble them. you could have a child do it. >> let's come back to europeans in the second. >> what about consumers?

trump: they're going to be the biggest beneficiaries. critics have said your tariffs will be like a national sales tax. we trillion dollars worth of imports. you're going to add terrorist every single one of them. that is going to push up costs for all of those people that want to buy foreign goods. it is mathematics, president trump. trump: it is, but not the way you figure it out. i was always very good at mathematics. they don't have to pay. >> the higher the tariff the more likely it is to have them come in. >> the higher the tariff the more value you're going to put on those goods, the higher people are going to pay in shops. trump: the higher the tariffs the more likely it is the company will come into the united dates and build a factory in the united states so it doesn't have to pay the tariff.

>> that would take many, many years. trump: no. in fact, i will tell you there is another theory. the tariff, you make it so high, so horrible, so it noxious that they will come right away. 10% is really -- first of all, 10% when you collect it is hundreds of billions of dollars. all reducing our deficit. but really there is two ways of looking at a tariff. you can do it as a moneymaking instrument or do it as something to get the companies -- now, if you want the companies to come in the cab has to be higher than 10%, because 10% is not enough. they are not going to do it for 10. but you make a 50% tariff they are going to come in. the other thing about tariffs that are great, our steel companies, when i was in office i saw a man from a big steel company and he was devastated. i knew him for a long time and it has been a tough business. it was a great business many years ago and i would not let u.s. steel be sold to the japanese, because psychologically i think it would be terrible. i would not let it be sold. i would stop it. even though it has not been completed by the time i was president. i think it sets a horrible tone. i had a lot to do with steel.

you are going to lose all of our steel companies because china was dumping steel at levels nobody has ever seen before. i put a 50% tax on that and it was also bad steel. it was what they called dirty steel, which is a bad thing for structural components of buildings and things like that. they were dumping crap into our country. and i put a 50% tariff, i started a 25, i raised it to 50 because the 25 did not do it. i raised it to 50 and they did it. they stopped dumping steel. i having that we saved it. he saved our steel. what was left? because we have lost so much, but there are certain companies, certain things you have to have. if you go to war there is a possibility you go to war, i kept us out of war. i was the only president in 82 years that kept you out of a war. defeated isis, but you inherited

that one. [applause] >> by the way, i think it is very important. i call it the weave. as long as you end up in the right location at the end. while we are talking about it, we have never been so close to world war iii as we have right now with what is going on in ukraine and russia and the middle east. i had no wars in the whole world. think of it. i talked them out of wars. i talked plenty of countries out of wars.

the whole world other than isis -- which i inherited -- and i knocked out isis in a matter of weeks. it was supposed to take four or five years. i did it in a matter of weeks. we have a great military. >> i was asking you about tariffs. many people would say that the biggest problem with your tariffs is actually geopolitics. you in your first term, you got some credit, effectively saying there was a cold war against china. you look at the last cold war against the soviet union, america won it in part because it rallied allies to it. you are talking about slamming allies with 20% tariffs. is it this time you were going to end up rallying the west and you are dividing it instead? isn't that the real problem with tariffs, even beyond the problems to the economy?

you keep bringing up these individual examples but the overall effect is going to be dramatic. answer first about foreign policy. how does it help you take on china, turning all of your allies? trump: china thinks we are a stupid country. a stupid country. they can't believe someone finally got wise to them. not one president, bush, obama, barack hussein obama, have you heard of him? not one president -- think of it. not one president charged china anything. they said, they are a third world nation. we are a developing nation too. take a look at detroit. we are a developing nation. we have to develop more than they do. we are way behind them. take a look at what has happened in our cities.

>> my question was about your allies, not about china. you are going to annoy the people rallying behind you. trump: our allies have taken advantage of us more so than our enemies. our allies of the european union. we have a trade deficit of three hundred billion dollars with the european union. our allies are japan. abe was a friend of mine. he was assassinated and he was a great man. i did not see too many like him and he got very sick and had to take off and he was actually making a comeback. he was going to make a comeback and he would have won easily, but he was a great gentleman. inspected by everybody. he -- i went to him and said, we have to talk. why? trade. and he goes -- i will never forget -- i know. i said, what do you know? i knew you would come to me. why do you say that? because i can't believe -- i wouldn't tell the story if he was alive. i said, i can't believe how many years it has been that nobody even negotiated with us in america. i said, you have to pay for your cars. you don't accept a car from us. you don't have one car you accept and yet we are selling 3 million of your cars. i said come on agriculture, you will not even accept our agriculture. i renegotiated the whole trade deal. i was stuck with a bad deal. we have trade deals that were so bad that i said, who are the people doing it? they are either very stupid or they are getting paid off, ok?

it is one of the other. it is very simple. we have the worst trade deals all over the world. i love south korea.

they are wonderful people. they have a money machine. protect them from north korea and other people. i get along with them very well. kim jong-un. but wait, they don't pay us anything. and i said, this is crazy. if i did not put tariffs on, you know, the motor company, the car companies, they make most of their money in small trucks. i put tariffs on china i put 27.5%, otherwise we would be flooded with chinese cars. and all of our factories would close. we have no jobs in the auto industry. that goes for electric, which is a killer, which i explained. i put tariffs on south korea because they were sending in trucks and i put tariffs on fairly substantial tariffs. did you know there are car companies that make almost all of their money with small trucks, suvs and small trucks? if i took those tariffs you would be inundated, every car company would be out of business. and i got calls from ford, i got calls from everybody saying, sir, i cannot believe you are doing this for us. you saved our company. they make all of their money with us. they make most of their money with small trucks -- ev's. >> many consumers ended up with more expensive cars, but let me come at you on foreign policy. trump: you would not have a car company. >> you have said that taiwan should pay for u.s. protection. trump: yeah. you mentioned north korea. the chinese army are engaged in rehearsals for a novel -- a naval blockade in taiwan. if china invades taiwan would you send american troops to

defend it? trump: the reason they are doing it now is they are not going to do it afterwards, ok? so they are doing it now. i had a very good relationship with president xi and a very good relationship with pruden -- putin, and a very good relationship with kim jong-un. today it was announced that he just blew up the railroad going into south korea. that means south korea is now cut off from russia and china and various other places. these are things i have to mention. you just mentioned putin. the controversy this past week, can you say whether you have talked to vladimir putin since you stopped being president? trump: i don't comment on that, but if i did it is a smart thing. if i am friendly with people, if i can have a relationship with people that is a good thing, not a bad thing, in terms of a country.

he has 2000 nuclear weapons and so do we. china has less, but they will catch us within five years. i don't talk about that. trump: you don't talk about talking to netanyahu? trump: russia has never had a president they respect so much, but more importantly or less importantly, i guess, i went into russia and people said, he likes putin and putin likes him. let me tell you, the first thing i did was terminated nord stream 2. nobody ever heard of nord stream 2. it is a pipeline from russia to germany and all over europe. let me get this straight, my first meeting, i said, putin is building the biggest pipeline in the world. he is going to germany, but all over europe, and you are paying

him billions of dollars a year -- billions of dollars a month? germany is paying billions of dollars a month and we are supposed to protect you against the guy you are paying all of this money to? is there something wrong with my thinking? so, he is building a pipeline to germany and we are spending -- by the way, until i got there we were spending almost 100% for nato because we had all of these delinquent countries. they were not paying. when i got there i said, you know what? and by the way, my biggest is staltenburg leaving, secretary-general of nato. he said when bush came in he made a speech and left, when obama came in, he made a speech and left. when trump came in he said, let me see your books. there were only seven countries pain. we were supporting nato. they screw us on trade so bad, the european nations, and then on top of that they were screwing us on the military. they were taking tremendous advantage of us, $350 billion on trade.

and we are than supporting them. in other words, it is not sustainable. you cannot keep doing this. you cannot have this, china, all of these countries, and stupid people made these deals. i saw trade deals that were so stupid. that were so bad that you would have to be an idiots to sign them. and we signed them for years. i could tell you trade deals that i have never seen. i said, who would agree to this? they had to be corrupt. they had to be corrupt to make those deals. because there is no way a rational human being -- i always say either corrupt or chinle stupid because there is no way a rational human being would ever sign the trade deals that this countryside. and i got out of many of those deals. i told south korea, i'm sorry, you are going to have to pay for your military. we have 40,000 troops over there. you have to pay.

you become a very wealthy country -- they said, no, we will not pay. we will not. have not paid since the korean war. i said, you've got to pay. i said, $5 billion year to start off with. they went crazy. they agreed to $2 billion. i got to billion dollars for nothing and i said, here is what we are going to do. they said, we can't agree to this because we have to go to parliament. they have the parliament or whatever their legislature is. i said, i fully understand that, make it $2 billion, but next year i'm going to talk to you again and make it $5 billion. they knew it was coming. the happiest people, to see that it was biden and instead of trump. you know what they did? they cut off the deal i made. they are back to nothing because they went back to biden and they gave it to him for nothing. we have 40,000 troops in harm's way because you have north korea is a very serious power.

they have tremendous nuclear power. i showed it to south korea, you have to pay, and they agreed to do it. but then cut it back. i could tell you, if i were there now they would be telling -- there would be paying us $10 billion a year. it is a money machine, south korea. you wanted to mention taiwan. >> you said you would defend them. you also seem to imply that putin, you had talked to him. trump: i said i don't comment on those things. can i ask you a particular thing about the dollar? you have talked about wars. you said if you lost the dollar as a reserve currency it would be like america losing a war.

look at what you are going to do in terms of protectionism. and all of that debt is going to lessen the dollar's stasis as the world's reserve care -- reserve currency. trump: your reserve currency is the strongest it will ever be. >> at the moment there is a thing called the trump trade in the market. you know what that is? people are betting that your policies are going to drive up debt, they are going to drive up inflation. they are going to drive up interest rates. are the investors wrong? trump: i had four years, no inflation. it is better than that. and biden, who has no idea where the hell he is, ok? biden went two years with no inflation because he inherited it, and then they started spending money like drunken sailors. it was so ridiculous, the money they were spending. the green new scam. the green new deal. she never even studied the environment in college.

she came out, see -- she just said, the green new scam. >> the markets are looking at the fact you are making all of these promises, the latest ones was car loans, you are flooding with giveaways. the upper estimate is $15 trillion. people like the wall street journal, hardly a communist organization, they have criticized you as well. you are running up enormous debt. >> i'm meeting with them tomorrow. they have been wrong about everything. so have you, by the way. >> you are trying to turn this into a debate. trump: it is not a debate. you are wrong. you have been wrong all of your life on this stuff. let me tell you about currencies. you are jumping into a lot of different subjects. the reserve currency, that is where you start, right? the reserve currency is under

threat because you have iran, you have russia, you have china. china is the one you have to worry about because they want to have the wan be the thing of power. here is what i'm doing. i had to go back to it. somebody says, i know countries want to get out because they don't respect our leadership. they look at this kind go, you've got to be kidding. i never thought i would say this. she is not as smart as biden if you can believe it. we had four years of this lunacy and we cannot have anymore. we are not going to have a country left. currency. very important. if you want to go to third world status, lose your reserve currency, we have to have that. we cannot lose it. you go to third world status in this country because you take a look at how things are running.

if a country tells me, sir we like you very much, but we are no longer going to adhere to being in the reserve currency, we are not going to salute the dollar anymore, i will say that is ok, and you're going to pay a 100% tariff on everything you sell into the united states and we love your product i hope you sell a lot of it into the united states, but you are going to pay 100% tax. he will then follow it up saying, sir, it would be an honor to stay with your reserve currency. that is not even chess. that is checkers. listen to this. you don't have other people that can talk that way. a lot of people say, we love trump's policy, but we would like to have another message because we don't like him, he is a little bit crass. it was lindsey graham, i must say, he was a progressive. lindsey graham said, trump's policy does not work without trump, and there is a lot of truth to that. emmanuel macron -- he is a wise guy, but he is from france and we are from the usa.

you know this, right? he was going to tax american countries -- companies doing business in france. i told my people, i did not even like the companies, but i am representing american companies. so i said, call emmanuel macron and call his people and say we are not going to stand for that i got my new chin and a lot of guys, smart guys -- if i can finish. i will go longer if you want. you have to be able to finish a thought, because it is very important. this is the stuff we are talking about. let me just tell you, so i said, i'm just telling you basic -- it is called the weave. it is all of these different things happening. i said to steven mnuchin, call him up and say, no way. he did and he came back to see me he said, they will not do it, sir. i said to somebody, let me do it.

and i called him. are taxing american companies very substantially. you are not doing it with other companies. you must think we are stupid. it's not going to happen. i cannot do anything, it is too late, it was approved by the legislature. that's ok. every bottle of wine and champagne you send into the united states, effective immediately, and i'm signing it as i speak, i'm charging you 100% on every bottle of wine and champagne. they like their wine and champagne. every bottle of wine and champagne that comes into the united states of america has attacks starting on monday morning. this was a friday. of 100%. that is better than you are doing, ok? he said, no, no you cannot do that. i say, i've done it, it is already signed. monday morning he says, can i call you back? he calls me back in about three minutes. we have decided to remove the tax. i did this all day long.

but you think biden does that? i don't think so. let me ask you a very factual question. the federal reserve. you say you don't want interest rates to go higher. you have gone backwards and forwards about whether you want to keep your own power as chair of the federal reserve. the term as chair runs to may 2026. would you seek to remove or demote him? trump: i think it is the greatest job in government. you show up to the office once a month and you say, football going. and everybody talks about you like you are a god. what will he do? the guy used to walk into my office and he was begging, he was fired.

we talked about removing him once. i did, because he was keeping the rates too high. >> and you would do that again? trump: in fact, he dropped them too much. because i said, i was threatening to terminate him. there was a question as to whether or not you could. it was an article in the new york times, one page said i can do it, one said i couldn't. that was enough for him. he dropped them too much. here's the story.

i think that if you are a very good president with good sense you should be able to at least talk to him. i don't say make the decision at all, but i have been a very successful businessman. now people are understanding how good i have done because they are seeing it. much better than the fake news wants to give me credit for. i think i have the right to say is a very good businessman and somebody who has used a lot of sense, i think i have the right to say that, you know, i think i am better than he would be. i think i'm better than most people would be in that position. i think i have the right to say i think you should go up and down a little bit. i don't think i should be allowed to order it, but i think i have the right to put in comments as to whether or not interest rates should go up and down. >> the supreme court, you made a list. would you do that with the federal reserve? trump: it was a great thing. a lot of people said i got elected because of that. it was an unknown quantity. i was known as a business guy but i was not known as a political person or the leader of a country. people were very worried about, actually they were worried, am i going to be liberal, if you want to know the truth. some but he said, would you come up with a list of 20 or 25 justices, in this case mostly judges, that you would put in in

case it were necessary? now it is amazing, because i got three in four years. those people get none. you put them in their young, you tend to put them in young. only stupid people put old. i got three. a lot of presidents get none. i got three. i think they have been three great choices too, by the way. by the way, i think they have been really great choices. but i got three judges and you know what they want to do? they want to now put up to 25 justices into the supreme court, the radical left. and that can't happen. i think i have done a great job

putting in justices. and 300 judges. and that made a tremendous difference in the country. i was a little lucky because barack hussein obama did not get his judges approved. a lot of them. so i ended up with 125 judges before i got there. again, most presidents do not even get to put a supreme court judge in, because it is nine and they are there for a long time. most of them are there for a very long time, and i got three, which is a very unusual situation. i got three in four years. >> maybe we can change the subject to technology? the u.s. justice department is thinking about breaking up alphabet, as google likes to be known now. should google be broken up? trump: i just have not gotten over something the justice department did yesterday.

where virginia cleaned up its voter rolls and got rid of thousands and thousands of bad votes and the justice department sued them, that they should be allowed to put those bad votes in, illegal votes back in, and let the people vote. i have not gotten over that. a lot of people have seen that. they cannot believe it. >> the question was about google, president trump. trump: google has been bad to me. very bad to me. i can speak from that standpoint. in other words, if i have 20 good stories and 20 bad stories and everyone is entitled to that, we will only see the 20 bad stories. and i called the head of google the other day and i said, i'm getting a lot of good stories lately, but you don't find them in google. i think it is a rigged deal. i think google is rigged. >> you would break them up, and other words? trump: i would do something. look, i give them credit, they have become such a power. you have to give them credit for that. how they became a power is really the discussion. at the same time it is a very

dangerous thing because we want to have great companies. we don't want china to have these companies. right now china is afraid. you know, china is a very powerful, very smart group of people. i will tell you that from very personal experience. >> a chinese tech company, tiktok, you wanted to ban tiktok. now you like it, apparently for some reason to do with facebook. it's chinese parent would have to sell it by january 19. would you force them to do that? trump: i originally had it all done, and then i said to congress, your decision. i said, i'm not going to pull any strings, nothing, your decision. you make it. but i had it all done. i said, you make it. and they decided not to make it. i did not care if they made it or not because to me it was the flip of a coin.

you have some first amendment problems. you have a lot of problems. >> you just talked about chinese technology, the need to defend against it. the threat people see two american children. trump: i think it is a threat. i think everything is a threat. there is nothing that is not a threat. sometimes you have to fight through these threats. like google, i'm not a fan of google. they treat me badly. are you going to destroy the company by doing that? if you do that are you going to destroy the company? what you can do without breaking it up is make sure it is more fair. they do treat me very badly. he told me, no way, you are the number one person on all of google for stories. which probably makes sense. most of them are bad stories, but these are minor details, right?

it has only been because of fake news because the news is fake. we have to straighten out our press because we have a corrupt press. that is the one. [applause] >> can i ask you about silicon valley? you talk to tech people. there seems to be a real fear that what you would do with tech is handed over to elon musk and say, you sort it out. trump: i have great respect for elon. look, i saw that rocketship come in yesterday and go right back to work. took off to the gantry, i guess they call it. i said, what the hell? i was talking about probably politics and the television is on, and i'm seeing this big thing where the white paint was burned off from thousands of miles an hour, the heat. this big, massive tube that is

10 stores, 20 stories tall come down. i told the person on the phone, wait a minute, i'm seeing something. i don't believe it. neither does anybody else here. i said, wait a minute, and i got the guy on the phone, he waited for half an hour, and i watched that come down and i watched it come down and come right in between us, big levers, and i said, and it looked to me like it was going to crash. all of a sudden you see motors, the fire kick in. i call elon and said, that is the most incredible thing. i said, can russia do that? nope. can the united states do it? no. he is the only one. >> do you want to put him in charge of deregulation? cutting wasteful spending? trump: including deregulation. no. >> every president talks about cutting wasteful spending.

trump: there is tremendous waste. give me an example of something you will do that will get rid of government spending. trump: when i came into government the first thing -- >> going forward. not what you did in the past. trump: this is the same thing. a general came into my office and he said, sir, it is nice to meet you, would you please sign this? i said, what is it? it is a contract for a new air force one, which is actually two planes, not one. i said, how much is it? $5.7 billion. there is reasons for that. i said, nope, i'm not signing it. who negotiated it? barack hussein obama. i said, i'm not signing it. why? because there is a lot of fat. it's got to have a three on it long story short, some of you heard this. i got it down because first week they cut off $400 million, and i met with the head of boeing. dennis, i said, dennis, 5.7 is too much.

he said, the most will take off is $700 million. i said, that's not bad for one conversation. then he took off two more. anyway, two months went by, i felt that we blew the deal and i didn't care. but we should have a new air force one. when we see these planes from saudi arabia, from different countries, brand-new, ours is 32 years old, and it is a very different plane, the united states should have the best plane, i will tell you. >> let me just ask, would you -- trump: he calls up after 2, 3 months, i did not call him, which is the best way to buy something. don't call back. when he called me i said, i wonder what he wants? that is a good way to negotiate, let me tell you. he calls me back, he says, sir, 3,999,000,000. and $.99.

one penny below $4 billion. i said, you've got yourself a deal. then i said to him, let me ask you a question. you had a deal at $5.7 billion and i got $1.7 billion off. that means you are going to make $1.7 billion profit on an airplane. did nobody ever negotiate with you? well, not really, sir, this is the price, and they said, we will take it. i said, you know, and then i learned, that was my first experience from that, but then i learned everything is like that. i'm getting -- think of this -- the exact same plane for $1.7 billion less, except i have a better paying job. much better paint job. red, white, and blue, it is beautiful. if you look at every contract,

that is one contract, and relatively small compared to most. think of it. you save $1.7 billion because you negotiated? every deal is like that. we are building ships that cost 2, 3 times more. >> can you give me an example. trump: there is tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse and if you could cut it you would have a surplus without even going into growth. but growth, we will grow, we are going to bring companies and jobs and at levels you have never seen. you would never be able to do it because you are not a believer. let me tell you, the only way you can do it is through the threat of tariffs. that is the only way you can do it. >> can we come back to one thing on that? dealmaking. there are some big businesses, but a lot of small ones. you have given us a lot of examples of things where you have negotiated with the heads of big businesses.

when you put the tariffs on china, much smaller than you are planning to do at the moment, apple came, you negotiated a difference for them. trump: i did. >> that is much harder for small business people. isn't the way you deal with the m, there are small companies that get hit by all of these different things i cannot find exceptions? trump: we have exceptions. no, no. i give apple an exception. >> apple it -- is not a small company. my question is about small businesses. what will you do for them? trump: we have a very talented group of people. bob lighthouse did a good job. we had great people. we had central casting. and a large group of people. we made exceptions. in the case of apple they needed an exception. you know why? because of samsung. he came to me he said, samsung makes a product similar to ours, very good, phones and other

things. because they are in south korea they don't have the tariffs. i said, you happen to be right. you are not going to be able to compete. i said, i'm going to give you a one-year break, but i'm going to have you build factories in this country. he said, what does that mean? you have everything in china. i want you to move it back to our country. and he started doing that. and he built a factory, a big one in texas. this was all a process. it was all happening. but i did give him an exception and the reason was he said -- as soon as he said samsung i said, how does that product compared to yours? i said, you cannot compete. you cannot have a 50% tariff and compete, right? i said, i'm giving you an exception. and i did it for many companies. >> small businesses. that was the question. trump: we do it for small

businesses too. he came to me, he was at a meeting, and he built kitchen cabinets. and he was, you know, pretty big in business. he said, sir, china and south korea are building kitchen cabinets for one third of what i can make. i said, what is the quality? they are not as good, but they are good enough. i put a 25% tariff -- still on -- on kitchen cabinets. i saw the guy 2, 3 days ago, he said, i'm the man that saw you about kitchen cabinets. you saved my company when you did the tariff and you saved thousands of jobs and my company is now doing very well. and he started to cry. this is a guy who has not cried

too much, i will tell you. he said, you saved my company. >> maybe i can ask you about something else. business people in this room, business people, capital markets, they all like the rule of law, they like certainty. the chinese do not like it when things -- they like it when things go wrong in america. if you look at the events of january 6, 20 21, it showed too many people america's democracy was unruly and violent. only three weeks to go until the election. will you commit to inspecting and encouraging a -- a peaceful transfer of power? trump: you had a peaceful transfer of power. >> you had a peaceful transfer of power compared to venezuela, but it was by far the worst transfer of power for a long time. trump: thank you. i appreciate that. this is what they like to do. this is what they like to do. >> the question is, would you

respect the decision? trump: when i find out about this interview i did a little checking. this is a man who has not been a big trump fan over the years. i had a choice, do i do this interview or not? i'm glad i did it, but do i do this interview or do i disappoint a lot of people? i know a lot of people in the audience, but his view is different than mine. >> i'm asking you. mr. trump: we had a term. peacefully and patriotically. these were people -- if you think an election is crooked -- and i do, 100% -- if you think the day it comes when you can't protest -- you take a look at the democrats, they protested 2016. they are still protesting. nobody talks about them. but if we protest we want to have honest elections. you think the last election was honest? >> it went to the courts. mr. trump: they went to court,

and the courts all said, you don't have standing. nobody had standing. and it is hard after an election for a judge, but nobody ever had standing. but the facts, if you take a look, i would show you hundreds of pages of facts. people were angry. and i will tell you what. they never show that. the primary seen in washington was hundreds of thousands, the largest group of people i have ever spoken before. and it was love and peace. some people went to the capital, and a lot of strange things happened there. people being waved into the capital by police, with people screaming "go in" that never got into trouble. i don't want to mention names but you know who they are. but you had a very peaceful -- i left. i left the morning that i was supposed to leave. i went to florida. and you had a very peaceful transfer.

i will tell you what. those people that did go in, which was a tiny fraction of people that went to washington, you are talking about a very small -- hundreds of thousands of people, and i don't know what you had, 5, 6, 7 -- 700 people go to the capital. those people, not one of those people had a gun. nobody was killed except for ashli babbitt. she was killed. she was shot in the head by a police man that knows what he did was horrible. so, i think we should be allowed to disagree on that. and obviously you see by the reaction. >> let's return to one another subject to bring up repeatedly, immigration. i know it is a very emotive issue for you. just from the perspective of business people here you look at the full effect of taking a lot of people out of the workforce, removing a lot of people.

the congressional budget office is banking on the fact that there will be $9 trillion added to the gdp of america over the next 10 years by immigrants. you wanted to stop the process. for all the people who run businesses in the audience, i'm focusing on the economic. are you prepared to say, it is fine to have a slightly smaller economy in exchange for having immigration control? mr. trump: simple answer. i want a lot of people to come into our country, but i want them to come in legally. [applause] >> that means you will have to deport -- you are talking about deporting 11 million people. that is a lot of people. mr. trump: it came out last week that 425 thousand people are horrible criminals at the highest level.

but it came out that 14,099 were let in during their administration. over the last 3.5 years, 13,000-plus people came in, murderers. they are in jail for murder. some were having the death penalty. there were all released into our country. 13,099 people were released into our country. we had drug dealers released. we had street gangs released. look at what is happening in aurora. now i don't have to go with aurora anymore. look at what happened yesterday in times square, where rough migrants from all over the place -- you know, it is not just south america. we have people coming in from the congo. large numbers from the congo and africa. they came in as of last night i was speaking to tom homan, 180 countries, people came in, they came from prisons and jails. they went from mental

institutions and insane asylums, a step above. they came from the terrorists. we had large numbers of terrorists come in. and i was president we had the strongest border in the history of our country. i built hundreds of miles of wall -- and walls work, by the way. now we have the worst numbers, and here is the problem. we have some of the worst criminals in the world coming in. now, venezuela, their crime has gone down at levels nobody has ever seen before. because they have taken their street gangs and drug dealers and they have emptied their presence. not fully, because they cannot get enough buses. they loaded up buses and they drive them into the united states, and they are dropping prisoners into our country. their numbers are crazy, how low it has dropped. i heard 72%.

they have taken their gangs, they have taken their criminals off the street. they have taken people out of mental institutions, which cost them a fortune, and they have taken them and drop them into the united states of america. those people have to be returned. we cannot live with thousands of murderers. >> the issue i asked you about was the idea that if you reduce immigration -- every economist will tell you if you have fewer people there is a smaller economy. fmr. pres. trump: i like immigration, but they have to come in legally. >> let's finish. >> no, i want to make sure. look, i don't want to have people that have killed nine people and are sadistic, crazy nut jobs. we have to have people that can love our country, that will obey the laws and everything else. you have hundreds of thousands of criminals being dropped in. venezuela is one country. look at what they have done in aurora.

they have taken over apartment complexes. they have gone into the real estate business. they are like us, except they have done it with mk whatever the hell they are called, right? they have weapons that are so sophisticated -- our military does not have them -- they have taken over parts of cities. in colorado you have a place called beautiful aurora. take a look at what has happened in springfield, ohio, where they dropped 30,000 people into a community of 50,000 people, and it is total bedlam. the hospitals cannot be used anymore by the residence. the schools cannot be used by the children that were there last year because other people that don't -- don't even speak the language. >> the issue i asked you about, many companies have a shortage of labor. trump: we will take care of that. we are going to get people in here rapidly and there are going to be people that want to be in here and people that love our country and will not kill people

because they have -- because they don't like the way they look. these are, by the way, some of these killers are among the most evil killers. they will look at you down a beautiful woman there, they will look at you and kill you. these are seriously sick people, and, no, i don't want them in our country. they are in our country right now because kamala harris, who is an incompetent person. >> for the record, as you know, the crime rate is lower. can i finish with two questions? the first, you just said it, you own and run businesses. would you appoint a ceo who was 78? trump: oh yeah. yeah, i would. it depends on people like biden who is in bad shape? i would not appoint him. he is 81 or 82. he is four years older. but i would appoint -- i know some of the smartest people i know. i know a man that made all of

his money from the time he was which -- he was 80 to 90, and he was a failure all of his life. he was in the drinks business. >> you didn't bring this up when you ran against joe biden. trump: i never attacked him for his age. i attacked him for his lack of competence. >> i asked you all of these questions. >> i think it is important. and i know you do too. i know so many people in their 80's that are among -- marcus is 95, the founder of home depot. you have a conversation with him, he is just as sharp mentally as he ever was. he is 95. i could tell you -- i don't want to get into the 90's stuff, but you know what? i know many people in their 80's. i know guys in their 80's that will not leave the company, like family companies where they do not want the kids to take over, because they are much more competent than their kids.

i would have no problem. you do have another factor. >> on the supreme court you just said -- >> trump: some world leaders are in their 80's. if you look throughout history some of our greatest world leaders were in their 80's. that would not bother me. i took two cognitive tests and i aced them both. i think that, frankly, people regardless should take -- if they are 50 or 40 or i think people should take cognitive tests not because of the age, but because of something else. he was the problem. -- here was the problem. they say it is unconstitutional. but i would love to see cognitive tests. i don't think she could pass a cognitive test. i don't think she could pass a cognitive test. >> you have gone over many issues on this. i asked you many questions. one thing i haven't asked about is the state of the race.

on election night which state when you look at first? which state will this race be decided by? fmr. pres. trump: i think we are doing very well in pennsylvania. i think we are doing very well there. i think you look at michigan too , and i'm doing very well there. we are not going to necessarily -- the votes are starting to come in now so you look at polls, but you can also look at the votes that are being cast right now. people get a pretty good indication. as we discussed backstage, aced -- based on the votes coming in so far we are doing very well. we are way up in pennsylvania. we are way up in michigan. we are doing well in arizona. i saw arizona. in fact somebody said they are going to pull the plug in arizona because it looks like we are ahead. i think we are doing well. look, this is a party, the republican party, of common sense. forget about conservative, liberal.

we are really a party of -- we need borders, we need fair elections. we don't want men playing in women's sports. we don't want transgender operations without parental consent. there are so many things, but it is 99.9% is common sense. it really is common sense. i like to say it. i don't know if anyone has said it in the past, but we are really a party of common sense and we want to have great people in our country. i want to have a lot of people come in so they have a choice. i have a good heart. i have a heart where i want people to be taken care of, but i do not want to take in people where millions of people, 21 million people at least have come in in the last 3.5 years unvented -- un-vented. unchecked, we don't know anything about them, how about this? gavin newsom, the governor of california.

new scum, i call him. he corrected me. that is the first time. >> there are ceos out here if they said that sort of thing about a rival ceo they would be sacked. fmr. pres. trump: they don't have to go through what i went through. there has never been a president treated like me, so i have to fight my own way. [applause] >> you have made -- fmr. pres. trump: he signed a bill two days ago that you don't even have the right to ask a person for voter id, and if you ask a person for voter id, of course you have to show voter id. the only reason you would not do it is because they want to cheat. the bill says you cannot, it is against the law for you to ask a person. may i please see your voter id? what is our country coming to? >> you have given us a tour of

where the country may be going to. thank you very much. fmr. pres. trump: thank you. good job. [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] ♪ >> will you solemnly swear that in the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> watch our encore presentation of american history tv's serie congress investigates as we in -- explore investigations by the house and senate.

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c-span, our free mobile app,r online at c-span.org. >> c-span is your under -- unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these companies and more, including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? it does more than that. >> comcast is partnering with community centers so students can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> president biden spoke in support of the 2024 democratic nominee, his vice president kamala harris, during a campaign event at the sheet metal workers local 19 trading -- training center. this is 25 minutes.

♪ [applause] pres. biden: hello, hello. >>[crowd chanting] thank you joe! thank you joe! pres. biden: you know, i

represented delaware but i would not have been elected without philadelphia and that is the truth. thanks to the sheet metal workers local 19. along with the leaders of members of other labor unions across the country, folks i want to thank my good friend bobby brady. if you are ever in a foxhole, you are looking for help, you want him next to you, man. you've got great leadership in the state. governor shapiro who i talked to all the time. lieutenant governor, two of the best in the nation. bobby casey from my hometown of scranton, pennsylvania. john fetterman, doing a tremendous job. he does better in short pants than most people do and long pants. you have an incredible mirror --

mayor ian cheryl parker. are we going to reelect bobby casey to the u.s. senate? are we going to elect mcclellan state treasurer? is eugene here? he is in the debate. you better elect him attorney general. you've got to elect my body malcolm -- my body malcolm. most important, are you going to elect kamala harris president of the united states of america? folks, four years ago i picked her to be my vice president because she is smart and tough. she is a first rate district attorney in california, attorney general and u.s. senator but most of all, i picked her because she has character and integrity. i must admit, she has one

endorsement that matters most to me. my son beau biden was attorney general of delaware and i gave him my word before he headed to little rock, he said it -- i met the next generation. he worked with kamala, they worked together to take on the big corporations. he spent the next year in iraq with those awful burn pits. 10 feet deep, incredible, used to incinerate chemicals, tires, just like 9/11, all of those firemen. smoke thick with poison spread through the air into the lungs of our troops. beau, like many others, was diagnosed with glioblastoma. it was a death sentence. he lasted for a long while. he was attorney general in delaware, she was attorney general in california and he

told me, dad, she is an extraordinary leader. she is the next generation. she has batman more to me. -- that and more to me. i know both jobs, what they take and i can tell you kamala harris has been a great vice president and she will be a great president, as well. it is time to pass the torch to the next generation. i knew who i wanted to replace me. i endorsed kamala. her enthusiasm was off the charts. she beach trump so badly in the debate, he is scared to death to meet her again. tough guy, right? he knows he will lose again. he is a loser. that is a fact.

i'm proud of our record the past four years. maybe you saw rachel maddow last night who raised a lot of questions. who is doing a better job in the economy? she said the biden harris economy has left every other rich country in the world in the dust, it left the trump administration and the dust. that wasn't hard to leave him in the dust. i think he lives in the dust. we created more jobs in a single term but in all of american history. more people working today than ever before. wages are higher than they have ever been before and more people have more -- health insurance. what does trump want to do? use his favorite words, terminate. i'm serious, he means what he says. he wants to terminate the. he has been trying and he failed every time. if he does so 40 million americans is health care.

30 million. 100 million will lose protection because they have pre-existing conditions. he likes to call himself pro-business. we know trump is a failed businessman. he inherited $100 million. and he was bankrupt how many times? i can't keep track. including bankrupting a casino, which is hard to do. how is that possible? i thought the house always won. he was not only a loser in 2020, he is a loser in everything he does. on my watch businesses of all sizes are surging. a record number of small business applications, 19 million so far since we got elected and every application is an act of hope. remember when trump got elected, he said the stock market would crash if i got elected.

i didn't have any stock, but anyway. if he means the stock market crash to record highs, he is right. the highest in american history. it must be irritating to a guy who turns to fox news and sees the biden harris it is the strongest in history. unemployment is in historical lows. the smallest racial wealth gap in 20 years. the wages have grown faster than inflation for more than a year. inflation is at 2.4%. in fact it is back to pre-pandemic levels and still going down. along with interest rates dropping. send middle-class folks are benefited more than those at the

top. the number of workers filing for union representation has doubled since i became president. doubled. you got it, man. >> [crowd chanting] thank you joe! pres. biden: my grandfather said , joey, you are union from belt buckle tissue soul. he said it a little more colorful than that. our administration is the first in five decades to increase union participation. it is simple. they know, you know, we know wall street didn't build america. the middle class did. that is a fact. i make no apologies for being the most pro-union president in american history. folks, i mean it.

under our administration we made the most significant investment in public has -- $15 billion to law enforcement. not a single republican voted for it. as a result violent crime is down to a 50 year low. murder rates are at the lowest ever. the reduction. trump's response, lie after lie. somehow he says the stats are fake. they are making up numbers. for weeks we negotiated the strongest bipartisan border deal in american history. one of the most conservative senators from oklahoma and a progressive democrat from connecticut worked on it, got it passed, and produced it into congress. what happened? judges, high-tech machinery and the like. trump knew it was a good deal. he got on the phone and started calling republicans saying you can't vote for this because it

will help biden. he is a great american, isn't he? trump and the republicans killed the deal but kamala and i took executive action. despite of -- what trump says, there are fewer border crossings today than there were when he left office. we were people coming into this country illegally -- fewer people coming intountry illegally than the day he left office. kamala will do more for comprehensive reform. that is one of the main things. let's set the record straight, more people are working today in america than any time. more people have health insurance than when trump was president. people earning higher wages. the stock market is higher.

violent crime is down. fewer people are crossing the border and trump calls that a hellscape? he talks about america being a failed nation. where is he from? a president calls america a failed nation. that makes me angry. i say america is winning. we are the most powerful, respected nation in the world and every other country would like to be like us. trump says we are losers but the only loser i know is donald trump. there is more work to be done. kamala and i have plans to bring down the cost of housing, childcare and more. how we solve these challenges will help the next president. every president has to cut their own path. i was loyal to barack obama but cut my own path as president. that is what kamala will do. she will cut her own path.

she will further economic growth, making it easier to start businesses, how to make health care more affordable, the border more secure, how to make eldercare more affordable. this grows the economy and cuts the deficit. folks. kamala will take the country in her own direction and that is one of the most important differences. her perspective is fresh and new. donald trump's perspective is old, failed and thoroughly, totally dishonest. what is his idea for our economy? he says he wants another tax cut, $5 trillion, this is not a joke. $5 trillion tax cut for the wealthy. last time he did $2 trillion tax cut and increased the national debt more than any other president in any single term. by the way, to pay his taxes to

the wealthy, he wants to cut social security and medicare. it is not a joke. it is not a joke. in addition to terminating the affordable care act he wants to repeal what we did to lower prescription drug costs, bow down to big pharma again. kamala finally beat big pharma. we gave medicare the power to negotiate. look. the v.a., seniors with disabilities are now paying $35 per month instead of $400. starting in january, all seniors on medicare will have a total percentage of drug costs capped at $2000 per year no matter how much they have to spend. [applause] pres. biden: cancer drugs. excuse me. we ain't going back.

>> [crowd chanting] we are not going back! we are not going back! we are not going back! we are not going back! we are not going back! we are not going back! pres. biden: by the way. our medicare reform not only saved seniors medicare money. you know how much it saved taxpayers? $160 billion. medicare is paying $35 instead of $400. trump wants to take that away. kamala wants to expand everything. look.

trump would get rid of the $369 billion we passed, most in history to deal with climate change. by the way, no climate change, right? i just spent a week from florida to north carolina. it is devastated. you want to know why? because the ocean water is warming. it is increasing the threat of significant weather. how does that make you feel after the last hurricane that ripped through this country? knowing we would cut back, just -- look. trump wants a new sales tax on goods we import. in significant numbers. 85% of all the sea food we eat is imported. 60% of the fresh fruit, 40% of the vegetables. we import coffee, clothing and much more. according to economist, if the

sales tax will pass the average family will have an increase of 400 -- $4000 per year. it is a surprise that we have a guy who can't afford to say the word union wants to get overtime for hard-working folks taken away. he and his allies say they support the middle class. give me a break. this is from the same guy who calls himself a great protector of women. come on. >> [crowd chanting] fire trump again! pres. biden: this guy has been held liable for $83 million for sexual and defamation.

same guy who got rid of roe v. wade, who has 300 major cases waiting for him when he loses. and by the way, 34 felonies. he got the sentence kicked back, but i want to watch that sentence. donald trump is running for himself. he is running to stay out of jail, i think. what does he have left? he has come down to demonizing immigrants, calling them animals. saying they don't have good genes and poison the blood of the country. it is sick. it is designed to prey on our worst fears. it is un-american. think about it. trump hides all his racism, or used to. now it is out front. he has the same idea on race as the 1930's. ideas on the economy from the 1920's, his ideas on women are

from the 19 50's. this is 2024. we can't go back. we have made too much progress. we have to keep moving forward. for all the talk about policy, this is important but the real measure of a president's character. integrity. judgment. because here is what i can tell you. every president is confronted with crises no one saw coming. in that moment, what matters about a president, does he or she have integrity? a code of honor they live by. what belief system guides their decision? how do they handle pressure? how do they respond when things don't go their way? will they uphold their oath and honor the constitution? with donald trump we know the answer. ask yourself, how did donald trump handle covid? a crisis he saw coming.

we know from bob woodward's book that he lacks character. the belief that it wasn't the dangerous thing, and remember how he told us to inject bleach? bless me, father. in the middle of the covid crisis he gave putin, came out recently, he gave vladimir putin covid tests that were deafened -- desperately needed by americans at home and to putin. trumpcare is more about kissing up to putin than he does about your sons and daughters. we lost more than a million people in covid. think about how many we could have saved if it wasn't for his selfishness. think about the 2020 election trump lost. we defeated him by 7 million votes but he couldn't accept it despite the ruling of more than 60 courts including the supreme

court. he threatened the lives of elected officials, sent violent mobs to be u.s. capitol to stop a peaceful transition of power. he sat in the oval office and did nothing for three hours as people were being attacked. lawmakers were forced to hide. when trump saw the mob was looking for mike pence to hang him, you know what his response was? so what? let me tell you something. you can't be pro-insurrection and pro-america. you can't denounce january 6, you don't have any business being president. and look. trump has gotten worse. he snapped. he's become unhinged. look at his rallies. last night, last night his rally

stopped taking questions. because someone got hurt. and guess what? he stood on the stage for 30 minutes and danced. i'm serious. what's wrong with this guy? if trump is elected again he said he'll use the justice department to attack his political enemies. he said he'll fire 500,000 civil servants and replace them with trump loyalist. he just said he could use the u.s. military to go after u.s. citizens who disagree with him. he said it. he still refuses to accept the results of 2020 and refuses to accept the results of the 2024 election if he loses again. look, folks. every generation faces a moment where democracy has to be defended. this is our moment i believe to my core, when we beat trump in

2020, we saved american democracy. now we have to do it again in 2024. folks, in this election we have to decide who we want, what we want america to be, who is america? kamala will be a president who believes in an america that still stands for the corps proposition stated in this -- started this nation. right here in philly. where the declaration of independence was signed. where the constitution was written. where we determined the power of the institutions of government are determined by the power of the people. the very idea of america, we are all created equal, deserve to be treated equally. we've never fully lived up to it but unlike trump we're not going to walk away from it. i'll be damned if we walk away

from it now. we have a lot of work to do. especially here in pennsylvania. how you go will affect the elections. we have to talk to friends and neighbors and co-workers, we have to beat back the lies with truth and we have to vote. we have to get out the vote. philadelphia are you ready in let's show the world who we are. we are the united states of america. and nothing is beyond our capacity when we work together. god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you. ♪ higher and higher i said your love keeps on lifting higher and higher ♪♪

[crowd chanting "thank you joe"] ♪ your love keeps lifting me -- pres. biden: by the way, i married a philly girl! [applause]

>> will you solemnly swear that in the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? >> weeknights watch our encore presentation of american history tv's 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 these stories. we'll see historic footage from this period and examine the impact and legacy of key congressional hearing. tonight, a senate committee in 1975 led by idaho democratic senator frank church into the intelligence community. watch tonight on c-span 2. >> on wednesday, army secretary christine wormuth participate in a swcase highlighting the

civilian work force of the army. we'll have live coverage on c-span, span now, our free mobile video app and online at c-span.org. >> the house will be in order. >> this year, c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979 we've been your primary source for capitol hill. pr riding balanced, unfiltered coverage of government. taking you to where the policy is debated and decided all with the support of america's cable companies. c-span. 45 years and counting. powered by cable. at the table, the senior vice president and senior policy director to cost -- talk about the candidates' tax and spending plans. let's talk about the tariffs and

trade policies and get into what each of the candidates has said could former president wants to impose a 10% to 20% tariff on imports from all countries. 60% on tariffs from imports from china. the vice president wants to implement eight targeted and strategic tariff to support american workers. can you talk about each plan? guest: fort 60 years essentially in the united states has been reducing tariffs to the point where president trump took office there were barely any. he implemented a number of tariffs in the first term, mainly on china and on certain goods like washing machines for example. president harris mostly wants to keep the trump tariffs. president trump wants to dramatically expand the tariffs in the second term and talked about at 10% or 20% baseline tariff and 60% on china and retaliatory tariffs on us, 100%

on autos. he threw out a lot about numbers but they do speak to a general direction which is you have to raise a lot of revenue from taxes on imports. host: how much revenue? guest: we have figured out $2.5 trillion to $3 trillion over a decade. it is a tremendous amount of money, anything in the trillions is a key source of revenue under his plan. host: what would be the economic impact? guest: a lot of people would look at negative. when you increase the tariffs you increase from -- on americans. but the second is when we impose

tariffs on other countries, they impose tariffs on american companies and that hurts the selling as well. so the tax foundation has looked at it and said it could be less if they are smooth or more if there is a trade war. host: what does that do to revenues? guest: we have a look at this, the first order effect is the 10% and then the 60% on china, 2.7% of revenue but produces output and then we his income taxes and payroll taxes but it won't eat all of the revenue so maybe it will eat out one quarter or 1/5 of revenue gain. host: you said the vice president wants to keep with the former president did in the first administration on the tariffs. how much revenue did that bring in? guest: that was bringing in more like $400 billion over the same

timeframe. the vice president says that is her base and talking about tinkering from their, where we were in 2021 president trump left office. host: what does that do to our national deficit? where were the numbers then? guest: i think the general rule is small taxes, small impact and big taxes big impact. the tariffs were relatively modest. we thought some areas like washers and dryers. we think we saw some reduction in the growth of gdp. the best estimates are 0.2% or 0.3%. when they are a small, it is hard to separate what is going on from the tax host: cuts. -- tax cuts. host: where is the national debt now and what has been the

biggest driver? guest: if you earn a lot of income, you can afford a big mortgage. you don't earn very much you can't afford a big mortgage. same for the united states. we can afford the debt with the size of the economy but generally it is half the size. today it is as large as the economy, 99% and within a few years will -- we will be at a record level. the record set in world war ii is a hundred and 6% and we've never passed it. and over time it is just going to keep rising. the interest rate will keep rising because we have a very expensive health and retirement programs, social security, medicare and medicaid and those costs go up and as more people retire and health care rises. the tax revenue coming in is flat and in some ways has been declining because every few years politicians come in and cut taxes. host: what about the 2017 cox

cuts -- tax cuts during the trump revenue? guest: we cut the corporate rate to 21% from 35% and cut individual rates and expanded the child tax credit. it cost to $20 over a decade. and the tax cuts in large part were temporary. most of us over an eight year period ended at 2025. if we were to extend those in full it would be another $4 trillion through 2035. host: what impact has that had on the debt? guest: if you add to trillion dollars of tax cuts, that is to trillion more to the debt. if we do another at trillion dollars that is another $4 trillion. if you look at the candidates' platforms, huge reason both candidates are projected to add to the debt is that they want to extend large parts of the tax cuts.

host:his is from the former president's campaign. extend or expand 2017 tax cuts, lower corporate tax rat from 21% to 15%, eliminate federal income t on tips and social security income and eliminate taxes on overtime pay. talk about those. guest: they are all very expensive. president trump started out as you mentioned with calling for an extension of the tax cuts. that is $4 trillion. then he got into going on the campaign trail and promising a new tax cut, no taxes on tips, over time social security benefits, no salt tax. 15% not for all corporations but corporations that produced domestically. on top of that, he wants more spending. this is trillions of dollars of tax cuts.

a $20 to $9 trillion of tax cuts and not only will they add to the deficit but in some cases they will significantly weaken social security. those taxes help fundhe social security and medicaid programs. payroll taxes on overtime and tips help to fund social security. if the president's agenda would be enacted in full, not only would it at a lot to the debt but would shorten the life of the social security and medicare trust fund. host: in her life right now is that what? guest: social security is expected to round of reserves in nine months. and under the former president it could be eight or nine years. host: ensuring no tes on individuals making ss than 400,000, eliminate federal income t on tips, raise the corporattax rate from 21% to 28 percent, raise capital gains rate and impose new tax on unrealized capital gains for

those worth $100 million or more. what would this do? guest: vice president harris' overall tax plan, she appears to want to extend large parts of the trump taxes but for the 98% making $400,000 or less, she wants to extend them. that is $3 trillion. so the child tax credit right now is $2000, she wants to bring it up to $3000 and for some children, new ones up to $6,000. she wants to expand the earned income tax credit and wants a 25,000 dollars first-time home tax credit and no taxes on tips. this is a couple more $20 wor of revenue loss. on the flip side, she has embraced the tax credits from president biden's, this means higher corporate taxes, higher

taxes on individuals especially focused on higher capital gains rate. it is not a wealth tax but attacks on wealthy americans on the unrealized gains of income. overall her tax agenda is much higher taxes on the rich and corporations to pay for lower taxes on some elements of the middle class. host: doesn't it actually pay for it? guest: if you remove the extension spot but we don't think it adds up. not just the tax cuts but the spending increases. we think the tax increases follow $3 trillion short. when we looked at the plan as a whole, the base case, and there is a lot of uncertainty because this campaign and not legislative language. what we think she is saying is her plan would add $3.520 over

the debt over a decade and we think president trump's would add $7 trillion. host: what would he do on spending? guest: he said we are going to cut on spending but short on specifics. he says he wants to eliminate the department of education. he has talked about prescription drug savings but says -- has removed it from his website. he is talking about the real savings and talking about reduce. and we know that his plans would reduce some fraudulent reporting but it doesn't add to a whole lot. a lot of what he wants to do is increase spending on defense including higher pay for our troops including a u.s. iron dome.

he has talked about more money for immigration enforcement. you look at president trump's overall agenda, spending increases and cuts but really it is mostly tax agenda and tax cuts and mostly tariff agenda. host: marc goldwein is here to talk about the candidates' tax and spending proposals. call in now. the republican line is (202) 748-8001, democrats (202) 748-8000, independents (202) 748-8002. you can text and include your first name, city and state to (202) 748-8003. what do each of them propose on the social security and medicare and savings? guest: social security is only nine years from insolvency. the benefits have to be cut we don't have enough money.

and we have to cut that and for one year for a couple that would be $16,000. president trump would make it worse by reducing revenue coming in and getting ready taxation in social security benefits and cutting various payroll taxes. he would also increase the tariffs that would lead to higher inflation and both candidates but especially president trump would restrict immigration. president trump would do significant deportation which would hurt social security. host: can you explain that? how does it hurt social security? guest: some pay taxes legally and some pay illegally but the money goes into the trust fund to pay benefits and if you were to deport a million people from

coming in, that reduces our payroll tax collection and would advance the insolvency data of social security. so president trump's agenda as a whole, we are still working on the mall but instead of talking about 2033 would be talking about earlier. vice president harris has talked vaguely about how the rich need to pay their fair share but has no plan to save social security. and no plan is the same as endorsing 821% cut in nine years. -- and no plan is the same as endorsing a 21% cut in nine years. vice president harris has talked about doing faster in negotiations so we are currently negotiation the price -- negotiating the price of some drugs and she wants to do more

and wants to get more generic drugs on the scene and things like that but is also talked about expanding medicare, covering vision and hearing and nursing care for people at home and that will cost extra money. so vice president harris has things that will cost money and save and president trump doesn't have anything in the agenda right now for medicare. host: how have previous presidents done, if anything, and medicare what happens to medicare of the cost keeps going up and up? guest: medicare is 12 years from insolvency. so we are in trouble with medicare as well. the last three presidents or for president, maybe the last six have had plans to reduce the cost of medicare and it has been a lot of overlap between them.

president trump in his first term and president obama both agree that we should pay hospitals and doctors offices the same for the same kind of care. they want to reform the weight part d is performed. there is a lot of agreement that we are overpaying providers in some areas. there is agreement on how to solve it but democrats and republicans essentially propose the same thing and it is rare that they come together and say let's solve the problem. if we just took the policies both sides agreed to put them into law would help. host: jack in virginia, democratic caller. caller: excellent talk this morning. i see that you focus on the

spending side. can you comment on the revenue generation side. heard donald trump say he is going to drill. how realistic is that in compensating for the spending plan? also analysis on harris. and in terms of foreign policy, and in terms of the foreign policies may help to pay or generate revenue or less spending to compensate for the plans. if you could speak to those things i would appreciate it. guest: both candidates want to cut a lot of taxes. both candidates propose raising a lot of taxes. president trump mainly through tariffs and vice president harris through taxes on corporations and higher earners. you mentioned drilling for oil, something president trump talks about a lot.

that could help elevate gdp and could generate leasing revenue for the u.s. government but we are talking pennies on the dollar's relative to payroll tax. income and payroll taxes is where it is mostly generated and most of the oil is either privately owned and privately refined at least. if you look at the state like alaska that is oil-rich and has a few people, it can be a big share of their revenue but for the united states at large it will not make up a large part of the whole. host: and aid to foreign countries? guest: we spend 1% of the budget , if you count military to percent on foreign aid but a lot of that is for stuff that we actually need it domestically as well. let's say we cut that in half, we are talking about a couple hundred billion dollars of savings over a decade. it is not going to fix the debt situation. doesn't mean we shouldn't

scrutinize. we should scrutinize every part of the budget but it is upsetting for taxpayers when the federal government is wasting money and so if we are going to do the tough things and say the income tax has to go up work social security benefits will have to change, we better be going hard after the waste. it is such a small share of the budget. host: and the big solutions will be what? guest: social security, medicare, medicaid and revenue. defense is a large pot and we have to look there as well. there is no reason to think we don't have tons of waste in the defense budget. host: and we don't have audits of some of those. guest: the law says they are supposed to get an audit and they have not successfully done one yet. host: florida, jesse, republican. caller: to topics and i would like the guest's explanation. how can you have an import tax

and not have inflation? it seems to me if you raise the price of goods coming into the country you are going to raise the price to the consumer and that is going to cause inflation again. m the other topic is the immigration talk. i don't understand how we could deport millions of people who some of them are contributing to the revenue of the country and not affect the economy. both of those issues are important to me. host: ok let's hear the response. guest: you are exactly right. we have done the analysis of both the import taxes and immigration. when it comes to the import tariffs, given the size, they are likely to increase inflation but maybe not permanently but one time.

if they don't it will be because the exchange rates have adjusted substantially or the federal reserve who has stepped in and said we are so concerned that we will keep the interest rates higher. and then instead of increasing inflation it will reduce. there is no way to get around it. either the terrace will increase prices are they will reduce output and the price of everything else will start to equalize. when it comes to immigration, we analyzed both plans and both want to restrict immigration in some way. vice president harris wants to strengthen the borders. president trump plant will lose 350 billion. high-end estimates could be lower but the main reason is

because immigrants take taxes. we have fewer people we will get fewer tax revenue. host: what taxes are they paying? guest: many immigrants are either once here get some kind of legal status so they can work for they have stolen a social security number or made up. the most common is 000's and sometimes they just are checked. and that person is owed a lot of social security benefits because maybe billions of dollars in taxes paid under that social security number. we are receiving income tax revenue but when it comes to the federal finances, immigrants and up in the schools and hospitals and etc. but at the federal level, new immigrants are a big net gain to the finances.

host: at the state level, what taxes are they paying? guest: the same plus sales taxes. and there also collecting more government services. there are not a lot of federal services that >> the american values survey gauges americans' opinions of the 20 for elections and beyond, including those on immigration, democracy, foreign policy. an analysis on the results of the survey on wednesday. watch live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more,

including charter communications. >> charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers, and we are just getting started, building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. >> charter communications supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> still ahead this evening, an encore presentation of c-span's original series "congress investigates." we look at a 1975 senate investigation led by democratic senator frank church of idaho, that examines alleged abuses within the u.s. intelligence community. that's followed by republican senator ted cruz and his democratic challenger meeting in their only debate before election day in the u.s. senate race for texas. and we will show you the debate