My daddy knocked up my mom in the summer of 1942, and my dad joined the Marine Corps the day after my oldest brother's first birthday.
When I was in Pearl Harbor, I ran into a fella that was wearing navy whites, and he had a Black Page photo album, you know, the years ago photo album.
And of course I had to start a conversation, and we were the same age.
His daddy was on the Arizona.
The kid opened the photo album and showed me pictures of his dad on the Arizona.
His dad got off the Arizona in 1939.
How fortunate.
This guy also showed me a photo.
His dad had boxing gloves on.
And he told the story about his dad fought Tony Zale.
Tony Zale was a lightweight champion from Gary, Indiana.
Blah, blah, blah.
Then the six of us took a ride to Fort Oxford.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
And I looked again, and 37 feet up in the air, here's these black ants on the ceiling.
And I looked at the fellow, I said, yes, I see them.
And he said, those would be Japanese zeros at 10 ,000 feet.
That's what the gunners saw.
I want to show viewers the National Memorial and have you describe what's out there over...
John, my hair is standing on edge right now as I speak.
I spent three tours out there.
I asked a guard there if I could stay on the memorial as a gang left and, you know, the ship left, the boat left with the gang and, you know, went to the harbor and got another gang to come out there and I sat by myself.
You could feel the power of those 2 ,000 -plus men, John.
There's on that ship, John.
There, I think, are three or four sets of twins on the Arizona that went down with that ship.
As that oil bubbles up from the bottom of the ship, you could just imagine.
The official National Park Service site.
38 sets of brothers aboard the USS Arizona, including three sets of three brothers, and 63 of those siblings died in the attack on the Arizona.
After I get off, let's have a moment of silence, John.
Let's have a moment of silence, all you people out there, and just think about the potential of the country, right, John?
They're the bedrock of the country.
Turk, thanks for the call from Illinois this morning.
Total casualties at Pearl Harbor, 2 ,390 American service members and civilians.
On the USS Arizona, 1 ,177 service members died.
On the U .S. Oklahoma, it was 429 service members who died.
Out at Hickam Field, 191 people, including five civilians, lost their lives.
On the USS West Virginia, 106 service members died that day.
On the USS California, it was 105.
Good morning, and thank you for this wonderful, outstanding program this morning.
You can hear these people's voices.
The pain and the anguish after all these years, okay?
When you lose someone, the pain lasts you forever.
And I just want to say, sir, for all the people that are suffering still today, God loves you and the people that you love are in heaven.
Now, I respectfully want to submit this, and I hope you let me do this.
It doesn't have to do with the Pearl Harbor, but for the people in my life that I have loved.
We're going to leave this program now and go back live to Paris where President -elect Trump is meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in advance of this afternoon's ceremonial reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral.
This is live coverage on C -SPAN.
President, I just say it's a great honor for French people to welcome you five years later,
and you were at that time present for the first time.
And I remember the solidarity and your immediate reaction.
So welcome back again.
Thank you very much.
We are very happy to have you here.
Thank you very much.
Very great honor.
And we had a great relationship, as everyone knows.
We accomplished a lot together.
And the people of France are spectacular.
I guess it's one of our largest groups in the United States, French people.
And we respect them and we love them.
Very talented people.
Thanks a lot!
You've been watching live coverage.
We return now to our scheduled program.
We join it in progress.
Free from Norfolk, Virginia.
Scotty's ship, Wooden Deck.
I was on Philippines in the war.
Wooden shoes.
Not wooden shoes.
They called them sand shoes.
Excuse me.
And I thought, hell, I'm in the Navy.
But I guess we were going to go into Japan.
John, do you remember the name of the newspaper that you were distributing that day?
Do you remember the headline on December 8th of the Pittsburgh Press?
Do you remember anything about that?
No, I don't.
It was probably war declared or attacked or something.
I can't remember.
I was penning papers.
And the only thing, one thing I remember, I had to walk down to what they called the Red Row.
It was the miners' buildings.
And I was hoping a train wouldn't come because there was snow on the ground and it was cold.
And sure, naturally, a train came.
But I remember that.
As a kid, the papers, the head of the corporations, there was no panic.
The government got together, both parties got together, and we declared war.
And the women went to work at the factories, making bombs, working in a steel...
Yeah.
John, if you look at your screen here, this was the evening edition of the Pittsburgh Press from December the 8th, 1941.
So you would have been delivering this on that Monday evening after December 7th on Sunday.
U .S. declares war.
1 ,500 die in Hawaii, an undercount by about 900.
Fleets clash.
Nazis abandon the drive from Moscow.
You mentioned Roosevelt.
He kept this country so calm.
Now that I'm old and I remember, I remember Roosevelt.
Roosevelt, if you think Trump, Trump is the reborn of Roosevelt.
The people at that time was elected, well, they did, what was it, a fifth term?
I didn't know any other president.
And when he passed away and I was in the service, I thought, my God, you know, now what are we going to do?
But here was a man that was crippled.
There were stories about him on TV where he learned to crawl up steps to go upstairs in his house and things.
But at that time, you had a guy that would get on there, and I remember this one speech that he said, well, I don't mind people criticizing me and criticizing Eleanor,
but when they criticize my dog...
John?
This is the funny part.
When the Italians came by in the prisoner's train, John,
do you mind if I ask how old you are?
I'm 97 and a half.
John, thanks so much for sharing your memories from back then.
I hope you still get a paper up there in Pittsburgh.
Thanks for talking about it.
Just about 10 minutes left in this opening segment of the Washington Journal, setting aside this time.
To remember the 83rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
One other clip we wanted to show you, the Defense Department conducted oral histories with many U .S. service members and those who survived the Pearl Harbor attack, trying to collect those stories before those stories were lost.
Here's one of those that they collected.
This was a medic that day at Pearl Harbor.
Doc Munger is his name.
I'm Doc Munger, and I was 23 at Pearl Harbor.
I'd been in the Navy about two years and a half.
I was a medic.
The old term for medic was a pharmacist medic.
I don't think the word war ever entered my head.
It never occurred to me, and I don't think any of my buddies, that they were going to fight a war.
On December 7th, 1941, the world changed.
It was a beautiful Hawaiian morning, about 8 o 'clock, and suddenly we heard a buzzing across the mountains, and it kept getting bigger and bigger, and we thought, well,
what?
They must be doing some kind of an exercise.
We thought it was our own planes.
But lo and behold, the planes got overhead, we looked at the winds, and there was the rising sun.
But then we knew we were in trouble.
When I saw the first Japanese zero plane peel off and drop a bomb down the stack of the Arizona, I knew it was for real from then on in.
In the war.
You can't convey to another person the situation as it really is, mass bombing like that.
The air is full of shrapnel.
It's full of smoke, smell, like burning gunpowder, vibration.
And you have to experience that to ever know it.
But it's not good.
They sure did a bang -up job on our ships.
I don't think they missed much of any of them.
If you made it through the first hour in Pearl Harbor, you were home free.
You had to be smart.
Doc Munger there recounting his experiences at Pearl Harbor.
The Defense Department has several
Good morning, everyone.
Yes, my father was a World War II veteran, U .S. Army, enlisted in February, just about a month after the war had begun.
Yes, sir.
Over the years, especially places that I've worked, there's been almost a move to erase some of that history.
At one place in particular, they were not referring to it today as Pearl Harbor.
They were talking about Remembrance Day, and I started asking what that was all about.
And there was no real answer to it, but not even mentioning Pearl Harbor.
And so that's one thing that concerns me, is that we lose our history, especially everything that happened during the war.
So that's, again, back to my father.
He was a Mexican -American, and this is a small neighborhood that we grew up in.
But like I said, over the years, there was so much patriotism.
Rick, on losing history, did you listen to Doc Munger there while you're waiting, talking about his experiences on that day on December 7th?
So many interesting things, and as many kids of veterans will tell you, they didn't speak very much about it.
I remember my dad had a lot of funny stories and kind of crazy stories that he would talk about.
He was a support in the support units, medical support units.
But again, just a few things that I remember him talking about, driving vehicles at night, it was real dangerous.
He was in the South Pacific actually the whole time.
Well, Rick, we've talked a little bit about losing that generation, losing those stories.
So Doc Munger, who we just showed before you came on, this is his obituary.
He died in 2017.
And the question we've been asking is, what do we lose?
When we lose that generation, all of that generation, what do you think?
Yeah, we lose, but the influence, the example that they left us, they're called the Sonic Generation, and that's so appropriate because all of us that have known that generation,
both our, not only the men that fought, but also our moms, they were such a strength.
I'm encouraged to see that, though, that seems to be something that I'm seeing in younger people.
You know, as I speak, I worked in the educational area for many years, and I do see a lot of younger people interested in some of these things and looking forward that way.
Rick, thanks for the call from Arizona.
Already over time this morning, but want to get one meeting.
Hi.
My dad joined the Navy in 1944.
He was 23.
He went to flight training and he was assigned to the Ticonderoga.
He wrote a biography with my sister.
And in this, I have in front of me, he was in a flight, an F, where is it, F6, F flight group.
And his job was to protect the flight leader.
There were 12 planes.
And they were assigned, it was between Taiwan and the Philippines, and they were assigned to shoot down Japanese planes and ships, which they did.
So it's kind of interesting to read back.
Let's see, he was in the Air Group 80 of the U .S. Ticonderoga.
A picture of the USS Ticonderoga, its designation CV -14.
There's the picture there.
What was the name of the book that he wrote with his sister, Kathy?
It's not a book, it's just a biography, but he also fought in the Korean War.
And then we actually, I have three sisters, we lived on Midway Island at one point.
But he hadn't even met my mom yet when he was fighting in World War II.
The Ticonderoga was bombed and his bunk was bombed, but he was out flying.
But this little incident on November 23rd was his first experience of flying.
It's an F6F fighter.
And it says when he came back, he didn't have any trouble landing on the carrier.
I made several landings and blew two tires.
And that was not unusual.
I do have a picture of him, of his plane landing on a carrier, and they used a big rubber band to stop it.
And does the plane look like that?
Was it the F6 Hellcat?
We'll show you the picture.
Yeah, I have it in the back here.
Let's see.
I don't know if it's labeled.
Take a look at your screen.
Did it look like that?
Yeah, I don't see it yet.
It's delayed.
I think it was, what do they call it?
They always told us what it was.
Was it the Hellcat?
No, it's a fairly small one, but I'm getting a blank now.
That's all right.
Kathy, what was his name?
Edward Heasel.
He was in the Navy for 20 years.
No, that doesn't look like it.
Well, Kathy, thanks for telling us about him.
For viewers who wanted to get in in this segment and weren't able to, we're going to spend our last 45 minutes today coming back to this topic.
So stick with us, and we will certainly return to this remembrance of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Up next, though, Melissa Sanchez from ProPublica will join us to discuss differing political attitudes among Latino voters and recent immigrants to this country and how it played out.
In the past election and later that conversation on December 7th, 1941.
We'll be joined by Craig Nelson, the author of the book Pearl Harbor, from infamy to greatness for that discussion.
We'll be right back.
American History TV, exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
More than 80 years after his death, the recently identified remains of mess attendant third class David Walker of Virginia were buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
The 19 -year -old African -American sailor was killed on the USS California during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
On Lectures in History, the first of a two -part lecture by University of Maryland history professor Michael Ross on the 1893 trial of Lizzie Borden.
Exploring the American Story.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
Washington Journal continues.
A discussion now on political shifts among Latino voters and immigrants in 2024 from Chicago.
Our guest is Melissa Sanchez of ProPublica, who co -wrote a series on this topic.
Melissa Sanchez, the top line number that we want to start with here is this one.
In 2020, Donald Trump earned 35 % of the Latino vote in that election.
One month ago in election 2024, 42 % of Latinos broke for Donald Trump.
So in trying to understand the reasons for that shift, what did you find?
Well, there's a lot of reasons why Latinos, more Latinos voted for Trump this time around, and more Latinos have been gravitating toward the Republican Party.
And we, in our reporting with my colleague Micah Rosenberg and with others at ProPublica, like we're aware there's a lot of reasons, but one thing that kept coming up for us...
In our reporting, that might be surprising to some of our viewers here, is that the issue of immigration and how Biden had handled the border, has been handling the border, was really frustrating to longtime Latino immigrants in this country and their kids.
And this includes both people who can vote who are U .S. citizens and people who are still undocumented.
And the reason, there's sort of this sense of frustration and resentment that I keep hearing from folks.
We're good to go.
I think?
What are those benefits that they're referring to?
So the big one that I don't think has been talked enough about is work permits.
So when you come into the U .S. as an asylum seeker, you're also coming in illegally between ports of entry.
But unlike the Mexican immigrants who had come before as undocumented immigrants, they're not trying to get away from Border Patrol.
They're surrendering themselves and asking for asylum.
And by asking for asylum, if they're let in, some are deported immediately if their claims don't look valid, if the government even has the capacity to.
They're given the right, they're entitled to pursue an asylum claim in court.
And that court system is incredibly backlogged.
It can take years.
But as long as they file an asylum claim, within six months of filing, they're allowed to apply for a work permit.
And a work permit is like a golden ticket.
I mean, I've spent much of my career writing about undocumented people who don't have work permits.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
I think?
And then there's other advantages, too, depending on what state and what city you're in.
So I live in Chicago, and we saw tens of thousands of asylum seekers come in in the past couple of years, people who were bused in by Governor Abbott in Texas.
And the city was really overwhelmed with these numbers, and out of a sense of compassion and trying to be good humans, we provided shelter and food for folks, and that cost millions of dollars.
And I spoke with a housekeeper here in Chicago.
I don't know.
So there's the work permit, there's kind of the seeing the local or state or federal governments put in all this money to help the newcomers.
And in states like Wisconsin, where I've spent a lot of time, undocumented people are not allowed to drive.
They're simply banned from getting driver's licenses.
And we all know, especially in rural parts of this country, that it's incredibly difficult to live, to get to work, to get your kids to school without driving.
So undocumented folks in states like Wisconsin drive anyway and then risk
We're good to go.
She told me how frustrating it is that she's lived here for 19 years, been paying her taxes, hasn't gotten in trouble with the law, and she can't legally drive.
But the Nicaraguan asylum seekers who are coming in to cash their checks, to wire money home, they have driver's licenses.
And it just causes a lot of hurt for her.
And she can't vote.
She's not a US citizen.
She's undocumented.
But she told me very clearly that if she could vote, she would have voted for Trump.
So how did this issue of resentment, this frustration that you describe in your stories, how did it play out against the issue of mass deportations, a stepped up focus on deportations in a second Trump administration?
I ask that question to everybody because I think it's hard to reconcile these two things.
The woman at the bakery, for example, I asked her.
She had told me about how during the first Trump administration, she knew that there had been what's called collateral damage.
That sometimes ICE might go after a criminal, somebody who has a conviction for a violent crime, and then kind of in the process catch another undocumented person who was just a bystander.
But because they're undocumented, everybody got...
We're good to go.
Melissa Sanchez of ProPublica with us for about the next 20 -25 minutes.
Phone lines split a bit differently this morning.
Latino voters, the number 202 -748 -8000.
Immigrants to this country, 202 -748 -8001.
All others, 202 -748 -8002.
We'll get to your questions.
Melissa Sanchez, though, what should viewers know about Whitewater, Wisconsin?
I'm so glad you asked.
So I spent much of the past six months in Whitewater.
It's a little city between Madison and Milwaukee.
It's about 15 ,000 people.
And ProPublica, me and my colleague Mariam Jamil spent a long time there because it's a city that's seen a huge number of asylum seekers in the past few years.
And the numbers aren't gigantic compared to what we've seen in Chicago or New York or Denver, but it was about 500 to 1 ,000 newcomers, a lot of them asylum seekers.
I don't know.
The city got a lot of attention late last year and early this year because the police chief was simply becoming overwhelmed with the large number of new immigrants in his city who were driving without a driver's license.
And I said earlier that if you're an asylum seeker, you can get a driver's license, but it's never quite that simple.
You need to pass a driving test, and a lot of the people who are coming from Nicaragua have never driven a car before.
They used to get a...
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
I think for people like this chief and a lot of people in his community, it was something more in the middle.
Like, hey, look, all these people are here.
The government let all these people be here.
That's great, but their presence here is causing us some problems.
And he wasn't saying that these were all criminals, that there were murders and rapes on his streets because of them.
That wasn't true.
Now, Trump would come in later and make that kind of allegation, say that migrant crime was ruining this little town.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We're good to go.
For folks like them, they're sort of sitting back and saying, like, hey, what about us?
Like, we're here too.
And so I think kind of the dynamic between all of these communities playing out is something that we've seen all over the country, and it's complicated.
It's not something that we can talk about in a quick soundbite, but it's like the reality.
Like, immigration is messy, and it causes people to have really extreme emotional reactions, and I think it's good to kind of spend time talking.
And good to read some of these stories from ProPublica by Melissa Sanchez and her colleagues.
ProPublica .org.
Here's just one of those headlines of the topics we've been talking about.
Immigrants' resentment over new arrivals helped boost Trump's popularity with Latino voters.
Taking your phone calls this morning, and Kirk is up first on that line for immigrants out of Oklahoma.
Kirk, good morning.
Hey, good morning.
How are you this morning?
Kirk, speak into your phone a little bit, a little bit more clear, so we can hear you.
Okay.
Morning.
How are you guys?
Doing well.
What's your question or comment?
Yeah, you know, I'm an immigrant myself that went through the deportation process under the Obama administration.
And I came back legally.
And, you know, me as an immigrant, I will never hate on new immigrants that come in.
And I see that's a big thing, and most of those people who support Trump are in that bandwagon.
And my thing is that when this whole deportation process starts, nobody's going to be scared because nobody's wearing a t -shirt that they support Trump or not.
Yes, I can agree that the deportation process, he might not accomplish all, but he's going to create a lot of havoc.
And the reason being why I say that...
is that you know the fear and people gonna get caught up.
Uh, you know, by getting arrested, have to go through the process of immigration court.
You know bond and in immigration when, if you do get a bond, when they get arrested, it's cash, you know, it's not.
They can't go to a man and say ten percent no, if it's ten thousand uh, it's ten thousand cash, you know.
And then you So, yeah, you know, because the deportation process is a long, grinding hard.
And a lot of people that are going to get arrested are going to have relief.
They have to go to the judge and the court system, and that's going to take a long while.
But people's lives will be upended, you know, because they will be in custody and all of that.
So it's not an easy process.
I went through it for three years.
And I was in custody for three long years.
Kirk, where were you in custody?
And then how long was that process to come back in legally afterwards?
Okay, I'm married to a beautiful American citizen, and I was able to, you know, with the I -130 approves, come back.
But it takes me six years.
I was on a 10 -year bar, because when you get removed from the United States, automatically 10 -year bar.
But because of, you know...
Kirk, thanks for sharing your story.
Melissa Sanchez, so there's Kirk's view of what mass deportations would look like, and then this is Parkstorm who tweeted in while we were talking.
The guest makes a valid point, Parkstorm writes, just as Trump didn't build a wall, he isn't going to mass deport all of his Mar -a -Lago workers.
I mean, it's really hard to know.
I try to take people at face value, but Trump has said a lot of things that are, frankly, going to be just logistically impossible.
And so much of American business, including Mr. Trump's, has depended on immigrants.
And I think we haven't had an honest conversation about that in this country.
It's a hard conversation, because businesses...
We're good to go.
They've been quiet for the past couple of years because, again, this issue has become so politicized that they'd rather not get involved and risk losing people who are just convinced that Trump is right and we have to get rid of everybody.
But yeah, I think the caller is right.
People will get affected.
People will get deported.
People's lives are going to be torn apart.
Communities are going to see what it looks like to suddenly lose the people who are doing the back -breaking, dirty, ugly work that nobody cares about.
Go ahead.
Let me bounce this text off you that we just got during the conversation.
The text was saying, most of the Latinos that support Donald Trump...
Our products of Ronald Reagan's amnesty back in the 80s and they have forgotten when they were the ones hiding and hoping that they weren't going to get deported.
What do you think?
Yes and no.
Not everybody I talked to benefited from amnesty.
And also, to be clear, not all Latinos voted for Trump.
Most did not.
Just to be clear.
They're not the ones who got Trump elected.
But the ones who did vote for Trump, some of them came here legally before Reagan's amnesty.
And a lot of people who are undocumented today who came after amnesty support Trump.
And I've heard this criticism a lot.
The story got a lot of vitriol and pushback from the left.
Which ProPublica doesn't always get.
But we heard from a lot of really angry Democrats.
I heard Rosa should be the first one back on the bus home to Mexico.
How could you pull the ladder up after you?
And I think it's just important to point out that the undocumented folks that we interviewed, not the voters, but the undocumented folks we interviewed, they don't have a ladder.
They didn't have a ladder.
They still don't have a work permit.
They still don't have a driver's license.
They still don't have all the things.
So it's complicated.
I think that is true.
It's like a human story.
You know, when people are afraid of losing out, there's the whole resentment thing that we've talked about, you know, for all sorts of voters in this country.
I think there's a lot of factors that come into play.
And this is one of them.
It's one that I happen to see a lot in my reporting.
I happen to see a lot in my community where I live here in Chicago, an immigrant community.
And a lot of my colleagues all over the country, too, have been.
Good morning C -SPAN and good morning John.
I haven't talked to you for a while.
I'm going to address the political shift among Latino voters and immigrants.
First I'm going to take immigrants.
We are all immigrants sojourning to go back to that place of fantasy and love and all of that and picking up along the way materials for the journey.
As for Latinos, that narrative is wrong.
There is no such thing as Latino people.
We are native, indigenous American people, whether you're from South, Central, or North.
We are not Latino.
There's no such thing as Latino people.
And the political shift, the political shift is this.
Please stop saying that we are Latinos.
Guillermo, got your point.
Melissa Sanchez, anything you want to pick up on?
Yeah, no, I appreciate that comment.
It's an easy way to describe a bunch of people.
And it's true.
If you talk to an immigrant from Mexico or from Argentina, they won't say, I'm Latino.
They'll say, I'm Mexican.
I'm Argentinian.
I'm Mexican -American.
But I think it's a helpful umbrella term.
But we've heard this over and over again, and I hope people could remember this, that not everybody's the same.
And even within one family that is from Mexico that came at the same time, you can...
You can have very different perspectives on politics.
You can have siblings who vote differently, even though they have the same parents who came here illegally.
So, yeah, people are not the same just because they came from the same hemisphere.
And I appreciate what your caller's saying.
Like, history is very complicated.
A lot of the stuff did come from indigenous people from the Americas, but then, you know, there were the Spaniards who came and colonized all of it.
So it's complicated.
We've been talking about Wisconsin.
Let's go to Osseo, Wisconsin, central western Wisconsin.
Tim, go ahead.
Yes, I happen to know that I remember when I was a kid Cesar Chavez of all people used to stand down at the border with some of his people and he didn't want people coming in illegally to the country because it would drive down the wages for all the other people here,
the brown, the black people and illegal immigration is putting incredible stress.
Our educational institutions, our medical institutions, and all this garbage that they're the only ones that do all the bad jobs.
I have friends that do the same kind of jobs.
And we have unemployed people that if they don't want to do the job, they should be forced to do the job.
So please, stop this fallacy that they're the only ones that'll do the job.
Go to Denver and Chicago.
I have a sister that lives in each city.
And then they have illegals laying all over the airports, all over the streets, and the crime rates have skyrocketed.
They have illegals in four -star hotels.
I'm a veteran, and there's veterans sleeping on the streets, and illegals are sleeping in these four -star hotels in New York, L .A., and Chicago, so...
You know, this is a nice little propaganda piece you got going here, but I'm here to expose you.
Thank you.
That sentiment from a lot of people, it's complicated.
No, you're right.
I mean, there are a lot of people who are unemployed.
Like, why aren't they doing the work?
You don't know how many farmers I've talked to in Wisconsin who have told me that they have not had an American come in and apply to work shoveling manure 18 hours a day in years.
Like, does that mean they have to raise wages?
Probably.
So right now they're paying, let's say, $12, $14 an hour.
And there's no overtime in farms.
We're good to go.
We'll have to pay more for the basic stuff that we depend on, that immigrants are producing.
And we haven't figured out as a country whether we want to do that.
Instead, we've just kicked the can down the road.
And now we have, you're right, there were immigrants sleeping at the airports in Chicago.
They're not there right now.
They were sleeping at the police stations and on the street.
And we're not seeing that right now because they've been housed and maybe some of them have kind of resettled into other places.
But we still have a homeless population that had pre -existed the immigrants.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
I think?
I don't know.
I appreciate the caller.
I hear you.
It's really hard.
There's not a really good answer here.
No matter what way you turn, somebody's going to feel the pain and the hurt.
Gigi is next in Virginia.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I just wanted to ask a question of your guest.
Do you believe that the background that these immigrants have Educational background and the countries that they come from make a difference.
For example, I came to the United States when I was almost 14 in 1969.
And I had a wonderful education in my country of birth, Uruguay.
And I know many South American countries that are offering incredible education to their population, even free college.
So those immigrants are coming to the United States well -educated, perhaps illegally, but well -educated.
And that makes a difference in the way that they're able to basically access all the things that are available to them.
And immigrants who are coming from other locations where they're not being educated in such way are perhaps not able to access the same benefits That people who are educated are able to access.
And therefore, yes, it did create this resentment of why are those people, mostly from South America, accessing these benefits?
Well, the truth is South America is doing a very good job of educating their population.
And to equate South American countries to Central American countries when it comes to educating Melissa Sanchez, go ahead.
No, I mean, it's an interesting call.
And we're not getting a lot of Uruguayans coming in through the asylum system.
I mean, I don't know enough about the political situation right now in Uruguay, but it's not a country that has a collapsed economy, that has an authoritarian state, that has sent millions, millions of Venezuelans have left that country over the past decade or so because it's just impossible to live.
Yes, maybe Venezuela had a better educational system than Nicaragua or Guatemala, but the economy still had fallen.
We're falling apart and people could not survive so that's why you have Thank you.
I spent some time a few years ago talking to young Guatemalan immigrants, teenagers who'd come as unaccompanied minors and who were working in factories at night.
And they were illiterate.
They couldn't read in Spanish.
We wrote a beautiful story about them and their lives, working in factories at night and sleeping in high school during the day.
And I realized the day that it published that...
Even though we translated it for them, they couldn't read the story, so we had to do an audio version.
And I think people are coming in with different levels of education, but I think if they're undocumented without access to some of the benefits that you can get if you're an asylum seeker, then you're kind of in a rough place no matter what.
So you do have former bankers or accountants working side -by -side on factory lines next to Mexican folks who came from rural parts who have lower education.
I don't think anybody is trying to compare the education system in Uruguay to Guatemala, but...
But you're also not seeing a bunch of Uruguayans at the border right now.
About five minutes left with Melissa Sanchez of ProPublica.
ProPublica .org is where you can go to see her reporting.
You've talked to a lot of illegal immigrants in your career as a reporter.
Do you get a sense that there are large numbers of illegal immigrants who want to vote in federal elections illegally?
Oh, no.
I mean, I know that's something that's said a lot by the right, and I haven't encountered that.
I mean, a lot of the people I've talked to dream of becoming an American citizen.
They dream of voting.
But I haven't met anybody who's attempted to vote or who has even brought up that notion.
I do understand that we're all worried about that our system is valid.
I don't think this is the place where it's happening at.
But I appreciate that question.
To Patrick in New Hampshire.
Good morning.
You're next.
Hi, Melissa.
So I think I heard you say something about the child -family separation under the first Trump term.
And I was wondering about...
Obviously, I'm sure you feel like that child separation in the first term, the 4 ,000...
500 whatever um, children that were separated from their families at the border.
I think there's like 1800 left that still haven't been reunited and I was wondering what your thoughts are on that compared to Biden and Kamala Harris's administration, where they lost 325 ,000 kids so far and that's five family separation, you know what I mean.
Like those kids come here and they're never going to get to see their parents again.
They, Our country, doesn't even know where they are at this point.
Yeah, no, I've heard that.
I've heard that.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
O .R .R., the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which kind of oversees that program, hasn't always done the best job tracking what happens to every kid when they leave the system, but that doesn't mean that they're lost.
That might mean that O .R .R. doesn't know where they all are, but I've talked to...
Maybe 100 kids who have gone through that system.
And they all know where they were going.
I mean, most of the kids who pass through are 14, 15, 16, 17.
And they come here to work.
And they might have an uncle or a brother in, I don't know, Grand Rapids or Miami that they know that they're going to go to.
And maybe ORR, I think like in the past, they would check in on these kids like a month or so after they released the shelter system.
And they probably lost track of a lot of them.
These are all underfunded systems.
Let me try to get in one last call here.
Shay in Baltimore, good morning.
Thanks for waiting.
Yes, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I just want to make a comment, a quick comment.
Looking at all this illegal immigration stuff that's happened most recently, I think this is a backfire of what American foreign policy have been doing.
Most recently in Venezuela, we imposed sanctions on Venezuela.
The British government pretty much sold almost $12 billion of the asset.
It's still frozen.
They won't give it to the country.
We're trying to change that government.
And this is what is causing the Venezuelans to come to America.
We are doing this to the Venezuelans, and it's by far coming back to us.
This is our doing.
So your guest sitting there, she supported the Venezuelan regime change.
She was advocating for it.
And now she's trying to play it that she cares about the blowback effect.
Melissa Sanchez, let me give you a chance to respond.
Yeah, no, I don't think I'm an advocate for any government.
That's not my job.
I'm a reporter.
I think the caller is right.
The U .S. foreign policy has had a huge effect on other governments' ability to be run properly.
And there's a lot of factors.
Sure, there might be corruption.
There might be other issues.
Mismanagement, etc.
But we have as a country imposed...
There are tons of sanctions on Venezuela, on Nicaragua, on Cuba.
And that's hard for economies to survive.
I went to Cuba 12, 13 years ago, and people have struggled to get basic necessities, basic foods, because of the embargoes.
So we're seeing a bunch of Cubans coming in.
We're seeing a bunch of Nicaraguans coming in.
The sanctions do make a difference, and there could be problems already with that government.
The government of Nicaragua is incredibly repressive and authoritarian right now.
It was not the case a few years back, but that has happened.
I know I said last call,
but John in Massachusetts has been waiting for something like 25 minutes to chat with you.
If you don't mind, John, go ahead.
Thank you so much, and I hope you guys give me the same time you gave everybody else.
I mean, America hasn't changed quite a bit in 400 years, right?
I consider that no country and no land is poor until you have colonial imperialism and you come in and you overthrow the country because you want...
And John, I'm running short on time.
Do you have a question for Melissa Sanchez?
It's John in Massachusetts.
No, I wish I had an answer for you.
I don't disagree with you.
It's hard.
ProPublica .org is where you can go to see Melissa Sanchez's work, the work of her colleagues as well.
We appreciate your time this morning, this Saturday morning on the Washington Journal.
Thank you.
Coming up in about 25 minutes this morning, we're going to return to the topic of Pearl Harbor on this December the 7th.
We will be joined by Craig Nelson, author of Pearl Harbor, From Infamy to Greatness.
But for the next 25 minutes, it's our open forum.
Any public policy, any political issue that you want to talk about, the phone lines are yours to do so.
The numbers are on the screen.
Go ahead and start calling in, and we will get to your calls right after the break.
25 years ago, author Malcolm Gladwell published his international bestseller, The Tipping Point, about how ideas and behavior spread in a society to create positive change.
Sunday on Q &A, Mr. Gladwell, in his follow -up, Revenge of the Tipping Point, looks at the downside of social epidemics, including the rise of opioid abuse and Medicare fraud.
These guys in the fraud task force took me to an office building in Miami.
Which had been divided up into hundreds of tiny closet -sized offices, each of which basically was the mailing address for a different fraudulent Medicare provider.
So you'd see this office which was the size of a broom closet.
There'd be no one in it, or there'd be one person in it behind a desk, but their computer wouldn't be plugged in.
And on the door there would be some placard.
Which said, you know, Greater Miami Healthcare Research Center and or, you know, Rehabilitation Center.
And it would just be a front for the collection of fraudulent Medicare payments.
And there would be hundreds of fronts in one building, right?
That's, you don't find that in Minneapolis.
You find that in Miami.
Next week on the C -SPAN Networks.
The House and Senate are in session.
The House will vote on the final versions of legislation authorizing water infrastructure projects to be constructed by the U .S. Army Corps of Engineers and to add new federal judgeships to U .S. district courts.
We're good to go.
Some time now this morning on the Washington Journal for our open forum.
Any public policy issue?
We're good to go.
I think?
For Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after five years of restoration after that devastating fire.
Some 40 heads of state and government and religious dignitaries are expected to be in attendance.
The president -elect, Donald Trump, expected to join that as well.
You can catch that live at 1 p .m. Eastern on C -SPAN, c -span .org, and the free C -SPAN Now mobile app.
And speaking of President Trump...
He will, President -elect Trump, he will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron today ahead of that reopening ceremony.
It's his first visit abroad since winning the presidential election, of course, a month ago.
You can watch that.
We're good to go.
Good morning.
Good morning.
How are you today?
I'm doing well, Edna.
What's on your mind?
I have been paying attention to all of the appointments that Trump is making.
He's filling up Washington with ex -convicts and sex offenders.
He's even sending an ex -convict to represent this country in France.
Jared Kushner's father served two years in the federal prison in Alabama, and he's appointing him to serve...
In France.
I hope that that country will think twice before accepting a convict.
And why is he so set on getting rid of the people that come here to this country?
Some of those people, and like this previous caller said, all of those people are not ignorant.
A lot of them are very educated.
But they come here and they're here 20 or 30 years and they don't speak English.
Don't they know that that's a deterrent when you don't understand the language?
At his rallies, he's telling them to their face that he's going to send them out of the country.
If he's going to get rid of illegal aliens, start with his wife.
She's an immigrant.
She's been here 20 years and can't speak English.
Thank you for letting me get this off my chest.
The First Lady can speak English.
You can watch several of her events.
Good morning.
I just got to make a comment on one of your earlier callers that talked about how Americans came to to America and overthrew the native.
Well, he said government and the native total nonsense.
That is total nonsense.
Before 1800, most of the people that came to this country were either enslaved or they were indentured.
They were not immigrants.
Immigrants are people that come over here of their own free will.
So you need to get an understanding of what an immigrant is And what the other two, slaves and indentured, okay?
America has never colonized anybody.
We have never taken over a country like the Europeans have.
If you look at the history, England, their trading companies, France, Spain, you would know that.
But unfortunately, a lot of people aren't too familiar with history, and they don't really understand the history of this country.
We are a country of free enterprise.
That's all.
That's Frank in Georgia to the land of enchantment, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Jorge, Independent, good morning.
Hello, good morning.
I believe that Biden should retire now and let Kamala take over.
To war can be hijacked.
Our ways and weapons have been turned against us.
Let this be a warning.
American women have been and will be used again to drive war.
I call it the La Llorona complex, the loss of a son usually in a ship for war.
Jorge, how do you know there was an aircraft carrier that they were going to intentionally put in harm's way?
Well, Jorge, to the Green Mountain State, this is Tom in Beddington.
Republican, good morning.
Good morning, C -SPAN.
I love your show.
The greater American, wait a minute, the greater United States of America was, the Philippines was made part of that.
And that was from the Spanish -American War.
And on Pearl Harbor Day, there was 30 ,000 dead in the Philippines.
And what about the USS Utah?
You know, it's sunk, too.
And like I said, I just love this program.
And please look up that United States, greater United States of America, and the Philippines from the Spanish -American War.
Thank you very much, John.
Bye -bye.
It's Tom in Vermont.
This is Mark in Florida.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning, John.
You're one of my favorites there because I really enjoy the way you challenge.
Some of the callers.
I'm a little late to the game because I delayed my television.
I wanted to speak to Ms. Sanchez, but I just have a couple things.
For all these people who call in and talk about how immigrants are being fed and provided cell phones and four -star lodging.
I would ask any American, any American in the United States, if they would trade places with them.
I would ask any of them if they would do that.
And my understanding is, I really don't really like the term illegal, because if you set foot on this country, on our land, you're entitled to an asylum hearing.
And it isn't these people's fault that our system takes, you know, eight years to hear their case.
Thanks a lot for the time.
Mark, before you go, you said you wanted to talk to Melissa Sanchez, the reporter who had joined us from ProPublica.
What did you think of her story?
I don't know if you heard the beginning of her comments about immigrants' resentment, older immigrants' resentment over newer arrivals and what they received, especially under the Biden administration,
and that helping boost I just think that, you know, in general,
people have short memories.
I remember the boat lift from Marielle.
I live in South Florida.
I remember the boat lift.
And I can guarantee that most of those people that are assimilated now, they voted for Trump.
And they all came here illegally.
I mean, this is just like, you know, I mean, we elected the guy who said immigrants were eating cats and dogs.
We elected the wrong guy for the wrong reasons.
I'm still, I guess you can hear in my voice, I'm still not over it yet.
But I mean, and I heard a caller say to Melissa, we're all immigrants.
And that's essentially true.
The fact that we're helping immigrants doesn't mean we can't help homeless at the same time, or we can't help our veterans at the same time.
We can do all of these things.
It has to be the will, though.
John, you're great.
Thanks a lot, and have a great weekend.
That's Mark in Florida.
This is Bruce in Summitville, Indiana, independent in the Hoosier State.
Go ahead.
Hi.
Thanks for taking my call.
The reporter who seemed to me to be blaming farmers for the work that some of the illegal immigrants were doing,
that is just farm work.
I grew up on a farm.
I did the same thing the whole time I was growing up.
And even after, I would come back to help my dad.
And she needs to understand what she's talking about because cleaning out barns in a livestock farm you're going to move manure.
You're going to clean out the barn so the animals are taken care of properly.
If people don't like doing that they can go get another job.
And it just gets very frustrating that
Well, especially the kids.
Why would parents, even though they're in bad situations where they're at, why would they have them send them on this long trip just to get in the United States?
The other thing is about Talking bad about the United States and everything that we do wrong.
Possibly they need to be about trying to straighten out their own governments.
That's Berguson, Indiana to Miami, Florida.
About 10 minutes left in open forum.
This is Nick, Republican.
Good morning.
Yeah, good morning.
I had a caller from Massachusetts that he's saying everything that was correct as far as America. does overthrow other governments.
They definitely do that.
And the caller from Georgia saying America does not overthrow or occupy governments.
We've been doing it for centuries.
That's all we do.
We have bases all over this planet.
Why?
Why are we so upset when somebody else is in our country when all we do is invade other countries?
The vast majority of these bases that you're talking about, the United States military is invited to be there by some of these countries.
What do you make of that?
Do you think we should have other countries' militaries have bases in this country, Nick?
We should worry about America and American borders, and if we want resources from that country, let's trade.
What do you have to trade?
But we don't do that anymore.
We did that before.
But now there's only, what, America, you got Russia, you got China, the three big dogs, and anytime you want to come into your country,
we have the military, we have the money to do it.
Despite what the United Nations says, we're going anyway.
That's Nick in Florida.
This is David in the land of Lincoln.
Democrat, good morning.
Good morning, John.
I like to use nicknames of states.
In your first segment about Pearl Harbor, I just wanted to mention one caller talked about what civilians did in this country.
My mother worked during the war as a riveter at a company called Bell Air Bomber, who later became Lockheed, in Marietta, Georgia.
And one of the quirky things were, if you were in good physical condition, they would train you.
But the main thing is they wanted good roller skaters.
And David, in that picture, are they on roller skates?
I don't know.
What was her name, David?
Addis Holland.
A -D -D -I -S.
Thanks for telling us about Addis.
This is Albert in Stockton, California, Independent.
Good morning.
Good morning, John.
I'll make it quick.
So, my family is very big.
I'm an Hispanic.
I'm speaking clear English.
I don't even speak Spanish, but I am Mexican.
We're good to go.
I think?
Any kids that are out there in the cold, I'd rather see them somewhere in, I don't care what they're surrounded with, you know, surrounded in a building with controlled environment, because everybody kind of throws that out of context.
I know what a cold fishing trip feels like, and I don't wish it for none of those kids out there.
So I appreciate all the callers.
It goes back and forth.
You know, once again, I speak, my parents do speak Spanish.
I'm from Texas, so we made our way here.
All my family pay taxes.
One, my sister's son works at Livermore's lab.
I work at Spanos.
Once again, I'm speaking clear English.
And I also, last but not least, believe Trump will pick up the crime.
The guy said, we need to help the homeless.
Well, let's pick up the crime.
He forgot the crime.
Let's fix the crime, fix the people.
People do come out and do well.
I know that personally.
So, anyways, I'm going to stop rambling.
And, John, I appreciate you always.
A bird's eye view.
I get it.
From here to San Francisco, I'm out of Stockton.
I see it.
The farmland, the farmers, it's just beautiful.
And that last comment the one lady said, and I'll leave it with this and you can hang up on me, it was right about the people that are here.
I've heard it right from the people in the restaurants.
They don't think it's fair because everybody kind of has to go to a process.
There's every color in America.
That's why we don't have bases.
That's Albert in California.
This is Art in the Tar Heel State Republican.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I just would like to say I've been watching your program for quite some time and I enjoy it.
My biggest thought always is if all of these people in these other countries have such a hard time, why don't they get together like this country did 200 years ago, have a revolution, redo their country, and stay home where they belong,
and then we wouldn't have so many people running across our borders.
Thanks, sir.
That is Art in North Carolina, our last caller in this open forum.
About 50 minutes left this morning, and in that time, we will turn back.
To this December 7th, 83rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
We're going to be joined next by Craig Nelson, the author of the book Pearl Harbor, From Infamy to Greatness.
Stick around for that conversation.
We'll be right back.
Book TV, every Sunday on C -SPAN 2, features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books.
Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
Then at 10 p .m. Eastern on Afterwards.
Next week on the C -SPAN Networks.
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25 years ago, author Malcolm Gladwell published his international bestseller, The Tipping Point, about how ideas and behavior spread in a society to create positive change.
Sunday on Q &A, Mr. Gladwell, in his follow -up, Revenge of the Tipping Point, looks at the downside of social epidemics, including the rise of opioid abuse and Medicare fraud.
These guys in the fraud task force took me to an office building in Miami.
Which had been divided up into hundreds of tiny closet -sized offices, each of which basically was the mailing address for a different fraudulent Medicare provider.
So you'd see this office, which was the size of a broom closet.
There'd be no one in it, or there'd be one person in it behind a desk, but their computer wouldn't be plugged in.
And on the door, there would be some placard.
Which said, you know, Greater Miami Healthcare Research Center and or, you know, Rehabilitation Center.
And it would just be a front for the collection of fraudulent Medicare payments.
And there would be hundreds of fronts in one building, right?
That's, you don't find that in Minneapolis.
You find that in Miami.
Malcolm Gladwell with his book Revenge of the Tipping Point, Sunday night at 8 p .m. Eastern on C -SPAN's Q &A.
You can listen to Q &A and all of our podcasts on our free C -SPAN Now app.
Washington Journal continues.
Today marks the 83rd anniversary of the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Joining us to reflect on the attack, its legacy.
In American history is Craig Nelson.
He's the author of the 2016 book, Pearl Harbor, From Infamy to Greatness.
And Mr. Nelson, I want you to start on infamy.
What was President Roosevelt trying to tell a shocked American public on December 8, 1941, when he said that that Sunday would be a date that would live in infamy?
Well, good morning.
Thank you so much for having me.
The entire idea of infamy comes from the fact that during World War I, which was then known as the Great War, Japan was an ally of the United States, and we were in the middle of negotiating various treaties,
including how much oil America would be exporting to Japan during this entire period before December 7th.
So Pearl Harbor came as a tremendous shock That night, in fact, Roosevelt held his head in his hands and said, what is going to happen?
I'm going to go down in history disgraced.
People really had no idea that Japan was even capable of such a thing.
So this tremendous blow to United States prestige and thinking and military honor really set the nation asunder and set us on a whole new path to the future.
Japan destroyed a fleet that day, but should Japan have known, in december of 1941, that America was a country that could rebuild a fleet and rebuild many fleets?
Well, it was.
It's an amazing story because it comes from a number of very contradictory people.
Uh, notably the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, Yamamoto.
And when you look at what actually happened from a military point of view, almost everything the Japanese did was brilliant, but it was a Win the battle, lose the war situation, where Yamamoto was convinced that Americans would be so devastated by this tremendous show of Japanese force that they would give up and just let the Japanese do anything they wanted in Asia.
And of course, the reaction was quite a bit different from that.
And that's actually the surprise because Yamamoto had spent a number of years in the United States.
He'd learned English from reading biographies of his great hero, Abraham Lincoln, but he totally misjudged the character.
We're good to go.
I think?
Well, I really have to tell you that...
Instead of just being overwhelmed by the tragedy, you can also be inspired by the heroism of Pearl Harbor.
One of the major things I discovered in research is the fact that there are 43 ,000 Army and Navy servicemen stationed on Oahu at that moment, and the median age was 19, and most of the officers lived...
On the ground, on apartments and houses on the ground near Pearl Harbor.
So the ones who were on the ships were little kids.
You could get into the Navy at 16, and many people were trying to because it was the depths of the Depression and you needed three hots in the cot if you got in the Navy.
So it was very popular to try and get in the Navy.
And so the people that, when we talk about the people at Pearl Harbor, we're really talking about teenagers and very young kids.
We're good to go.
Craig Nelson is our guest.
His book on Pearl Harbor came out in 2016.
His most more recent book, 2023 book, V is for Victory, Franklin Roosevelt's American Revolution and the Triumph of World War II.
We are chatting with him until the end of our program today.
It's 10 a .m. Eastern time.
Phone lines for you to call in 202 -748 -8000 if you live in the Eastern or Central time zones.
202 -748 -8001 if you live in the Eastern or Central time zones.
Well, we don't really know if the...
2 ,403 dead number is actually accurate.
We keep changing that number every year as more remains and more bodies are found.
Because the attack was so devastating, men were left in dust.
So getting an actual number for that is very difficult.
And it wasn't until very recently, right when I was researching this book, that we found out the chaotic state of the Japanese government.
They went through 15 prime ministers.
Your book is From Infamy to Greatness.
Focus on the greatness.
side of that and when that turn was made.
So when I talk to people in the Navy about Pearl Harbor, first of all, they don't want to talk about it, but they're very upset about it.
And finally I explain to them, I say, look, the shock to the system, to the American system that happened at Pearl Harbor is the whole reason America is the way we are today.
The whole reason we have our giant military, our powerful Navy, our tremendous Army and Air Force and Marine Corps, the whole reason we have this international sort of king overseas in business, the reason why we're...
Having had a World War III in 80 years is because of how America reacted to Pearl Harbor.
And really the start of what we think of the United States now began at that moment.
What did they say?
Has that turned from members of the Navy not wanting to talk about it?
Has it changed since you were doing that research as we sit here today in 2024?
Well, I do have to say one of my greatest moments as a historian was I did a Pearl Harbor Memorial at Norfolk Naval Base, which is the largest naval base in the world.
And I'm surrounded by, you know, there's little old me on the dais surrounded by admirals.
Biggest admirals in town are all there and I explained this whole idea that at the moment and it happened it was a huge shame but now we have the great navy we know today started right then and a number of the admirals burst into tears it was a overwhelming experience.
Let me let you chat with some callers.
Armando is up first calling from Hawaii this morning up either very late or very early.
Armando go ahead.
Hi thank you for taking my call.
Yeah, I just wanted to share my experience.
My mother and my sister, on the morning of the attack of Pearl Harbor, they were in church in downtown Honolulu.
And my mother told me that, you know, they could hear the bombing and they would go out and they went outside and they could see the building of smoke, you know, rising above Pearl Harbor.
And it was a scary thing because my mother told me they had to cover the windows with black paper at night.
They had martial law and all of that.
She kind of told me.
She worked for the U .S. Army during that time.
By the way, when they had the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, I came home.
I was in school in the mainland.
I came home with a Pearl Harbor survivor.
Armando.
Are you going to make it down there today or have you been to any of those remembrance ceremonies recently?
No, I've been there.
Usually when visitors come to Hawaii, I take them down there.
I go to Pearl Harbor and I take them because I think it's very important.
They've got the Missouri and they've got the submarine over there.
There's a lot of interesting things to see there.
You know, because the Missouri and Arizona, as you know, there are bookends of the World War II.
But one thing I would like to note also and to add was the fact that the Japanese did not destroy the dry docks.
And that was a big mistake.
They did everything perfect, but they didn't destroy the dry docks.
And that was why the United States was able to, you know, refurbish those ships and get them back into war.
I just wanted to share my experience.
Yes.
Thanks for that.
Let me let Craig Nelson jump in.
Well, thank you for saying that.
Because almost all of the Pearl Harbor survivors in the military are not with us anymore.
We historians are really relying on civilian memories like from your family, so I really appreciate that.
And you did bring up an important point.
One of the sort of amazing stories that happens after Pearl Harbor is that the Japanese did not destroy the dry docks where we repaired all those ships, and it didn't destroy our fuel tanks, which are very important to get everything going in time for the Battle of Midway,
where the He also mentioned the bookends of World War II, talking about the Arizona and the Missouri.
Is that because the Missouri was the ship where the Japanese surrender was signed on in Tokyo Bay?
Take us to that moment for the American Navy on the Missouri.
Well, the great history of the Pacific theater in World War II is called War Without Mercy because the attack on Pearl Harbor triggered this tremendous visceral reaction.
I think?
Very small cities at the time because all the other cities in Japan had been firebombed by the United States.
So I think Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities 63 and 64 on the target list, as I remember that number.
So at the time of the arrival of... Barbara's next out of Newburyport,
Massachusetts.
Good morning.
You're on with Craig Nelson.
Hi, John.
How are you?
Doing well.
Okay, so I'm calling with a comment more than a question.
I was watching the Start TV, which is sort of like rerun.
Oh, sorry, not that.
It's Story TV, and it's reruns of History TV.
And I always loved that, the date that will live in infamy.
I mean, what a great way to say it.
So they were showing how he wrote the speech like the night before he gave it, and he had it.
It was called A Day That Will Live in History.
And they actually showed the speech where he had written out.
And then...
Craig Nelson.
Yes, I have that speech, and it's one of my most thrilling possessions.
I have a Xerox of it.
And we actually have a quote from his secretary detailing how he wrote it and then changed two words, and that was it.
Roosevelt was a very good writer, but I didn't know he was that good.
So, really terrific story of behind the scenes.
National Archives with a rundown of FDR's day of infamy speech and how he crafted that.
Archives .gov.
This is the first draft that he wrote.
You can see an image of his changes that he made to the first draft in what we can put on our screen for you.
He wrote...
He had his secretary, Grace Tully, come in to write that speech.
Short though it was, they write, it has become one of the most famous speeches of the 20th century.
The yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date that will live in world history is the note that was originally taken down and he went on to make that famous change.
There's the original speech there.
Anwar is next out of Tacoma Park, Maryland.
Good morning.
I'd like to ask you a guess.
I know my grandfather was there and he told me about there was an oil embargo that the United States had placed on Japan.
And I noticed that he didn't mention that on Friday, August 1st, 1941, the U .S. announces a ban on oil exports to aggressor countries, including Japan.
And would you not say that that was
You are absolutely right, sir.
During the 1930s, America was the Saudi Arabia for Japan.
We supplied 80 % of her oil.
Japan started attacking the Chinese who they treated pretty much the way the Nazis treated the Jews, the Japanese treatment of the Chinese.
Roosevelt and many people in America got very upset about this because we had a special relationship with China and the Chinese who sort of felt like they were a little brother.
So he decided to attack them, try to...
I think we're good.
Churchill, behind his back, Morgenthau at Treasury and Acheson at State sort of changed the rules of the game so that they were essentially embargoing all oil from Japan.
Roosevelt had let Japan have most of its oil that could not be used for...
I don't know.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was merely a minor protecting of her flank while she had this huge operation going on.
So it was those two things that really led to the Japanese attack.
Appalling New York is next.
Dave, good morning.
That line for World War II veterans and family members.
Go ahead.
Good morning.
I think this is a great show you're doing this morning.
I have a question for Mr. Nelson.
My father...
uh, was in World War Ii and he was on a ship that got sunk somewhere in the South Pacific, and we as a family know very little about the events of his life.
So I was just wondering, there must be a way where I could possibly find some records um, of where he was.
It just dawned on me.
I said well, why don't I try the service?
I mean, i'm 77 years old, but it just dawned on me that uh, I would like to have a look at that.
I know he tells one story.
He was very tight -lipped about the whole war thing.
Nobody spoke of anything.
He was a boxer.
He got malaria over and ended his boxing career.
But he did tell a story when the ship got sunk.
A horrible story.
He fished out his best friend.
They started the service together, I guess.
And he was a goner.
Then I guess they got to shore and somehow somebody showed up with mail after a couple days.
And it was just when they had another wave of bombing.
And he said, the sky was lit.
You could read the newspaper.
And he got a letter from GMAC telling them that they were going to make big trouble for him.
Like, I'm sure that had an impact at the time.
But if you could answer that question, I would certainly appreciate it.
Thank you.
Well, thank you so much for calling in and sharing that story.
One thing that I came to believe was that pretty much Man who served and woman who served in World War II ended up with a version of post -traumatic stress syndrome, which they tried to cure for themselves by not talking about anything.
In fact, my father was stationed in New Guinea as part of the Army Air Corps, and he survived a Japanese strike and had to clean up the bodies of his dead friends.
And the first time I heard about it was because I started writing books on World War II.
He never mentioned a word to me about this until I was practically 50 years old.
How did that story come out of your father?
Do you remember when he told you that story and why?
He just would lead for decades.
He would say, if I said anything about World War II, he would just gloss over it and not say anything.
And finally he popped up with his story.
I was stunned, frankly.
And we have pictures from all of this, too.
It's just amazing.
But he didn't feel comfortable.
They were protecting their families from the gruesome, horrible things that had happened to them.
Really.
Matt, in Washington.
Good morning.
You're next with Craig Nelson.
Good morning.
I always wanted to ask a Pearl Harbor expert this question.
So it's pretty well known that Hitler was a fan of the United States of America and its early sort of colonization or colonization of Native Americans.
And he was even surprised.
It's a fact that Hitler was surprised that we, as United said, as the United States, joined the allies and sort of joined Europe.
And do you think Do you think it's possible that the United States would have joined Germany and /or Japan if we hadn't been bombed by Pearl Harbor or bombed during Pearl Harbor?
So this is a great question because it's the major part of the topic of the other book that our host brought up, V is for Victory.
So this is a story that begins, in fact, with a number of people wanted us to join the Nazis, notably Charles Lindbergh and an organization that started out as a...
college kids protesting against the draft, just like in Vietnam, was called America First, and they pretty much tried to counter whatever Roosevelt wanted to do in trying to help Europe.
People in America were very bitter after World War One.
They really felt we'd been suckered into fighting that war and they were Completely hostile to it.
And even as one country after the next fell in World War II, at the start of World War II, we didn't want to get involved in any European wars, as they were called then.
But all the time that this was going on, the Nazis were attacking our shipping in the Atlantic.
Yeah.
Shipping back to England and Europe in the Atlantic.
And sooner or later, there was going to be a major loss of American life because of that sort of underground war going on in the Atlantic.
So the Pearl Harbor that triggered everything and really ended America First.
America First, by the way, was the source of the rumor that FDR knew about Pearl Harbor ahead of time, which is not true.
But anyway.
That ended the conflict that was going on in America between what were known as the interventionists and the isolationists.
So you are right in one way that Pearl Harbor really turned the corner on that debate, but in another at any moment something would have happened in the Atlantic and we would have entered World War II because of that.
You touched briefly earlier on Franklin Roosevelt.
Hi.
I thought him looking very strained and tired, but he was completely calm.
His reaction to any great event was always to be calm.
If it was something that was bad, he just became almost like an iceberg and there was never the slightest emotion that was allowed.
To show.
While I was very conscious of his tremendous strain, the first thing I noticed was this deadly calm.
And then, almost the first thing he said to me was with great bitterness and anger that actually he had hardly finished talking to the Japanese envoys when this was being done.
In Pearl Harbor.
Beyond that, I had a sense that bad though the news was, and horrible as it was to face, that he was, on the whole,
almost relieved to know the worst that had to be faced, and that this country could eventually meet it.
And this kind of feeling was...
Something one always expected of him.
I have never known him not to be ready to face the worst that could happen, but always to be hopeful about the solution that could be found.
If you want to hear more from that recording, American History TV on C -SPAN 2 tonight, 9 .30 p .m. Eastern Time.
Craig Nelson, what did you take from that?
Well, it's always fantastic to hear that sort of Floody, northeastern seaboard voice.
Yes, and remember, that's what the Roosevelt's talk like.
And I loved being able to spend time with both her and him.
It's an incredible story.
But one thing that really is missing from that description is the fact that Roosevelt was the biggest Navy guy you ever met in your life.
He'd been assistant secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson.
He frequently had people meet him in bed because he was paralyzed, wearing his blue I think?
That is how horrible he felt.
First, that he had let them down, that he didn't do a good job protecting the American people, and that it happened to his beloved Navy.
So that's really how upset and enraged he really was at that moment.
Just about 20 minutes left with Craig Nelson.
A reminder to our viewers that after this program on C -SPAN, we're going to take viewers to Paris, France.
Good morning.
My dad went in Mr. Nelson.
Well, one of the amazing things to look at is that before Pearl Harbor, the United States military was really in a terrible state of disrepair.
At one point before the draft, we only had 135 ,000 Guys in the Army.
We had 300 planes in the Army Air Corps.
We were supposed to defend against the Nazi horde with these paltry items.
People were still, troops were still using pie plate helmets, which you remember if you look at pictures of World War I, you could see those and how I guess they would protect the top of your skull and nothing else.
And they were given Springfield rifles from 1903.
So a great deal of the effect of Pearl Hello?
Oh, yes.
Yeah, I'm...
Old enough, I remember World War II.
I don't remember the start of it, but I remember during the war, everyone was involved.
They told you when you could have your lights on.
I remember the ration books that we had.
I remember when we would have a gun.
Gum wrappers, stuff like that.
We would peel the tinfoil off and that was used as chafe.
It was taken to a collection center and it was used as chafe for the bombers to fool the German radar over Germany.
So I remember that.
I had two uncles that were in war.
My wife had two uncles that were in the war.
I'm very emotional about it because of January 6th.
I feel like watching my mother's house being burned down.
So that's why I'm emotional about it.
Thank you.
Mr. Nelson, any thoughts?
Well, thank you for that story about the gun wrappers, because that was known as chaff, and they would put it out and interfere with radar, but it also made it look to radar like a much bigger invasion of airplanes was happening than was actually going on.
And they used this to fantastic effect in Normandy, where they made the Germans think that Americans were allies were sending in a giant force of flames, planes far away from the Normandy beaches.
To James on that line for World War II veterans and their families.
In Ohio.
Good morning.
Hello?
Go ahead, James.
You're on with Craig Nelson.
Okay.
I just wanted to call in this morning.
I was 13 when Pearl Harbor was born, and I become a World War II veteran, one of the last of the 16 ,000, or 16 million World War II veterans.
I got in in the mid -50s, or the 60s, in the early 46s.
And I served on about six different ships.
I enlisted in the Marine Corps and served with the Navy all the time I was in.
I was on the flagship and went over to North Africa and got on a new heavy cruiser and later got discharged.
When Israel became a state, I was on a five -inch, on a heavy cruiser in the fleet, 7th Fleet and the 8th Marines.
James, what do you remember about that day and how did you hear about Pearl Harbor?
On Sunday, we were in school on Monday, and we didn't hear too much about it on Sunday because we just had radio, and radio wasn't too good back then.
You had a hard time of listening to the radio.
You didn't get too much radio, and we didn't get any information of it until we was in school the next day, on the eighth day.
Did you hear the president's speech on the 8th?
Oh, yes.
Would you think of it?
I remember.
I'll be 96 on my birthday, and I was born in the late 20s, and I remember all of the depression, and I grew up in the depression,
and I grew up going to school.
I only went to the 8th grade because...
I wanted to get into the military as soon as I could, and I had to wait until I was 17.
I just turned 17 when I went into the Marine Corps.
And it was kind of a difficult life growing up in the Depression and through the war.
And then a lot of these historians tried to tell about it.
If you lived through it, it was a different story than what most of these historians know about, because...
The things that we done, nobody seems to realize that we were hungry and we had to go through the Depression before the war and then after the war.
People didn't particularly interested in talking about the war because all they wanted to do was get into a family and raise a family and build a house and have a family.
Most of us, that's all we wanted to do and that's all I wanted to do once I got out.
I've lived through a lot of things I could tell you about.
But these historians don't always get the story.
If you live through it, you know what happened.
James, thanks for the call from Ohio.
Let's talk again next Pearl Harbor Day next year.
How's that James?
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Craig Nelson.
So I agree with you, James.
Thank you so much for sharing your remarkable life.
And in my research on the Depression, what I thought was missing was, you know, our memory of the Depression is of that people in bread lines wearing their nice overcoats and nice Homburg hats, and it looks pretty good.
But in my research, I found out the Depression was just an incredibly gruesome time with stories that I can't even tell you all of them.
But one of the most memorable to me is about a little girl
To James's comments, do you think people can imagine a time in which an event like Pearl Harbor could happen?
And you wouldn't learn about it until the next day.
Well, I think that you can make a direct parallel with 9 /11, the destruction of the World Trade Center.
We didn't really understand what was going on for a number of days, so maybe things haven't changed that much.
Roger in Nebraska.
Good morning, World War II veterans and their families.
Good morning.
Yeah, I'm a veteran, but I got a couple comments.
My dad and my uncle was in World War II.
But I'd like to first say that your guest was talking about the condition of the military before World War II.
That ought to be a warning to everybody and not let our military get in that condition, which I think it's kind of headed that way right at the present time.
Also, like I say, my dad and my uncle joined the Army at the same time.
My dad was lucky enough to be shipped to Trinidad.
We're good to go.
I think?
Thanks Roger.
Craig Nelson In about 10 minutes, we're expecting President -elect Donald Trump to meet with Emmanuel Macron.
It's the President -elect's first overseas trip since the election last month.
Any thoughts on the importance of the U .S.-French relationship, comparisons today to that time at the end of World War II and the beginning years of the Cold War?
Well, we have such a up and down relationship with the french with the americans has such an up and down relationship i remember