starts with great internet. wow. >> wow supports c-span as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> coming up on "washington journal," your calls and comments live, then all this week watch "washington journal 's" special holiday authors week series, featuring live segments each morning with a new writer. this morning, newsweek opinion editor batya ungar-sargon discusses her book "second class: how the elites betrayed america's working men and women." "washington journal" is next. join the conversation. ♪ host: good morning. monday, december 23. over the course of the campaign, president-elect trump made

numerous threats to investigate, prosecute, jail, or punish his perceived opponents, including private citizens. a poll asked respondents if they would support that. we're asking you, do you support or oppose president-elect trump targeting a political opponent. here is how to share your thoughts with us. if you support donald trump targeting a political opponent, call us on (202) 748-8000. if you are opposed to it, it is (202) 748-8001. you can send us a text to (202) 748-8003. include your name and your city/state. and you can post to social media, facebook.com/c-span or on x with handle @cspanwj. we will start with that poll from monmouth university from december 12.

headline, republicans would not be that bothered if trump goes after political enemies. here is some of the findings from that poll. 48% say president-elect trump is "serious" about laws and provisions to go after political enemies. 47% believe the president elect is exaggerating, so he will not actually do it. 23% of republicans would be bothered if president-elect trump went after political enemies, little less than a quarter. 77% of democrats and 55% of independents would be bothered by that. an article by politico says trump promised to get revenge, here are his targets, from liz cheney to jack smith to mark milley, and lengthy inventory of people he has threatened to

punish. let's hear from president-elect trump from a week ago, his first postelection news conference. he promised more defamation suits against the media. [video clip] >> you need fair press. icy see others. i am not doing this because i want to. i am doing this because i feel i have an obligation to. i am going to be bringing one against the people in iowa, their newspaper, which had a very, very good poster who got me right all the time and just before the election she said i was going to lose by three or four points, and it became the biggest story all over the world because i was going to win iowa by 20 points. the farmers love me and i love the farmers. it was interesting the way she did it, two weeks before she said i was only going to win by four. that was good because she

brought it down from 22 points to four or whatever the number was, way up, easy win. i never would have thought to go there. i respect them and love them and understand there's no reason to go there. it went from way up, walked away, which it was commanded turn out to be in the election, too, by the way, a win by many points. then she brought it down very smartly to four a couple weeks before. people said that is amazing, he is only up by four points. then she said down by three or four, whatever number she is. that was the des moines register. it was their parent. in my opinion, it was fraud and election interference. she has got me right always, a very good poster. she knows what she was doing. and she didn't quit before and will probably -- and we will probably be filing a major lawsuit against them today or tomorrow. we are filing one on "60 minutes," you know about that,

were they took kamala's crazy and horrible answer, they took it out and replaced it was something she said later on in the interview, which was not a great answer but it was not like the first one. the first one was vastly incompetent, weird. that was fraud and election interference by their newsmagazine, a big part of cbs news. we are involved in that one. we are involved in one that has been going on for a while and very successfully against bob woodward where he did not quote me properly from the tapes. then on top of everything else, he sold the tapes, which he was not allowed to do. he could not use them for sale purposes. i think we will be successful on that one. and then we have one very interestingly on pullets or because -- on pulitzer because reporters got prizes for their

wonderful, accurate, and highly professional reporting on the russia, russia, russia hoax. it are not to be a hoax, and they were exactly wrong. host: i wonder what you think about the question of president-elect trump targeting his political opponents. our lines are support and oppose. also want to make sure you know about this story that just broke this morning, the associated press, biden gives life in prison to 37 of 40 federal death row inmates so trump cannot have them executed. it said president joe biden announced today that he is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishment to life imprisonment just weeks before president-elect donald trump, an outspoken supporter of

the punishment, takes office. more on that as the story continues. but we will get back to our topic and take your calls. anna is first, line for support, north carolina. caller: good morning, mimi. i do not think it is whether or not it is supporting him in going after political opponents. my feeling is that if there is just cause to do so, then i think he should. i am kind of leaning towards -- i have seen a lot of people targeting trump for eight years, just brutally. i do not think the legacy media has treated him fairly. they do fact-checks on him, but in the debate, they did not do kamala harris. i don't know, i just feel like

with that j6 hearing they had, not the hearing or whatever, the committee -- host: the january 6 committee hearing, yeah. caller: and the documents that disappeared and cannot be found, that needs to be documented. i don't know. i don't think he is targeting his political opponents. but you have got to also understand that the biden administration did that to trump 's folks, too. just by the subpoenas and arrests and all this stuff. but i don't know, just things like -- host: you feel that that was not fair? for instance, national security advisor michael flynn, paul manafort, whose campaign -- caller: yeah, because so many people were subpoenaed by the

biden administration but nobody arrested them for not showing up. you know what i am saying? don't you think it is a double standard? that is my opinion. host: this is lily in maryland, opposed. caller: yes, good morning. i just want to let all of america know how -- it is just astounding to me that he got reelected. this man has proven himself to be nothing but a psychopath, and arranged -- deranged. and for him to be allowed to continue and go after the people that he perceives as his opponent, and if nobody stops him, there is no end to this man's madness. host: respond to anna, who said

he was targeted unfairly by democrats. caller: i would like to say to -- what was her name? host: anna. caller: anna. you just have to look and see what he did. there is going to be consequences for this kind of behavior. it is astounding to me that people do not see that. i mean, the way he has conducted himself over the years, just talk to the people who live in new york. they know him like the back of their hand. that is why he lost new york. he is just -- this is a man who needs professional help. he has a mental problem. please, america, all of you who voted for him, i have no doubt you are going to have buyers remorse.

he is out to destroy this country. host: let's go to houston, texas, melva. caller: i cannot stop laughing at that lady ahead of me. too trump derangement typical. yes, everyone has the right to defend himself and his name and her reputation. i think this is unfettered unleashing against him without any restraint or any fact checking, and it is not acceptable. we have to stop that in america. we just have to stop that, and we are better than that. host: with that beaches for the media were everybody -- would that be just for the media or everybody? caller: for the media especially, because they have finally gotten their comeuppance . they finally been exposed to the bias, you know, unbalanced and

unfair opinions they have been putting forth here. and i am just hoping they do better going forward because i cannot do any worse. host: here are some other targets, according to the politico article. president joe biden, ss trump has is frequently called biden corrupt -- it said trump has frequently called biden corrupt, and in june, it said he should be arrested for treason. he says i will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the united states of america, joe biden and the entire biden family. do you agree with that? caller: all of the above, and he --i hope he takes them to task. host: here is marianne in california, opposed. caller: good morning. i really love how you kind of dig go back and forth, and i hope you will with me. but of course i oppose people

going after people. this is not kindergarten or we are not going to throw down in the schoolyard or something. but i like the point of some things that happened here in this country like killing out the business people, giving them smallpox, breaking their tools so they could not exist down here, the 49ers are now a great football team while the real 49ers -- killed innocent people, children. i hope mr. trump will think about it because it is a huge moon, and of course there is the one about slavery, hello. host: marianne, are you saying that he should focus on those injustices rather than his political opponents?

how is that related? caller: disco related because i do not think this country is going to move forward in any way -- it is related because i do not think this country is going to move forward with what this country was built on, the violence. and he comes from an alcoholic family, his brother died in his early 40's of alcoholism. i just think he must know that -- i think the guy has a human bone in his body, i am hoping. i am not opposed to him completely, but i am just hoping for some healing out here. we are in california and have hours, and there is the trail people had to walk 3000 miles. try walking 13 miles. it is just a wound i think we cannot get over. one time you had the question on

this show, is the american dream still possible? i just do not think the american dream is going to be possible until people look at what has been done, what we have done here in this country. host: all right. let's talk to rick next in saratoga springs, new york. what do you think? caller: thanks for taking my call. the way i see it is, what 78-year-old man who is the presumptive republican nominee for president of the united states, who has never been arrested, who is under four jurisdictions with 84 felonies? that does not make sense. said the laptop was false. prior to the 20 election, they had 51 former caa operatives -- cia operatives say that it wasn't, and it was true. they have done is over and over again. host: hold on, so those former intelligence professionals said

that the laptop was in line with russian disinformation? they did not say it was, as they did not have access to it. do you think they still should be prosecuted for that? for saying this sounds like something russia would do? caller: wait a second, and here you go again with c-span, leaning to the fact that you know the fbi had the laptop and you know they had access because they had high clearance. host: i am talking about the 51, because you're right, president elect trump has said that he wants to prosecute them, as well. what do you think? i will let you finish your comment. caller: yes. leon panetta went on fox news and said that it is completely false, he does not care, it was russian disinformation. but when you look at it, hunter

biden sitting with his father telling somebody that unless you sent us $5 billion, we're going to wreak havoc on you. host: ok. here is what politico is reporting about the 51 intelligence professionals who signed the letter about the hunter biden laptop. a letter from intelligence professional weeks before the 2020 presidential election, intending that a release of reported emails from hunter biden "has all the classic earmarks of a russian information operation." officials acknowledged that they did not know for certain whether the emails were genuine but said the disclosures were suspicious. you can see that at politico. here is cal, new york city. cal, what do you think about the

targeting of political opponents? caller: good morning and happy holidays to c-span and everybody listening. i suppose what is clearest in my mind about the attacks he was having on journalists, the media , i think a lot of those are over exaggerated threats. as far as the media is concerned, i think his point is to just damaged the credibility. about the earlier hearings this year with congress and how they were browbeating the heads of these various universities for their supposedly anti-semitic policies and how they were just browbeating to the point where there jobs were in risk, some of them. a couple actually quit their positions. i think trump, the lawsuits are a scare tactic. i think he would rather have these folks testify in public

and admit, as some journalists already have, that they were with biden on terms of the age issue and his other policies. rather than restitution or imprisonment, i think the greatest victory with b2c joe scarborough -- would be to see joe scarborough or somebody from msnbc be fired. the ratings are so bad and they lose credibility. host: all right. i want to bring something to your attention, also some breaking news. the matt gaetz ethics report is expected to be released today. cbs news said the matt gaetz ethics report shows his drug use and sex with a minor violated state laws, says the former representative, florida republican who briefly stood to become president elect trump's nominee to be attorney general, was found by congressional ethics investigators to have

dated numerous -- paid numerous women, including a 17-year-old, for sex, and used illegal drugs, including from his capitol hill office, according to a final draft of a comprehensive investigative report obtained by cbs news. that report is 37 pages long. this is bruce in lexington, kentucky. good morning. caller: hello, can i start with a joke? host: ok. caller: what do you get when you cross a hummingbird with a doorbell? host: what? caller: a humdinger. baby, you are a humdinger. host: ok, let's get back to our topic, trumps political opponents. caller: i think those who have done wrong have had their recourse. i think it is being characterized a little incorrectly.

i do not think this is one of the major problems right now. i am amazed that we do not have -- you have not had any shows about the congressional report on january 6 and the two articles about biden's mental acuity. i think those are way more important. but i do think mr. trump, president trump, does have the right to seek retribution or he was wrong to. i do not see anything wrong with that. host: all right, bruce. you mentioned january 6. we have an interview on msnbc, new york democrat dan goldman. caller: please, msnbc -- host: we will play that and some other stuff, don't worry, we will get it all there. this is dan goldman, he played a role in president trump's first impeachment trial. he spoke about the threat against january 6 committee

members. [video clip] >> obviously, the january 6 committee did an investigation authorized by congress, upheld by courts of law, totally legitimate, and it was part of their duties. but the fact that because donald trump does not like what happened means those people should go to jail says everything you need to know about what his expectation is for cash patel and the department of justice. that is why they are there. that is why kash patel is there, because he has also promised to go after donald trump's political enemies. i sat on a weaponization subcommittee for two years here led by the republicans. they did not demonstrate his single instance of weaponization of the federal government by the joe biden administration or by house democrats. and here they are trying to ally the fact, ignore the fact, that donald trump's entire purpose with his election for the fbi is to do just that and to jail his

political enemies. that is banana republic stuff. it is not just bad for the political enemies and for the political system, it undermines our entire rule of law, undermines the credibility of every single prosecution out there. you see that because defendants all around the country are making these allegations that their prosecutions are political. he has already undermined the institutions, and he will go much further if kash patel is confirmed. i think senate republicans will uphold their duty and uphold their oath to the constitution, not to donald trump, and they will recognize that kash patel is unqualified and dangerous and should not be fbi director. >> political enemies of donald trump that you served in the first impeachment trial of trump when he was in office the last time, would you be considered a political enemy? are you fearful you could be targeted or prosecuted? >> i have been on lists, enemies

lists. i guess that is a possibility. i welcome that possibility. i hope they put their attention on me and not the good men and women who were career public servants in the federal government, who are just doing their jobs and who are really subject to retribution. i can happily and ably stand up for myself, and i have a bigger bone hearing congress. i have a speech and debate clause defenses. if he is going to attack his enemies, please, bring it on, donald trump. host: back to calls. bertha in new jersey, you are opposed. caller: actually, my name is eartha, like eartha kitt. i'm opposed to democrats and republicans. now everybody is forgetting they are actually american people. that is what it is all about. i do not hear anything about us,

the american people who are really basically suffering out here. all i hear is revenge and back and forth. these same democrats and republicans are so beholden to the billionaires and special interest and big pharma. i do not see them really caring about us anymore. i have been a democrat all i live, and i am so disappointed in them, and i have always been disappointed in the republican party. fox news, mainstream media, all of them, they are a disappointment, too, because they're getting off track. it is all about the american people, not about what is going on, and our education begins there, that has failed us. a lot of these comments say the education system has failed us. it is not equal and never has been. that is what i have to say. happy holidays to you. host: happy holidays. kurt and mount union, pennsylvania.

caller: good morning, and merry christmas. host: thank you. caller: i would like to reflect on the wisdom of the past generations, which is, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. let's see if all these people can withstand the same scrutiny that they put on him. host: i want to ask you something, we got a text from larry in michigan, and he says, as a maga, i d't care how trump goes aftereople he has grievances with with his own resources, but he should not use the justice department. what do you think of that? caller: exactly what i told you. i said what is good for the goose is good for the gander. they used it against trump, so let's see if they can withstand the same scrutiny. host: all right, let's go -- sorry. ruben in philadelphia, opposed. caller: yes, good morning.

i oppose this, like the person from new jersey, there are other things we need to be doing other than revenge. donald trump actually tried to get someone to lie about what was going on. manafort got locked up during the mueller situation and others. sterling, an election official in georgia, warned president trump that someone was going to get hurt in violence. and on january 6, it happened when the police officer shot ashli babbitt. in the police officer and brent signet, he was killed on that day. and donald trump are still continuing these lies. he just lied about the people in ohio eating cats and dogs, and

the mayor comes out -- should have said, please stop spreading these lies. it is donald trump as the reason this is happening in america. he has been promoting violence. it is just donald trump doing this. host: all right. this is a text from larry in new jersey. the incoming administration needs to concentrate on the business of carrying on america's bs, not his own. ed from north texas, trump adration should focus on criminalatter what their title or background is. this includes suing the me for false claims and all those getting kickbacks from false also an investigation on how politicians like liz cheney got her extreme wealth, making her official salary now worth millions. here is a recent interview with president's daughter-in-law lara

trump responding to a question about what should happen to liz cheney. [video clip] >> this thing from the beginning has been a hot bunch of garbage. the idea that they have tried to force this down the throats of the american people since january of 2021, they thought this was the ticket. they want anything to happen to make sure -- donald trump never got back in the white house. we are 35 days away from that moment right now. i cannot wait for it, the country cannot wait for it, the world, frankly, cannot wait for it. that they said we will take this thing and will blow it up out of proportion, will ruin people's lives, throw people in jail regardless of whether or not they did anything, but those people on no-fly lists, make people admit to things that they did not do because we are the government and can threaten you, the department of justice and you should be afraid of us. everything that happened with this january 6 nonsense, anyone

who did anything illegal ought to be held accountable. i am not a legal expert, but i do know that when you break the law, that means you go to jail and serve time. what they have perpetrated on the american people by way of this january 6 hoax is absolutely terrible, and it is a stain on our country's history. these people ought to be ashamed of themselves. i know they aren't, so we will shame them. we will make sure they never forget that history recalls every single day from now until forever what these people did and the way they personally and single-handedly tried to destroy this country. thank goodness god is good, and he shines a light in the dark places. this is just the beginning. if you think this is good, wait until donald trump gets in there, wait until kash patel gets in there, wait until tulsi gabbard gets in there, and they start shining laces that

democrats and the establishment never wanted us to go. host: for the next half-hour, the question, do you support president-elect trumps targeting of political opponents? phone numbers on your screen. if you're in support of that (202) 748-8000. ,if you're are against that targeting, it is (202) 748-8001. peter in new york, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you today? host: good. caller: i am against it because i do not want to see donald trump sing to the democratic level. it is politically motivated. it is hilarious. and it is sad that the democrats have been doing this, and now they are trying to turn it around. if you watch msnbc, you know how crooked the democrats are because you are listening to their lies. thank you for taking my call. host: kelly in north carolina,

good morning. caller: good morning. merry christmas, everybody. and i support this because it is not what people are saying, it is not that he will just be going after them because they do not like him, these will be over actual laws that have been broken. he will only go after people who have broken the law. and as long -- the ones that they went after him, that was political. that was exactly political, if you know the law. no, i am not a lawyer, but i watch one a lot that does show me what was correct and what wasn't correct. but these people, you are going to find out, it is all going to be exposed, and you will find out that a lot of our government

, on both sides, republican and democrat, that they have been involved with diddy, and they have been involved with epstein. it is a very sad story, a very sad story. and he is not just going to go after people he hates, he is going after people that he likes, too, because they broke the law. host: people he likes, like who? caller: well, like republicans. i cannot give you the exact names because the list has not been exposed yet. host: all right. here is denny's in freedom, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. i am asking that you bring up the interview with him with lesley stahl where she, right before the election, said that the laptop was false. show people that.

i think that he has every right to go after people that -- it is fraud what they did, the white house working with the mainstream media is the biggest fraud on the american people, and it started with the russia collusion for three years. we dealt with that. but bring up the lesley stahl interview. show how she treated the sitting president of the united states. he should go after her. host: there is an article from nbc news that says this, kash patel, the nominee to be the fbi director, once said he would come after journalists. it now hangs over his fbi candidacy, trump's pick for fbi director has vowed to come after

the media. he later emphasized that his comments apply only of people broke the law. that is at nbc news. this is his quote, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about american citizens, who helped joe biden rig a presidential election. whether it is criminally or civilly, we will figure that out. democratic senator john fetterman was a guest on sundays "this week" on abc, and he talked about meeting fbi director nominee kash patel. [video clip] >> you met with kash patel, right? he has talked about going after trumps enemies. >> yeah, and we have had conversations, but all of these interviews were all off the record and those things.

so i am not going to go into detail, but he absolutely -- that is never going to happen. >> he is not going to use the fbi to go after trumps enemies? >> no, that is not it. >> he has written it. >> that is what he claims. i have found out his family's origin story and immigration and we talked about that. and my wife and my family's immigration and things. i learned things about him. i never knew he was a public defender. >> are you liking kash patel more than you thought you would? >> well, how much can you absorb in 30 minutes? but i have learned things and have heard things, and i have no regrets for having these -- i never left any of those interviews saying it was a waste of time or i regret that. host: danny in georgia, good

morning. caller: good morning. a couple things i will try to get in real quick. it is amazing that everybody has got a crystal ball that knows what trump is going to do. i'm sorry, but none of us know what he is going to do. so let's don't jump to too many conclusions and let's see what he does and go from there. i was a born registered democrat ever since i could vote, two or three cycles ago. i started out conservative, and i started voting that way. i live in very north georgia. but give him a chance. i don't understand, people. hunter biden, we know what he did. it is not a secret. the people of this country are not stupid. that is the problem. i am, i guess, a lower

middle-class person, make about $40,000 a year, $50,000 a year. that is really no money. but i know what is going on with people, and my county knows what's going on. and you talk about election stuff, that ad on the tv, i live in a county of 16,000 people, 10,000 voters. i know three personal people that election fraud was on. i know one man been dead five years and voted, and he is already registered to vote in the runoff. somebody in a little town in trenton, georgia, with 10,000 voters. you don't think stuff happened and the rest of the country, don't be naive. come on, we are smarter than that. even a person like me with a one-your college education, no degree, i am smarter than that.

and the people in these counties were a live in north georgia, we are stupid just because we are old country hicks. host: all right. this is abc news this is this, trump fax house gop accusation liz cheney tampered with january 6 committee. she calls the allegations malicious, cowardly, assault on the truth, says republican representative barry lowder met -- barry loudermilk in new report suggests former gop representative liz cheney should be investigated for alleged criminal witness tampering, claiming she played an integral role in shaping key witness testimony before the january 6 committee investigating the attacks on the u.s. capitol by a pro-trump mob. president elect donald trump post this early wednesday morning on his social media

platform, liz cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee, which states that numerous federal laws were likely broken by liz cheney, and these violations should be investigated by the fbi. well, liz cheney put out a statement. here is' a portion of th she says this,s chairman loudermilk interim report intentionally disregards the trd the select committee's tremendous weight of evidence and instead fabricates lies and inflammatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what donald trump did. there allatns do not rite the review of the actual evidence and are a maliciousnd carol glee assault on the truth. no -- and cowardly assault on the truth. no reputable lawyer or judge would take this seriously. here is charles in virginia. what do you think? caller: hey, good morning.

thanks for taking my call. let me turn this down. as i am sitting here buddy, a word came to me, and that is that for all the so-called christians in this country that say they believe in god, and i heard a few people call in and say how they trust in god and pray and are glad trump is in office because god ordained him and so forth, i just want to say, god does not like folks to take revenge. vengeance is mine, said the lord. so for a president to take vengeful acts against people who investigated the truth on january 6, i think it is appalling if all these folks who honor and worship this speaker and president, i still go back

to one question. it came out about where he could judge anybody's vagina because he's famous and could get away with it because he is famous, all these women and men who love donald trump so much, if he could touch your daughter's, your mama's, your sister's private parts, would you still vote for him and worship him the way you do? god is looking and listening. what we're doing right now is no example to the world. in my lifetime, i can clearly say that i can see that one man is above the law. america, you get ready because you going to get exactly what you asked for. thank you. host: let's go to new york, teresa. what do you think, should donald trump target his political opponents? caller: good morning.

i am a little torn on this. i do believe with the gentleman said about vengeance. but i do think we have to shine the light, and he should use that how he wants to. i think me and the american people are crying out for justice, because a great injustice has been done by the ones who hold a great responsibility to the american people, through the media and through -- the government is just, especially the democrats but also some republicans, whoever is guilty, i think they should pay because no one is above the law. you know. that is my opinion. host: and this is gary on x, who

says trouble repeat the last administration on political interference since this is now the political normal. richard in las vegas texted, this inot about revenge, is about telling the truth. john in pennsylvania, turnabout is fair play, as democrats like to remind us, nobody is above the law. jonathan in waynesville, ohio, you are opposed. caller: yes, i am opposed. liz cheney called him out. he is a crybaby, first of all. and she called him out. the deal is, he got called out for all his bs. i am going to call it how i see it. and these people just walk around and talk about -- and think he is god and all that, he is not. 34 convictions, and the list goes on and on.

sorry, i am going to tell america, wake up. you just voted him in. host: he is actually liable for sexual abuse, and that is something that got abc a lawsuit, george stephanopoulos said he was convicted or liable for rape, and it wasn't. what did you make of that situation with abc? did you follow that? caller: i followed some of it. it boils down to he is liable. whatever he is liable in the court of law, he is liable in the court of law. he is a 34 convicted felon here. wake up to this. american people just think that -- i don't know, it is brainwashing to me. in somebody -- and somebody stated here with another

opinion, i am sure. she called him out on it, that is the whole point. 34 convictions -- host: we got that point. this is a recent interview about the des moines register iowa poll, you remember president elect trump talked about that in a previous crib i showed you. this is a poster who talks about her findings versus the end results and the accusations that came out of that. this was reported before donald trump filed the lawsuit against the des moines register. here she is. [video clip] >> the reality is that more people who supported donald trump turned out. i am eagerly awaiting the secretary of state's turnout reports that will happen in january to see what we can glean from that. but there was not an adjustment to my data. when we saw that it was going to be a shocker, that i would have

said, ok, let's adjust it. it is not like i know ahead of time what the right numbers are going to be in the future. so you kind of take the data, and it is designed to reveal to me our best shot of what the future will look like. i am not surprised about what the motivation anybody thinks i had and would act on in such a public poll -- i am surprised. i do not understand it. the allegations are taken seriously. this was election interference, which was a crime. so the idea that i intentionally set up to deliver this -- i have never done that. i have had plenty of opportunities to do it. it is not my ethic. but to suggest without a single shred of evidence, if i was in cahoots with somebody being paid i somebody, it is all just kind of -- it is hard to pay too much attention to it, except that

they are accusing me of a crime. host: want to know what you think about that. this is kurt in brownsville, new jersey. are you supporting this? caller: good morning, speaking for myself and the stories, seven years late, if it really matters, throwing bombs at this point is kind of stupid. but the truth is it says that donald trump, now he is a better man than me, i am thinking. if your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat, if they are thirsty, give them water to drink, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads and the lord will reward you. so i think trump said that he is -- his success will be his vengeance. so i think he is a better man than me. but the truth is i would love to see joe biden actually answer questions in the court of law.

host: i am not clear, what you read from the bible would indicate not going after your political enemies. are you saying that you would support president elect trump going after joe biden and others or are you saying that he should just be successful and that will be his revenge? caller: well, i am telling you what he said. i believe that no one is above the law. and if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. but i believe everything is on its head and the justice system has been corrupted since they spied on trump. who knows, it goes on and on. but the truth is they will never be brought to justice because they plead dementia these days. if you watch these people that are in power, they get in front

of a group of questions and they plead stupid. so get used to it. and god will have the final say. host: on the line for oppose, this is nicholas in kentucky -- this is in kentucky, eric. caller: most people, especially republicans, are missing a very big point here, which is trump wants to go after people who investigated an incident and also witnesses who testified on january 6, people from his administration, a lot of them he appointed himself. and although some of the people -- those are some of the people he wants to go after, too. so this is not about democrats or anything democrats are trying

to do to trump. trump is going after anybody that has anything negative to say about him or expose about him. and that has been primarily people he has appointed himself. even when it comes to him complaining about judges, many of those judges have been judges he has appointed. host: you talked about january 6 . this is in politico about the people that trump has said he wants to prosecute and one of them is u.s. capitol police lieutenant michael byrd. says trump has joined with his supporters, some took part in the january 6 capitol riot to call for the prosecution of the u.s. capitol police officer who shot and killed ashli babbitt as she attempted to breach the entrance to the speakers lobby

warehouse members were being evacuated. the justice department had ruled against any charges being called against byrd. but trump said he is a coward and said ashli babbitt was murdered. what is your reaction? caller: you look at those videos of january 6. if those were democrats, what would republicans be saying right now about who should be prosecuted and what type of actions would have been justified by the police? host: this is julie in rhode island on the line for supporting. caller: hi, i do not necessarily support going after his political opponents. they have done a number on him. they have gone after him from the minute he came down that escalator. they lied about him, try to put

him in jail, tried to bankrupt him. he even got shot. and january 6 is not an insurrection. nobody got put in jail for that. and i watched this woman and her husband was military, they went to her house to come to her husband who was at the capitol but did not go in the capitol, the military came bombing into their house. she was standing outside holding her four-year-old son who was petrified. she was pregnant. she had a miscarriage the next day because of the biden administration going after this man for doing nothing wrong. and i believe that gentleman byrd who shot ashli babbitt, i

believe he should be brought to justice, because he shot her in cold blood. thank you. host: joan in pennsylvania, good morning. caller: good morning. i don't know what is wrong with these crazy women that are supporting trump. the man said he could grab women's crotches, he assaulted a woman in a department store, a twice impeached president. he is a liar. he incited an insurrection. women, what the hell is wrong with people? this country is pathetic at this point to have these bunch of people trying to make excuses for this man that is the worst president that ever got to the white house. and they voted to put his behind in there again? hopefully they get what they

deserve, because this man is the worst thing that ever happened to the united states of america. and that is all i have to say. thank you for listening. goodbye. host: ryan in ohio on the line for support. good morning. caller: you know, there's a lot of divisiveness already in this country, sure seems to me like this entire subject, the way it is being posed to the general public, is pretty divisive. i do not necessarily support the way you are terming support. however, justice is part of our constitution, a big part of our country and our founding fathers put it into the constitution to try and maintain a little bit of civility in this country. ok, one example, first example, adam schiff. good thing mr. trump decided to have that call recorded by the archives, because that guy went

out before the general public and made up the entire story. he declared what was said on that conversation, it was all lies. if you look at the mischief that has been going on in the background nonstop, what is your definition of support? how about let's change that definition, like the democrats like to do, let's change it to justice. host: but i am not following what you are saying about adam schiff and the conversation. tell me more about that. caller: adam schiff came out in front of the entire world and cleared that trump had an unjust phone call. he told the world, this is what he said -- host: what phone call are you talking about, about ukraine? the one where he asked for an investigation of hunter biden? caller: yeah, where he is asking about joe biden saying son of a

you know what, you got to fire this guy, and there's political nonsense going on with the taxpayer money being held hostage over bureaucratic politics of another country. so he makes a phone call to zelenskyy, and adam schiff recorded -- it was recorded properly to another chain that the intelligence committee did not have privy to, then adam schiff tells the entire world what was the conversation, all lies. that is misconduct in the highest kind that could ever happen in this country. if you are a representative to the united states taxpayers, you do not go in front of the world and lie about that. host: i am not clear on -- you are saying the audio was never released at that phone call with zelenskyy but the transcript was released, but i do not think it

was the complete transcript. is that what you are talking about? caller: yes, ma'am. it was documented by a different source than the intelligence committee. they did it as a safety net to understand that these guys have no interest in furthering the united states as a whole. they want to in any way maintain control in some capacity, even lying in front of the world about a conversation. then they attempted to impeach him, don't forget. host: ok, that was twice. ethel is in shreveport, louisiana, on the line for oppose. caller: good morning. i have a couple of points i would like to bring to the forefront. number one, donald trump has an issue with anyone at any time. first of all, it was dr. fauci. he was considered an outcast because of the covid. then he chose to -- sorry, first

it was obama. obama did not have a birth certificate. he badgered obama and his family about his birth certificate. then dr. fauci. he has used the news media as a way to keep his name in the public eye and on everyone's mind. the news media have made an obsession with donald trump. this is his way of not being held accountable for his misbehavior, like a child. i am going to blame everyone but myself. he is not talking about how he is going to make the american people's lifestyle better. he is only talking about himself. that was his campaign slogan, he was going to make america great again, yet now he is talking about his political enemies. he is getting the news media to focus on other politicians, past

and present, as opposed to talking about the american people. do not buy into the unnecessary falsehoods of donald trump coming into 2025. and i would hope that you all would give more constructive subtitles to talk about, discuss about. do not buy into donald trump's misbehavior, not being held accountable for his behavior, and because other people to have gone to prison, to have lost their lives, all because of he wanting to be number one. thank you. -- host: randy in michigan by tt, i don't agree with tgeng political opponents. i hope people feel the same way when the party in charge changes to a different political party.

rob in fairfax, virginia said amen to the clein north carolina, it's not about targeting political opponents, it is about equal justice under the law. that is the time we have. we have a lomo time later in lls.program for taking your coming up next, we ce wi this week's holiday authors series on washington journal. eight daysf conversations with acss the political spectrum on a variety of public policy and political topics. we will talk today with batya ungar-sargon, discussing her book "second-class." >> during christmas week, each night at 9:00 p.m. eastern, c-span will feature interviews

with party members of congress. republicans, democrats and independents from both chambers will discuss their careers, key legislative achievements, the state of politics -- congress and american politics and their farewell speeches. tonight, we will hear from west virginia independent senator joe manchin. wednesday, north carolina republican congressman patrick mchenry. michigan democratic congressman dan kelly and oregon democratic congressman dan blumenauer. friday, delaware democratic senator john carper and california democratic congresswoman rachel paula tom.

this week, starting at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org. >> witness democracy in action with c-span. experience history as it unfolds with c-span's live coverage this january, as republicans take control of both chambers in congress and a new chapter begins with the swearing in of the 47th president of the united states. on friday, january 3, don't miss the opening day of the 119th congress. watch the election of the house speaker, the swearing in of the new members of congress and the senate. on monday, january sixth, live from the house chamber. witness vice president kamala harris preside over the certification of the electoral college votes. that will confirm donald trump as the winner of the 2024 election. and on january 20, tune in for

our live all day coverage of the presidential inauguration as donald trump takes the oath of office, becoming the 47th president of the united states. stay with c-span throughout january for copper hints of, live coverage of the 119th congress and the presidential inauguration. c-span, democracy unfiltered. >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back. it is shgton journal's annual holiday authors week series. it continues this warning, eight daysf conversations with america's top writers room rosshe political spectrum on a variety of public policy and political topics. today, we have batya ungar -sargon. her book is called second class, how the elite betrayed america's working men and women. thank you for being here. guest: thank you for having me.

it's great to be here with all of your viewers. host: from the title of your book, how are you defining elite? guest: one of the things that economic sociologists, anthropologists, people who study america from a data point of view have noticed over the last few decades is that this country that was founded on the idea of classless nests, on the idea that every person should have equal access to the american dream, has increasingly become divided by class. and by what i am -- and what i mean by that is if you have a college degree, you are increasingly likely to become a homeowner, to have children who have that passed on to them, the privilege of the american dream. to be able to afford an education for your children and afford adequate health care. you live longer. you may, on average, about one million more dollars over the course of your career than people without a college degree. in general, this idea of the

american dream has become something that only people with a college degree have access to. meanwhile, people without a college degree are increasingly facing things like death and despair by suicide, by overdose, by alcoholism. they are less likely to be homeowners. there children are downwardly mobile. this class divide has really opened up in america, separating out the haves from the have-nots, along class lines based on your education. that's what i write about in the book, how that process happened. host: just to go back to the question, is it anybody with a college education then that you would define as an elite? guest: i would define elite as anybody who is working in a job that requires skills that they have learned in college, who are in the top 20%. making more than $135,000 a year. host: and then how do you -- how would you say that this group, the elites as you call them,

have betrayed the working class? what do you think they did to the working class? guest: basically, over the last 60 years, since 1971, which was the high watermark for working-class rages -- wages, after which they became to stagnate and decline when you factor dating inflation, we have put into place policy that was an upward transfer of wealth from people who work their hands for a living to people who are in that top 20%, who work at jobs that require skills you learn in college. those policies took money from our working-class neighbors and put them in the pockets of people who are in that elite. and those policies include things like nasca, which ships 5 million very good paid working-class jobs overseas to china and mexico to build up their middle-class. you had downward mobility in the rust belt and other areas that

were manufacturing powerhouses where working-class people could not achieve the american dream. we imported millions and millions and millions of low-wage workers to compete with the jobs that remain here, further driving down the wages of the working class. but, putting those savings in the pockets of people who hire working-class people. and then we defunded vocational training in high school. meaning that now, you don't have that avenue to the middle class for working-class kids who want to work with their hands rather than to college. all of these things were policies that took money that would have gone to the working class in previous generations and put them back in the pockets of the people who hire working-class people. that's what i call a betrayal of our working-class neighbors by the elites. the consumers of low-wage labor. host: and do you think this betrayal was one party over the other or do you think both political parties are to blame

for this? guest: i think there was a handshake agreement on both sides. those policies were enacted by democratic administrations. while the republicans were certainly supportive of nafta, it was bill clinton but that into practice. while i'm sure republicans didn't object, it was president barack obama who defunded vocational training. it used to be the democrats that wanted strong borders to protect working-class wages. we have a play quote realignment where republicans are saying you need a strong border and it is democrats who believe we need a much more permissive policy. they will say explicitly why. they will say americans will not be able to afford things if suddenly you limit the supply of labor. these are jobs americans just won't do. that is a myth.

there is no industry in america that is a majority done by immigrants. certainly not illegal immigrants. that includes farming. every job in america, the majority of people working at our americans. and it is so insulting to say to those hard-working americans, this is not a job that is worthy of an american. audi you think that makes them feel? -- how do you think that makes them feel? host: i'm going to play senator bernie sanders for you. he talked about his thoughts on how the democratic party is abandoned the working class. take a look and i will get your reaction. >> 60% of our people are living paycheck-to-paycheck. how do we not talk and fight for raising the minimum wage to a living wage? in the state of missouri, a conservative state, they became one of the many states to vote, i think 50%, to raise the

minimum wages. how is it in congress and the senate, we have not brought a minimum wage bill to our floor? the affordable care act is a stopgap measure read it's not addressing the real health care crisis in america. why aren't we saying yes, health care is a human right, we will take on the insurance companies and the drug companies. we will pass the proactive make it easier for workers to join unions. we will expand social security. we will demand that the billionaires start paying their fair share. out of all of these issues that i am talking about, these are not bernie sanders ideas. these are all, without exception, popular ideas that democrats, republicans and independents support. the people who don't support it is the billionaire class and they have a lot of power. but we have to be prepared. host: your reaction to that? guest: i have to commend senator sanders for even speaking in this way.

the rage he feels about how working-class americans are treated in this country, i think a lot of them feel it. huge kudos to him for sticking up to the issue. the solutions he proposes are not the solutions i found when i was traveling around the country and interviewing working-class people and hearing what they want. bernie sanders is the perfect example of the good-faith left-wing effort to describe the plague of the working class. but the solutions there are redistributionist. his answer is raise taxes on the rich, take that money and give things to working-class people. it's not what working-class people want. what they actually want is something senator sanders talked about in 2015 when he was asked by ezra klein, shouldn't you support open borders if you care so much about the poor, what about the global part? to which senator sanders said

open borders? that's a coke brothers proposal. they would love to bring in people to work for two dollars or three dollars an hour and have them compete with the working class. that is the type of solution senator sanders no longer believes in but people understand very intuitively that the supply of labor, an endless supply of people to compete with them will drive down their wages. they see the at the end of every month. they understand that trade deals that don't favor america, that favor china, mexico, vietnam, these are coming at their expense. they don't want the proceeds of someone else's labor. they want their very hard work to pay more. you can't get there with the minimum wage bill. i support people making minimum wage making much more than they are making. but i think what trump is offering, which is why he got so much support not just from white working-class people but from hispanic working-class people, he got the majority of hispanic

men and 25% of black men, why? he was providing an alternative to the redistribution model. he was providing a protectionist model that said i will protect the labor of the american worker, by limiting the supply of the competition. by making better trade deals with tariffs. these are all things that will make sure that when a working-class person goes to work, their employer has to pay them more money, rather than taking that money from a rich person and handing it over. i think that appeals to the much more. host: if you would like to join our conversation with our author, batya ungar-sargon, our lines are regional this time. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, call us at (202) 748-8000. if you are in mountain or pacific, you can use (202) 748-8001. batya, senator sanders talked about access to affordable health care. what do you think about policies geared toward that? guest: health care is so

unbelievably important. our health care system is so broken. there are cartels in the hospital administration world and in big pharma that all collude to make sure that the hardest working americans, who worked with their physical bodies, cannot access high quality, affordable health care. here is the thing. what i found my book is the same thing that they find again and again and again. the vast majority of working-class people in america, whether they vote for democrats or republicans, what they want is much less immigration. and much more access to health care. the first party that gets to that combination is going to do extremely, extremely well. what we have right now is one party that believes in controlling the border but does not have a health care plan. and the other party that is willing to talk about care but has basically ceded to the open

borders activists and donor class because the democrat donors like that far left, radical ideology. and neither party is saying we will make sure you have both of those things. if the republicans realize this for the democrats, they will have a ruling majority for a very long time. host: i want to read a portion of your book called a second class. this is about political party. it says this. e majority of people i spoke to have views that don't fit with either party. for the liberal or conservative, most people supported significany limiting immigration bo majorly expanding access to health care. they supported gay marriage and were very pro-gay. bu also very worried abe spread of transgender ideology. especially in schools. they were "anti-woke report but ." but it was not a topic they thought about. instead, they thought about

housing and why they couldn't afford it. guest: i would say the american working class is defined by a radical, radical tolerance. a radical moderation. these are people who are unbelievably generous, both in what they do and how they see other people. so, the majority of the women i interviewed said i would never get an abortion. but i sure as heck would never judge another woman who didn't have the luxury of making this decision. so they are pro-life and anti-ban. which party should they vote for? it's funny because donald trump showed up and gave voice to that exact idea. and he sidelined the far-right, which had been saying no exceptions and all of the stuff. they are very, very pro-gay read this includes very christian people. -- pro-gay. this includes very christian people. a lot of people i talked to that

no gay people that they want treated with respect. there is a fear of transgender ideology in sports and women's bathrooms. it doesn't necessarily fit with how the elites talk about politics. we talk about lgbtq as if it is one thing. regular americans don't see it that way. they see it as we need to be tolerant and respectful and treat every individual with dignity. but i don't want someone coming into my kids school and confusing them with things i should be teaching them. they care a lot about their material circumstances and don't want political parties or leaders to tell them what to believe or what values to have. this is the american working class, radically, radically moderate and fatally underserved by both parties. host: can you talk a little bit about the book itself and you spoke to, how you did the research and how you got this information and how you went

about writing this book? guest: so, finding the people who are profiled in the book was the biggest challenge. once you find the right people, they tell their own story. the book is full of people's stories about the struggles and triumphs of being working class in america. i was reporting it in 2022-2023. the way i went about finding them was what i wanted was for the people's stories to be interesting enough to carry the story and the narrative. i wanted each person to be representative of a larger cross-section of the american working class. i started with data. this wonderful professor at brigham young university called joe price, he has a team of grad students can help people like me who studied amid humanities and don't have a good grasp of how to handle surveys. he helps you understand the sort of data, birdseye view. who is in the american working class. i said to him i want that herds i view from a data, quantitative

perspective. how many people are working class in america? are there races? where do they live, what jobs do they work in? how many of them are homeowners? which jobs have the highest homeownership rate? which states have the highest homeownership rate? one of the biggest surprises is the american dream for working class americans is much healthier in red states because the price of housing is so much lower. and so, working-class people can afford to become homeowners, which is not the case anymore in places like california, new york and seattle. once i had that data set, i knew i was looking for. for example, i didn't notice but 52% of women clean homes for a living are homeowners. i knew that in my sample of stories, i had to include at least woman who was a home cleaner and homeowner and at least one who wasn't. so that i knew going into this that both i and my reader would get a complete feeling having

read this book of what the american working class looks like. once i had that data set, i travel around the country. i interviewed many, many people. i did a lot of phone interviews. when i would do a phone interview and felt someone had a good story, i would get on my plane or in my car and talk to them so i could give the reader a full sense of who they were. that's the first half of the book. in the second half, what i did was i narrowed down the top impediments to working-class people achieving the american dream, and came up with five or six totally nonpartisan, easy to implement solutions that could be implemented by either party tomorrow, which would greatly increase the ease of the hardest working americans to achieve the american dream. >> let's talk to callers. we will start with gary in meridian, connecticut. good morning. caller: good morning, amy.

i want to take issue with how you began your discussion. you posited that this country was based on the egalitarian principles. it wasn't. it took until 1920 for women to have the right to vote. initially, people didn't own property couldn't vote. this country was designed to protect the wealthy and it has been years of fighting to change that. african-americans are still fighting for the right to vote. so, how you posited that this country was based on egalitarian principles really bewilders me. i don't disagree with much of what you are saying about the way things are now. but i have to disagree with that premise that you stated. i am curious what your educational background is to qualify you to write this book. i'm a retired history professor from a major ivy league university. and it is contrary to everything i understand.

so, i would like to hear your answer. host: all right, gary. guest: thank you, gary. that's an important point. i don't think i said egalitarian. i said classless this. the idea that anybody could rise up and make something of themselves. you are right that that did not include women and black americans until the civil rights movement. i should have made that much clearer, not to erase the work of the abolitionist movement and abraham lincoln and the civil-rights movement. so, i accept that criticism completely. but, the whole idea of the declaration of independence, the bill of rights, the constitution, was to protect not just tolerance, but actually liberty itself, which the founding fathers believed was something that was granted by god. so, i would say i accept the criticism. it was limited. we would not have gotten where we are today without those

founding documents and that founding principle, which, to me, makes the betrayal of america's multiethnic and multiracial working class all the more keen. host: we have a question for you on x from jb reding, who says given trump's policies that do not directlyit the lower classes, how do factors cultural residents, the peon of fighting the elite , misinfor, and strategic leadership choices, contribute to his continued support among his demographic? guest: so, one of the things you hear a lot, if you turn on liberal media or if you watch msnbc or cnn or the new york times, you will hear this refrain. trump's signature achievement was a tax cut for the rich. i'm sure we've heard that many times. i don't think that is an accurate statement. first of all, a lot of the

people that i interviewed for my book recall getting a tax cut that was significant to them. the percentage of tax cuts that were given to working-class and middle-class families is much higher than the percentage given to the rich. the top 1% only saw below a 5% tax cut. for the working-class and middle-class people, it was 15% to 24%. of course, if you are a billionaire, 1% is much more money than if you are making $55,000 a year and you get a 24% tax cut but to the person making $55,000 a year, that's significant. beyond that, trump started a trade war with china at a time when both parties were pursuing this free-trade globalization model. he controlled the border at a time when both parties had basically committed to importing many, many people to work here for starvation wages. many of them, enslaved to the cartels who bring them here illegally.

so, these were big achievements. as a result of them, if you look at 2019, the bottom 25% of wage earners saw a 4.5 percent wage increase for the first time in decades. whereas the top 25% of wage earners saw a 2.9% wage increase, which means trump was the first person to shrink the gap between the top 25% and the bottom 25% in decades. you look at that, at the same time, if he was limiting the supply of labor, imposing massive tariffs, 25% to 30% on china, inflation was only 1.8%. to me, that's what people who voted for him are trying to get back to. in the liberal media, they were cast as white supremacists trying to return to the 1950's and the jim crow era. what they wanted was to get back to 2019, when they had a little more money in there account at

the end of the month to spend on things that gave them dignity. i say this as someone who heard this many times from people who are working class. they could point to the specific trump era policies that put money back in their pockets. i don't think that trump won because he was fighting wokeness. i think that is a fantasy of republican elites who don't want to talk about the economy and want to talk about the transgender issue because that is there -- i think the reason trump won is because many people who were democrats five years ago voted for him in swing states. they did so because he put money back in their pockets and they believe he will do so again. host: let's talk to ron in tennessee. hi, ron. caller: thanks for taking my call. i agree with a lot of your opinions here. my opinion is the democratic

party has aligned with the elitist. the davo's-switzerland people. that's who they have aligned with. they want to destroy this economy. you cannot have communism with the middle class because if people have hope, you can't have communism. you have to have no hope. that makes you have the government take care of you. i think we would be in big trouble here if it wasn't for the second amendment. during covid, more billionaires were created from covid, because all of these large corporations got to stay open. and all the muzzle tov shops got shut down. it destroyed the middle class. this is what they are aiming to do. they are aiming to kill the middle-class so they can usher in communism. i hope people wake up to that fact. because it is going on. 95% of the media is owned by people from davo, switzerland.

cnn, comcast, disney, paramount. host: let's get a response. go ahead, batya. guest: i often say the democratic party is like a plane. there are a few people in first class and a lot of people in economy. and what their message to the people in economy is is you can fly for free, so long as you stay in the back of the plane. [laughter] you look at the data, the democratic party's coalition is no longer the multiracial working class like it used to be for so long. that is now the maga movement. the people who vote for democrats consistently are the dependent poor people. they are this polarized party. and, you look at so much of the policy and it reflects that.

it is either bolstering the status of the poor but without actually improving their life. there is no upward mobility. or, it is helping the rich, putting money back in the pockets of the rich. there is so much data to back this up, this realignment to where democrats became the party of the rich. 65% of americans who make more than $500,000 per year today are living in democratic areas. these are democrats. 75% of donations coming out of silicon valley argent request. joe biden got 10% more of the votes from silicon valley. 95% of donations of top three management consultant companies go to democrats. 75% of hedge fund donations go to democrats. we are seeing this realignment. nine of the 10 richest counties in america now are democrats. meanwhile, trump won with the

majority of people who earn under $100,000 a year. we have seen this radical realignment. what we are in the midst of right now is the republican party deciding whether they are happy with this. for so long, it was the democrats who were the party of labor and the republicans were the party of the rich. donald trump took an ax to all of that. of course there are elites on the right who would go back to catering to rich conservatives who only care about the woke issue and symbolic issues. i think they are not quite sure. we will see in the next four years whether the republican party has realized who their new base is and i think health care, which came up earlier, will be a big part of that. whether we see them being willing to talk about this issue or not will be a signal about whether the trump revolution, the trump realignment has legs and staying power. host: we will talk to sean in california. good morning. caller: good morning. i am enjoying the conversation.

i do believe or actually side with the things this young lady is saying. however, i am one of those democrats that i do believe we need to, first of all, not group people because of the fact that if it's a democratic political party, but i'm an individual that happens to vote for a lot of things that are right for a lot of people. i have been there before and i have been helped. when i hear of, the democratic party are elites and this and that, i'm that moderate democrat. i'm in the middle class. i have a masters degree. i work. i am probably at the bottom of that middle class. and yes, you are correct. we are scuffling to continue to be able to provide for our

families. i take care of an 80-year-old family member. i also have a disabled son that i'm trying to get through college. i see on the job where, when money is supposed to go to the correct party or correct people that are doing all of the legwork, that money only goes up to the higher people that are in the organization. that is your ceo's, your manager. and they are all in cahoots together. and pretty much kind of whip you down at the bottom to do the work. we worked through the pandemic. in this young lady, she is telling the truth about a lot of things that people don't hear about. but, please don't group me with -- i'm not saying you, ma'am, but a lot of people, don't group certain people or don't group people with higher up people

that are making these millions of dollars. us down here, are democrats are scuffling. and we are trying to do the best for everyone, all over the world. thank you very much. host: go ahead. guest: god bless you, shawn. you are the exact person that both parties should be fighting for your vote. taking care of both a child who has struggled and a parent, while working full time. that is the struggle for dignity for the american dream. as far as i'm concerned, whichever party successfully convinces you that you have your interest at heart and makes your life a little easier, that's the future. what i want to see and why i wrote this book is because instead of seeing both parties

ignore people like you, i want to see both parties fighting for your respect. that's the america that i want to live in. is a country where somebody like you, who works so hard and comes home and is taken -- taking care of the generation above you and generation below you has two parties struggling, fighting for your respect and to make your life a little easier. you are the backbone of this country. that's why i wrote this book. and i hope that what i say resonates with you. thank you so much for the call. host: we have a text from gre in dallas. he says this. i admire your passion, ma'am. however, making the wealthy and the corporations they own americans fairly is the same thin as taking their money and giving it to the working class. you see, thehy do not see work as having any value other than someone else's work enriching them. guest: that is so true.

i think when you -- you are right. you can't convince these rich fools to pay people -- ghouls to pay people more. they will not do this out of the kindness of their heart. it's not in the nature of corporations who have had two parties encouraging them to sell out the working class to suddenly grow a conscience. what you can do is what i think trump did in the first term. if you limit the supply of labor, labor like every thing else, it adheres to the ironclad law of supply and demand. so if there are less workers, each one has to be paid more or they can't get the profits. by simply controlling the border, working class people are going to see an immediate increase in their wages. when joe biden him into office and the first thing joe biden did was undo all of trump's

border executive actions, remain in mexico and all these other ones that were effective, immediately you saw people streaming across the border. we now have the highest percentage of illegal immigrants living in the country then we have ever had in our history. the percentage of americans who are foreign-born right now is at 15%. that was very intentional because i think president biden and his administration, alejandro mayorkas, they thought this would bring down inflation because it would bring down working-class wages. and that's exactly what it did. it brought down working-class wages which had been seeing all of this growth. i will give one quick example of this because it is so infuriating. but meatpacking. this used to be the job to have. you would have communities and they would have a big plant and they would get great jobs there. the wages were incredible, the conditions were incredible. the hours were incredible. you could retire in dignity.

if you look at who is doing our meat patting -- meatpacking, it's illegal immigrants working for much less wages in much less safe conditions. the scandal is a lot of them are children who have been trafficked here by these cartels and are effectively enslaved and have to pay off $5,000 to $10,000 that was used to get them here by these murderers cartels while making six dollars an hour. it is so utterly infuriating and yet this was done completely by design, in order to bring down the prices for people who have that college degree, who are in those elites. host: let's talk to marvin in michigan. hi, marvin. caller: good morning. i would like to ask some questions about the lady talking about high school students and how the program was cut.

i disagree with her saying you have to have a college education to be an elite. i don't know where she gets that from. i worked 30 years in detroit. working in construction. and i made over $120,000 a year. and i just have a high school education. the lady should be trying to uplift people. i totally disagree with that statement. i would also like to give a rebuttal. she keeps saying the trump administration. [indiscernible] the trump administration is trying to eliminate the prayer ship programs. they will never become pilots

because if you cut their training, like she was saying in the first statement how they have done to high school students, you will never get that funding back. i would like hurt you give me some kind of -- her to give me some kind of rebuttal and give an uplifting view. host: all right. we've got that. go ahead, batya. guest: marvin is right. trade unions are one of the remaining avenues for working class people to achieve the american dream. they are incredibly important. they do secure the middle-class life for working-class people. the problem is only 6% of the private sector is unionized. while americans feel really good about unions right now, they are not flocking to join them. i think it's because in high school, they don't get pushed. in high school, it's common for kids to be told you are a loser if you don't go to college. i think that is terrible.

we should be uplifting kids and telling them this is a dignified way to live and be able to support a family on this wage. you will have great benefits and be able to retire in dignity. i agree with that. i agree with him that the trade unions are great and are a mainstay of this country. very supportive. the problem is not enough americans are unionized. as a result, they don't have access to those benefits. in terms of cutting the apprenticeship, i had not heard of that. i will look into that, marvin. that's a terrible thing. if that's happening, i will raise my voice against it. apprenticeship programs that get young men, specifically, into working-class jobs that have a future are unbelievably important. host: batya, you said the obama administration had cut vocational training in high school's. can you tell us more about that, why those were cut. and in the next trump

administration, what has he said about those programs? we know he has said he wants to close the department of education and give that function over to the state. host: the idea i think from the democrats is they saw this globalized economy, they saw these jobs being shipped overseas to china and mexico due to very good trade deals that they had signed. i think the idea was look, those jobs are not coming back. president obama said that many times. what we have to do is get everyone to go to college. we will build a knowledge industry here and sent all of our young people to college. they will join the college industry and consume -- we will consume goods that are made elsewhere. forget about manufacturing. it is clear now that that was not a good idea. 50% of people who have a college degree are underemployed. they are not using the skills they learned because the economy has overproduced people with a

college degree. we have enough accountants and lawyers and programmers. what we need now is we have a huge dearth of trade jobs. the idea was everyone will go to college. not every wants that. not everybody is suited for the and the economy is not suited to handle so many people doing those specific jobs. i think that was what went wrong. there was a slight attempt to correct that with pell grant's later on in the ministry should. president trump has talked about vocational training. there are plans being put out now by the gop that focus very much on this idea that you don't have to have a college degree. you shouldn't have to have a college degree in order to achieve the american dream and support your family. i think all of that is great. i think a lot of it from the right comes from this feeling that when people go to college, they become indoctrinated and

leftists with democratic ideas, which i think is true. -- we will start to restore this view. it's not just the training. it's the romance of the idea. it's the cultural respect for people who work with their hands for a living. which you just don't really see so much in culture today, which is very much created for the ideal american consumer. which, if you think about that as a person who has extra money, disposable income, who these ads are targeted at, it's going to be people in the elite. we need to see a revolution in terms of the economics, the training, the material side of things, but also the cultural aspect of things, restoring respect of the hardest working americans. host: kevin is in ellicott city, maryland. good morning. caller: i don't know where to

begin. the idea that you go to college and you become indoctrinated. i went to college, my wife and children went to college. this is exactly the problem with america today. we make these broad statements that they say are true, it's like she's listening to joe rogan. this is the challenge of america today. we have some any people making these big comments like it is real. but everyone -- like everyone is woke. it is this idea that is making america less smart in the decisions they make because the information they get is from podcasts and people like this, who make the statements. they are so ignorant that it is unbelievable. college education, regardless of how you use it, is a benefit for a lot of americans. and you should not be discouraging it. trades are wonderful, if you can get into trade and that's your decision, that's wonderful.

what we can't continue to demonize so many things and say it was bad to go there. if you look at the specifics, who makes more money, who has a better life, who lives longer, it is typically people that are either college educated or could have a trade in there. don't discourage people from getting a college degree like you are going to come out brainwashed like your parents didn't raise you properly. it's just a bad comment. the last point is this. donald trump lost 2.5 million jobs. he spent $8.2 trillion. in the end, he spent 4.2 trillion dollars of unmanaged covert money that he was giving -- covid money that he was giving away two. -- to people. our international relations were horrible. he rewrites history. i promise, after four years, you will see some of the same

things. i lost so much money in the stock market under donald trump. it has finally gotten back. with biden, manufacturing is up. it gets disappointing. when i listen to someone like this talk -- host: let's get hurt response. -- her response. guest: i guess he was triggered by the word indoctrinated. the truth is the number one predictor for whether or not people will vote for democrats is a college degree. i should not have said indoctrinated. i apologize to kevin and respect is common. the only group that kamala harris won with was college women, especially educated. you go somewhere, i have a phd so i spent a lot of time in the context of universities. it is very hard to be a conservative there.

in humanities, 90% of professors are not just liberal very liberal. it's a thing. i think most people can see that it's a thing. but i apologize for using the word indoctrinating. i see that that is triggering and i will try to be more careful with my words. the problem is i think he's agreeing with me even though he things he's disagreeing. he's agreeing that a college education has become a prerequisite for the american dream and that is terrible, unfair and unjust. it's wrong. we need many more people. our economy relies on the labor of the working class. so when we say a college education is the only way for us to allow people to have the american dream, we are saying that we get it but all of the people who we were lie on -- rely on to survive, you don't get it. you will deliver my amazon packages and groceries but you won't get to be a homeowner in this neighborhood and i think that's discussing, i think it's godless and i think it is un-american. host: we have a text for you

that saystribution is the answer. it doesn'matter if that is not what the people i talked want. you may not want your taxes raised, batya. but don't tell us redistribution is taking money from the rich and handing it to the poor. you talked about health care. how exact we create and fund that without raising taxes? or are you not for the actual solution, universal health care? guest: i would support universal health care in a heartbeat. i have no problem raising my taxes. the problem is i think i have much more in common and donald trump has much more in common and the maga people have more in common with the aoc, bernie sanders wing of the democratic party have in common than the middle.

i don't think you have to pay for improvements to medicare with peoples tax dollars. i think that there are a lot of very easy, obvious policies, things you can implement tomorrow that would make health care much more affordable and much easier for people to deal with, starting with things like price transparency. starting with things like permitting ai from being used to deny claims. a lot of these conversations we are having now, after the horrific shooting of brian thompson, these are important conversations to have. what i would say to this person is they immediately jumped to assuming bad faith on my part because i don't support the solution that they want. i don't feel that way about them, i would support your solution even if it's not the one i would implement. why can't we do that? why can't we say we recognize the same problem, let's have that conversation instead of saying you are clearly on the other side. obviously, batya doesn't want to pay more taxes. we are on the same side.

it's not left versus right anymore. those distinctions don't exist. it's the populists who care about the working class versus the establishment elitists, who don't. the establishment elitists on both sides. versus the populists who will not agree on the solution but we are much closer than we are to either of them and why don't we recognize that and come together and have these conversations? host: thomas is in dear wood, marilyn. hi, thomas. caller: i listen to your guest and she's speaking from a lot of linguistic propaganda. the reason i use that term is because if you look at what's going on today, you see the segregation and the segregation is being pushed by white americans. it's not being pushed by latinos . it's being pushed by white americans. this is why you see when she

talks about the unions and things like that, they should be uplifting people who go to college. you see, white people have realized that they are being, like the group said, replaced. numbers wise. not physically. numbers wise. and you see, even if you look at her, she wears the star of david on her neck. her parents didn't tell her go to the union. her parents told her you have to try to get to harvard or an ivy league school. this woman here is just talking a bunch of linguistic propaganda. and she is a trump stir all the way, but she doesn't want to -- host: thomas, you talked about segregation. what kind of segregation are you talking about? caller: the segregation i am talking about is that the majority of white america right now is pulling together. they are not spreading out and

diverse and with the rest of the population. they are segregating to themselves. and you can see it if you look at who -- you talk about the elites. who are the elites? white segregationists. host: any comment, batya? guest: white people are the only group he lost ground within this election. in a significant way. he gained with minorities, including black men, blackman gave him 25% of the vote -- black men gave him 25% of the vote. he got more votes with jewish americans which i feel some type of way about. i don't see this holding water. i don't think americans feel negatively toward people based on the color of their skin. i feel like americans are proud

of having overcome that on an individual level and a national scale. i think that the thought that we are dividing by race, if november 5 potus anything, it's time to put that to bed. i appreciate the call -- told us anything, it's time to put that to bed. i appreciate the call. host: cindy, your next. are you there? caller: yes, can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: i want to say to your guest, i appreciate her comments. maybe about a month or so ago, a little more, i saw her on c-span book tv, possibly being interviewed and was highly impressed with her being interviewed there as well. i want to thank you for the comments about the first party that gets to limiting immigration and combining the bernie sanders economic message is the one that will be the

ultimate winner. i want to say i am much older than you. i am college educated, a prestigious, whatever i heard david brooks say, one of the 34 prestigious colleges in this country graduate. what i have heard is coming from flint, michigan. that says a lot. working class in my values. but not stupid enough to work fo -- vote for maga. i think they are highly intelligent about what gets voters going. but the maga voters are not so educated or astute. i was too young to pay attention back in the day, go back to win nafta -- go back to nafta and when george bush senior. rid of defined retirement and if it

plans and switched everybody to the 401(k) system and look at congressional votes and who voted that is still around. i was shocked to see that the nafta vote, which happened during the clinton administration, but was an idea, my understand, that came from george bush senior and maybe even someone in the reagan administration, which he was. nancy pelosi voted for nafta. dick durbin in the senate from illinois voted for nafta. i expect chuck grassley to be on that list. he's a republican from iowa. i was blown away that democratic people -- nancy pelosi needs to retire now that she has broken her head. these people who claim to be for the democrats are really, as you say, for the corporate elite. i couldn't believe some of the names on that list. i checked all of the california

senators at that time. a lot of them have passed away. but the ones who are still around, and you claim to be a democrat and you shipped all of the jobs from flint and detroit down to mexico and china, i will never vote for them again. host: all right, cindy. guest: thank you. i have not done that but now i want to go back and take a look at that list. thank you so much for the comments. host: here is michael, who is in texas. hi, michael. caller: hi, how are you? host: good. caller: thanks for taking my call. i am a diehard, you could call me a bleeding heart liberal but i think your comments about -- to me, i take it as degrading. degrading the educational aspirations. everyone does -- our country needs to have people that are

ditch diggers. someone has to make the burgers. but the fact you seem to want to denigrate wanting a higher education seems a little harsh. you brought this thing about causation versus correlation, saying that people who become more educated tend to be democrats maybe you are looking at it from the wrong point of view. maybe because you are educated, you tend to see a better way forward. conservatives want to go back. progressives, i.e. your elitism and your causation to education makes us want to go forward. maybe you are looking at it a different way. i also wanted to address the fact that america seems to be stuck on binary reasoning and thinking. you are either black or white, republican or democrat or man or woman. in the real world, we operate on varying degrees within those two polars. i think socialism or capitalism,

there are ways to figure out the best way forward in between those points. there is a gray area for everything. host: we are running low on time. let me get you an answer. guest: i agree. there is so much more consensus. polarization is an elite phenomenon. that's the number-one message of my book. if you travel around the country, you will find enormous unity and love americans have for each other including for people across the political spectrum. working-class people don't have the luxury or appetite of hating people based on who they vote for. across the country, you have working class people working side-by-side with, praying side-by-side with, breaking bread with people who voted for trump, even if they didn't. we have to take a page from their playbook. on the college thing, the reason i am so down on college, is because in the name of this so-called expertise, we have come to worship not actual expertise but the interest, the economic interest of the elite, the expert class who have

implement it again and again and again, policies that hurt their less fortunate neighbors, while they continue to rely on those neighbors labor to survive. that is the thing i find appalling and unacceptable. in the name of higher ideals and progress that we have overseen an upward transfer of wealth into our own pockets from our neighbors who work harder than us and yet now have not just less but do not have access to health care. do not have access to the american dream or homeownership. their children are worse off. that is what i find unacceptable. host: about policies for the incoming trump administration, the people you talk to, did you find them in favor of higher tariffs and keeping the trump tax cuts and extending the trump tax cuts? what do you think? guest: they love tariffs. working-class people feel those

tariffs protect the fruits of their labor and make them worth more. the average steelworker makes $80,000 a year. that is since trump put a tariff on steel and aluminum. it protects wages. we should want our neighbors to make more money and they were in favor of controlling the border. these people are not anti-immigrant. these people would apologize and say i am not anti-immigrant but it is an undeniable fact that they brought down the wages of the working class and they appreciated trump's attempt to reverse that. host: batya ungar-sargon, opinion editor at newsweek. the book is called "second class: how the elites betrayed america's working men and women." thank you for joining us. after the break, more of your calls in open forum, anything you want to talk about, public policy or politics wise. please start calling in now.

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policy is decided. c-span, powered by cable. >> welcome back to washington journal. it is open forum. you can start calling in now. while we are doing that, here is president elected donald trump. he was at a turning point action conference and talked about immigration policy and a new approach to fighting illegal drugs. >> i have informed mexico it cannot continue. we are not going to let it continue. the united states has lost 300,000 people a year. think of that. how many people -- everybody you meet since i lost my daughter, i lost my son to drugs and fentanyl. mostly defense and all, but to drugs. families are being destroyed and we are going to stop it. we are also doing something that

i think will help a lot. we are going to do big advertising campaigns. we will spend a lot of money but it will be a small amount of money relatively. we will advertise how bad drugs are for you. they ruin your look. they ruin your face. they ruin your skin and teeth. if you want to have horrible teeth, take a lot of fentanyl. if you want to have skin that looks terrible, take fentanyl. we will show what these drugs are doing. nobody has done that before and we are going to do it. host: that was yesterday. if you like to see the whole event, it is at our website. this is the hill with the headline trump says he is planning large-scale ad campaign on fentanyl crisis. you can read that if you would like more information on that planned campaign. let's talk to aaron in new

mexico, republican. how is it going? caller: i am from massachusetts. unfortunately, i live here now. i do not care about immigration, but i used to be addicted to fentanyl. anyways, health care, right? that is what you said? luigi mangione's arraignment is today. i hope we see a lot of support for him. he is our new christ figure. host: he is also an alleged murderer. don't you see other ways of showing displeasure? caller: we need copycats of luigi. host: this is christina,

michigan, independent line. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. where do i begin? this country has gone so out of whack. i find one of the biggest problems we have is all the money in politics. that has become big business. ever since the supreme court passed citizens united saying everything is free speech, somebody like elon musk can contribute $270 million to get somebody elected that he can influence. now you know something is wrong someplace. first, i think we have too much money in politics. second, i think we have to much religious beliefs. i am a christian.

i had 12 years of christian education. i never learned christ to preach violence and that is how you take care of problems, by violence like that last gentleman said. i work in the health care field. i worked in surgery. everything became a business. it was do more with less, push people more. do i think donald trump really cares about working-class people, of which i was? no, he does not. he cares about marketing. he is a terrific marketer and that is in his favor. this country is subject to marketing like crazy. that is all we do, commercials. i am 70 years old. i remember a day when we were told pay for tv and you would not get commercials. now we have pay-tv and it is

commercial, commercial, commercial. we are so subject to influence of marketing. it is ridiculous. we should start thinking about what is really important and get the money out of politics. that would be the biggest start, but it is not going to happen because there is too much money in politics. host: this is a story from axios that says congress's age debate reignite over member living in retirement home. the long simmering debate over the age of members has resurfaced over revelations that a representative from texas has been living in an independent living facility in texas. the retiring former house appropriations committee chair

has led some of her colleagues to raise concerns. granger acknowledged in a sunday statement to axios that she has been navigating unforeseen health challenges over the past year. since early september, my health challenges have progressed, making frequent travel to washington difficult and unpredictable. her son told the dallas morning news she has been having some dementia issues late in the year. this is katrina in georgia, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i agree with age limits. this is a prime example of why we need age limits. this country cannot progress forward with people of old thinking being in charge of this country and making decisions.

this country needs to grow and progress. without young minds and ideals this country will continue to live in hatred of what it basically grew on. in addition, trump. his thing on trying to fight drugs and things of that nature -- trump has no substance. he has no morals. he is a person who just continues to spew all kinds of division. for anyone who thinks this man is educated, whoever thinks he is a genius, i do feel for you. as far as this country, this country is ruled by lobbyists. lobbyists have this country. for the people no longer exists. it is for the people who can buy

votes and take over industries and continue to feed us horrible food and pollute our air. think about how many people -- how young people are now and the amount to people that come in with cancer. those questions -- our government is failing us every day. until we recognize these people need to start showing where their money is and who they are backing, congress should be an open book. we should be able to see everything. they should not be able to invest in certain companies or beyond certain panels or in charge of committees. these are things as citizens we should now. it is a money grab and that is why they do not want to leave these jobs, because they have the best health care which they do not offer to us. they are able to see what

companies want to close so they can move their money. we are in a farce. until the people of this country take charge and start asking people to show their hands, we are going to continue to be in this thing that we are in. >> we mentioned this news about the death row commutation. biden took me sentences of nearly all men on federal death row. the president will block donald trump's chances to quickly resume executions, so this was 37 of the 40 men condemned to death, the second mass clemency in the weeks following the pardon he issued to his son. he said in a statement, i condemned these murderers, grieve for their victims, and ache for all the families who have suffered irreparable loss,

but guided by my conscience and experience as a public defender, chairman of the senate judiciary committee, vice president, and now president, i am more convinced than ever we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. we mentioned it was 37 out of the 40. it says here biden's commutations exclude three prisoners convicted for what the president characterized as terrorism or hate motivated mass murder. they are the boston marathon bomber and mass shooters robert bowers, who killed 11 people at the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh, and dillon roof, who killed nine people at immanuel african methodist episcopal church in south carolina. you can read the rest of that at politico. randy in kentucky, good morning.

>> i do not know if i'm understanding what you're saying about biden. if i could, are you saying they will be free to the public or just denied to be put to death? host: it is just that they will not be put to death. they will be life in prison without parole. caller: so how does biden justify someone who does a hate crime to someone who kills a bunch of children or whatever it may be? those people hate, no matter what they do. i never understood hate crimes or any of that stuff, but what i wanted to call in for was the lady on before. it would be nice if you could have other people on with predicting the future of how our economy and income is going to

be when we get all the ai and robots. we are bringing in this country so many uneducated people that will be basically unneeded, like so many people already here in this country. you will not need data entry people because ai -- everything will be basically done, so how much are you going to pay? do they have it figured out? i discussed this with a young person many years ago. what do they want to pay everyone? just a basic wage? everyone gets the same? and then if i steal your money, whatever they decided will be -- if it is not enough for me, can i steal your money or take your money or whatever it may be?

all this is so -- the futures want to be so amazing, but the thing the future looks like it is going to be is without god. the future of america and its people is going to be godless and you can never have that. trumpism is godless. host: all right. we are in open forum. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. we will take our calls, whatever you want to talk about as a relates to politics and public policy until the end of the program at 10:00 a.m. eastern. robert is calling us from north carolina, independent line. caller: i am calling to say i was a democrat, but when i saw

kamala harris kept saying she is going to give this much to this many people, she is going to give to pregnant women and give more to families, what about working-class citizens? anybody can see clearly how she lost. she lost from giving to somebody that was not working, giving to the moms that ain't working. we got enough of those people out there that ain't working and feasting off people that is working, taxpayer money. people get tired of it and that is what she was doing. i was a democrat until i kept hearing her saying give. but she never said anything about working-class citizens. that is why donald trump is for the working people and thank god for ai. people say we do not need ai. we need ai. people do not even know how to go on the right side of the

road. we need electric cars. we need that gps. thank god for gps. at least you know where you are going. these people are crazy. they think ai is going to destroy everything and it is corporate this and that. we made it through the george bush administration. we made it through joe biden's administration and we will make it through donald trump's administration but we will have 12 years of the trump administration. four years of mr. trump and he is going to elect somebody for eight more years. he has the government locked down. let me tell you something, another thing. democrats are working up to say how did he get this past and change the government? you have one set of people that is smart, the republicans, and another set of people that is

dumb. republicans is very smart. they know how to pass bills and what to do to pass a bill. democrats think this way supposed to be for them, but you got food. you should have change the government if you want to change. host: this is rochester, new york, democrat. good morning. caller: in some states, southerners can't even vote but we got a felon going into the white house? i am so ashamed of my country. all those who vote for trump will see what trump is going to do for them. host: this is larry in fort calhoun, nebraska. republican. caller: a couple days from now, washington journal's want to be on christmas. last month, i thought it would

be nice if democrats call on christmas and not speak of hate because christmas is a sacred day and you should not speak of hate, so if you are a democrat calling, keep your comments civil. host: shouldn't everybody keep their comments civil? caller: of course. i think there are a few republicans that way too, but not as bad as the democrats and the media. it is so divisive, to speak of hate. that would be a good program. you could have only democratic callers and explain what good hate is. so that is my comment today and i wish everybody a merry christmas. host: this is from the hill.com,

with the headline president of panama fires back at trump that the canal belongs to panama and says the panamanian president shot back after president trump suggested the panama canal returned to u.s. control. as president, i want to express that every square meter of the panama canal belongs to panama and will continue to do so. its sovereignty and independence of our country are not negotiable. it says the canal is not under direct or indirect control i china or the european union, nor by the united states or any other power. as a panamanian, i reject any manifestation that distorts this reality. you can read that at the hill. here is bobby in minnesota, independent. caller: i am from west st. paul

minnesota and i want to talk about the melinda's brothers -- melendez brothers, who shot and killed their parents in cold blood. also, they were -- my point is that apparently the dad was a sex fiend and was sexually abusing the boys and they made a plan and shot their parents in cold blood and now they're looking for -- to have their sentence pardoned or whatever the terminology is. people have to remember they preplanned this killing. they shot their dad and shot their mom. the mom was still alive. they went outside and at that moment they should have

rationalized and said, look at what we did. mom is still alive. the mother that brought us to this world and raised us as babies, the mother that got us through adolescence. instead of calling 911 to save their mother, they reloaded and shot her to death and after they called 911 and of course we know the rest of the story. they came up with this bogus story. but the fact that they had an opportunity to save their mother but we cannot do that because she is going to be a witness is why they should never see the light of day outside of prison. thank you for taking my call. host: edward is in arlington, virginia, line for democrats. caller: you have to have

intellectual, emotional, or a moral short-circuit to want to vote for trump, who is a criminal. he is an insurrectionist and he should be in jail, not in the white house. host: this is floyd in iowa. caller: this is about politics. it has always been dirty. he got out because it was so dirty. he thought the mma was dirty and got into politics. even in junior high school he said politics is war by other means. truman said -- weight. this just in. matt gaetz, you are the father.

host: this is terry in new jersey, independent line. caller: good morning. merry christmas. the only thing i want to say here -- merry christmas to all. i have been watching you. i watch and watch. do not cut me off. everybody who is sticking up for mr. trump should really take a trip down memory lane and i think you should show them that. no one talks about the school shooting. no one talks about what is really going on here and i think there are so many people i agree with who called in. people really need to remember. women have long memories. take a trip down memory lane. i implore you to do so. have a nice holiday. thank you for taking my call.

host: this is rosemary in alabama, democrat. go ahead. caller: i wanted to make one comment. that is how did we ever allow -- the richest men in the world to buy an election for donald trump? that is my only thought. thank you. host: and some news for you from this morning. this is the new york times about a merger. honda and nissan aim to emerge as global competition bears down. it says japan second and third largest automakers hope the $50 billion deal would help them catch up with tesla and china's electric vehicles and advanced software. you can read more about that at the new york times.

kendall in ohio, good morning. caller: good morning and happy holidays. one of the problems i hear democrats come up with cut talking about how the president trump got reelected, this is the problem. there are 9 million biden democrats that disappeared when it came to voting for kamala so anytime democrats want to question where the election was won and whose fault it is, they need to look within themselves and ask where those 9 million biden democrats disappeared to. that is huge. secondly, i have pushed forward in the first trump administration to lower the student loan rates to 2% across the board and allow payments to go to the principal first. this will allow people to pay

student loan rates off at a lower interest rate and make it quicker by putting principal first. i want to push that out there. host: got an update for you on the matt gaetz ethics report. that has been released by the house ethics committee and the new york post is reporting matt gaetz filed lawsuits against the house ethics committee probe findings on sexual misconduct. it says the former representative filed a lawsuit monday against the house ethics committee, seeking an emergency temporary restraining order to try to stop the release of the investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, arguing the release would prompt immediate and widespread media coverage. he filed a lawsuit after dying -- denying allegations published in a leaked draft of the report ahead of its official release.

homer in florence, massachusetts, good morning. caller: how can you say is trump going to weaponize the doj against people? from the time he came down the escalator, i heard all of the squad saying we are going to impeach him and then i remember all of them saying, letitia james and fani willis and that other guy from new york who did convict him -- but he is not convicted. he has not been sentenced. i'm curious with the narrative that elon musk is going to do stuff that is not official and he is not getting paid. what was john kerry's job when he was going on military flights and getting paid -- not getting paid, not answering to the senate or congress? elon musk wants to cut spending,

not spend more money on trying to fix the environment by throwing money at it, so i appreciate you giving one side of the story because i do not remember you saying the same thing about president trump that you are saying now about how he is going to weaponize the doj with the democrats were talking about going after him from the get-go, so thanks for have a story and being so biased. host: happy holidays to you. ed in pennsylvania, democrat, good morning. caller: i am 87 years old and i have a masters degree in science and a masters degree in communications, plus some beyond my masters and i would like to make some comments about trump.

in my estimation -- i'm a vietnam vet and i did my service out in kansas, topeka, kansas. there was a university i could attend out in kansas and it was close to a foundation hospital for people that had medical problems. i was able to attend some classes in the evening, so what i observed about this president trump is that he never accepts any responsibility for the riot at the capital.

he did not express any overall responsibility for his financial problems up in new york, so he seemed to me like a non-president. i would classify him as a hypocrite and a hypocrite is he believes life is what you fake it and that seems to suit this fellow that is going to be president. he never apologizes for anything. he just refers his problems to other people. hello? host: yes, caller: we heard you. caller:that is my opinion. even the puerto rico, they said

it was a garbage island. he never accepted responsibility for that. that is why i classify him as a hypocrite. host: we got that. this is judy in tennessee, independent. caller: i am deeply concerned about the situation in israel. i do not understand how america condones the israelis from seizing land from everybody around them. they have taken more land than the golan heights. when they say they are protecting their boundaries, what is the difference between them protecting their boundary and putin killing people to protect his boundaries?

i do not understand how america supports this. thank you. host: kathy in south carolina good morning. caller: i have a prepared speech that is more important than any speech i can imagine. peace on earth and goodwill toward men. i will not be surprised when the earth starts to shake or the sky becomes a vivid blue. both can only be done by god. i am a black female senior citizen from south carolina. i am a first time caller telling the world that i will speak about god's master plan. remember this. jesus is coming back. god will lift up the bowed down heads and cause those who are proud and mighty to be humble.

only then will god lift up their bowed down heads also because it is god's will to have our men saved, including the great and small, rich and poor, free and bound, those rejoicing and those still in doubt. for anyone thinking this is impossible, most would agree with this thinking, but with god our -- all things are possible. host: judy in oregon, republican line. caller: i called in on the wrong line. i am a democrat. i'm sorry. kathy, that is beautiful. i hope that is true. what i'm calling about is trump and his retribution. and joe biden, the hunter biden

thing was really ridiculous. he was not running for president. trump in his adult life has had come before he was ever ready for political office, has filed or been sued or tried to sue over 4000 times. this is not persecution, going after trump. trump did a lot of shady things. he was used to getting away with whatever. if somebody said something he did not like or something that was true, he would try to sue them for slander. this was his way of doing business. since he became president, he has done some pretty horrible things. he has done some horrible things. he should be held accountable

and the media that calls him out on it should not have to worry about losing their job or being sued by him. that is free speech. so i'm just saying he has been doing horrible things his whole adult life. thank you. host: on the line for independence in knoxville, tennessee, corey, you are next. caller: i think to increase jobs and build new jobs they should try to reinstate more assembly lines back into the industry and build more warehouses. i think that would help a lot with the economy and i think it is important for military purposes as well. if we ever go into a war, it is important to have warehouses in a simile lines for reducing supplies and that could be sent over to ukraine or whoever and

we would be making money instead of losing money, but i also think if we were to do that we should have requirements for people coming out of incarceration. that is all i want to say. host: this is jennifer in oak hill, ohio, independent line. caller: i would like to talk about the gpo we have been working on for 40 years that finally got past. i heard mark levine and ted cruz say yesterday it was for every social security recipient. it is not. it is people like me who, when i retired from the post office, they took 20% of my retirement because i was going to get social security. when it comes time to get social security, they took 85%.

so i ended up making donations of my social security because i got none of it back. my husband filed for social security disability when he got cancer and he had six months to live and they had a waiting period of five months. he got one check. and ted cruz and mark levine need to stop lying on the air and all these other people that are yelling about this because we lost money for 40 years. thank you. host: this is lisa in shreveport, louisiana. caller: quit censoring everything on your c-span. can you put a people like larry sinclair that had sex with

obama? can you also put on tara reid that was sexually abused by joe biden? can you put those people on since you are saying that president trump did all this? thank you very much. host: clark in west virginia, republican. caller: good morning. merry christmas p that means christ. people do not like to hear that now. listen. here is what i would like to reiterate. there is too much noise in the background here is that me or you? host: you are and i am in a studio. caller: i am looking at you now. anyway, i helped support trump. i might have made a mistake, but why is elon musk sticking his

nose in our business other than -- unless he wants to give some of his billions back to poor people, the people like the lady before and other people hurting, he should just shut up and go away. that is my opinion. host: are you in favor of the department of government efficiency he and vivek ramaswamy are heading up? caller: he says he is not going to throughout retribution but if he takes to his mind that he has been done wrong, and you know he said that, then maybe i would not blame him much, especially the ones that really tried to put him under the bus. host: barb in illinois sent a

text and said election contributions come from all forces large and small. those that contrutlarge amounts should not automatically be appointed to patronage positions in the government. here is william in virginia, independent line. caller: hello. ok. hokie, hokie, hokie hi. host: bob in kentucky, democrat. bob? go ahead. caller: i was calling in regards to a new law coming up. i wonder if it was true that they are changing the age for social security to 66 years and 10 months. is that a fact, that he is going

to sign it, donald trump? on january 20? host: i had not heard that, but we will do research and see if there is anything coming up about changing the age. i know that has been proposed, but i am not sure there is an actual bill that is making its way through. we will look at it. caller: ok. merry christmas. host: mike in wisconsin, republican, good morning. >> this weekend, he spent a lot of time talking about the so-called bipartisan spending bill, yet you did not talk about the frivolous stuff in it. all you talked about was stuff we might like as taxpayers. we did not talk about the part with emails -- people in

congress's emails not being able to get looked at. as americans, republican or democrat, that should scare all of us. if we do one bad thing, the federal government will go right to our emails. if you are going to be playing down the middle, start playing it down the middle now. host: he is gone. we will try to find that. maybe our producer can look into what that was about emails for people in congress. i want to get something specific for you so we do not misspeak on what the provision would have done. in los angeles, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm surprised i got in so early. i want to encourage people who think they are not going to be heard to call. i would say two things. one, i think the idea of the rich and especially the

superrich running this government is a bad idea. they are going to serve themselves and write laws that serve themselves. the idea of those with the most paying the least income tax is ridiculous. secondly, i am surprised, regardless of what kind of information you can get on a person like donald trump, my feeling from the beginning, and i am talking about before he even got involved in politics, he is not a man to be trusted. he is a bait and switch dealer. he will tell you he is going to do something he has never going to do. one other thing -- i am just about to lose my thought. what is it? hold on. this is what i was going to say. what people relate to what donald trump is not really his track record. it is that he is dissatisfied and telling people you are being threatened.

people are relating to that and putting him into office and he is not going to do anything about it. telling everyone he is sick and tired of this does not mean he is the man to be running this country. host: here is kathy in colorado, line for democrats. caller: i have been listening for quite some time. you just do not hear. as a nine-year-old little girl, i became a rape survivor. can you imagine what that brings up? somebody like me, when my neighbors have filled in an oval for a rapist and felon? no, you cannot. you republicans. because you do not believe anybody that has been assaulted. you and your god in book of lies

tells you it is ok? we have elected a rapist and felon. you republicans, i cannot even imagine how proud you must feel and i pray that no females in your family have to go through what me and all the other survivors have to look at, this piece of trash we have elected. he is a piece of crap. why can't anybody see that? he is a liar. he is a phony. all you women out there you better be careful because when you get raped, because now it is ok because you get to put rape on your resume and it elevates you -- it elevates you. what on earth is going on? so all you people that filled in that oval, i hope you are proud of yourselves because all the

women in our families that have been assaulted or are about to be assaulted, it is a real big slap in our faces. you take your bibles and you go to church and let's pray for the rapist. let's get us a pedophile in next time. host: all right. republican line, paul, you are next. caller: well, to that lady there , i feel sorry for her because all my family follows the bible and i really feel sorry for her because she sounds like she is kind of lost or something. donald trump, i'm not going to say he is a perfect man. there is nobody perfect. i know a lot of people think he

is kind of an old bear. if you look back in history, some of your greatest presidents were. harry truman, a democrat. he was a good democrat president. john f. kennedy was one. harry truman. but the democrat party now -- there are still good model democrats out there. but they have allowed the radical left -- the democrats are just upset because they got beat, really beat bad. and african-americans voted for donald trump. hispanics voted for him. all different kinds, especially christians and catholics and people like me and my family -- i am not saying he is a perfect

man. there is nobody on this earth that is perfect. the only one that was perfect was jesus, but to just go on like she was going on, i feel sorry for her. i am going to pray for her. host: here is grant in illinois, independent. caller: a couple things to mention. first, thought it was interesting and goes to show you the variety of callers you get. you had one caller yesterday that wanted biden to face a firing squad and getting back to mr. trump and the speech he gave yesterday, i agree that the fentanyl issue is a national crisis and needs to be addressed, but my understanding is much of the fentanyl is being brought across the borders

legally, through people that just get waved through and at the same time one of the pharmacists that prescribe it often do not being penalized or dried or anything like that for their role in continually prescribing fentanyl when i know how it is addictive. host: caller: you mean opioids? yes. and getting back to the likely pardons mr. trump is proposing to make, it is ludicrous that the writers at the capitol will be pardoned. back in the early 1970's, i was able to go to the capitol and now the only way any citizen can

get to the capitol and visit it is you have to arrange with your senator or congressman and make an appointment. that is not easy, so the fact is those people illegally entered the capitol and cost a great amount of harm and contributed to the death of a few people and i am concerned about trump's many proposed cabinet appointees , particularly robert kennedy, who could beat dangerous with his ridiculous anti-vaccine policies along with tulsi gabbard and pete hegseth, all people who are not qualified to be on the cabinet. thank you for your time and have

a good christmas. host: here is joshua in los angeles, democrat. >> i wanted to say one thing about the incoming trump administration. i look at trump and his cronies and they all seem to be accused of sexual assault in one form or another, like robert kennedy and pete hegseth and especially trump himself, found civilly liable for rape. host: for sexual abuse, yes. caller: that is what abc got sued over. sexual abuse, because that is so much better. especially his policies, too. it seems to me like trump is trying to bring back turn of the century -- early 20th century imperialism by threatening denmark and canada and wanting the panama canal back and at the same time supporting insane

tariffs on imported goods, which will bring up prices, especially for electronics and solar panels and at the same time you see donald trump taking a more isolationist position in places that matter, especially the war in ukraine and chastising zelenskyy and at the same time refusing to read intelligence reports. and he said that trump does not read his intelligence reports. we have a commander-in-chief who is a fraudster who has been divorced and remarried four times, found civilly liable for sexual abuse, and has a litany of failed businesses coming back after trying to do an insurrection and now we are supposed to trust him with every facet of our government, which he wants to fill with his own

political cronies by reinstating schedule f and firing important people. host: here is karen in connecticut. caller: i am commenting on the woman who said that trump was a rapist and the holes feel -- the whole spiel. he has gone to so many funerals of the immigrants raping and killing our kids, so i do not think he is a rapist. he will not be there. biden never showed up. second, never took a paycheck. how greedy is he? he does not take a paycheck. i am going to tell you all the trump supporters are very happy. the democrats are still crying, even on facebook. host: here is frank in florida, independent line.

caller: this is frank. host: i know. go ahead. caller: the problem we are not getting at is the country's problem is called lawyers. the way they advertise they will get their customer more money, that is why we are suffering in florida, lawyers. trump is an easy target for lawyers. what we have to do is regulate attorney fees. i think our problem is trump is not a lawyer. lawyers are our problem in this country. look how many pages are written for a bill. he is going to hopefully stir up the pot. in florida, they advertise we are going to get more money for your claims, which makes our insurance rates co-op.

it is a very simple formula. we have to regulate attorney fees. regulate them. we must regulate attorneys. they are taking the money legally. thank you. host: thanks to everybody for watching. that is all the time we have for today's program, but we are back again tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. as always, have a great day and happy holidays. [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] ♪ >> this week, watch "washington