discussing their careers in congress 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. ♪ >> democracy is always an unfinished creation. >> democracy belongs to us all. >> we are here in the sanctuary of democracy. >> great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. >> american democracy is bigger than any one person. >> freedom of democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. >> we are still at our core, a democracy! >> this is also a massive victory for mock and i for freedom. ♪ -- for democracy and for freedom. this is washington joul

for wednesday, december 25. the holidays are traditionally a time together but this year people may be skipping the 70's to avoid talking about politics amid record high perception with the u.s. divided. to start, we would like to hear your thoughts always to bridge the political divide. here are the lines, broken down regionally. in the eastern or central time zone, (202)-748-8000. mountain or pacific, (202)-748-8001. you can text your comments to (202)-748-8003. include your name and city. you can also post a question or comment on facebook, at facebook.com/he spent or on x at --@cspanwj. merry christmas. thank you being with us.

we wanted to start with more detail of what we are trying to talk about this morning. we will be discussing how to navigate disagreement within family gathering after a divisive year in politics and an election campaign. the election split americans in half on november 5, trump got 77.3 million votes for 49.4% of the popular vote and kamala harris got 75 million votes or 48.4%. according to a 2020 pew survey, 61% of americans say political conversations with people they disagree with our "stressful and frustrating."

also from that pew poll, a note saying 4% of u.s. adults say the political system is working extremely or very well. another 23% say it is working somewhat well, and 63% express not much or no confidence at all in the future of the u.s. political system. it is not just friends and family members, members of commerce -- congress are also working to bridge the political divide. on sunday, raphael warnock, democrat of georgia and james lankford, republican of oklahoma, were on the program talking about their efforts to reduce political polarization in the chamber. [video clip] >> to you all have conversations on how to restore bipartisanship on both conversations happening? >> absolutely.

i can tell you that for me and senator lankford would agree, he has pulled us out of many waters. we have differences of opinion, but the issue is our humanity and trying to build and strengthen the humanities. that is the spirit which i come to this work. i still lead my church, and i'm deeply honored to work with senator lankford. >> senator lankford, tell me about those conversations. how do you start the conversation of how to do more work together. >> i don't think of this as bipartisan work. this is american work. a lot of people just think of themselves first as human beings and neighbors, so what we are talking about is how to people who disagree sit down and figure

it out? unfortunately, washington, d.c., is a mirror to the country. and typically -- what happens is, members get together, they see their differences and have arguments, let's just see, people who disagree, but the difference is we are not supposed to just come here and figure out how to be bipartisan, we have to figure out how to solve problems. 435 in the house who disagree have to sit down and be grown-ups and say, let's figure it out. >> do you feel like you're in the minority of people figuring it out right now in washington because across the country, relationship, conversations are fractured? >> conversations are fractured. i don't think i'm in the minority, i think we have hope that it will be figured out.

the emotion of the country as they would like it to be fixed, but they cannot figure out how it will happen. over 70% of people in the country don't like the direction of the country. what is happening to us as americans? my basic statement is americans are made up of individual americans when each person decides they will do different. [end video clip] host: the gallup poll put out in september that americans degree the nation is divided on key values. they say a record high of 80% of u.s. adults believe americans are greatly divided on the most important values while 18% believe the country is united. the percentage deemed the nation is divided and has picked up from 77% the last time gallup asked the question in 2016, and

it is more than 10 percentage points higher than prior in 2004 and 2012 measures, so there is public skepticism about national unity that is not new. back to the 1990's, gallup poll shows that americans have seen the country divided on key values. only in 2001 and 2002 in the aftermath of 9/11 did most americans perceive the opposite with over two thirds who believe leaving -- leading the nation was united. senators talked about efforts to bridge political division and earlier this week, here is senator kyrsten sinema of arizona during her farewell address. [video clip] >> we have worked together and

cleared the way for historic settlements, land transfer deals, economic certainty, all by listening to one another. not to debate, but to understand. it is this very marketplace of a diversity of ideas that makes our country great. the knowledge that with dialogue and competition, we are driven to be more thoughtful and more creative, and that is why despite the challenges facing our country, i remain hopeful. america is still the most freest , creative and innovative place in the world, we are the birthplace of emerging technologies of medicine, artificial intelligence, energy, robotics, and the opportunities created by american ingenuity are limitless, and we must not let our politics hold us back for our city is still the

shining city on the hill and it is just to protect us and strengthen it. we cannot afford to let political differences stand in the way of what tomorrow may bring. we must hope our shared commitment to the principles that are forethought is set upon and the willingness and decency to see each other, our fellow citizens. we must choose the better angels of our nature. [end video clip] host: for this first hour of this christmas additional washington journal, we are asking your thoughts on ways to bridge the political divide. eastern central time zone, (202)-748-8000. mountain or pacific, (202)-748-8001.

we will start with bruce in texas. good morning. caller: good morning, ma'am. merry christmas to you. host: same to you. caller: i get up early every morning, i'm retired, i get up early just to watch c-span to see who is doing here when he was doing what i get a little more informed and things. i would like to let everybody know that i'm a good american, i served my country. i live at the border, very nice area. everything is quiet. the idea that i had brother who is a staunch republican, and i'm an american -- he never served in the military, and i served in the military. even though he believed what he believed, i believed what i believed.

i look at things at fedex value, and i weigh things. and the thing that we always agreed upon was we were family. whether he liked his opinion, my opinion, or whatever. what we did agree upon was let's take the things we can agree upon and build on that. host: what were some of the topics you agreed on? caller: well, one was -- no, well, in the end, we are family, and blood is thicker than water. ok, that was one. two, we love our freedoms, and we love our liberties, and we are not going to do anything that is going to jeopardize that. i mean, i have not had a speeding ticket since 1990.

you know what i mean? three, it is good to have served and to have been of service. and he got into teaching the boy scouts. young men becoming men. well, i was in the boy scouts and then i went to the military. and that changed a whole lot but after the military, i went to college. and then i traveled around the country and people do things differently in mississippi and ohio. it depends on the area of jurisdiction. it is like the cell of another cell of another cell. they are in their programs and they do things differently.

and i have been in areas where i have been unduly prejudiced against myself because of the color of my skin. i was never raised like that. and i've been in a room of people -- and i was just different. because i was there in a professional manner. i used to travel on the road text, nuclear power things, and they needed welders, electricians, skills, enhancer education. and i guess that is where the differences, education. host: when you are and your brother -- it sounded like he respected each other. did you talk politics or did you just know that you had these different viewpoints i left it

at that? caller: no, we talk politics. it got heated, but at the end of the day, it was his argument, my argument, and here's the thing, we talked to each other. i mean the tone in which you say things to people matter. it is not like i'm above you or you are above me. we looked at each other like equals. there you go. host: that was bruce in texas. jeff, indianapolis. good morning. caller: i think it is very hard to create a political divide based on the fact it has gotten significantly worse since the advent of the elimination of the fairness doctrine back in 1988.

it is due to the rise of partisan media, [indiscernible] if you turn on liberal media, donald trump is the worst thing for america. and it is very hard when people are digesting only one side, and that is what they believe. host: do you have friends and family who have different political beliefs than you, and you discuss them? caller: i consider myself a moderate democrat. there are some conservative ideas and some liberal ideas that i accept. compared to my family, i'm more left-wing progressive, and i'm not as far left-wing as

progressive as they are. sometimes it causes for disagreements and stuff like that. most of the time, we get along when it comes to politics. i try not to look at the other side as the enemy of the country. yeah, well, we may disagree on some issues, but there are some issues that we cannot find common ground on, and hopefully when the new administration takes over, we can eventually find common ground on some issues. host: it sounds like you are trying your best when it comes to political issues to have these conversations. do you have advice for people who may be struggling? caller: one reason i think some people are struggling with this is because they don't have enough knowledge about how the

system works, so it is easy for them to believe a lot of stuff that is not true, but if you go out and do research and get some understanding of how the system works in this country, then we will have a better understanding and not be so negative about things all the time. host: rob in new york, new york. caller: hello, good morning. director c-span. merry christmas -- thank you for c-span. merry christmas. host: merry christmas. caller: i may pro-democrat kind of liberal new yorker who is pro border control. i've been talking about the border wall for 30 years going

into c-span, and what i did not think of and i like are the buoys, the river there. and anything else you can throw up and to prevent people from illegally crossing. there you go. kind of a liberal democrat from new york who is pro border. i'm also pro-gun, second amendment guy, but to bridge the gap between the two sides, i'm not most police departments in most police personnel that you hear talk. i'm not pro semiautomatic opens and military smile assault weapons in the hands of the public. that is craziness. there is a way to bridge the gap there if two sides are willing to sort of have some common sense and some decency about

listening to the other side. i'm against conspiracy theorists and people who spew crazy conspiracy theories one half the time they know there is no such thing as alternative facts, and if we are unable to have just the decency to agree on common sense, reality and facts, then if we start, each side is going to be defensive, and we are not going to get anywhere. it doesn't help that we have an incoming president who is all about the master publicity stunt and getting attention for himself and drawing attention away from his lack of leadership

skills, which was demonstrated by the way he handled covid in the way he was telling us to, you know, whatever, drink bleach and do silly things and he did not take a substantial position on anything until he distracts us with his publicity stunts, and we need to be passed that and get back to sort of reality, where we can agree on what is happening around us and what israel. merry christmas and thank you for c-span. thank you. host: john, maryland, good morning. caller: good morning. this is not a political problem. this is a spiritual problem. i gave up on politics almost 30

years ago, and i started studying the word of god. i read the bible of genesis, the revelation, the major prophets, and i have also read the full gospel sometimes. i've studied revelation. the problem we have right here, right now, it is about so-called christianity and this was never a christian nation. you look at how the native americans were were treated. i'm an african-american and a born christian so it is not a political problem. it made me really sick to my stomach, people putting their hands on donald trump, praying for him. nobody heard him confess jesus christ as his lord and savior. when he said god saved him from that contract, did he give him thanks? no.

the problem is not political, it is the so-called preachers and teachers, rabbis and others who are supposed to have some morrow on how to teach the people on how to pick politicians, but when they become political also, there's nobody to teach the people how to read what the scripture says. we are supposed to be celebrating the birth of jesus christ. at the same time, our tax dollars are paying for over debt to blow people to pieces over there in gaza. that is a shame. and there are supposed to be christians. i've never read anything in the bible where your skin color may superior but you are still supposed to be a christian. the problem is not political, it is spiritual. you would like to bring politics together, let the people who have the gospel who preach and teach lead to because that is

the problem as the nation. but you have people in this country who are truly christians, but you cannot be a republican, a white republican and be a christian, you cannot be a black democrat or be a christian. that has got to go because there's only one thing to mean something. that is god, christ jesus. and we are supposed to be celebrating christmas, and it is sad to hear christmas music at the same time you have people sleeping in tents at 16 degrees. this weather is coming back into the white house and what he has done is used to white, racist christians to bring him to her he would like to be because donald trump, you can find nowhere in his history that he has done anything for poor people, black or white. his administration, nothing but billionaires and millionaires. that tells you -- elon musk owns donald trump. that is already proven. so the problem is not politics. it is a lack of understanding,

the spirit of god, and the love in christ, god, jesus for those who call themselves christians but there white first. white nationalists, christians and evangelical christians. host: appreciate your call. it was during his farewell speech earlier this month, republican senator mitt romney talked about the divided nation and urged unity here. here's a portion of his speech. [video clip] >> it is customary to enter marks with these words. god bless america. that has never seemed jarring or out of place to me because americans have always been fundamentally good. from our earliest days, we have rushed to help neighbors in need. we welcomed the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. we have respected different

faiths as our first president confirmed for muslims and juice. knighted we stand is a fitting refrain. as the leader of the free world, our sons and daughters have thought time and again for liberty, and our treasurer has buoyed freedom fighters around the globe. like all people, we have made mistakes, some egregious, but often our mistakes have come from misguided understanding. god has blessed america because america is good. there are some today he would tear at our unity, who would replace love with hate, who deride our foundation of virtue or who do based the values upon which the blessings of heaven depend. now, i've been in public service for 25 years.

i've learned that politics alone cannot measure thought to the challenges we face. a country's character is a reflection of not just elected officials but also of its people. i leave washington to return to be one among them and hope to be a voice of unity and virtue. for it is only if the american people merit his benevolence that god will continue to bless america. may he do so is my prayer. [end video clip] host: a little over 30 minutes left in this first hour in washington journal, asking your thoughts on ways to bridge the political divide. we will hear from sarah, savannah, georgia. caller: hey, y'all. merry christmas. the way i look at this, the unity and doing things together is so important, and everybody

gets misconstrued with this, and the guy that was just talking before, he played the mitt romney thing, he is talking about christians and the love of god in this, that and the third, but he is talking about things that are dividing us. everybody needs to forget about color, forget about race, forget about all of it. we have to remember that our country, we built this, this is our land, this is our place of wealth and whatever. we cannot let people in that are going to rape, murder and kill people, and so those people are not supposed to come in. we were not supposed to talk about i live god and we need to do this, but yet you cannot save as you are a white political person who has worked his way up the corporate map -- ladder.

everybody that has what they have in this world has worked hard for it and they deserve to have it. it was not handed to them on a silver platter like everybody is talking about trump. that's not the truth. the truth is his family worked hard, they taught him to work hard, and now he is doing what is right. do you think you would like this job? if i were him, i'd be like, forget that. but he is trying to do the best thing he can do. and if we can all understand for what the underlying issues are and just forget about all of the color, this, that and the third, and go to what can we do to protect each other, i think that is what we need to do, but nobody cares what i think. host: if you had a friend or family member like john, our previous caller, who had a different viewpoint, how would

you approach that conversation? caller: i would smack him in the frick and face -- in the frickin face, have arm handing out free sandwiches. just because you are white and have money or just because you are white and have this, that is ridiculous. we don't have white entertainment television. there is bet, and it is not about the colors. i would give the clothing off my frickin back for a mexican person, a black person, a mexican person. but here we are. you have a guy talking about christianity and all this, but he's the one sitting there making himself look completely stupid because he is not doing what god would like him to do. if you are going to talk about god and throw the lord into the ring, then you need to be able

to back it up with something substantial, and he has nothing substantial to talk about, but he is only one of the millions that think the way he thinks. host: that was sarah and georgia. john, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. happy holidays to everyone. what i'm worried about most of all is the extreme competence of political campaigns, the campaign staff and experts to get people mad. i think in order to get people out of their chairs to vote, they would like to get you mad,

and getting mad is not the best frame of mind to be in to make a good decision. if you thought about a couple of surgeons arguing try to get each other mad and trying to decide what to do about how to change your heart valve or something like that, you would not like that, so this is the issue. they are performing for you tv, and behind that, there is a lot of other things going on. too many have to do with collecting money to fund a campaign. host: is there a solution or a way to avoid hearing that kind of discussion? caller: i think it is a little bit like a runaway -- i don't know exactly how to describe it.

sort of like a ball rolling down a hill. you have to stop it and see through the magic trick. you have to look past expert politicians and their staff and their efforts to get you mad and think about history, too. the country has been through all this kind of stuff in the past, and just think about how to eliminate the efforts -- how to ignore the efforts to get you angry and mad, and what they are really going to do. there is not a whole lot happening today in the u.s. that has not happened in the past in terms of political strife. you know, we even had a civil war. we don't want that again. host: that was john in new

jersey. clifford, california. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning, america and merry christmas to all out there. yeah, i mean the previous caller was talking about getting mad, well, it is because of what the opposite side does to you. democrats is a party of division and has been using race as a way to control their votes from the blacks to the hispanics and so forth. thankfully, this time around, the majority of them have been able to see the light and see that trend is that light and thank god for that on this very merry christmas, and as for bridging the divide and so forth. well, as long as these democrats

continue with race and trying to divide our country through race, that was a long time ago. we have gone way past that. and they are the ones who make the people mad. host: do you have friends or family that are democrats? caller: yes, i do. in fact, a very good friend of nine was 92 years old to was a democrat, i shot myself in the face by talking very bad about the democrats, and when he told me i was a democrat, i realized was possibly part of the program problem, too. so i tried to get along with as many democrats as i could, but

like that one caller, the god of the one who's was christian and who isn't and who has that sort of thought about, you know, all whites and every other people better races start off the bat, well, there's not much you can do talking to them. but the majority of people who do, well, they come to the realization that we are all americans in the end. host: that was clifford in oceanside, california. donald, missouri. good morning. caller: hello, yeah, that man was on, talking about christians and who is -- so many people in america are just curmudgeons.

they don't care what is going on. they were just like to come up with something contrary. [indiscernible] donald trump, he is doing some things. he is getting some things done. the democrats the past four years would like to turn the united states into a sewer with drugs on the streets, people dying on the streets intense, women killing their own offspring and homosexuals running rampant. host: when you speak to people who don't share your beliefs, how do you approach that conversation?

caller: i don't know. it is kind of like going up against a brick wall. they don't understand what they are talking about. my daughter is that way. i think she acquired that in public schooling through university. i laughed when i hear people say we are so divided. of course we are divided. it is politics. so that is the way we vote. one person has an opinion, one person has another opinion. host: when you have conversations when you say you cannot get through to people, is the same thing happening with you? are you hearing what they are saying in their point of view? they do not want to listen to anything i have to say.

donald trump says he is for, sense and that is what he got elected. the majority of americans believe we need to get back to common sense. and these people, you try to reason with them, and it is just a wall between you and them. they have their own opinions, and a lot of people, donald trump is rich, but it is not like a lot of democrats who think they are superior, and they think everybody else is a basket case like hillary clinton believes. we have got to have room for all of us. host: you mentioned your daughter has different political beliefs. does your daughter still try to discuss political issues?

caller: she came out and said, dad, i don't want to talk anymore about politics. and that is fine with me because i have a couple of grandkids from her and i don't want to spoil that, so i don't have to talk about politics. but, you know, that is how we decide we are going to do in this country. if you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. some people are not interested in politics to begin with. about 10% of people are really interested in politics, and everybody doesn't have to vote. if they're not interested in voting, don't go to the polling place. but -- i forgot your question. host: we will leave it there. it was ruth, our first caller this morning, that -- bruce, our

first caller this morning, who brought up his political difference with his brother, and earlier this month in dallas, two brothers are political strategists on the opposite side of the political spectrum and they joined us on washington journal discuss their efforts to bridge the divide. here's the clip from that interview. [video clip] >> you mentioned your mother, it was this time when you appeared on this program the last hour of the washington journal 10 years ago that your mother called into the program, joyce is her name, and this is that moment from 10 years ago. >> you are right that i'm from down south. >> oh gosh mom. >> and i'm your mother, and i disagree that all families are like ours. i don't know many families that are fighting at thanksgiving. >> is this your mother? >> i was very glad that this thanksgiving was a year that this year you were supposed to

go to your in-laws, and i hope that you will have some of this out of your system when you come here for christmas. i would really like a peaceful christmas. and i love you both. >> december 16, 2014, you mentioned your mom, how she doing? >> she is still sharp as attacked. she does not quite get along as good as she did, but i noticed that on that clip, she said she loves us both. she did not say she loves us both equally, so for the record -- you have never seen anything like it. one thing i would like to say about the clip, it is interesting. i was remembering that it did not sound to me, at the time, like it does when you play the clip. in other words, steve scully

says we have got a call from raleigh, north carolina, and that is all i heard. and then he says the name joy. joy is my sister. joyce is my mom. my sister is not living there at the time. all i heard was raleigh, and i said, it is someone from down south. and that is what surprised me so much, and the clip is a big part of me going, oh, gosh, mom. i was so shocked. [end video clip] host: that original clip was from 10 years ago, right after the second interview that one of the brothers wrote an editorial article in the carolina journal. in part, he said brad and i -- he's talking about the viral clip -- are using fame to

discuss politics in a measured and respectful way with their families. we believe and continue to believe that you can have sharp disagreements without leaving -- believing the other side is evil. yes, you can disagree without being disagreeable. brad and i have strived for that and we have succeeded more than we have failed. back to your calls. john, pennsylvania. caller: good morning, merry christmas. yeah, getting back to that gentleman. i cannot believe on christmas he would let that man go on and on about he read the bible. how can he read the bible and spew so much hatred, racism towards white people, christians and jews. if he was truly intelligent, he would know that his own people sold, captured blacks and sold them to the americas. i don't know why he so mad at americans. he should be mad at africa for

capturing these people and selling them to america as slaves. ok. and as far as the country being racist and donald trump being racist, i mean, look at what is going on. your highest-paid quarterbacks in the nfl are all black athletes. lamar jackson, deck prescott -- dak prescott, here in pennsylvania we have jalen hurts. blacks have all the opportunities as jews, christians, whites -- host: we are talking about the political divide here, would you like to talk about that? caller: well you did not seem to interrupt the black guy who spewed his hatred for white people, christians and the country is full of braces. you let him go on and on. host: is that now? -- is that no? no, you do not want to talk

about the political divide. caller: you don't want to let me finish. that's the problem. you would like to let other people call like like people and go on and on about how hatred and racist white people are, it is a joke. host: that was john. i hope john has a very merry christmas. we will go to david, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. merry christmas to all of the united states and i hope everybody has a nice christmas. i'm thankful for c-span. the black guy who spoke, he spoke his opinion, and seems like all the people that came after him is proving what he said is right, but i've met so many nice white people. i made black guy who lives in a black neighborhood and i have not lived around white people too much because i've always stayed in the black

neighborhood, the black parts of flint and i don't go out a lot. but if i was to see someone try to harm a white person in my neighborhood, and stop it, i would -- and i would stop it because i love everybody, but i believe elon musk has a lot to do with trump winning. i don't believe the votes in pennsylvania were how they turned out to be, however, we are here with what we have got, and we have got to do the best we can. i'm horrified with trump being the president because i know of so many good, qualified white, black whatever that could have been president that love all the people, and will not divide us, that will show love to all of america, and i think he is going to leave black people out of everything. host: president-elect trump is

going to be our president next month. where do we go from here and hard we try to bridge that divide for the next four years? caller: i hope we can come together because it is always better if you feel -- it is my home country, my parents originated, my mother from mississippi, my father from tennessee, so i know my four parents were slaves, but we have got to put the past behind, and we need to all show love to each other. forget about what color we are. i'm going to work hard to do that, even with trump as president because we just cannot keep eating and would like to see -- hating and see each other destroyed because our skin color is different. host: you have friends and family who are trump supporters? caller: one of my godson's -- i think he voted -- he said he was voting for trump, and i stopped speaking with him for almost

three months. but he called yesterday. i was glad to hear from him. i told him, well, i hate your decision, but that is behind us, and let's get back close. he has been a white girlfriend, and she is as sweet as can be. let's just get act together and be friends again. host: that was david, flint, michigan. mary, nevada. caller: morning. host: hi, mary. caller: hi. i agree with some of the callers. when they got rid of the fairness stature, and i believe during reagan, that is when rupert murdoch swooped in and bought up papers and everything is about the almighty dollar. something you get people agitated with. so fox got sued for $787 million first viewing propaganda, and

then newsmax recently got sued for an undisclosed amount for the same thing. also, some of the conservatives on the supreme court have been corrupted by billionaire dollars, harlan crow and leonard leo, and people need -- maybe if they could just -- what they are listening to, if they can do some fact checking on it and see if what they are hearing is true because i think maybe if some of these stations, well, there is another side of what they are not telling you, like they're telling you, president trump is getting intelligence information. it is because he will not sign the ethics document. why is that? elon musk threw a lot of money around the selection, and they talk about america first, which

really, it is not a new concept. this is viktor orban's plan to destroy democracy being implemented. we have the author of project 2025, going to head the office of budget management. elon musk is self-interested and becoming the first trillionaire, and he bought his way into government because his tesla, more than half of them, supposedly are built in china, and he is building a large battery in shanghai area that does not sound like america first to me. host: you are talking about one of the issues you believe to be is the news and not offering their viewpoint. if media outlets continue to do that, where do we go from there? caller: i think they're offering a viewpoint. i just don't think they are offering the entire viewpoint.

host: if that is happening, how do we get past that? caller: i think people need to fact-check more what they're hearing from whoever they are listening to. maybe listen to historians and authorities. i do have a request of c-span, and i know you have had pete buttigieg on before, but my request specifically is if you could have a segment with him to discuss what was done under the biden administration in the last four years, all of the things that are going to come -- all of his four major pieces of legislation, starting in 2025, probably over the next decade and beyond, were all an investment in american future, and, you know, president biden may not have communicated that like he should have. pete buttigieg is an excellent

communicator. just to set the record straight, you have people taking credit for policies that they did not even vote for, you know. they do not vote for it, but, send me the money so i can go brag about it to my constituents. we just need -- we just need to discern what is being spewed to us. host: harry, maryland-, good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to wish everybody a very, very happy christmas and to all the americans, divide should not be there once we have elected our president trump. we should all accept him to be our president. that is the way there will be no political divide. we need to respect those who

have elected trump, and we should not start criticizing. now is the time when we should all get together. he is our president, this is how we will away from the divide, which we have politically. this is not how we should be. americans are americans. this is a blessed place to live. from asia, i can recognize this is the best play spread we have the rights to freedom of speech, we can speak whatever we would like to, so we should stop naming people. we should start living life. please be american, support whoever is our government, support the government, and let's wait for the next one. the next four years, you can change whatever we would like to. at this time, the republican party is held, we should all

follow and continue to make america great. thank you. host: rick, also in maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. boy, i tell you, first of all, merry christmas to everybody. that guy harry, i guess -- that guy, when he talks about trump, he just discussed me, and as long as we have trump around, we will always have problems. it is just always going to be a problem. have a nice day. host: in oregon, good morning, ray. caller: good morning very great. ways to bridge the political divide, trump nominates or asks harris. he would not nominate for her to

be special prosecutor given her background and sorts out the january sixers and anything that includes what may or may not have occurred in the incarceration business. host: so you would like to see president-elect trump nominate people for -- democrats for positions. caller: nominating or asking kamala harris, if there's a way to bridge the political divide. i cannot help but think someone who might be coming in and looking at bidens executive orders after a four year stint. cleveland having been the person in the past that is the only one who skipped a term before being reelected. that's the way i understand it. it gives him a unique experience that looking at what biden might have done and being able to ask biden why -- host: russell, we will go to him in louisiana.

good morning. caller: good morning. you know, we do have political divide in our country. i don't know what happened since the 80's when i was growing up as a young man. things are so different now. we have such a political divide. and i think in america, as well as probably the world, i think one of the biggest problems is we don't respect our fellow man or woman anymore. we don't hold doors open for people. and the racial divide is absolutely ridiculous. i don't see where the african-american people have been held down or anything, but the prominent like people we have in our communities to date, some wonderful, intelligent people who know right from wrong. we just have to start respecting one another, and the political divide, i find, comes from greed and power, and when it comes to

what they have done to trump in the political arena with the doj and everything else, i think it appears to me that the democrats , the democrat party has a lot more power than the republicans. it is supposed to be checks and balances and everything. it is not going that way. thank you and have a merry christmas. host: let's go to george, missouri. good morning. caller: thank you for taking this call. let's wish everybody a happy, healthy new year. you know, the political divide has been around as long as we have had political parties. i think what makes it -- what exposes it more is that we have more outlets, social media outlets that are 24 hour

around-the-clock, and people listen to more news, more opinions or memory. if you are talking to two people, you get three different opinions. but i think the real problem lies in the fact that people, it is all right to think differently, but, you know, everybody is entitled to their opinion. and people should just sit back, relax, listen to the other person. you don't have to agree, but there is no reason to become enemies over it. i mean, people's families are getting divided by this. it is ridiculous. relax. in two years, we have another election. you don't like what is going on, but somebody else in. it is not a big thing. we are only here for a short time. it means nothing in the long run. just try to get along, relaxed,

and if you don't like something, vote the person out. that is where we have elections. host: that was george in missouri. hour.ast call for the first coming up next, we continued this week's thor series on waon journal. eight days of conversations with america's top writom across the political spectrum on a variety of public policy and political topics. after the break, we are joined by seth kaplan, discussing "fragile neighborhoods: preparing american society one zip code at a time." we will be right back. ♪ >> during christmas week, each night, c-span will feature interviews with departing members of congress, republicans, democrats, and independents from both chambers. it will discuss their careers,

legislative achievements, the state of congress and american politics and farewell speeches. tonight, north carolina republican congressman patrick mchenry, michigan democratic congressman dan kilby and oregon democratic congressman. and thursday, democrat debbie stabenow and friday doug jim -- and california, grace napolitano. watch interviews discussing their careers in congress 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. >> friday on c-span's q&a, the newly elected speaker of the house of delegates in the

state's first black speaker in 405 years talks about his life including spending almost eight years in. >> i had never been in trouble before, served my country in was i was hoping i would get a little bit grace and get the jue an attitude to go lower. he could probably have given me more time than he did. but i remember hearing my mother and he said to me, she couldn't believe it and the yelp of pain and it always stayed with me and has motivated with me and lets me know how fragile our freedom is and how perilous it is and if you make one wrong move sometimes, it can be literally the end of your life as you know it. >> virginias democratic house speaker donald scott on c-span's q and a. you can listen to our podcasts on our free app.

>> witness democracy in action with c-span, experience history as it unfolds with live coverage this january as republicans take control of both chambers of congress in a new chapter begins with the swearing in on the 47th president of the united states. on friday, january 3, don't miss the election of the house speaker, the swearing in of congress and the first day of leadership for john thune. that is live from the house of timber. kamala harris will preside over the electoral college that will confirm donald trump as the president. tune in for our live all day coverage of the presidential inauguration as donald trump takes the oath of office become of the 47th president of the united states.

at say with c-span throughout the 119 congress and presidential inauguration. c-span, democracy unfiltered. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our holiday author series continues this morning, eight days of conversations with american top writers across the political spectrum on public policy and political topics. this morning we are featuring author seth kaplan and his book "fragile neighborhoods: repairing american society, one zip code at a time." thank you for being here. guest: good morning. happy holidays to all of our guests and visitors and watchers this morning. host: merry christmas for happy hanukkah for those celebrating tonight. we will start with your work. you have worked in a number of

countries looking at preventing violent -- violence. talk about why you decided to talk about american neighborhoods. guest: one third of the 200 countries are what we would call fragile, chronically unstable. just think of the news the last few weeks in syria. my first book on fragile states i wrote about syria, a peaceful and safe country but chronically unstable because of divisions but a couple years later they fell into a civil war. you can think about many countries in africa, the middle east. broadly speaking, i am in the peace building field with the conflict prevention field and i spent 15 years working and traveling the country.

countries are great and the people are warm but they are very unstable and often violent. the shift to fragile neighborhoods is i became known in washington. there are not many people that work on fragile states and i became known as the fragile state's guy or person. they were working on a project with fragile states and they would call a few people but i would be one of the people they called and everyone identified me as mr. fragile states, 2015, 2016, a lot of people in washington are anxious because of the election partly because of the candidates and for where that election season was going and then i got asked over and over and over again without any prompting, is the u.s. becoming a fragile state? i had just become back from sri lanka, somalia, nigeria. it is not the same.

we have great companies and hundreds of years of elections and we are a stable country with big institutions, but when you get asked that question seven or eight times coming have to say what is going on here. so i did a journey so to speak to study america. host: you have said that the u.s. is fragile but not as a state, so what do you mean? guest: when you look at a great institutions, the constitution. with so many nonprofits. we have dynamic technology and companies. we have a very limited, we do have some political violence and a little more than we had it 10 years ago, but compared to the places i work in, we have a lots of history, a lot of institutions. one of the magic things about america's institutions as they check each other. that is the nature of our

political system. no single person can become too powerful because we have checks and balances and they work very well. given that context, i don't think we are a fragile state. but if you travel around the country, many of the places that he will be calling in from, you go to kentucky, louisiana, michigan. lots of these places, people's lives are not great. communities have been diminished. the local institutions have decayed. we may grow as a country but we find our lives more objects and less relationships. when i look at the fragility of our relationships and our community, that is what i mean by a fragile society. it is not clear in washington but it is clear in lots of communities around the states.

host: why is this happening? how did some of these communities get to where they are? guest: i think there are a lot of factors. clearly there are some changes in technology but i would trace the arc. if you look at the data, we peaked in terms of social strength in roughly 19 64 and we have been on a downward trajectory since. smart phones and technology, we talk about it a lot but it is an accelerant of a previous trajectory or process. if you had to put your finger on a few things, i would say one thing is the physical landscape in which we live has changed. we went from living in communities with lots of local institutions and now the physical landscape has prepped us out where we have single functions like zoning.

you have a lot of housing and no place to meet and no local shops and businesses and stores so physically we have isolated ourselves from each other but even more dramatically, the institutions have dramatically changed. today we have a lot of national institutions. our companies are large and the nonprofits are large and our universities think national. what could bring us together locally, even when we think of schools, everyone sends their kids to the bus to school and nobody thinks of the importance of neighborhood schools. charities used to be local and now they are big. we don't work with each other. what is democracy but practicing . you think of the progressive era which of the two great areas. you think about american civil society in early version and later and now the civil society

at a very foundational level has decayed. not the big nonprofits could you could say every community those little charities and institutions have emptied out and disappeared. so what rings us together and where do we practice working with each other. so the nationalization, technology, physical landscape, changes in institutions, i think all those things a matter. you can think of the social changes. we are working harder and have less time for each other. i think those things matter as well but i would look at the underlying changes that maybe we could have worked harder or had a more competitive landscape and could have been tied to neighborhoods and we didn't make that choice in our society. host: our guest is seth kaplan, author of "fragile neighborhoods: repairing american society, one zip code at a time." if you have a question or a comment for him, we could start calling in.

the lines for the segment are going to be regional. in the eastern or central time zone it is (202) 748-8000, amount nor pacific, it is (202) 748-8001. your book focuses on neighborhoods and very hyper local is a term you use. wyatt looked at that as the cause or -- why look at that as the cause a route we look at policies for economic conditions overall? guest: i have worked in lots of countries. i would say the one big take away that i have always have seen over and over again in the countries i have worked his relationships determine the health of a society. so when i do my work, a lot of people who work on fragile or developing countries or problems

in society, they are always working -- looking for the policy answer and what is the policy that will make change. policies matter but there is something more foundational in terms of the health of a society and that is relationships. what that means country to country, i think in the united states we have a lot of social problems. we talk a lot, especially on your show the last hour, polarization or division in politics. we had the huge crisis of people dying from overdoses, rising suicide and depression and mental illness. rising mistrust, i could go all across the board in terms of our society. those things suggest there is something not right with our society. we have been spending loads of money and trying different policies and yet the problems get worse. so that tells me that policy it may matter but it is the real

weapon is to get relationships. if we didn't have these problems two generations ago and we have these problems now, many things in our country are better than 50 or 60 years ago. less poverty, fewer people living in a full conditions, racial issues. you can just think of how many things, so many things are better and more freedoms and yet something is wrong in the society that has produced these problems. at a fundamental level it is the dimension -- diminishment of the local institutions and relationships. i live in a very flourishing neighborhood and i feel like the security blanket around me. i have a few friends but hundreds of relationships. it gives you a different

mindset. if you have lots of small problems, whatever it may be, a neighbor loses a child and people gather and run out to look for that neighbor's child in no time, someone living alone and a need for fundraising, people step up and have a role in they feel differently about their lives and they are not looking for policy and politics as the answer. they are looking at themselves and their neighbors for the answer and that to me is what america used to be like and is very much not like that today. we can't go back but how do you go forward so we can work together to help our communities better themselves and not look far away to politics and policy is the answer. that is the big question in my opinion. host: we have colors waiting. we will start with karen in pennsylvania, good morning. caller: mary christmas and happy

hanukkah to everyone. i would like to ask mr. kaplan in would like to get his opinion on it. something happened years ago in this country and i think it caused a chain reaction, i guess you would call it. back in the 80's when the air traffic controllers went on strike, airfare prices plummeted. in all of the seven congress members could go home on the weekends and they went on thursday and came back on monday or whatever and they or on capitol hill for four days and home for four days, but they didn't get to know each other. the way it was explained to me is it is hard to call somebody names on the floor and go sit at

little league practice with them at night after dinner. they had to deal with each other and they had social interactions. and now congress people don't know each other and that caused the political divide. as far as the humanistic divide and racism, before barack got elected, everybody was politically correct. they may have felt like archie bunker but nick didn't talk about it out loud and didn't show each other hate. obama got elected and people were reminded that they were racists. they were being politically correct and it can cause problems. and then trump got elected and trump let every buddy, it was ok to act on your hate. that was my theory and wondered what you thought about it. guest: thank you so much, karen.

pennsylvania is always an interesting state. it is a stage where you can learn so much about america because how diverse different parts of the state are at. so thank you for calling. i would say that we should think that our mistrust and divisions have many causes and i would say there are certainly policies or political rhetoric or action that has contributed to our social ills. that i was -- would always say, what can i do in my community and do something more to help chester, pennsylvania be better. i think the rhetoric of politicians has changed a lot and at least i think it is the changes in the norms in society. if we vote for someone and it becomes acceptable to say something in politics, that

likely result in the fact that it has become more acceptable to talk that way in our lives and what politicians do we should always think downstream from what is happening in society. to the extent we don't work together and cooperate locally and are more alienated and divided and separated from one another in our communities, we are not practicing how to work together and how to talk with one another and not practicing how to give and take and compromise. when we look at the way politics have changed for the negative, i would have to go back and say, it is downstream from how our local communities have declined. we used to have all of these fraternal institutions that brought people together. we use to actually take leadership roles, sit on committees, spent time in our

communities. when we do less and less of that, we are more likely to speak to each other in different language and more likely to look for politics as the answer to our problems. we tend to elect people who fit more within the range of what we find acceptable ourselves. so i think we get the politicians we deserve and it is more reflection on who we are. if you want to change politics, you have to change what is going on in our communities. host: we will hear from tom in at, florida. caller: merry christmas to everyone. i think it is very unrealistic, from what i get out of it he wants to force integrate people. there are certain people who want to be by themselves. you look at some times in new york where he had the i italian,

jewish neighborhoods. and they wanted to keep that way but unfortunately with the acts fight fair housing, you have placed certain elements of society that didn't need to be inserted neighborhoods and now you have created and with the liberal policies in the blue states, you are pushing people out to move to red states. which i am in florida and i am glad i don't have to deal with that a -- that setting in new york. it seems like they are pushing for forced integration. i live in an hoa. i have a choice of a clubhouse in a gym if i want to associate with people outside of my ideology and background. sir, it seems like what you are pushing for is forced integration. guest: thank you, tom. in my work, i have seen a very

-- a lot of very creative initiatives in building communities and one of them sounds comparable to the place you have chosen to live is an organization that i met when i spoke with the builders association in california many months ago. this company was building and places for people to live very much it sounds like the place you live but what they were doing different is they were designing the physical landscape to ensure that people would interact more easily and putting shops in the larger development so people would intermingle spontaneously and they even had a curator who would be regularly organizing events in the compound or this large complex, hundreds and hundreds of homes. in this large development with

several thousand people, they would have places to intermingle and be physically able to socially interact regularly because of the landscape and the types of activities. they had a club like you mentioned but also some and curating. but the point is, everywhere we live, and that is -- and this is a free country but to the extent you are able to meet your neighbors and the fact that you're able to interact regularly and cooperate to maybe make the place better, this is people wanting that. the developer does this and has higher demand and prices for its homes because people want that. i think in a society where we are increasingly we went from relationship abundant in knowledge scares and material items scares and now we have material abundance, knowledge of abundance and relationship scarcity. more and more people are going

to make the choice that they want to live in a place in which we can make relationships easily. i don't think it is a question about integration or whatnot, i think it is a question that people are starved to be with each other and to the extent of our society does not have the institutions or hasn't built itself physically, it is isolating ourselves more than we actually want. you go to your club to meet people so what would it take if every neighborhood has local coffee shops and institutions and the equivalence of your club, that would have a dramatic change in how we feel and people could still live wherever they want. host: tom, our color talking about integration. in the book you point to immigrant communities as examples of successful neighborhoods. why is that? guest: i would say immigrant

communities often come in the first generation from all over the world. in most parts of the world, people are more communal. they come into the united states . they tend to be poor and cap great needs and tend to live -- the last gentleman talked about the old ethnic neighborhoods. the new neighborhoods are somewhat similar. to have very strong social capital and strong will -- local institutions. people work together in they can beat materially poor but socially rich. and because they are socially rich, they take care of each other and they help lift up the kids and they take care of those who are alone and in need. we could learn a lot from immigrant communities and our country was much more like that in the past we know we basically

are isolating ourselves from how we designed our country. those immigrant communities, and there are some parts of america that are still like that, but immigrant communities are a great place to learn about how people can cooperate to lift themselves and the place up. host: let's hear from gary in philadelphia, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i have a question for seth regarding his book when it was flashed on the screen. i haven't read the book but basically addressing the educational challenges within our country. he is considering a bottom up philosophy or bottom of challenge rather than a top

down. actually i firmly believe that the problem exists both ways. from a bottom up, one zip code at a time, that can be used as a model or focal points as it relates to prototypes used in creating products. when certain zip codes in certain areas that would be used as prototypes and when you find the product that is suitable for implementing or testing and if

the prototype proves out, then it can be adopted and nationalized. it has to start from the top as well. the biggest problem, as i see it , and i am 70 years old, is there is no or has been a decreasing deterioration in our religious and spiritual focus by society, and that is the problem. if you abandon now the new allow at the serial forces into your life and into your nation and that is where the problems that i feel have us stand since

focusing. he needs help and he needs to belong to one true church on the that he can research it and i don't know that you would put it on from. we will -- host: we will get a response. guest: thank you, and. great place to live. i know philadelphia well and merry christmas to you. i would say that i do think the

decline in religion and religious beliefs is one of the drivers of our decline in communities. i talk about churches a lot in my book and i think churches, if they played a role, more of a role in community building, too often i think people go to church for two hours on sunday and have no more faith in their lives. church, i often urge my christian friends, don't just go to church and show up once a week or send your kids to this thing or that thing. think about how your church to be a real church community, especially a place based community. i do think churches have an incredibly important role in terms of restoring the social fabric but i think churches need to have a more ambitious idea of

what their community is about and it is not just about two hours on a sunday morning but it is about how are we gathering people and what role are we playing in our neighborhoods. many of the most inspirational social entrepreneurs i write about, they are from the christian faith and they feel that part of their mission is to restore the social fabric. i have a chapter on the man who works with churches around the country trying to restore the strength of the family. i have a person in detroit who is a former pastor who says his future wasn't in the church but restoring neighborhoods and he built a community hub in one of the poor neighborhoods in detroit and i have consistently met people who started with the

thought that the social society and i agree with gary that religion is important but there are many other ways to lean into the idea. the christian faith is very rich material but i do ask all of my christian friends to think about it. it is not just attending a church but leaning into the community especially where you are. playspace community is the strongest form of community. too many people drive to the church and leave. what would it take to make your church and other changes in your area leaning into playspace community building. host: let's hear from john in california. caller: am i on the air? host: we will go to sharon in

hanover, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. sir, my experience as a low income elder, i would give anything to afford to lead my community. moto -- most of the area is culturally, i am trying to say my time is impacted daily by loud harleys and monster trucks and people don't care about barking dogs. environmentally, they are clueless many of them and i am saying, income level greatly impacts what quality of life you are going to have and culture in

this country, noise, power and speed, it is just -- i want peace and quiet. i guarantee that is very difficult to find, even with higher income. thank you. guest: thank you. a lot of pennsylvanians today. i do talk a lot about and it is important that we have enormous amounts of what we call playspace inequality in the united states. some neighborhoods will do very well and other neighborhoods are distressed. those are very fragile. we have enormous -- it used to be most able hoods were mixed in come in today we have a heavy concentration of wealth in some places and poverty in other

places. if you live in a low income neighborhood in which everyone is poor, it is harder for children to rise up. the social mobility is lower, harder to get a decent standard of living. that is culturally environmental. if we want to build a country that is for everyone we need to ensure that every neighborhood doesn't concentrate poverty and every neighborhood has amenities and every neighborhood has opportunity and every neighborhood offers people a chance to flourish. i really think, if you are thinking, i don't talk mostly about policy but to the extent policy matters, when policy doesn't take neighborhoods or place into account, it does a great disservice because it is

the only focus on the individuals in you only focus on their needs and we don't think about places, specifically neighborhoods and relationships and how we address problems, we are not solving problems and in many cases the problems are getting worse. in some cases those material services as individuals, they will help some people and those people will say i am better and i have my problems solved and they will leave. and what ends up happening is we encourage the best and the brightest to move to a places and leave other places behind. if we were much more playspace and relationship based in terms of how we thought about our challenges, we would adopt different policies. i do think many of our policies make things worse because

focuses on individuals and needs and not focused on building communities and showing flourishing neighborhoods and building communities that can help everyone all of the time. host: your book does profile five organizations trying to do exactly what you were talking about and create the feel of neighborhoods and revitalize them talking about what they are doing and if they are successful. host: -- guest: i did research on the data about what makes neighborhoods successful and you can define that in many ways. it could be a poor neighborhood and if people go up, what is the cause of the neighborhood to be good for the kids and bad for the kids or what makes this neighbor have a long life span in this one a short lifespan in their -- and there are enormous

differences. first look at what are the factors and i decided that my research said these five were the most important. and for the organizations i felt they were doing the best work in each of the five. so i mentioned the idea of the organization led by a man who works with dozens of churches all over the country focused on promoting strong families, marriage and strong families. i have another organization based in baltimore. if anything, the church and marriage is a more correct way of working and i think you need to look for ideas wherever they may be and i am very politically neutral. if you have a good idea, i want to embrace it. so it is very much about helping

and bringing people together across families. one is families and one is across families and it identifies the worst performing ninth graders in a baltimore and it gives them a 10 year commitment 20 and literally builds a family of volunteers that will be there to basically love that child. a lot of problems are that we don't have love and support and we don't feel stable in terms of how we grow up. think of how many kids in america don't go up in a very stable, supportive environment. it may not be because their parents don't want to give to them, maybe they can't in maybe there neighborhoods are not in good conditions and may be the parents have many other competing objectives. so these ninth graders typically come from very unstable, sometimes homeless situations. it makes the 10 year commitment

and the results are astounding. these kids go from an .7 gpa to about 60% of them eventually getting to college. the change is dramatic. so a third organization i focus on is the former pastor that focuses on, first he did a lot of cleanup and beautifying across detroit. detroit is a city that is worth seeing. 60% of the population down in huge neighborhoods no longer exist and their arts levitated buildings. he did all this work and build a neighborhood hub and build trust with neighbors who didn't know who we was and that is about how do we build trust across divides and as to the topic of the conversation of political divide. he brought in these organizations to this neighborhood and has transformed the neighborhood for

expectations for themselves and the level of crime and a lot of dramatic changes. i also have a chapter on an organization which is much more ambitious. i looked at family, community and i have one looking at schools in eastern kentucky, working with local schools to include -- improve the social contract -- context. then based in atlanta, a national network, 25 neighborhoods and they do much more transformational work. but it is focused on the physical and the other four are focused on institutions. focused is we bring in mixed income housing and make the school better and create a commercial corridor and an economic engine.

it is about changing the whole environment and it is much more expensive and physical. all five of these can teach us really incredible stuff and i believe we learned how to make the country better by setting what works in one place and draw lessons for the rest of the country and that is basically what i tried to do. host: let's hear from lynn in north carolina. caller: i hope you are as generous with me and help me get my point out. we are missing the point. i have been listening all morning and i have not heard anything about the orange elephant in the room. how can we have all of the stuff they are talking about this morning when you have someone up there that constantly lies. lying is a disease. you have a sick person up there

that has a line disease and he is running the country. he came in and made all this stuff happen. if you think back, before trump at least we were moving forward. it is one thing in the constitution that is very important and it is we, the people, in order to establish a more perfect union, meaning that it was never perfect. this is an experiment and we are supposed to work toward being a united states where we all speak with one voice. we were going toward that point for a while. and then comes in trump. you look at the stuff that has been turned back since 2016, since trump has been in the picture. you could look right at it. we are not moving toward the more perfect union. now we are starting to go back.

so you have to look at who is leaving the country and the lying going on through congress and everywhere and how can people have trust. this stuff is going to our kids. when my kid has a basketball game or a football game, they lose and go shake hands. you have grown people here who can't even lose in election and admit it. they are acting like the kids. this is what we are showing our people. this is what we are doing. and then we are asking ourselves, why can't we be civil. i never heard none of this when trump was in office. we have to be civil. can you be civil. host: ok, got your point. guest: thank you. i could not agree with you more about the need to be civil and practice civility in our communities. i think politics is at best very

frustrating. it can be much worse than that. i personally try very hard not to pay too much attention to politics, to be very honest. i think really hard about what i can do about my community to make my community better. i work on lots of countries in one of the things about america that stands out is i work in countries in which political violence and civil war is very possible. it doesn't make the news but think of the millions of people that have been displaced and hundreds of thousands who died in sudan, arguably the worst place on earth you want to be in. i spent a lot of time in nigeria or you could be kidnapped off of the highways. i think politics in our country is very dissatisfying and frustrating and yet we, as a country, so many great assets

and we, ourselves, have power. if you want to take into our hands we can change national policy. the thing is, whoever is elected, we are not going to have a civil war tomorrow. we should be realistic about that. whoever is in office, they will be gone in four years. i know countries like cameroon, the person in office over 40 years. so the good thing about a policy change is the bad thing is we have to live and listen to whoever is in office and i can say that about whoever is in office. i would just urge you and other people who are watching or listening, don't concentrate on what we can't change but let's focus on what we can change. i believe the real answer is not to think of our political divide

but to think about how we can cooperate with our neighbors, whether it is your kids sports team and the other sports team they compete but could they cooperate on something that would make communities better. what can we do in our neighborhoods and locally in terms of associations or nonprofits or local businesses or local governments. we have great power in our communities. national politics will only frustrate us in i-8 vote and i care but i've most of my energy in the place that is within my reach. host: let's hear from tony in austin, texas. caller: good morning. it is hard -- nice to hear from somebody who is realistic but open minded. i am a soldier of the salvation army and when asked what i see is how can we better help the

human beings who are suffering. people are hurting. during disasters, people come together regardless of their beliefs and religion and socioeconomic status. i just think everybody needs to love their neighbors as you love yourself and we would be in a better place. and also, i believe that regardless of what is going on in america, people just need to come together and love each other and that is all i have to say. thank you. guest: thank you, tony. i would say the salvation army and other local institutions, charities, to the extent that you don't just go and give things to people in need, that you get to actually work with people to better your neighborhoods and communities, they are important and what we

need more of in this country. a lot of these local organizations are not as strong as they used to be. maybe we need new types of organizations. i call this civil society 3.0. we had a civil society that was popular in the newer one around the early 20th century and that civil society grew and grew and became stronger and stronger through the 60's and has been in decline ever since. what will rise to replace it, for me when i looked at the five great organizations, i basically was asking, what can we find what is working and how do we make more of it? we need to replicate it and grow sideways and not the huge organization that is distant from us. we need lots of local organizations and to the extent

you can find in austin or other people in their communities and avenue that you can play a role helping other individuals. but i would say even more than that, helping your community get strong because we most want to help people when they are ok and to strengthen the ties between us and not when they are already on the downward trajectory. the stronger we are as a society, the fewer people go on the downward trajectory. host: kathy in silver spring -- silver spring, maryland. caller: i call it clubs and we have food clubs in the rec center and different income levels in the downtown area and there is plenty to do. but you have people who come

here and some of them don't have good intentions. so in a multifamily unit, such as a high-rise building, you have no control over who is your neighbor. and so the crimes go on for example, in this building is someone who uses devices against the neighbors and those are undetectable. it is hard to report them to the police unless you do your own almost investigation. just like in colorado where the group took over apartment buildings, that is not just in colorado but it is also in downtown silver spring. i suffer every night because of something a neighbor is doing. my question is, this building has a radio system and a lot of multifamily buildings have

radios, in-house radios. why do they need that? with the increase of ai, this is not talked about yet but you will have a i type of crimes. i am experiencing that but i am not prejudice and i agree with you in part of my answer is, i don't talk about it because i don't want anybody to talk about and say i am paranoid. but there are and i plan on moving. here idea is awesome. that is what we do in downtown silver spring, plug into different organizations but you have a crime element that is rising. and they don't mind using the wi-fi devices. they talk over it and they use

it to come if they see a single person and you target that person or whatever their purpose is. it's getting more and more dangerous. host: we will get a response from seth. guest: we are not far from one another because i also live in silver spring but not downtown. are almost my neighborhood but a couple over. i know silver spring very well, very diverse, lots of things happening in the downtown area. i could not speak for your particular situation but i would wonder, is there is some way for you and other neighbors who are concerned about these problems to cooperate. i think there are two avenues i can imagine change happening. one is if the person or company who runs the building take a more proactive role in the

question is, is that possible? another way, is there a resident association or some institution that you can join, participate, create, activate? i know somebody in dallas, i didn't write about this person but i wrote about him, and he runs in organization on local crime in one of the ways they approach the problem is they identified residence who -- they focus on drug houses. so one of the ways they solve the problem, the first step is identify nearby residents who are unhappy about the drug houses. they bring several residents together and ultimately the residents work through this nonprofit with the police and lawyers and other parts of the

ecosystem in dallas to target the houses and the owners of those houses and they could show a dramatic reduction in crime in those neighborhoods, but the very first step is activating the neighbors or residents and joining them up together so they have a counterforce and using the counterforce with outside partners to target the source of the crime. so again, your situation may not be so obvious as the drug house but what would it take to activate and bring together several residents, enough of them, so there is more counterforce within the power of the social fabric to do with the issues you are dealing with. that would be my question but that is the type of thing i would think about.

host: james in the sippy. caller: -- in mississippi. caller: i would like the author, i would ask a question, does he make a profit on his book? host: do you make a profit on your book? guest: well, i will tell you that most authors lose lots and lots of money. so if you buy a book, technically i get a few dollars but honestly, i probably lost several tens of thousands of dollars, to be very honest, to get from the work to the editing to whatever book proposal, to the contractor doing publicity. i would gladly be happy if i ended up breaking even. so i'm not really making any money, i'm losing money, but

thank you for asking. caller: can i ask he's been a question? host: go ahead. caller: c-span, -- can i ask c-span a question? host: go ahead. caller: c-span, do you pay him to come on? do you know what it would cost me, it will cost me $50,000 or more to put an ad like this on my local television station. i have just been concerned. i'm not talking about this particular guy but overall, people come in and promote their books. that is some free advertising and if they donate all of their profit back to a charity or something, that is one thing. but to get out, he could come up next week and write another book

and he just got ongoing business here that he spent his promoting. host: no, james, we never pay our guests to come on and they don't pay us. everyone is happy to join and our guest seth bent a lot of time writing as have all the authors that come on and are passionate about the topic and they are happy to come on and share their work. guest: and to be honest, i don't think i am going to sell tons of books. but if you are happy to buy tons of books i would give it to a charity. we don't sell a lot of books from this, to be honest. caller: i know they sell the books. the presidents have books and so forth. somebody is making a lot of money and getting a lot of free

publicity on your station. you are to pay c-span for putting your app on the television. guest: thank you. host: do you have a question related to the book other than the financial side of it? caller: i have been wanting to call in about this for a long time and how the authors get on. host: james, if you ever write a book, please submit it to book tv or a journal for consideration and if it is something that we are interested in discussing, we would be happy to have you on. we will go to sophia, our last call for this segment in raleigh, north carolina. caller: merry christmas, happy hanukkah. i think you exit the cut that got off earlier and what he that is am i on the air? host: he unfortunately used an

expletive and that was his contribution so we ended that call. caller: i didn't hear it. host: that is because we have a three-second delay. caller: a couple of things i caught into this conversation. a couple comments and i am calling in about the homeless. i wanted no, i guess he was a political for the most part, i wanted to know if he thinks, when we have hurricanes and horrible earthquakes, they are considered a national emergency or disaster and labeled as such. i want to know if he thinks homelessness should be labeled in the same way and how would that be done?

the news media, not c-span, covers a lot of tragedies, deaths, but they are all terrible but it seems like they pick for lack of a better word, the sexy stories. but to me having one homeless person on the street living there is an emergency. we should treat it as an emergency. -- one more thing, i just had an idea quickly. what about the idea of having 211, the phone number 211, where people can call for food and shelter, but instead make it like a donation where people can call? the shelters on 211 are vetted and i was thinking we should have like a public service announcement saying people should call 211 to donate to the local shelters in their area.

people a lot of times don't know where to give. i wonder what he thought about 211 getting more involved. thank you. i'll listen. guest: thank you, sophie. i wasn't in raleigh, but i was in charlotte, not far from you, a few months ago. good to hear your questions. i would say, again, if there was one thing, one social problem that i would think is an ongoing national emergency, i think homelessness is awful, a huge problem, but it's the drug overdose deaths that i see as, i think there is a connection between that and homelessness. it's the fact that every year twice as many americans die from drug overdoses than died in the 20 years of the vietnam war.

vietnam war was 50,000 americans who died. we have been having 100,000 americans die every year from drug overdoses. so, if there was one social problem that i would think needs to be called a national emergency, that would be it. i would also say that even if we are talking homelessness or drug overdoses, suicide, a lot of these problems are, you can't say the only problem, because the drug supply also matters where the price of housing also matters, but certainly one of the drivers of these social problems is the declining community, the decline in the social fabric. i have a neighbor. that neighbor had a daughter. that daughter took some wrong turns. had two children. then her and her husband were both dead before they were 30. it's a great tragedy. the tragedy would have been

worse if the two kids didn't have a community that basically came together to take care of them. yes, the grandparents have to take care of those kids. the grandparents are not young. they don't have the resources. but when you live in a community with a lot of institutions that care for the members of that community, the schools, the houses of worship, synagogues, different charities help. so, the weaker the community, the weaker the social fabric, the larger the problem of homelessness and drug overdoses. i don't think we can call it a national emergency, the decline of community. we could say that about the drug deaths. but these are problems that are local. a hurricane needs a surge of resources. a community doesn't need a surge of resources. it needs a steady accumulation of daily things people do and

institutions people build and strengthen that bring people together. i think that to solve homelessness, to solve the -- i would call it a drug crisis, all these types of problems, we need a steady -- not a surge, not a one-off or magic policy. there is no magic bullet. we need zip code by zip code, neighborhood by neighborhood, the slow accumulation of relationships and institutions that bring people together. there is a lot of headwinds against this, with phones and whatnot, but the more that we do that will be able to deal with our various problems in the less divisive our politics will be. guest: -- host: our guest, seth kaplan, author of "fragile neighborhoods: repairing american society, one zip code at a time." thank you for your time. guest: thank you. host: returning to our earlier

question, wrapping up today's program, more of your calls on ways to bridge the political divide. you can start calling in now. it's broken down regionally. if you are an eastern or central it's (202) 748-8000, mountain and pacific is (202) 748-8001. we'll be right back. ♪ >> >> this holiday season try listening to one of the many podcasts c-span has to offer. on "q&a," you will listen to interesting interviews on history and subjects that matter. learn something new on "book notes plus" through conversations with others and historians. "after words" things wide-ranging conversations with and we talk about the business of books with news

about the publishing industry and nonfiction authors. find all of our podcasts by downloading the free c-span now app or wherever you get your podcasts. attention, middle- and high- school students across america, it is time to make your voice heard. c-span's studentcam contest 2025 is here. you can inspire change, raise awareness, and make an impact. your documentary should answer this year's question -- your message to the president. what messages most important to you and your community? whether you are passionate about politics, the environment, or community stories, studentcam is a platform to share your message with the world come with $100,000 in prizes including a grand prize of $5,000. this is your opportunity not only to make an impact, but also be rarded for your creativity and hard work.

enter your submissions today. scan the code or visit studentcam.org for all the details on how to enter. the deadline is january 20, 2025. >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span2, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. this weekend at 3:15 p.m. eastern, "great abolitionist," discussing the current life of abolitionist and politician charles sumner who represented massachusetts in the usa from 1851 until his death in 1874. then at 4:45 p.m. eastern, author elizabeth reese with her book "marquis de lafayette returns," recounting the 1824-1825 trip lafayette target

through the united states when he returned after the revolutionary war. at 7:00 p.m. eastern, lead up to inauguration day, american history tv looks back inaugural speeches. this weekend, speeches by franklin roosevelt in 1933,harry truman's 1949 address, and dwight eisenhower's 1953 address. exploring the american story. watch american history tv saturdays on c-span2. and find a full schedule on your program guide, or watch li anytime at c-span.org/history. ues. host: welcome back. we are continuing to take your calls, asking your thoughts on ways to bridge the political divide. you can call in now. the lines are regional.

if you are in the eastern or central time zones, (202) 748-8000. mountain or pacific, it's (202) 748-8001. we'll get to your calls and comments in just a moment. first, wanted to show you an interview that c-span has been doing, speaking with members of congress who are retiring. we spoke with them earlier this month, asking what they think would make washington better. here are some of those interviews. >> i think there ought to be a notion of treating others the way they want to be treated. when a new congress sets up the rules, i want the old congress to set up rules before they know who's actually going to be in charge. i think that there are opportunities for us to have a more humane schedule.

i would put my foot down in terms of people, i don't know how you do this with the rules, but people who are hired just to be political flacks and not do actual policy work. the president can come from the top with legislative leadership in both parties taking a firmer line about performance with individuals in congress not supporting people for leadership positions who have not provided any leadership. that needs to happen. it's easy for a geezer who has one foot out the door to plunkett -- to pontificate. i know it's hard. the stakes are high. particularly in the time of trump. but i think, i think there's more that we could do to humanize it and i think there's more work that rank-and-file

members could do to enforce norms that are more civilized. >> we need to make it ok for members to have their families here with them in d.c. families serve together. families serve together. members of congress get elected and their spouse often is the one staying at home and on a random tuesday night getting yelled at the grocery store because there spice -- their spouse did one thing or another. if you had families here, you could then see the human element that is so missing from the current dialogue and debate, understanding that when you are, when you are dropping your kids off at daycare and, you know, the courtesy of your friend telling you that your child just got sick on your shoulder, on

the suit that you just put on. they know that you are a human being. missing that piece of it here means that we just come here, we battle, we put our armor on, we battle and we don't know who is on the others. what are they concerned about? what are they fighting for? what's an understanding of their life that you might be connected with? liberals versus conservatives doesn't mean that there isn't a human element where you can actually work on something. something that affected their life, your life, or something that your constituents have identified as concerns or challenges. that's the piece that's missing. understanding the humanity here. we have to work with individuals as they are, where they are, to make this place function. >> i think campaign finance reform would help a lot. one of the reasons why senators on thursday afternoon tend to

scatter is they are leaving for one of maybe two or three purposes or a combination of them. trying to get home. that's understandable. i certainly like being home, i prefer getting home thursday night than on the part of the weekend. but a lot of it is centers are reit -- leaving to raise money. that's the reality of american politics today and it wasn't 25, 30 years ago, dramatically sewn up for that, not the case. we need campaign-finance reform. senators and house members won't have to spend as much time raising money. it adversely impacts the programs. host: our first collar is tom. good morning. caller: good morning, merry christmas. host: merry christmas. caller: i just wanted to address your question about the political divide. i know this is kind of a, a

problem that didn't just occur recently, as the guest you had on mentioned, sometimes it's about things eroding. starting from the mid-1960's, if i'm correct, and what it was that he said. i think it will take that long to repair the political divide. i think the problem really comes down to education. i mean, they don't teach civics in school. and if they do, it's a minuscule amount. those kids grow up to be adults without knowing how the political system works in america. couple that with politicians that take advantage of that fact

and give information, make promises, people buy into that. they put one group of people or another group of people, conservatives, progressives, etc.. i think it's going to take a very long time to write the ship. so, i don't see that chasm, that divide, if you would, closing anytime soon. i hate to be negative about christmas -- on christmas, but that's how i see it. thanks for taking my call. host: that was tom. chris, tennessee, memphis. good morning. caller: good morning. merry christmas. host: merry christmas. caller: thank you. the divisiveness, we have to go to the root of it, which is our

source of information. where do we get our source of information? the media. the media, television, powers that be. they are the ones actually inviting this from false information. until we can get control of that , which is pretty much impossible -- i mean, i love c-span. i sit here and watch. it's kind of swaying a little bit. i won't say which way, but most people know. you guys are great, actually. we love "washington journal," thank you very much. but these other media sources, i can't even watch them. i stopped watching since 9/11. it's very divisive. that is our issue. you guys tell me what we can do

about the media. that's the whole root of the problem on our divisiveness in politics and in our american families. it's horrible. just today it's going to happen. you know, it's christmas. people try to be civil to each other but of politics comes up, there will be an issue. so, i would say it's the media. we need to get a grasp on that. thank you. host: that was chris in tennessee. gary and saginaw, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. merry to america. host: merry christmas, gary. caller: thank you. probably, i think we -- i think we -- host: can you turned on your television in the background, gary? caller: let me turn it off. yeah.

we haven't really addressed the underlying issues dealing with the problems that we have. in the connections. basically, white supremacy is one of them. this country is in great trouble at this point because of the administration that's coming in. white supremacy. money. finance, politics causing us to be bad. we can go all the way back to the reagan administration and trickle-down economics. that's not mentioned at this point, but it is still in place. the american people don't really see the reality and how it's

connected. without more pot -- policy and how it's connected with the immigration problem, highly connected, and education. it's about rights. privacy. they haven't really respected the american people. the administration now talks about the media, so when the media presents their view, that this administration coming into office is giving people a media conglomerate that has been shown by the legal system for more money than any other entities. we just don't connect on the underlying issues.

host: that was gary in michigan. pam, albuquerque, good morning to you. caller: good morning, merry christmas. host: merry christmas. caller: i saw the topic was about crossing the political divide. right now we are as divided as a lot -- as i have ever seen it. i'm in my 60's. but the first thing that came to mind when i saw the topic was that donald trump, elon musk, the copresidents, if they decide to attack social security, medicare, medicaid, we will patch up the divide. it will affect every single one of us in every single one of us will stand up and say this cannot happen.

you will see us come together. it may be a good thing for the president to start that and i think it might actually help people see that we are all in this together. that's what i wanted to say. host: we will go to john and marilyn. good morning morning, john. caller: good morning. first, merry christmas. host: merry christmas. caller: i would like to say that my prescription for patching the divide, let me preface it by saying the eagle, the bird has two wings. whether you are a republican or a democrat, it's still the same bird. if they would take the money out of politics, then i think you would see a holy different set

of politicians up there. that's all i have to say for it. have a blessed day. host: that was john. we will go to also john in oceanside, california. good morning, john. john, are you there? caller: hello? host: hi, john. caller: hi. yes. from lewiston, california. good morning. merry christmas. i've got an idea. president trump is, his cabinet, he's nominating a lot of billionaires. why don't, since they all want to make america great again, why don't they all donate, excuse me, about $50 million each.

that would take care of a lot of problems in this country. it sure would, i think, shows some, some signs of uniting, if they would get back what they haven't been able to contribute because of the tax issues. you want to make america great again? give some of that money back, you billionaires. thank you. host: terry, racing, wisconsin. good morning, terry. caller: morning. hello? host: hi, terry. caller: i just wanted to comment on how to bridge this political divide. we got to go all the way back to the basics. the difference between ally and a truth. first of all, i think we should try to reinstate truth in broadcasting that reagan got rid

of. with his deregulation of the fcc. and we have to, the democratic party, basically, has to start spewing out the truth. facts are truth, facts are documented. we have to make that aware to the people. with so much of the media now concerned with a bunch of misinformation, trump possible broken speech pattern where he can say anything and deny it later. if we go all the way back to the beginning, what was the fall of humanity? it was a lie. eve knew the truth. when she was tempted by the serpent, eve said that day that we eat of the fruit of the tree we will surely die and then he came back and said he will not surely die. eve spoke the truth. she knew the truth but accepted

the lie because she saw advantage in it. that is why we's -- we have so much rampant lying today. people see an advantage to it and they do it. so, we have to deluge the airwaves and the media. we got to hire a bunch of young kids, get them on that internet and tell them, give them the script of what's being misrepresented in the media and let them go on the media and start printing out the truth, you know? if we had enough boiler rooms filled with young people putting the truth out there, we could counteract some of this. again, i don't have much hope for congress being able to start getting the power back to the fcc to regulate truth in broadcasting. but that has to happen. host: that was terry and wisconsin. c-span spoke with retiring

members of congress from both parties about what they think would make washington work better. here are more of their answers. [video clip] >> part of the problem is it's a reflection of what's happening in society. if we could deal with the issue of splintering information. the fact that people get a narrative that reinforces their bias, so very often we find ourselves at odds because we have a different set of facts at the foundation of the conversation. that has to change, somehow. this place ought to be one of the places where we can agree on a common set of facts. we are supposed to be smart people that aren't moved by the siloing of the information that comes before us. >> it's a downhill dissent into money, money, money, money and politics.

i have authored, cosponsored every last form of campaign finance reform. the supreme court didn't help with citizens united in the case since before that. but citizens united let all of this dark money -- it's a system that you would associate with a banana republic. >> we need to spend more time really communicating and listening to one another. a lot of that is lost at the end of the day. >> i always try to lead by example, set a good example for my colleagues, the people back in delaware who follow and watch what i do. the other thing is we need to have leaders who understand what it's all about. i have a mantra, a speech i give

about leadership that could fill the rest of this interview. but it's -- we need leaders who bring the right qualities to the job. leaders are not haughty. they have the heart of a servant. they understand that the job is to serve, not be served. when their team does well, the leader gives credit to the team. host: we have just over 30 minutes left in today's "washington journal." for the remainder of the time we are continuing to hear your thoughts on ways to bridge the political divide. if you would like to call in, the lines are regional. if you would like to call in, it's (202) 748-8000. if you are mountain and pacific, (202) 748-8001. we will hear next from jim in

oregon. good morning, jim. caller: happy holidays from oregon. i believe that we need to start at the top with our political divide. it's the only way that society is going to come together is by having our politicians lead us in the proper direction. happy holidays. thank you. host: armando in san antonio. good morning, armando. caller: good morning, young lady. merry christmas. host: merry christmas. caller: i'm homeless. i work. sleep in my car.

[indiscernible] merry christmas. that's all i got. host: merry christmas, armando. marek -- good morning, harold. caller: i guess the best thing to do is cherish each other while you got each other. do the best you can with what you got. i grew up pretty much not having much. had a lot of love in my family. if we love each other, working on the new year, you work on

yourself. don't worry too much about anybody else. merry christmas. host: that was harold. ed in torrance, california. good morning, and. caller: good. i'm a conservative out here in california, feeling kind of loan. what i'm missing is the contrition on the side of the democrats. not one person has come up to me and apologized for anything they done, like impeaching the president twice or the senseless lawsuits. a little contrition. a little sorrow. a little apology. one time. would love to hear that. thank you. host: we will go to tom in florida. good morning, tom. caller: hi. i've been a democrat for a long time. i've been supporting trump since

he's been in politics, because the divide was getting to such a point where i think people should watch both sides. it doesn't seem like there's going to be any change in the news outlets. basically seeming like political activists. it just seems like maybe there's a way, instead of setting up laws to change that, that they could add something that would be an alternative option. like they used to have a show called "point counterpoint," where you would hear civil conversations about different, different, different opinions on something. you could watch this one channel and see like both sides. you could kinda figure out, you know, the truth for yourself. or at least get the facts

checked and have -- not have just one part of the story. it just seems like it's the most like, when people get into conversation about something, the divide is so strong on the information. like with me watching a whole spectrum of different news media , giving them kind of equal time, i can almost tell what other people are going to say before they say it. like because it's, you can go through the channels and see the repetition, depending on who they, who they are reporting, favoring or whatever. but i just think that like other people have said, the media seems to be the main source of

the problem. it's kind of like every problem suffers when no one has the same facts. it doesn't matter whether it's political or safety, crime, the border, everything. you know, people have such a different view on it because nobody knows about it. but yeah, i think that's the big deal. and merry christmas. host: merry christmas, tom. we will go to georgia and south carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say that we have always had a political divide in this country. nothing has really ever changed except we have it on tv now. you can see it more. more problems on the divide.

in the old days, maybe remember more about it. we will make it through all this. host: c-span spoke with members retiring from congress. in addition to what they think will work, what they think would make washington work better. they spoke about what they will miss most about their time in washington. [video clip] >> the relationships, seeing what they do for the whole world , going around the world and in certain areas. some want to take it economically, others military

compassion, super economies, super militaries, super compassion. it's the hardest of times. we have to take it on every time, the usa. >> the people. the people and knowing you are hitched to something so much bigger than yourself. i mean, i'm hitched up to trying to make america better. that's daunting and it's so frustrating. you are saddled with polling in different directions. it's such a challenge. it's that big challenge, matched with, matched with understanding people from all over the place, all these different backgrounds who want to get things done. that, i love this place. i mean, i love this place and

the people i get to work with. even when things are frustrating. things are mostly frustrating on a weekly and monthly basis. that's how the institution was designed. that's how the system was designed. come to love that. i love the people. >> i will miss the people, acting on their behalf, their lives of struggle and sacrifice, claims for help and who they can respond to. even through constituent service or legislation. and i will miss my colleagues. the great people on both sides of the aisle. unfortunately, these days, unlike decades ago you tend to spend most of your time with your party.

i will miss the people here in the great staff here. from the floor staff to others who make this place run. in a significant way the staff. guess who did most of the work when something got done. >> i'm going to miss my friends. i've been involved in six different farm bills that was

disappointing to see. the other thing is the people. my staff are like my second family. they have been absolutely fantastic. suiting up every day and fighting for michigan. something's amiss. on the sweet side i will be home and have a great chance to look at the beautiful great lakes the whole time. really enjoying the opportunity for the first time in my adult lifetime without having to look at a legislative calendar to figure out what we will do about birthdays and christmases, when we take a vacation. host: and a pgrming note for

you, c-span has been digging to its archives to bring you a marathon of trump nominees in their own words discussing policy, politics, and their relationship to the president-elect. today we are ftung the interiorectary nominee, dax burnham, health and human services nominee robert f. kennedy, jr., and attorney general nominee pam bondi. those are all airing today on c-span two. back to your calls, rich from kingsport, tennessee. good morning, rich. caller: merry christmas, c-span. host: merry christmas. caller: to get right to it, the only way i see it is lessening the political divide, it would be for a spiritual revival to take place in america and for truth in virgins to take place.

but burke -- biblically speaking it will never be solved. there will always be forces opposed to other forces. to give you an example of what i'm talking about, if we went back 200 years and looked at the slavery issue, they try compromises. they tried. but there was no -- eventually it had to go one way or the other. either we were going to have slavery or we weren't. and today, we have one party which pretty much hung its hat in the previous election, one of the premier issues was abortion. you have a substantial number in the other major party opposed to abortion. what sort of compromise could be found to satisfy that? there will always be a political divide until one side or the

other wins out. there is no true compromises. there are many other issues. we have a country today in which evidently a number of people support a murderer, and a murderer, and alleges murderer who shoots a ceo in the back on the streets and they find that acceptable because they oppose the policies of the company. now, i'm not sure, aside from a spiritual conversion, what you are going to do to remedy that. how you are going to bring two sides together to find a compromise on that that sort of thing. it's going to come down to there is right and there's wrong and until we decide -- we can't compromise on every issue. we can do things with taxes and immigration, all those kinds of

issues where there can be compromises found. but some issues cannot be. and until there is a commonality , there will always be a political divide. host: that was rich in tennessee. thomas in mesa, arizona, good. caller: could you bring me -- host: thomas, are you there? caller: yes, i am. how are you, ma'am? good morning, merry christmas. i'm calling from mesa, arizona. i was originally from baltimore and raised in new england. i am very sad about the political divide, because i'm from a family of democrats. jackie kennedy's second cousin,

related for many years to the stone masonry work on the house. and you know, i liked john. i didn't like 10 or -- tedder bobby. peter lawford was basically their pimp. i know this for a fact. hated that man with a passion. ted kennedy killed a girl named, beautiful little girl i went to catholic elementary school, french elementary school with, and in college. chappaquiddick, he put her 40 feet underwater upside down in a car and didn't even help to open her seat, let her drown. they found that out later that she was three months pregnant. that's why he didn't become

president. that's that story. i think what we really need to do is have an administration run by a multibillionaire now, a president convicted of many crimes. he has no respect for women. i'm a democrat, but i have republican friends who backed senator john mccain. he was my first best friend in arizona. met him at a medical practice for surgeons and began practicing in california, john mccain became my first best friend in california and arizona. he hard to get by with so many friends that have so many different opinions, but in many cases i try to say ok we have differences but let's work together and accomplish what we can to get these things done for america, for the united states.

that's the one thing that john and i talked about. my great uncle, his father operated the aircraft carriers the wasp and the hornet in the pacific theater and in korea. mr. mccain senior came to my great uncle's house and we spent the whole day on -- they called it the largest body of water in new england. a wonderful man. a lovely person. i got to meet a great pilot. i had my differences, but we need to work together across the aisle. this may be the first time in american history, and we came from the place where america began, i know everything about american history. many americans know nothing about it. that's the terrible, saddest fact of our country.

it is very sad. it's a huge problem. we need to know our nation's history and beginnings. host: all right, thomas. we will go to robert in michigan. good morning, robert. caller: good morning, merry christmas. host: hi, robert. caller: i'm an elderly man. i didn't graduate from high school, but back in my day we had government, civics, health and all the others. and i would hear it constantly on the news about illiterate countries. africa, south america, the afghanistan's, who claimed about 60% illiteracy, most people can't read. in this country, we can read. the biggest problem we have is creative truth and a

manufactured facts. i've never met so many people who are able to read who don't understand that we are being divided as long as we agree with creative truths and manufactured facts. those who are educated, and i'm not very educated. i'm dumb. but i'm just saying, people, please, if you can read, you've got to understand that, this is the first time, on the news they never mentioned it, a mention of one of our presidents telling over 30,000 lies in three and a half years. that's just about, i won't say anything more about it, but i'm very sad that the educated are

so illiterate. thank you. host: robert in michigan. the biden white house released a christmas video yesterday. here is the video that they published on x. [video clip] >> how silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. there was a certain stillness at the center of the historic silent night, when all the world went quiet. it all faded away in the stillness of a winter's evening. we looked to the sky, to a lone star brighter than the rest, guiding us to the birth of a child that the christians believed was the son of god. bringing hope, love, peace, and joy to the world. yes, even after 2000 years,

christmas still has the power to lift us up, bring us together, change lives and change the world. it speaks to all of us as human beings who are here on this earth to care for one another. to love one another. too often, we see each other as enemies. not as neighbors. not as fellow americans. i hope this christmas season is that we take a few moments of quiet reflection to find that stillness in the heart of christmas and see who we really are. fellow americans. fellow human beings worthy of being treated with dignity and respect. there is so much that unites us as americans. so much more that unites us than divides us. we are truly blessed to live in his nation and i truly hope that we take the time to look out towards one another.

as we sing o holy night, my wish for the nation is that we will live in the light of liberty and hope, of kindness, compassion, dignity and decency. so, from the biden family, we wish you and your family peace, joy, health, and happiness. merry christmas, happy holidays, and may god protect our troops. host: members of congress are also posting well wishes for christmas and the holidays. this from senator john thune, "grateful to see the joy of the holidays through the eyes of our grandkids. wishing you and yours a merry christmas. the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it."

this from house speaker mike johnson -- many blessings from our family to yours. elizabeth warren tweeted "merry christmas eve from me, bruce, and bailey, and then she said -- did you know he's named after george bailey from "it's a wonderful life? one more from congresswoman melanie stanbury, saying that the holiday season reminds us of the importance of family, friends, and community. let's carry that spirit into the new year, merry christmas eve, new mexico. st. louis, missouri, going back to your calls. good morning. caller: good morning. merry christmas. i think we could get rid of the political divide mostly by figuring out that we ought to reverse citizens united, in which they claimed that money is speech. there is a rumor going around that a business can get the

united states on a straight course, but there's two types of economies. there is the kitchen table economy that goes all the way up to elon musk. that's micro. then the macroeconomy, that's how the government should be run. for the people. the constitutionally has a very little bit in it about money. yet still money is what runs this place. number two, we ought to make sure that everybody gets a good education. by a good education, we ought to learn how to critically think. that ought to be a required course, including civics. if we can't think critically, we automatically jump to conclusions any time we hear a single word, we are not going to

get anywhere. by the way, the bible, the people that quote the bible, it's harder for a rich man to get through the eye of a needle. that was going into jerusalem. a rich man had so many possessions, he had to unload his camel on the way into jerusalem to get through a small gate. just get money out of politics, that's the driving factor. a businessman is not going to do anything but do business. thank you. happy holidays. host: going to moses in mesa, arizona. good morning, moses. caller: yes, merry christmas. host: merry christmas. caller: there will be no peace until you put god at the

conference table. next to louis farrakhan. you put donald trump on your show but not louis farrakhan? i can't understand that. host: that was louis in arizona. lorraine, washington, good morning. caller: good morning, tammy. merry christmas. host: good morning. merry christmas. caller: i would like to sit -- like to say that in washington state it is a state requirement that all seniors take a year of civics. so, i think we are doing that here in washington state. and i think that the politicians and the country need to learn to respect each other. you can have disagreements and not agree politically, but i think we need to respect each

other. everybody has their own views. we just need to accept that. host: very merry christmas to lorraine, one of my favorite ants, calling in. good morning, howard. howard -- caller: i believe that c-span is a national treasure. relative to your question, we need to bring back the fairness doctrine and have it apply to cable tv as well as broadcast tv. and i believe that the reality of climate change, and as the person before me said, critical thinking, has to be taught in these schools. i am a, i am a substitute

teacher that was formerly a regular teacher. i bumped into a teacher who told me a few months before the election that the u.s. economy is collapsing. i said, what are your sources? where are you hearing this from? she said -- well, i hear it on youtube and different places on the internet. i said, do you ever read the financial times or the wall street journal or the new york times? she said no, what are they? this was a regular teacher saying this to me. so, i think teaching critical thinking on what reliable sources are and having a fact checker on political discussion programs is incredibly important. that goes for lying by both major political parties. thank you so much for your time. host: that was howard in new

york. just a few minutes left. christina in cedar rapids, iowa, good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to make a kind of observation that i've noticed for quite a while. talking about democrats and republicans, race and gender, all of that. it's apparent to me that division, they've got us all divided. it's very constitutional. we always said the pledge of allegiance when we got up. one flag, one republic under god. when they keep us divided like this, we can't actually come together and use all the resources, you know? all people from different classes, different races. republicans and democrats, i truly believe they are all working together and are not here for the people.

in the declaration of independence it states that our creator endowed us with inalienable rights. we instituted governments to protect and defend those rights. the declaration of independence is kind of like a list of grievances. if people were to read it, so many of the things that were happening back then are happening now. it's the duty of the people. we need to stand up. either to alter or abolish our government. i did not see this government doing anything in the best interest of the people. our children are the ones who are going to pay the price. i want people to chew on that for a little bit, because what's going on right now is -- i don't care what administration you are . everything that is going on right now is wrong.

thank you. host: that was christina. our last call for this morning is pat, illinois. good morning. well, we lost pat. that is it for today's program. from everyone here on washington journal and on c-span, merry christmas. we will be back tomorrow with another edition of the program at 7 a.m. eastern and 4 a.m. pacific. enjoy the rest of your day and again, merry christmas. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, >> during christmas week, each night at 9:00 p.m. eastern, c-span will feature interviews

with departing members of congress, republicans, democrats and ins from both chambers. they'll discuss their careers, key legislative achievements, the state of congress and american politics and their farewell speeches. tonight, congressman patrick mchenry, dan kilby and earl blumenaur -- watch our interviews with departing members discussing their careers in congress this week starting at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video a.p. or online at c-span.org.

>> c-span exists for you and your support helps keep our mission life as we close out the year, we're asking you to stand with us. your gift, no matter the size, goes 100% towards supporting c-span's line of work helping our coverage continues to thrive in an era where it's needed more than ever. visit c-span.org/donate. together, we can ensure that c-span remains a trusted resource for you and future generations.

c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband. ♪ buckeye broadband supports servicgiving you a front row seat to democracy. >> up next, king charles iii giving his annual christmas address in which he thanks health care workers and spoke about global conflict and building trust in communities. the address was delivered from the chapel of the former middlesex hospital in elon, a break from buckingham palace. this is just over 10