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This is Washington Journal for Sunday, December 8th.
The Food and Drug Administration plans to propose putting warning labels on packaged food to highlight nutritional content.
Advocates say the current labeling system doesn't give consumers the information needed to make healthy choices.
But proponents argue changing labels won't change shoppers' habits and question the FDA's authority to require health warnings.
To start today's program, we're asking you, what is the federal role in food safety and nutrition labeling?
Here are the lines.
They're broken down regionally.
Here 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.
Be sure to include your name and city.
You can also post a question or comment on Facebook at facebook .com slash C -SPAN or on X at C -SPAN WJ.
Food safety and nutrition labeling was the topic of a health science or a Senate health education labor and pension committee hearing last week from the Washington Post.
Here's an article talking about it.
A bipartisan group of senators grilled food and drug administration officials Thursday on the agency having not more tightly regulated ultra -processed food.
Foods and Food Dies, highlighting a key part of the health agenda promoted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy, President -elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services,
which oversees the FDA, has blamed the nation's surge of chronic disease and declining life expectancy on ultra -processed foods.
The article goes on to say FDA officials have repeatedly delayed Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Last week, one of those testifying before the Senate committee was FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf.
Here, Califf, here he is.
Here's some of his opening remarks at that committee hearing.
When we pull the levers at our disposal, specific actions by FDA can have sweeping effects.
When we required trans fat to be labeled on the nutrition facts label in 2006, we saw a nearly 80 % drop in consumption.
Because consumers picked different foods and industry reformulated their products.
Establishing a front of pack label could be another landmark policy.
Displaying certain nutrition information right on the front of the package would allow Americans to quickly and easily identify how foods can fit into a healthy dietary pattern.
The health impact of ultra processed foods is at the forefront of current policy considerations.
And the clear association between ultra -processed food and negative health outcomes is a major concern.
While there is still much we need to understand, ultra -processed foods are usually high in saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars.
And there is already substantial evidence of harm when these nutrients are consumed in excess.
We are not waiting to act where the evidence is clear.
In addition to front -of -pack nutrition labeling, FDA is working to reduce sodium across the food supply.
Update the quote healthy unquote claim on food packages and strengthen our chemical safety review program.
There is good reason to be concerned about the chemicals that are routinely included in much of our food.
The FDA has limited resources to deal with this issue despite repeated requests for funding for much needed additional experts to do the evaluations.
There are years of work We're good to go.
As you know, I'll be leaving FDA at the change of administrations, but I can assure you that our people at FDA want to do more, and we need your partnership.
As a cardiologist, I've spent most of my career dealing with the tragedy of premature death and disability, but my time in Washington has made me aware of how hard it is to address these policy issues.
Our nation's complex financial and industrial interests, combined with our national instinct to favor individual freedom to choose, We're good to go.
I think?
That was Dr. Robert Califf testifying before the Senate Health Committee earlier on Thursday of last week.
The first hour we are asking you what is the federal role in food safety and nutrition labeling again the lines If you are in the Eastern or Central time zone, 202 -748 -8000.
And if you are in the Mountain or Pacific time zone, 202 -748 -8002.
We will start with Chris in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Good morning, Chris.
Hi, good morning.
I love to eat.
Food is my passion.
But when I read the labels, I can't stand it when I see high fructose corn syrup.
If I can't pronounce it and I don't know what it is, I don't buy it.
And I always check the expiration date so many times.
I look at the dates and it's expired and I'm always turning the stuff in at the counter to the manager and sometimes they'll put it back on the shelf and I'm like, you're going to get somebody sick.
Stop doing that.
Chris, what do you think the government should do to solve some of the issues you just brought up?
They should hire a person whose job is to go around in the grocery store and check the dates and throw it out.
Because there's no accountability if you don't hire a person to do that.
It's like they all point fingers at each other.
Whose responsibility is it to go around and check labels to make sure if things are expired or not?
There's really nobody, I don't think that does that.
I mean, I'm the one I think who does it at my grocery store where I live at.
What about the issue of the types of ingredients that are being used in products?
They should be banned.
I think they should be illegal.
It's not healthy.
I mean, this is why maybe children are confused about their gender because they're eating foods that who knows what's in them and what's in the formula when a woman doesn't breastfeed.
What's in the formula?
Does that have anything to do with why children are confused about whether they're male or female because of what's in the food?
Think about that.
That was Chris in Florida.
Steve in San Jose, California.
Good morning, Steve.
We have to recognize several things.
Well, first of all, the FDA's role is to protect the American public.
But we have to recognize a couple of things.
There is an unholy alliance between the FDA, the food industry, and the drug companies.
The food industry makes us sick so that the pharmaceutical industry can sell us drugs to make us better.
I don't agree with everything that Kennedy is professing.
But we must be given information.
I would like to see Kennedy make an effort to release the studies that are done around the world in Canada and Europe,
giving us information as to why these ingredients, these dyes and all of these ingredients that the Europeans and the Canadians found to be harmful.
As far as vaccines are concerned, it is a choice.
But, Kennedy, I'm relying on to release the information.
And that's basically all I have to say.
That was Steve in California and echoing his comments this Facebook comment from Jenny.
She says while there is a role the FDA is corrupt.
They are bought off by pharma and chemical manufacturers.
They currently do more harm than good.
During the Senate hearing last week, it was Senator Bernie Sanders.
He is chair of that committee.
He asked Dr. Robert Califf about the impact the food lobby has on the ability to make changes.
Have you had the courage to take on a very powerful food and beverage industry?
You know, there are 15 teaspoons of sugar in this product.
How many parents in America know this when they give it to their kids?
Say, here, have a Coke.
Go out and play ball.
Have you done your job and your predecessors, not just you, have you done your job in alerting the American people to the danger and rallying members of Congress to stand up to the special interests who are causing these problems?
With all due respect, I've been working on this problem for all of my career.
This is what I've done, and I think I have talked about this very specifically.
I think we all wish that we had gotten to the goal sooner that you described.
I'm not contesting that.
By whom?
By whom?
Let's be honest here.
The food and beverage industry spends hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying?
Well, I'm not going to contest your comment about the amount of money spent on lobbying.
I think it's probably accurate.
I don't have figures on that.
But a lot of the changes that those of us who are interested in better health would like to make are blocked at the level of legislation for reasons that you have to tell me.
What is the reason that our kids are unhealthy?
What role does this industry play?
Even now, you're getting out of office.
Are you prepared to tell us that this committee, this Congress needs to take on the food and beverage industry whose greed is destroying the health of millions of people?
Well, I'm not going to cascade the people that work in the food and beverage industry.
You're not?
No.
That is your job!
No, it's not to castigate.
It's to point out how to make progress in this area.
We have an industry that if you tried to change it overnight, there are farmers all over the United States who would not be able to grow the crops they're currently growing.
So there needs to be a plan, and it needs to be implemented in a mature, thoughtful way across the country.
I'm 100 % in favor of the change.
The Academy of Medicine in 2010.
How many years does it take to do it?
14 years is enough time.
How many kids have died and gotten sick during those 14 years?
It's not just kids.
It's adults, of course.
And I want to see it change as much as anyone, but we have to do it in a way that considers all the factors that are involved.
Protecting the interests of the food and beverage industries.
And Senator Sanders asking about the food lobby there.
This data from Open Secrets looking at food and beverage lobbying.
The total for 2024 was almost $22 million.
Back to your calls.
Patrick in Florida.
Good morning, Patrick.
Well, thanks for taking my call.
I don't know why you keep saying, what's the FDA?
You think a lot of these pro -life groups would like to get in on this.
But a few things.
Here in Florida, the state.
Not some radical, liberal, environmental extremists, which you like to guys bring out to chant, said, don't eat the fish out of the Everglades.
It poses a risk.
The Midwest, farmers can't even find fresh water when they drill for wells because there's so many pesticides and insecticides.
And if you look on the label of these pesticides and insecticides, if you're exposed to them, they say the antidote is atropine.
If people know what atropine does, it slows down the process of a nerve agent.
We're spraying nerve agent on our crops, which the Wall Street Journal has done three articles, ignored by you and the pro -lifers, about exposure of pesticides causing autism.
I never even heard it.
I'm 65 years old.
I never even heard the word autism until about 10 years ago for how much it's ballooned.
I was stationed in Germany.
You couldn't buy American chocolate in Germany because by German law, chocolate bars could only have three ingredients.
Same with their beer.
I don't know if you guys remember when Pence was in England trying to get them to buy more chicken.
The PM of England stood up and said, well, we don't like our chicken soaked in chlorine.
Process it better.
Thanks for taking my call.
That was Patrick in Florida.
And Patrick, you might be interested in this article that was in this morning's New York Times.
The headline, EPA seeks limits again on harmful pesticides.
The article says, almost 25 years after federal regulators curbed household use of a pesticide linked to learning disorders in children, and three years after a total ban on its use on food crops, the chemical, again,
is being applied to everything from bananas to turnips.
The article goes on to say The issue is also a vivid illustration of the obstacles that regulators will face if they try to make good on campaign promises to remove harmful chemicals from the food supply.
It's the latest twist on Monday when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed outline the use of chlorpyrifos on farmed foods, except on 11 crops.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Oh, excuse me.
Say, I agree.
I've never had this happen before.
I watch your show every day, but I agree 100 % with everybody that's called in.
And I agree with Bernie on there, too.
I hope when Kennedy gets in there, thank God for him.
I hope he fires that guy and everybody else in there, the whole bunch.
I've been reading all these things that they've been saying.
These other countries, they don't allow a lot of the junk that we allow in our stuff.
And the labels don't tell you a lot of what's in the stuff.
And I've just been reading about all this stuff lately, and I'm thinking everybody else seems to realize what's going on.
I hope he gets in there and...
I hope that Kennedy gets in there and fires all of those people.
John, other than, other than firing, John, other than firing, other than RFK firing people, if he were to be confirmed, what, what specific actions do you think should be done?
Oh, I think they should, I think they should lower the amounts of sugar in the foods.
There's too much sugar and fat and salt and pesticides.
And I saw, like, I saw these GMO, you know, the grown corn, where they did a test on rats, and the company that's doing that, and they said after three months, the rats were fine.
They did the same study, somebody else, and after seven months, they had huge tumors on them, and another, in another country, another doctor did the same study, and the same thing, the tumors with the rats, and they were trying to say, oh, the GMO grown corn, it didn't hurt nothing, and it showed, you know,
because I figured it was probably all right, too.
I figured the government's looking out for us, but.
The things I've been reading and seeing and stuff, I know they're not.
They're looking out for the benefits.
It's big pharma and big food and the medical industry.
And big pharma is the one training these doctors and telling them what to say.
And they're hiring the nutritionists and telling them what to say.
And it's just they're all in bed together.
And then that's the politicians, too.
They're paying them off.
If they try to stand up and fight it, then they put big money into defeating them.
They need to have the courage.
Like Bernie said, just stand up and tell, give people a choice.
Just like in the schools, you know, they should give them an option on the milk.
Instead of just the milk, give them a chance if they want milk or like almond milk or something.
Because even the milk, I don't think is good for you.
Milk in general, these other animal products, there's too much cholesterol and fat and stuff.
Give people a choice.
They say, oh, people won't eat a healthy diet.
Give them a choice.
Let them decide.
Lisa in Lexington Park, Maryland.
Good morning, Lisa.
Good morning.
How are you?
I was calling, I was listening to everyone speaking about Kennedy, and I'm just wondering exactly what does, this is the United States of America.
This is the best that we have to offer as the health.
I mean, have you guys listened and gone through each of these picks for cabinet?
This is the richest and the worst cabinet in history.
And by the way, you're talking about health and health foods.
In 2012, this was one of the programs that Michelle Obama put in place for children during the Obama administration.
And if I remember clearly, Fox went off on saying, why should we tell our children what to eat or drink or what to do?
And you guys were quite okay with it.
Another thing, last week a gentleman called in regarding the calls that you get on C -SPAN and I appreciate that call because some of the people that you put on here you need to at least at least for a minimum fact check what they say.
Apparently in America today we have a problem with what facts are and the definition of the meaning of fact.
So let's go to each of these cabinet members on C -SPAN.
I think we're entitled to that as the American public.
And go to every single thing that they have accomplished that they will do for us in office when they become the cabinet pick for the United States of America around the world.
Thank you.
Patrick in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Good morning, Patrick.
It's a thousand times worse than you can ever imagine.
When you have people like Bill Gates buying up huge swaths of farmland, when you look at the statistics, they don't lie.
90%, the difference between the United States and countries like France, they have 90 % less children with autism.
Not only are they using big agra, big...
We're good to go.
You know, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, our government is spraying chemicals in the atmosphere.
They're spraying these gigantic cloud formations and it's backed up by legislation.
And then the media groups are telling the American people that it isn't taking place.
You know, you cannot allow this to continue.
You need to contact your representatives, tell them that these actions that they're taking are no longer acceptable.
Thank God for Kennedy, thank God for President Trump, and thank God for Musk.
And a couple people have brought up the issue of food dyes in foods.
That was one of the topics that was brought up during last week's hearing.
Here is Senator Tommy Tuberville asking FDA Deputy Commissioner Jim Jones about the use of food dyes.
I want to ask you about Red 3 and Red 40, both of you, and get your comments on this.
It's not a conservative or liberal standpoint.
I'm going to refer that to Mr. Jones.
We have not evaluated red 40 in over a decade.
At FDA, we have not evaluated the safety of Red 40 in over a decade.
So over a decade, that was the conclusion that FDA made.
We are in the process of evaluating Red 3, and you may want to comment on that.
Well, let me say this.
Red 3 has been known to cause cancer in cosmetics, but we still allow it to be put in our food.
I don't understand that.
Go ahead.
So Red 3, we have a petition in front of us to revoke the authorization for it, and we are hopeful that within the next few weeks we will be acting on that petition and a decision should be forthcoming.
Tell us that process.
How does that work?
The timeline, you know, if we know something's deadly for anybody that ingested, how do we continue to just study that and not say, hey, enough's enough?
So Red 3 presents an interesting example for us.
It is actually known to be cancer in laboratory animals, rats, but the scientific consensus is that the mechanism of carcinogenicity in rats is not applicable in humans.
However, under the FFDCA, which is the law that we implement, Any chemical that is shown to be carcinogenic in animals or humans, or should I say humans or animals, cannot be authorized by FDA.
It's called the Delaney Clause.
And so even though we don't believe there is a risk to humans under the Delaney Clause of the FFDCA, red dye, because it is known to cause cancer in laboratory animals, should not be authorized.
And a couple messages coming in on text this morning.
This from Ran in Wisconsin.
If they take the herbicide and pesticide away, we will need a lot of people in the field pulling weeds with bug nets.
And Kristen in Portland, Maine says, let's remember that Michelle Obama tried to take on nutritional guidelines and she was chastised by the Republicans for being too controlling and threatening to, quote, take away your cheeseburgers.
Now Republicans seem to be fine with the same issues being brought up by RFK Jr.
I suppose having them on the Democrat side now regarding chemicals and food is a good thing.
Back to your calls.
Mike in Montgomery, Alabama is next up.
Good morning, Mike.
Hi, good morning.
It was interesting that you had Tommy Tuberville on on that clip.
You know, he needs to look in his own backyard.
I mean, it's cultural nationwide, especially in the Southeast.
You know, the insurance companies, when they rape companies and so forth, you know, they call the Southeast the fried chicken belt.
You know, you look at a commissary or a cafeteria within an employer's business.
You know, when you try to change the menu to healthy in lieu of fried chicken, eggs and bacon in the morning, and grits smothered with cheese, and if you try to go counter to that and add fruits and salads,
it doesn't sell.
And we're being brainwashed in the morning.
When you put the television on at 5 .30 in the morning, you know, you get these fast food advertisements like biscuits smothered in Good
diet, exercise.
Stress management.
So Mike, where does the federal government come in with what you're saying?
I think that they can control, you know, you have Sanders on with the FDA.
I think Sanders is going in the right direction, but it's all about the Benjamins, you know, who controls the lobbyists in this country.
The fast food outlets, they're a gigantic profit center.
And so culturally, you have to change the way that you live your life.
And it's easier said than done, believe me.
But it's discipline.
Even the doctors, there's a disconnect with doctors.
They're looking, what's the next pill?
What's the next surgery that I can buy my next boat on?
In lieu of a registered dietician who practices these tenets that I just mentioned, the RDs and the doctors don't even talk.
So I think the government has a role to play because, you know, public government could influence private industry and it boils down to people how they live their lives.
That was Mike in Alabama.
Frank in Catskill, New York.
Good morning, Frank.
Good morning, America.
I'm really glad that RFK Jr. has shed light on this.
Coincidentally, in September, I took my grandson to Europe, and we were in eight different countries.
We came back.
He lost 12 pounds.
I lost nine.
Also, my brother was in two other countries, not the ones we were in in Europe, Croatia and Italy, and he lost 10 pounds.
And if you're thinking that we were touring a lot, there was like a That was Frank in New York.
Sherry, also in New York.
Good morning, Sherry.
Good morning.
I'm curious.
I remember when I was a young kid and we lived where we have a lot of apple farms.
And there was a sweet smell in the air.
And I used to ask, what is that?
Well, they told me they were spraying for the apples.
And it wasn't an unpleasant smell.
And they got rid of that.
So you don't have that anymore.
If something causes a disease in lab animals, get rid of it.
If it's going to kill a lab animal, you can just imagine what it's going to do for you when raising cancers.
If a red dye or any other food colorings are bad, get rid of it.
You've got to take responsibility.
If you want to apply this stuff on your face, that's your decision.
And also, I'm curious, I've been told, I don't know how true it really is, that we import a lot of our beef from other countries.
And how really safe do you know they are?
I remember we used to, a couple of families used to get together and buy a cow that was grass -fed and raised in our neighborhoods.
And we used to have it butchered and we'd have it, you know, and we knew where it came from.
We know what it was eating.
So, you know, I'm curious and also about the labeling.
You can make it much clearer.
I know somebody said, you know, put it in the front of the packaging, but how much do you know?
What's a millimeter?
What's this?
How much is that?
They're not clear.
They need to put it in plain English where people know exactly what's in there.
And thank you very much.
That was Sherry in New York, and Sherry talking about the food labeling.
This opinion piece from the Washington Post.
These countries are doing nutrition labels the right way.
The author, Christina A. Roberto, she's a Mitchell, J. Blunt, and Margot Crotty Blunt presidential associate.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Dr. Cale, if I'm in your...
You concluded by saying there's some challenges if the U .S. were able to do things that other nations do in the area of ultra -processed foods.
Yeah, so I actually think this is, for so much of the things that have frustrated me at the FDA, this is the core issue.
We have a unique
But I really want to get to specifics, too.
Influence someone's behavior to eat healthy food.
You don't present them with a chart with a bunch of numbers on it.
You show them a picture of a graphic image that has an emotional impact.
That's what the advertising on the other side is doing.
Fruit Loops does not show commercials of one Fruit Loop with all the constituents of the Fruit Loop.
It shows beautiful pictures of Fruit Loops and nice people eating them with an emotional impact.
We're not allowed to do that, and even in some of our more recent dealings, we have been instructed that at the FDA, we just provide information.
The one case that's an exception was tobacco, where we were instructed to do it, and we still lost in court the first time it set us back five years.
And so much of this has to do with the environment that people are living in.
I mentioned I am Colorado -prone because of my family.
People in Colorado are not as obese as the rest of the country, and they exercise more.
So if you're in that environment, you're going to be more likely to behave that way.
Have other nations already embraced front -of -package labeling of the way the FDA is trying to do it?
Absolutely.
And not just labeling, but warning signs.
Yeah, warning signs.
Just under 25 minutes left in this first hour.
Asking, what is the federal role in food safety and nutrition labeling?
Wanted to share some messages coming in off of Facebook.
This from Dave.
He says, none whatsoever.
These are state issues.
If the federal government wants a role, they need a constitutional amendment.
The necessary and proper clause being used as an, quote, elastic clause is BS and far too heavily abused.
Chris says,
And one more from Jeff says,
Yes, I am so happy that Robert Kennedy Jr. will be taking this role on because this country is so obese.
A shame.
The foods that we are given at these food chains, at the supermarkets, I mean, it's our choice what we buy.
But again, with watching your show, the federal government just does not do its part in taking care of the people of this country.
I mean, the food labels are deceiving.
I see so many children that are so obese at such a young age.
It's a shame.
It's really a shame.
I see people that are buying these already made foods that you just pop in microwave ovens because it's easy, and they don't even look at the labels.
This country has to be more aware.
Mary, if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is to be confirmed, what would you like to see him do to address some of those issues that you're talking about?
I hope all of these ready -made foods are done away with.
I can't say anything about the big food chains, but, I mean, things have to change.
There's so many people that don't even cook anymore because they work whatever.
Whatever, because they're too lazy, they'll just go to these fast food places.
And buy tons of junk because that's all it is.
It's tons of junk.
I want him to make the people aware because too many people are just not aware.
They're too lazy.
That was Mary in Florida.
Teresa in St. Louis, Missouri.
Good morning, Teresa.
Good morning.
I really thank God for this program today.
I've been thinking about this for over 40 years.
GMOs, the corn syrup in every sauce.
I don't understand how you have corn syrup in beans.
Pesticides, pesticides, honey has corn syrup in it.
All the candies have yellow dye.
The ice cream have over 10 different ingredients.
If I'm going to eat ice cream, I don't need to have...
I have 10 different ingredients in the ice cream.
All of the vegetables are sprayed with pesticides and texasides.
The meat, you don't know where it's coming from.
The fish is polluted by the water.
This is a wonderful episode of Washington Journal C -SPAN.
And I thank God for you today.
You're a beautiful person.
That's all I have to say.
I hope they get better.
Would signal high levels of added sugar, saturated fat, or sodium, which the agency defines as having 20 % or more of the recommended daily amount per serving.
The other features colors signaling how much saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars per serving the food contains.
If an item contains 5 % or less at the daily value of any of those nutrients, the green low label is placed next to it.
If the food is at or over 20 % of that nutrient, it gets the red high label.
Everything in between gets a yellow medium label.
Back to your calls.
Carmen in South Florida.
Good morning, Carmen.
Hi, how you doing?
Yeah, I'm calling in because, well, a couple things.
One is I don't feel like RFK is going to be able to do half of what he might want to do.
I don't really, it's not that I don't trust him, I don't trust the process, someone said earlier.
It's about lobbyists in our government, and it's being controlled by money, so, you know, it's an issue that's been for many, many years, and I don't know if they're going to be able to solve it, but personally, myself, I have to cut back.
I read, I go into a store now, and I read every ingredient there is.
I take a time out.
I eat oatmeal.
I don't buy anything with added sugar.
The product doesn't say no sugar added.
I walk out and I sometimes, while I walk out, I feel a little depressed.
I feel like, you know, what's going on?
I can't eat anymore.
I can't eat most of the foods that I want to eat.
I can't eat.
And sometimes I pick up my grandchildren.
I don't know if you're allowed to say a product on that station, but long story short, we'll go into the store and they want a bag of Takis.
And I'll read the ingredients.
I said, this is poison.
Why are you going to eat this?
And I cannot convince these three kids to eat anything else.
If I try to give them something that's a piece of fruit or something like that, they were like, no, they will stand there, they will not buy anything else.
They want that bag of coffee and that's why I called because the addictive ingredients that they're putting in somebody's food is.
People are craving more and I think I think that's where our issue is that Carmen, what are some of the other other than sugar?
What are some of the ingredients that you try to steer clear of, and how difficult is it to find items that don't have them?
It's very difficult and I you know I it's a fructose corn syrup any chemicals I also don't trust natural flavoring what's natural flavoring that's probably poison right and I use the word poison because I think that's what they need to do on a label.
They need to start making this more drastic, like another gentleman said.
But look, I got, I try my best.
It's very hard to eat good, right?
So let's just take a box of bran plates.
Plain bran plates.
Not the, you know, raisin bran.
Just regular bran plates.
Ingredients is corn syrup, salt, malt, barley syrup.
Carmen, are you still there?
Yes, I'm here.
I missed that one thing you said, though.
Oh go ahead continue.
Yeah so anyway there's all kinds of chemicals even in our plain food and I think that's unfair to the American public.
When I go into a store and I see something like bran flakes or I like oatmeal because when I read oatmeal guess what's in oatmeal?
Whole grain rolled oats.
That's it.
I go to uh I make spaghetti sauce sometimes for the family and I was in there and an older woman said to me she goes what are you doing?
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
Excuse me, I tried to get in on the call earlier this week but I couldn't get through.
I think we should take government out of our food.
Just eat healthy, teach our children how to eat.
But I understand that with, you know, RFK and what Obama said, let's leave politics out of our food.
Sixty years ago, when I was a kid growing up, we all ate healthy.
We never had any of this stuff going on with our kids being sick, the obesity in our country.
Why can't we go back to that, or why can't we?
Why can't we go back to what Europe is doing or follow what Europe is doing in their food system?
It sounds like they're ahead of us in that, so maybe we should look into that.
Thank you.
Sherry in Glencoe, Minnesota.
Good morning, Sherry.
Good morning.
Good morning.
I had ended up getting diabetes in 2018 and started learning a lot about what's in our food.
And was alarmed.
All this started back after World War II.
Somebody at the FDA, USDA, these are federal agencies, they have done nothing for the American public except hide stuff.
I think this was planned to make the American people sick after World War II.
The high -fructose corn syrup, that is in everything, and that's a really bad sugar.
There's sugar in everything.
And for diabetics, you can't have sugar.
So I'm really glad that Bobby Kennedy is going to be leading us.
I think this is what America has needed for a long time.
But we need complete transparency.
These people, as far as...
That was Sherry in Minnesota.
And during last week's hearing, it was Senator Mike Braun of Indiana who asked Dr. Robert Califf about the focus being on health.
Why are we still in a system that has nothing to do with an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure and you happen to be in the agency that has to deal with it all the time in terms of what the new modality is that's going to keep treating expensive
Where do we turn the tide to where we make your agency less relevant because you don't have to do as much of it because we're preventing it rather than trying to remediate it?
I just want to tell you how much I appreciate the way you framed that because I was going to bring up, you said we're at the forefront.
My favorite article of all time in the medical literature in the New England Journal of Medicine from Alistair Wood is entitled, Playing Kick the FDA, Risk -Free to Players but Hazardous to Public Health.
And it relates exactly, I urge you all to read it, it's a 14 -year -old article, but it relates to what you said.
And you've missed a lot of this discussion, but...
This is a systemic problem that does need to be addressed, and it would actually be great.
I'm on record, I've been quoted on this, I've had this nightmare that I was head of this agency that my great -grandkids read about called the FDA, where a society let people gain essentially a pound of weight every year,
and then to fix it they invented a drug at $20 ,000 a year to try to deal with it.
And that would be a very bad...
I do want to point out to you, you are about to become governor of a state, as I know it, that doesn't look good in this regard.
I think a lot of people are going to be watching whether you can change this.
You said it well.
If you're running a health system today, and I used to be an executive in a health system, you make your money by doing expensive procedures.
We have been showing you clips this morning from last week's hearing, the Senate hearing with the FDA officials testifying.
If you would like to watch the entire event, you can find it on our website, cspan .org.
Some more comments coming in from social media, these on X.
Jersey Girl says they should have the same graphic labeling on garbage food that they do on cigarettes.
Additionally, PSAs about the horrible ramification of diabetes and other metabolic syndrome ailments.
Rosarian says, There
is no profit in safety.
And just under 10 minutes left, we'll hear next from Ryan in Orange, Massachusetts.
Good morning, Ryan.
Good morning.
I like everything that's being talked about on this program, but what they haven't mentioned is the work and stress lives that contribute to the need to have processed food in the first place,
and the fact that technologically Kids today in schools and people in workplaces are in front of screens 24 /7.
There is no encouragement to exercise.
There's no incentive for children to exercise either in an elementary setting, in a high school setting, or in a college setting because they keep cutting funding from gym and physical programs, okay?
Ron, in Manhattan, Illinois.
Good morning, Ron.
Hello.
You know, I'd just like to mention there's an app that you can put on your phone.
It's called Yuka.
Y -U -K -A.
And it'll tell you all the ingredients that are in any food.
You can scan the UPC code.
It'll tell you the hazardous stuff that's in it.
It'll explain it.
And it rates all the food from 0 to 100.
And believe me, you'll be putting a lot of food back on the shelf.
I just wanted to mention that program if people might be interested in it.
It should be at the App Store, Google's App Store.
That was Ron in Illinois.
Chris in Georgia.
Good morning, Chris.
I have a better idea.
How about QR codes on the label?
That'd be a quick way to figure out what's in the food.
I'm not sure they'd do that.
But just two quick points.
I think that one thing that people aren't talking about, I think the population is so big.
There's just not enough healthy food to go around, and they have to give us processed food just to feed everyone.
I think that's a big problem.
I'm real optimistic about Bobby Kennedy coming in, but I just think that the population is so big.
And one thing I think that you can do to stay on top of everything is to eat one apple a day.
That was Chris in Georgia.
Diane, Albany, New York.
Good morning, Diane.
Good morning.
How has it played that after World War II with all the women going back to work?
Life is very stressful.
We have all these TV commercials and naturally the children are watching TV used as babysitters and that's part of this whole problem.
So that's what I wanted to say.
Thank you.
Candace in Nashville, Tennessee.
Good morning, Candace.
Good morning.
I agree with the last caller, and I think it should be also noted that during the last pandemic, they didn't try to warn anyone of any bad effects of the shots.
People like me who'd already had blood clots before, doctors telling them not to get the experimental shots, and they're still giving people these shots.
And not warning about all of the bad effects.
They are planning on doing more pandemics.
If you look at the mad scientists from DARPA's website, you can see that they plan on doing more experimental things.
They're not putting any kind of a warning on any of these experiments that they're doing.
They're having us under illegal surveillance while they're doing these experiments and not telling anyone about the bad effects of any of this experimentation, because they're socially engineering this society into sociopathy, where they don't care if other people are harmed or injured.
They think that the harm and injury may be for the greater good.
My immune system is What gives herd immunity, not the pharmaceuticals that are being promoted by FOX NEWS or CNN or MSNBC without any kind of warnings, while they're terrorizing us with the police state surveillance, while they're doing pandemics and making us homeless, brainwashing our families, brainwashing our communities.
That was Candace in Tennessee.
I wanted to share this article.
Our first caller this morning brought up her efforts to get expired food off of the shelf.
It says the FDA and the USDA released a joint request for information, an RFI, about food date labeling, which includes the usage of terms such as sell -by, used -by, best -by.
Both food processors and the public can submit comments.
For date labeling, research results on consumer perceptions of date labeling and any impact date labeling may have on food waste and grocery cost.
The joint statement said, for example, questions in the RFI include which products contain date labels and what criteria are used to decide what phrases used and what date it should include.
It goes on to say the USDA estimates the average family of four Spends at least $1 ,500 a year on food that ends up uneaten and the EPA estimates that in 2019... 66 million tons of wasted food was generated in the food retail food service and residential sectors,
and most of this waste, about 60%, was sent to landfills.
The three agencies, EPA included, have a goal of reducing food loss and waste by 50 % by 2030, helping reduce the environmental impacts of food waste and lowering costs for American families.
Just a few minutes left.
We'll hear from Diane in Conway, South Carolina.
Good morning, Diane.
Good morning.
Hi, Diane.
Go ahead.
You're on.
Are you on?
I am.
Okay.
Diane, are you there?
Yes, I am.
Go ahead.
You're on air.
I have a person here that when he goes to the doctor, the doctor tells him What he should eat and what he shouldn't eat.
And we go by that.
And then the next time he goes to the doctor, they tell him what he can't eat again.
And it winds up to be, what can he eat?
Because I have different ailments.
I have a tumor right now in my kidney.
And they can't do surgery because I was in AFib.
So they had to put me on medicine for AC, but when I went back to the urologist, he wanted to fatten me up and gave me Ensure.
I'm pre -diabetic, and I know that stuff has sugar in it.
I take that, and now I'm pre -diabetic again.
I mean, when you go to doctors, you know, one's a cardiologist, one's a neurologist.
One tells you what to eat and what not to eat, whole grain, but the other one says, no, you gotta eat You know, I'm about to give up on this.
I've been frustrated about this problem for the last three and a half years.
I don't know.
I don't have nothing else to say.
For this first hour of Washington Journal, next, we'll be joined by author and law professor and ABC News legal contributor Kim Whaley.
She's going to discuss her book, Pardon Power, How the Pardon System Works and Why.
And later, historian and author John Grinspan will discuss his book, The Age of Acrimony, How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy.
We'll be right back.
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.
Tonight, on C -SPAN's 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, you know, 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, tonight 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.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
Joining us now to discuss presidents and pardon power is a former U .S. assistant U .S. attorney and legal contributor for ABC News, Kimberly Whaley.
Good morning, Kim.
Good morning.
Thanks for being with us.
You also have a new book.
It came out over the summer and it is called "Pardon Power: How the Pardons System Works and Why." It's your fourth book that ends in "why." Tell us why you chose to focus on pardon powers for this one.
Because it's sort of the next logical step in the series in that the first book is how to read the Constitution and why.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
I think?
Pardon means forgiveness.
So it's different from an exoneration for a crime.
If you want your record completely wiped out, like it didn't exist, you've got to go to a judge and go through that process.
A pardon is, in hindsight, you're forgiven.
It does have practical implications.
If you're pardoned while you're still in prison, you would be able to leave early.
But it also can, in certain states, lift some of the... Negative connotations for a pardon.
Maybe in a certain state, if you have a felony conviction, you can't vote, it could lift that.
Or you can't apply for certain certifications for jobs, it would lift that.
The other two kinds of pardons are a commutation, which isn't forgiveness for the pardon, but it just shortens your sentence.
So those are for folks that are in prison, that wouldn't be a full pardon, that you're forgiven for the crime, but the idea is Jimmy Carter
pardoned.
And who can grant pardons to who and for what?
To grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States except in cases of impeachment.
Very short.
Doesn't give us a definition of pardons.
Doesn't give us a definition of reprieves.
It does say offenses against the United States.
So that means presidents cannot pardon offenses against states.
So if you commit a crime under state law...
We're good to go.
To explain what all of this means, there's been some tweaking of it.
I would say probably the most prominent expansion of that power, when I say expansion, you think of it traditionally, someone committed a crime, convicted of a crime, you're pardoned of the crime,
would be Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon after Watergate.
Because in that instance, there was an indictment of Richard Nixon ready to go.
And apparently...
I'm speaking to those prosecutors.
My understanding is there were crimes that weren't included in even that indictment.
There were additional crimes they believed that Richard Nixon had committed.
They chose a certain smaller batch of them for the indictment, but Ford decided to broaden the part into not just what was listed in the indictment, but any possible crimes that were committed within a particular time period.
So with that historical...
The court has indicated you can't...
Give someone a pardon to go out and commit crimes in the future.
You can't just create an immunized criminal to run around and do whatever they want the rest of their life.
It has to be for past actions, but in this moment it doesn't look like there's any authority to say you have to actually have an indictment and a charge that's specific.
And your book looks at the historical pardons that many presidents have made.
And of course, another one has been in the headlines this past week, and that is that President Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon to his son, Hunter Biden.
What is your reaction to that?
My reaction to that was it was to be expected for a number of reasons.
I know people tended to be upset about The fact that he said multiple times that he would not pardon his son.
And then either knew that he was still going to pardon his son or changed his mind.
But in terms of the Hunter Biden question itself, to me it wasn't out of line or corrupt for a number of reasons.
One is that presidents twice before have pardoned family members.
Bill Clinton pardoned his brother.
And Donald Trump pardoned his son -in -law's father, Jared Kushner's father, Charles, and has since tapped him to be ambassador of France.
So the idea that you'd pardon a family member, that precedent is already out there.
Joe Biden doing the same thing.
You know, it's getting more pushback, but it's not out of line historically.
The second question I think around pardons is, is the pardon done to cover up your own wrongdoing, for self -dealing, for corrupt reason?
Here, I think it seems like the pardon is to protect his son for potential additional criminal...
I don't know.
That is a pardon that is necessary because of the moment.
We've never seen anyone have to think this through given what's going forward with this next president.
So, Biden had to do something that...
We're good to go.
I think?
We're good to go.
I think?
One of the 10 ,000 applications that come to a president, maybe that is one that it would seem like, oh, it doesn't make sense for a long incarceration for that kind of offense when we're not concerned reasonably that there would be any injury to the public on the other side.
We are talking with Kim Whaley about presidents and pardon power for the next 30 minutes or so.
If you have a question or comment for her, you can start calling in now.
The lines, Republicans 202 -748 -8001, Democrats 202 -748 -8000, and Independents 202 -748 -8002.
Kimberly, something that you mentioned just now is that the Yeah,
so there's an argument that the use of the pardon in a way to react to or address what's happened with The next president or the prior president could create this sort of boomerang effect.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
And we could just see the use of pardons escalating for political gain and to cover up crimes.
And I think a big concern, which isn't really around Biden, but it's a big concern that the Supreme Court in the immunity case, I think, created is that now that the president has authority.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
The pardon power broadly, it's not going to be because Joe Biden gave him the green light.
Although if Joe Biden does these kinds of things, it will give political cover to say, oh, Joe Biden started it.
And it'll probably confuse the public.
But at the end of the day, I think we're headed towards, you know, a weaponized Justice Department.
I take the president -elect at his word and more use of the pardon power to cover up crimes.
Your first caller is Marion in Georgia, on the line for Democrats.
Good morning, Marion.
Good morning.
I have several points on this.
I absolutely think the pardon power should be done away with, and for several reasons.
One that you said, Kimberly, is because it seems like the powerful and the rich at the top will just keep Pardoning each other doesn't matter what party you're in.
They'll just pardon each other, say, go ahead, do all the crimes you want, and we'll pardon you.
And that seems ridiculous to me.
And another one is that under the law, we're supposed to all be equal.
And so I think if they're going to be able to be pardoned, the president can pardon, I think every family in this country should also every four years be able to pardon a family member or relative.
That would only be fair.
And it just seems to me either we get rid of the pardon power because that's only helping the elite and the rich and the powerful, or we give it to every family every four years in this country.
Thank you.
Bye.
Interesting.
Well, you know, at the time of Jesus, the Romans, the community could choose the pardon, so there is some precedent for that.
But I do agree, and I write in my book, I come to the same conclusion that the pardon power is anachronistic and we shouldn't need it.
One of the problems with the pardon power is that it gives an excuse to not fix the criminal justice system.
There's a case, Herrera v. Collins, where...
It involved a prisoner who had new evidence showing he was innocent, exonerating evidence, and tried to use what's known as habeas corpus.
It's another way of challenging your incarceration.
Tried to use that to get out of prison and say, listen, I have this evidence that shows I'm free.
I mean, I'm innocent, and I'm being held basically against my constitutional rights.
And the Supreme Court said...
Well, you always have the pardon, so we're not going to let you use the habeas process to get out of prison.
So if that's the case, if this dangling pardon is out there that is relatively rarely used for deserving people, and definitely people with access and money are more likely to get it,
then why do we even have it?
It almost has a counter -intuitive...
We're good to go.
Um, used or maybe abused their power.
That, to me, is a problem.
To change the pardon power, however, would require a constitutional amendment.
That would be both houses of Congress, super majorities, and super majorities in all the state legislatures.
And when I say that, people say, oh, that could never happen.
But it has happened 27 times in our history.
I think the most recent was in the 70s.
So we can do these things if the people can come together.
Good morning.
Kimberly, you're one of my favorite guests.
I always enjoy when you're on.
I got a legal question for you.
Giuliani was Trump's lawyer, and he paid to be Trump's lawyer.
So how did the client -lawyer privilege result to him as far as he was committing crimes, but you couldn't charge him because he was Trump's lawyer?
Thank you.
Well, the attorney -client privilege I'm glad you raised this because there's a lot of mythology around this.
The turn -of -client privilege requires a couple things.
First, it requires that there's an agreement that you're going to be acting as an attorney for someone.
So if Aunt Millie's an attorney and you're chatting with her over Thanksgiving... about something that's not protected just because she happens to be an attorney.
It has to be a conversation between attorney and client for the purpose of giving or receiving legal advice.
It can't be about, you know, your bank statements.
And it has to be confidential.
So if somebody else is sitting in the room, then there's no privilege.
And the last thing is, you can't go to your attorney for advice on how to commit a crime.
So you can't go to your attorney and say, I killed someone, where should I bury the body?
That would be asking them to participate in the crime.
If you go to your attorney and say, I killed somebody, what do I do next?
That would be completely privileged.
As far as Rudy Giuliani and Trump, kind of like Michael Cohen and Trump, there were There's some confusion around which parts of that relationship were covered and not covered by the attorney -client privilege, but that's basically the test that if you jot it down and go back to those questions, those factual questions you're wondering about,
you could noodle through whether the privilege would apply or not.
Dennis in Ohio, Line for Independence.
Good morning, Dennis.
Good morning, everyone.
You know, it's sad that the whole system has been perverted and...
Corrupted, turned upside down and inside out.
The presidency of Donald Trump showed Americans that anything can be corrupted when it's not fair, balanced and equal across the board for everyone.
I just want to leave this question with those who are listening.
If Barack Obama had done and committed the same acts and crimes that Donald Trump committed, and we all know he committed, Would Democrats, Independents,
and Republicans feel the same way about the system?
Would it be this, "Oh, we overlooked this"?
I truly believe that he would have been dealt with thoroughly for breaking the law, which he should have if he did it.
I mean, something's wrong with the whole system, and if we don't stand up and just be decent, as they say, law -abiding, moral.
Yeah, I think there's a sense that it's accountability for thee, but not for me.
You know, it's hard to convey from the standpoint of the Constitution how crucial it is that these kinds of things, that accountability for people in power, Has to be consistent.
I like to use an image of a bridge over a very, very rough river.
And say the bridge is 240 -ish years old, like the Constitution.
And people are on the bridge, red coats and blue coats, and they're fighting over who gets to control the bridge.
And they start doing maybe some shady stuff to ensure their power on the bridge.
And everyone starts then being angry with each other and wants to win and throw people over the side of the bridge.
Meanwhile, the bridge's grouting is being completely ignored.
The water's washing it away.
And it's crumbling and no one's paying attention to the bridge because we're so interested in blue versus red.
One day, the bridge collapses.
And I think the question for everyone is, who survives when the bridge collapses?
Who survives?
That is exactly what I think the caller is talking about.
It's protecting the system that ultimately protects you, your enemy, your friend, but mostly, in my mind, our children.
Our children who cannot vote.
They have no agency right now.
So whatever we do, if we climb onto a system that's corrupt because we just happen to like...
Kathleen, Dayton, Ohio.
Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Kathleen.
Thank you and thank you for Washington Journal.
But Kimberly, boy, I can't wait to read your book, because this is such a fascinating topic.
And I just, forever, decades, I've just been amazed by how many of our officials, you know, our reps, our presidents, military officials, you know, Department of Justice officials, you know, will say,
no one is above the law.
No one is above the law.
Well, no one out here in the real world believes that.
I mean, we can watch what's happened.
We can watch who's pardoned.
You know, and I'm going through the list right here of presidents and how many people they've pardoned.
It turns out Obama, what is that, like something, where did his name go?
Anyway, it's like over a thousand.
And then, of course, Roosevelt, who was in the presidency longer than anybody, like a massive amount of pardons.
But I want to ask you again, I mean, how do you think that affects the public in regard to, I mean, no one believes this.
No one believes this.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
I agree with the caller that the idea that no one is above the law is not really true anymore.
And it really did change this summer again.
I cannot emphasize enough.
We're good to go.
We're good to go.
What will happen when you tell people with the most power pretty much on the planet that they can do whatever they want with that power?
Incentives and disincentives really make a difference with the law.
If you get the ticket for speeding, you'll slow down the next time you drive down that street.
And also, I think people are understanding, and this is not new, that justice in America works better if you have money and access and power.
If it's a civil case and you need to sue someone or you're being sued, It's extremely expensive, so big corporations that can hire Washington lawyers at $1 ,000 an hour are going to do much better than a single mom with her mom -and -pop shop that needs the money for food or for retirement.
Same way with the criminal context.
The Constitution doesn't recognize poverty as somehow a protected class.
So if you are arrested and you can't make bail, you don't have the money to get yourself out of jail until the trial starts, you will stay in jail because of your poverty before the government puts one piece of evidence against them.
Innocent until proven guilty, unless you are poor.
Right?
Then you have to basically face the consequences of a crime for which nothing's been proven against you.
On the message of the pardon, I'll just put one anecdote which really surprised me.
I was doing a talk in Austin and there was a teacher, a high school teacher, who said that he is having problems conveying to his students now that Donald Trump pardoned a number of hip -hop artists,
Kodak Black, etc.
And they perceive that as meaning, I can now commit crimes and just get a pardon.
And he has to debunk that idea and convey that, no, you're not the kind of person that's going to get a pardon.
This whole conversation we're having, the concern is we just might shift to an environment where lawlessness...
Before President Trump left office at the beginning of 2021, there was reporting that he was possibly looking at pardoning himself.
What is our current understanding of somebody's
Okay, great.
So on the self -pardon, there's no law on whether a president can self -pardon.
There's an argument that Theoretically, you can't beat a judge, jury, and everything of yourself.
That just gives too much power.
It doesn't make logical sense.
A lot of the stuff when it comes to presidents, Trump and everyone else, is if somebody does it, what's to stop them?
Not so much what does the Constitution say.
So if he were to self -pardon, who's going to say anything about it?
Oh, okay.
So the president cannot pardon state crimes?
So the 34 felony convictions that stand against him, and he's waiting for sentencing in Manhattan, he cannot pardon.
And also the pending indictment in Georgia, he cannot pardon.
So if he is sentenced in either of those cases, he would have to be at the mercy of the New York pardon system and the Georgia pardon system.
In New York, it's at the discretion of the governor, who is a Democrat, Kathy Hochul in this moment.
In Georgia, it's actually a commission, but you're not eligible for a pardon until five years after you've completed your sentence.
So Trump would not be eligible for a pardon under Georgia law until the trial, the appeals.
Let's hear next from Richard in North Carolina line for Republicans.
Good morning, Richard.
I do believe most everybody that Trump pardoned had already served their time before he pardoned them.
And I keep hearing all this about Trump, but I think you're a law professor, but you don't call nobody out.
President Obama did spy on Trump's campaign.
That was a fake dossier that they did.
These people have committed treason.
And you're teaching our people law?
This is a joke.
Thank you.
Bye.
Art in Chicago, Illinois, Line for Independence.
Good morning, Art.
Hi, good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
I have one question.
Was Hunter Biden convicted of a felony?
I don't, honestly, I should know that off the top of my head.
I'm not sure if they're felonies or misdemeanors off the top of my head.
He was convicted of lying on a gun application and Well,
sadly, Joe Biden was being a parent.
And I don't know a parent in this country that would not have done the same thing for their child.
My issue now is, where do we go from here?
I believe that Joe Biden wants to do something he should issue.
You know, that's kind of almost an inspiring concept.
People are talking about Pardoning, anticipatory pardons or protective pardons for folks that were involved in the January 6th Commission and the various criminal indictments and processes of Donald Trump because he's promised retribution.
But you put a really important point on the table, which is that the whole idea behind the pardon power, which stretches back to...
We're good to go.
Justice and kindness.
A president could say, all right, at a minimum, I don't want the federal government executing innocent people.
That the criminal justice system doesn't get that right.
We're not going to take people's lives unless we're 100 % sure that they committed the crime alleged.
So use DNA evidence to everybody on death row and commute the sentences of those DNA evidence proves are completely innocent.
It is in a way, it's an opportunity for corruption, but it's an opportunity to go to bypass the sort of red tape of the jury system and the appeals and Congress and do some good things that I think people will really appreciate.
But since Reagan, there's been this...
talking point about being tough on crime that voters tend to like, and so presidents have been, I think, have shied away from the mercy possibility of pardons because voters like this idea of tough on crime.
But let me just say this, we spend 80 billion dollars 80 billion dollars a year on the criminal justice system and the penal system.
That's a lot of our taxpayer dollars and we know in this moment We are putting people in jail who don't need to be in jail as long as their sentences are, who could contribute to society,
who maybe were put in there without sufficient evidence and are actually 100 % innocent.
So the pardon gives us an opportunity to have a conversation about maybe we don't want our taxpayer dollars going there, maybe we want some money put into cleaning that up to make sure just the ones that should be in jail are in jail and the rest of them.
Good morning.
Good morning, Kimberly.
Listening to this, and it's interesting because I watch C -SPAN every day, and the other day we had a A discussion about pardoning, etc.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Obama had over 1 ,900 pardons.
Is that correct?
That's what you guys showed.
And the other question I have is, why did, I can understand him pardoning President Biden, pardoning his son for the crimes he committed, but why did he have to go back to 2014?
Are they trying to cover up something?
Are they trying to cover up the Biden family or stopping anything, justice from being executed to be done?
It doesn't make sense to me.
What is going on with this pardoning stuff?
Please help me understand.
Thank you.
That's a really interesting question.
So Hunter Biden not only was investigated by Congress, but was investigated by the U .S. Attorney of Delaware under President Trump.
The investigation started there.
And then President Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel.
Hunter Biden's been investigated ad nauseum, meaning there's been a lot of federal law enforcement resources gone to seeing what crimes he could be prosecuted for and reach a conviction.
And so I feel that given that that happened and there aren't additional crimes that were charged within that 10 -year period, The sense could be that they just didn't have enough evidence to actually bring a crime against him,
besides the low -level ones that were charged.
I should also note, at any point, his dad had the authority to call off that investigation.
It would have been messy politically, but the president is in charge of the Justice Department.
The Supreme Court's made that really clear last summer.
So Joe Biden had full authority to say, no, we're not going to use resources to go after my son.
I'm going to protect my son.
And he didn't.
And I think that demonstrates his adherence to the rule of law.
The reason I believe they have that broad pardon is Donald Trump's There are things in place.
To stop what's a vindictive prosecution or a selective prosecution or a political or ideological prosecution.
But I've done the research.
It's actually very hard to demonstrate.
You can get pretty far along in really destroying someone's life and racking up a lot of defense attorney's fees just to make their life miserable, even though there's actually not a crime there.
So I think that's the concern.
Hunters gone through the gauntlet.
They found what they found.
And to let this administration put a bullseye on his back, when we know that is Hunter, he's been that, and it's not by choice.
I mean, he's the son of a famous guy who's president.
That seemed probably cruel as a father, and he wanted to protect him from that, whereas just pardoning the crimes he was convicted of doesn't immunize him from being in the center of the next investigation and prosecution.
James in Collins, Mississippi, Line for Independence.
Good morning, James.
Yes, ma 'am.
Good morning.
Mr. Lady, I wanted to ask you, first I wanted to make a statement.
President Biden, during his time as president, said that he was going to, I'm making this statement for the American people to make sure that they understand about what African Americans are going through,
that he said that he was going to look into a restitution for black African American people of slavery, dissent, and He was going to look into it for four long years.
He didn't do anything about that.
Then now he's going over to another dark continent.
I'm saying, well, what about the African -Americans in this country that have been denied the opportunity to live a decent life by this restitution?
And he did not do it.
I want to find out if President Trump is going to also look into that.
Now about pardons, I feel like Ms. Cheney should be pardoned.
Go ahead, James.
Well, two points.
First is...
Statistics show that the criminal justice system is racist.
There's a lot of racial bias, deep racial bias in the criminal justice system, including at the federal level.
So I think that the commentator makes an excellent point that Biden could use the pardon power to address some of those injustices.
And Barack Obama in 2013 commuted.
We're good to go.
I think?
Capitol Police officers who've come out publicly and said that they thought that was a bad situation and they don't support Donald Trump.
It's impossible to do one of these pardons and cover everyone.
And I think that is one of the questions.
Should he do it at all if he can't protect everyone?
Should he do it at all if it's going to now...
We're good to go.
I think?
I think it's really important that we as Americans take that at his word so we can think about if that's okay with us.
And if it's not okay with us, what needs to be done about it?
And I say if it's okay with us, if it's okay with us for Trump, we have to understand we're making it okay for any president.
We're making it okay for a Democrat to use the Department of Justice to go after Republicans, to go after MAGA supporters.
Once the guardrails come down, once the bridge is broken underneath the Constitution, once the system isn't there, as James Madison said, if men were angels, we wouldn't need government.
We need ambition to counteract ambition.
If anything goes, it's going to be anything goes for any president.
And that's why I think this conversation about the pardon, Isn't so much about Joe Biden.
It's really about what kind of government do we Americans want Republicans and Democrats together to protect our children from retribution from politicians who have power that you and I don't have.
Our guest, Kim Whaley, author of her newest book, Pardon Power, How the Pardon System Works and Why, and wanted to note there's a lot we didn't get to today, but Kim was also on BookTV's Afterword at the end of August talking about that new book,
and you can find that online at c -span .org.
Kim, thank you for being with us today.
It's been great.
Thank you.
Still ahead on Washington Journal, historian and author John Grinspan will discuss his book The Age of Acrimony, how Americans fought to fix their democracy from 1865 to 1915,
and political divisiveness.
But next is our open forum.
You can start calling in now.
Any public policy issue you want to talk about, the numbers are on your screen.
Republicans, 202 -748 -8000.
Democrats, 202 -748 -8000.
And Independents, 202 -748 -8002.
And while you are calling in, we'll show you a portion.
From last night in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron was making remarks at the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral for the first time since a 2019 fire.
Here are those remarks.
The 15th of April 2019, the new news of the fire went from lip to lip.
The images of the flames devouring the transept, the spire which fell.
In a terrible noise.
And those hours of combat.
The decision to leave it.
And the minutes of despair when the wood, the stone, the stained glass could have disappeared.
And during those hours, there were students who came down from the Montagne Saint -Germain to come and help.
Walkers.
In time squared, to people to stop in tears in front of the first images, and from Rome to Moscow, the believers of everyone who came together to our embassies.
The camel trains in Niger to stop to pay homage to Notre Dame that evening.
Happiness and unhappiness came together.
The bad, even the east wind which rose up at the worst moment who pushed the flames and that coincidence also of some we'll call a chance at the destiny.
There were, however, there was bravery.
That of the firefighters and their leaders who sent for a last attempt even more dangerous than those before.
Those men who climbed the facade and went into their fires to stop the 16 bells from falling and to save the cathedral.
And 22 :47.
There was the message.
We have mastered the fire.
Our firefighters took the advantage and they worked through the night.
Washington Journal continues.
That's what he's been saying.
He's going to pardon them all.
He's going to pardon them all because he says they were personally picked on, not true.
And the Kennedy guy, I hope he goes through an FBI background check because he's not qualified for that job.
He killed a whole bunch of people in a country where they're supposed to get measles vaccines, and he didn't get the vaccines because of him.
A lot of them died.
He's not qualified.
And I hope all those people go through background checks.
Because a lot of them are qualified.
That was Stan in Florida.
Vince in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, line for Republicans.
Good morning, Vince.
Yes, hi, good morning.
I have to say that one of the things that's on my mind is, because I watch all the media, and I have quite a bit of content in my phone when I go to post.
You know, we know that the mainstream media and the Washington Journal for the past 10 years have basically been negative against Donald Trump, and by all means, he should have lost.
But people are realizing that it's social media and podcasts.
And my point is, I mean, your last segment, it was Trump, bash Trump, regardless.
I mean, I believe that comes from our government somehow.
You know, you guys are intertwined somehow.
But they're going to be shaking up the White House press room, and I think it's time.
If we're going to move forward in new ways, we have to do this with media, too.
And most people don't stop to think.
We have freedom of press.
It's one of our First Amendment rights as a people.
So I look forward to that.
Thank you for giving me the time.
Diane in Barberton, Ohio, line for Democrats.
Good morning, Diane.
Good morning.
Good morning.
First of all, I want to thank Biden, President Biden.
He's been one of the best presidents we've had.
He should be in the top 10.
And he also has done a great deal of what I feel as though was a conviction of his son only because Trump wanted to get back at him.
Number two, I wanted to say that Trump has lied about almost everything.
The fentanyl is coming in by Americans, not the migrants.
And we have seen it on 60 Minutes.
We have seen it on News Nation and several times on this show.
The migrants are helping our economy.
Why are everyone wanting to get rid of them?
There was only 1 % of illegal acts made by the migrants compared to the 99 % of what Americans have done.
I also feel as though Trump has manipulated this voting time.
It is not what we are supposed to be about.
He used us, and I want people to understand mostly.
He is going to put us in a recession next year at this time, and I will be reminding everybody every month that I call in that it's his fault and your fault for voting for this person.
Thank you.
Bye.
Larry in Mesa, Arizona, Line for Independence.
Good morning, Larry.
Good morning.
Yes, I would just like to comment on your previous guest you had on.
That was...
So anti -Trump that I can't believe she's actually teaching law.
I mean, she's ignored all the Justice Department going after Trump for the last eight years.
I'm an independent.
I'll vote either way for the best people for our country.
But this divisiveness we have on the Democrat side is off the charts.
They cannot admit anything.
They don't, they just, they're lost.
They're basically brainwashed into thinking that the old system was so great, but it's against the people.
Totally.
And they really need to wake up.
Once again, I'm an independent.
I'll vote either way.
But I just can't see the Democrat side.
I mean, the DOD went after everybody.
Went after churchgoers.
Went after anybody that disagreed.
Look at the pandemic issue.
How much did they get wrong there?
Everything they did was wrong.
I just want to voice my opinion.
You have a great day.
That was Larry in Arizona.
Wanted to share this from CBS News.
Says that Syrian's government appears to have fallen after opposition fighters said they had entered Damascus following a stunning advance and a Syrian opposition war monitor reported that President Bashir Assad had left the country.
Syrian opposition fighters said early Sunday local time that they had entered Damascus and residents of the capital reported the sounds of gunfire and explosions from the White House.
They said that President Biden and his team are closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and staying in constant touch with regional partners.
It goes on to say that the Syrian army notified officers that Assad's rule had ended.
That was according to a Reuters report.
And Syrian prime minister earlier on Sunday said that the government was ready to, quote, extend its hand to the opposition and hand over its functions to a transitional government.
Back to your calls.
John in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, line for Republicans.
Good morning, John.
Hi, good morning.
I didn't vote for Biden or Trump, or Harris, I mean.
Two very bad candidates.
I think Biden was a very bad president.
He spent trillions of dollars that shouldn't have been spent.
That was the cause of the inflation.
He didn't understand the American people and how they wanted to control the border.
He didn't understand the American people on the social issues, so he's been a bad...
I think he's been a very bad president.
And in terms of the pardon, there's so much evidence that Biden was not...
He knew that there was a pay -for -play scheme that his son was behind.
Millions of dollars went into the accounts of his...
Yes.
I just want to know, does most Americans think that Trump won fair and square?
Nothing he's ever done has been fair and square.
I'm calling on Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents to check their votes.
After all, he put a man in charge of the mail.
And I'm just curious if anything has happened to people's votes.
I implore anybody that wants to know.
If their vote has been counted, to check your vote.
Go to your state and check your votes.
That's all I have to say.
Gordon in Wisconsin.
Good morning, Gordon.
Good morning.
The last segment you had on where your guest stated that if Trump's judicial system starts going after his political opponents,
it'll open the floodgate for the democrats to do the same thing she didn't go ahead and mention that the democrats have been doing it for the last four years and some of your other callers mentioned that they're going after parents at conferences they're going after anti -abortion protesters look at what they did to all the people on
Now, the Democrats already opened that door.
They opened that door with the last four years of everybody that they went after.
And so the Department of Justice was already, already opened the door.
No.
She misstated that.
The Democrats already opened it.
So, she better get her stuff right because I didn't take anything of value out of anything she had to say because she's a Trump basher.
And for some of your other callers, look at the popular vote.
Look at who won all the states.
That was Gordon in Wisconsin.
Mark in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lined for Democrats.
Good morning, Mark.
Thanks for taking my call.
Finally got through.
Been having a hard time getting through lately.
First time I ever talked to you.
And just like to say, there's the 800 -pound gorilla in the room here.
And that is, for me, as a Democrat, what happened to the 7 million Democrats that came out for Biden that didn't come out this November?
I mean, Harris got, what, 74 million votes?
Biden got 81 million -plus?
I mean, you know, and I keep hearing all kinds of responses for the reason.
Harris didn't message that well.
Hey, Democrats and other Trumpers, we've been messaging for the last four years.
If you haven't gotten a message about Trump, you know, what cave are you living in?
But the thing I want to say is, what gets me is, after this fiasco of an election where we didn't get the House back, where we lost the Senate, The Supreme Court's in Trump's pocket.
The same leaders of the Democratic Party.
Schumer got re -elected Senate leader.
Akeem Jeffries got elected House leader.
Pelosi's still there in the background pulling the strings.
I don't know why she doesn't go back to San Francisco and play with her great grandkids.
I was an accountant before I retired.
And the Democratic Party reminds me of a failing corporation.
That was Mark in Pennsylvania.
Wanted to share some additional news from outside the U .S.
This in the New York Times says that South Korean lawmakers' attempt to impeach President Yoon Seok -yool ended in failure on Saturday night,
prolonging the political upheaval and uncertainty that has roiled the country since his short -lived imposition of martial law this week.
Saturday's move by the opposition to impeach Mr. Yoon
Yes.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.
I am speaking to you as an African, unapologetically African.
The previous program, the person referred to Africa as "dark continent." In 2024, In 2024, any informed person, and I was expecting the person conducting the program to correct them, to say, no, those terms are offensive.
How could we visit that continent?
All the pyramids in the world, with the exception of the one in Central America, are on the African continent.
Is that the product of a dark continent?
The pattern that I went to visit in Athens.
Was a replica from The Valley of the King in Africa that put it there.
And then in 2024, somebody is still referring to Africa as a dark continent.
Is that the darkness of your ignorance in the mind or the right dark continent?
Mathematics came from Africa.
Medicine came from Africa.
Everything, even the design of the plane.
I went to the pyramids.
I saw the design of the plane.
And we built the last pyramids during the 12th dynasty.
Abraham, the father of my faith, was not born until the 13th dynasty.
And sometimes you hear people being funny.
Oh, Judeo -Christian heritage.
The book I'm writing now is going to correct a lot of those things.
The title is Who We Really Are.
We're not objects of Caucasians' imagination.
Excuse me for using the words.
Caucasians because I have never come across any white person.
That's why you don't see me in any of my writings referring to Caucasians as white people.
They have pale skin and they have pink skin, but not white.
I know enough English.
English was imposed on me as my first language.
The first English was the first language imposed on me.
I know what white is.
None of those people who are claiming that their wives are...
That was Irritap in Maryland.
Walter in Massachusetts, line for Republicans.
Good morning, Walter.
Yes, Kimberly.
Thank you for taking my call.
I would like to say that tough love has always been a process of a happy and healthy family.
And Joe Biden is not shown love by partying or something.
He's only post...
Rick, in Tampa, Florida, Line for Democrats.
Good morning, Rick.
I'm sitting at 21 right now.
All you Trump lovers, just remember, yes, he did win all of the swing states, but only by about 100 ,000 votes.
This is a very divided country, and I'm very nervous about what Trump's going to do, the types of policies that he's going to utilize,
but I'm most concerned about the idea
Just a few minutes left.
Mike in Illinois, line for Republicans.
Good morning, Mike.
Issue a blanket pardon for all of the UH members of the UH, like Fauci and those guys.
Those guys, they're doing it to cover their tracks and they're not talking about a specific crime and they have to be held accountable.
If they have a public office, they have to be accountable for what they've done.
You can't just blanket give them a pardon and say, well, all of your official duties, You're forgiven for it.
It's not going to work.
If that goes to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court's going to say you cannot issue a pardon for a government employee, especially one like the director of FBI or any of those, that says, oh, I'm sorry,
you get a free pass for all of the illegal things you did while you were in office.
You have to be held accountable.
And yes, they're going to say, well, Trump wasn't held accountable.
He is the executive of the executive branch.
That's a whole different ballgame in the Constitution with powers than like the director of the FBI or Fauci or any of those others.
And if they think it's the same, they're sadly mistaken.
And they're only wanting to make sure that they don't get held accountable for all of the things that they did while Biden was in office.
Thanks.
Bye.
That was Mike in Illinois.
This headline in today's Washington Post.
We showed you the clip earlier of the event at Notre Dame, and not only was President -elect Trump there, but so was Zelensky,
and it says that French President Emmanuel Macron brokered the meeting on the sidelines of the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral, where world leaders gathered to celebrate the cultural icon.
He had set up A meeting between President -elect Trump and Zelensky.
It says that Zelensky tweeted that the meeting, which was about 30 minutes long, was, quote, good and productive.
He said the leaders agreed to continue to work together and stay in contact.
It says that three men, when they were exiting together from the palace, Macron stood between Trump and Zelensky, putting his arm around the two men.
One more note from Politico.
It says that We're good to go.
I think?
Good morning.
Yes, I was calling because I've been following the election and after the election, everybody's still talking about the Democrats, the Republicans.
Everybody has just worked together.
Get, you know, things done.
There's nothing getting done.
The politics has changed so much.
And I just think that everybody that came along, you know, they talk about this president, that president.
It just needs to stop, you know, because the bottom line, they just need to work together in both parties and make some changes.
That's what everybody wanted.
You know, they said they were tired of everybody.
Politicians talking about each other, and now they're doing it.
So I think that will help.
Thank you.
That was Laura.
And our last call in this segment is Eddie in Millbury, Massachusetts, line for Republicans.
Good morning, Eddie.
Good morning.
Yes, I'm very worried about democracy in general when the president, Joe Biden, is the Don, sends out his son, Hunter, as a bag man collecting millions of dollars.
I'm worried about Hillary Clinton getting the Steele report, giving it to FBI, call me, to wiretap Donald Trump's headquarters.
I'm worried about jury nullification, where there was evidence of a man with bloody gloves, with bloody socks.
That was jury nullification.
I heard now of just this.
Non -adjudicating, where there were things, where there were thousands of signed applications of fraud at the voting, and it was never adjudicated.
So jury nullification, non -adjudicate, this is the problem.
Thank you.
That was Eddie and our last call in this segment.
Up next, historian and author John Grinspan will join us to discuss his book, The Age of Acrimony, How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy.
We'll be right back.
A book called The Wise Men was first published in 1986.
Cover copy says, quote, it was about six friends and the world they made, unquote.
The names, Harriman, Lovett, Acheson, McCloy, Kennan, and Bolin are only to be found in the history books today.
Co -authors Evan Thomas and Walter Isaacson were in their mid -30s.
In the updated 2012 introduction to the paperback, they wrote, In their time, the wise men operated largely behind the scenes, little known by the public.
But they achieved great things.
According to Thomas and Isaacson, those great things included the shaping of the world order today, the creation of international institutions,
the forging of lasting peace in a perilous time.
We ask Kevin Thomas now, in his 70s, who are the wise men of today?
Evan Thomas with his book The Wise Men, Six Friends, and the World They Made on this episode of Book Notes Plus with our host Brian Lamb.
Book Notes Plus is available on the C -SPAN Now free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Attention middle and high school students across America.
It's time to make your voice heard.
C -SPAN's Student Cam Documentary Contest 2025 is here.
This is your chance to create a documentary that can inspire change, raise awareness, and make an impact.
Your documentary should answer this year's question, your message to the president.
What issue is most important to you or your community?
Whether you're passionate about politics, the environment, or community stories, Student Cam is your platform to share your message with the world.
Joining us now is John Greenspan.
John, thank you for being with us.
Oh, great to be with you, Tammy.
We're going to be talking about your book for the next 45 minutes or so.
Why don't you start by telling us why you chose to write about this specific topic and time period?
Different worlds.
I wanted to get them to talk to each other.
In our era, we see concerns about a crisis of democracy and threats that have been going on, a growing sense of partisanship and acrimony and political violence and tribalism.
And yet as a curator at the Smithsonian, we have these collections that go back to the founding of American democracy.
And there's a big chunk of maybe the middle of that period, the Civil War to 1900, when you see that partisanship and that tribalism and that acrimony.
And people in 2016 started saying this is not normal, but we really did have a precedent that if not normal, there is a continuum of political aggression and really the abnormal era was the era we grew up in when people were more calm and more civil.
So I wanted to try to get these two worlds to talk to each other.
We will look at some of the examples from the book, some quotes that show that.
But who should be reading your book and...
What mindset should they have when they open it up?
Well, everyone should read it, right?
I mean, that's the only answer to that question.
What mindset should they have it?
I think sometimes when people go to history, they have a resistant mindset that they're trying to, in the back of their mind, prove that our era is bigger and more significant and more unprecedented than things in the past.
And a little bit, I see it in the comment sections to op -ed sometimes, a resistance to giving the past the same...
Do we give the presents?
Or a sense that the present has to be worse or better or bigger somehow.
I honestly would like people to try to empathize with somebody who lived in 1860 or 1880 and see how these unfolding events felt just as big and significant and good and bad to them and their lives felt as big as our lives feel to us today.
So an empathetic mindset maybe.
And what do you want, when everybody does read this, what do you want them to be taking away from it once they've finished it?
Oh, I guess there are a couple takeaways.
One, we've been, if not here before, we've been somewhere else before.
Our history is not just a succession of...
Normal, normal, normal, normal.
Suddenly abnormal in 2016.
We have these rises and falls in our democracy.
And a lot of the things we see today, we've seen in the past, even in worse forms, in more violence, more aggression.
The second takeaway would be that it's fixable.
That I don't know how we're going to fix it, but in the past, people actively identified problems in their democracy, in their political behavior, and organized reforms, especially cultural reforms, to change how we use democracy, to change our level of civility.
and restraint and partisanship and and build a new political culture we're not like just headed towards apocalypse people actually have the the agency to change as they did in the past and as we we will somehow history does always change and evolve so i'm certain we're not headed towards absolute doom and history can help us kind of see a way out And I want to share this quote from the preface in your book.
It says that Americans claim that we are more divided than we have been since the Civil War, but forget that the lifetime after the Civil War saw the loudest, roughest political campaigns in our history.
From the 1860s through the early 1900s, presidential elections drew the highest turnouts ever reached.
We're good to go.
Impeachment, two presidential elections, quote, won by the loser of the popular vote, and three presidential assassinations.
Control of Congress rocked back and forth, but neither party seemed capable of tackling the systematic issues disrupting American lives, driving at all a tribal partisanship that captivated the public, folding racial,
ethnic, and religious identities into two warring hosts.
Critics came to consider this era democracy's 40 years in the wilderness when America's politics threatened America's promise.
If you were to take out the dates from that, there is a lot of similarity to what we are seeing today.
And when we talk about where we go from here, How did they move past that?
What happened after this period?
Yeah, it's trickier to show how they fixed it than how they got in that mess, right?
It's easy to show the political violence, the high turnout.
Showing low turnout, as a historian, it's harder to explain how people stopped doing something.
But what you see is they build up this culture that is honestly based on the concept of restraint.
If there are key values for 19th century politics, it's partisan, it's public, and it's passionate.
You are in a tribe, your party, you are doing this in the public square, really built into American politics.
Whether you're a voter or not, you can't avoid American elections in the late 19th century.
Visitors to America complain that if you sit down on a streetcar, somebody will come by and quiz you on how you would vote, doing kind of a straw poll of how the next election is going to go.
And it's passionate, these really heated elections.
Like you said, high levels of political violence, aggression, participation, both good and bad.
There's the bad side, there's the violence, but there's also the high levels of engagement and participation.
In the 20th century, they rebuild a culture that values independence, you really are not supposed to be a partisan, privacy, you don't talk politics at the dinner table, and restraint.
the main goal is to kind of control your political emotions to maintain this this veneer of calm and restraint and civility and those are the norms we talk about when we say the norms of democracy under threat these are norms that were built in 1900 or 1890 a lot of them were not invented by the founding fathers 250 years ago they were created To stop the last period of democratic crisis.
So they did it before and it took some legal reform, some changes in how we vote that make a big difference, but a lot of it was building a new culture of how we use our democracy, how we talk to each other.
And it's slow and it's not dramatic, but it made a huge change in how Americans engaged.
And really, numerically, you can qualitatively and quantitatively show the change in life based on this change in the culture.
Our guest is John Greenspan.
He is the author of the book The Age of Acrimony, How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy.
And if you have a question or comment for him, you can start calling in now.
The lines Republicans 202 -748 -8001, Democrats 202 -748 -8000, and Independents 202 -748 -8002.
Some people looked at your book, it did come out in 2021, as hoping it would be kind of happy or optimistic, but you were really trying to show more that our political system has never really been fully functional.
Do you think that that dose of reality can kind of help put in perspective how we view our current political system?
Yeah, I think we have this very, I don't want to sound rude, but naive sense of our past where we think, Everything was going along just fine, normal politics, until 2016, and then something went off the rails,
and now it's inevitable that democracy will crumble or something like that.
But if you really study American democracy, you can see these rises and falls, and it's not that there's a good period and a bad period, or even a normal period and an abnormal period, it's that...
We keep breaking our democracy in different ways.
And in the 19th century model, there's really high engagement, really high participation for voters and for non -voters.
People who denied the vote are still really passionate, reading the newspapers, arguing the issues.
In the 20th century, they rebuild this model that's more civil, more calm, more peaceful, but turnout crashes.
And turnout, especially by poorer people, less educated people, people of color, younger people, crashes in this...
Good old days, normal 20th century democracy.
So we haven't ever gotten it right yet.
And I think it's naive and unrealistic to expect that we're going to get it right.
We'll probably reform from the era we're in into a new model that has its strengths compared to now and its weaknesses.
And that's human history.
That's life, right?
We should accept these trade -offs and not expect things to be...
Perfect.
That doesn't mean we should be happy when things get demonstrably worse but it does mean that if we look at our history we can see how these things swing back and forth over time.
Something else you talk about in the book is that There's an idea that the next election, whichever one is coming up next, will decide the future.
But in reality, we're in a loop, and there has yet to be a resolution.
Explain more what you mean.
I mean, we can see it in the last couple months.
Before the last election, before the 2024 election, we said, oh, we're so divided, we're so split.
48 to 47, or whatever the polling was, we have a win that's under two percentage points of the popular vote, and we act as if it's a gigantic game -changing mandate.
The election before was the same way.
It was a 4 % win, but it's not that significant.
It was a 2 % win in 2016.
These are not landslides.
These are not game -changers.
We keep seeing this, and then afterwards, people say, oh, this will change everything.
Within a year, we see how stuck in the same loop we are.
There's a quote from the 1890s that I like where somebody said, speaking about congressional elections, every two years one party is obliterated and then two years later the other party is obliterated.
And, I mean, think how many times in the last decade we've declared either the Democrats or the Republicans a dying party that just can't get it together and loses an election and so it's falling apart.
They're both in this same loop together.
We're kind of trapped in this narrative and until we can step back, take a breath, have some perspective, Hi,
I got two or three things.
First of all, I don't care that the country's divided.
It's fine with me.
Second, I don't believe that Joe Biden Got 81 million votes legitimately.
He got more votes than popular Obama.
He got more votes than Hillary Clinton.
No.
Electronic nonsense from Google or some high -tech company added votes.
And third, California just got done counting their votes a couple days ago?
A month after the election?
That's baloney.
We should kick California out of the union, put a fence and a wall around them, and get the hell rid of them.
I can try to respond as a historian.
I'm not going to argue with you on any of your points.
They're not really questions anyway.
Looking back at our history, that's how elections worked.
It often took weeks, months to figure out the results of elections.
It was often, you know, you'd read these diaries of people who vote and are out in the field two weeks later and they find out the result of an election.
We have a big...
Dispersed, complicated democratic system.
And over our era, over the last 200 years, it often takes quite some time and it often surprises us.
It's not surprising to me at all that it takes a long time to count votes.
I'll also say that compared to the 19th century, when we see rampant fraud, when it's really exposed and obvious how many elections are stolen in this era, we do not see it in our own era.
The evidence isn't there.
It's not in the courts.
It's not out there.
It's just wishful thinking, honestly.
So that's the best I can say to that.
Our caller brought up the fact that he doesn't care that America is divided.
It's fine with him.
I wanted to share this quote from your book.
It says, ...had empowered leaders whose views were as meeting as a hot pepper in the mouth,
whose intellectual visions came from the back of their heads.
It was time to reimagine politics entirely, Kelly told Congress in his speech calling for black voters' rights.
Ours is a new age.
We are unfolding a new page in national life.
America's unleashed democracy was rich with disruptive possibilities.
Kelly thundered as the invention of the steam engine or of the printing press.
No need to cling to old parties or identities.
The past is gone forever, he told Congress.
So first, explain who Will Kelly was and also comment about the fact that we haven't moved past this.
Yeah, I mean, so much seems the same, right?
Will Kelly was William Darragh Kelly, also known as Pig Iron Kelly, was a politician, a congressman from Pennsylvania in the 19th century who is actively involved on the forefront of kind of every big movement of the 19th century.
He's a supporter of Andrew Jackson, of Abraham Lincoln.
He writes the language for the 15th Amendment that gives African Americans the right to vote.
He pushes for women's suffrage.
He pushes for labor reforms.
He's really one of these guys who's always on the forefront.
But he's very independent.
And because he's so independent and keeps moving from party to party, you can see him getting squeezed over his life.
He's really admirable.
He's really fighting for causes that really are what we have.
We're good to go.
I think?
I mean, we are all very doom and gloom about the state of our politics today, but our turnout is higher, our engagement is higher, far higher than it was in a previous era.
If you look at the 1990s, basically half of Americans didn't vote.
Most people couldn't really distinguish all that well between the parties.
You could say we're divided, it's terrible, we're all fighting, we all feel bad about politics, but you could also say democracy is based on the attention of those.
Next, Keith in Athens, Alabama, Line for Independence.
Good morning, Keith.
Pretty much do a bell curve on when it started to happen, and I think it probably started during the Obama administration.
And it was driven by social media like, not X, but Twitter.
It has divided the people.
It's driven back and forth like a little ping pong ball back and forth.
And I believe the only thing that is really going to cure it is it's going to be a really good war.
Your response?
Yeah, two things.
One, the last point, I do think, you say you don't think we're as divided as we think we are.
I kind of agree with that.
I think there's this rhetoric and talk about how How divided we are and how hostile we are.
And honestly, it is to the benefit of extremes in both parties and people in the news media who get attention, get eyeballs, get votes based on outrage, right?
That's the whole system, is getting us worked up.
I think over the last decade we've spent so much time telling ourselves how angry we are.
Of course we're angry if you keep saying you're angry, right?
I do think if you bear down, a lot of these fights are to have a fight.
More than they are fundamental to the American people.
I'm a curator at the Smithsonian, and we collect.
So we went to the RNC, the DNC, we go to rallies, we go to primaries, and even six months after you collect an object, if you look at it, you say, what was that fight over?
What is this reference to on this poster?
Because some of this stuff is, it feels like ginned up by people who want to have an argument, so they've picked an argument.
Not that we don't have fundamental issues, but that there is, it is in the interest of many actors to keep us divided and angry.
You talk about when this all started, and people will point to social media, people will point to the iPhones.
Sometimes I point to the early 2000s when I feel like our pop culture got more cruel in a way, kind of a meanness that grew in with reality TV and everything.
But I think the fundamental force...
In our own era and in the Gilded Age is social disruption.
The reason our politics look pretty similar to the way they did in the 1880s, 1890s is because Americans feel shaken.
And if you think about life in the Gilded Age, if you think back to high school or college history classes...
There's high levels of immigration.
There's lots of urbanization, mobilization, people moving into industry.
If you think about the life of somebody who grew up in a small town or a village and ends up in a factory on the other side of the world, they feel really shaken.
They've left behind their communities.
They've left behind their churches and their synagogues.
They've left behind their folk culture.
And they're in this shaken new world, and a lot of these people back then lean into the parties.
And they say, well, you know, I don't live in the small town in Germany anymore, but I'm a Democrat, and I drink at the Democratic Saloon, or I'm a Republican, I march in the Republican marches.
I think something similar has happened in our own era, starting maybe in the 80s with income inequality starting to rise.
And kind of the breakdown of a lot of elements of 20th century culture, I think a lot of people are shaken and isolated and lonely.
And the parties and partisanship gives them a home.
You don't really feel like you have a community, a membership, so you watch Fox News or MSNBC all the time, or you tweet nonstop.
I do think there are people, both in the Gilded Age and today, who are gravitating towards using politics because they need something else in their life.
And it's a similar response to a similar...
John, in Queens, New York, Line for Democrats.
Good morning, John.
Hi, good morning.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Yes, I just got your book, Mr. Greenspan.
I haven't read it yet.
I'm looking forward to it.
I just... I wanted to see if you could comment on another period of maybe acrimony, the 1960s, and the divide in America, Vietnam,
civil rights, women's rights, many of these movements were from that time, and they kind of still added up to some of the acrimony that's in today's
Yeah, a few things.
First of all, I used to live in Queens in Sunnyside, so it's good to hear from Queens.
I really think the 60s are an interesting parallel and also an interesting...
um evidence of how we can agitate and calm down so so quickly and have so much um sometimes, amnesia about the past.
I, I was born in 1984, I wasn't alive for the 60s, and when I read about 1968, when I read, like Rick Perlstein's books, for instance, which are amazing um, i'm shocked by the level of aggression.
I mean you, probably many people knew about the assassinations of King and Rfk, but but just the level of ground on the ground Animosity, even political violence.
There are thousands of bombings over those years by splinter groups at that time.
The level of hostility is really surprising considering how calm the world I was born into 20 years later looks.
And it's a really good example, kind of like a case study, in how A population can get really agitated over politics, feel intense levels of, you know, almost doom about the future, and then over the next couple decades,
smooth out and really change their emotions a lot.
So that the way people talked about public life by the 1980s, by the 1990s, was really different from how they talked in the 60s.
These are the same people living through a generation who behaved really differently in 1968 and 1984.
And to me that helps, as a case study, explain how...
Things could have been so ugly in the Gilded Age and yet it doesn't look anything like what we expect politics to look like.
Our democracy and our public life has a lot of flexibility.
It's not same old, same old.
And you can really see people over time kind of turning up the dials on passion and intensity and turning it back down.
It's a good way to understand just how varied our lives can be.
Dave in Goose Creek, South Carolina, Line for Independence.
Good morning, Dave.
Yeah, good morning.
Could you please tell me, in your opinion, is the electoral college an anachronism?
Well, I am a federal employee of the Smithsonian, so I try to not take strong political stances.
I really shouldn't.
It does exist, I would say, based on a model of our government that is not how most people think our government works anymore.
It's really based on this model that the Founding Fathers came up with.
We're good to go.
In the Supreme Court, the way they did indicates that it just wasn't their goal.
They were working 250 years ago with a completely different conception of how people should interact with each other in so many ways.
So the real amazing thing is that we're still using the same Constitution they were back then.
I wouldn't say that's good or that's bad, but it's kind of shocking.
The U .S. Constitution is the oldest continuously operating governing document in the world.
The Democratic Party is the oldest...
This is a headline from Politico.
Last month, everyone in Congress is obsessed with this book about the post -Civil War era.
It's referring to your book.
He talks about several lawmakers who reached out to you wanting to discuss the book.
Who reached out to you and what were they looking for?
Well, headlines are very generous, right?
And obsessed is, I think, a strong word.
I was able to get in contact with a number of people, senators and representatives like Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, Senator Blunt of Missouri for ex -senator.
People have been reading this book and thinking about the parallels.
People who, many of them, had been in politics for decades and were, I think, perplexed by watching the change.
And the thesis of the book is that our politics can change and that we really have seen these dramatic changes in the past.
So it was fascinating to talk to them.
It's interesting.
And honestly, inspiring to see how engaged in history and how thoughtful our leaders can be.
You mostly hear negative things about politicians in American life.
But in my experience, people I've met to talk about this topic have been Well -read and thoughtful and humane.
I know everybody can't just go meet their senator, but it does often make you feel better about people who are in this position.
And I think history has a lot to tell people.
We spent so much time trapped in the present, fighting over immediate fights, you know, the way we've interpreted this last election.
Completely rewriting our script every few years based on events or every few days based on events.
I think it is really important for people, almost on like an emotional level, a psychological level, to take some perspective, to take some time, to say, well, what was history like?
How did our system work 100 years ago, 150 years ago?
How has it changed?
I think that's not just politically useful or interesting, but psychologically helpful.
It's almost meditative in a way to take a step back.
And these people who are trapped...
You know, in positions of power, especially need that.
It's funny, 19th century political bosses who were seen as these kind of thieving, crooked guys, when you read interviews with them, they seem like they're trapped at the top of this crowd that's pushing them forwards and they can't really take a break.
So I think it is important, even for people in leadership positions, to take a breather and get some perspective from history.
Next is Jeff from Nebraska, a line for Republicans.
Good morning, Jeff.
Morning.
99 % of our problems in America is the press.
If we had an honest press, 99 % of the stuff that happened the last four years would not have occurred.
I hope that they do send representatives from the social press, Joe Rogans and those type of shows.
We're good to go.
I think?
Any response?
Well, all I'll say again is looking for historical parallels.
One of the interesting things about what made people so agitated in the late 19th century about politics was A model of political news, right?
Back then, the newspapers, there's thousands of them around the country.
They're kind of all these pretty small presses that steal each other's articles and...
We're good to go.
Subtitles by @thesirren People buy your newspaper, subscribe to your newspaper, so you write what they want to hear.
And because you're only writing for Republicans or Democrats, you have an incentive to make it all the more aggressive.
In the 20th century, when they switched to newspapers being paid for by advertisers, they calmed things down.
Because advertisers want to sell to everybody.
And you're no longer writing just for Republicans, you're writing just for Democrats, you're writing for anybody who wants to buy boots or soap or whatever the advertisers are trying to sell.
And that actually brings a lot of effort to We can reduce the bias.
So what I'll say for that era, and for our own era, is we all complain about the media, just like we all complain about politicians, but we're the ones supporting this culture.
We're the ones buying these...
Sandra in Kentucky, line for Democrats.
Good morning, Sandra.
Good morning.
I live in a really red And I was just flipping through the channels and I ran across an old show from the 70s.
It's called All in the Family.
I watched it and I just was laughing so hard.
It's so funny.
And it doesn't seem like a lot's changed.
You still can't reason with Archie Bunker.
And people who know the least still tend to know it the loudest.
That's all I had to say.
Thank you.
I couldn't agree more.
They have Archie Bunker's chair in the Smithsonian American History Museum.
It's a testament to how powerful a show can be.
One show from the 1970s, it still really reads through and it's still funny today, which is amazing.
I've studied sometimes political comedy from the 19th century and usually it really doesn't land because it's so distant and the eras are so different.
But somebody who's really funny and really poking at society can still make you laugh 50 years later or 150 years later.
Byron in North Carolina, Line for Independence.
Good morning, Byron.
Good morning.
Thank you for taking my call.
Back when I was in the military, back in the 70s, in professional military education, we were studying that.
And in there it said, cruise ship from Russia said that we will bury you without firing a shot.
At first, I said, oh, he's a crazy old man.
And the more I was in the military, the more I started looking at the system, the more I see...
The way that he would eventually do that.
I was hoping I was wrong, but it seemed to all have came true.
But if you look at our system, the Constitution, the most important part is we the people are in order to form a more perfect union, meaning that we didn't have a good union.
They had to compromise with itself in the beginning.
And we should have been moving toward a United States.
You know, we shouldn't be voting.
Every state these days got their own laws or ways of voting.
All these different laws, because we're such a big country, and we fail to come together.
And then, when you look at 2016, I think that was the final straw that broke the camel's back.
Trump knew that, and he came in and he manipulated this system, because it could be manipulated, but people just didn't do it.
I guess because of our generosity.
But it was very, very manipulative.
For example, the electoral college.
These, what you call it in the States, where they redistrict.
All this crap.
Voting rights for people.
The way they're taking voting rights from so many people and everything like that.
We should have...
We started correcting that, or trying to correct that and bring it to the attention of the people.
We failed, especially the Democratic Party.
They failed to do it, and then they let it fester, and now this is what we get.
And we get exactly what we deserve, because we live in a Constitution that is, what, 200 -something years old and barely changed?
And now, if you look in the modern age of how we have changed, Byron,
we'll get a response from our guest.
Yeah, well, there's a lot there.
I guess I'll focus on the voting rights, which you mentioned, I think the most, because that's one of the most interesting things from this historical era.
How voting used to work.
I mean, there are...
We're good to go.
I think?
By a newspaper.
Not by the government, but by a newspaper.
And you'd try to put it in the box to vote, but there were challengers there who, if they didn't want you to vote, if they thought you were going to vote Republican and they wanted Democrats to win, would intimidate you, would try to suss out how you were going to vote based on your background, your race, your accent,
all these things, and would use open violence.
Every election, a lot of newspapers the day after have a column called Outrages at the polls, which is just political violence that happened when people tried to vote.
And then there's, after the vote is cast, the count can be totally crooked too.
Ballot boxes can go missing.
There are ways people would cast ten votes that looked like one.
We have a really long -standing history of political fighting, over -voting in our country, over -voter fraud.
And one of the things they tried to do that really helps calm things down around 1900 is reform that voting, is institute...
Government printed ballots.
Secret ballots.
One of the really small things that actually makes a big difference is they introduce the voting curtain.
So you're not voting surrounded by this throng of people who are pushing and shouting and intimidating you.
You're voting in isolation.
Alone with your conscience, they would say.
And they managed to make these reforms in an era where it seemed impossible to make any reforms.
And they really have huge impact.
You can show over time these small reforms like government ballots, secret ballots, really change how people vote.
Push them away from partisanship.
Subtitles by @thesirren.
I don't like to sound like a Pollyanna, but I feel confident that we will be reforming our voting in many different ways, and it will probably look differently in 50 years than it does right now.
Maybe it'll be worse, maybe it'll be better, but change is the one constant in history, and I think we shouldn't feel as if the loop we're trapped in, as you said, Tammy, we're in a loop, we shouldn't feel as if this is perpetual and this is the rest of history or whatever.
Deborah in Everett, Washington, line for Democrats.
Good morning, Deborah.
Hi, yes, good morning, Mr. Greenspan.
I have just one quick question for you.
Has there been, in our history from 1865, say to current, has there ever been a president that has been granted to be above the law?
No.
One of the things that is really different about our era, you know, I like to say not everything is unprecedented, and there are precedents for lots of what we're talking about, but some things Are unprecedented.
And one of the things that is unprecedented is the role the presidency has today.
That when you look back at the politics in the 1800s, you have, as we've discussed, incredible partisanship, tribalism, even political violence, up to the level of the president.
And then the president's supposed to be a nice guy.
It's expected that the president will be virtuous, will be calm, will not campaign for themselves, will not really show too much bias.
If they're sitting in the White House, they won't campaign.
We're good to go.
I think?
In our own era, in the 20th century, we created this kind of imperial presidency, this really powerful presidency.
It's way more powerful than 19th century presidents.
When you knocked on the door of the White House in the 1880s, Grover Cleveland, the president, would open it and see who knocked on the door.
We have an entirely different presidency, and we're combining that much more powerful, much more active president.
With this partisan system from the 19th century, that is much more aggressive.
So the president acts in ways that previous presidents never would have.
I mean, that doesn't mean all our presidents were nice guys.
Andrew Johnson, who was president after the Civil War, called for the execution of his political rivals in Congress.
So it's not all like they were polite, but we have a really different model of presidential behavior today than we did in the past.
And that is one thing that does fundamentally look different than what went on in the 1870s or 80s or whatever.
It's a quick questioner to get your thoughts on what you think of when it comes down.
We can bring up all these other subjects, but what about the individual?
You know, I believe this is an age now where it's no longer the pursuit of happiness, right, but more so the pursuit of pleasure.
And we've traded character for personality.
I remember a man once said, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
At what point do we need to look at ourselves and say, you know, this is where it starts.
With the individual, but not being an individual, realizing you're part of something, and being not as selfish.
Yeah, it's a great question.
And again, you can see this arc.
You quoted from JFK from 1960s.
That's the end of this era of kind of peak putting the community before the individual, right?
If you look back at the Gilded Age, it's really driven by individuality.
And you have these robber barons who are making unbelievable fortunes off the labor of people in factories and in tenements.
You have a real sense that the...
Old bonds that held communities together before 1860 or so have fallen apart, and it's take what you can grab.
Whoever can kind of, you know, get away with something.
There's a lot of fraud, there's a lot of corruption, both in politics and in business life.
There's a lot of sense of public immorality in this era.
We think of the Victorians as kind of buttoned up.
But that whole Victorian culture is trying to respond to what they see in the streets, which is a wilder, more public, more violent, more aggressive, more bawdy culture, right?
They feel like morals are falling away.
People are just doing what they want.
And they're trying to build up this reformed culture.
Then in the 20th century, you really get the sense that people will put...
Subtitles by the Amara .org community
Conformity.
And it's not a great world to live in if you're not being benefited by that community, if you are the population being left out or being suppressed.
And then since the 1960s, we've seen a growing rise of put the individual first, kind of seeing this social control, conformity as negative, not as positive.
In the New Deal, it seemed like the way you can achieve great things.
By the 1960s, 1970s, it seemed like really the opposite, something that was a threat to individual happiness.
And I think we've...
This arc goes over a lifetime, so it's maybe 80 years, and we're at a peak.
I mean, you see it, the behavior of our top leaders today, they often seem as if they're putting the individual above something larger, and you can see that, honestly, in both political parties.
So I think this, again, is this narrative, and it's not like you can set your watch by it.
It's not like it always happens every 80 years or something like that, but we've gone from...
Really high individualism in the late 19th century to much more social control and conformity in the first half of the 20th century and then for the last lifetime it's just been more and more individualism.
So maybe the clock will tick back the other way and in 50 years we'll see more kind of sense of community and less of the individual.
I think it's unpredictable but change will be a constant.
Our guest is John Grinspan.
He's the author of The Age of Acrimony, How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy.
He's also author of the new book that just came out earlier this year, Wide Awake, The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War.
John, thank you so much for being with us today.
Oh, thank you, Tammy.
That does it for today's Washington Journal.
We'll be back tomorrow morning at 7 a .m. Eastern, 4 a .m. Pacific with another edition of Washington Journal.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
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