| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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Coming up this morning on Washington Journal, your calls and comments live. | |
| And then we'll talk about the economic and domestic causes behind foreign conflicts engaged in by the United States with author Ivan Eland. | ||
| And we'll discuss the efforts by President Trump to move homeless encampments from D.C. and what the federal government does to provide assistance with National Coalition for the Homeless Donald Whitehead. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's Sunday, August 17th, 2025. | |
| Over the weekend, continued pushback against President Trump's takeover of law enforcement in D.C. With the White House signaling other cities might be subject to similar oversight and intervention. | ||
| That's the topic of our question this morning. | ||
| What do you think of President Trump's approach to fight crime, as well as the option to expand to other cities? | ||
| Our phone lines for Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| For Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And for Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you'd like to text us, that number is 202-748-8000 and 3. | ||
| Please be sure to include your name and where you're writing in from. | ||
| We're also on social media at facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Now, to add to the ongoing National Guard deployment in the nation's capital, there's additional reporting here from WUSA 9 in D.C. that three states have moved to deploy hundreds of National Guard troops to D.C. | ||
| The Republican governors of Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia have ordered hundreds of National Guard troops to the nation's capital. | ||
| That story going on to say that this comes just one day after President Donald Trump's administration lost a court battle over who controls the Metropolitan Police Department. | ||
| West Virginia Governor Pat Morrissey said he would deploy 300 to 400 guard troops, while South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster pledged 200 and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine pledged 150 in the coming days. | ||
| Quote, West Virginia is proud to stand with President Trump in his effort to restore pride and beauty to our nation's capital, said West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrissey. | ||
| The men and women of our National Guard represent the best of our state and this mission reflects our shared commitment to a strong and secure America. | ||
| According to the release, West Virginia's National Guard will provide, quote, mission-essential equipment, specialized training, and approximately 300 to 400 skilled personnel as directed. | ||
| Now, it was during remarks at the Kennedy Center when President Trump talked about his efforts on stopping crime in D.C., as well as how these policies could be applied to other cities. | ||
| Here's a portion. | ||
| We have the right location, and soon we will be a crime-free area. | ||
| This is going to be a crime-free area, by the way. | ||
| You'll be able to go out. | ||
| People tell me they can't run anymore. | ||
| They're just afraid. | ||
| And they'll be running again. | ||
| We're going to have a crime-free. | ||
| It's a big statement because if one thing happens all year, Pam, you better be good because they'll say Trump did not fulfill this. | ||
| One person gets a little injured by somebody. | ||
| They'll say Trump did not fulfill his promise. | ||
| No, we're going to be essentially crime-free. | ||
| This is going to be a beacon, and it's going to also serve as an example of what can be done. | ||
| In terms of what can be done in other cities, there was pushback from California. | ||
| Here's a story in Cron 4 from Oakland, California. | ||
| Oakland Mayor slammed suggestion that Trump might send troops as fear-mongering. | ||
| Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee has publicly opposed President Donald Trump's suggestion to deploy the National Guard to the city following his comments about crime being out of control. | ||
| During a news conference at City Hall, Mayor Lee criticized the President's remarks, which included Oakland among the cities he claimed were so far gone due to crime. | ||
| She described his statements as fear-mongering and emphasized that Oakland is making real progress on public safety. | ||
| And in that recent press conference, here is Oakland Mayor, Oakland, California Mayor Barbara Lee responding to some of President Trump's statements about these forces being used in other cities. | ||
| She made these comments on Thursday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now, Trump is proposing and threatening to militarize cities, which is, you know, unconstitutional. | |
| It's no coincidence, though, that these are cities that have large populations of black and brown people. | ||
| These are cities, all of these cities, where the crime rates are going down. | ||
| These are the cities that happen to be led by black mayors. | ||
| What is this about? | ||
| What is this about? | ||
| His motives are fear-mongering and diversionary. | ||
| When Donald Trump threatens our communities, we stand up. | ||
| And I stood up to him before, over and over and over again. | ||
| And as mayor, I will continue to stand firm with you. | ||
| We'll ensure that Oakland remains a place of refuge, justice, and opportunity, and not allow the possible and proposed militarization and occupation of the cities which he called out to provoke any reaction that gives them an opening to come in here. | ||
| Now, as a reminder, President Trump's plan for D.C. in terms of what exactly is meant by the takeover of law enforcement includes mobilizing 800 National Guard members, putting D.C. police under federal control, and using FBI agents to patrol parts of the city. | ||
| This morning, we want to know what you think of the President's approach to fight crime, as well as its option to expand to other cities. | ||
| We'll start with Bruce in Texas on our line for Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Bruce. | |
| Good morning, ma'am. | ||
| How are we today? | ||
| Fine, thank you. | ||
| What do you think of the president's approach to law enforcement in D.C. and potentially elsewhere? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, ma'am, I believe it's atrocious. | |
| Absolutely atrocious. | ||
| I mean, there's just no words in the English dictionary I can use to express it's atrocious. | ||
| Anything to violate the law. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Only the President of the United States can get away with this. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Next up is Jeffrey in Greensboro, North Carolina on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Jeffrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I'll thank you for taking the call. | ||
| Can you hear me, please? | ||
| Yes, but your line is a bit staticky and we're getting a bit echoed. | ||
| I don't know if you can improve that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Is that better? | |
| Can you hear me? | ||
| No, we're going to try you just a little bit later. | ||
| Let's go in the meantime to Eddie in Atlanta on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Eddie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| I think, yeah, at this time, what he's doing to put to show, I guess to show people that all this killing, because we've been having a lot of killing, shooting, our young men. | ||
| Y'all show, the news can show that every day that what they're doing in D.C., putting these troops on the ground and showing that we got a president, Trump, I mean, you know, he's bad, but this is good because this needs to show people that we need to stop all this killing. | ||
| Our kids getting guns, putting guns, we hear all kinds of stories. | ||
| So, Eddie, if I can pause you for just a moment, I want to read you some reporting from Axios and then get your response because you mentioned the killing. | ||
| And here's a story about where homicide rates are the highest, which is blue cities in red states. | ||
| And looking here at U.S. cities with the highest reported homicide rates in 2024, and there's a map here showing where some of those states are. | ||
| D.C. is number 11 on that list with 25.5 per 100,000 people. | ||
| Number one on the list is actually Jackson, Mississippi, with a homicide rate of 77.8 per 100,000 people, which is 15 times higher than the national average. | ||
| And so reading here, it said, to hear President Trump tell it, the nation's murder problem is particularly bad in New York City, Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., Democratic-run cities in Democratic-led states. | ||
| But FBI crime figures from 2024 tell a different story, that 13 of the 20 U.S. cities with the highest murder rates were in Republican-run states. | ||
| Your thoughts on that information, Eddie? | ||
|
unidentified
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My thoughts is, yeah, crime is crime. | |
| You know, it's just time. | ||
| It just has to show. | ||
| Just get these mayors and governors off their butts to do their job, get these polices to try to do the right thing with the people. | ||
| You know, if it's taking that, it just has to take something to make the people wake up and stop all this killing. | ||
| That's just the bottom line. | ||
| However, they got to do it, they just have to do it. | ||
| But what do you think of the president's strategy in particular of using the National Guard in cities as a way to try to tamp down on crime? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we, I mean, black people, and we're going to see it. | |
| It's kind of racist. | ||
| It's kind of racist. | ||
| It is kind of racist. | ||
| But something got to get done. | ||
| Because, I mean, all our people, just like if you pull up the stick where all our people is in jail, most everybody's in jail and are dead. | ||
| You know, we got more. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, all around the United States, if you pull up how many folks in jail, now it seems like we got so many people in prisons, jail, got charges, got violent charges. | ||
| Something got to give. | ||
| You know, we all just have to work together. | ||
| I mean, Trump, we know Trump will do his own thing because he don't care. | ||
| He don't care about, but doing his own thing, you know, and sometimes we've got your idea, Eddie. | ||
| Let's go to Clay in Augusta, Georgia on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Clay. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, it's very disgusting. | |
| I never forget when President Trump said he wanted to be a dictator on day one. | ||
| This man wants to be a dictator for the rest of his term. | ||
| It's just the National Guard is not qualified actually to do what police officers are supposed to do. | ||
| So for him to do this is ludicrous. | ||
| The one thing that really bothers me is this. | ||
| January 6th, the insurrection, he sat there in that office and didn't do not one thing. | ||
| And that's what bothers me the most. | ||
| Now he wants to do this. | ||
| And he partnered all part all those individuals, but he want to do this all of a sudden. | ||
| is stupid and he is a racist for him to be let's go ahead and move on to tyrone in middletown new york on our line for independence Good morning, Tyrone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I'd like to say that Trump has been a racist since forever in New York City. | ||
| The Central Park Five, now the Exonerated Five, he put out a ad, full-page ad in the paper, calling for them to be executed, the death penalty given to them. | ||
| And then when they were exonerated, he never apologized, saying that, oh, yeah, well, I was wrong. | ||
| I made a mistake. | ||
| He's been a racist, him and his father. | ||
| They had real estate. | ||
| They would put apartments, I mean, they have put C's on the application so that everybody would know that that stood for colored, so that he could. | ||
| Tyrone, what do you think of the president's current strategy in regards to law enforcement in D.C. and particularly other cities, potentially other cities? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this is just another extension of what he's been doing his entire life. | |
| You know, it's just he's going after black mayors and black people in general. | ||
| He just hasn't figured out what he wants to do with it. | ||
| He's been calling that cities like Chicago that he said the school systems are bad and everything is bad. | ||
| He's been saying that forever. | ||
| So it's no surprise to me that that's what he's doing in Washington, D.C., because it's not a state, and so they have limited powers. | ||
| And so he's going to do that to all territories eventually. | ||
| But all in all, this is just a distraction from the Epstein matter. | ||
| That's all this is. | ||
| And people have to wake up and realize that what Trump says, there's always something behind what he's saying. | ||
| And that's all I have to say about it. | ||
| President Trump is not alone in his interest to expand National Guard deployments to other cities. | ||
| Here is a story in the New Republic leading Republican pledges Trump will crack down on more blue cities. | ||
| Washington, D.C. is just the beginning, according to the influential Representative James Comer, saying, a common left-wing slogan, which pithily summarizes the imperial boomerang thesis, is that fascism is imperialism at home or turned inward. | ||
| This is typically stated with an implied negative view of both of those things. | ||
| In an appearance on Newsmax, Republican Representative James Comer of Kentucky advanced and endorsed his own positive twist on that concept. | ||
| Following Trump's federal takeover of Washington, D.C., Comer said the military should be sent to Democratic-run cities to, quote, reduce crime, leveraging experiences from America's numerous foreign entanglements since the 2000s. | ||
| And that's House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer discussing Congress possibly extending the use of federal forces in D.C. and what it could show about using a similar approach in other cities. | ||
| Here are those comments that he did make on Thursday on Newsmax. | ||
| You've seen just in the last 24 hours a huge decline in crime, and we're going to support this. | ||
| We're going to support doing this in other cities if it works out in Washington, D.C. | ||
| And again, it's unfortunate, but we spend a lot on our military. | ||
| Our military has been in many countries around the world for the past two decades, walking the streets, trying to reduce crime in other countries. | ||
| We need to focus on the big cities in America now, and that's what the president's doing. | ||
| Our question again this morning: What do you think of President Trump's approach to fighting crime as well as a potential expansion to other cities? | ||
| Let's look at some comments we've received from Facebook. | ||
| Ken Bradley says, Local governments should be responsible for local law enforcement, but when they prove themselves ineffective at that job, someone has to do it. | ||
| Steve Lewis says, No, that's what dictators do to create a police state. | ||
| And then Joe Barhorst says, No, have you seen all the gaslighting videos from Fox, Newsmax, et cetera, about how it's all safe now? | ||
| Dragging homeless people's belongings away and throwing them in the trash is not a flex. | ||
| And Jewel Lee says, in terms of whether or not she agrees with the president's strategy, yes, folks have been emboldened with all these Democrat policies. | ||
| All of this must come to an end, and law and order must prevail. | ||
| Now, back to your calls. | ||
| Dale is in North Carolina on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Dale. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I've heard people call in Democrats, and they say everything but the truth. | ||
| I've never heard one person call in and actually tell the truth about the situation in D.C. Trump's trying to save lives, black, white, brown, yellow. | ||
| The problem in D.C. nobody is talking about is black crime. | ||
| It's 14 to 17, 18-year-old punks that ain't got no father at home is doing this crime. | ||
| The man's trying to stop him, stop it, leave him alone. | ||
| Let him do it. | ||
| Oh, next up is Bobby in Houston, Texas, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Bobby. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I just believe everything Donald Trump does is a diversionary tactic. | ||
| He's trying to divert attention away from all his failures. | ||
| Specifically, he wants to divert attention away from the Epstein situation. | ||
| He will do anything to save himself. | ||
| And this is just a diversionary tactic that he's using, just like he does for everything else. | ||
| This man means this country no good. | ||
| Everything that he's been doing is all for self-gain, nothing for the country itself. | ||
| He's also, I think, at the end of the day, it's a strategy to have troops in place whenever he starts his military state type of leadership where he's going to steamroll our Constitution like he's doing. | ||
| So I'm definitely against it. | ||
| It's not for the good of the country. | ||
| Gerald Ernest, also on Facebook, says, everyone knows that the Democrats care more about the thugs and criminals than the citizens. | ||
| I wish he would send them to my city. | ||
| All law-abiding citizens should be glad that he is trying to make America safer. | ||
| Kyle is in Boston Spa, New York, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Kyle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just have a comment. | ||
| I don't want anybody to ever look back and say, how did Hitler get his start? | ||
| Because you're seeing it here. | ||
| It's textbook. | ||
| Hitler started with a bad economy. | ||
| He inherited a great economy from Obama, left us with COVID, inherited a great economy from Biden, and then lost $9 trillion with his tariff. | ||
| So you create the bad economy. | ||
| So, you know, only you can fix it. | ||
| And then you pick a common enemy, which were the folks of Mexican descent. | ||
| And then you systematically keep on going down the line. | ||
| You use Joe McCarthy politics. | ||
| You say everybody is horrible and everybody is a communist. | ||
| And again, they say Democrats are communists. | ||
| Communism is an economic state of the economy. | ||
| It's not a person. | ||
| But then they say, well, the Democrats give everything away. | ||
| How can you be a communist and give everything away? | ||
| But he starts these fires and then convinces people he is the only one that can put them out. | ||
| And by starting the fires, he wants to control a woman's right to choose, then complains about all the single women on welfare. | ||
| And he just continuously starts these fires on and on and on and then convinces people he is the only one that can put them out and you need them. | ||
| And I do agree. | ||
| I think January 6th was a test run to see how far he could go and to bring that, well, we're going to have the Army do it. | ||
| We're going to have the Army do it. | ||
| We're going to have them enforce those things. | ||
| And it's a shame. | ||
| And I would never want anybody to look back and say, well, how did Hitler get a start? | ||
| You're seeing it here. | ||
| Everything is recycled from Ronald Reagan's 1980, Let's Make America Great Again campaign to Ann Landers Living in Your Head rent-free to it was originally Bush-deranged income. | ||
| Everything he has is recycled and his followers parrot all that stuff and they never look beyond. | ||
| And we're in a sad, sad, sad place. | ||
| And I do believe that he is in serious jeopardy of losing it in the midterms. | ||
| And that's why he's doing these things. | ||
| He's sanctioning, you know, he has true social, but sanctions, you know, Stephen Colbert and the media and the news. | ||
| So the only outlet you'll get is from him, and you have to believe what he said is true. | ||
| No one ever questions why his wife don't live in the White House. | ||
| No one ever questions why he wanted to, quote unquote, what he wanted to do to Mike Pence for delivering the bad news. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nobody recognizes what he's doing. | |
| It's a shame. | ||
| And they say, oh, well, crime is up. | ||
| Look at all the folks of minority descent, NBA, NFL, great folks, predominantly of black descent. | ||
| But he doesn't want to highlight that when you have the Las Vegas shooter, you've got the Columbine kids, you've got the Buffalo supermarket shooter, and every suspect in every incident of a mass involving education is always the same white suspect. | ||
| But you want to target the homeless and you want to divert away from that. | ||
| And it's very, very sad. | ||
| Barbara is in Whiting, Vermont on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Barbara. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, can you hear me? | |
| Yes, we can. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so I'm just really like surprised that all the Democrats call in and they're not happy that Donald Trump is trying to get rid of crime and clean up the Capitol. | |
| This is the capital of the United States. | ||
| And that's where, you know, people love to come and visit. | ||
| I did that as a kid. | ||
| And it's just shocking that they're against it. | ||
| And they're against everything, everything that Donald Trump tries. | ||
| And, you know, you talk about black mayors in certain Republican states. | ||
| Well, what does that say? | ||
| There's something wrong. | ||
| Well, it's easy on crime, that's for sure. | ||
| You know, so those black cities are not doing well, and they're ridden with crime. | ||
| So do the Democrats just want to continue that and live like that? | ||
| I don't live like that, and I wouldn't want to live like that. | ||
| So it's just sad that the Democrats can't agree with anything that's being done. | ||
| Do you want to live with graffiti all over the walls where you live? | ||
| Do you want to live walking over homeless people that need help? | ||
| And that's what's happening. | ||
| So I'm just let Donald Trump clean up at least the capital and then see how that works out. | ||
| And then maybe people will say, okay, let's give it a try in my city because I'm just shocked that people fight against it. | ||
| That's all. | ||
| Barbara, in general, what are your feelings about federal troops being deployed in America's cities as opposed to federal troops? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They do not have the right to arrest. | |
| I think they're more there for cleaning up the homeless situation. | ||
| I think they're there to get rid of the graffiti. | ||
| I mean, I don't think they're going to be arresting people. | ||
| And it's temporary, 30 days. | ||
| So I'm sure the Capitol will look beautiful after they're done. | ||
| So, you know, if they help and if the mayors work with them, I think it'll really work out very well. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Next up is Kim in Columbus, Ohio on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Kim. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I don't think they caught on to why New York don't even like Donald Trump. | |
| They act like this Donald Trump thing is just, they make people lose their minds. | ||
| And I cannot figure out how this command has pulled this off. | ||
| I honestly think he got him in Washington, D.C. to see. | ||
| So when his term is up, how he can take Washington, D.C. over. | ||
| I don't know how them few troops are actually down there stopping crime. | ||
| That place got millions of people. | ||
| How are they stopping crime? | ||
| No, it looks like they just getting the homeless off the street. | ||
| And I would like to know what they're doing with the homeless. | ||
| I mean, people better watch what they think and say, Kim, I should Kim, if I can just pause you for a moment in terms of what is being, what is potentially going to be done with the homeless later on in our show. | ||
| We're going to be hearing from the head of the National Coalition from the Homeless about exactly this topic. | ||
| So if you stay tuned to later in the show, we will be having a discussion on that. | ||
| But please continue. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, okay. | |
| So that does kind of help me with what they're doing with the homeless. | ||
| Seeing that we know a lot of people getting ready to get put out of houses. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So if you're clearing the homeless, it's almost like you clearing the homeless to prepare for the next set of homeless. | ||
| Because there's a reason why that big, beautiful bill ain't coming through. | ||
| And this is the last thing I'm going to say, ain't coming through until after the election. | ||
| And I think a lot of people are going to be shocked. | ||
| And what I'm asking Americans to do right now is to prepare yourself because you've got something coming to you that you won't understand. | ||
| And I won't understand it. | ||
| And it's not to be understood. | ||
| Only thing you need to understand is this is what the Republican Party and Trump will do to you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Several folks have mentioned how different D.C. might be to other cities. | ||
| Here's a story in Politico about what Trump can and can't do in his bid to take over law enforcement in D.C. | ||
| The Capitol is already subject to significant federal control, and Trump is invoking his emergency powers to solidify it. | ||
| And this is a story from August 11th, so quite a few things have changed in recent days. | ||
| But overall, President Donald Trump's attempt to take over law enforcement in Washington, D.C., is once again testing the bounds of his authority to militarize a major U.S. city. | ||
| The Capitol, unlike other cities, is already subject to significant federal control, and Trump is invoking his emergency powers to solidify it. | ||
| But the intersection of complicated laws and rules about the use of the military for domestic law enforcement, the deployment of federal agents to the streets of D.C., and the city's own crime-fighting policies may still prompt legal uncertainty and inevitable challenges. | ||
| Here's what Trump can and cannot do. | ||
| Can he take control of the D.C. police? | ||
| Yes, with limits. | ||
| The Home Rule Act gives him the power to use D.C. police force for federal purposes if he determines that there are special conditions of an emergency nature. | ||
| He can use D.C. police for up to 48 hours or for up to 30 days if he sends a special message to the leaders of certain congressional committees. | ||
| Going down, Trump also said, and he later went on to do, deploying the National Guard troops to D.C., can he do that? | ||
| Yes, Trump has more authority over the D.C. National Guard than he has over the Guards of the 50 states. | ||
| Governors can control the state guards, although the president can federalize the state guards in an emergency for use in combat operations. | ||
| And then, aren't there limits on using the military for domestic law enforcement? | ||
| Yes, but those limits might not apply to the D.C. National Guard. | ||
| A federal law passed in 1878, the Posse Comitatus Act, bars the use of U.S. military for civilian law enforcement except when authorized by the Constitution or another provision of federal law. | ||
| The Trump administration is currently on trial in Los Angeles over its deployment of the California Guard in June to quell immigration-related protests. | ||
| That trial will test whether a federal judge believes Trump's deployment ran afoul of that 1878 law and must be rescinded. | ||
| But the legality of using the Guard in D.C. may be different. | ||
| Presidential use of the D.C. Guard has rarely faced legal resistance because it typically happened in cooperation with D.C. leaders. | ||
| A little bit more about another law that the President is using to justify his actions in the nation's capital relates to the Insurrection Act of 1807. | ||
| And the Insurrection Act authorizes the President to deploy armed forces or the National Guard domestically to suppress armed rebellions, armed rebellion, riots, or other extreme circumstances. | ||
| And it also allows the U.S. military personnel to perform law enforcement activities such as making arrests and performing searches, which is generally prohibited by that Posse Comitatus Act. | ||
| That is according to reporting in the Washington Post there from earlier this year. | ||
| Let's get back to your calls about what you think of President Trump's approach to fighting crime and the potential to expand to other cities. | ||
| Next up is Dwayne in Jamaica, New York on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Dwayne. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| It appears to me that this whole sh charade is a distraction. | ||
| And as we could see from the calls, a lot of us are distracted. | ||
| We're not talking about the big ugly bill. | ||
| We're not talking about Epstein anymore. | ||
| We're not talking about real things that affect America. | ||
| We're talking about federalizing cities with military. | ||
| But thank states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada. | ||
| They were supposed to be the so-called blue wall to stop this tyrant. | ||
| But they didn't do that because they felt that Kamala Harris wasn't good enough. | ||
| The woman wasn't good enough. | ||
| We have a lot of male chauvinists in this country that doesn't like women in power. | ||
| But it's funny how we're not seeing the big picture, but we're going to always see this. | ||
| He's going to be a lame duck in a couple of years. | ||
| So America, just sit back, let Donald do what he does, and then you go to the ballot, and then you change it. | ||
| That's basically all you can do. | ||
| I mean, we can all yell, scream, but that's what's happening now. | ||
| Thank you for listening to my comment. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| Elizabeth is in Las Vegas, Nevada, on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Elizabeth. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I don't even know what to say. | ||
| Not him, the last guy, but the other guy from New York talking about Hitler. | ||
| He didn't mention once. | ||
| If you're going to mention Hitler, please mention all the Jews that are being hassled in the country. | ||
| I mean, it just sounds ridiculous. | ||
| Talking about Trump being Hitler? | ||
| What about Mandani? | ||
| What is this? | ||
| He can, the crime. | ||
| I live in Vegas. | ||
| There's homeless all over the place. | ||
| I'm from L.A. | ||
| I went back for two years. | ||
| I cried my eyes out for what I saw. | ||
| It was disgusting. | ||
| Who did that? | ||
| Who let it happen? | ||
| It wasn't Trump. | ||
| He's trying to fix it. | ||
| He's not perfect. | ||
| He's, you know, he's a man. | ||
| And he's not a racist. | ||
| I was raised by a black woman. | ||
| And if he was a racist, I never would have voted for him. | ||
| I don't believe that. | ||
| He may have been years ago with his dad and the way he was raised. | ||
| Let people change, man. | ||
| Let people change. | ||
| Everybody sticks it to everybody. | ||
| I'm tired of it. | ||
| And I want you guys to know you do a good job. | ||
| I love Mimi. | ||
| I love you. | ||
| And this needs to stop. | ||
| That's all I wanted to say. | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
| Scott is in Ithaca, New York on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Scott. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'd like to maybe retreat and go back to the Axios thing that you mentioned before first, and that was it'd be nice to have a map of all the assaults and robberies, not the murder rate, because I think the murder rate has gone down, you know, in some numbers nationally. | |
| But I think the robbery and even smaller crime, but assaults too, has definitely gone up, and people see that, and they're very concerned about that. | ||
| The last thing I wanted to say was basically this whole reference to Nazism and Hitler and everything like that. | ||
| I'm a Democrat. | ||
| I have some real problems with my party. | ||
| But when people try to compare, you know, Donald Trump to Hitler, it's very offensive. | ||
| Like part of my family escaped Ukraine. | ||
| Parts of them didn't. | ||
| And it's very offensive when people make comments like that. | ||
| If I can ask you to stay on the line for just a little bit, I was able to find some stats compiled by the Council on Criminal Justice looking at some of the various crime rates in D.C. | ||
| And you asked about assault in particular, and this is looking at aggravated assault rates in Washington, D.C. from January of 2018 to June of 2025, and those rates are also going down. | ||
| So the dark line here represents January to June, and then the lighter blue line representing July to December. | ||
| And that's also showing a decline in the rates over time, although it still has almost, at least as terms of the first half of this year, a little under 60 assaults per 100,000 residents, but definitely down from the COVID period. | ||
| You asked about gun assaults in particular. | ||
| About 35 roughly per 100,000 residents in the first half of this year, but also still significantly down in the last few years. | ||
| Sexual assaults also down in the last few years. | ||
| What was the other type of crime that you were interested in, Scott? | ||
| You said assault and something else? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, just mostly assaults and robberies and theft. | |
| Here's robbery. | ||
| So the robbery rates here, looking at, again, January 2018 through June of 2025, those rates did spike significantly in 2023, it looks like, but are also down. | ||
| But those rates look a little bit more in line with historical numbers. | ||
| But right now it's looking at a little over 100 per 100,000 residents. | ||
| But also. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think we've had some reduction since COVID for sure, but that's not really saying much because during COVID, the crime rates were ridiculous. | |
| And I just don't think we've gotten to a place where it's safe to go to Washington, D.C. | ||
| I don't think it's safe in many areas in New York City to go where, like in some neighborhoods, there's actually still crime on Jews and heavily Hasidic areas and stuff like that. | ||
| It's just not a good feeling to go to big cities right now. | ||
| And I think there could be a lot of improvement. | ||
| I don't think we should militarize the cities, and I don't think that's what he wants to do. | ||
| I think he just wants a show of force and basically just calm things down and try to get rid of some of the even the petty crimes. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Next up is Gilbert in Birmingham, Alabama, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Gilbert. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I noticed on the map from Exion there was a big circle in Alabama. | ||
| What city were they talking about? | ||
| Let's see if I can try to find that for you. | ||
| It looks like it's Birmingham, Alabama, on this map. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's where I'm calling from. | |
| Now, there's a mayor's election coming up in this city, but it seems as if the current establishment don't want to accept the fact of what's going on. | ||
| But this thing about nationalizing the federal troops, this just in my mind, I think it's all just a precursor to a police state in America and martial law. | ||
| And I'm overwhelmed and really speakful that so many Democrats along with the program with Trump trying to stop crime. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Now, I realize that the majority of the crime happening in the nation is in the black community. | |
| But you said yesterday that the Fenana thing is in the white community. | ||
| And what this is is just a byproduct of over 20 years of government not addressing the ears of society. | ||
| And it just kicks coming on the roof. | ||
| People have not, this government, the U.S. government, has not addressed the ears of this society. | ||
| And then the people are destitute now, and they are falling for anything. | ||
| Crime is just a byproduct of being so free. | ||
| The freedom that we have in this country has a lot to do with the crime because we're free to do anything else. | ||
| But we have to realize that the world is watching America. | ||
| They're all that's going on with America, and we want to go over and get in Russia and Ukraine's business. | ||
| We're getting into the business over there. | ||
| And God said, what about here? | ||
| We have to look at ourselves. | ||
| We look at the moat in our own ass. | ||
| We got a serious problem in America. | ||
| This thousand and one established a police state. | ||
| That's what I think we see it to. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| Drew is in Lexington, Kentucky on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Drew. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| What do you think of the president's approach to fighting crime and potentially expanding that strategy to other cities? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's fine. | |
| A lot of folks say that crime in D.C. is down. | ||
| I don't necessarily believe that. | ||
| There are cases in D.C. whistleblowers who have said the Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police have cooked the numbers that they downgrade violent crime to misdemeanors and such. | ||
| The issue is: if you have a city of 100,000 people and there's five serial killers and you move 100 people to that city, now you have 100,001 people. | ||
| If you do nothing about those serial killers, yeah, the crime per capita has went down, but you've just exposed more people to serial killers if you don't take care of the violent crime. | ||
| So I'm not understanding why people are against fighting crime. | ||
| It makes no sense. | ||
| So I believe the story that you're referencing, just a bit more information about it from other folks. | ||
| Here's a story in WJLA News, which is a local outlet. | ||
| D.C. police, this is a story from Friday. | ||
| D.C. police settles with a former employee over claims that the crime numbers were manipulated. | ||
| And it says here, ever since President Trump's takeover, D.C. leaders from the mayor on down have been pushing back against claims of out-of-control crime, pointing to numbers on its website as proof. | ||
| It's full of green arrows showing crimes are dropping significantly. | ||
| But a lawsuit just settled out of court claims the numbers, excuse me, claims the numbers may not be as accurate, but basically, here we are. | ||
| Claims and numbers may not always be what they appear. | ||
| Even in light of this claim, Mayor Bowser recently told MSNBC, we have spent the last two years driving down violent crime in the city, driving it down to a 30-year low. | ||
| Bowser boasted to MSNBC over the past year. | ||
| Thank you for showing we have decreased violent crime by 26% and the year before that by 35%. | ||
| Though, according to one-time sergeant turned whistleblower, the numbers weren't always to be trusted in the past. | ||
| In this lawsuit from 2020, Sergeant Charlotte DeJosu claimed that the MPD routinely misclassified crimes and that districts compete against each other to get the largest reduction in crime statistics, and that possibly paved the way to promotions and raises. | ||
| And then there goes on to give several examples. | ||
| And then it says, despite the city's failed attempts to have the lawsuit dismissed, along with allegations that de Josu was retaliated against for going public, it was set for a jury trial this summer. | ||
| However, it was quietly settled out of court last week. | ||
| And that, again, is from a story from WJLA, but that's more detail on what you were referencing there, Drew. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, obviously, she went on MSNBC. | |
| They're not going to provide any pushback. | ||
| But the fact of the matter is, her city has a homicide rate double that of Bogota, Columbia, a failed cartel state. | ||
| That is unacceptable. | ||
| Appreciate you take my call. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Carl is in Messick, Michigan, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Carl. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you. | |
| A few things here. | ||
| Is black crime keeping white people out of the black cities? | ||
| Is that segregation? | ||
| Is it racist? | ||
| And some of the crime stats, can you delve a little deeper and find out how much of it is black on black crime in those cities? | ||
| And then I just wonder about some of the people that are for having the cities militarized with guardsmen. | ||
| Do they think they're going to be painting and cleaning up broken glass and picking up trash? | ||
| And what happens when unarmed guardsmen are shot and killed? | ||
| And I just want the 30,000-foot view here, the Project 2025 view. | ||
| Once all the D cities in blue or red states have local law enforcement eliminated and are fully militarized, then the elections are not necessary. | ||
| The D voters and precincts will be effectively disappeared. | ||
| Read Project 2025. | ||
| It's all in there. | ||
| Thanks for taking the call. | ||
| John is in California on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thanks for taking my call. | |
| You know, I just think it's kind of silly when you think of these major cities all across the country have been run by the Democrats for decades. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They've had a chance to get to the root problems of all these issues, and there's nothing but drugs and crime and the cities aren't safe. | |
| John, your line is cutting in and out. | ||
| I don't know if you can stabilize it at all for us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Approach to normal people just want to safely having a lot of difficulty hearing you. | |
| So I'm just going to go to Betty for now. | ||
| Betty is in Alvin, Texas on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Betty. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to say people think it's okay to live in a military state. | ||
| Think of all the rights that they're going to be losing. | ||
| What about January 6th, 2021? | ||
| He said it was a peaceful demonstration. | ||
| He did nothing. | ||
| And he told them to go home. | ||
| And he loved them. | ||
| He is not out to go ahead and keep us safe. | ||
| My opinion, I'm sorry. | ||
| They need to take some of the guns out. | ||
| The reason why I say this, in 2018, my granddaughter's school was shot up. | ||
| Luckily, she was okay. | ||
| And they say it's not the gun that does it, it's the person. | ||
| But if the person didn't have the guns, then we wouldn't have this killing. | ||
| And I'm sick and tired of the Republicans calling us communism, communists. | ||
| I'm 79. | ||
| I've lived through a lot. | ||
| And it just upsets me. | ||
| And people, when Trump was elected and what happened after his election, a lot of people said, this is not what I voted for. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wish people will open up their eyes and ears and look and see what's happening. | |
| This is not right. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| I'm nervous, but it's not right. | ||
| It's not right. | ||
| You have a good day. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Stephen is in Lexington, Kentucky on our line for independence. | ||
| Hello, Stephen. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you for having me and allowing me to speak my opinion. | ||
| I just first want to say that we still need the Jeffrey Epstein files. | ||
| We will never forget about that. | ||
| That is still a conversation to be had, and he will pay for that. | ||
| Second, I do think that when people compare the way that the Nazis took over Germany and the small towns, it kind of does reflect what is going here. | ||
| Excuse me, I just got back from a run. | ||
| So, you know, one day there's arrests in the streets, and then the next day there's cheering parades, and employees are being purged from their labor force, which we're being purged through our governments. | ||
| And then, you know, we're like condemning people for being individualistic and being able to do whatever they want. | ||
| And it's just not right. | ||
| And so Trump bringing in federal troops to towns that have never really even seen federal troops in America, it's kind of wild, you know, like he can't just do whatever he wants, even in the most cartoonish fashion. | ||
| If you think of the most cartoonish dictator or authoritarian, he has a secret military police. | ||
| You know, they suppress the media. | ||
| You know, like they switch government officials. | ||
| It's even in a cartoonish fashion. | ||
| We are living in that. | ||
| So it's very easy to compare that. | ||
| So people are scared. | ||
| And if you're scared of crime, there's crime is not, it's always happening. | ||
| So it's just fear-mongering. | ||
| And you got to remember Epstein files. | ||
| Trump, Epstein files. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Steve is in Tampa, Florida on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Steve. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Kimberly. | |
| Thank you for your fair approach to both sides of the argument. | ||
| I believe that President Trump is using the federalization of the law enforcement in D.C. to try and accomplish what was done in New York with the broken windows concept, where if you don't start with the small crimes, eventually you wind up with the larger crimes. | ||
| I think that it is apparent in D.C. that the largest amount of crime is the minority community against the minority community. | ||
| Judge or district attorney Gene Pirro had a press conference where she showed a chart of over 25 minority murders that were done by the minority community. | ||
| And I think it's time that what President Trump is doing is the right thing. | ||
| I don't think he's going to do it in any other city. | ||
| I think the only time he sent the National Guard to other cities was when any federal buildings were being attacked. | ||
| So I'm looking at a story, Steve, from NPR that relates to what you're discussing here. | ||
| And it says, crime is down in Washington, D.C., but still a reality in some neighborhoods. | ||
| And among what it says in this story, Washington has had some serious violent crime problems, including carjackings. | ||
| For instance, in June 2023, amid a crime surge, there were 140 in the city. | ||
| But the U.S. Justice Department says last year, violent crime in the District of Columbia hit a 30-year low. | ||
| Violent crime in Ward 1 is down nearly 30% this year so far over the same period last year, according to police. | ||
| Across the Anacostia River in Ward 8, where poverty is high, there have been 38 homicides so far this year, nearly five times as in Ward 1. | ||
| And it goes on to give some examples of that and of the higher crime rate in that predominantly black community in one part of D.C. Steve, are you still there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I believe that the D.C. police commissioner was temporarily suspended based on the fact that maybe the information was not correct that was being reported. | |
| I hadn't seen that, but we did reference earlier about a case that was settled out of court about some whistleblower claims about the data coming out of D.C. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I believe his name is Michael Pulliam. | |
| And I believe that recently happened where he was suspended. | ||
| Now, we don't know if the accusations are correct or not, but we don't know if the numbers are correct. | ||
| So I'm just looking here. | ||
| I don't have that specific information, but I do have some news that the DOJ has recently, as of just two days ago, backed away from appointing an emergency D.C. police commissioner. | ||
| And this is that the Department of Justice agreed to back away from appointing a commissioner to take command of Washington, D.C. police after a federal judge expressed concerns Friday. | ||
| Government attorneys said at a hearing that Drug Enforcement Administration head Terry Cole will instead become President Trump's designee to request services from the Metropolitan Police Department under the President's emergency authority invoked this week. | ||
| But I'm not saying that what you're saying isn't true. | ||
| I just couldn't find it quickly. | ||
| But let's go on to William in Triangle, Virginia on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, William. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| When they always talk about crime, they always putting the black face on crime. | ||
| If you could pull up the FBI statistics by race, I think the last report was in 2019, the one I pulled up. | ||
| And just about every category, and there's a long list of category, white men lead in crime in this country. | ||
| And just about every category in I think part 43 or something like that. | ||
| But white men lead in the majority of the crime in this country, and they got a long list of crimes. | ||
| So William, if you'll pause for a moment, I've brought up that FBI chart that you're referencing. | ||
| And yes, the most recent one I could find was from 2019. | ||
| And it lists a variety of crimes. | ||
| This is from the FBI website and breaking the distribution down by race. | ||
| This particular table doesn't have gender, but if you look at murder and non-negligent manslaughter, which is first, the overall numbers are that, let's see, it looks like for white Americans, it was 45.8% for this is the percent distribution of it, which is a little bit different than the percentage of the overall crime. | ||
| It's 51.2% for black Americans. | ||
| And then when it comes to rape, almost 70% of that is white Americans compared to 26% for black Americans for robbery. | ||
| 44% for white Americans compared to 52% for black Americans. | ||
| Assault, 61% compared to 33%. | ||
| But this is the percent distribution. | ||
| It's a complicated chart, but these are the numbers that you're referencing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But the bottom line, they lead in the majority of the majority of crime in the country led by white men. | |
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Am I wrong or right? | |
| I don't have the information in front of me to make this in front of you, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're looking at the information. | |
| Well, as I just said, this isn't broken down by gender, and so I can't specify for white men. | ||
| But let's move on to David, who is in Weedman, Michigan, on our line for independence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Kim. | |
| I'm not in Weedman, Michigan. | ||
| I've never actually heard of that kitty. | ||
| Apologies. | ||
| Where are you calling in from, David? | ||
|
unidentified
|
From Lansing. | |
| Lansing. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you for calling. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| I wanted to thank you for your patience, Kim. | ||
| I can see how you have to deal with things quite often, but I apologize for not being too well spoken. | ||
| In concern of the topic, I have a lot of opinions on what's going on. | ||
| I think most people do, but it's difficult to, it seems difficult to parse out the details of what is currently happening. | ||
| So I just think it's best to try to take an objective take. | ||
| And it's hard to tell if what's happening is possibly one of the most anti-American things I've ever seen, or if it is sort of what's become a taste of our own medicine, I guess. | ||
| And either way, this is it terrifying. | ||
| Thank you for your time, Kim. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Next up is Tom in Elgin, Illinois, on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Tom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'd like to speak directly to the caller that said that Trump is suppressing the press and he calls himself a Democrat, calls in on the Democrat line. | |
| I don't know how you could even make that accusation without hypocrisy of the Democrats suppressing the laptops, suppressing the COVID doctors, using the FBI and the CIA to say that using the government to suppress the press. | ||
| I mean, that's just ridiculous. | ||
| So, as far as crime goes, I live outside the suburbs of Chicago. | ||
| I'm 67 years old. | ||
| I've been driving in to work every morning, listening to the people that get murdered and killed in all these Democrat cities, and nothing gets done about it. | ||
| So, there's a change, and maybe something's getting done about it. | ||
| If you weigh 400 pounds and you lose 100 pounds, nobody cares. | ||
| You're still obese. | ||
| The problem is still huge. | ||
| The crime is still incredibly bad. | ||
| So, any help, the police officer, if you listen to the union heads and you listen to the police officers, they want to help. | ||
| And a lot of times, the reason crime is down now is because people have given up. | ||
| They're not even going with small crimes to report it because they know that there's a problem. | ||
| They're not going to get help. | ||
| And my cousin helped report a crime, and he had the criminal chasing him. | ||
| So, he moved out of Chicago. | ||
| He moved to the suburbs because a criminal was harassing him after he testified against him in court. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Next up is Dale in Columbus, Ohio, on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Dale. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I just want to say I'm just so amazed at these Republicans and everything. | ||
| The reason why, because after January the 6th, there was 1,400 and some people were in there who were trying to destroy the capital, and they did millions of dollars worth of damage and what have you. | ||
| They were out to kill cops. | ||
| They wanted to do everything to them. | ||
| And the destruction of property. | ||
| Not one time Donald Trump ever went to the police officer and said, thank you for what y'all were doing. | ||
| They were supposed to protect us and protect the politicians. | ||
| But yet, people mustn't support this man. | ||
| I mean, and then he turned around and pardoned them. | ||
| It doesn't make any sense. | ||
| When he went to trial on courts and all that crap onto the courts, he told the judges, if you come after me, I'll come after you. | ||
| It's just so amazing. | ||
| And the stuff that he says about grabbing women by their private parts, you know, you don't even want your own daughter to be around this man. | ||
| And he even says it. | ||
| You see him patting Putin's hand and all that stuff, like, but he's the best thing since bread and butter. | ||
| It's just amazing. | ||
| And Putin is known as the enemy. | ||
| Trump said, like when it came down to, you know, his intelligence, he didn't go along with the intelligence. | ||
| And you're president of the United States. | ||
| How can this be? | ||
| And he said, well, I agree with Putin. | ||
| How can so many people go along with this man? | ||
| He has million-dollar dinners. | ||
| And I guess we're not invited. | ||
| And then, if that's not a conflict of interest, what is? | ||
| This man needs to get out of office. | ||
| And like, why are you doing all this now? | ||
| He even said, well, Pelosi had the opportunity to get to the end of the year. | ||
| I'm going to try to get one more caller on this topic. | ||
| Alan is in Mississippi on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Alan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning, and thank you for taking the call. | |
| Hello? | ||
| Yes, go ahead. | ||
| Just make sure the volume on your TV is down and then tell us what you think about President Trump's approach to fighting crime and potentially it expanding to other cities. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, well, of course, the man's doing his very best because he's an American and he puts America first. | |
| Now, it's common sense that you cannot allow 30 million people to come up from the southern and northern borders with only their clothes on their backs and shoes on their feet and not expect crime. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, that is all the time we have for our segment this morning. | ||
| And later on, we're going to hear from the National Coalition from the Homelessness Director Donald Whitehead, who's going to discuss efforts by President Trump to move homeless encampments in D.C. and what the federal government does to provide assistance to those populations. | ||
| But next up, we have author Evan Ivan Elen joining us to discuss his view on the economic and domestic causes behind the foreign conflicts engaged in by the United States. | ||
| We will be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Weekends bring you Book TV featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | |
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| At 8 p.m. Eastern, Stacey Abrams, a one-time Georgia state legislator and gubernatorial candidate, talks with former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden about her latest fictionalized thriller, Coded Justice. | ||
| And then at 9:15 p.m. Eastern, Michael Grinbaum gives an inside look at the glamorous Condi Nast publishing empire, the people who crafted its publications, and the standards they set for American culture with his book, Empire of the Elite. | ||
| And at 10:15 p.m. Eastern, Book TV takes you to Freedom Fest, an annual libertarian festival held this year in Palm Springs, California, to hear three authors discuss their works. | ||
| We'll talk with Wrong Speak Publishing founder Adam Coleman, attorney Kent HeckenLively, and computer information technologist Sean Worthington. | ||
| Watch Book TV every weekend on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| In our earlier discussion with Zakir Tamiz about his full biography of Charles Sumner, he discussed his differences with Professor David Herbert Donald on the same subject. | ||
| On December the 24th, 1995, Professor Donald talked about his book called Lincoln on the television program BookNotes. | ||
| David Donald died in 2009 at age 88. | ||
| During his teaching career, which he finished as a professor of history at Harvard, Professor Donald was praised for his Lincoln book by historian Eric Foner. | ||
| Quote, it is often considered the best single volume of Lincoln ever. | ||
| It's the most balanced of the biographies out there, said Foner. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We discuss author David Herbert Donald and his book Lincoln on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | |
| BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We're joined now by Ivan Eland, who's author of the book Domestic Causes of American Wars, Economic and Political Triggers, here to discuss his view of the economic and domestic causes behind foreign conflicts engaged in by the United States. | ||
| Welcome, Mr. Eland. | ||
| Thanks for having me on, Kimberly. | ||
| Now, before we get into your book, what do you do when you're not working on projects like this? | ||
| Well, I work for a research institute in California called the Independent Institute, and we do various types of research. | ||
| I'm in charge of the director of the Center on Peace and Liberty, which links war with our domestic liberties at home. | ||
| And that's one of the reasons I got into this issue in the first place. | ||
| Tell me more about that. | ||
| When did you first make this connection between the conflicts engaged in the United States that the United States engages in abroad with more domestic issues that might appear on the surface a bit unrelated? | ||
| Well, you just look over U.S. history and warfare has so many domestic, requires so many domestic changes, especially when you get into the bigger wars like World War I and World War II. | ||
| It really changes U.S. society. | ||
| And this is one of the big problems with the executive wars that we have, the presidential wars, and I assume we're going to discuss that later, that these wars create big government, not only in the defense area, but at home, because the war has such drastic effects on the domestic economy. | ||
| And it doesn't even take a big war to do that. | ||
| But one example of that is our health care system, which is very inefficient because it depends on your health care being delivered by your job instead of you just buying it yourself. | ||
| And that happened during World War II. | ||
| And I won't go into the details. | ||
| And another mundane example is Daylight Savings Time. | ||
| It was designed to save energy during World War I. | ||
| So these are examples of domestic things that happen. | ||
| Now, those developments are not drastic, but we've also had a drastic increase in executive power over time. | ||
| So war leads to increased executive power, which leads to more war because now Congress has not declared war since World War II. | ||
| And we've had wars since then, which the book covers. | ||
| You've touched on a lot of things that I want to get back to, but this fundamental premise that for the vast majority of wars that the United States has engaged in, domestic and foreign, you argue that they were avoidable, including potentially the Revolutionary War or the Civil War, that they had other options other than the way that we pursued them. | ||
| Well, I think there are always other options. | ||
| And unfortunately, we sometimes get dragged into wars because if you look over US history, you'll find, and you have to dig a bit to get to this, that strangely, wars either start or stop around domestic elections, which indicate that there's a political cost sometimes to wars, but more frequently, | ||
| there's benefits from executives going to war. | ||
| And that's why the founders really put the war power in the Congress. | ||
| And Congress has to get back to declaring war or at least approving these wars. | ||
| And the global war on terror was expanded by Bush and Obama and following presidents way, way past the congressional resolution. | ||
| I think Congress really has to wake up. | ||
| We have to have some reforms of Congress. | ||
| Congress is the weakest branch of government. | ||
| It was supposed to be the strongest branch when the founders founded the country. | ||
| And the president and the courts were just supposed to act as a constraint on what they thought would be a dominant Congress. | ||
| But since the Spanish-American War for the last century and a quarter, basically, we've seen growing executive power. | ||
| And a lot of this comes from the wars that we fought. | ||
| And of course, then the big government that came from the wars gives the president even more power. | ||
| 99% of all federal employees work for the executive branch. | ||
| And the Congress has been, the checks and balances that we have in our system are supposed to guarantee the people's rights and the people's freedoms. | ||
| But these have been severely eroded by the fact that the Congress has been weakened compared to the president. | ||
| And this started as a result of war, as Arthur Schlesinger mentioned in his book in the Imperial Presidency in the 70s. | ||
| And then he also said this can affect domestic issues. | ||
| And I would say I would go even further than that and say, you know, it really has changed our domestic society. | ||
| So the progression is we have a war, increased executive power, and then we have executive, you know, the president becomes so powerful that we don't declare war anymore. | ||
| And even when Congress approves it, as in the two Gulf Wars, the president says, well, I'm just doing this as a courtesy. | ||
| And when the written Constitution says the Congress will declare war. | ||
| I want to read an excerpt from your book where you say, since the middle of the 20th century, Americans have fought major wars to support the U.S.'s great power hegemony and have built a permanent peacetime defense industry, military-industrial congressional complex, to supply a large standing military for the sole use of the commander-in-chief. | ||
| The need to feed and maintain this complex has also been a leading cause of expensive, otherwise unnecessary war. | ||
| A big theme of your book is the economic interests that are often driving conflict. | ||
| Can you expand a bit more on that idea, particularly in some of the more recent conflicts in which we've engaged? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Originally, and throughout U.S. history up until World War II, we didn't really have a dedicated defense industry. | ||
| When we wanted to go to war, we made the implements of the war in civilian factories, and then the production went back to civilian factories after the war. | ||
| World War II was on such a grand scale that we had to have the defense industry spread from the cities to the suburbs to the exurbs to even to rural areas. | ||
| And after the war, the cities were more versatile and could respond with their own economic development after the war. | ||
| But some of the more remote areas said, well, you know, we have this, we need to keep producing defense spending or defense articles, or we won't have our economy will go into a recession or whatever. | ||
| So that's when in Korea, we never. | ||
| The industrial base was still around from World War II. | ||
| And then we got a large standing peacetime army. | ||
| For the first time in U.S. history, it was in 1953 when peace resumed, but the army and the military really didn't shrink back to where it had been before because both the defense industry and the military would shrink after wars. | ||
| And so during the Cold War, we had a permanent, large standing military, which then required this huge military industrial base. | ||
| Then the military industrial base started making it and giving it an incentive that a lot of the country's counties and whatever were dependent on this defense spending, even when there was no war. | ||
| And so, but of course, they needed to keep the defense budgets high. | ||
| And that allowed the president to have a big military at his own, you know, for his own use. | ||
| And therefore, the Congress was, the Congress in the beginning of the Republic, they didn't want to give George Washington a large standing army. | ||
| He had one brigade. | ||
| The Indians massacred that. | ||
| So they gave him two brigades and the Indians massacred that. | ||
| And then gave him four brigades. | ||
| And they finally overcame the Native American populations in the Ohio River region. | ||
| So the original Congress was very leery of giving the president a standing military where he could use, and they were afraid he would use it against the domestic population the way the kings in Europe had done. | ||
| And so they were very, very, very anti-militaristic, actually, I would say. | ||
| Through that lens, how would you assess the president's deployment of the D.C. National Guard here in D.C., as well as several governors sending their own National Guard troops into the city? | ||
| Well, they have more leeway in the district than they would, say, if they went into Chicago or Los Angeles, because the federal government can run the district if it has to by the Constitution. | ||
| However, that doesn't make using the military like that. | ||
| First of all, it's not necessary. | ||
| The crime rates have gone down in the district recently. | ||
| There's no national emergency or anything like that. | ||
| And that's one area. | ||
| We have all sorts of national emergencies that the president can declare that have been built into various laws over time. | ||
| And I think that's a real problem. | ||
| Now, we have a posse comitatus law, which is a fancy way of saying that the military is not supposed to be used for law enforcement unless under certain extreme circumstances. | ||
| And they have to, supposedly, they have to, those extreme circumstances would require the invocation of the Insurrection Act as an exemption to the Posse Comitatus Act. | ||
| So they could use it for law enforcement in those limited situations. | ||
| However, there's really no emergency in DC. | ||
| And one gets the feeling that they're using this as a way to flex power. | ||
| And this is, I think it's very alarming, actually. | ||
| Looking to the president's foreign policy during a recent trip to Scotland, President Trump highlighted his recent attempts to bring peace to the world. | ||
| Let's listen. | ||
| If I weren't around, you'd have right now six major wars going on. | ||
| India would be fighting with Pakistan. | ||
| You see what we just did yesterday with two nations that we're trading with. | ||
| And during the trade, I said, I'm not going to do any trade deal unless you guys settle your differences. | ||
| And we got it settled in 24 hours. | ||
| I mean, they just announced it was settled, which is a tremendous thing. | ||
| But Serbia, Kosovo is another one. | ||
| We have many hotspots that were at war. | ||
| I think a very big one was India and Pakistan, because you're talking about two nuclear nations. | ||
| That was a very big one. | ||
| And we get help from the UK, the prime minister's help. | ||
| We have cases where we specifically need the help because somebody comes from here that you're aware of. | ||
| And, you know, when you come from a country, you can do things. | ||
| And why call up the prime minister and all of a sudden he's able to do things? | ||
| True also with other presidents and prime ministers. | ||
| But we've done it. | ||
| Nobody's ever done what we've done. | ||
| Ivan Eland, the president has repeatedly said that he doesn't want to engage in conflicts with other countries. | ||
| And we heard him there just saying that he's actually caused several conflicts not to happen. | ||
| How do you assess his performance in that regard and how well he's held up to that promise of lack of engagement in foreign conflicts? | ||
| Well, I think, you know, he's kind of got a mixed record because he does, I think, you know, that the public, first of all, doesn't want any more forever wars like we had in Afghanistan and Iraq. | ||
| And that's a good thing because those wars got way out of hand. | ||
| 20 years in Afghanistan, 11 years and well, I guess, yeah, eight years in Iraq plus. | ||
| Well, you count, you know, just ongoing activities is longer than that. | ||
| But anyway, we've had long wars, and I think the people, he properly senses that the people don't want that anymore. | ||
| So what he's done is, but he has taken military action. | ||
| He just took military action against Iran on their nuclear program, and it's likely to be counterproductive. | ||
| He also assassinated the number two person in Iran during his first administration. | ||
| And he's also, I would point out, threatened Greenland and Panama with military action if they don't do what he wants. | ||
| Like, you know, if Greenland doesn't become a part of the United States and Panama doesn't give their canal back to us. | ||
| So he's got a mixed record. | ||
| I think he, the one thing he has done is he's brought less interventionism to the Republican Party because there's still a wing of the Republican Party, which was the dominant wing of neoconservatives. | ||
| And they were, I think, partly responsible for all these wars. | ||
| And I think he has laudably, at least rhetorically, said we don't want to do that anymore. | ||
| And I think he's sensing the public tiring of these wars. | ||
| And I go over the war on terror, the Afghan war, and the two Iraq wars in my book. | ||
| And these are, you know, people are just fatigued with these things and they don't know why we're doing them. | ||
| And the public is absolutely right on that. | ||
| And if he does stay out of major wars, that's a good thing. | ||
| It's not a good thing to bomb Iran for no reason or to assassinate their leaders, but it's better than quagmire, ground quagmire. | ||
| So on the foreign policy, he has a mixed record, I think. | ||
| We're going to be taking your calls for Ivan Eland, who is the author of the new book, How, excuse me, Domestic Causes of American Wars, Economics and Political Triggers. | ||
| And our number for Republicans is 202-748-8001. | ||
| For Democrats, 202748-8000. | ||
| And for independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| Before we get to the calls, Mr. Eland, I wanted to ask you about the President's meeting this weekend with Russian President Vladimir Putin. | ||
| In looking at the Russia-U-Ukraine conflict, you cite anti-communist rhetoric as a driver of U.S. involvement. | ||
| Can you elaborate on that and give your thoughts on what we know so far of the summit this weekend? | ||
| Well, I'm not saying that anti-communist rhetoric did it in this case. | ||
| During the Cold War, domestic anti-communism caused several wars and overreaction in Vietnam and in Korea and those types and also the Cuban Missile Crisis. | ||
| But in this particular summit, I think it was advised to do it because I think Putin got a win, a diplomatic win, when he didn't really have to do anything. | ||
| And I don't think he's going to give up the war. | ||
| And I think Trump will probably end up washing his hands of the matter, saying, well, you know, I tried doing this. | ||
| But the problem that you have here is not basically that the U.S. was on one side of the war, Ukraine, and now Trump is trying to mediate between the two sides. | ||
| So while we're still aiding Ukraine, so now I think that in the long term, we should have a better relationship with Russia, but I don't think we can do that until Putin settles this war one way or another. | ||
| And Ukraine may have to accept some territorial losses as Trump was, you know, as Trump has alluded to. | ||
| But this summit probably didn't do much and probably gave Putin a win. | ||
| And I think you have to be realistic about Putin. | ||
| He doesn't think Ukraine should exist. | ||
| I mean, he has the advantage of attrition. | ||
| The longer the war goes, if the U.S. doesn't, you know, or Europeans don't supply weapons. | ||
| And I think Trump did do a good thing by suspending direct aid and selling the weapons to the Europeans. | ||
| Europeans are plenty wealthy, and they have a much bigger GDP than Russia, and they should take over more European security. | ||
| And I think it was a good idea for Trump to sell the weapons to them and let the Europeans give them to Ukraine. | ||
| But that doesn't really solve the war. | ||
| And I'm very pessimistic that the war is going to be solved until one side or the other thinks it can't do better with fighting than with negotiating. | ||
| Once again, we're chatting with Ivan Eland, who is the author of Domestic Causes of American Wars, Economic and Political Triggers. | ||
| Let's hear from Jay in La Plata, Maryland, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Jay. | ||
| What's your question? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning, everybody. | |
| So, yeah, I want to reiterate some of the things that the researcher there, I'm sorry, Ivan Eland. | ||
| Yeah, I don't, yeah, he's done a good job. | ||
| And it sounds interesting what he's working on. | ||
| I just want to reiterate about the example of something that I don't think it was mentioned, but I had this call in, so I missed some of the discussion. | ||
| But I did hear about his Trump's record on war. | ||
| First of all, of course, in April 2016, you know, why can't we use nuclear weapons? | ||
| Now, recently that's changed, of course. | ||
| Recently, he said we should get rid of them. | ||
| So that's a good trend. | ||
| Anyway, but back to the germ strikes started under Bush. | ||
| Actually, it may have started earlier than that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But anyway, Bush and Obama did the drone strikes. | ||
| When those were happening, the Defense Department often mentioned those, told the press, yeah, we did a strike over here. | ||
| Sometimes, of course, the answer would be, we can't give you details for national security reasons. | ||
| We don't want to compromise our sources and things. | ||
| Yeah, we hit, we killed three civilians. | ||
| Unfortunately, we had to hit a house. | ||
| There were 18, I mean, we killed two or three terrorists. | ||
| There were 18 civilians or 10 or whatever in the house that, you know, collateral damage. | ||
| Under Trump, that was stopped. | ||
| Reporting. | ||
| Defense Department wouldn't report. | ||
| He demanded they don't report those anymore. | ||
| So they went up because I heard essential insiders, whistleblowers in various media settings said, yeah, it's gone up. | ||
| And so, of course, that means collateral damage increased. | ||
| So anyway. | ||
| Jay, what exactly are you asking Mr. Elen to respond to? | ||
|
unidentified
|
If he has, if he says he agrees with that or not, and also the fact that Trump is continuing what Bush, Obama, all the presidents have done recently about modernizing the nuclear weapons and launchers. | |
| We don't really need those, Secretary of Defense, Former Secretary. | ||
| So let's go ahead and let Mr. Elen respond to some of these points you've raised. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Yes, I mean, it is a good point that the global war on terror keeps going. | ||
| just goes underground and uh sit uh when we plank uh plank these uh terrorists here and there uh you can't you can rarely i wrote a book on counterinsurgency warfare the failure of it and And counterterrorism is sort of a division of that. | ||
| And you can rarely kill your way out of an insurgency or a terrorist problem. | ||
| There's underlying clauses, and you have to address them. | ||
| And the case of Hamas and Gaza is a classic case of where they're not going to be able to do what they think they are, that is the Israelis, and U.S. support of it. | ||
| Now, as far as Trump continuing on with that, the drone wars is true. | ||
| We're still doing that. | ||
| And I think we're creating more terrorists than we're killing. | ||
| And Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, once said that. | ||
| And although he was an architect of creating more terrorism himself, I actually talked to him a couple of times before the Iraq war, and he was oblivious to the fact that. | ||
| But as far as Trump goes, I think he has used blustery rhetoric in the nuclear area, and that's very dangerous. | ||
| And maybe he's not going to do that anymore, hopefully. | ||
| But you never know. | ||
| I mean, he's very unpredictable. | ||
| And the problem is he talks restraint, but then he'll go and he'll threaten some realists, going back to the 19th century imperialist by threatening Greenland Panama. | ||
| And then he economically threatened Canada. | ||
| So, I mean, this is sort of a schizophrenic state to be in. | ||
| And so it's, and it creates a lot of uncertainty, just as he does in the economic era area. | ||
| He's doing the same thing in foreign policy as well. | ||
| Frank is in Annapolis, Maryland, on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Frank. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Can you make sure to turn down the volume on your TV and then go ahead with your question for Ivan Eland? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Ivan, this is your brother-in-law, Frank. | ||
| I was wondering what your take is on. | ||
| Frank, we need you to turn down the volume on your TV before you finish your question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| What your take is on the Civil War, how that could have been prevented. | ||
| Yeah, that's a good question. | ||
| I think, you know, most Lincoln is always praised, probably excessively so, for freeing the slaves, which the war did initially formally. | ||
| But of course, then there was 100 years of Jim Crow segregation and that sort of thing afterwards. | ||
| Most countries, if you look internationally, we don't look so good. | ||
| And Lincoln, you know, maybe didn't do the right thing. | ||
| And that is they did compensated emancipation, which sounds bad, giving money to slaveholders to get rid of their slaves or free their slaves. | ||
| But it's better than the huge cost of the war and the bitterness that it costs. | ||
| And so, you know, he didn't make any attempt to do that. | ||
| And the reason he didn't is because his original aim in the war was not to free slaves. | ||
| He famously told Horace Greeley, I'll free some slaves if I have to, I'll free all slaves if I have to, I'll free none of the slaves if I have to to save the Union. | ||
| That was his initial goal. | ||
| So he didn't do that before the war. | ||
| Now, he eventually got around to a limited thing with the border states during the war. | ||
| But it was far too late then. | ||
| And certainly the Confederacy wouldn't have supported it after the shooting started. | ||
| And the Confederates started the war. | ||
| But Lincoln, most historians I think would agree with this, really provoked the attack because he told the Confederates, the Carolinian governor, that he was going to resupply the fort. | ||
| And that's what happened. | ||
| He could have, his military advisors were telling him, get out of Fort Sumter. | ||
| And he didn't do that. | ||
| And that would have bought him more time to negotiate. | ||
| So I think Lincoln is, you know, he can't judge it just because of the outcome of the formally freeing the slaves because it's much more complex than that. | ||
| And in my mind, African Americans had another century of, you know, neo-slavery. | ||
| And I think that, you know, that's a blunt talk, but that's what it was. | ||
| And I think that, you know, war is rarely a good solution. | ||
| And Lincoln thought he could win this war pretty easily. | ||
| And he, you know, lots of leaders have made the same mistake that, oh, we're just going to go in there and we're going to overawe them. | ||
| And that didn't happen. | ||
| You have four years of bloody war. | ||
| And compensated emancipation, I think they should have at least tried it. | ||
| Maybe it wouldn't have worked. | ||
| Maybe the South would have been refused to do it because they were adamant that their way of life depended on this horrendous practice of slavery. | ||
| But they didn't try it. | ||
| So I think even in our the book goes into the Civil War and World War II. | ||
| These are our icon wars. | ||
| Actually, Mr. Eland, if I can ask you a little more complex than specific about the Civil War, in particular, as you lay it out in your book on that economic argument about compensating southern slaveholders, you actually lay out what it would have cost to compensate the slaveholders versus what the actual cost of the war was, as well as how other countries handled compensating slave owners as a way to move out of the system. | ||
| Can you talk about the sort of breakdown of that? | ||
| Well, it would have cost a lot of money to compensate the slave owners, but it would cost even greater amounts of lives. | ||
| It was Civil War. | ||
| We lost 750,000 Americans, and that's about double what we lost in World War II, which was much, that was a global war. | ||
| So the Civil War was very traumatic for the South. | ||
| Most of it happened in the South. | ||
| Excuse me. | ||
| And I'm not condoning slavery or slave owners, but they were bitter. | ||
| And for a while, for a few years, the military occupation of the South Black rights did improve. | ||
| They've got the vote and that sort of thing. | ||
| But then, of course, the Democratic governments came back in after the Republicans and the military left or were forced out. | ||
| And so they created all the system that was like slavery only wasn't formally slavery because they couldn't do that. | ||
| But so the bitterness of the war, we're still arguing over Confederate monuments. | ||
| I'm not sure why they want to name military bases after people that the U.S. Army fought, but it's very bizarre. | ||
| But anyway, we're still fighting the Civil War today in a rhetorical sense. | ||
| And so, but if you look at the costs in compensation are very much lower than the cost of the war. | ||
| The war was horrendous, horrendously costly in lives. | ||
| And 40,000 black soldiers fought on the Union side. | ||
| And, well, more than that, it was over 100,000, but the 40,000 died. | ||
| And they died in heavier casualties than the white soldiers in the Northern Army. | ||
| So there's both monetary costs and people dying, which is even worse. | ||
| Chuck is in Detroit, Michigan on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Chuck. | ||
| Chuck, go ahead with your question for Ivan Eland. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, yeah. | |
| I thought I was calling about foreign wars. | ||
| Now we're talking about civil war. | ||
| What happened? | ||
| Well, the book covers both of them, but mainly the economic and other interests that drive wars that are often presented from a moral or nation-saving capacity. | ||
| But please go ahead with your question, even if it's about foreign wars. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I don't have a statement. | |
| You know, my only thing is that concerning the closed-door meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, | ||
| I think that what happened during that closed-door meeting was Donald Trump was getting a one-on-one lesson from Vladimir Putin about how to create authoritarian government. | ||
| What do you think of that, Mr. Eland? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, yeah, that may be true. | |
| I mean, he certainly is the prototype of that. | ||
| And I think, unfortunately, Trump is mesmerized by the guy, and I think excessively so. | ||
| And he really ought to have better prepared summits. | ||
| First of all, this was a very unusual summit because in most cases, with summits, they're very carefully prepared and negotiated a treaty or some big accomplishment. | ||
| And the two leaders just get together and have a few tea and crumpets and sign the thing and shake hands, right? | ||
| And the staff does most of the work. | ||
| Well, the problem is Putin has much vaster knowledge of history than Trump does. | ||
| And it's warped history in my mind because, you know, he should have to deal with an independent Ukraine, frankly, because it's not part of Russia anymore and needs to get over it, but he's not getting over it. | ||
| And he is, I think, sort of Trump has some authoritarian tendencies and it only reinforces them because he's certainly a pussycat around Putin where he's a tiger with everybody else. | ||
| So there's something to what the caller is saying. | ||
| And, you know, these slapdash summits usually end in disaster as the one with North Korea did in its first term. | ||
| So I think he needs, and I said this at the time on Fox News, he needs to have better preparation and he needs to have people in the room. | ||
| I guess they did, Marco Rubio must have insisted that he be in the room because they were going to have a one-on-one meeting. | ||
| And I think they're a little scared of that, Putin mesmerizing Trump again. | ||
| So at least Marco Rubio was in the room for the summit. | ||
| But I'm not sure what it gained. | ||
| It was just theater. | ||
| And maybe that's what the purpose of it was in the first place. | ||
| Certainly for Putin and maybe for Trump as well. | ||
| Jamie is in Southern Maryland on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Jamie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I want to tell the guests that I really appreciate his take on things. | ||
| I think he's a very honest and balanced individual. | ||
| So a question that I have for you, and I want to see if you can help those that don't understand, if you could connect the dots between slavery, the Jim Crow South, or the Jim Crow era, the civil rights era, if you could connect those dots and bring it all the way up to today and what we see and crime rates and what folks talk about as the minority and crime in the minority community. | ||
| If you could connect the dots to help those folks understand that that's still all a part of racism. | ||
| And one last question, if you could, what would you think is the answer to today and what America owes those that are the descendants of slavery, whether it's education or what could be corrective means to like reparations and whatnot? | ||
| Well, I think, you know, what happened after the war was, as I said, we had the few years where the Union Army was down in the South occupying. | ||
| Now, it wasn't a huge army, but it kept the peace and, you know, suppressed the original KKK. | ||
| It didn't suppress at all, obviously. | ||
| But then after they left, you almost had a worse situation in some respects. | ||
| You didn't have the formal slavery, the informal slavery, and then later Jim Crow. | ||
| But you also had a resurgence of white terrorists to terrorizing the African Americans, and their rights evaporated. | ||
| The Democratic governments of the South at the time started repressing the African American right to vote. | ||
| And so, and actually, the South had more representation. | ||
| It's very complicated, but they got more, they lost the war, but they won the peace. | ||
| The South basically lost the war and won the peace. | ||
| And that was a real problem. | ||
| So we had Jim Crow up and right up until the Probably the 1970s because the civil war, the civil rights movement kicked in in the 60s, but it took a while for all that to school desegregation, whatever. | ||
| And of course, the civil wars, as I mentioned before, the civil wars had is still continuing to have effects on our society. | ||
| You know, you mentioned crime rates, poverty, etc. | ||
| And so these wars are long-lasting. | ||
| And the Civil War probably probably had the most long-lasting effects on the domestic scene, simply because it was a huge war and it was a domestic war. | ||
| But the same applies to foreign wars as well. | ||
| They have tremendous effects here at home. | ||
| For instance, the war on terror that we just, well, was still continuing, but we still have all these civil liberties erosions that were put in by the Bush administration. | ||
| Civilians, warrantless civilian surveillance, illegal. | ||
| We had military commissions, which are unconstitutional. | ||
| We had stripping of habeas corpus from terrorism suspects. | ||
| Everybody needs a fair trial. | ||
| And people who say, well, terrorists don't need a fair trial. | ||
| Everybody needs a fair trial. | ||
| That's our system. | ||
| And then the final one was torture. | ||
| They illegally and internationally violating international and domestic law. | ||
| And no one was ever held accountable really for those types of things. | ||
| That's just in World War I, World War II. | ||
| We had the Japanese internment in World War II. | ||
| We had suppression of free speech during World War I. Go clear back to the quasi-war, we had the Alien and Sedition Act. | ||
| The Alien Act, I think, is still in the books. | ||
| They used it politically to go after their opponents. | ||
| And this is what happens when you have war. | ||
| These things, there's a kernel of why they're doing it, but it's overdone and it's used for political purposes. | ||
| Another question from Sue in Whitey, New Jersey. | ||
| Does the economics of the outcome factor into making decisions about whose side we take in a war and conflict of other countries? | ||
| Well, I think, you know, we don't have an alliance with African countries. | ||
| We have an alliance with North Atlantic countries and NATO. | ||
| So we want to, our policy, and we have an alliance with Japan, South Korea, all these are developed countries. | ||
| Now, you could say, well, they're democracies, but they weren't when we got the, some of them weren't, at least when we became alliance members. | ||
| So I think, yes, our economic interests do have an interest. | ||
| And our whole policy in Latin America was based on American interest down in the, you know, that's where we came up with the Banana Republic slur for Latin American countries was our overweening policy for years under the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America. | ||
| So yes, economics, and then we mentioned the military-industrial complex, and there is a military-industrial complex because I worked for 16 years in Congress on investigating defense and foreign policy-related items. | ||
| And there's definitely a military-industrial complex, and it pushes up defense budgets. | ||
| And I say it pushes also pushes us to war in a lot of cases for economic reasons. | ||
| Kevin is in Washington, D.C. on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Kevin. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I listened to the Ron Paul Blueprint for Peace conference online yesterday. | ||
| And they had Jeff Sachs on, who talked about the plan for seven wars in seven years after 9-11. | ||
| And Iran is the last one. | ||
| He said that would be the hardest, that would be the biggest disaster. | ||
| And Boris Johnson torpedoed the Ukraine, Russia, and the war discussions two years ago. | ||
| He told them they couldn't end the war two years ago. | ||
| So similar to the Japanese trying to sue for terms for peace, and the United States said, no, you have to do unconditional surrender. | ||
| So there's the arms makers are making a ton of money. | ||
| We should listen to people like Jeffrey Sachs from Columbia University, who's been right on almost all the issues on war and peace. | ||
| And Ron Paul, of course, is a libertarian hero. | ||
| And Lindy Graham is. | ||
| So, Kevin, we're just about out of time for this segment, so I want to make sure we give our guest a chance to respond. | ||
| Go ahead, Mr. Eland. | ||
| Well, yes, I'd like to address one. | ||
| There's a lot there, but I'd like to address one point in particular. | ||
| After 9-11, Bush wanted increased authority within the United States. | ||
| And the Congress, Tom Dashel, who is a Democratic leader, refused to do that. | ||
| Well, they didn't give him any authority. | ||
| They gave him authority only to hit the perpetrators of 9-11 and the people who harbored them. | ||
| That would have been Al-Qaeda and Taliban. | ||
| But he went far beyond that. | ||
| He says we're going to do a war on, global war on terrorists of global reach. | ||
| Well, who gave him authority to do that? | ||
| Nobody did. | ||
| And he deliberately, it's even worse than the Vietnam War, where the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which authorized the war, was very vague. | ||
| This was very specific. | ||
| And the Congress, who has been weak, let him do it. | ||
| And I think that's the key to this whole thing. | ||
| If you want a solution, strengthen Congress, bring back the checks and balances that we have, and stop executive wars on their own. | ||
| We have to get, you should be getting approval for any military action. | ||
| And we don't need to be out planking terrorists in all these wars, which the caller just mentioned were done after their series. | ||
| This is actually the global war on terror is a series of wars against other countries or groups within other countries that were totally unauthorized. | ||
| Now then, your book throughout argues that many of these wars that we have these big grand narratives about often have more economic or even behind-the-scenes interests. | ||
| What do you think that means for the story that we tell ourselves as a country, as well as even the narratives that our veterans might have about them? | ||
| Well, you can understand that veterans, unless they're bitter about the Vietnam War, the Afghan War, the Iraq War, they need to, they participate in these wars, risk their lives. | ||
| You can understand why they want a narrative that they're actually accomplishing something. | ||
| It's pretty hard in Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq to come up with that. | ||
| And a lot of the veterans are probably disillusioned by some of that. | ||
| But even the wars that are heroic, I think we have to be careful because we get swept up in the military triumph. | ||
| Like, here's an example. | ||
| The first Gulf War was a tactical smashing victory for the U.S. | ||
| But that war, getting involved in that, led to the invasion of Iraq later. | ||
| It led to the war on terror because bin Laden got mad that we kept occupying what he said occupying Saudi Arabia when our troops didn't leave after the first Gulf War. | ||
| So I would say it's a strategic defeat for the U.S. in the long term, but it seemed like a triumphant victory with precision weapons flying through windows and that sort of thing. | ||
| So I think we have to be careful of the glorious narrative of war because there's a lot of, and the biggest thing, and the reason I wrote this book is the domestic causes and the domestic effects of war, they're the biggest effects. | ||
| It erodes our republic. | ||
| It's eroded our checks and balances to where the executive is so powerful. | ||
| And this started back at the Spanish-American War, 125 years ago. | ||
| And particularly after World War II, we got, I would say, that Harry Truman's the first imperial president. | ||
| And certainly Trump has accelerated this trend. | ||
| But Trump is not the only problem. | ||
| The problem is more structural. | ||
| We have to get the congressional power, the treaty power back, the budgetary power back, and most of all, the war power back so that Congress declares war, which is right in the Constitution. | ||
| And we have lawyers who are saying, oh, no, the president has a unitary executive theory and the Supreme Court seems to go along with this. | ||
| But I don't know where they're reading that in the Constitution. | ||
| And they need to, the lawyers start, the lawyers need to start reading U.S. history and how we got to here because the founders wanted a republic that was not militaristic, like the wars that the kings took their people to and then charged them high taxes and dracooned them into serving the army and got killed. | ||
| They don't want that. | ||
| And we have intrinsic security here like no other great power has ever had. | ||
| We have two large ocean moats. | ||
| We have friendly neighbors. | ||
| And we also have nuclear weapons after 1945. | ||
| So if anyone attacks us or invades us in a significant way, they know they're going to get robbered if we're hinting. | ||
| I think we have excellent security without being the world's policeman. | ||
| Thank you so much, Ivan Eland, who's the author of the book, Domestic Causes of American Wars, Economic and Political Triggers. | ||
| Thank you so much for joining us, Mr. Eland. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Now, next up, we're going to have a discussion on homelessness in the United States as President Trump attempts to move many of those without housing out of the DC area. | ||
| We'll be joined by National Coalition for the Homeless Executive Director Donald Whitehead joining us next. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
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Past president, why are you doing this? | |
| This is outrageous. | ||
| This is a kangaroo chorus. | ||
| This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity, ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Join political playbook, chief correspondent, and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground. | ||
| ceasefire this fall on the network that doesn't take sides only on c-span this august tune in to c-span for highlights of our america 250 coverage Join us as we continue to explore the American story through the voices, sites, and stories that shaped it. | ||
| Give me liberty or give me death. | ||
| On Monday, we'll feature the reenactment of Patrick Henry's Give Me Liberty speech from its original location at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. | ||
| Watch C-SPAN's America 250 highlights beginning Monday at 9 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| Tonight on C-SPAN's Q&A, sports journalist Jane McManus, author of The Fast Track, discusses the rise in popularity of women's sports since the early 1970s and the challenges female athletes have faced since then. | ||
| including unequal pay and lack of media coverage. | ||
| What you do have now are women who see themselves as athletes first, and they aren't looking to be pleasing to anyone else. | ||
| And I think that is where things have changed quite a bit. | ||
| They see, today's athletes see sports as their birthright, not just their brothers. | ||
| And I think honestly, their brothers would say the same thing for the most part. | ||
|
unidentified
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Jane McManus with her book, The Fast Track, tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A and all of our podcasts on the C-SPAN Now app or wherever you get your podcasts. | |
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We're joined now by Donald Whitehead, who's the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, here to discuss the president's efforts to reduce homeless encampments in the city of Washington, D.C. and other issues around homelessness. | ||
| Welcome to Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for having me. | |
| Can you tell us about the National Coalition for the Homeless, what kind of organization you all are, and how you're funded? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So we're an advocacy organization. | |
| We are actually the oldest advocacy organization that works directly with and on behalf of people experiencing homelessness. | ||
| We started with discussions in the late 70s. | ||
| We were incorporated in New York in the early 80s. | ||
| We actually were part of and really a significant part of winning the right to shelter in New York. | ||
| We went on to work with Congress to draft and pass the McKinney-Vento Act. | ||
| The importance of that is that was 1987. | ||
| It's still the principal source of funding for homeless programs. | ||
| So we still have a lot of work to do. | ||
| We work on a lot of other things. | ||
| We work on advocacy. | ||
| We work with members of Congress, local officials to help draft legislation, help pass policies, help pass funding initiatives to help address homelessness. | ||
| But we also work directly with people experiencing homelessness, which is very different than many of the national organizations. | ||
| So we help to develop leadership through something called the Lived Experience Training Academy, or LIDA for short. | ||
| We use the opportunity to provide technical assistance with the federal government, agencies like CDC and HUD in partnership. | ||
| We work with those groups to provide expertise from people who have actually experienced homelessness on how to develop policy. | ||
| We think it's incredibly important that people who have been a part of the issue, who have experienced the issue, are at the leadership when it comes to developing policy and procedures. | ||
| We also have a speakers bureau, national speakers bureau, people from around the country who are willing. | ||
| We help them to tell their stories so people can see how diverse the population is, how the stories start a lot sooner than people think. | ||
| It doesn't start when people hit the street. | ||
| In some cases, it starts earlier. | ||
| And finally, the funding. | ||
| Most of our funding, we don't get any federal, we don't get any government funds. | ||
| Our funding comes through partnerships with corporations. | ||
| We also partner with philanthropic organizations. | ||
| We do have grants that we get from really amazing partners and private donations. | ||
| People spend their money because they know we're going to have good outcomes. | ||
| The president, one of the outcomes he's trying to get as part of his overall efforts to address crime in D.C., has also targeted homeless encampments in particular. | ||
| And I want to play a clip of White House Press Secretary highlighting the plan for the homeless encampments in particular. | ||
| She made these comments last week. | ||
| The Metropolitan Police Department, with the support of the new federal agencies who have been surging on the streets of the District of Columbia, are going to enforce the laws that are already on the books here in Washington, D.C. For far too long, these laws have been completely ignored, and the homelessness problem has ravaged the city. | ||
| So D.C. Code 221307 and D.C. Municipal Regulation 24100 give the Metropolitan Police Department the authority to take action when it comes to homeless encampments. | ||
| So homeless individuals will be given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services, and if they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time. | ||
| What do you think of the president's efforts in this regard and the strategy that they're using to address this issue? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I would say that it is terrible what's happening with the president, both from the aspect of the dialogue that he's using to demonize people. | |
| Secondly, a carceral approach or arresting, fining, or jailing people does not help with homelessness. | ||
| It actually has the opposite effect. | ||
| So, first of all, homelessness is not a crime. | ||
| So, the mere fact that someone doesn't have enough money to pay their rent, and we know people all over this country are not able to pay their rent because rent has risen so dramatically in our country. | ||
| We also know that everybody doesn't have a mental health or substance abuse issue. | ||
| We have children that are experiencing homelessness in the district, some unaccompanied. | ||
| We have families. | ||
| Families have been a significant part of the population here. | ||
| What we know is that when you take the stance on raiding encampments and dispersing people that have been in groups, sometimes they're in a group because they want to be protected from the elements, protected from individuals who might consider them easy targets. | ||
| So, that is why people are in encampments. | ||
| And the biggest thing that makes this a failed process is there is not enough shelter in the District of Columbia to absorb the entire population. | ||
| I give a lot of credit to the DC government. | ||
| They have expanded their capacity, but no community in this country has enough shelter to meet the needs of the population. | ||
| So, what do we know so far about where these folks that are living in these encampments that are getting cleared out, or folks who are being targeted to get them off of the street? | ||
| What do we know about where they're going? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So typically we don't know where people go. | |
| And because they can't get into housing and they can't get into shelter, and housing is the solution. | ||
| Shelter still, if you're in a shelter, you're still homeless. | ||
| The issue that we find is that people isolate. | ||
| People go to other encampments. | ||
| So basically, people are moving from place to place. | ||
| They're not resolving their homelessness. | ||
| Criminalization does not resolve homelessness. | ||
| People have been able to get into the increased shelter beds. | ||
| So again, I give credit to the DC homeless system for doing that. | ||
| We also have seen some outpouring from our faith-based community. | ||
| So churches are opening their doors, allowing people to have a respite from this terrifying event that's happening. | ||
| So those are the places where we're asking people that if you have a relative, most of us know somebody who has been struggling with their housing. | ||
| And so what we're asking people to do is take people in if they have the opportunity to do that with all precautions taken. | ||
| But the community has responded, I mean, in a very unified way. | ||
| And that's really exciting and important to see. | ||
| Broadening the issue from beyond DC, I want to look at some recent statistics on homelessness in America. | ||
| Right now, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, there's approximately 771,000 homeless individuals in the country or people experiencing homelessness. | ||
| Hispanics, blacks, Native Americans, and others had a greater presence in the homeless population. | ||
| And research suggests a contributing factor is due to rising rent prices. | ||
| How much has this number changed over the years? | ||
| And are there particular groups where we're seeing higher or lower rates of homelessness? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A very good question. | |
| Over the last two years, we've seen dramatic increases. | ||
| We've seen higher numbers than we've seen since Congress asked that HUD start counting people experiencing homelessness in this country back in 2007 is when we had these official counts. | ||
| These last two years are the highest on record. | ||
| So we've seen homelessness increase by 30% over the last two years. | ||
| You're absolutely right. | ||
| There's a much higher proportion of people of color. | ||
| D.C., for instance, 85% of the people experiencing homelessness are people of color. | ||
| And people of color are three to four times more likely to experience homelessness than white people in America. | ||
| Can you talk a little bit about some of the legal land, how the legal landscape and funding landscape has changed when it comes to homelessness prevention? | ||
| I'm looking at an article here in CNN. | ||
| It says, giving homeless people stable housing was federal policy for decades. | ||
| Trump is ending it. | ||
| And this is talking about the housing first policy that you referenced earlier. | ||
| There's also been changes that the Department of Government Efficiency has moved to eliminate the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. | ||
| And then we also had a Supreme Court ruling on the City of Grants Pass versus Johnson, which directly affected homelessness. | ||
| That's quite a few things. | ||
| I wonder if you can move through them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And that's just a part of the list. | |
| So if the president and the administration officials really wanted to address homelessness, they would be doing it very differently than they're doing right now. | ||
| So they have Propose dramatic cuts. | ||
| They propose cuts to the Housing First program. | ||
| It's really called permanent supportive housing because it's not just housing, it's also supportive services for people. | ||
| Studies have shown that that has about a 90% success rate. | ||
| But the president, in his budget proposal, actually went, he took a knife to most programs. | ||
| So he cut HUD staff. | ||
| He eliminated the U.S. Interagency Council in his budget. | ||
| Now, Congress has the ability to change that budget. | ||
| But if we were to have to use the budget that the President submitted, it would have devastating results in our communities. | ||
| He also, in his budget, talked about shortening the lymph of time for people in subsidized housing. | ||
| We already have a 7 million unit gap, 7 million home gap, according to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition. | ||
| And you mentioned first legal. | ||
| So I think it's important that we talk about what happened last year. | ||
| The Supreme Court made a decision in the Grants Pass, Oregon versus Johnson case. | ||
| And that particular case made it legal to criminalize, and that's fine, jail, or arrest people experiencing homelessness simply because they were homeless. | ||
| And it was counter to a law in the Knife Circuit that made it illegal to do this unless you had enough shelter. | ||
| And again, there's not enough shelter anywhere in the country, so you couldn't do it. | ||
| This is not an effective strategy. | ||
| It's more costly than building and providing housing. | ||
| Studies have said that the most effective way to address homelessness is through the production of housing. | ||
| There was a really good book a few months ago by Greg Colborne. | ||
| It was entitled, Homelessness is a Housing Problem. | ||
| And that is the case. | ||
| I mean, there are other issues, but all over this country, people that work at Amazon or people that work as firefighters and teachers can't afford housing. | ||
| So this isn't a D.C. problem, it's a national problem. | ||
| And the issue is that our elected officials have never provided resources to the level of need in this country. | ||
| The National Review's Mark Antonio Wright has an article with the headline: Cleaning up Homeless Encampments Could Be Trump's next 80-20 issue, saying that looking at these issues, 80% it's talking about the 80-20 issue and how immigration was an 80-20 issue that Trump got on the right side of. | ||
| And then when it looks like if you're talking about homelessness and clearing homeless encampments, it has a similar level of kind of public opinion. | ||
| And just looking at a portion of this article, Mark Antonio, writer of the National Review, says: Americans ought to embrace a different paradigm on vagrancy and homelessness that cleans up our neighborhoods and our parks and increases the quality of life for not only ourselves and our families, but also those who are currently living at the lowest ebb of their lives on our streets. | ||
| While doing so, we must ensure that we respect the fundamental rights and dignity of all people, especially those of us who are, like us, citizens of this great country. | ||
| How exactly to do all that? | ||
| I'll be the first to tell you that I'm unsure. | ||
| And this is related specifically to the issue of clearing out homeless and encampments. | ||
| What is a better strategy than what the administration is doing in your country? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No one in the advocacy movement that I know of is in favor of encampments. | |
| We certainly don't want people living on the streets of the richest country in the world. | ||
| The answer is that we have to have federal and local elected officials address the need for housing, supportive services, mental health services, substance abuse services. | ||
| We have deficits in all of those different services. | ||
| So, when we have, as a collective, I'm part of a group called the National Coalition of Housing Justice. | ||
| When the groups like the Housing Narrative Lab have done research on the issue of encampments and criminalization, people want a cleaner community, but they don't want people to be criminalized. | ||
| So, that is the majority of the people surveyed say that we want this to be solved, but we want it to be solved in a humane way that preserves people's dignity, their rights. | ||
| And so, that's what we're working on. | ||
| There are amazing programs all across this country that are effective, that are compassionate, but we have to have, they have to have funding. | ||
| So, it isn't any program that isn't effective. | ||
| There may be some, but most programs are tremendously effective. | ||
| They just lack the resources. | ||
| And Congress has to provide the resources. | ||
| We've done that four times in our history, or three times. | ||
| So, there's been four episodes of homelessness, starting with the revolutionary period in our country. | ||
| And each one of those times, there's been an intervention by the federal government that was dramatic and reduced the numbers of people in poverty. | ||
| So, you know, things like Social Security and Medicaid and the housing programs that were created in the 30s have dramatically reduced poverty. | ||
| This is the longest period of homelessness in our history. | ||
| Started in the late 70s. | ||
| And incidentally, it started with the demonization of poor people. | ||
| You remember some of the tropes that talked about welfare queens and things like that. | ||
| There's this idea that people are not able, that people should not be able to be supported by our country. | ||
| Well, we're ready to take questions here for Donald Whitehead, who's the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. | ||
| We have regional phone lines for this conversation. | ||
| If you're in the Eastern or Central time zones, please call 202-748-8000. | ||
| If you're in the mountain or Pacific time zones, please call 202-748-8001. | ||
| If you yourself have a current or past experience with homelessness yourself, we have a special line for you. | ||
| That number is 202-748-8002. | ||
| And we're going to take a call on that line first with RJ in Medill, Oklahoma, who has an experience with homelessness. | ||
| Go ahead, RJ. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, how are you doing? | |
| Yeah, I was severely abused as a child. | ||
| There's a lot of that, too, in the homeless population. | ||
| And it makes you where you don't have any self-confidence, and it makes it takes you a long time to grow up. | ||
| But anyway, I was a bad drug addict, got homeless, went to prison, got out, got my master's degree, and I just retired. | ||
| I was a therapist for 12 years. | ||
| Congratulations, David. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, hold on. | |
| You not didn't cut me off, did you? | ||
| No, saying congratulations. | ||
| That's quite an accomplishment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I wanted to tell you. | |
| Oh, yeah, I wanted to tell you that I look at it a lot of different ways because I was there and I was in it. | ||
| 80% of them have mental illness. | ||
| Homelessness creates mental illness. | ||
| When you're out there in the street, it's so hard to survive. | ||
| And then when you start getting checks, all them guys I knew, they didn't want to, they don't want to live in a house, dude. | ||
| I don't know where you're getting your stats at. | ||
| They will tear them up. | ||
| You have to get them on the right diet. | ||
| You have to get them off dope, alcohol, and you have to get them morally right better. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You can't just stick them in housing. | |
| You got to have a lot of therapy. | ||
| What he needs to do is open up a lot of therapy stuff for people. | ||
| That's what Trump needs to do. | ||
| Spend his money on that. | ||
| And then filter them out through halfway houses and places where you can live on your own. | ||
| There's little apartments where you get a job. | ||
| That's the only way it's going to stop. | ||
| But look how bad it's gotten the last two years. | ||
| 30%. | ||
| Whatever we're doing, it ain't working, brother. | ||
| So y'all take it easy. | ||
| Well, thank you for your comment. | ||
| And I congratulate you on your accomplishment. | ||
| We hear stories of people triumphing, having success. | ||
| We hear stories of triumph. | ||
| I meant to say all the time. | ||
| And again, I applaud you. | ||
| I would disagree. | ||
| Certainly, 80% of the people experiencing homelessness are not either have mental health issues or substance abuse. | ||
| There's a whole portion of the population that are families. | ||
| You talked about domestic violence. | ||
| Domestic violence is one of the leading causes for homelessness in this country. | ||
| So just going back to kind of what we are doing isn't working, that's not the case. | ||
| The system is very effective in moving people through the system. | ||
| Unfortunately, 19,000 people a week show up at the door. | ||
| These are new people entering the homeless system. | ||
| So once we get people out, more show up. | ||
| So what we really need is upstream prevention that keeps people from entering homelessness in the first place. | ||
| We saw that done very effectively during COVID. | ||
| There were eviction prevention dollars. | ||
| There was an eviction moratorium. | ||
| We started to see the success of providing upstream services and upstream resources for people. | ||
| So there certainly is a level of substance abuse in mental health. | ||
| I would not ever not say that and not be honest that there is. | ||
| But substance abuse and mental health should not be something that you are jailed for in this country or are warehoused or put in an institution against your will. | ||
| People should have agency and we need to increase the number of resources for people with mental health or substance abuse issues. | ||
| One of the other points that RJ made was that homelessness can potentially increase your risk of a mental health issue. | ||
| Here's some data on that. | ||
| Well, this is mentioned by the CDC's on the CDC's website when talking about this. | ||
| Experiences of homelessness introduce many risk factors to health. | ||
| Staying in congregate settings like homeless shelters can increase risk for respiratory infections like TB and COVID-19. | ||
| And then stress, uncertainty, and threats to safety while experiencing homelessness increases risk for mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You are absolutely right. | |
| And what's very interesting about those statistics and that study is there's also studies that say John Hopkins did one just recently, the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council, that when you move people from encampments, those issues are exacerbated. | ||
| So it actually gets worse. | ||
| And he's right. | ||
| A lot of people that have mental health issues, homelessness is a very depressing situation, and people will fall into depression. | ||
| Sometimes they'll self-medicate because of the conditions they have to live in. | ||
| Barbara is in Blacksburg, Virginia, and also has an experience with homelessness. | ||
| Good morning, Barbara. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, and thank you for C-SPAN. | |
| I have not personally known homelessness, but my mother-in-law did, and we did our best to help out. | ||
| In 1977, she was diagnosed with cancer, and in 1981, she lost her home. | ||
| The household consisted of four people, besides my mother-in-law, her husband, my husband's brother, and his stepsister. | ||
| So we were able to rent a home for them here in Blacksburg, so they moved from New Jersey. | ||
| And two years later, the landlady had to sell the house they were living in. | ||
| And so we looked for something comparable for poor people. | ||
| We ended up using our savings for a new house and bought a house for them. | ||
| And my mother-in-law was so happy. | ||
| She had told me when they originally moved, the doctors gave her six months to live. | ||
| She lived another 10 years. | ||
| Anyway, recently, or in the last year, I saw a report on TV about a man in, I believe, in Austin, who bought property, large swaths of property, and had tiny houses built for homeless people. | ||
| And I think there may have been communal showers, that sort of thing. | ||
| Not each one of the houses had plumbing. | ||
| But in the last week, I read an article in the New York Times about a four-man high school team in Texas that were going to Atlanta to compete in a two-day competition to build tiny houses with other high schools from around the country. | ||
| So this is a really powerful story, Barbara, about how your family stepped in to help your mother-in-law. | ||
| And thank you for sharing that. | ||
| Mr. Whitehead, I wonder if you can talk about some of these solutions that Barbara's mentioning, tiny houses, family support for people experiencing homelessness. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I definitely can talk about that specific program because I've actually visited it. | |
| It's called Community First Village, and they have hundreds of tiny homes. | ||
| They have a real community. | ||
| There is a workforce development program there. | ||
| There's a chapel there. | ||
| There is a community center there. | ||
| Really absolutely wonderful place. | ||
| It was actually. | ||
| This is in Austin, Texas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's in Austin, Texas. | |
| And there was actually on that particular site, there was one of the first 3D printed homes. | ||
| So that was where the first 3D printed home was done. | ||
| So a lot of really amazing things happening there. | ||
| And there are tiny home villages that I have actually visited all over the country. | ||
| I was just in Arkansas at another tiny home village. | ||
| That is an intervention that is not for everybody, but it certainly works for some people. | ||
| And that's the kind of progressive, and I don't mean progressive politics, but I mean progressive solutions that can help us address homelessness. | ||
| We have to bring all the resources to the table. | ||
| We have to be innovative. | ||
| We have tens of thousands of abandoned buildings. | ||
| Right here in D.C., lots of office space that used to be used. | ||
| People are working remotely. | ||
| We're working with the Pew Research Institute, and what they found is that it's a lot cheaper and a lot faster to redevelop those units and other kinds of units like schools that have closed or faith-based facilities or even malls. | ||
| Those can be redeveloped in housing, into housing. | ||
| But the resources to do that are substantial, but we need them because at the end of the day, we're all safer when people are not sleeping on the streets of cities across this country. | ||
| I want to go to a couple of comments that we've received on social media and via text. | ||
| Tom from Westin, North Carolina says, It's astounding how many elderly males I see wearing honorific clothing of the Vietnam debacle. | ||
| And then Andy 63 on X says, why can't cities change zoning laws and use all these empty buildings to house homeless and poor people all across the U.S.? | ||
| In every city, there's large empty buildings not being used. | ||
| Why not use those buildings to house the homeless? | ||
| It saves the building and cleans the street, as you just mentioned. | ||
| And then this is a question from America Inc. who says, Mr. Whitehead, are there enough shelter beds to house the folks removed from the streets? | ||
| Have organizations been working with the D.C. government regarding the administration's recent statement that services will be provided to these folks, mental health and addiction services? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So a few questions there. | |
| Certainly I've just talked about adaptive reuse and I want people to remember the late 70s, early 80s. | ||
| There were an enormous amount of what we called SROs, single-room occupancy units. | ||
| If people remember, they were the old YMCA rooms, smaller rooms. | ||
| They had facilities that were shared, but we lost hundreds of thousands of those. | ||
| And people who were working in day labor jobs or just got Social Security were able to still afford housing. | ||
| Now, once we lost those in the market, again, that was a principal structural reason why we started to have increases in homelessness. | ||
| Very astute caller or emailer who talked about the number of elderly people. | ||
| Right now, people over 55 are the largest portion of the population of unsheltered people in this country. | ||
| A lot of them are veterans, although the veteran community has done one of the best jobs there is in reducing homelessness. | ||
| Actually, if you don't mind, I'd like to read some statistics on veteran homelessness in particular from the VA, which says, this is from a press release from January of this year, that veteran homelessness reaches a record low, decreasing 7.5% since 2023. | ||
| And this is as a result of actions taken by the VA. | ||
| The data show that on a single night in January of 2024, there were 32,882 veterans who experienced homelessness in the U.S. | ||
| This is a record low in veteran homelessness since measurement began in 2009 and a 7.5 percent decrease since 2023. | ||
| Overall, the data show an 11.7 percent reduction in veterans experiencing homelessness since 2020 and a 55.6 percent reduction since 2010. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those are absolutely true facts. | |
| And the veteran administration has really addressed homelessness in a comprehensive fashion. | ||
| So they've increased shelter beds. | ||
| They've also invested in permanent supportive housing through something called the VASH program, veterans assisting veterans with homelessness. | ||
| That is the same program that the administration zeroed out. | ||
| They actually, the administration's budget actually zeroed out the VASH program, one of the most successful interventions for homelessness that we've seen in this longest period of homelessness that I mentioned. | ||
| I served on the advisory board to the Secretary of the VA, so I'm very proud of that accomplishment. | ||
| And I'm hoping that there is enough wisdom in the House and the Senate to continue to fund those programs because they've been very effective. | ||
| And who is better deserving of resources from the federal government than those that protected our federal government? | ||
| We actually have another question from X following on the issue of veteran homelessness. | ||
| Please ask the guest who has to pay for the jailing of homeless people. | ||
| Many of them are vets. | ||
| And does he believe debtors' prisons are going to return under Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, if you think about it, the vagrancy laws were, the Supreme Court says we should not have vagrancy laws back in the 70s. | |
| But this seems to be a return to that kind of thing. | ||
| And you asked who pays for it. | ||
| The taxpayers pay for it. | ||
| So, and again, it's far more expensive than some of the other interventions we've talked about. | ||
| It really does not make any rational, it's not a rational path to go down for anybody, and especially a government that is responsible for taking care of all the citizens. | ||
| People experiencing homelessness are human beings. | ||
| They're citizens. | ||
| Some are veterans. | ||
| Some are children. | ||
| There's mothers and fathers. | ||
| So we should be taking care of people experiencing homelessness the same way that this administration is taking care of billionaires in the Reconciliation Act. | ||
| So instead of spending money on a ballroom, let's put that money into resources to help people that are marginalized in our community. | ||
| Steve from Tampa, Florida texted with a story along those lines saying one of the organizations that has done tremendous work to find free apartments for homeless veterans is Tunnel to Towers. | ||
| They have recently bought 15 old hotels and are refurbishing them to provide free living accommodations for homeless veterans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's amazing. | |
| I have definitely interacted with tunnels for towers as well. | ||
| That is the kind of thing we need to do. | ||
| That's exactly what I just described, taking buildings that are not in use right now and transforming them. | ||
| And I will say the other thing that we've been working on as a national organization in partnership with other national organizations, we do think that reimagined housing is another initiative that we should undertake. | ||
| You mentioned in one of your studies that congregate shelters do also have issues that are health related. | ||
| So we do like the idea of that model that was the single room occupancy or a hotel that's transformed because it gives people the opportunity to have freedom of space. | ||
| And one thing that's really, really important is locked doors. | ||
| And their safety is actually enhanced by using that model that is in big warehoused rooms. | ||
| Pamela is in New York and has an experience with homelessness as well. | ||
| Go ahead, Pamela. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thank you for taking my call. | |
| Mr. Whitehead, I'm 77 years of age, born and raised in America. | ||
| I worked, I started working at 12 years old babysitting and worked all the way until I became disabled in my 50s. | ||
| And I've had experience with short periods of time of homelessness. | ||
| And I'm very angry at the fact that now Mr. Trump is talking about, I don't know if he's going to use bulldozers or what he's going to do to take human beings off the street. | ||
| I just tuned in about 15 minutes ago, so I don't know if you gave any history of are we allowed to be in public places when we're homeless, but I want to address something that I noticed when I had these short periods of time of homelessness. | ||
| And my son has also had that as well out in the West, not in the East Coast where I'm originally from. | ||
| It was in California and Oregon that I experienced these periods of time. | ||
| But, you know, I want to address the fact that there is an unbelievable amount of prejudice against people that are homeless. | ||
| I learned so much being homeless. | ||
| I think everybody should get out there for at least two months and find out what it's like because we're human beings. | ||
| And everyone has an attitude, it seems, that isn't homeless, that we are not human, that we are all drug addicts and alcoholics. | ||
| And I'm telling you, the last count I heard in Rochester, New York, where there's over 2,500 children with their parents living in cars and everything else that have experienced this because of COVID and losing jobs and losing homes. | ||
| This is outrageous that we are not taking care of our own in America. | ||
| And the other thing I wanted you to address is that I've been waiting for my Section 8 voucher to be returned to me for over a year now. | ||
| And I just learned that with the Project 2025, they're going to cut the Section 8 program by $7.5 billion. | ||
| And if they do that, there's going to be millions of people on the street. | ||
| And I am so angry because I'm living in the state of New York, but I want to be back out by my son. | ||
| I want to get out west again, but I have to have my voucher in order to do it. | ||
| And I had a voucher for 24 years, and the issue became I couldn't afford or they wouldn't rent to me, even with Section 8 housing vouchers. | ||
| So, Pamela, I just want to read a little bit more information about the story that you're referencing or the news that you're referencing about the Section 8 housing vouchers, just so people have some context. | ||
| Here's some reporting from the Associated Press on this, that 1.4 million of the nation's poorest renters risk losing their homes with Trump's proposed HUD time limit. | ||
| This is a story from July saying that amid a worsening national affordable housing and homelessness crisis, President Donald Trump's administration is determined to reshape HUD's expansive role providing stable housing for low-income people, which has been at the heart of its mission for generations. | ||
| Proposed changes include a two-year limit on the federal government's signature rental assistance program. | ||
| At a June congressional budget hearing, HUD Secretary Scott Turner argued policies like time limits will fix waste and fraud in public housing and Section 8 voucher programs. | ||
| Before you respond, Mr. Whitehead, I also wanted to highlight a comment from Mark in St. Louis, Missouri that echoes many of the comments Pamela made. | ||
| Do you see the government attacking fundamental rights? | ||
| Can you speak on the government abuse of our homeless brother and sisters, how it usurps ownership and destroys constitutional guarantees and set precedent against all of the citizenry? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So both of those are really important issues to cover. | |
| I really appreciate the callers. | ||
| They're really diving into the complexities of homelessness and how people who are just trying to do their best in this country are being forced into homelessness because of government policies. | ||
| So a little more context on the Section 8 issue. | ||
| First, right now, even before any changes, only one-fourth of the people who are eligible for subsidized housing actually receive subsidized housing. | ||
| So you have a president knowing this. | ||
| I mean, they know these statistics as well as I do, who now wants to put time limits on public housing and subsidized housing in this country. | ||
| It'll have devastating effects. | ||
| I think the number may even be higher. | ||
| And so that, again, will have a devastating effect. | ||
| And we already have in cities waiting list of 10 years. | ||
| So people are on a waiting list for 10 years before they can actually receive the housing. | ||
| So the cuts to staffing, so what was projected was a 50% cut at HUD. | ||
| Remember, they're already struggling to be able to get people into housing who are eligible. | ||
| So if you cut the staff at HUD by 40%, that dramatically decreases the opportunity for people to get through the system and get into housing. | ||
| He also proposed a 80% cut to the staffing that was directly responsible for helping homeless individuals. | ||
| The other thing is what this does, and I think I started to talk about this in the beginning. | ||
| And this is not just a D.C. issue and it's not just a president issue. | ||
| Since that Supreme Court ruling that I talked about, 320 cities have actually enacted laws that make it illegal to be homeless. | ||
| And it's a rights issue. | ||
| People should have due process rights in this country. | ||
| But it's also an issue that causes horrific results in some cases. | ||
| We track violence against homeless individuals, people experiencing homelessness. | ||
| And what we found is that when there is the rhetoric, the negative rhetoric that demonizes homeless people, we see an increase in violence in communities. | ||
| I talked about Grants Pass, Oregon. | ||
| Oregon led the country in violence against people experiencing homelessness after a long-standing process of demonizing people because of that Supreme Court issue. | ||
| And the criminalization doesn't work. | ||
| Two examples. | ||
| Kentucky. | ||
| Kentucky has one of the worst laws. | ||
| It's actually Really similar to stand-your-ground laws in Florida. | ||
| So, you can use violence up to and including deadly violence if people that are experiencing homelessness are on your property. | ||
| And so, that law has been in place for the last year. | ||
| Homelessness is increased in Kentucky by 10%. | ||
| The opposite of that is Los Angeles, California. | ||
| In Los Angeles, the mayor has resisted to the extent that she's been able to efforts to criminalize people, and homelessness for the first time in a long time has decreased in Los Angeles. | ||
| So, we have evidence, we have examples of people's rights being violated, people being demonized, and it having, and the result is a negative impact on people in communities. | ||
| And again, this started, this isn't new, it started in the 80s. | ||
| Do you remember the welfare queen? | ||
| I said this a couple of times. | ||
| Well, and even this is a comment that we received from Renee in Marietta, Georgia, who says this is not a new issue. | ||
| Atlanta removed all the homeless for the Olympics in 1996. | ||
| I feel a lot of Americans just don't want to see them rather than actually help them. | ||
| We can build detention camps, but not family housing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| And Project 2025 calls for detention camps. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Let's hear from Bob in Sacco, Maine. | ||
| Good morning, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right, so well, thank you for taking my call. | |
| I have recently read a book called Finding Our Compass: Setting a Course for Democracy to Succeed. | ||
| And in that book, there's a couple of chapters that offer great ideas and solutions to help with homelessness. | ||
| And one of the ideas is education reform and the fact that we could go to a five-year high school where after three years you can leave with a high school diploma. | ||
| Then you can go into a pre-college or you can go into a vocational program for two years, come out with a two-year degree, or come out with well on your way to entering the job market in a vocational plumber, electrician, HVAC technician. | ||
| Those kinds of ideas. | ||
| It also has another chapter called Oaks Tree Economics. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And in that, it offers an idea of government-owned housing for low-income workers. | |
| Because low-income workers cannot afford housing these days. | ||
| It's very hard for them to afford $1,800, $2,500 a month. | ||
| So with government-owned to low-income housing, they can have their rent paid through check deduction, payroll deduction, going right to their housing. | ||
| About out of time for this segment, so it sounds like you're asking about the ideas of extended education along with vocational training and also potential for government-provided housing for low-income workers. | ||
| Mr. Whitehead, your thoughts on those ideas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you for the comment and the question. | |
| Certainly, poverty is another underlying issue that causes homelessness. | ||
| In D.C., the wage that you need to earn to afford housing is $2,300 a month. | ||
| The government says you should only pay 30% of your income, you would have to earn about, you'd have to earn about $90,000 a year. | ||
| And we know that a lot of people aren't earning that. | ||
| And one thing in particular in D.C. that I think people may be missing is that With the cuts by Doge and by the administration, people are thinking about the top-line jobs at those agencies, but they're not thinking about the people that work in the cafeteria or the people that work in transportation or the people that work in businesses surrounding that. | ||
| So that actually has an impact on people being able to afford housing. | ||
| So we are, the president promised that we were going to fix this, that poverty was going to go down, that he was going to actually be able to make sure that people were able to live in this country in a way that best fits the income they can earn because people earn the best income they can earn, and that's not happening. | ||
| So if he wants to crack down on homelessness, he needs to keep the promises he made in the election. | ||
| And no president has ever done that. | ||
| So, you know, he likes to tout this is the first thing ever. | ||
| The first thing ever would be to end homelessness in this country, and he has the power to do it. | ||
| Lauren is in Alexandria, Minnesota. | ||
| Good morning, Lauren. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| First, these people have to be responsible. | ||
| A lot of them are on drugs and booths, not all of them, but be responsible, get a job, and try. | ||
| They live in those camps and they don't even try. | ||
| Put them in housing and they're going to trash the housing. | ||
| So then what are you going to do? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you for your call, but I would just disagree with everything you said. | ||
| There are people, again, that have mental health and substance abuse, but that's not a criminal offense. | ||
| And people should not be greeted with criminalization, jails, handcuffs, and fines just because they're suffering from those issues. | ||
| And 40% of people experiencing homelessness work every day. | ||
| So these aren't people that are not accustomed to work. | ||
| There are people that don't earn enough to be able to afford housing. | ||
| There's nowhere in this country where you can work a minimum wage job and be able to afford a two-bedroom housing unit, not one place in the country. | ||
| In very few places, you can even afford a one-bedroom housing unit if you work every day. | ||
| So I would say a lot of people have been battered by the system to the extent that they self-medicate, they suffer with mental health issues, and it's a hard, hard issue to overcome. | ||
| And I know this from my personal experience. | ||
| What do you mean? | ||
| So I experienced homelessness myself twice. | ||
| I experienced it as a child. | ||
| We lived doubled up with my grandparents. | ||
| I also experienced it as an adult. | ||
| And today I'm proud to celebrate 30 years clean. | ||
| Congratulations. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you very much. | |
| And so when I, this is a very personal issue to me, and I don't sometimes understand how people don't understand that these are diseases. | ||
| That's what the American Medical Association says when people talk about substance abuse and mental health. | ||
| And it is tremendously hard to get through it. | ||
| But I know thousands and thousands of people that have done it. | ||
| I know people who've stabilized their mental health after going. | ||
| I housed the 400 hardest to serve in Orlando. | ||
| Some people who have been homeless for decades. | ||
| And it was simply because no one had taken the time to give them the kind of medical devices or giving them the kind of services that would help to stabilize them enough to get back on their feet. | ||
| And some of them are doing amazing things. | ||
| So we have to invest in people. | ||
| This is a people issue. | ||
| These are human beings that need the ability to be able to move forward with their lives. | ||
| And the only place in this country that can do that is our federal government. | ||
| But our local governments and our local citizens can make sure that their elected officials are using the right tools to end homelessness. | ||
| And that would be housing, that would be jobs that pay livable wages, that would be actually investing in mental health and substance abuse issues and investing in domestic violence and going upstream to make sure people don't get there in the first place. | ||
| I think last year was really, or a couple of years ago, you know, we saw a light at the end of the tunnel. | ||
| That was the Build Back Better plan. | ||
| And we came one vote short of raising the level of resources to the level of need more dramatically than we had seen in our history. | ||
| And, you know, we fell short on that. | ||
| And that's the kind of thing our elected officials have to do. | ||
| There is a couple of bills. | ||
| There's one in the House and the Senate has a bipartisan bill. | ||
| Both of these are bipartisan bills to do the adaptive reuse that I talked about. | ||
| So I hope they pass. | ||
| Well, first of all, congratulations on 30 years clean today. | ||
| That's great news. | ||
| And thank you again for joining us on Washington Journal. | ||
| That's Donald Whitehead, who's the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. | ||
| We appreciate your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much for having me. | |
| And then coming up, we're going to do just a short bout of open forum before we end the show. | ||
| You can start calling in now our phone lines for Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| For Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And for Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back. | ||
| We're an open forum ready to take your calls with comments on public affairs issues of the day. | ||
| We'll start with Chris in Galena, Kansas on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Chris. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I was just wanting to comment about the homelessness. | ||
| I have a business, and I don't want to go outside and have people on the streets with needles, teen all over the place. | ||
| You know, what about my Chris? | ||
| Chris, your line is cutting out. | ||
| I don't know if you're far from where your reception is, but I want to hear the rest of your point if you can get to someplace where the reception is a bit better. | ||
| I don't know whether these people realize that there's 49 other states to live in. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They don't need to be stuck in these big cities forever. | |
| Chris, it's very hard to hear you, but I think we have your idea. | ||
| So we're going to go to Otis in Detroit, Michigan on your line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Otis. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was hoping to get in with the gentleman about the homeless. | ||
| I wasn't homeless as major as some people because when I got out of the service, I'm a Vietnam, Vietnam-era veteran. | ||
| I nearly had people to come live, you know, I could live with while I tried to get my life in order. | ||
| I was blessed to have a stable family. | ||
| But then what happened, there was a veterans program established for Vietnam veterans, a group of black veterans for education through the Veterans of Were Bond program that the Department of Education created. | ||
| And that's and you know, with those benefits and stipends and things. | ||
| And I was married with three kids. | ||
| Help, you know, help. | ||
| And the cost of living was a lot cheaper, too, I must say, and the cost of education. | ||
| But then I went down the street from Wayne State University, where our program was set up, where veterans had set the program up and received funding to the homeless community called Cass Quarter and helped establish, I actually became a director while I was still working for Wayne State University of the Eddystone, an old hotel to do transitional housing for veterans for two years. | ||
| But we brought in a VA clinic because it was building a new one in the medical center, so they set up space in some of the rooms, and we couldn't use all the rooms. | ||
| But what I found out was we were having a hard time getting funding back then. | ||
| The state decided to cut off funding when they didn't, that director that they wanted. | ||
| But what they did was I charged veterans 10% of the income if they got up to like $300 a month in rent. | ||
| Then we help them find a place to live. | ||
| We had the educational program I worked for set up a space in there. | ||
| And when I found out the vets who invested in even 10%, if you made $100, I mean, I'm sorry, 30% of the income, it wasn't $10. | ||
| If you made $100 and paid $30 a month and got the same services, they were very excited because they said most of people would come to them to make money off the homeless. | ||
| And they thought that was something I was going to do. | ||
| So I went on and built a fifth-to-unit two-bedroom facility across the street from that facility. | ||
| And then Illich, who owns the Tigers, bought up the all-around there to expand arenas and things. | ||
| And the area became now up upper income areas. | ||
| It's now called Midtown. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's hear now from Laura in Massachusetts on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Laura. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, hi, thank you. | |
| Thanks for your show. | ||
| I just want to say, I mean, I think it's pretty simple. | ||
| We don't need Pew and all these groups, you know, doing all this study, studying on homelessness. | ||
| It's really not that complicated. | ||
| It's a money problem and it's a political problem. | ||
| And first of all, if you keep paying wages of 30 years ago, then you're not making enough money to live. | ||
| And I think I saw somewhere late recently that the average worker should be making $39 an hour. | ||
| Most places do not pay that kind of money. | ||
| And if you don't make enough money, then you have no savings. | ||
| So now you need to find a place to live. | ||
| Where are you going to come up with first-less insecurity when you don't even have enough money to buy food? | ||
| So it's definitely a money problem and the working poor are really caught up in this because you have one catastrophe and you don't have a family to live with and you're alone and the next thing you know you're homeless and you're in trouble. | ||
| So that's one problem. | ||
| And unfortunately, the Republicans seem to have very little compassion for that. | ||
| Their mantra is be self-reliant. | ||
| Well, a lot of people are self-reliant and they do work. | ||
| They're just working for poverty wages. | ||
| And secondly, it's a big political problem. | ||
| We have Mr. Mundami in New York who's trying to do rent control. | ||
| And we have Democrats like Schumer and I can't think of the other guy there, who basically, Jeffries, I'm sorry, who basically are not even supporting him. | ||
| And that's just terrible. | ||
| You know, rent control should be taking place. | ||
| People cannot be, years ago, a landlord would want you to help pay their mortgage. | ||
| Now they want you to pay their utilities mortgage and their likes, all of it. | ||
| They really are charging much too much for rentals, and we need rent control. | ||
| So I just think that it's just terrible that the Democrats, again, are just showing that they are for the elites and they are not for the working class, and that is a huge political problem. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you so much. | |
| Dave is in Dana Point, California on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Dave. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call, and please let me finish what I have to say before you go on. | ||
| The first thing is you have to separate druggy tent communities with the homeless. | ||
| We've always had homeless. | ||
| The druggy tent communities is the phenomena that's been going on the last 10, 15 years in the United States. | ||
| I live on the beach in Dana Point in Orange County. | ||
| Now, from San Clemente to Seal Beach is Orange County along the coast along PCH. | ||
| No druggy tent communities are allowed. | ||
| No crime. | ||
| Right after Seal Beach comes Long Beach, which is LA County. | ||
| From Long Beach all the way up through Malibu, you have the druggy tent communities. | ||
| Peer nastiness. | ||
| Nasty. | ||
| Now, if they allow druggy tank communities, I'm a kid from the 70s and a teenager from the 80s. | ||
| If they allow druggy tank communities back in my time growing up to pop up in public parks and recreational areas or on sidewalks in front of businesses or empty lots, I wouldn't be here right now. | ||
| I would have loved to have popped up a tent and done drugs and alcohol without being bothered by the police and the court system. | ||
| Dave, I do want you to finish your point, but just to provide some additional context for folks, I want to look at a study out of the University of California, San Francisco, that was announced in February of this year, looking at specifically how common is illegal drug use among people who are homeless. | ||
| And among this, it says less than half of the people experiencing homelessness regularly used illicit drugs in the prior six months. | ||
| The most common drugs used by this population aren't opioids but methamphetamines. | ||
| And a significant percentage of people who are homeless and use drugs have regularly tried but have been able to receive treatment. | ||
| This was a UC San Francisco-led report of more than 3,200 adults experiencing homelessness, the largest representative study of the homeless population since 1996. | ||
| And in this study, only about 37% of regular, only 37% of those surveyed reported regular drug use in the prior six months. | ||
| 25% had never used drugs at any point in their lifetime. | ||
| About 65% of people experiencing homelessness reported using illicit drugs regularly or at least three times a week at some point in their life. | ||
| Just some additional data points regarding what you're saying, Dave. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm going to say it again. | |
| You're doing the same. | ||
| You're combining druggy tent communities that weren't allowed with homeless. | ||
| I live in, I'm going to say it again. | ||
| I live in Day in the Point. | ||
| Average home, I think, is $5 to $7 million. | ||
| We have homeless. | ||
| You see them around. | ||
| They've always been here. | ||
| I'm 58 years old. | ||
| I've always seen them. | ||
| It's the druggy tent communities that are the problem. | ||
| That's the problem. | ||
| Like I said, there's homeless from San Clemente to Seal Beach, that 20-mile run down Southern California, which I call the French Riviera of the United States of America. | ||
| There's homeless during that run. | ||
| Just no tent communities, druggy tent communities. | ||
| That's the problem. | ||
| They don't allow them to pop up here. | ||
| You go inland, sure, they're popping up and you're just filled with crime. | ||
| It's the don't mix regular homeless like we've always had my whole life. | ||
| I'm 58. | ||
| I've seen them. | ||
| Don't mix the phenomena of druggy tent communities that they're allowed to pop up. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Anthony is in Westchester County, New York on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Anthony. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning, Kimberly. | |
| I look forward to Sundays knowing you'll be on. | ||
| Now, I wanted to thank you for having Mr. Whitehead on today. | ||
| I think Americans need to experience a gentleman of his intelligence, courage, and commitment, especially since what we have in the White House at this point was a breath of fresh air to experience that man. | ||
| And thank you again for having him on. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Armand is in Lakeland, Florida on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Armand. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Cease Ben, and good morning, everybody. | |
| I wanted to touch on an issue. | ||
| The guy talking about five to six million dollar homes sitting on the beach, not allowing people to pop up. | ||
| Well, people are popping up out of desperation. | ||
| You know, bringing the price of their paychecks up isn't going to help anything. | ||
| It's the price of goods that are going up and the thievery that's going on with corporate America. | ||
| I'm working on a van just to go camping with my wife. | ||
| And they're stopping people from sleeping in their vehicles, legal vehicles. | ||
| They're actually stopping people from living in vans if they wanted to boondock if they're homeless. | ||
| They don't put Porter Johns anywhere. | ||
| There's nothing for people. | ||
| It's out of desperation they're doing drugs. | ||
| Everybody's turning to drugs because they have no place else to turn to. | ||
| So I think those issues got to be taken care of. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Marlon is in West Virginia on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Marlon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I'm a Republican. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| All I wanted to talk about is a homeless person was out and I had $4 in my pocket. | ||
| So I pulled it out. | ||
| That's all I had. | ||
| I gave it to him. | ||
| I've been homeless before. | ||
| I know how it is. | ||
| I walked 18 miles on a 79, and it was 26 degrees, midnight. | ||
| I had $1,900, but I left it right there. | ||
| And I walked 18 miles, uphill and downhill. | ||
| But my legs were killing me. | ||
| And I thought to myself, I always thought I took 100 with me. | ||
| But anyway, I'm in pretty good health. | ||
| I'm in home. | ||
| I don't have my home now. | ||
| I'll also go to add some minute bills, but I'm in Ravenswood, city of Ravenswood. | ||
| Well, thank you for your call. | ||
| Let's hear from Frank in San Francisco on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Frank. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, good morning, Kimberly America. | |
| You know, Jed Krishna Murti, who is an Indian Asian wise man, he said it's no measure of mental health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. | ||
| I believe we have homeless people because the very, very wealthy want a negative example to frighten the people at the bottom rungs of society. | ||
| The guy in the six million dollar house, you know, I'm sure he doesn't appreciate the advantages he's had and the disadvantages many of these homeless and yes, drug addicts, homeless people have in America. | ||
| Concentration of wealth has gone higher and higher to the top. | ||
| We live in an oligarch rule. | ||
| And, well, anyway, now we have AI and fake videos. |