CSPAN - Washington Journal 08/29/2025

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Aug. 29, 2025 07:00-10:00 - CSPAN

02:59:53

Washington Journal 08/29/2025

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Main

greta brawner

cspan 34:17

Appearances

bill cassidy

sen/r 01:13

brian lamb

cspan 00:46

dr amesh adalja

00:58

gavin newsom

d 01:32

jd vance

admin 00:56

karoline leavitt

admin 00:34

maggie hassan

01:08

robert f kennedy-jr

admin 03:05

susan monarez

01:13

Clips

donald j trump

admin 00:04

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Washington, D.C.'s police department and deployment of National Guard troops with political commentator, author, and talk show host Armstrong Williams.
		Also, Lauren Leader of All In Together talks about Women's Equality Day, the anniversary of the certification of the 19th Amendment, and civic engagement among women.
		Washington Journal is next.
		Join the conversation.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, everyone.
		Welcome to the Washington Journal on this Friday, August 29th.
		We're going to begin this morning with the upheaval this week at the Center for Disease and Prevention after the Health and Human Services Secretary, RFK Jr., fired the director and three senior officials quit in protest over vaccine policy.
		We want to get your confidence level in RFK Jr.'s leadership and our public health agencies.
		This is how you can join the conversation in our first hour.
		Republicans, dial in at 202-748-8001.
		Democrats, 202-748-8000.
		And Independents, 202-748-8002.
		If you don't want to call, you can text at 202-748-8003, include your first name, city, and state, or post on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN and use the handle at C-SPANWJ if you want to post on X. We'll get to your thoughts this morning, your confidence in RFK Jr. and public health agencies in just a minute.
		Joining us this morning, though, is to give us more insight on what happened this week is Daniel Payne.
		He is the Washington correspondent with Stat News.
		Daniel Payne, your headline inside the CDC's director's ouster.
		Kennedy demanded acceptance of new vaccine policies and she refused.
		Tell us what happened.
unidentified		Susan Menares, who is director of the CDC, was called into Robert Kennedy's office earlier this week in a meeting with Stephanie Speer, who's Secretary Kennedy's deputy, and told she was asked to resign and told that she needed to.
		The conversation included a discussion of vaccine policy, some broad claims of insubordination of earlier issues of vaccine policy that Menars had refused to go along with things that a vaccine committee that Secretary Kennedy had formed had suggested that she wanted to review it as the usual process.
		And she had essentially been asked, go along with everything this committee says, as someone who talked to her recounted that she should, quote, rubber stamp it or resign.
		And along with that, fire top officials at the CDC, including those who specialize in data, vaccines, infectious diseases, or resign.
		And she refused to do either.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		What is this advisory committee and who sits on it?
unidentified		It's a committee that advises CDC for its vaccine policy.
		And earlier this year, Secretary Kennedy fired all the members and added new members to it.
		And they have certainly taken the committee to places that are unusual, to say the least, suggesting things in an earlier meeting that are against the grain of mainstream science and mainstream researchers.
		And it's been concerning to public health officials and previous members of this committee.
		The CDC director has some power over whether to accept or not accept the recommendations from that committee.
		And Susan Menares was asked, according to our reporting, to accept those things that were coming through.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Who is Susan Monares?
unidentified		She was the director of the CDC.
		She had experience in public health and HHS and has been doing this work for quite a long time.
		And it wasn't that long ago that Secretary Kennedy, in fact, less than 30 days ago, that he said she had impeccable credentials, that he had full confidence that she was going to come and restore CDC to his agenda and to the Trump administration's agenda of gold standard science.
		She was confirmed by the Senate.
		What kind of support did she get?
		She got substantial support.
		And now you see that support coming into play.
		After this conversation with the Secretary, Monares called several senators, several Republicans, including Bill Cassidy, who is the leader of the health panel in the Senate, and explained what had happened.
		And some of those senators went to the White House and tried to plead her case.
		So many senators have voiced concerns about Secretary Kennedy's vaccine policies, particularly given his long history of anti-vaccine activism.
		And now we will see that play out again.
		Kennedy is set to appear before the Senate Finance Committee, which Senator Cassidy sits on.
		And Senator Cassidy also said that the Help Committee needs to have serious oversight over this committee and probably what's happened here over the last 24 to 48 hours.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		That hearing will take place on September 4th next week, where we will hear from RFK Jr. Kennedy and these senators who are expressing concern.
		So tune in to C-SPAN's coverage of that.
		Who is replacing Susan Monares?
unidentified		Jim O'Neill, who is Deputy Secretary at HHS currently.
		And he, yeah, he will be acting director, but any permanent director of the CDC will have to be Senate approved, which is, of course, something new.
		Monares was the first Senate approved director of the CDC.
		And now the Trump administration will be looking for another.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You can follow Daniel Payne's reporting if you go to statnews.com.
		Daniel Payne, thanks for that update this morning.
		Appreciate it.
unidentified		Thanks so much.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We want to hear from you your confidence in RFK Jr. to lead the nation's public health agencies and the agencies themselves as well.
		Take a look at a recent poll that was done by Pew Research.
		This is what they found about RFK Jr.'s approval ratings as HHS secretary.
		30% strongly disapprove, 12% somewhat disapprove, 20% somewhat approve, and 16% of those surveyed said they strongly approve of Secretary Kennedy as HHS secretary.
		Robert in Marina Del Rey, California, an independent.
		Good morning to you.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, I find it offensive that the media is trying to portray RFK as some kind of out-of-the-mainstream Cabinet Secretary.
		He has the right as the Cabinet Secretary to hire and fire the people around him.
		And I don't see anything that he's doing that is contrary to basic public health.
		And quite frankly, I'm offended by those who think they are above the secretary.
		The Senate appointed him and confirmed him.
		And he should be given, he's only in the office now for six or seven months, and he should be given the ability to administrate that department in the way he sees fit.
		And I've seen nothing so far that he's done that warrants this kind of criticism.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Robert, before you go, the chair of the Senate Help Committee, Senator Bill Cassidy, who's a doctor himself, who had expressed some concern with RFK taking over as HHS Secretary, he ultimately voted for him.
		He posted on X yesterday, these high profile departures will require oversight by the Help Committee.
		Your response to that.
unidentified		High profile to who?
		Most Americans have no idea who these bureaucrats are.
		And secondly, Cassidy voted for him.
		So, you know, I think this is being overblown.
		And quite frankly, this whole notion of high profile, most Americans have no idea who these people are.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Robertson, California there, an independent.
		Vic's a Democrat in San Jose, California.
		Vic, what do you say?
unidentified		Hi.
		I thank you for taking my call.
		I have no confidence in RFK Jr. as a HHS secretary.
		I've called the number, left some comments, but here's why.
		I lost a brother during the COVID outbreak.
		That was during the ELFA, the first wave.
		I myself, while I was in chemo, I ended up with COVID on my next to my last treatment and had a 0.45 immune system at the time and had to take Rem Desavir to stay alive.
		I had a niece and a nephew who are both grandparents in the hospital at the same time in Ohio with COVID, sent home with oxygen.
		We didn't even know if they would live.
		So I'm very familiar with COVID.
		The thing about what RFK Jr. is doing is I heard that 3,000 scientists have been fired from that agency so far since he took office.
		That was frightening to me today when I heard that number.
		What he's doing is eroding the confidence that the public has to go out and get a vaccination.
		Now, here's what you're saying.
		Only give it to the disabled, only give it to the sick, and only give it to the elderly.
		It's almost like, oh, these are the undesirables.
		So we're going to end up giving them the vaccination, and the healthy and strong who go out and about, who can transmit that disease, won't be able to get that vaccination.
		This is outrageous.
		We've never had anyone tell us we can't get a vaccination.
		And confidence is everything.
		This is the question of the day.
		Do you want to go get a vaccination?
		I don't think right now I could.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Vic and San Jose, our previous caller, mentioned that RFK Jr. Been in the position for about seven months.
		Washington Post put a timeline together of changes that have happened at the Health and Human Services Agency since RFK took over.
		They note that after the Secretary was sworn in, several thousand federal health workers received termination.
		In May, two CDC experts quit over vaccine policy changes.
		Then, in June, the Secretary ousted all members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
		That's the vaccine advisory committee.
		And the Secretary ordered the CDC to promote vitamin A as a measles treatment during his short tenure as well.
		That reporting from the Washington Post this morning.
		We're asking your confidence level in RFK Jr. and public health agencies.
		Let's listen to the Secretary at a press event in Texas yesterday on the Make America Healthy initiative.
		This is what the Secretary had to say when he addressed the firing of the CDC director and his concerns overall with the agency.
robert f kennedy-jr ▲ ● ▼		Say this that, first of all, I will confirm that we let go of Susan Menares yesterday.
		I'm not going to talk about personnel issues, but you know, the CDC is an agency that is very troubled for a very long time.
		And anybody who lives through the COVID pandemic and saw all of these bizarre recommendations that were not science-based, all the misinformation understands that the CDC has on its website today.
		Among the top 10 medical innovations' greatest medical accomplishments in history was abortion.
		This is one of the greatest medical accomplishments because it keeps small families.
		Go to the website, look at it.
		Fluoridation, giving kids a toxin and vaccines.
		There's a lot of trouble at CDC, and it's going to require getting rid of some people over the long term in order for us to change the institutional culture and bring back pride and self-esteem and make that agency the stellar agency that it's always been.
		I'm very confident in the political staff that we have down there now that they're going to be able to accomplish that and ensure the competent functionality of that agency.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. there yesterday in Texas at an event on Make America Healthy initiative, and he addressed the firing of the CDC director.
		Three senior officials left in protest over her firing.
		And we also discussed this morning the changes that he made at the advisory committee, an advisory committee to the CDC director on vaccine policy.
		More on that in the New York Times this morning.
		That committee is scheduled to meet again on September 18th and 19th and may consider recommendations for a wide variety, a wide array of vaccines, including those for hepatitis B, COVID, and respiratory syndical virus, as well as a combination vaccine for measles, mumps, rumbella, and viracilla, according to an agenda posted on the Federal Register.
		So that's all on the agenda for this meeting that's supposed to be taking place in September next month.
		From the Wall Street Journal's reporting that says that if this meeting does go ahead, Senator Bill Cassidy, the Republican senator in charge of the health committee in the Senate, said noting the potential impact on children, he said, quote, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.
		Now, again, RFK Jr. Going to be testifying next week, September 4th, before Bill Cassidy's committee, and we will have coverage of that.
		Look for our coverage on C-SPAN.org.
		More reaction from senators.
		Here is Bernie Sanders, who's the top Democrat on that committee.
		Let us be clear: we are witnessing a full-blown war on science, on public health, and on truth itself.
		In just six months, Secretary Kennedy has dismantled the vaccine review process, narrowed access to life-saving COVID vaccines, he wrote.
		And he goes on to say, filled scientific advisory boards with conspiracy theorists and ideologues.
		History will not look kindly on those who stayed silent in the face of this assault on science.
		We have a moral responsibility to act now.
		And Patty Murray, the Democratic senator from Washington State, on the CDC director, she said, she is not the problem.
		RFK Jr. is.
		If there are any adults left in the White House, it's well past time they face reality and fire RFK Jr.
		He's a dangerous man who is determined to abuse his authority to act on truly terrifying conspiracy theories and disinformation, leaving us unprepared for the next deadly pandemic and snuffing out potential cures while he's at it.
		So there you have the reaction from senators, from Capitol Hill lawmakers, to the turmoil at the Center for Disease and Prevention this week.
		Now it's your turn to let the president know and lawmakers know what your confidence level is in RFK Jr. and public health agencies.
		Eddie in Millbury, Massachusetts, a Republican.
		Eddie, what do you say?
unidentified		I'm very proud of him, especially with his father and uncle's history.
		But what he's trying to do is tell us Americans are obese.
		Americans are worried about the food we eat, about the medicines.
		First of all, I had a vaccination which encompasses the virus and the flu.
		That's what he's concerned about.
		What are the effects of that?
		He's concerned about the food we eat.
		For instance, a frozen pizza has antipreservatives for wheat, for the tomatoes, for the cheeses.
		That's the problems.
		We're eating too much sugar, too much salt, too much fat.
		And he's trying to find out why we're so prominent in Alzheimer's and anemias.
		He's just doing investigations.
		That's what he's trying to do.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Eddie, you mentioned a lot of different policy areas under his purview as HHS secretary.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Do you have any concerns about what he's saying and doing on vaccines?
unidentified		Not what he's saying.
		He's trying to convince the public to investigate.
		It's not getting across that the media is just criticizing him for asking to follow through and have tests.
		That's it.
		There is a problem.
		You know it.
		We are obese.
		Amenias.
		Alzheimer's.
		You know it.
		We're predominant in those diseases in America.
		He's just trying to figure out why and he's finding out.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Eddie.
		Georgia is in Louisiana and Independent.
		Georgia, good morning.
		Your turn.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I do not understand, and I have no confidence at all in none of Trump's cabinet members.
		But he is not a medical doctor.
		So what knowledge do he have with medicine?
		He has none.
		He fired a woman.
		Now we're all vulnerable because every time he looks around, we got recall on food.
		Now he's trying to tell us what kind of medicine we should be taking for our bodies.
		He is not a medical doctor.
		So I don't understand why we have a medical doctor over the CDC and the Department of Human Health and hospitals.
		I do not understand that.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, George.
		George is there with her thoughts in Louisiana.
		Let's go to the White House.
		Yesterday, the press secretary held a briefing, and she responded to a question about the removal of the CDC director.
		Here's what she had to say.
unidentified		First, on the firing of the CDC director, first, we will replace her.
		And then also, overnight, the White House said that she did not align with the President's agenda.
		Dr. Monares' attorney says that she refused to rubber stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.
		What specifically did she demand?
		Look, what I will say about this individual is that her lawyer's statement made it abundantly clear themselves that she was not aligned with the president's mission to make America healthy again.
		And the secretary asked her to resign.
		She said she would, and then she said she wouldn't.
		So the president fired her, which he has every right to do.
		It was President Trump who was overwhelmingly re-elected on November 5th.
		This woman has never received a vote in her life, and the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.
karoline leavitt ▲ ● ▼		A new replacement will be announced by either the president or the secretary very soon.
		And the president and secretary Kennedy are committed to restoring trust and transparency and credibility to the CDC by ensuring their leadership and their decisions are more public-facing, more accountable, strengthening our public health system, and restoring it to its core mission of protecting Americans from communicable diseases, investing in innovation to prevent, detect, and respond to future threats.
		That's the mission of the CDC, and we're going to make sure that folks that are in positions of leadership there are aligned with that mission.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		White House Press Secretary Caroline Lovitt yesterday, responding to a question about the firing of the CDC director, Susan Morena Monares was confirmed back in June by the Senate.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Listen to what she had to say when she was questioned about her ability to remain independent from political influence if she were to take on this position.
maggie hassan ▲ ● ▼		One critical role of the CDC director is to help protect children from lethal infectious diseases.
		The CDC director can't perform this critical role unless they are politically independent, which means that you must be willing to disagree with political leaders based on scientific evidence.
		So is there anything that you disagree with Secretary Kennedy about?
susan monarez ▲ ● ▼		If I'm confirmed as CDC director, I look forward to having technical discussions with the Secretary.
		He has said he values and prioritizes independent thinking and using science to drive decision-making.
		I am an independent thinker and I am a scientist, and I will welcome the opportunity to share my opinions based on science and evidence with him as he makes some of these very difficult decisions.
maggie hassan ▲ ● ▼		Is there anything you disagree with him about?
susan monarez ▲ ● ▼		So, look, if I'm confirmed as a CDC director, I look forward to supporting the secretary with science and evidence and making sure that I am giving him the best information possible to help support some of these critical decisions.
maggie hassan ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's go to some specifics then.
		When you were acting director of the CDC, Secretary Kennedy stated, quote, it's very, very difficult for measles to kill a healthy person, close quote.
		Do you have any scientific concerns about Secretary Kennedy's statement?
susan monarez ▲ ● ▼		So measles is an important public health threat, and we have to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to prevent and mitigate this.
maggie hassan ▲ ● ▼		Do you have any concerns about a statement?
maggie hassan ▲ ● ▼		Didn't a child die from measles while you were acting CDC director?
susan monarez ▲ ● ▼		See, measles can be lethal.
susan monarez ▲ ● ▼		We know from historical data that in populations, unvaccinated populations, that one, one in a thousand.
unidentified		Right.
maggie hassan ▲ ● ▼		So excuse me for interrupting, but I have limited time.
maggie hassan ▲ ● ▼		So when the Secretary said it's very, very difficult for measles to kill a healthy person, no concerns from you about that?
susan monarez ▲ ● ▼		So look, we know that measles can be fatal in one in a thousand individuals.
susan monarez ▲ ● ▼		And look, these are very critical issues that we need to be able to do.
maggie hassan ▲ ● ▼		Which is why you're being able to independently state in public that you differ with the secretary is a really, really important thing.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		The former CDC director Susan Miner is at her confirmation hearing in June.
		She was approved by the Senate.
		She's only been in the position since then, and she's been fired this week by the White House.
		We're getting your thoughts, your confidence level in RFK Jr. as the leader of the Health and Human Services Agency and public health agencies in general.
		Jose is in Sarasota, Florida, a Republican.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Well, I believe that the evidence and information that RFK Jr. is bringing to the table supports the decisions that the agency he heads is working and advisable.
		It's interesting when the Democrats make their consideration or contradictions to what RFK Jr. is doing, they do that from a partisan position rather than evidentiary or medical science.
		And so I just want to say that I believe he's been very careful using the evidence at hand and the research that he has to make these decisions.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So, Jose, before you go, can you just respond to this is the Wall Street Journal's reporting this morning.
		Most scientists consider vaccines safe and say their benefits preventing deadly or serious disease outweigh rare and uncommon risks.
		Multiple studies haven't found a link between vaccines and autism, and scientists and public health experts have said expanded criteria for diagnosis, increased awareness, and more screening contribute to higher rates of autism.
		Jose, how do you respond to that?
unidentified		Well, I think that the evidence isn't completely clear about the correlation between autism and vaccines.
		One of the things that RFK Jr. brought out is that there's a leading cause to autism that medication, I believe it was an antihistamine that pregnant women take, and that they found that there's a direct correlation.
		I may have the medication wrong, but I think that's what it was, that there's a direct correlation to autism.
		And it's things like that that he is researching to bring to the forefront so that we can make America healthy again.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Jose there in Sarasota, Florida, Republican.
		And Harold's in Livingston, Tennessee.
		Democratic caller.
		Hi, Harold.
unidentified		Thank you for taking my call this morning.
		Yes, this is crazy what's going on.
		People are going to die from this.
		We're going to have a fellow that's not a doctor.
		He has no medical behind him making choices of what kind of medicines that we take.
		Can you imagine if this bunch was in there when COVID broke out?
		They would never admit it COVID was real.
		And other countries are going to surpass us so much in the medical field that it won't even be funny.
		But people are going to die.
		And this is people's children.
		Disease does not recognize Republican, Democrat, or anything else.
		And people, they need to remove this man.
		It needs to be removed.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Are you talking about RFK Jr.?
		Remove him?
		Okay.
		I want to get your reaction to the front page story in the Wall Street Journal this morning.
		Uprising at CDC exposes a rift in the president's Maha Alliance.
		Says, as Donald Trump sat with top donors at his New Jersey golf club in August, he made a private admission.
		He believed the coronavirus vaccine was one of the biggest accomplishments of his presidency, but he couldn't bask in it.
		Trump told donors who were paying $1 million to be there that he wished he could talk more about Operation Warp Speed, the government program he initiated that helped expedite the development of the vaccine, according to attendees.
		The guests included the Pfizer CEO, whose company developed one of the first COVID-19 vaccines.
		Harold, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the president wants to be able to brag about it, but he can't because of his alliance with RFK Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again movement.
unidentified		You've got to give President Trump credit for that.
		You've got to give that man credit for that.
		Now, they've done a super job, but there's not the people there to do that kind of thing, to do that job with now.
		People didn't, you know, run around and talk about Fauci.
		Fauci was a great scientist.
		You might not like him for this or whatever.
		He was a great scientist.
		But this man, he couldn't tell, he's just like me.
		He couldn't tell human blood from a dog blood to put under a microscope.
		He does not know the difference.
		And that's what I'm saying.
		People, diseases do not recognize political parties.
		And President Trump ought to take some credit for that.
		I'll give him credit for it.
		I've always said that I give him credit for, you know, getting that made.
		I give Joe Biden credit for getting it distributed out.
		We can't just say, well, you know, Joe Biden put it, got it distributed, so it's a wrong thing.
		President Trump got it made, so it's a wrong thing.
		No, it was the right thing.
		You know, them people are president for all the people, not just a few people that decided.
		But this man right here is destroying the medical industry in the United States.
		And you watch and say, these scientists will start going to other countries and going to work because they're smart people.
		Now, when you sit down and you analyze and you come up with a vaccine in that small length of time, that is intelligence.
		I don't care what, you know, you may like them, you may not like them, but you got, this old saying goes, you got to give the devil credit when it's due.
		And these people have done an excellent job with that.
		But this man here don't believe in nothing.
		He doesn't believe, you know, he's going to go to the doctor, he's going to drink carry juice.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Harold, a Democratic caller there in Tennessee.
		We're talking about RFK Jr. and the upheaval at the Center for Disease Prevention this week.
		So we're wondering your confidence level in RFK Jr. as the health secretary and public health agencies.
		Just to review, the CDC director has been fired this week by the White House.
		Three senior leaders resigned in protest.
		They included a top respiration illness and immunization official, the chief medical officer, and the leader of infectious disease response.
		Those three senior officials resigning in protest over the CDC director being fired over a disagreement on vaccines.
		Ruth in Massachusetts Independent.
		Ruth, we're going to hear from you.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		It's not just the CDC that he's absolutely trashing.
		He also trashed the NIH.
		And what he's doing is voodoo medicine.
		He has absolutely no idea about the body.
		He may say he does, but he doesn't.
		These are people who have studied.
		They're scientists.
		They're keeping us safe.
		And this man, with his lack of information about vaccines, not giving them to children, not doing anything at all, he is going to eventually have a pandemic in the United States that we are not going to be able to conquer.
		And countries around the world are laughing at us.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ruth in Massachusetts, look at the approval rating for the Centers for Disease and Prevention.
		Again, this was from Pew in August of 2025.
		When they surveyed folks, they found that 53% of them have a favorable view of the Centers for Disease Control and 34% an unfavorable.
		David in Dunedin, Florida, Republican.
		David, what's your confidence level in RFK Jr. and public health agencies?
unidentified		Hi there.
		Thank you.
		You know, great talking this morning.
		You know, I'm a huge supporter of RFK Jr.
		I've listened to him speak.
		He's visited my area to talk about medical freedom about six years ago.
		And I've read several of his books.
		I don't know if people really get it, that he's like a brilliant, brilliant mind and a brilliant man, you know.
		Additionally, you know, like he's in a leadership role.
		He's essentially like a very gifted bureaucrat, right?
		So you don't need to be an MD to run these organizations.
		Prior, there were CEO, you know, there are lawyers prior.
		So you're not necessarily needing to be a physician to run these organizations.
		You have to make, you know, you have to have a worldview and a viewpoint.
		And RFK's worldview is like we don't need like drugs and vaccines to be a healthy nation.
		We need to build our bodies back and eat good food and also take medicines when appropriate, obviously, right?
		I wanted to also add that this stuff about like, hey, you know, children need vaccines to be healthy, to prevent infectious diseases.
		I'm in favor of that.
		I want you to know.
		But there's very little real data about the true safety of vaccines that have been generated.
		They've been approved in a way that hasn't really provided that data to parents, right?
		So parents can't really make an informed decision because the true risks are not present, right?
		So I'm a father of a vaccine-injured child, right?
		So my daughter is severely affected by vaccines.
		She'll never have a normal life again, right?
		So I wish that I knew what are the side effects of vaccines before I gave the immunizations to my daughter, right?
		So I would rather have had an infectious disease than have my daughter have the severe neurological diseases impairments that she has now, ma'am.
		So what about like having an open discussion?
		Give this guy a break.
		Let them do the studies.
		New York Times and Washington Post and these papers, you know, they generate these hit articles immediately whenever something happens.
		You know, RFK is going to come up in a few weeks or sooner with an assessment of autism in the United States and try to understand the root causes of it, right?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		He previewed that.
		He teased that at a cabinet meeting recently, David.
		That's what you're alluding to, is that he told the president the Health and Human Services would be releasing a report on autism very soon.
unidentified		And that was discussed within a few weeks of his appointment.
		He announced that.
		And every newspaper came out saying, this is impossible.
		This is crazy.
		He's overreaching.
		We've tried to figure it out for years and no one knows.
		So this is a man of action.
		He's committing to do things.
		And the status quo is digging their heels in and trying to pull it all down just because, you know, I don't know why they want to do this.
		Why don't we all root for him?
		Why don't we root to understand these things?
		You know, it's like you know.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hey, David, I'm going to pause you right there and jump in and just have our viewers and you listen to RFK Jr.
		Recently, HHS decided to end federal funding for the mRNA vaccine, and RFK Jr. released a video to explain why you said, let's listen to him.
		So let's do that on this vaccine.
robert f kennedy-jr ▲ ● ▼		Most of these shots are for flu or COVID, but as the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don't perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract.
		Here's the problem.
		mRNA only codes for a small part of the viral proteins, usually a single antigen.
		One mutation, and the vaccine becomes ineffective.
		This dynamic drives a phenomenon called antigenic shift, meaning that the vaccine, paradoxically, encourages new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics as the virus constantly mutates to escape the protective effects of the vaccine.
		Millions of people, maybe even you or someone you know, got the Omicron variant despite being vaccinated.
		That's because a single mutation can make mRNA vaccines ineffective.
		The same risk applies to flu.
		After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH and FDA, HHS has determined that mRNA technology poses more risk than benefits for these respiratory viruses.
		That's why after extensive review, BARDA has begun the process of terminating these 22 contracts totaling just under $500 million.
		To replace the troubled mRNA programs, we're prioritizing the development of safer, broader vaccine strategies, like whole virus vaccines and novel platforms that don't collapse when viruses mutate.
		Let me be absolutely clear.
		HHS supports safe, effective vaccines for every American who wants them.
		That's why we're moving beyond the limitations of mRNA for respiratory viruses and investing in better solutions.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		The HHS Secretary RFK Jr. this past month on ending federal funding for that mRNA vaccine.
		After this announcement was made on the Washington Journal, we spoke with Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Dr. Amesh Adalja, and he gave his thoughts on HHS's action on this mRNA technology.
		This is what he had to say.
dr amesh adalja ▲ ● ▼		The quicker you can get a countermeasure into humans to protect them from the consequences of that infection, whether that be severe disease, hospitalization, death, contagiousness, whatever it might be, that that's going to be decisive in your control of that outbreak to prevent it from getting worse, to prevent the cascading impacts from occurring all over the globe.
unidentified		So when you look at all our different vaccine technologies, and they're all important and they all have roles, I'm not privileging one over the other.
dr amesh adalja ▲ ● ▼		When it comes to speed and adaptability, I don't think that there's anything that's going to beat mRNA in the near future.
unidentified		So when you're trying to think from a government perspective, how do we prepare ourselves for the next outbreak, the next disease X, the next unknown pathogen that may emerge in humans and spread, having mRNA vaccine technologies poised to attack the problem is the best way to minimize the damage that such an outbreak can cause.
dr amesh adalja ▲ ● ▼		So if you're removing HHS's investments in mRNA vaccine technology, not only does the U.S. government not have that technology, you're also basically putting a nail in the coffin for mRNA vaccine technology because this is something that has grown kind of in conjunction with pandemic and biosecurity efforts.
unidentified		And if organizations in HHS like BARTA are not going to be investing in it, some of that is going to dry up.
		And private investors may support some of it.
		The Department of Defense may support some of it.
dr amesh adalja ▲ ● ▼		But it's not going to have that same robust funding mechanism in place, which will only lead to it kind of dwindling and us becoming less resilient.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		From the Washington Journal recently, a doctor at Johns Hopkins responding to this decision by RFK Jr. to stop federal funding for that mRNA vaccine.
		We're getting your thoughts, your confidence level in RFK Jr. and public health agencies.
		Penny is next in New York, Democratic Color.
unidentified		Good morning.
		My confidence is zero.
		This man should have never been appointed.
		He isn't an expert.
		He's not a doctor.
		But the thing is so disturbing is that no one talks about how this man went to the island of Samoa and killed, gave vaccines and killed babies and elderly people.
		And no one talks about that.
		This man should have never been appointed and no one talks about it.
		And that's my point.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Penny, when you say should have never been appointed, how responsible are senators who confirmed him, in your opinion, since you think that he is not qualified?
unidentified		Everyone, everyone.
		Every senator, even the president himself, he had suggested that this man would be in charge.
		But you need a person that is educated, that is a doctor, to deal with these things.
		And he has none.
		And that's so disturbing to me when he gave vaccines to those innocent children and elderly people.
		He has no right to do that, but he did it.
		Giving out vaccines, it was horrible.
		And no one talks about the murder that he has committed.
		Thank you.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Larry in Gates, North Carolina Independent.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Larry.
unidentified		Yeah, good morning.
		Thank you for having me on T-Bed.
		The one scenario that I like to talk about is I have confidence in this administration's Mr. Kennedy.
		Basically, due that I have the same confidence in every other one of them.
		Just a personal experience, I went through the series of the two COVID shots in the beginning.
		After I had the second shot, within a week, I got shingles after having been supposedly protected by the shots I had already previously taken for that.
		Then, after I recovered from the shingles, a month after that, I got COVID, which was supposed to protect me, the shots that I had previously.
		Apparently, that didn't really work.
		And as far as the NIH, isn't that the group that spent millions of dollars researching a lobster working on a treadmill and finding out those effects, wasting taxpayer dollars?
		It's kind of sad.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Larry, an independent there in Gates, North Carolina, with his thoughts.
		Jackson in Rochester, New York, Republican.
		What do you say, your confidence level?
unidentified		Oh, yeah, I got big confidence in RFK, and this is why, because he's not a doctor on the government payroll, being a crack dealer for big pharma, okay?
		First of all, the CDC, the FDA, the NIH, they are the problem, okay?
		They are the disease.
		All right.
		Well, RFK understands, he may not be a doctor.
		He understands backdoor dealings between big pharma and money and government agencies.
		Here in the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, there is a massive Amish Amennonite population.
		They will not vaccinate any of their children anyway whatsoever.
		They have zero autism and youth developmental problems that came from this COVID shot.
		The state of New York tried to raid the communities, and these Amish Amnonites met them at the border of their communities with pitchforks and torches and turned them away.
		That doesn't make the propaganda report on ABC or mainstream media.
		Yeah, let RFK destroy the medical industry because it comes from China anyhow.
		That's my thoughts.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Jackson in Rochester, New York, Republican, with his perspective this morning.
		The Washington Post editorial has this to say.
		RFK Jr. cannot be contained.
		They note this on the CDC director that was fired, that she was just put in the job weeks ago.
		She was seen as a responsible pick for the job, especially after President Trump withdrew his first nominee, Dave Weldon, because of Republican senators raised concerns about his history of anti-vaccine statements.
		The Washington Post editorial board goes on to say this about this advisory committee on vaccines that RFK recently replaced its members.
		He said, the fear is that Kennedy and his allies now on this advisory committee will use the report to remove shots for children and pregnant women from the CDC's vaccine schedule.
		This would not only make it harder for families to access the shots since the schedule determines coverage policies for insurance plans, but also make it easier for people to sue manufacturers in court.
		That could enrich Kennedy's trial lawyer friends.
		Even if the lawsuits are not successful, however, they would chill future pharmaceutical innovation and make future amnestizers.
		Kennedy also recently resurrected a task force, which had been disbanded in 1998 to oversee childhood vaccines.
		He did so at the urging of anti-vaccine activists, raising fears that he will fill the panel with contrarian experts to promote his agenda.
		He says, and unlike the CDC's vaccine committee, the task force is not an advisory committee, meaning it is not subject to the same rules requiring its work to be open to the public.
		The Washington Post's opinion there, and they go on to say that we're not holding our breath about the president.
		Americans will live with the consequences of senators who decided to let an anti-vaccine crank become one of the most powerful people in government.
		That's how the Washington Post ends their editorial this morning.
		Let's go back to when the president nominated RFK Jr. to serve as HHS Secretary.
		And when his nomination came to the Senate floor for a vote, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy delivered a speech talking about why he ultimately decided to support RFK Jr.
bill cassidy ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Kennedy and the administration reached out seeking to reassure me regarding their commitment to protecting the public health benefit of vaccination.
unidentified		To this end, Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed that he and I would have an unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship if he is confirmed.
		We will meet or speak multiple times a month.
		This collaboration will allow us to work well together and therefore to be more effective.
bill cassidy ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Kennedy has asked for my input into hiring decisions at HHS beyond Senate confirmed positions and this aspect of the collaboration will allow us to represent all sides of those folks who were contacting me over this past weekend.
unidentified		He has also committed that he had worked within current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems and not established parallel systems.
		If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommendation changes.
		CDC will not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism.
bill cassidy ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Kennedy and the administration also committed that this administration will not use the subversive techniques used under the Biden administration like Sue and Settle to change policies enacted by Congress without first going through Congress.
bill cassidy ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed to a strong role of Congress.
unidentified		Aside from he and I meeting regularly, he will come before the Help Committee on a quarterly basis if requested.
unidentified		He committed that the Help Committee chair, whether it's me or someone else, may choose a representative on any board or commission formed to review vaccine safety.
bill cassidy ▲ ● ▼		If he is confirmed, HHS will provide a 30-day notice to the Help Committee if the agency seeks to make changes to any of our federal vaccine safety monitoring programs and help committee will have the option to call a hearing to further review.
bill cassidy ▲ ● ▼		These commitments and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to make America healthy again is the basis of my support.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Senator Bill Cassidy on the floor on RFK's nomination on why he was going to ultimately support him and you heard him go through the litany of assurances that he received from RFK Jr. about their relationship since Senator Cassidy oversees the health committee in the Senate and has oversight over that agency.
		After the firing of the CDC director and the exiting of senior leadership in protest, Senator Bill Cassidy put on X, these high-profile departures will require oversight by the HELP Committee.
		He's also quoted in the Wall Street Journal this morning saying that if the advisory meeting goes forward on September 18th and 19th, he said and noting the potential impact on children,
		he said any recommendation from this vaccine advisory committee should made, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.
		We'll go to Becky next in Hibbing, Minnesota Democratic caller.
		Becky, your confidence level in RFK Jr. and public health.
unidentified		None.
unidentified		Bill Kennedy is going to have to have that meeting because he didn't fulfill Kennedy, Robert Kennedy didn't fulfill any of the expectations of Bill Kennedy.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Bill Cassidy.
unidentified		Or Bill Cassidy, I'm sorry.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		No worries.
unidentified		Also, when the meeting that you played earlier or the interview that you played earlier with Robert Kennedy, it just does not settle with me that he says that he has all the political employees in place that he needs.
		It does not need political employees.
		And that's my comment.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Becky, Dave Williamston, Williamstown, New Jersey, Republican.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Dave, we'll hear from you.
unidentified		Hello.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Morning, Dave.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning.
		How are you?
		Yeah, I was listening and I wanted to know why it is a few calls before they gave a scenario of the measles.
		They say one in 1,000, but they don't give you those numbers of the side effects that the vaccines you may expose yourself to are going to have long-term effect.
		So I would like to see Robert F.K. have them debate that, bring the pros and the cons and let the public know.
		Because they make all these decisions, but we're never aware what the side effects are.
		Just like it was with the COVID.
		They were mandating that vaccine, but until five to seven years down the line, you have no idea what those side effects are going to be.
		There's a lot of people that have real serious side effects.
		Now they get pregnant.
		Their pregnancies are very difficult because of the vaccine, but the media doesn't cover that.
		So when you have him come and say that certain vaccines are good, but they may not be necessary because if you eat right, eating right is the first foundation of developing your body, your immune system, resting, exercising.
		So if you take care of those things along the way, and if you need vaccines, you need them because everybody's genetic is not the same.
		But to constantly criticize him and not have that open dialogue where the public can see what you're going to expose yourself to is to continue the lie and to defraud the public.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So Dave, when he testifies next week, September 4th, before the health committee, what do you want him to do?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How do you want him to respond to the criticism of Senator Cassidy and others who may be critical of these moves that he's making?
unidentified		Well, his response should be that's what he's there for.
		He's there to expose what needs to be exposed and to pick people who are willing to put to the test what they say.
		The prior doctor that you showed there, he said what his opinion was, but he never said, he never said that, he never contradicted what RFK said when he said that it created respiratory problems for those who had it.
		He never disputed that.
		He never disputed that.
		He's saying it's better to have something than nothing.
		And that may be true, but not to the person who already is ill because that's going to kill him.
		That's going to kill him.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Dave's thoughts.
		A Republican there in New Jersey.
		Here is some of our viewers on Facebook.
		The CDC has been hijacked by people who aren't qualified to run the register at the pharmacy.
		And here's Brenda on Facebook.
		Had zero confidence prior to Donald J. Trump now feeling hopeful, hoping the majority of those old-time CDC folks resign or are fired.
		Looking forward to a new team of genuine health experts.
		And then you also have Julie saying, since they lied to us so much about COVID, I have very little faith in them.
		Freddie in Snellville, Georgia and Independent.
		Freddie, morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		Yes, I have full confidence in Mr. Kennedy.
		I am so glad that he's had that position to please get us out of the pharmaceutical control, which the CDC is under.
		Those people that are left, very good, good written.
		And as a matter of fact, they should have locked the door yesterday and locked all those people that decided they want to go outside.
		The NIH, Mr. Fauci, ran that organization into the ground.
		He is one of the worst people that have ever had in that position.
		That COVID vaccine has caused so many injuries and deaths in this country.
		And it's a shame that the media is not covering it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Freddie, referring to the CDC employees in Atlanta yesterday who went outside to meet up with the two of the senior officials who had quit yesterday.
		They're featured here in this Washington Post article, along with some CDC employees.
		They were going to do a clapout, a tradition at agencies clapping out those folks who are stepping down from their positions.
		They were, though, escorted out of the building earlier than expected.
		So some of these CDC officials, according to news reports, went outside.
		And you can see they're talking to the media there, these three senior leader, three senior leaders at the CDC who quit in protest over the CDC director being fired by the White House.
		Donna in Hanover, Pennsylvania, Democratic caller.
		Hi, Donna.
unidentified		Good morning.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
unidentified		I have so many points to make, but the first thing I'll say is this is scary.
		The things that RFK are doing is very scary and it's very dangerous.
		Before this administration, nobody questioned the Senate for disease control ever.
		This administration came in and the last caller was talking about Dr. Fauci.
		I wish Dr. Fauci would have had the nerve, the gall to stand up and say what is right, like these scientists are doing.
		They're not going to rubber stamp anything that's not scientific based.
		I believe in the science.
		Everybody that calls in, everyone that calls in, I bet you my last paycheck, if they have children, they vaccinated their children.
		Why?
		Because vaccines save lives.
		Measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox.
		You need these vaccines.
		If you travel over in Africa, you can't even go over there unless you get a slew of vaccines.
		Why?
		Because they still have malaria and all kinds of diseases.
		It's insane.
		When RFK was doing his confirmation, there was, I think it was Senator Osselbrooks.
		I hope you can find this clip.
		Question him about African Americans don't need certain vaccines as opposed to whites.
		This is something that RFK said because of something about African American antigens.
		That alone would have made me not confirm him.
		All those senators that confirmed him are going to be responsible when the next breakout happens.
		And it's going to happen.
		I'm sad that those scientists are resigning, but I'm proud of them for standing up for what's right.
		Half the time, I can't even understand what he's saying because it sounds like he's been goggling spootem for 30 years.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So, Donna, going back to your point about these senators who confirmed him and you holding them responsible if there is some sort of outbreak, for you and others who are interested, you can find RFK Jr.'s confirmation hearing on our website at c-span.org and watch it for yourself to see what sort of questions were asked of Republican and Democratic senators and how he answered those questions.
		Again, go to our website, c-span.org.
		Dig into our library, our archival video, and listen and watch for yourself.
		Gail in Tallahassee, Florida, Republican.
		Hi, Gail.
unidentified		Hi there.
		This is great to follow after the last caller.
		I go to the Mayo Clinic, and did you know that the Mayo Clinic let 700 employees go because they refused to take the vaccine?
		And I went to the Mayo Clinic, and now they're begging all of those employees to come back.
		And most of the employees over at the Mayo Clinic are having heart problems.
		Also, I have a doctor of internal medicine with a PhD who said he wouldn't touch a vaccine with a 10-foot pole.
		Also, I got the shingles vaccine and got shingles.
		And also, my brother had his child vaccinated, and he has autism.
		So, I mean, when you talk about people who are saying that doctors don't know anything about the vaccines, and you're talking about the Mayo Clinic who let people go, and I actually talked to employees that when I was having procedures done, and they said, yeah, we didn't agree with that, but we had to take it to keep our job.
		And now they're all having heart problems.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All of them, Gail.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		You've talked to all of them, you know that?
unidentified		Yeah, I go over every year for a procedure.
		And I talked to the employees there.
		And when they were wearing masks, I said, we can't stand these masks.
		And they would pull them off when I go in for an MRI.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		And Gail, I'm going to leave it there at that point because we are at the top of the hour.
		We're going to take a break.
		Later on in the Washington Journal, all in together, co-founder and CEO Lauren Leder will discuss Women's Equality Day, the anniversary of the certification of the 19th Amendment and civic engagement among women.
		But up next, political commentator, author, and talk show host Armstrong Williams discusses the Trump administration's federal takeover of Washington, D.C. Police Department and the deployment of the National Guard troops.
		We'll be right back.
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		The event was held at the Boston Athenaeum.
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greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back to the Washington Journal on your screen this morning as Armstrong Williams is a columnist, TV talk show host and entrepreneur and the owner of the Baltimore Sun here to talk about the Trump administration's efforts in fighting crime.
		Mr. Williams, let's just talk about the first, the federal takeover of the D.C. police department.
		You wrote in a recent piece, the silent majority is applauding.
		What did you mean?
unidentified		Greta, first, good morning.
		Listen, I am a resident of Washington, D.C. I've lived there for over 30 years, so I speak from experience and not from an outside.
		And I'm someone who frequents the neighborhood and my role as citizen journalism early in the morning.
		I'm at all different locations around the city.
		And I can tell you that homelessness, erratic crime, juvenile crime, crime at the Navy Yard and Southeast in the most underserved neighborhoods is just rampant.
		I mean, juvenile crime.
		And you had a D.C. city council that would fight with Mayor Mayor Bowser, who's truly a law enforcement mayor who wanted to put laws in place where this cashless bail and these other things and this recidivism where these kids go and they think they can be rehabilitated.
		Yes, 90% of the kids can be rehabilitated, Greta, but the problem is, is that 90% of the crimes are committed by at least 5% of these kids.
		And you just keep putting these kids back out in the street and the crime becomes worse and worse and worse.
		And so the mayor was at its wit's end, at her wit's end.
		So whether or not President Trump made the right decision to bring in the National Guard, you may see that as being extreme, but the crime has become so extreme that you needed a measure to send a message to juvenile crime, criminals, send a message to parents and communities that this cannot be tolerated.
		There's been a lot of combativeness between the mayor and the president in the beginning because listen, the mayor has a lot of pride when it comes to home rule and the people she represents in the district, but she realizes she had a problem.
		This is why just this week, she talked about the fact that carjacking and car theft is down by 87%.
		Just think about this.
		For 11 straight days, Greta, there was no murder in Washington, D.C. That's unprecedented and has not been heard of since the last five years.
		That means someone walking the streets are alive because of what you may consider as the president's extreme measure.
		What do you do now?
		You go back to the drawing board and you may say the mayor does not like the National Guard.
		She doesn't see them as being effective.
		She doesn't like the ICE arresting immigrants.
		But as long as she and the president are communicated and there's not a war of words and they can work out a situation where you can lower crime, make communities safe and get this under control and put laws in place where you make these young people realize you got to be accountable and responsible for your crime.
		I think that's a formula that not only D.C. would welcome, it's a formula that would be welcomed across America.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Did you hear a change in tone from the D.C. mayor this week compared to how she first reacted to the president's decision?
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And why do you think that was?
unidentified		I don't think there's been a necessary a change in tone.
		I think Mrs. Bowser has always shown her willingness to meet with the president.
		She did go to Bar-a-Lago right after Donald Trump was elected.
		And just think about this.
		And I want people to really listen to this.
		When Barack Obama was president of the United States, not once did Mayor Bowser go to the White House for a meeting.
		Since Donald Trump has been as president, she's gone to the White House and Mar-a-Lago on many occasions.
		The bottom line is when you're a mayor and you're a leader and you're elected by the people and you feel your authority is being threatened, you're going to fight back.
		Donald Trump, with his power as president of the United States, wants to change and make D.C. a beautiful city again.
		What has happened, sometimes there's going to be conflict.
		There will be friction.
		But as long as that friction leads to results where people are safer, I don't people think people mind.
		I don't think it's fair to criticize the mayor that she changed the tone is that the mayor is becoming more wiser.
		She's looking at the stats.
		She's looking at the numbers.
		And she also realizes that you and I can talk about the stats until the cows come home.
		But what people more realize is what's happening where they are.
		Are they safe?
		Do they feel threatened by criminals?
		Do they feel threatened in their homes?
		Are there too many homicides?
		Are there too many rapes?
		And for her bottom line, it's about that she serves the people and she wants to allay their fears that she's doing something about crime.
		And I think finally, after all this friction of a relationship, the mayor and the president has worked out a formula where they can work together for the greater good of the city.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about the legality of this, Mr. Williams.
		The Insurrection Act of 1807 says it authorizes the president to deploy armed forces or the National Guard domestically to suppress armed rebellions, riots, or other extreme circumstances.
		Where is that happening in Washington, D.C.?
		What would you point to that falls into that criteria of armed rebellion, riots, or other extreme circumstances?
unidentified		Well, I think anybody, listen to this, who lives in the district and living in places like Memphis and Chicago and other places where there's high crime and Baltimore City, and you're leading the world, I mean, in stats of homicide.
		I think that's an emergency situation.
		I think that's a situation that's out of control.
		And that's a situation that warrants for some emergency action to take place.
		And as I said, while this may seem extreme, it doesn't mean that it's going to be permanent.
		You're just trying to work out a solution to get this crime under control and make sure that you don't have members of the city council, members of the legislature that's enacted legislation where you think you're protecting these young people and what you're doing is making their criminal behavior even more hard.
		Today it's a car.
		Tomorrow it's breaking in somebody's home.
		Tomorrow it's rape and the next day it's homicide.
		You've got to get this under control.
		People deserve to be safe.
		They pay their taxpayer dollars to make sure that law enforcement provides them with security.
		They don't have the luxury of Capitol Hill where they have security and security barriers, the White House where they have fences and they're protected.
		They depend on law enforcement and the leadership to protect them.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, sir, then if this is just a short-term solution, what happens when the National Guard leaves Washington, D.C. Is there a change in policy needed to address what you're talking about, which is juvenile crime?
unidentified		I think the mayor said it best.
		While they don't want the National Guard, more federal agents, the FBI, the DEA, because look, just think about this.
		She is short of 800 police officers, the same as in Baltimore and other major cities.
		They lack the resources.
		If the president can come in and sort of help them by deploying more federal resources to help them fight crime, then you can sustain what you're seeing now, where once the National Guard leaves, then all of a sudden the criminals can come out of their home again and continue their criminal behavior.
		You've got to go through this process.
		And I think the mayor is smart enough.
		I think Pamela Smith, our police chief, is smart enough and other mayors around the country to realize that the president is willing to invest more money and more resources.
		You can figure out how this make you can make this work to combat crime.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		D.C. Resident Armstrong Williams, owner of the Baltimore Sun columnist, TV talk show host and entrepreneur, is our guest here this morning on the Washington Journal.
		We want you to join us for this conversation.
		Here's how you can do so.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
unidentified		Democrats 202-748-8000.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		D.C. residents.
		We want to hear from you at 202-748-8003.
		Remember, all of you can text at that same line, just include your first name, city, and state.
		Mr. Williams, I want to play for you and our viewers.
		The California governor, Gavin Newsom.
		He held a news conference yesterday to talk about crime and the president deploying the National Guard.
		He said the president needs to do so in some Republican states where he said crime was significantly worse than in California.
		Here he is.
gavin newsom ▲ ● ▼		The carnage in Louisiana is well defined.
		Of course, Mississippi leads the nation as the number one murder state in America.
		Imagine this in particular may resonate with the president of the United States.
		It's got a murder rate 180%, 180% higher than Los Angeles.
		It's interesting.
		LA has more people.
		These are all per capita numbers.
		More people than Los Angeles.
		Perhaps the president could deploy the National Guard in every corner of Mississippi.
		It's the murder rate's out of control there.
		Carnage.
		And governor may want to make that phone call.
		Again, if this is if they care about the issues of crime and violence, I would note St. Louis' murder rate is 190% larger than Oakland.
		I can go on.
		We could talk about the carnage in Arkansas, one of the top 10 murder states in America.
		Two and a half, 2.6 times greater than San Francisco.
		Again, these are just not just observations.
		They're stone-called facts.
		And the fact remains, if the president is sincere about the issue of crime and violence, there's no question in my mind that he'll likely be sending the troops into Louisiana and Mississippi to address the just unconscionable wave of violence that continues to plague those states.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Armstrong Williams respond to the governor there saying if the president is sincere, he'll send the National Guard into these other states, these Republican states.
unidentified		Well, Greta, let's first acknowledge what the governor of California acknowledged in that clip.
		Murder, carnage, pride is out of control.
		We know that the president did send the National Guard into Los Angeles, and the governor did everything he could in his power to fight it, even though the National Guard did lower crime.
		I don't think the American people, Greta, at this day in time, care about red state, blue state, Democratic governor, Republican governor.
		They care about a formula to fight crime.
		If the governor of California is now saying, let us work with the president, because unlike the District of the Columbia, where the president has almost unlimited power, the president just cannot go into places like Maryland and Mississippi and these other places that the governor just mentioned, unless the governors make the request.
		So I think what Governor Newsom is doing now is facing reality that something needs to be done.
		And so I embrace what Governor Newsom is saying.
		Get away from these labels and let's just find a formula.
		Let's find a process and legislation that works to get this crime under control to make people safe in their communities across America.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We're going to go to Bill first, who's an Orange Park, Florida Democratic caller.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Bill.
unidentified		No, I'm a Republican.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you're a Republican.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Did you call on the Democratic line?
unidentified		No, I didn't.
unidentified		I called on the Republican line.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, go ahead, Bill.
unidentified		When I heard, I heard a beep, so they might have been changing it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		That was the beep when you're the beep that you hear is when you are now on television.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So go ahead.
unidentified		All right.
		Mr. Williams, I've listened to you since I lived in Chicago.
		That's been 25 years ago.
		But I'll tell you, I can't believe all the crime in Chicago and then nobody wants to do it.
		But how long do you think it would be before the president sends troops to Chicago?
		The people want it.
		The mayor and the governor don't want it, but the people want it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Williams.
unidentified		You know, I have to tell you, what people believe today could be totally different than what they believe tomorrow.
		You know, just like Mayor Bowser, she could not see the results of what the president was intending to do when he first announced his cleaning up D.C. and not the fact that she's realizing results and how it's cleaning up crime and how the citizens are responding to it.
		I think it's just a matter of time that if the governors don't use this example that the president and the mayor of Washington, D.C. are setting, you will find a revolt from people like yourself.
		I think they will have no choice but to find a solution is crime.
		It's so easy for people to be against something.
		It's so easy to criticize President Trump and the maneuvers that he's making.
		But he's doing something nobody else has been willing to do.
		And guess what?
		It's working.
		We're not going to say it's going to work forever, but it at least gives us a chance to change the conversation.
		How do we deal with these carrots, criminals, and juveniles who don't have fathers in the household, who has no idea what moral striving is, have no ideas what right and wrong is, have no idea what it means to be a man.
		They think they can just pick up a gun and just shoot somebody without having any conversation.
		This is also a further indication of the breakdown of the family.
		And I will tell you, if this continues in Chicago and other places, it's just a matter of time where they get on board with what the president is doing.
		It may not be the same as what the president was doing, but it will be much better than what they have in place now.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We showed you the California governor, Gavin Newsom, who some believe, political observers believe, is positioning himself to run for president in 2028.
		Let me show you, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, also speculation that he may run in 2028.
		This is the governor earlier this week reacting to comments by the administration about the possibility of sending the National Guard to Chicago.
		Here's what he had to say.
unidentified		What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted.
		It is illegal.
		It is unconstitutional.
		It is un-American.
		No one from the White House or the executive branch has reached out to me or to the mayor.
		No one has reached out to our staffs.
		No effort has been made to coordinate or to ask for our assistance in identifying any actions that might be helpful to us.
		Local law enforcement has not been contacted.
		We have made no requests for federal intervention.
		None.
		We found out what Donald Trump was planning the same way that all of you did.
		We read a story in the Washington Post.
		If this was really about fighting crime and making the streets safe, what possible justification could the White House have for planning such an exceptional action without any conversations or consultations with the governor, the mayor, or the police?
		Let me answer that question.
		This is not about fighting crime.
		This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals.
		This is about the president of the United States and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities, and end elections.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Armstrong Williams will respond to the governor's allegation there at the end.
unidentified		I think Governor Pritzker makes an excellent point.
		There must be a process.
		If you really want this to work and to work well, the president and the White House owes these governors and these mayors the respect to say, how can we come and help you?
		How can we help you where people are not intimidated and live in fear?
		What process can we put in place to work together?
		I do believe the president is very sincere about fighting crime.
		This is something he said he would do when he was running for president.
		You know, it's so easy to call names.
		And I do think the White House should reach out and make an effort not only in Illinois, but in Merlin and other places, Tennessee, where this high crime exists and work with these governors, work with these legislatures, work with law enforcement to coordinate this effort, because I think it works best for everyone in the long run.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Williams in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, Democratic caller.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I agree with what Mr. Williams is actually saying that crime is high and it is high in a lot of regions that I guess with, you know, as a Democrat and the Democrats that are running the cities, it is kind of, it should be even a little bit of an embarrassment.
		But if Trump is taking the initiative to go ahead and lower this crime down, that yes, I agree with what Mr. Williams is saying.
		They should find some kind of format, some kind of way to come to council and do this for not just, you know, you know, not just because they think they're being embarrassed, but because of the fact that your constituents want to be safe.
		They want to sit up there and live in peaceful cities.
		They want to have environments where we all learn how to become neighbors.
		And yes, using the military, they're like the front line behind the real police that you have.
		But at the same time, you can't have everyday citizens that won't speak up when they do see the crime.
		So sometimes maybe this is another way they can find a way to sit up there and help parents, parents, their children, at the same time, help communities learn how to get some of these criminals out of the areas that are hotspots.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Williams.
unidentified		So listen, Bretta, the point is, the American people, Americans like myself and like you, we don't care about the politics of this.
		We don't care about the war worst, like the gentleman just said.
		Come together and lower the crime.
		We can talk about all the stats.
		We can talk about homicide being down.
		But in your life, the reality is that you're seeing crime every day.
		These innocent little babies died in Minneapolis this week and injured for no reason at all.
		Maybe, you know, my cousin was Femented Kinckney, who died in that Charleston massacre.
		And I will tell you this: after that happened, and what happened when they were shooting in churches, churches have hired private security.
		You don't see them, they're armed, but on Sundays, they're paroling the parking lot.
		They're looking for signs.
		They're looking for something that is out of place and they want to put a stop to it because they don't want parishioners in their worshiping God to die.
		Because listen, Greta, no place is sacred anymore.
		If you can have, whether it's the military, whether it's the DEA, or whatever you call it, if you can have it in place to protect people in their communities, who in their right mind is going to fight this?
		And today, people don't care about your being a Democrat, a Republican.
		They want you to get this crime under control because I'm telling you, the reality is that people across this country don't feel safe.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Lancaster, Virginia.
		James, a Republican.
		Morning, James.
		Question or comment here for Armstrong Williams.
unidentified		Both.
		Mr. Williams, we're pretty much on the same page.
		And as a Republican, I get Democrat props.
		And Mayor Bowser should be a Democratic national leader the way she has stood up and handled this with Trump and the crime.
		But what I'm confused by is why are so many Democrats against fighting crime?
		I don't understand that.
		And the only thing I disagree with you on is I don't think it's up to President Trump to ask Spitzer and Newsom and the rest of these guys for do they need help.
		If your ship is sinking, you do a May Day.
		You ask for help.
		If your plane is fashing, you do a May Day.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		James, do you?
unidentified		These governors aren't doing it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		James, do you agree with the California governor that the president should send in the National Guard to these Republican states as well?
unidentified		Oh, I agree.
		I lived in Memphis.
		Oh, I lived in Memphis, and I can tell you stories about Memphis.
		Memphis went down the hill once they elected that new mayor years ago.
		And I lived there.
		It just went down the tube.
		And crime is, I got friends live in Memphis.
		They don't leave the house when the sun goes down.
		Memphis, when I moved there back in 1989, Memphis, and I lived all around the world, Memphis was the best city I ever lived in my life until the mid-90s, late 90s.
		Oh, my Lord, the crime was outrageous.
		I did have one comment from Mr. Williams if I got to hang up.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Can you tell me real quick?
		Can he tell me what are not the politicians?
		What do the local constituents feel about the crime going down?
		Because they don't say anything because they don't want me scarlet letters that they agree with Trump.
		But what are you getting to vibes from the locals that live in D.C. and how they feel about it?
		Other than that, this is a great conversation because I live in Virginia.
		I've been through D.C. a million times and I'm a truck driver.
		I'm at my doors.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, James.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Armstar Williams.
unidentified		Well, James, you know, this is why my recent Baltimore Sun editorial talked about the fact that the solid majority in Washington, D.C., they don't want to speak out.
		They don't need to be seen, but they are applauding the efforts of the president.
		Not only are they safer, the city is cleaner.
		Union Station looks like a place out of the Twilight Zone.
		You're not here smelling marijuana.
		You're not seeing homeless people with needles.
		You just don't, you don't see that ugliness about D.C.
		They remove these homeless camps.
		And I know people talk about the National Guard and the National Guard, they've been moving trash.
		They've been washing away graffiti.
		They've used them in different roles.
		But what other people don't realize is that the Park Police once had 200 employees to go around and clean up the city, but that number is only 20 now.
		They only have 20 employees that will deploy to clean up the city.
		So what they're using the resources of the National Guard is to also clean up the city as well.
		And the point about where you disagree with me on Pritzker, you and I don't really disagree.
		You and I know that it's almost epidemic what's going on in crime, but you need to respect the process.
		Why give people ammunition to criticize you and fight against you?
		What you want to do, show respect to the people that are elected.
		Say, let's work together and let's work for the greater good of the people that are being impacted by this more than anyone else.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Williams, Republicans are in control of the purse strings in Congress, in the House and the Senate.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Do they need to give D.C. more money in the annual appropriations bill to increase services in the city?
unidentified		I think the president just recently requested an additional $800 million in the budget to clean up Washington, D.C.
		And because the president has a trifecta, the White House, the House, and the Senate, I've seen very little, there's very little sign that what Donald Trump wants, he does not get when it comes from the Republican House.
		So I'm pretty sure that if that's what the president wants, it's exactly what he will get.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hamilton's in York, Pennsylvania, Independent.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Welcome, Hamilton.
unidentified		Thanks for having me on.
		I was an SBO, a citizen special police officer downtown D.C.
		And I've seen Mr. Williams many times.
		He's more or less a Republican apologist on everything.
		If Donald Trump was serious about doing that, he would allot the funds that he said and build up the police force that's existing instead of sending the National Guard.
		The National Guard is around the monuments and different things, but the crime is out in Southeast.
		It's out in the parts of D.C. that they're not going.
		So how is having the National Guard with the armed National Guard running around capitals when the crime is out in the impoverished neighborhoods where the money is not getting into?
		How is that going to help at all?
		Because you asked that, Mr. Williams.
		Well, it's a little different when you have members of the city council that don't want the National Guard in their neighborhoods and then they fight against it.
		But to say that the National Guard is not in Southeast is not true.
		The National Guard is in Southeast.
		I've had people live in Southeast that have sent me video and photos of how the city and their neighborhoods have been cleaned up.
		People are just startled by it.
		Maybe it has not been deployed every place where there are these crime areas and these processes are in place.
		And maybe DEA and the FBI and other law enforcement agencies will go in these areas.
		You know, you can always find room to criticize if that's what you choose to do.
		But yet, you cannot ignore the fact that there are a lot of neighborhoods that were underserved in Washington, D.C. three weeks ago that are much safer from crime and violence today.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Laurel, Maryland.
unidentified		Josh, Democratic Color.
		Yes.
		Hi.
		Good morning.
		As someone who was a school teacher in Northeast, I was a school teacher at Kenilworth Elementary in the early 2000s and who's grown up just outside of D.C. in Silver Spring.
		I know for a fact that like police action and even such as the National Guard is a stopgap measure.
		It's not an actual solution.
		Marion Battery's jobs program in the 80s probably saved more lives than any single police action.
		And it's certainly not necessarily a crime problem.
		It's a crime problem because of a resource problem, what's available to the residents.
		So when D.C.'s budget gets nixed by the Republican Congress, which is beholden to Trump, by over a billion dollars, and they raise plenty of tax revenue, but then we have these overbearing policies.
		To me, there seems to be a humongous disconnect.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Josh is referring to the most recent action by this Republican Congress to cut D.C.'s budget by a billion dollars.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Armstrong Williams?
unidentified		You know what's kind of fascinating about this line of discussion now?
		It doesn't matter who is in power, whether it's President Obama, the Bushes, the Clintons, the Biden's, or Trump.
		This problem persists.
		It doesn't matter if they had enough money.
		They did not have enough money.
		This problem persists.
		This problem hasn't gotten any better.
		It's gotten worse.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to John next in Washington, D.C. John, go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, Mr. Williams talks a lot about crime in the city, but the biggest crime is that we don't have statehood here in the same rights as other Americans.
		I haven't heard him mention that once, but just to mention a few things, there is no emergency.
		People here have been fighting crime for years and it's going down.
		But more importantly, like, does he really want to try 14-year-olds as adults instead of giving them a job?
		I mean, is that really going to reduce crime?
		But that's what the president and Janine Shapiro, that's what they propose.
		So the mayor never asked for this help.
		There is no cooperation.
		She's trying to get along with the president because she doesn't want even worse things to happen to D.C. residents.
		But really, this is not necessary.
		The people from the Guard, they should wait for an emergency in their own state or somewhere else and go there.
		They don't need to be here.
		And by the way, I haven't seen them in Southeast.
		That's where I live.
		I saw them at Union Station yesterday.
		I saw them on the metro, but they weren't doing very much because that's not where the crime is in the city.
		So Mr. Armstrong better get a better understanding of what D.C. is really about before he comes on and talks about it again.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Williams.
unidentified		You know, all of us are shaped by our perceptions, our experiences, what we're exposed to.
		Like the caller, I live in a neighborhood where I don't concern myself with crime, and I can isolate myself and say crime does not exist.
		We don't need the National Guard.
		But for someone who's a broadcast and a newspaper owner who talks to so many people every day, go to so many different communities and neighborhoods, they tell me something quite different from my experience.
		So because my experience is not one of crime and feeling insecure and living in fear, does that mean that is their experiences also?
		No.
		You have to take everybody's experience and how they live.
		No different than the young lady that works for NTD, who was a White House reporter who two years ago, she was walking out of a neighborhood and somebody walked out and accounted her and beat her with their pistol.
		And she was traumatized.
		I mean, people have different experiences.
		It's certainly not mine.
		And then there are people who are able to have security and live in nice neighborhoods.
		But that's not the majority of the people that live in these cities.
		I will tell you, Greta, from my experiences and talking to people and sharing their day-to-day lives in Washington, D.C., crime is a real threat.
		I think it is the number one issue on their mind.
		It leads to stress.
		It leads to depression.
		It leads to fear.
		It leads to not having real relationships with your own community because the trust has been breached.
		I mean, it impacts everything.
		So to say that Donald Trump is missing the boat and the mayor is being coerced because they're not a crime problem in Washington, D.C., I would say that caller is really out of touch with reality.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Michael's next in Folsom, Pennsylvania, Republican caller.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Michael.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		And Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Williams, I respect and admire you for years and years.
		But this question is for you, Greta.
		You have Governor Newsome, you know, we said all the last, you know, Democratics too.
		And Judge Scranbaugh tried the same thing.
		He went through all the red states and saying they have the most crime of anybody.
		But what he didn't mention was the cities in the states, which are all run by Democratic mayors.
		And that's where all the crime is.
		So I don't know if you knew, you know, Governor Newsom was trying to pull a war over your eyes, but that's the truth.
		So I investigated a little more before I put him on and give him any credibility.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Michael's opinion there.
		We'll go to Cam in Frederick, Maryland, Independent.
		Cam, you're next.
unidentified		Yes, I'm here.
		Yes, I'm here, Cam from Frederick, Maryland.
		I was born and raised in Washington, D.C.
		I actually was a juvenile that got in trouble in the system when I was young as well.
		And I can relate to all the young people in Washington, D.C.
		The problem is everybody's missing the point.
		You have to look at the root of the problem.
		The root of the problem is their predecessors, predecessors were treated unfairly, mistreated, and oppressed and never received reparations.
		The Japanese receive reparations.
		Jewish receive reparations.
		Indians receive reparations.
		The young African-American men in Washington, D.C. never received reparations.
		So they've been dealt an unfair hand.
		We have a president that'll take $4 million to put up racist Confederate statues that foundation is the cornerstone speech.
		$4 million.
		But we can't take these young kids from the age of 12 to they turn 21 and give them a $100, $150 stipend if their parents are making under $150,000 a year when they've been dealt an unfair hand.
		For every action, there's a reaction.
		There's a cause and effect.
		What you see in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore was exactly what they want to happen and what they want to be.
		It's the young African-American community.
		It's nobody.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Cam, let's have Armstrong Williams respond to your argument here about reparations.
unidentified		Listen, I know so many Americans who happen to be black that also did not see reparations.
		They're not committing crime.
		They're not the lowest common denominator of their communities.
		They work hard to make sure that their children are educated.
		They work hard to make sure that their children are disciplined and respect their neighbors.
		They work hard to make sure that the kids have the skill set so when they do graduate from high school and college, they can find a real job and they don't end up in the penal system.
		They don't end up prostituting themselves.
		They don't end up suffering from depression because they have no self-worth because they realize the school system robbed them and cheated them because they didn't give them a real education.
		They cannot read.
		They cannot write.
		They cannot do basic arithmetic.
		I know families every day who come from abject poverty, but they still give their children the best, and their children don't cave in to crime in this culture.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Olympia in New York, Democratic Color.
unidentified		Hi, good morning.
		Yes, I'm calling from the Bronx.
		A few things, Mr. Armstrong, I'd like to dispute.
		I don't know if you want to make it a general statement that churches have armed guards now, but for you to say that and make it a general statement is completely false.
		And you shouldn't make general statements like that because not all churches can afford armed guards in that regard.
		And in regards to having a military force implemented and installed in any one of the states or even the District of Columbia without course, without cause, is a violation of our own rights, right?
		Our own military is not to be used against us.
		There has been no reason for this.
		If President Trump wanted to make sure that he minimized crime in the state and the District of Columbia, then he wouldn't be pulling back on all of the funding for everything that we need within the states and the District of Columbia.
		Those things are funding for health care, funding for mental health care, funding for even the criminal justice system, funding for further education.
		So things that compound what he calls this rampant crime is caused by him.
		And at this point, his policy and his words are exacerbating racial tensions, political tensions.
		The country is a mess right now because of him.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Olympia, I'm going to have Mr. Williams jump in and respond.
unidentified		You know, you know, it's fascinating listening to Olivia.
		And, you know, obviously I was talking about in my community where they have security and other churches have it too.
		And of course, not everyone can afford that.
		So she's absolutely correct there.
		But, you know, I think, and Donald Trump can be such a dividing figure with his rhetoric.
		He doesn't always say it the best.
		And I understand that.
		And then there are people who, it doesn't matter what Donald Trump does because they dislike him so much.
		They have such disdain for him.
		If he's offering up the policies, even if it makes your life better, you're going to resist them.
		This is what happens when you have a polarizing figure like the president of the United States.
		Now, if Biden or Obama were offering up the same proposals with the National Guard, I'm certain Nicara would have a different perspective.
		But it's because of her disdain for Donald Trump.
		And sometimes what we need to do is get beyond how much we may dislike Trump, Biden, or Kamala Harris, and talk about whether or not the policies are reasonable, whether they would work.
		Should they be given a chance if it saves one life, if it makes your community safer.
		So I get where she is.
		Her issue is not necessarily with the policy.
		It's the person that's putting the policies in place.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Jack is down in Georgia, an independent caller.
		Jack, you're talking to Armstrong Williams.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Good morning, Mr. Williams.
		I would like to stand up and clap my hands to you, sir.
		You're a very neutral gentleman.
		I too believe just like you do, lives matter.
		It doesn't matter if you're Republican, you're a Democrat, you're Independent, a Libertarian.
		You are absolutely right what you're saying.
		Lives.
		And it's, you know, I've heard the other people coming on.
		I'm half Cherokee Indian.
		Nobody owes me nothing.
		It's like you said, sir, you make your own way and you teach your children to respect other people.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Jack.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Armstrong Williams, your final thoughts here.
unidentified		You know, listen, the good news, Greta, this is a great format with C-SPAN to have this discussion because the people that really think about what you're saying, they don't call in.
		They're really shy.
		They just rather listen.
		And what we have to remind people is that fathers matter, families matter, morality matter, God matters, but you and I can disagree and be disagreeable, but we don't have to hate and dislike each other and be at each other's throats.
		We're not each other's enemies.
		We may have come here on different ships, on different boats, but we're on the same ship now.
		And we're just sink together, a swim together.
		We must swim together and finding policies to resolve those things that impact us all.
		Crime impacts us all.
		Lack of education impacts us all.
		Division impacts us all.
		And if Donald Trump has something in his toolbox that makes America better, we should also try to use that, whatever that is in his toolbox across the country.
		Everybody brings something.
		Princeton Newsom, at the end of the day, we're all Americans.
		Because if the enemy comes and they drop a bum on us, they're going to say, oh, I'm going to isolate the black community.
		I'm going to isolate the Latino community.
		We all are Americans and we must work together to find a solution to what ails us.
		And only we can do it by holding these people that we elect to public office accountable and responsible.
		And none of us should ever accept normalizing criminal behavior, rape, and pillaging of our community.
		And if Donald Trump has a solution, if it works, we embrace what works and what doesn't work.
		We tweak it.
		Because the bottom line, like the colleague just said, it is that lives matter.
		Not the politics, not the politics.
		It's the lives of everyday Americans.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Armstrong Williams, owner of the Baltimore Sun, columnist, TV talk show host, and entrepreneur, we thank you for the conversation this morning, sir.
unidentified		Thank you, Greta.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Coming up in the Washington Journal, we'll be joined by the All In Together co-founder and CEO, Lauren Leader.
		She'll discuss Women's Equality Day, the anniversary of the certification of the 19th Amendment.
		Also talk about civic engagement among women.
		Stay with us.
		We'll be right back.
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		It's an amazing show to get real opinions from real people.
		Appreciate you guys' non-biased coverage.
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		ceasefire this fall on the network that doesn't take sides only on c-span washington journal continues Joining us this morning is Lauren Leder.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		She's the co-founder and CEO of All In Together, here to talk about Women's Equality Day.
		Lauren Leder, what is Women's Equality Day?
		Why do we celebrate it?
unidentified		So when the Constitution was founded, as we all know, voting rights were granted to white land-owning men.
		And women who even then were critical to the founding of the nation and have been essential to American history always were excluded from voting rights.
		And after a more than 100-plus year battle for the right to vote, suffragists finally won their rights.
		And so Women's Equality Day celebrates the day in which actually the 19th Amendment, which guarantees the right to vote for to be very specific white women, was ratified by the United States Congress after a constitutional amendment.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How would you describe the state of voting for women in this country today?
unidentified		Well, part of why I emphasize that the 19th Amendment guaranteed the right to vote for white women is that obviously black women were disenfranchised until the Voting Rights Act in 1964.
		So they waited a long time.
		And then even after, we know, obviously, that the right to vote for many Americans has been a struggle.
		I think part of what we see today is it's a particularly concerning moment when it comes to the 19th Amendment, which seems like something so sacrosanct and such a bedrock of American democracy.
		And yet there is this movement underfoot in far-right conservative circles to deny women the right to vote.
		There is an ongoing sort of through line undercurrent of, you know, sort of look back of ultra-ultra conservatives who view the rights of women as inferior and have been very vocal about it.
		And in fact, some of the, you know, most extreme right-wing bloggers and online commentators have been calling for the 19th Amendment to be repealed.
		I wrote about this a few years ago and it wasn't really taken seriously, but now it's really gone further.
		And in the sort of like trad wife circle, some of the stuff that we see online, ongoing conversations about whether or not women, for instance, should be subservient to their husbands, this issue keeps coming up.
		And so that's one piece.
		And then, of course, the other piece is the issue that has been very well publicized in recent weeks about ongoing challenges to voter access through gerrymandering, which continues to be just an absolute political hat potato.
		So, you know, and then, of course, the president has recently said that he wanted to see an end to mail-in voting.
		So, you know, voting rights in this country, while they seem like such a sacrosanct and basic part of how we operate, are under constant debate.
		And I think it's important on these days where we remember how hard won rights were that we think about, you know, what the future is and what the fights will continue to be to preserve those rights.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		There's concern among women's rights advocates in your organization that women's right to vote is currently under threat by the passage of the SAVE Act in the House.
		This legislation requires all voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate when registering to vote or updating their voter registration.
		It passed by the House in April and it's up for review in the Senate.
		Why is this legislation a threat?
unidentified		Well, I will tell you that this is one of those bills that really caught fire through social media as women started to understand what the potential implications were, because essentially what the SAVE Act says, look, you know, conservatives have been very worried about voter fraud and concern.
		There have been, you know, lots of conversations over the last few years about whether or not, you know, people who are citizens are voting or not.
		There's very little evidence that that is true, but it doesn't stop the internet from being set aflame.
		And as a response to that, the SAVE Act tries to do, you know, essentially does a kind of voter ID that requires that the name on your passport or your birth certificate match your current name.
		Well, of course, millions of women realized instantaneously that that was ridiculous because of course so many women change their names through marriage or other reasons, but marriage is really one of the primary reasons that women change their names.
		So does that mean that married women would be disenfranchised, would be unable to vote?
		That's a real problem that has not been addressed to date with the SAVE Act.
		So people were freaking out about this with good reason because regardless of your political affiliation, there are tens of millions of women who would potentially lose the right to vote if their names didn't match on their ID.
		And I think one of the other big issues with the SAVE Act, which many people have pointed out, we do not have a national ID in this country.
		That's a different conversation.
		But we have lots of Americans who do not have their birth certificates.
		They are American citizens.
		They do not have passports.
		Very small numbers of Americans have passports.
		So to require these ID requirements, while on the face of them seem rational and reasonable, in practicality, are completely will lead to mass disenfranchisement of voters, you know, for no reason, because most of the claims of voter fraud are completely unfounded.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's get to calls.
		Christine in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, Democratic caller, you're up first in this conversation.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yes.
		I just was wondering.
		So Donald Trump is going to be a disaster for women.
		We're the next target is what I'm getting from everything in his administration.
		And he plays the fares on people so good that he manages to twist.
		I don't know why any woman or immigrant would vote for this man, and yet they still back him.
		I don't understand it.
		I don't understand how women or immigrants can vote for a man that's so against it all.
		Even the previous gentleman you had on, he never answered the question about why aren't they in Mississippi?
		He just talked in circles when it's so obvious what's going on.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Christine, well, let's get a response from Lauren Leder.
unidentified		Go ahead.
		Well, listen, I mean, look, there have been very deep political divisions among women in this country in the same way that there have been deep political divisions among men.
		We don't all agree.
		And, you know, if you look at recent history, and I always talk about, you know, we're here to talk about the 19th Amendment, but following that, the next most important conversation that we had about women's rights was the ERA battles in the 1970s, right?
		The fight to pass an equal rights amendment, which would have explicitly secured women's rights in the United States Constitution.
		Well, it was on a path to victory until a group of conservative women rose up against the ERA, and their concerns were that equal rights was going to mean that, for instance, women would be drafted.
		And this was in the aftermath and in the ending years of the Vietnam War, that there would be an end to alimony, because if women were equal, they wouldn't be entitled to that anymore.
		So there was a lot of fear-mongering, but part of it was also this sense that liberal feminism just didn't speak to a lot of women in this country who did have more traditional values, who saw feminism as a threat to their family choices.
		And I'll say also that the Christian conservative movement that started with Ronald Reagan in the 80s did a really amazing job of villainizing feminism, and driving a wedge between Democrat and Republican women, who, by the way, mostly agreed until that point.
		And also, finally, of course, abortion politics.
		And so, to your point, look, Trump has already made it very clear that there were a lot of issues around women's rights that he was committed to setting back abortion rights being number one.
		That was a very significant commitment that he made, and he followed through on it, and he has been clear that he's proud of it.
		So, I think the ongoing debates over IVF, I mean, there's a long list, but it is important to understand why so many women do support him.
		And it's deeply rooted in a lot of mistrust for liberalism and mistrust for feminism.
		And by the way, last point I'll make is that Republicans did an exceptionally good job of using the trans issue as a way to galvanize conservative women as well.
		You know, many women see, you know, trans women in sports as offensive.
		So, you know, it's just, I understand for some people, it's hard to understand.
		A lot of Americans struggle with how the other side thinks, but I think it's important to understand where people are coming from.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Jane in River Edge, New Jersey, Democratic caller.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Jane, good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		Ms. Leader, I appreciate all that you do.
		My own, both grandmothers were born in an era where they could not vote.
		They didn't have the right.
		And sexism I see as a generational thing.
		Both males and females in my family are profoundly misogynistic.
		And I am very disheartened about the misogyny on wine in particular.
		And I'm wondering, where are all the women saying, look, I'm sick of this.
		Where are all the women that say, enough is enough?
		You know, with sexualizing women, young girls.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We get your point, Jane.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So, Lauren, later, let's talk about a resurrection in the movement.
unidentified		Yeah, so look, a couple of things.
		Like, you know, look, I think it's a little bit whack-a-mole.
		You know, in 2016, you know, when we first started to see like really intense misogyny at the center of the political political process, right?
		All the sort of sexism against Hillary and the stuff that was coming up in the 2016 campaign.
		You know, it was before me too.
		And there were actually a lot of people in the media.
		You know, I've been very, you know, I've been in the media for a long time.
		You know, there was tremendous sexism in the media as well.
		We had very few women in senior roles, et cetera.
		I won't get into it, obviously, like the Matt Lowers of the world who were also in control of the narrative.
		And I actually felt that we made huge progress after that, that the Me Too movement really shifted the way that like legacy journalism was covering women.
		I've spent the last decade, you know, calling out sexism in the media, calling it out very publicly in the media, and I've gotten a lot of support for that.
		And I think there's a lot of people who do do that.
		On the other hand, part of the challenge is that with social media, it's so hard to tackle because it's everywhere.
		And it is like whack-a-mole.
		You know, we were tracking in the 2024 election, the amount of, excuse me, online misogyny and racism that was directed, by the way, not just towards Kamala, but also even to Usha Vance, who was the only other woman, you know, who was really in the public sphere.
		And of course, we've seen this against the First Lady as well.
		There has been just an absolute avalanche of hate online, and it is just really hard to respond to.
		Now, the campaigns did a pretty good job of fighting back, but it's a huge issue.
		And then I just want to say one other thing, which is that actually ironically, maybe for some, although I think it's pretty noble, is that some of the worst of the online attacks on women are actually coming from AI-generated, deep fakes and sexualized images of women and girls.
		And there is a bipartisan effort to block that material from being posted.
		And there is a bill that was championed by First Lady Melania Trump and by Ted Cruz and Amy Klobuchar that passed the House, the Senate, and was voted into, you know, signed into law by the president, which requires social media companies to immediately remove any deep fake or AI generated pornography of children.
		Now, it is a bare minimum, and there's so much more that needs to be done.
		But I actually am very heartened that in some ways this is becoming more of a bipartisan issue.
		There is a sense that like there is a line that, yes, there's a tremendous amount of hate, but that the sexualization and especially using AI to generate this stuff against people's will, you know, really should be illegal.
		And, you know, the laws are slow to catch up, but I'm an optimist.
		There is a lot of really dark stuff out there.
		There's no question that the misogyny against women has mainstreamed and it's getting worse in a lot of ways.
		But I'm hopeful that there's also some line that both parties can agree on that are unacceptable and that have to be, you know, have to be, the worst harms need to be prevented.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We will go to Rick, who's in Minnesota, Democratic caller.
unidentified		Rick?
		Yes.
		I'd like to say that Lauren is correct in what she's talking about the 19th Amendment.
		And the simple, the most succinct way of putting what the troubles are is to say that all problems are The 19th Amendment included are the result both collectively and individually concerning gender,
		race, economic inequality, and all other sorts of things.
		To put it succinctly, collective, all collective and all individual problems are caused by self-interest.
		The self-interest of billionaires, the self-interest of the people in power.
		And that's as succinct as I can make it.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Rick, Lauren Leder.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, look, I think that we do have this kind of epidemic of self-interest in the country right now.
		And I worry about it very much.
		And in fact, some of the, you know, some of my friends and colleagues who've been really trying to focus on, you know, sort of solutions to the polarization have centered on the need for us to do more around public service.
		You know, there have been efforts for years to like bring back like a public service core.
		Obviously, I don't think that's happening anytime soon.
		But, you know, that kind of sense of civic participation and collective good, I do think has been eroded.
		One thing I'll just say about the work that we do at All In Together is that we're nonpartisan, and we have been very intentionally nonpartisan because we want to create a space where people can come together regardless of their party ID and focus on solutions and focus on the things that we want to advance as a society, namely civic participation and a greater voice for the American people and especially for women in our democracy.
		And, you know, my hope is that continues to be galvanizing.
		And I think there are, you know, a significant number of Americans who, you know, cherish our democracy, who understand the importance of voting rights and of participation, who do care very much about their fellow Americans and want to see public policy reflected in that.
		But we also have a lot of forces that, to your point, you know, seek to undermine the collective good for personal power.
		And I think that is really becoming a more clarion call for many people, the sense that, hold on, you know, at a basic minimum, we've always believed that our system should be fair.
		And if we're creating a system that is unfair, you know, that is something that first and foremost we need to rise up against.
		But it's hard.
		And I think, you know, for so much of the last like 50 years, we've been used to this sort of positive ascension of rights and freedoms, meaning it's only ever expanded in most of our lifetimes.
		And I think that's part of why the Dobbs decision was so shocking for so many Americans because it was the first time that we saw our rights rescinded.
		Whatever you think about abortion, that's the fact of what happened.
		And there's a lot of concern that something like that may happen around gay marriage.
		For instance, there are a number of cases before the Supreme Court that could potentially upend what is now considered a sacrosanct right, which is the right of gay couples to marry.
		So nothing is assured.
		And I think it's going to be the work of our generation, and I say ours collectively, those of us that are here on this planet, to reverse those trends.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We're talking with Lauren Leder this morning.
		She's the co-founder and CEO of All In Together.
		AllinTogether.org is the website.
		We're marking Women's Equality Day here in this conversation.
		Republicans dial in at 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		And you can text if you don't want to call at 202-748-8003.
		Lauren Leder, here is a text from one of our viewers who says, in each of the past three general elections, women have voted for Trump on an average of 57%.
unidentified		Why do women vote against their interests and principles?
		Yeah, well, so let's break it down.
		So, it's a very specific segment of the female vote.
		It's white, non-college-educated women that primarily drove those numbers.
		When you look at the numbers of black women, you know, 90 plus percent of black women voted for Kamala, voted for Biden, voted for Hillary.
		And that's been very consistent.
		So, you know, and college-educated women have also consistently voted to the left.
		So, what you see is that there is this like very deep, both educational and economic divide among women that exists, you know, among all voters.
		Men are a little bit more consistent in the way that they vote, meaning there's more consistency between college-educated and non-college-educated men.
		And between now, we saw in this last election, you know, an increase in the number of Hispanic men and black men who voted for Trump from previous elections.
		But it is a very specific group of people, of women, that you know, have voted consistently for Trump.
		And that's part of the point that I made before, which is that I think it's been a terrible mistake of the feminist movement, you know, to assume that women all agree.
		They don't.
		And I think that's clearer than ever.
		And I think that we, you know, Democrats have not done a very good job of engaging, you know, women in the center, women center-right.
		Now, Biden did a very good job of that.
		And actually, it's part of what drove his victory in 2020: he won a larger plurality, especially of sort of women, like suburban women.
		We talk about them all the time because they tend to shift political ideologies.
		They're often registered independents.
		They're somewhere in the middle.
		Biden did an excellent job of that.
		Harris just simply didn't.
		And as close as the election was, you know, she did lose, you know, a significant share of those white, non-college educated women.
		So, look, that's a challenge for the Democratic Party to figure out how to find the right candidates that can connect beyond these political lines.
		Look, the brand of the Democratic Party is in deep trouble.
		The polls all show that the, you know, the numbers of Americans who are registered as Democrats is declining.
		And so, you know, I've been saying for a long time that the issue, we really, you know, every candidate, left or right, really needs to center on the issues and stop centering on party ID.
		It's just not going to win in the same way that it used to.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Jerry's in Long Beach, Washington, Republican.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Jerry, question or comment here for our guest, Lauren Leder.
unidentified		Got a question for you, Lauren.
		When you opened up your opening comments, you mentioned that there were three, I mean, excuse me, you mentioned there were some right-wing bloggers that were trying to get the 19th Amendment repealed.
		I'd like you to give me three names so that I can do research on those folks and find out who those knuckleheads are.
		Please provide me with three names.
		Thank you.
		Sure.
		Thanks for that.
		So there's been this kind of like wide-ranging sort of undercurrent.
		One of the things that got a lot of attention this past week, and you'll forgive me because I don't remember the exact name of the person that he retweeted, but Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth retweeted a blogger who did specifically say that he believes that the 19th Amendment should be repealed.
		And part of why it got on, and I forgive me for not remembering the name of the person that he retweeted, but It got a lot of attention because this is the platform of the Secretary of Defense, you know, who is himself a Christian conservative and has made, you know, been very clear about his values.
		And that got a lot of attention because it actually amplified some of what has been an undercurrent in circles for a long time.
		The Southern Poverty Law Center and also the Anti-Defamation League both track misogynist hate groups and track the ongoing sort of noise that they are putting out online.
		What's been really interesting is that some of the groups, for instance, that were behind the January 6th attacks, the Proud Boys and other groups, also have very specifically misogynistic platforms that explicitly say they believe that women are inferior, should not have the right to vote, et cetera.
		So a number of the sort of far-right organizations also make this issue part of their platform.
		And that's been getting tracked by a number of organizations that look at sort of hate groups generally.
		So forgive me for not having them right now.
		I'll go look it up and I'll be happy to post it on Twitter later for you.
		But check out the, if you want to just Google the retweet from Pete Hegseth, that will definitely give you some insights.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Patty's next in Reidsville, Wisconsin, Independent.
unidentified		Good morning, Lauren.
		Morning.
		Thank you.
		This is all new to me.
		I'm 80 years old.
		I just turned 80.
		I was a career nurse.
		I was married.
		I had two grown educated daughters.
		But my dad had a whole house full full of women.
		And he was a woman's liver.
		He felt that women should be treated as equals.
		And it was easy for me to become a Christian because Jesus set the example of liberating women and he was respectful towards women and encouraging and supportive.
		That being said, is one of the things that irritates me is, and I don't see this on C-STAN.
		You're a host and you are dressed appropriately.
		But when I see mainline news, I see women with plunging necklines and cake clothing and showing a lot of their anatomy.
		And that is frustrating.
		To me, it's not professional reporting.
		Would you address that?
		Thank you.
		Well, I feel a little bit of compassion for some of those women because some of us sometimes have a little difficulty finding the dresses.
		And I once was wearing a dress on television, and I will tell you, I definitely was a little more exposed than I realized.
		And Twitter told me all about it afterwards, and I was very embarrassed.
		So it's not always people's fault.
		But look, I mean, I think there is, you know, I think some of it comes, I was on Fox News for a long time, and they sort of pioneered the kind of like sexy newsgirl thing.
		It's their shtick.
		They've encouraged, you know, a lot of their anchors to, you know, dress in certain ways.
		But like, look, I happen to be someone who believes that it's progress, that women can make their own choices about how they look and how they dress.
		And, you know, I may not, I'm kind of, I'm turning 50, so I'm a little old-fashioned on some things too.
		I'm pretty conservative, but like, you know, I try not to judge.
		I let women make their own choices, and that's progress to me as they like get to decide what they wear, when, why, and how.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Going back to the previous conversation, the website 19thnews.org has this headline: Who's questioning women's right to vote?
		A post from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth showed his support of a fringe evangelical Christianity that is gaining more traction in the Republican Party.
		For those that are interested, you can go to 19thnews.org.
unidentified		And by the way, I really encourage people to follow 19th News.
		It's a terrific, nonpartisan, publicly funded, meaning, like, it's not a commercial news site.
		It's all donors.
		It's a 501c3, a nonprofit.
		And you say, it's founded by friends of mine who, to the answer, actually, I should have mentioned it before when the caller asked about misogyny in the news.
		The 19th was founded specifically to cover stories about women that other news outlets weren't covering.
		And they've been incredibly successful.
		And it's a really terrific source, very balanced.
		Really just reports on things about how women's lives are going in this country in ways that a lot of other people don't.
		Robin's next in Phoenix, Democratic Caller.
		Yes.
		First, real quick, for those that are not real familiar with women's rights, if you'll watch On the Basis of Sex, which is the story of RBG, and then follow it with a net three-part mini-series called Miss, which picks up from 1973 on through around 1980 or so.
		And that's where the is on the got the ERA mylin, basically.
		I'm 67 and I graduated high school in 74.
		So all of this is real familiar with me.
		And I'm college educated, corporate retired.
		So this white, this misogynistic behavior, I saw this back in Texas, even in the early 90s, that was getting out of hand.
		And a lot of it started in Oklahoma with the churches.
		I want to say the alternative churches, the evangelical churches, okay, they started with all the rock and roll music, and which did bring in listeners and stuff.
		But one of the churches that I attended, because my boss was going, and my husband and I were politics, et cetera.
		And we went several times.
		Hey, Robin.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Robin, I apologize, but you are breaking up.
		It's difficult to follow your line of argument.
		Lauren Leda, do you have a response for Robin based on what she said?
unidentified		Yeah, I think she was just saying that everyone should go watch the RBG movie, which is great.
		And actually, there's a documentary about her too, which is really, really interesting and very well done.
		And there's been some new movies recently that talk about the history of the 1970s and the women's rights movement, which drives me nuts because I think most Americans don't know.
		We spend so much, there is a lot of coverage of civil rights, of the civil, you know, civil rights movement that almost every American kid learns in school.
		You know, everyone knows who Martin Luther King is, as they should.
		But what they don't know is they don't know Gloria Steinem and they don't know Phyllis Schlafly and they don't know this sort of fight for women's rights.
		I think many women of my generation, and as I say, I'm turning 50 this year, so I was born in 75, really have just grown up in a world where we thought all the doors were open to us.
		And it's been really shocking along the way.
		And I think, you know, the history of movements is for all movements is often driven by people's anger, right?
		That they feel a sense of anger and injustice because they see something that is not right and it drives them to act.
		And that has been a mobilizing factor, you know, as long as this country has been in existence.
		I mean, we were founded on anger.
		We were founded on rejection of oppression and monarchy and tyranny.
		And I think that as, you know, women of a new generation are coming to understand what rights they do and don't have, the limits of their, you know, place in American society, those who would seek to make them, to marginalize them, you know, I think that can be very galvanizing.
		And as I say, we're nonpartisan all together, but we really try to focus on helping people take the things that matter most to them individually and turn it into civic action.
		Really learn, like, how do you stand up and make a difference?
		How do you hold your elected officials accountable?
		How do you think about running yourself?
		Of those things are all part of what we try to do to give people the tools and the power to put it in their hands.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Cornelia in Cottonwood, Idaho, Republican.
unidentified		Hi, good morning, everybody.
		You know, I would like to just ask this young lady if she is very grateful and happy that her parents did not abort her.
		You know, over the years since abortion was legalized in America, we have lost 70 million children.
		Thousands and thousands of babies are killed every year.
		And some even so radical that they want it to go up.
		Some governors, so radical they want that so-called right to kill all the way up to the time the baby is being born.
		It's just unmatched.
		It's unimaginable how our country has become so calloused.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Cornelia, we'll get a response.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Lauren Leader.
unidentified		So first of all, I want to just set the record straight on a few things.
		Of course, I'm grateful to be here.
		I'm also grateful that my mother had the choice that she had before I was born to terminate a pregnancy of a fetus that was not going to survive.
		I personally could have died from a miscarriage where I was bleeding for days.
		And if I had not had the opportunity to have what's commonly called a DNC, which is essentially an abortion, I'd be dead.
		There are thousands of women across the country who absolutely want their children, who want to be parents, who are desperate to have their babies,
		but who face life and death decisions in places like Idaho and other states that have extreme bans that prevent life-saving care of women who will die or become infertile or face other catastrophic health crises if they're unable to access the care that they need if something goes wrong when they want their children.
		There is no question that there are people who, you know, that abortion is a very complicated and emotional issue.
		I deeply relate to people who find it abhorrent and, you know, want to save children.
		I also believe in saving the lives of women that are here.
		And what we've seen with the World Post Dobbs is women dying and facing horrific consequences.
		We've also had 14-year-old girls.
		There's a story of a young girl in Mississippi who was raped.
		She could not access what were the supposed exceptions in the law, and she was forced to have a baby at 14 and have her rapist child.
		Now, we all have different opinions about that, but until very recently, that was a choice that she could make with her family.
		And that's what I believe is that, you know, we should have a choice.
		And obviously, many people feel very differently.
		I think one of the things that's happened since the Dobbs decision is because of these horrific consequences of losing that right, a lot of folks who were, you know, really anti-abortion have come to understand that if the law doesn't allow, you know, for life-saving care, that's a horrific, that's a horrific choice and that we're forcing circumstances that I think most people would not want, which is why even in very conservative states like Ohio and Kentucky and other places that have put abortion rights access on the ballot,
		they've passed and that even conservatives who were otherwise considered themselves pro-life supported those measures because they don't want to see women dying in the parking lots of hospitals.
		So that's the first thing.
		The second thing I just want to say is that I certainly appreciate how horrific it seems, you know, late-term abortion.
		There is nobody who is advocating voluntary late-term abortion.
		But again, I have friends who were carrying non-viable vetuses, meaning, you know, babies that had died in their womb, and it would have killed them to have to deliver that child, literally could have killed them.
		So, you know, late-term abortion is horrific.
		We all understand it.
		But if it's in the, if it's in service of saving the life of someone who may have other children, who has a family, who has a life, to me, that's not a hard call.
		But look, I mean, this is a very emotional issue.
		It has been at the heart of American politics since 1980, you know, really since, you know, longer.
		I should have said 70.
		So I do understand how people feel about it.
		But, you know, I think there's also, there's a lot of nuance that gets lost in the debate.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Bob's next in Tyler, Texas, a Republican caller.
		Bob, you are talking to Lauren Leder.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes, thank you very much for this opportunity.
		I believe that all men and women should be given the opportunity to vote.
		But I believe that those who do not know our laws should not be given that opportunity until they know that we are a republic and not a democracy.
		Anybody that thinks we are a democracy does not know enough about our law and should not be given the chance to vote.
		And in that regard, September 17th is Constitution Week.
		Every school in America is to hold a program on the Constitution.
		That's where we can learn the difference between a republic, a guaranteed Republican form, and a democracy, which is chaos.
		Thank you very much for this opportunity.
		Thank you.
		Well, listen, I, well, so I don't totally agree, but that's okay.
		Look, I am a believer that Americans need to learn civics.
		And it's actually a huge part of what we do at All In Together is that we teach core civics to adults because once people are out of school, they don't often have that opportunity.
		About 70% of Americans could not pass the citizenship test that is required in order for someone to become a naturalized citizen.
		And I find that really heartbreaking.
		You know, I don't agree with having any kind of litmus test for voting.
		So I disagree with that.
		But I do think we have a real civics crisis in this country.
		Americans don't understand our system and they don't understand how it works.
		And they don't understand even just some basics about the equal branches, the equal powers of the three branches of government.
		So 70% of Americans couldn't name a single person that represents them in elected office.
		Most Americans would fail the citizenship test.
		I would love to see that become a national movement and that we really encourage everyone to take the citizenship test to like learn the basics of how our system works.
		It's what we try to do in our programs.
		We love programs like iCivics, which was founded by Supreme Court Justice Andrew Day O'Connor, which is a very intensive civics program that tries to expand civics education in public schools across the country.
		But like there's no question, like kids are not learning some really basic things and most Americans just don't know them.
		And it's very hard to make up that ground in adulthood.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about tariffs, Lauren Leader, because you have written that the president's tariff policies will impact women.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How so?
unidentified		So it's important to understand that women are already the majority of Americans in poverty.
		The majority of people on public assistance, the majority of the Americans that are living below the poverty line, excuse me, are women and children, many of whom are working.
		And there are a number of sort of exacerbating factors.
		You know, one is that a lot of the lowest income, lowest-wage jobs are jobs that disproportionately employ women.
		So, service workers, you know, hospitality, care, all of those fields are very badly paid and disproportionately held by women.
		And then the second piece is that women already, before tariffs, setting that aside, already pay kind of a, it's jokingly called the pink tax, which is that products and services that are marketed towards women are often priced up.
		So you can have two razors.
		You can go check it at CVS.
		You can have two razors.
		It's called the pink tax because it's like there's a pink razor and there's a blue razor.
		The men's razor is a third of the, or whatever, 30% less of a price than the women's razor, which is marketed to women.
		And also, women have more needs in terms of what they need to purchase.
		Menstrual products, for instance.
		Women are the ones who do most of the like diaper buying and formula buying.
		So all of those things, women have higher costs.
		They're making less money to begin with.
		And so when you look at them, the impact of tariffs, which, you know, is heavily going to affect, I mean, it's affecting almost every product and service soon, you know, from cars to, you know, household goods.
		But because women are already at a disadvantage, every incremental increase in expense for them, you know, can drive them further into poverty.
		So, you know, tariffs are going to affect all Americans.
		We're going to start to see those, see that soon.
		You know, I hope that the impact will be blunted.
		I would not wish this on anybody because Americans are already struggling with the cost of living.
		But there's no question that, you know, it will be worse, you know, for those who are at the lowest income levels, and that is primarily women.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Kathy is in Kansas.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Democratic caller.
unidentified		Hi.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Morning, Kathy.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I just wanted to make a comment on how do you expect America to, when they have a leader like we have, and charge who is so misogynistic who's been caught on tape saying it's okay to grab women's groin area.
		He's been found guilty of rape and sexual molestation.
		He's committed adultery on all three of his wives.
		And then we have the HEGS in the office.
		And then we have Don Jr.
		I don't know.
		I saw it briefly and then they never showed it again.
		When Trump was on the roof of the house, Don Jr. AIs this thing and posts it of Trump throwing after all this happened with the NBA, women in the WNBA, and people throwing sex toys out on the court.
		Then you have Don Jr. showing Donald Trump on the roof with a superimposed dildo he's throwing up.
		And then people admire this.
		This type of acting is admired by men and praised and laughed about.
		How are women ever going to win?
		How is this country ever going to come out ahead with that type of mental attitude amongst men?
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Lauren Leader?
unidentified		I mean, listen, I have a lot of concerns about what's happening for men and boys in this country and the glorification of kind of an ultra-macho misogynistic culture.
		I'm very worried about it.
		I've been worried about it for a long time.
		Frankly, I worried about it before Trump.
		You know, this is, you know, I don't have any doubt that, you know, the sort of coarseness that the, I mean, you've already summarized a lot of the issues, you know, has an effect on American culture.
		I think we all appreciate that and understand it.
		But we've been in, we've had some crises in this country around men and boys for a long time.
		I mean, part of it is the conditions under which we get to a place where, you know, so many Americans are kind of fine with stuff that would have been disqualifying.
		I mean, it's so funny because you think about someone like a Gary Hart, you know, who had an affair and immediately dropped out of the race.
		You know, there were years, most of my lifetime, there were these standards that if you were, you know, not considered to be, you know, ethically inscrutable, that you couldn't run for public office.
		And obviously that's, that's changed.
		So look, I think I'm very worried about those things.
		I also, though, like, I got to tell you, I'm kind of obsessed with Travis and Taylor, not to like get off on a, you know, super internety clicky subject, but you know, like you've got as much for all the Donald Trumps, like, just think about the adulation of, you know, Travis Kelsey.
		And I love him because he is so unthreatened and so respectful of Taylor, who is an absolute superstar who, you know, is a much bigger deal than he is, much richer than he is.
		And he's totally unthreatened by her.
		And she has been a very active voice on, you know, women's rights and on in politics.
		And, you know, he is right there to support her.
		And so I'm kind of hopeful that actually there's going to be this like, you know, Travis Kelseyization of some of the culture that people will want to emulate him more than maybe some of the other horrible behavior that we see going around.
		Call me naive, but I'm kind of psyched about them for no other reason than that.
		Also, because they're so cute.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Lauren Leader, you just took C-SPAN for a twist there.
unidentified		You can't go five minutes without bringing up.
		But I had like a very well-considered feminist argument for why I love Travis Kelsey.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We'll go to Jacqueline in East Elmhurst, New York.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Jacqueline.
unidentified		Hi.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		And I'm sorry if I'm a little nervous.
		As someone who is Republican and Eileen Wright, this is first just an opinion.
		There is no way, at least in my opinion, that I think that Republican women would ever support limiting our voice, our vote as women.
		I just think that that's never going to happen.
		My second kind of a point and just sort of a question is regarding the transgender movement and your organization, or maybe women's organizations in general.
		I feel like it's been a setback for women in many respects because I think even Gloria Seinem in the 70s, I mean, I can't imagine that the support for people who identify as trans women would have been looked at as really being women.
		So I feel like that has really hurt the women's movement in a way.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Jacqueline, let's take your point.
unidentified		Yeah, so thanks for that.
		You know, it is really complicated.
		I struggle with it, to be honest.
		I struggle with it because it is such a polarizing issue and because it has created some real problems for the Democrats, you know, the sense that, you know, this tiny, tiny, tiny minority of Americans, that their rights, you know, have become so central.
		And so I do struggle with that.
		And I, and I struggle a bit with the like trans women in sports issue.
		You know, I do relate to why people are so incensed about that.
		On the other hand, you know, I do believe in treating all people with dignity and respect and giving them, you know, all people deserve full rights.
		And if I don't believe that I have the right to impede on anyone else's freedoms.
		And it pains me terribly to see the persecution, you know, of any group in this country.
		And, you know, trans people have a pretty hard road to hoe right now.
		So, you know, I do understand why it's really complicated.
		And look, I went to a women's college and, you know, in the time that I was there, there were, you know, huge debates about whether or not trans women should be allowed in women's colleges.
		A lot of the women's colleges really struggled with that.
		You know, so it's an ongoing issue.
		On the other hand, you know, I have friends who have trans kids.
		You know, you just want these kids, these people to feel loved and respected as humans.
		And anything that does anything to erode that to me feels wrong.
		My last point is you're completely right about the 19th Amendment.
		I don't think there's any chance that the 19th Amendment will be repealed.
		First of all, we have an extremely high bar to changing the American Constitution.
		We make it very hard.
		In fact, we have fewer amendments to our Constitution than almost any other Western nation.
		That's how hard we make it.
		You know, other countries have like three, four times as many amendments as we do.
		So I'm not saying that I think we're changing it, but I do worry that there's anyone out there that thinks it's acceptable, you know, to marginalize, you know, to sort of glorify marginalizing women's rights that way.
		It's just such a fundamental.
		And I think it's worth understanding because it's an undercurrent and it may not be representative.
		I think most Americans would never agree.
		But it is distressing that also people in very high positions of power like Pete Hegzeth, you know, think that's an acceptable point of view.
		I mean, I worry very much about him being in power in running a military that relies enormously on women.
		And by the way, transgender service members who, you know, we have an all-volunteer military that has been extraordinarily high performing, even with, and maybe especially because of its embrace of diversity and inclusion, you know, the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the embrace of transgender service people.
		It is the most, you know, meritocratic organization out there.
		If you can't make it, you can't make it.
		And so repealing the, you know, expelling, you know, honorable transgender service people just seems to me blatantly discriminatory and frankly undermines the strength of our military.
		So anyway, I could keep going on that, but I won't.
		All right.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're out of time.
		Lauren Leder, who's the co-founder and CEO of All In Together, the website is aitogether.org.
		Lauren Leder, thank you for the conversation.
unidentified		Thanks.
		It was great.
		And thanks to all the callers.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We're going to take a short break when we come back.
		We'll be in an open forum.
		Any public policy issue like the one we were just discussing or others or politics that's on your mind, we want to hear from you this morning.
		We'll be right back.
brian lamb ▲ ● ▼		Historian Jay Winning first appeared on the Book Notes television program 24 years ago to discuss his book April 1865.
		It became a number one New York Times bestseller, reportedly read by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and many others.
		It's the narrative story of the Civil War, or his latest book, Winning Stepped Back Four Years in History to look at how the Civil War began.
		This time, the book is titled 1861, The Lost Peace.
		Northerners had little regard for the strength or determination of the South, rights Winnick.
		Lincoln friend John Hay said the Southern Army was nothing more than a vast mob.
		The New York Tribune said it differently.
		Jeff Davis and company will be swinging from the battlements at Washington by the 4th of July.
unidentified		Author Jay Winnick with his book, 1861, The Lost Peaks, 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.
		Sunday night on C-SPAN's Q&A.
		Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley, author of The Affirmative Action Myth, argues that the racial preference policies of the 1960s and 70s have had an overall negative impact on the success of black Americans.
		There are racial differences in America, in our society, cultural differences, ethnic differences.
		But when it comes to public policy and how the government treats us, treats the population.
		No, it should not be picking winners and losers based on race or treating people differently based on race.
		It's been a disaster.
		Whether the effort was under Jim Crow to elevate whites or the effort was under racial preferences to elevate non-whites, it's been a disaster.
		You know, people like to say that diversity is our strength in America, but I disagree.
		Our real strength in this country has been to overcome our racial and ethnic differences and focus on what unites us as a country.
		That has been the strength of America.
		Jason Riley with his book, The Affirmative Action Myth.
		Sunday night at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A and all of our podcasts on our free C-SPAN Now app.
		Washington Journal continues.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We are back here this morning on the Washington Journal in open forum.
		Any public policy or political issue on your mind, we want to hear it from you.
		This morning until the top of the hour, it's the conclusion of today's Washington Journal.
		Let's begin with some recent headlines here this morning.
		Here is CNBC.
		Core inflation rose to 2.9% in July, the highest since February.
		Then you also have this headline from CNBC, Judge in the Lisa Cook case, as this is the Federal Reserve Board member, sets a today hearing on Trump effort to fire the Fed governor.
		And from Semaphore, Mexico suspends parcel shipments to U.S. over the Diminimis ruling, the rule ending, this is the exemption for cheap goods into this country.
		That exemption now going away and Mexico suspending parcel shipments to the U.S. over that suspension or over that elimination of that exemption.
		And then from CNN this morning, Trump administration approves sale of 3,350 extended range missiles to the Ukraine.
		And also CNN reporting Trump has canceled Kamala Harris's Secret Service detail that was extended by an undisclosed Biden order.
		There is also from the New York Post this morning, Trump scraps $5 billion in foreign aid and rare pocket rescission.
		That's the New York Post headline this morning on foreign aid rescission.
		$5 billion is the number.
		And then from the national news, JD Vance, vice president, calls criticism of prayer response to that Minneapolis school shooting shocking and bizarre.
		Here's Vance in that interview.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		There's going to be time for politics, and there's going to be a time to figure out how to prevent this stuff from happening, how to make these shootings less common in our country.
		And I'm not going to speak about that now, but I would encourage you.
		The First Lady, Melania, who really has a very big heart for children, obviously is a mother herself, she put out a statement earlier today that I think is really worth taking a look at because this happens too much in our country.
		And if you look, we really do have, I think, a mental health crisis in the United States of America.
		We take way more psychiatric medication than any other nation on earth.
		And I think it's time for us to start asking some very hard questions about the root causes of this violence.
unidentified		And I'm going to be part of that.
unidentified		And the first lady and the president are going to be part of that.
jd vance ▲ ● ▼		But that's going to be an American conversation that we're going to have together.
		But before we have that conversation, if you are the praying type, I would ask you to join me in prayer.
		I'm just going to say a prayer for the two little kids who lost their lives yesterday.
		And this is a prayer we say a lot in my church, and I've always found it very meaningful.
		It's very short.
unidentified		But eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
		May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
		Amen.
		Thank you.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		The vice president in Wisconsin yesterday, he was there in Wisconsin to tout the one big, beautiful bill.
		You can listen there.
		You heard him talk about the Minneapolis shooting.
		So we're in open forum.
		You can talk about that public debate as well as politics.
		Eric in New York, a Republican, we'll go to you first.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Good morning, ma'am.
		I love C-SPAN.
		I just got my items from your C-SPAN online store, my hat and my t-shirt, and I'm the coolest guy on my block with that.
		So thank you so much.
		I want to talk about briefly, and I'm calling from a hospital right now.
		I want to talk about the high cost of a lack of common sense in health care and welfare.
		So I'm living at a homeless shelter in Mayor Eric Adams, New York City.
		It's located in Harlem.
		They relocated me from another homeless shelter, which I thought was run really, really well.
		This one mostly is, except last night I woke up and there was someone smoking crack cocaine from a crack pipe next to where I was sitting.
		So I got scared and left.
		I had to go to the hospital because I've been waiting for my food stamps to be transferred from New Jersey to New York.
		So I spent too much of my Social Security to disability, which I have for bipolar, because I've been admitted to a hospital 26 times on food.
		So I have been eating food out of the garbage, which is not always as grotesque as it sounds.
		And please don't judge me because I walk like 200 blocks per day walking to and from Harlem and Lower Manhattan.
		So I had three days of that and very little sleep at the homeless shelter because they make absurd decisions like they'll turn the lights off.
		It were in our dorms from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
		And then at 9 p.m. they turn the lights on and that's when someone started smoking crack from a crack pipe next to me.
		And also on the sidewalk when I went outside to have some nicotine for myself, there was a big cloud of crack cocaine smoke in Mayor Eric Adams, Harlem.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, Eric, I'm going to jump in.
		We'll go to Charles next in Winslow, Indiana, an independent.
		Charles, what's on your mind?
unidentified		Yes, I, on your prior guest, I just kind of wanted to speak that I am a prior Republican, but the doubt that the Republicans have changed and that they won't, they're all in on the changing of our country.
		So I don't want anyone to doubt that the effort and commitment has been made to change the country.
		And it really breaks my heart.
		That's all I wanted to say.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Howard, Salisbury, North Carolina, Democratic caller.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Howard, your turn.
unidentified		Oh, yes, top of the morning, C-SPAN.
		You know, you just blew my mind when you read about Trump removing the security for Kamala.
		The lady that you just had on that was speaking about women's rights.
		You know, I noticed a lot of, and please, I'm not prejudiced, but I have to say this.
		I notice a lot of white women who are pro-choice and who believe in women's rights.
		But the white women, they in America, they didn't vote for another woman to be president.
		The majority of white women voted for Donald Trump, misogynist.
		But it behooves me to even think that these women that did not accept Kamala, they are like Stafford-wise.
		They believe that whatever their husbands say, it will go.
		I'm going to tell you now: my mother, this black woman, God rest her soul, she didn't take no mess from anybody.
		You know, she loved her husband, but you better believe her husband understood how far he can go.
		All I know is that you have a lot of white women who flip-flops like a fish out of water that don't really know their best interest in their life.
		You don't have control of your own bodies.
		That's sad.
		Thank you, C-SPAN.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Douglas in Laramie, Wyoming, independent caller.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Douglas, we are in open forum.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Morning.
		According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey by the CDC, 13.4% of U.S. adults 20 to 74 years old in the period 1960 to 62 were obese.
		In the period 1999 to 2000, 30.5% of U.S. adults 20 or more years old were obese.
		And in the period 2017 to 18, 42.4% were obese.
		Obesity is a leading risk factor for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, stroke, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease, gallbladder disease, respiratory and sleep disorders, and many cancers, including cancers of the colorectum, kidney, pancreas, esophagus, breast, and prostate.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Douglas in Wyoming and Independent talking about health policy in this country that follows the turmoil at the CDC this week.
		Here's the New York Times headline.
		Kennedy, the HHS secretary, insisted the CDC chief agree to vaccine policy or be fired.
		Rosemary in Alabama, Democratic caller.
		Hi, Rosemary.
		What's on your mind?
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thank you for taking my call.
		I'm speaking about women's rights as well, but also for the lady in Idaho, I think it was, that was saying how she was so against abortion that so many children had been murdered.
		It was her terminology.
		Well, my thing is, once those children are born, where does the Republican stand on taking care of them?
		Those women may be, you know, destitute.
		They could have other issues that made them decide not to bring a child into the world.
		But those children, once those children are born, if they go into adoption or if they go into child health services, if somebody does want to take them on, maybe they would need the food stamps.
		Maybe they would need the child tax credit.
		They have to be taken care of if they are born.
		And I don't think that the Republicans realize that or even care about that.
		Okay.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Timbo in Mountain Home, Arkansas, Independent.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Your turn.
bill cassidy ▲ ● ▼		Hey, Greta.
unidentified		Morning.
		I want to give you a tip.
		Get your button.
		Do you push with your foot?
		You know, when you cut people off, that way when you move your arm, they won't tell you, hey, don't cut me off.
		I just want to say, F Trump.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Caroline, Vincent, Ohio, Democratic caller.
		Hi, I have to be honest.
		I just got back from Aaron's.
		I was trying to get it done before it got crazy, and it's already crazy.
		I had been watching, but I didn't have my 30 days in, so I couldn't call in before.
		It was when you were talking about the Smithsonian, and I just wanted people to know-well, female, well, everybody, I guess.
		There's a book that I got.
		Gosh, I'm a senior citizen.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Hey, Caroline, I'm going to put you on hold.
		I might be able to come back to you.
		I'm going to go up to the United Nations.
		This is a headline from the New York Times: European Nations move to restart sanctions on Iran over the nuclear program.
		UK, Britain, and France, Germany, they're all saying that Iran has violated its terms of a 2015 nuclear deal.
		Here's a UK representative up at the United Nations speaking about this.
		Let's listen in.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		What our military is now, we knock the hell out of people if we have to.
unidentified		Since 2019, Iran has increasingly and deliberately ceased performing almost all of its JCPOA commitments.
		This includes the accumulation of high-enriched uranium stockpile, which lacks any credible civilian justification.
		In fact, according to the IAEA, Iran is the only country without nuclear weapons producing high-enriched uranium.
		Iran has stopped providing IAEA access agreed under the JCPOA.
		Moreover, it has recently significantly reduced the access to nuclear material and sites it is obliged to provide under the NPT.
		Despite this, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are making every effort to resolve this diplomatically.
		Most recently, we offered Iran an extension to Snapback should Iran take specific steps to address our most immediate concerns.
		Our asks were fair and realistic.
		Iran's resumption of negotiations on a comprehensive agreement, Iran's compliance with its IAEA obligations, and steps to address our concerns regarding the high-enriched uranium stockpile.
		However, as of today, Iran has shown no indication that it is serious about meeting them.
		It is not implementing its obligations to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
		It has not re-engaged in negotiations with the United States with a view to reaching an acceptable diplomatic resolution.
		Our notification to the Security Council has now triggered a 30-day period.
		It does not mark the end of diplomacy.
		Our extension offer remains on the table.
		We hope Iran will take the necessary steps to address the international community's serious concerns over its nuclear program.
		We urge Iran to reconsider this position, to reach an agreement based on our offer, and to help create the space for a diplomatic solution to this issue for the long term.
		Otherwise, targeted UN sanctions focused on tackling Iranian nuclear proliferation return at the end of this 30-day period.
		We remain determined that Iran must never acquire a nuclear weapon.
		While we have been left with no choice but to take this course of action, we remain committed to diplomacy and to the peaceful resolution of threats to global peace and security.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Britain representative there along with friends in Germany saying Iran has violated the nuclear 2015 nuclear deal and they have triggered a restart of sanctions.
		You heard the representative there from Britain saying we'll give them 30 days to come up with a diplomatic solution here.
		So that the latest from the United Nations.
		Later, the UN Security Council is having an emergency meeting this afternoon at the request of Ukraine and the five European Council meeters.
		The Ukrainian delegation in New York will brief the international community about the scale of destruction of recent airstrikes from Russia and urge an immediate ceasefire and the protection of civilians.
		We're going to have live coverage of that today at 3 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
		Our free video mobile app, C-SPAN Now, or online at c-span.org.
		We're an open forum.
unidentified		Let's go back to Caroline and Vincent, Ohio, Democratic Caller Caroline.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Apologies for that.
		Thanks for hanging on the line.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Sure.
		No, I was just saying that this was in response to the ladies that were watching the information on Smithzonian and they were saying that they had to teach their own history and I just wanted to give them a book because I've been teaching my daughter from this book.
		It's called Susan B. Anthony Slept Here, A Guide to American Women's Landmarks by Lynn Scheer and Gerardi Kazikas and it might have updates.
		I have had it for like over 30 years and I know it started in 1976 but I am college educated And I didn't feel like I got enough women history.
		And I'm talking every like Indians and black and every women, woman is in here.
		And I also wanted to respond to the gentleman when I first started watching.
		He was saying that white women did not vote for Hillary Clinton or Kamala.
		And I just want to say that's not true.
		That's extremely not true.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Caroline, I'm going to go to Sophie, who's in Federal Way, Washington State Independent.
unidentified		Sophie, morning to you.
		Yes, I am part of the working retired, and I'm collecting a pension right now that is not being funded by several companies that are involved in that pension.
		And I managed to get into another job because I am the working retired, barely surviving.
		And the job that I have now is the pension when I started was 7%.
		Now, and then it went down to 6%.
		Now it's down to 5% within the time period of eight years that I've worked there.
		And my biggest concern is even though I'm part of the baby boomers, we're going to be gone.
		But the people left here and the pensions that have not survived, that they're still invested in, barely, what the outlook is going to be for here in the U.S.
		I don't know how it is in other countries.
		Okay.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Sophie, I've got Sherry and Lloyd waiting.
		I'm going to go to Sherry.
		Go ahead, Sherry.
		Sherry in Westminster, Maryland, Republican.
unidentified		Yeah, I just wanted to also comment on what the man said about white women voting for Republican because they're Stepford-wise or whatever.
		I just, I get tired of sort of hearing that one perspective.
		I'm a black woman.
		I am a working black woman.
		My husband is a black man.
		He's an entrepreneur.
		And most importantly, I grew up, most of the men in my family were in the military.
		And I was raised to love my country.
		And the reason why I'm a Republican and the reason why I vote the way I do is because I love my people.
		And I want us to be able to stand up on our own and be great the way we once were.
		And I want us to remember who we are.
		And I think that under the Democrats, we tend to sort of lose our way.
		And I just don't want there to be a continuing narrative that there's not black women out here who also love their country, love their people, and are voting Republican because we love our country.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Sherry there.
		Lloyd, Whitestone, Virginia, Democratic Caller.
		Hi, Lloyd.
unidentified		How are you doing?
		I really appreciate the CSVAN and everything that you do.
		It's very important that we start thanking for a change.
		We're not thinking at all nowadays.
		We've got smartphones, smart cars, smart TVs.
		We're getting dumb all the time.
		We've got to say, look at the situation.
		People that are in control should be experienced to do what they got to do.
		You don't want a heart surgeon going and being picked by a politician, do you?
		You want to be people that be in control and people that are in authority, like the president, need to sit back and listen.
		That candidate needs to sit back and listen to the experts, not spying them because they don't like what they're doing.
		We're in a dangerous situation now.
		It's not about politics.
		That's about people's lives.
		And the main concern is about the young people that's coming up behind us.
		Lord, we're setting the world up for them with all the pollution going on, everything else.
		We're not doing anything to help everything out.
		So it's important that we stop for a second, start thinking, think toward the future, and realize the profession's got to be in control.

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