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|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Founder and senior advisor David Blankenhorn will talk about the state of political civility in the U.S. and the need to better understand those who hold differing political views. | |
| And KFF Health News Chief Washington correspondent Julie Robner will talk about expiring subsidies for the Affordable Care Act and this week's Make America Healthy Again report. | ||
| Washington Journal is next. | ||
| Join the conversation. | ||
| Good morning, everyone. | ||
| Welcome to the Washington Journal. | ||
| On this Friday, September 12th, we'll begin with the rise in political violence in this country following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah on Wednesday and the assassination attempts against President Trump during the 2024 campaign, as well as political attacks and threats against public figures on the left. | ||
| We'll take the first hour this morning to get your solutions to the rise in political violence. | ||
| Democrats, join us at 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you don't want to call, you can also text at 202-748-8003, include your first name, city, and state. | ||
| Join us on facebook.com/slash C-SPAN, and you can post on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| Your solutions to the rise in political violence. | ||
| That's our conversation here in the first hour of the Washington Journal this morning. | ||
| Let's begin with the Washington Post reporting on some poll, a poll that they feature in the paper this morning. | ||
| Experts who study political violence agree its frequency and seriousness is increasing significantly as more Americans believe the system does not work for them and feel frustrated and helpless. | ||
| A February poll by Bright Line Watch, a group of political scientists tracking democratic norms and institutions, found that while only 2% of Democrats and 3% of Republicans support violence against opposition party leaders in general, that rises to about 10% for opposition party leaders who enact harmful or exploitative policies. | ||
| While a great majority opposed political violence, that still left nearly one in 10 who were willing to tell pollsters they favored it. | ||
| Listen to the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, addressing the rise in political violence in an interview with Punch Bowl News yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No matter what side of the political aisle you sit on, everybody just laments that sort of thing happening. | |
| And I think it is a reminder that these are not normal times. | ||
| Obviously, people feel very deeply and strongly. | ||
| There's a lot of division, politically speaking, in the country. | ||
| And people feel strongly, but they ought to be able to confine that to the ways in which under our Constitution we can express that, you know, through speech and in assembly and all those sorts of things, that the protections that we have in this country enable people to make their voices heard in a way that doesn't include violence. | ||
| So there's no place ever for violence. | ||
| And this is just yet another sad occurrence. | ||
| And I think it's a conbunt on all of us to do what we can, people who are in public office and people who aren't. | ||
| You know, people who are activists, people who are engaged on the issues of the day and feel passionately, and a lot of people do, but they need to express that in ways that are simple and don't resort to violence. | ||
| Senator John Thune, the Republican leader in the Senate, do you agree with him that it's incumbent upon leaders and even those who are not public figures, activists, and others to tone down the rhetoric? | ||
| Here's Democratic Congress Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia lamenting recent acts of political violence and the killing of Charlie Kirk during your hearing yesterday. | ||
| Mr. Chair, I appreciate the comments that you were making right as I walked in about the sadness over Mr. Kirk's death. | ||
| I put out yesterday, as many of us did, a comment praying for his family and for the university community. | ||
| But I was struck when I walked into the Armed Services Committee meeting today that many of my colleagues knew him. | ||
| I never met him. | ||
| So for many in this body, and I think many who are here, he was an acquaintance or a friend. | ||
| I know how devastating it was to Senators Klobuchar and Smith when their friends were killed a couple weeks ago. | ||
| And so this is something that is not just in the news, but it is something that is personal to people in this place. | ||
| And it's just too common. | ||
| It's just too common. | ||
| You know, we have a colleague in the Senate, Mark Kelly, whose life was ineradically changed by political violence. | ||
| We have a colleague in the House, Steve Scalise, whose life was inerratically changed by political violence. | ||
| President Trump survived an assassination attempt, and another assassination plot was foiled. | ||
| There have been 300 instances of political violence in the United States since January 6, 2021. | ||
| Some known individuals, some officials, some personalities, but also neighbors who are targeted with political violence by neighbors who don't agree with them. | ||
| And I bring it up to express my sadness for colleagues who were personally affected because they know Mr. Kirk, but also in a Foreign Relations Committee meeting, one thing that's a little bit sad, and I suspect all of us have this experience, we travel as members of this committee or the Armed Services Committee, and we meet with people overseas, and they just think this is who we are. | ||
| You know, I don't think this is who we are, but when we meet with people abroad and they sort of think this is who we are, it's sort of hard to mount the evidence and make the counter argument. | ||
| So I don't have any answers. | ||
| I've got a real sober sense of sadness today, especially for colleagues of mine who are personally affected by this. | ||
| Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, saying the others, other countries perceiving the United States as this is the way we are. | ||
| This morning, we want to know solutions to the rise in political violence in the United States. | ||
| It's your turn to tell Washington what you think should happen to turn down the rhetoric and the political violence. | ||
| David in Gloversville, New York, a Republican, we'll go to you first. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I have the answer. | |
| I have the problem, which started, I believe, with Hillary Clinton when she paid for that fake Russian dossier. | ||
| She was the one who controlled the Democratic money at the time of the 16 election. | ||
| She paid for that. | ||
| Now, it turns out that basically the whole top layer of the Clinton administration and then the Biden and the Obama administration knew that this stuff was all lies, but they pushed it forward. | ||
| That was Hillary, Clapper, Comey, Obama, Biden. | ||
| And then the media goes along with it. | ||
| Now that's the actual problem, is the media. | ||
| And you guys are members of the media. | ||
| Now, what needs to be done by you people is when you hear people call this program and they're telling lies that as if Trump was behind this thing with the Russians? | ||
| No, he wasn't. | ||
| And that's known. | ||
| And right now, this stuff is being worked out in Congress. | ||
| But when these crazies call up and they basically say that, you know, Trump's behind it, this stuff is off bad. | ||
| Well, you people should be straightening this stuff out by telling this part of it. | ||
| Hillary did pay for the echelons of... | ||
| David heard that point. | ||
| David believes it's the media and that the media could be part of the solution. | ||
| Randy in Indiana, independent. | ||
| Randy, good morning. | ||
| Your solution to the rise in political violence in this country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, thank you. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| This is one solution. | ||
| It'll never happen. | ||
| We've had political violence for centuries. | ||
| This hasn't just started when Trump became president or Biden became president or Obama became president. | ||
| Megha Evers was assassinated. | ||
| Dr. King was assassinated. | ||
| Malcolm X was assassinated. | ||
| The Kennedys, John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. | ||
| So this goes back further than just these last few years. | ||
| The solution, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Minister Louis Farah, kind of stated, separation. | ||
| How this would happen, obviously I don't know, but we have to have separation. | ||
| The fact of the matter is, one that I noticed yesterday is that there were some people calling up, making threats to HBC universities, and there's not even a suspect involved. | ||
| And already you're trying to blame black people for a crime that there's no suspect has been even been arrested. | ||
| I mean, that's just insane. | ||
| This whole thing is going to always happen if this process continues. | ||
| So I'm sorry for that young man to be shot and killed. | ||
| He certainly didn't deserve it. | ||
| I didn't agree with any of his views, but he didn't deserve that. | ||
| I feel sorry for his children, who I believe are three and one-year-old, and they lost their father. | ||
| His wife lost her husband. | ||
| But we've always had political violence, and I think we always will continue to have political violence in this country the way it's going right now. | ||
| Well, what is the solution, Randy, then? | ||
| How do you address it? | ||
| If we've always had political violence, but we're seeing it increase in recent years, what's the solution? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Separation. | |
| Dr. King made a statement shortly before his death, and he said that he believed that he was integrating his people into a burning building. | ||
| And that statement doesn't get as much play as some of his other comments that he's made. | ||
| This is what the problem is, separation. | ||
| If you're going to keep blaming people for speaking their mind and wanting not civil rights, but human rights, then we got a serious problem in this country, and we've always had a serious problem in this country. | ||
| We have school shootings in this country, and no one says anything. | ||
| It's mourned for a day or two, and then all of a sudden it's back to normal. | ||
| So to me, the problem is, and as I stated earlier, if you got Democrats and Republicans blaming each other for problems on each side, and nobody's taking Susan, I think there was a politician in Minnesota that was a Democrat that was killed. | ||
| And I didn't hear too much of a mention about that. | ||
| And that was just as bad. | ||
| So it's not just the Republican. | ||
| It's not just the Democrats. | ||
| It's everybody. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Randy in Indiana. | ||
| We'll go to Bradley next. | ||
| Northport, Michigan Democratic caller. | ||
| Bradley, let's hear your solution this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Thank you, Greta, for taking my call. | ||
| I think it's fairly evident the solution lies with our president, Donald J. Trump. | ||
| If he calls for it and is demanding in that like he is with everything else, maybe we would get a response. | ||
| Is we remember he very early on termed anybody that was opposed to him as enemies. | ||
| And we aren't enemies, but he really ratcheted down on that. | ||
| He threw in three percenters, QAnon, Tea Party Days. | ||
| And that was where the violent element came from. | ||
| That's where the threatening elements came from. | ||
| So response is back and forth, and neither side is completely free of it. | ||
| But it's obviously his problem to solve. | ||
| In what way, though? | ||
| How does... | ||
|
unidentified
|
In what way? | |
| I guess you call for it, Greta. | ||
| He'd mouse off and incites every single day, maybe change his demeanor a bit and reach out instead of keeping everybody separate. | ||
| It's simple to see. | ||
| He's just out to have people oppose him. | ||
| He shoves it right in your face. | ||
| He has Stephen Miller and the meanest people in the world that direct him and go right along with it. | ||
| And we're expected to tolerate that. | ||
| Come on. | ||
| We can't and we won't. | ||
| Well, how do you respond? | ||
| How does your party respond? | ||
|
unidentified
|
How do I want him to respond? | |
| No, how do you want your party to respond? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wake up, listen to me and others. | |
| That makes some sense, Greta, and have a good day because I got to get to work to keep the economy going. | ||
| Prices are $3.39 for gas and up. | ||
| Grocery prices are up. | ||
| Keep an index, show that every week. | ||
| 100 commonest grocery items and what the price is. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| All right, Bradley there in Northport, Michigan, a Democratic caller. | ||
| More of your calls coming up. | ||
| We want to hear your solutions this morning to the rise in political violence. | ||
| The latest on the investigation into the murder of Charlie Kirk, here is Fox News. | ||
| Charlie Kirk assassination sparks manhunt as shooting suspect remains at large. | ||
| Utah's governor Spencer Cox last night gave an update, a briefing on the investigation, a release of a video by authorities there. | ||
| Sees the suspect who remains at large leaving the roof. | ||
| There it is on your screen, running off of the roof there. | ||
| This is a video released by authorities, jumps down with his belongings, and then he was seen leaving the Utah Valley University. | ||
| Belongings they believe to the shooter were found in a wooded area close to the university. | ||
| Let's listen to the governor and what he had to say last night. | ||
| We are truly hopeful that this video and new photos will lead to even more tips. | ||
| We are processing. | ||
| We have an incredible team, a state and federal team working together to process those tips. | ||
| We're going out in tandem to interview any potential person of interest or suspects. | ||
| But we need, again, we need as much help as we can possibly get. | ||
| Any videos or photos that you might have, the public, should be submitted to our digital media tip line, which is www.fbi.gov forward slash Utah Valleyshooting all lowercase. | ||
| Again, that is fbi.gov forward slash Utah Valleyshooting, all lowercase. | ||
| You can also provide general tips about the shooting by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI, that's 1-800-C-A-L-L-F-B-I, or at tips.fbi.gov. | ||
| I would just say this is not just a local matter here in Utah. | ||
| We have people all over the country that are helping to bring this perpetrator to justice for Charlie Kirk and his family. | ||
| I will just add as well that, as was mentioned, there is a lot of forensic evidence that is being processed right now at both the state lab and federal labs, and federal lab on the East Coast. | ||
| So we are working in tandem together. | ||
| I would also just add a word of note. | ||
| For those people who are spending so much time on social media, I think Charlie said it best that when things get bad, we should put our phones down and spend a little time with our families. | ||
| There is a tremendous amount of disinformation. | ||
| We are tracking our team, the state team, and I'm sure the federal team as well. | ||
| What we're seeing is our adversaries want violence. | ||
| China, we have bots from Russia, China, all over the world that are trying to instill disinformation and encourage violence. | ||
| I would encourage you to ignore those, to turn off those streams, and to spend a little more time with our families. | ||
| We desperately need some healing. | ||
| We'll have more to say about that in the days and weeks to come. | ||
| More than anything, we are going to catch this person. | ||
| Last thing I will just say is we've been working with our attorneys, getting everything that we need, affidavits ready, so that we can pursue the death penalty in this case. | ||
| And that will happen here in the state of Utah. | ||
| Utah Republican Governor there, Spencer Cox, talking about the latest on this investigation into the shooter of Charlie Kirk. | ||
| And you heard him say they're seeking the death penalty. | ||
| And also at the end, saying it's our adversaries from other countries who are influencing Americans on social media. | ||
| Is that part of the solution? | ||
| This morning, we're getting your thoughts on how you combat political violence in this country. | ||
| I also want to share with you this moment yesterday in Utah. | ||
| Judy Vance, along with the second lady, escorting Charlie Kirk's casket before a flight on Air Force 2 from Utah to Arizona, Charlie Kirk and his family living in Arizona, and the vice president, along with the second lady, flying to Utah to escort the casket along with Charlie Kirk's family on his journey back home. | ||
| The president yesterday, marking the 24th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, had this to say at the Pentagon about awarding Mr. Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom. | ||
| Before we begin, let me express the horror and grief so many Americans at the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk have felt. | ||
| Charlie was a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty, and an inspiration to millions and millions of people. | ||
| Our prayers are with his wonderful wife, Eric, and his beautiful children. | ||
| Fantastic people they are. | ||
| We miss him greatly, yet I have no doubt that Charlie's voice and the courage he put into the hearts of countless people, especially young people, will live on. | ||
| I'm pleased to announce that I will soon be awarding Charlie Kirk posthumously the Presidential Medal of Freedom. | ||
| The date of the ceremony will be announced, and I can only guarantee you one thing: that we will have a very big crowd. | ||
| Very, very big. | ||
| President Trump at the Pentagon yesterday, marking the 9-11 anniversary, and you heard him announce that he'll be giving the Medal of Freedom to Charlie Kirk. | ||
| Also, on the front page of the Washington Times, the FBI, Director Kashbate, flying to Utah as manhunt for Kirk's assassin intensifies, and investigators recover rightful use and offer a $100,000 reward. | ||
| That's the update on the latest on this investigation. | ||
| Let's go back to the conversation that we're having here in this first hour of the Washington Journal, and that's your solutions to the rise in political violence in the United States. | ||
| John, you've been waiting in Troy, New York, independent. | ||
| Let's hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Yeah, it's the politicians, first of all, Charlie Kirk encouraged disagreement. | ||
| He encouraged people. | ||
| He said, There's a clip of him saying, Well, we stopped talking to each other. | ||
| That's when bad things happen. | ||
| Now he's living now, dead proof of his own statement. | ||
| It's just very sad what happened to him. | ||
| But the violence is definitely, definitely, definitely coming from the left. | ||
| And it's a lot for saying such radical things like men can't be women and the border should be closed. | ||
| The problem is Democratic leaders like Tim Waltz, when he said, Oh, I'm disappointed. | ||
| I woke up this morning and Donald Trump wasn't dead, or Maxine Waters saying, get in people's faces and interrupt their meals at restaurants. | ||
| And the violence is just all coming from the left. | ||
| You don't see too many conservatives taking shots at Democratic leaders. | ||
| This radical programming that is brainwashing these people on the far left. | ||
| It's the press and Democratic leaders that are saying get in people's faces and just calling out the leadership. | ||
| You have to stop calling everybody that disagrees with them Nazi. | ||
| And it's just bringing, it causes people who are mentally unbalanced to take these drastic actions like killing people. | ||
| What about January 6th, John? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, January 6th was bad. | |
| I don't agree with everything Trump says. | ||
| You know, calling the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. | ||
| January 6th was definitely bad. | ||
| Okay, but you can't use January 6th as an excuse to call everybody that says the border should be closed and men don't belong in women's sports or women's locker rooms Nazi because the things that normal-minded people disagree with are not something they need to be called Nazi for or extremist. | ||
| These are beliefs that have come along in the last five years that most normal, rational people think are absolutely insane. | ||
| Do away with the police, open the borders. | ||
| Anything goes. | ||
| Boys can be girls, girls can be boys if they just believe it. | ||
| And it's look, if you want to do that, do that. | ||
| But don't call people who disagree and call out your BS as crazy. | ||
| Don't call them Nazi, radical right, and then get in their faces. | ||
| And the politicians on the left calling for violence, Maxine Waters, and nobody says anything about it. | ||
| We heard those points. | ||
| We'll go to Doug next, who's in Falls Church, Virginia, Republican. | ||
| Doug, what do you say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I think I see three problems and potentially three solutions. | ||
| One, I think still after COVID, right, where we all had to isolate, we all kind of receded into our homes and our phones and just media. | ||
| I think we all need to kind of go back to kind of breaking that isolation, participating in particularly in-person institutions, you know, your work, your family, friends, schools, churches, whatever you're doing. | ||
| I think we need to kind of really reestablish that social kind of fabric that binds our society. | ||
| And I think that'll really help, you know, hopefully bring some of these individuals back into the fold and kind of end some of their isolation and kind of kind of extremist thinking. | ||
| I think that's one. | ||
| Doug, before you go, I'll let you finish, but I just want to jump in at that point because what would you say to lawmakers? | ||
| Here's a semaphore article with the headline that U.S. politicians look to tighten security following Kirk's death. | ||
| And some of them are talking about disengaging in person. | ||
| So lawmakers talking about holding less public events because of the threat that they are feeling. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, it's sad. | |
| I mean, what they're doing is a natural reaction, but I think it's unfortunate because I think it might make things worse, where I think they need to be in person more to kind of bring people out. | ||
| So it's tough because you're having to fight against this natural reaction. | ||
| So it's sad. | ||
| And I think that's the danger of this whole thing, right? | ||
| Could become a spiral. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And number two. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, sorry. | |
| Number two is I agree with a lot of the points the previous caller made where there's a lot of rhetoric on both sides, right? | ||
| And it's resulting in physical violence on both sides. | ||
| And I think it's big, clear things like the Maxine Waters comments about directing people to go out there and agitate others. | ||
| And I think it's also more kind of innocuous things that we just use the word fight a lot or allies or, you know, just talk about all these elections like it's the most important thing. | ||
| It's always existential. | ||
| It's going to be the end of democracy. | ||
| Like all those things add up and we need to stop doing that. | ||
| And I think anytime these events happen, all sides, all people need to come out and renounce or denounce these actions and talk about we should not have any kind of reprisal of any kind. | ||
| That, you know, the reaction to violence is just as bad as the violence itself. | ||
| I think that's really, really important. | ||
| And I think we're seeing that. | ||
| But I think it needs to happen every time from both sides, every time this happens. | ||
| I think that's really, really important from our leaders. | ||
| Doug, your reaction to the Hill newspaper headline about Nancy Mace. | ||
| She says that she'll start carrying a gun where allowed after Kirk's shooting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So that to me is not the same as kind of ratcheting up violence. | |
| I think people are scared. | ||
| I think public figures are naturally and appropriately scared. | ||
| And I mean, again, it's one of those things where it could start to create this downward spiral, which we need to fight. | ||
| But I think it's a natural reaction. | ||
| I think it's more important, though, just those comments afterwards. | ||
| We say, this is not good. | ||
| We need to stop. | ||
| And I have a third thing, actually, that I think is an issue here with the media. | ||
| You know, when we all hear about these shootings, it's very natural to kind of want to understand the shooter, understand everything about them, the context, their mental health, their state, like all these things. | ||
| But we do that, and we don't, I feel like, have a strong enough reaction to what we're seeing where it becomes almost like this biography, right? | ||
| This person's in the limelight. | ||
| We're looking at them so hard for a sustained period of time, which is what they want. | ||
| I think after these things happen, we're going to naturally have to do that. | ||
| We should never articulate these people's names. | ||
| We should talk about how big of cowards they are because all political violence, whether it's against the left or the right, all these people are cowards. | ||
| And we should talk about the shame that they've brought on themselves, their families, and their communities. | ||
| And hopefully, that collection of things will help prevent these people from seeking the limelight, acting like they're heroes, when, again, they're cowards and they make our communities worse. | ||
| Doug in Falls Church, Virginia, Republican caller, with his solutions to the rise in political violence. | ||
| Doug and others may be interested in this opinion piece by Megan McCurdle in the Washington Post this morning. | ||
| She writes, We've seen more violent protests from Antifa to the January 6th mob and more targeted attacks. | ||
| The decade has brought us attempted assassinations of conservative Supreme Court justice, Republican legislators, and of course, Trump, along with the killing of a healthcare CEO, a police officer who responded to an attack on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a Democratic state legislator and her husband in Minnesota. | ||
| The people who do these things are not in any sense normal. | ||
| The United States does not have the kind of organized political violence you see in countries tipping into civil war. | ||
| What we have at the moment is too many people who have been deranged by life circumstances and mental illness and whose fractured brains have been further sickened in the fever swamp of online politics. | ||
| The Second Amendment makes it easy for those people to get guns that do real world damage. | ||
| That's Megan McCartle's opinion in the Washington Post. | ||
| We're getting your opinions this morning on the solutions to the rise in political violence in this country. | ||
| Greg, we want to hear from you in Ohio Democratic Caller. | ||
| Morning, Greg. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning. | |
| Solutions. | ||
| I believe in Confucianism and concentric circles. | ||
| It starts with you and I. | ||
| The most important thing to me is my faith in my family. | ||
| I am not enamored by a person. | ||
| I'm not going to wear somebody's name on my shirt, slide their flag, or put their name on my bumper sticker. | ||
| They are so consumed with a person that it consumes who they are. | ||
| And just imagine what people are saying. | ||
| The things that they're saying on this show. | ||
| They're going to go home and say it to their family and put it on a podcast. | ||
| They spend more time on their podcast than actually with their family. | ||
| Go out and have dinner one day and then just look and see how many people are on their phone and they're now even talking to their family members. | ||
| This is the solution. | ||
| I don't care what that person says in office. | ||
| When it comes down to what is important is my family. | ||
| I am not going to be enamored by a person. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Greg, Democratic Call in Ohio says, put the phones down and start talking to each other and not following one person or personality. | ||
| Tomo in Virginia and Independent, what do you say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi there. | |
| Can you hear me? | ||
| Yes, we can. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| I'd honestly, I just have to agree with a lot of what Doug, the Republican caller from Falls Church, said. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What I was going to say is that I think a lot of people need to meet in public, like what Doug said, or just meet in general and have a forum to disagree with one another. | |
| I think there is something to be said for the persistent isolation that is still occurring among, I mean, I don't know how many people, but maybe it's left over from the pandemic. | ||
| But it has resulted in less of a social debate type culture. | ||
| And I think that it leaves a lot of space open for inflammatory rhetoric or misinformation to just fester in people's minds. | ||
| And understandably, a person might be angered by something, but if they're not able to bounce their ideas off of somebody else or get the opinions of others, like for example, I didn't expect a Republican to have such level-headed ideas. | ||
| Not that I don't expect Republicans to have level-headed ideas, but I've been listening to the show for a little bit, and I don't really hear calls for unity that often from inside. | ||
| So, sorry, yeah, we heard your point there, Tomo, in Virginia. | ||
| More calls for unity and discourse, public discourse. | ||
| And that's what we do here on the Washington Journal seven days a week, 365 days of the year, is ask all of you to engage in the debates that are happening in Washington in a civil way and engage in civics, in this country's most important debates. | ||
| We'll continue to do that here on the Washington Journal. | ||
| This morning, we're getting your solutions to the rise in political violence. | ||
| Take a look at some numbers put together in the Wall Street Journal this morning. | ||
| Last year, 9,500 threats and concerning statements were leveled against Congress members, families, and staff in the Capitol complex. | ||
| That is up from 8,000 in 2023. | ||
| In 2017, the number was less than 4,000. | ||
| Joel in Mountain Home, Arkansas, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Joel. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I'm lost. | ||
| I've been waiting 20 minutes or more, and I'm just totally lost. | ||
| I can say one thing: we lost a very good person, and that's a pronoun. | ||
| I want to be correct, okay? | ||
| That man had done nothing. | ||
| He was just trying to wake these young kids up so they would think for themselves. | ||
| But instead, these young kids, they're so screwed up, I don't know where to begin. | ||
| Did this young man, that picture right there? | ||
| Now, he was proving a point. | ||
| These colleges, they got these professors that's making millions of dollars. | ||
| They stay there a lifetime, just like these politicians. | ||
| They stay there a lifetime, just like the look at Biden. | ||
| 50 years as a politician. | ||
| An airplane pilot can't stay 50 years flying the plane. | ||
| A bus driver can't stay 30 years. | ||
| I couldn't stay 35 years in the military. | ||
| And this is what's wrong with this country. | ||
| I got so much I can talk, but you're going to turn me off right quick and everything. | ||
| This was a shame for these two kids. | ||
| And I think his wife is pregnant with another child. | ||
| This man did nothing wrong. | ||
| He was showing these young kids, he would debate them. | ||
| He didn't cuss at them. | ||
| He didn't raise his voice. | ||
| He was a perfect person and everything. | ||
| That man that killed, that man that killed this man, he's going to pay for it. | ||
| And he's going to pay for it unless he repents now. | ||
| Joel in Mountain Home, Arkansas. | ||
| They're a Republican talking about the way Charlie Kirk conducted himself. | ||
| And he, as the caller was saying, would go to college campuses and engage in debate with those that disagreed with him in a civil way. | ||
| And that's exactly what he was doing at Utah Valley University. | ||
| And he started Turning Point USA at age 18. | ||
| And at age 31 this week in Utah, gunned down and killed. | ||
| The president yesterday telling reporters that a funeral could happen as early as next week and that he plans to attend. | ||
| Mark Thiessen writes, the way forward, debate, don't hate. | ||
| And he writes today in the Washington Post, In the wake of Kirk's killing, many colleges and universities could respond by saying they don't host conservative speakers on campuses because they can't guarantee their security. | ||
| Yes, they can, and they must. | ||
| Whatever the motive for this atrocity turns out to be, our nation's response not be, must not be, to stifle speech, but to double down on it. | ||
| College campuses need more speech and more ideological diversity, not less. | ||
| Schools need to invite more conservative speakers like Kirk to campus. | ||
| Shea in Baltimore, Independent. | ||
| Shea, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| Hi, good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I think this problem is bigger than just the violence. | ||
| I think we have a systemic issue. | ||
| Our system, our country, our democratic system is facing a lot of issues. | ||
| In the United States, the left don't trust the right, the right don't trust the left, the independent don't trust neither. | ||
| Overseas, our foreign policy is falling apart. | ||
| So I think the solution is this. | ||
| We need our systemic adjustment. | ||
| Number one, every senator, every congressman, the head of the three letter agency, CIA, FBI, they all need to resign. | ||
| For the last 30 years, our foreign policy, our national policy have done nothing good for the American people. | ||
| They all need to resign. | ||
| And secondly, with the media, we need to reinstate the fairness doctrine because it seems like the media is just propaganda for the left, propaganda for the right, and people folks in the middle have nowhere to go except for social media or other types of media sources. | ||
| So we need we, America needs, we need a reset. | ||
| Pretty much we need a reset. | ||
| All the politicians need to resign. | ||
| They all need to go. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And the future. | ||
| Shea an independent. | ||
| That is his solution to the rise in political violence. | ||
| Let's listen to President Trump at the White House yesterday. | ||
| He repeated what he had said in a video following the shooting of Charlie Kirk and was asked whether he was concerned for his own safety and how he wanted to see his supporters to respond to the violence. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
| Not really. | ||
| I'm really concerned for our country. | ||
| We have a great country. | ||
| We have a radical left group of lunatics out there, just absolute lunatics, and we're going to get that problem solved. | ||
| I'm only concerned for the country. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. President, how do you want to see your supporters respond to this? | |
| Charlie Kirk was a big advocate of nonviolence and free speech on campus. | ||
| How do you want your supporters to respond to her? | ||
| I think that way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He was. | |
| He was an advocate of nonviolence. | ||
| That's the way I'd like to see people respond. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Say it? | |
| I did. | ||
| I spoke to Erica, his wife, and we had a long talk, and she's devastated. | ||
| She is absolutely devastated, as you can imagine. | ||
| President Trump at the White House yesterday, and you heard when he was asked, how does he want his supporters to respond? | ||
| Nonviolence is what he had to say. | ||
| On Capitol Hill yesterday, Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries commented on the political climate and called for unity. | ||
| The bottom line is this is a time that all Americans should come together and feel and mourn what happened. | ||
| Violence, which affects so many different people of so many different political persuasions, is an affliction of America. | ||
| And coming together is what we ought to be doing, not pointing fingers of blame. | ||
| This moment requires leadership that brings the American people together as opposed to trying to further divide us. | ||
| Political violence in any form against any American is unacceptable, should be denounced by everyone. | ||
| And moving forward, we have to figure out a better way to come together, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans. | ||
| The two Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, Chuck Schumer of New York, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, they're responding to the death of Charlie Kirk, calling for unity in this country. | ||
| What are your solutions to the rise of political violence? | ||
| Lester, in Washington, D.C., Democratic caller, we'll hear from you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, this is Lester from Washington, D.C. | |
| Yeah, first of all, both sides need to tone down the rhetoric. | ||
| You just pointed out the differences. | ||
| The two Democratic leaders came out and called for unity, but the president went directly into the rhetoric, the radical left. | ||
| I'm a Democrat, but I'm a centrist. | ||
| I don't agree with all the politics of the Democrats, okay? | ||
| I think that some of the Democrats need to move to the center. | ||
| But the tone and the rhetoric coming from the right. | ||
| The president, a president, he should have came out and said just what the two leaders said. | ||
| Call for unity, tone down the rhetoric. | ||
| There needs to be more bipartisanship upon Capitol Hill. | ||
| That's number one. | ||
| Tone down the rhetoric, call for unity, more bipartisanship leadership. | ||
| But unfortunately, we have the wrong president in office. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Lester, with his thoughts there, Democratic caller. | ||
| And here at C-SPAN, we're going to be highlighting bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, our new program, Ceasefire, that is airing this fall, where lawmakers from opposite parties will sit down at the same table and they'll talk about what they agree on. | ||
| Look for that program this fall. | ||
| Following up on what that caller had to say, here is from the Wall Street Journal this morning. | ||
| Kirk Killing heightens tensions on Capitol Hill. | ||
| Representative Thomas Massey, Republican Kentucky, a regular critic of Trump, said the president needed to work on his own language. | ||
| It's amusing sometimes, and it doesn't offend me that he's over the top with the rhetoric, he said. | ||
| But some people take it literally, and he should probably tone that down himself. | ||
| Asked if Trump should present a unifying message, retiring centrist Congressman Don Bacon, Republican in Nebraska, said, quote, I wish he would, but I'll just say this. | ||
| He's a populist, and populists dwell on anger. | ||
| Terry in Bellwood, Illinois, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Terry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Good morning, C-SPAN. | ||
| Listen, I think one of our problems is the media. | ||
| You know, the news media need to be authentic and truthful in its reporting. | ||
| That's part of the reason we're dividing our country. | ||
| I think it is. | ||
| A while back, I called back and talked to you, Greta, and you insist that all Republicans, you need more Republican calls. | ||
| And I said at the time, I think you're doing a disingenuous service. | ||
| And I wasn't trying to be combative. | ||
| It's the fact that we need to bring more authenticity back and not just being persuaded by one side or the other. | ||
| Why don't we have a call that all Americans called in instead of Republicans and Democrats? | ||
| Because when we've set them to, we see the discourse right there. | ||
| We need to be truthful and authentic. | ||
| And I think we can get along as a country because our biggest problem is going to be the foreign threats that we have. | ||
| We got to be able to be together as a nation to combat it. | ||
| We can't go in there and divide it. | ||
| Terry, Terry, we divide the lines different ways. | ||
| We do divide them predominantly Democratic, Republican, Independent. | ||
| It's not to divide. | ||
| That's not our motivation. | ||
| It's to give the viewers, the audience who are listening to the caller context. | ||
| That's why we divide the lines that way. | ||
| And we do it other ways as well by age, geographic area, etc. | ||
| Chris in Bothwell, Washington, a Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chris, we'll go to you. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| Rest in peace to Charlie Kirk. | ||
| In a world where platforms like Meta are extremely manipulated, banning people multiple times, he remained visible to his final word. | ||
| We need to be the United States of America. | ||
| Our response needs to be with language, not violence. | ||
| And when we're suffering, we should alleviate others' suffering. | ||
| There was a brutal murder on a train that was on the news before the murder of Charlie Kirk, and that needs more attention. | ||
| The suffering there needs more attention and conversation. | ||
| And we don't need the left with their repetition but not cohesion. | ||
| Their words are driving us apart. | ||
| Greta. | ||
| And Chris mentions the work that Charlie Kirk did and his mission and in finding in establishing Turning Point USA. | ||
| Here is the New York Times with a feature organizer of young voters who helped shape the rise of the hard right, a close ally of Trump, who built a following online and on campus. | ||
| We've dedicated a page on our website, c-span.org, to Charlie Kirk's appearances on our network. | ||
| And you can find it there if you go to c-span.org. | ||
| New York Times notes that he was an equally inf equally influential within the administration as well. | ||
| He claimed to have visited the White House about 100 times during the first Trump term, including for meetings to discuss nominations and high-level personnel decisions. | ||
| Goes on to say, Turning Point grew rapidly, adding dozens of campus chapters a year and largely displacing older conservative youth organizations like Young Americans for Freedom. | ||
| He not only brought high-profile right-wing speakers to colleges, he also provided training, network, and organizing in the process, creating a tight web of activists and future politicos. | ||
| Let's go to Dennis Denise in Dayton, Ohio, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Greta. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I have been listening intently to the callers, and you know, it made me want to go in many directions. | ||
| But I want to say that number one, it has to start with our president and indicating that we are all the president of all. | ||
| If he continues to call Democrats or someone who did not vote for him the enemy of the country, that is a problem. | ||
| If he today made his mind up that he would begin saying that I am the president of all of the people of the United States and I work on your behalf. | ||
| And if he denounces anyone in his party or any other party and say that we will no longer treat each other as enemies, if he starts today and continues, it will eventually turn around. | ||
| I'm not going to say it will be right away, but he's a powerful person. | ||
| And sometimes it can feel like he's not the president of all because of what he says on a regular basis. | ||
| And then you have the callers that call in, and they especially, and I have to say, it appears that the ones who are really following him closely, they see us and others or anyone who did not vote for him as the enemy. | ||
| They listen to what he's saying. | ||
| And this was the same thing. | ||
| You know, I heard a caller calling yesterday who was very upset at what happened to Charlie Kirk, which was terrible. | ||
| And she said, people just need to listen to what he said. | ||
| Listen to what Charlie said. | ||
| Well, I didn't know a lot about him. | ||
| So I did listen. | ||
| And I'm going to tell you, if you tell people to listen, what you'll find out is he wasn't for, I'm talking Mr. Kirk, was not for the entire U.S. citizens. | ||
| There was division there. | ||
| So I'll have to say that it starts with our president, but I will also have to say that we as individuals, we have to do something different on our own, within our own mind and within our own hearts. | ||
| We need to get outside of our four walls. | ||
| We have to travel some and see that a lot of the things that you are seeing projected on TV about certain cities, all of that's not even true. | ||
| All right, Denise, I'll leave it at that point and hear from Rich next, who's in Elkhart, Kansas, Democratic caller. | ||
| Rich? | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| When you have a malignant narcissist who's been normalized and that person becomes the president and lies every other word, it makes it very difficult to see a solution. | ||
| I don't see how that can happen with him in there. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Joe, Dayton, Ohio, Republican. | ||
| Joe, what do you say this morning? | ||
| Solutions to the rise in political violence. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning from a sunny but yet somber day in Ohio. | |
| I just want to say quickly, my first comment is condolences and God bless the innocent victims of 9-11 and God bless Charlie Kirk and his family. | ||
| Greta, I want to thank you and Washington Journal for everything you do. | ||
| You, C-SPAN, everyone on there, you guys are wonderful. | ||
| God bless you, Greta. | ||
| Greta, you hit it right on the head. | ||
| It's all about having a debate, a calm debate, you know, but debate is the answer. | ||
| And, you know, your last caller, you know, again, he's got to start off with the name calling and all that. | ||
| That doesn't help anything. | ||
| You know, calling Donald Trump, Hitler, fascist Mussolini, all that kind of stuff. | ||
| Like I said, I called many a times. | ||
| You don't have one caller that knows anything about fascism. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| They never lived under fascism. | ||
| We don't have fascism in this country. | ||
| But what that sniper did to Charlie Kirk, that is fascism. | ||
| You're silencing a voice. | ||
| What they did to Martin Luther King, who I loved, I was only eight years old. | ||
| I was born in 1960. | ||
| They tried to silence his voice. | ||
| I loved Bobby Kennedy, and they killed his voice. | ||
| That's called fascism when you're trying to silence a voice. | ||
| And the media, Greta, is just they're all of them. | ||
| All of them. | ||
| MSNBC, The View, CNN, Fox, all of them. | ||
| It's all the rhetoric. | ||
| But I love C-SPAN. | ||
| I love Washington Journal. | ||
| But, Greta, we need good debate instead of name-calling. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And also, and also, Greta, real quick, the lady, my fellow sister from Dayton, Ohio, she's an independent, called a couple callers ago. | ||
| Where was she at when Joe Biden was trying to tear down MAGA and he was putting down MAGA? | ||
| That's 70 million, 70-plus million voters that he tried to ostracize. | ||
| I mean, it's just, it's so, I don't want to hear this, or Al Green shaking his cane at Donald Trump when he was giving his speech. | ||
| You know, that's just, that's all bad. | ||
| That's all bad stuff. | ||
| But anyhow, Greta, I love you, and thank you for everything. | ||
| All right, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bye-bye. | |
| John in Chicago, Democratic caller, John. | ||
| Morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| This country has been violent all their life. | ||
| And have you noticed that Fox knew what they be saying? | ||
| No. | ||
| And with all the guns we got in these streets out here with our young people's got these guns, you know, what do you expect going to happen? | ||
| So is that, John? | ||
| Is gun control the solution? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, gun control is the solution because the white kids running up and down the highway with thousands of guns every day, bringing them to the cities for, you know, for the young kids. | |
| All right. | ||
| John's thoughts there in Chicago, Democratic caller. | ||
| Francis in Brooklyn, independent. | ||
| Francis, what do you think the solution is to the rise in political violence? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I think that conversations about how we see each other is important. | ||
| One of the things that I keep hearing is that Charlie Kirk was a, I mean, political, a victim of political violence. | ||
| This gentleman would say some horrific things about people that didn't look like him. | ||
| And our president does it. | ||
| People on politicians do it every day. | ||
| They rationalize violent behavior. | ||
| They rationalize denigrating people because they think it makes them seem like they're better human beings. | ||
| Of course, the same day that this man was shot, children were shot in Colorado, and we have adults calling, you know, going crazy about, I mean, I understand that this is a tragic event, but what about the fact that so many kids in this country and adults are being killed by gun violence? | ||
| He was a victim of gun violence. | ||
| He was shot, just like many Americans in this country are daily. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| Many Americans in this country have opinions too. | ||
| And while his may have been more public, it doesn't justify the things that we're hearing today. | ||
| The fact is, we need to be careful about what we're saying about each other. | ||
| It's wrong. | ||
| And I do express my empathy and sympathy to his family and all the people connected to him because no one deserves to be felt that fate or treated that way. | ||
| But again, yesterday, and I'm just going to share this one thing. | ||
| I was flying back to New York from a Georgia state. | ||
| And the whole time, one of the passengers was on the flight with me. | ||
| They were watching Fox. | ||
| For over three hours, I watched Fox talk about this gentleman. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| I lived through 9-11. | ||
| I was in New York. | ||
| I saw buildings full. | ||
| I saw 3,000 people lose their lives. | ||
| And this is what they were talking about. | ||
| Meanwhile, I didn't see anything on television about those kids that were shot in Colorado on Fox News. | ||
| That is the problem. | ||
| All right, Francis, let me go to Philadelphia, Republican caller. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Guillermo. | |
| Morning. | ||
| Go ahead with your thoughts. | ||
| Do you have a solution to the rise in political violence? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are you talking to Guillermo? | |
| Yes, I am. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I cannot face anybody. | |
| I'm not a scientist, nor am I a psychiatrist or psychologist. | ||
| But I can tell you what I have done in my life. | ||
| See, I question myself. | ||
| When was the last time I went to a church or to any building that talks about God, whether it's a mosque or whatever it is that people intend to hear about God? | ||
| When was the last time I read the scriptures? | ||
| When was the last time I pray? | ||
| When was the last time I took a neighbor oppressing? | ||
| When was the last time I, me, stopped myself from committing anything that is violent or out of the law? | ||
| That's what I got to do. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I asked you, I asked you, Greta, when was the last time you did any of these things? | |
| And I asked all of the other audience, when was the last time you did any of these things? | ||
| Understood. | ||
| Understood your point. | ||
| Aubrey in Louisiana, Democratic caller. | ||
| It's your turn, Aubrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, ma'am. | |
| First of all, I want to really just emphasize that they need to pull the curtain behind this young man and see what his extreme views were, what his perception of African-American women, the comments he had made, even about African-American men, about the family. | ||
| This man was a David Duke and a Sioux. | ||
| He had racist, extremist, unacceptable views towards black and others. | ||
| So I don't feel one bit, as they say, Malcolm said, the rooster came home to crow. | ||
| We have to say that. | ||
| No, no, no, no. | ||
| We're going to go on to Randy and Kentucky, Republican. | ||
| Randy, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Like John the Baptist was beheaded for speaking out against the things of the king, and also all the disciples, or most all of them. | ||
| It's felt like that they were executed for speaking out for Christ. | ||
| And you have another disciple of Christ that was executed for speaking out against the good things. | ||
| But most of the time in this country, all the Christians, and they don't, most people will not understand what I'm saying, but this is the law and this is facts. | ||
| It's against the law for Christians, institutional Christians, to speak out against political and social issues and about 28 other things they're not allowed to do. | ||
| You can look it up. | ||
| It was the Johnson Amendment. | ||
| He made all churches, corporations, and they're under the government auspices. | ||
| They're not anymore under the law. | ||
| They're not anymore under Christ. | ||
| So just look it up and educate yourself. | ||
| You've got to speak out against this stuff. | ||
| If you want to have a godly society, you've got to educate people and you've got to speak out against the ills of our society. | ||
| But do it in a godly way. | ||
| Bring people together. | ||
| Have them understand what they're doing wrong. | ||
| And that society frowns on that stuff that you're doing. | ||
| It's lies, it's lies of the Bible, it's lies just all across the board that you're trying to force people to believe. | ||
| All right, Randy, Randy, there in Kentucky. | ||
| Richard is in Pennsylvania, Democratic caller. | ||
| Richard? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| It all started January 6th when they attacked the Capitol building and they got away with it. | ||
| And Trump released all of them. | ||
| He pardoned every one of them. | ||
| And now people think they could kill somebody and walk away and get away free. | ||
| It's a shame. | ||
| I'm 79 years old. | ||
| Never thought I'd ever hear anything like that again. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Have a good day. | ||
| We'll go to Jersey, Georgia. | ||
| Roger is watching there, an independent. | ||
| Hi, Roger. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's all Trump, Fox News, and other propaganda networks. | |
| Fox News, you have callers that call in and talk about Maxine Waters, but I guarantee you, 95% of them couldn't tell you what district she represents. | ||
| It's Fox News. | ||
| They push the narrative. | ||
| They say people are evil. | ||
| Fox, Trump. | ||
| If you've ever heard Joe Biden or Barack Obama or George Bush say the radical left, they're evil. | ||
| They're this, they're that. | ||
| He never has a way. | ||
| What happened to him is going to be the person to bring us together. | ||
| All right, so Roger, you've said what you think is the problem. | ||
| What do you think the solution is? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Until he changes his ways, we thought after the attempted suicide he was going to change. | |
| He changed his ways for about 20 minutes at that convention, and then he went right back to the same rhetoric dividing us. | ||
| When he said in 2016, knock the hell out of them and I'll pay for your bail at a campaign. | ||
| Nobody has ever uttered those words. | ||
| It's Trump, it's Trump, it's Trump. | ||
| Fox News, they know it. | ||
| They know January 6th was wrong, and then they flipped like all of the other propaganda networks. | ||
| And every time I hear someone call in and talk about transgender and Maxine Waters, it's Fox dividing us. | ||
| There's probably not 10 trans kids in this entire country that want to play sports. | ||
| And everybody, including Democrats, knows that's wrong. | ||
| But talking about 10 people, and why should the president be talking about 10 kids in this entire country? | ||
| All right, Roger, there in Georgia and Independent. | ||
| Willie is in Katie, Texas, a Republican. | ||
| Hi, Willie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| I have two, what I think solutions are. | ||
| First one is: how did this man get away? | ||
| How did that other man who tried to kill the president the last time get up on the building in Butler? | ||
| How in the world did that happen? | ||
| Why did that happen? | ||
| Because we didn't have a DOJ presence on these types of things. | ||
| We leave it to the local government. | ||
| There is no way in the world that that man should have been able to shimmy down the doggone building that he was on and get away. | ||
| Okay, so there's one. | ||
| That's one. | ||
| Get DOG, DOJ presence in all of these activities. | ||
| Okay, there's number one. | ||
| Number two, we need to censure politicians who do not attempt to stop hate speech in the first place. | ||
| First of all, January 6th was not an insurrection. | ||
| It was a riot that got out. | ||
| It was a riot that got out of control, for one. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Here's here. | ||
| How about this? | ||
| Maxine Waters saying she will take Trump out tonight. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| She said that. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| These type of things. | ||
| Ayana Presley saying we should not stop all of the protests and getting on the street and all that stuff. | ||
| And Kamala Harris saying that they shouldn't. | ||
| They shouldn't stop. | ||
| They shouldn't stop. | ||
| These are the types of things. | ||
| Political violence start with politicians who rile their people up to get them going. | ||
| And it gets overboard. | ||
| Last thing, last thing. | ||
| People keep talking about how Trump says all of these things and they're talking about his speech. | ||
| The man came down the escalator in 2015. | ||
| He didn't say a bad thing about anybody. | ||
| He was just happy to say that he's running for president. | ||
| And the next thing you know, everything was being thrown at this man. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Yes, everyone has a right to defend themselves. | ||
| And that's what he is doing with his words. | ||
| Okay, so Willie, do you encourage you and others to go back and listen to what the president had to say when he came down that escalator in 2015, July of 2015? | ||
| You can find it on our website at c-span.org. | ||
| We'll go to Rudy, who's in Douglas, Georgia, Democratic Collar. | ||
| Hi, Rudy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, Grant, I was Deputy Mayor in Anderson, Indiana, and working with Republican Congressman David McIntosh. | |
| Even though I was with the Democratic administration, we took a total community approach to stopping the violence, which basically says Anderson, Indiana was one community, whether you were in the North, East, West, or South Side. | ||
| And wherever you are, you wanted that to be a safe community. | ||
| So the school system, the police department, the Sheriff's Department, the businesses, they all start doing things to contribute to making the community better and safer. | ||
| We reduce homicides by 98% by taking a total community approach. | ||
| In this country, if we took a total community approach, I should feel safe whether I'm in Georgia or Florida or Mississippi or Alabama or California. | ||
| When our politicians see this country as one community when it comes relative to safety, then the citizens will be engaged to do those things that prevent violence before it happens. | ||
| All right, Rudy, in Georgia, we'll leave the conversation there for now. | ||
| Coming up on the Washington Journal, later on in the program, KFF Health News Julie Robner on the future of Obamacare subsidies and this week's release of the Make America Healthy Again report. | ||
| She'll be joining us to talk about those two things. | ||
| We're going to take a break when we come back. | ||
| We'll continue talking about political violence and rhetoric in this country. | ||
| We'll be joined by David Blinkenhorn. | ||
| He's co-founder and senior advisor to the civility group Braver Angels and the president of Civic Life. | ||
| And he'll talk about efforts to bridge the political divide in the United States. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This fall, C-SPAN invites you on a powerful journey through the stories that define a nation. | |
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| Among this season's remarkable guests, John Grisham, master storyteller of the American justice system. | ||
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| At 11 a.m. Eastern, finalists for the 2025 George Washington Book Prize discuss their books on the nation's founding era. | ||
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| Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| We are back joining us now this morning is the co-founder of Braver Angels and the president of Civic Life here to continue our conversation this morning on the rise of political violence and solutions to it. | ||
| David Blinkenhorn, what was your reaction to the shooting and killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk this Wednesday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sorrow and thinking about what's happening to us as a society to make these kinds of things more common. | |
| And what did you think about the reaction from our politicians in this country? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I thought a lot of people said good things, but you would I was disappointed that some people immediately began to say it was the other side that's at fault. | |
| And, you know, we don't know who did this, who did this. | ||
| And, you know, everything is politicized. | ||
| So you, you know, one prominent person said the left is the party of murder. | ||
| And then plenty of people, you know, wanted to blame the other side. | ||
| So that was disappointing. | ||
| But, you know, plenty of people said good things to just a sense of regret that this happened and thoughts and prayers with his family and friends. | ||
| And we lost a voice, you know, that was an important voice in the public discussion. | ||
| How did you think, what did you think about the way Charlie Kirk went about trying to put more ideas on conservative campuses? | ||
| Not the ideas themselves, but how he went about it. | ||
|
unidentified
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I thought he went about it in pretty much just the right way. | |
| He had very strong views and he said them, but he was a warm guy and he engaged people who didn't agree with him. | ||
| sought out engagement with people who had different opinions. | ||
| And that's not a very common thing today. | ||
| And he spoke with decency to everyone. | ||
| And, you know, there are plenty of things one could disagree with him about in terms of public policy. | ||
| I have some disagreements with him too. | ||
| But, yeah, I thought he was the right kind of guy. | ||
| What are you seeing in the rise of political threats and violence in this country? | ||
| We shared these numbers with our viewers this morning, and I'll repeat them from the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| Last year, 9,500 threats and concerning statements were leveled against Congress members, families, and staff in the Capitol complex. | ||
| That's up from 8,000 in 2023. | ||
| David Blinkenhorn, in 2017, the number was less than 4,000. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| It's a disturbing trend, isn't it? | ||
| It tells us that there's something really wrong. | ||
| And if you go to the Congress now, you see members of Congress walking around with armed security people. | ||
| And Mr. Kirk, you know, he had security everywhere he went. | ||
| He received death threats every day. | ||
| And so what does it say about us? | ||
| And it's violence, it's threats of violence. | ||
| It's also just the ugly, ugly way that we speak to one another. | ||
| The language that we use is just appalling so often. | ||
| So we, you know, what, I mean, Greta, what's going on with this? | ||
| Why is this happening? | ||
| I don't really think my own view is that you don't want to blame Biden or Trump or the man behind the tree. | ||
| We have to look inward and see what is the society is going on that is causing us to go in this direction. | ||
| We want our viewers to join us in this conversation as well, continuing from our first hour this morning and hear more from all of you on the solutions to the rise in political violence. | ||
| And if you're a Democrat, dial in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And you can text if you'd like at 202-748-8003. | ||
| We do have some news on the investigation into the shooter. | ||
| Charlie Kirk, Josh Wingrove, who reports for Bloomberg News, covers the White House, says this. | ||
| New Trump says a suspect is in custody in the killing of Charlie Kirk. | ||
| Here's a quote, I think with a high degree of certainty. | ||
| We have him in custody, Trump said during an interview with Fox and Friends this morning. | ||
| Essentially, somebody that was very close to him turned him in, and that happens. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, what are some solutions to the rise in political violence and rhetoric? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We should become joiners again. | |
| I think we should, you know, people could join a civic group that they think is doing something good in the community. | ||
| We used to do a lot more of that. | ||
| We've long been famous as a country for being joiners. | ||
| That's going declining and it's leading to an increase in isolation and violence, or isolation and loneliness, I meant to say. | ||
| So let's become joiners again. | ||
| And also, if you don't know other people, you tend to dislike them. | ||
| And so the idea that we not only disagree with each other, but we don't like each other. | ||
| We think the other side is bad or bad people. | ||
| And so I would say one thing is it sounds simple, but just get to know people who you don't agree with about politics and try to establish a friendship with them, notwithstanding the fact that you disagree with them. | ||
| The organization that I was involved in, a long time, Braver Angels, that was the whole idea behind it. | ||
| Also, we need both conservatives, liberals, independents, we need to demand better behavior from our politicians in terms of how we talk about each other and how we treat each other because they don't model what we need. | ||
| So these sound like very simple, basic things, but I think the kind of trouble we're in as a society demands basic thinking about what's gotten us into this. | ||
| And just lastly, Greta, this is not going to come. | ||
| Our solutions will not come from somebody in Washington. | ||
| In America, solutions ultimately come from we the people. | ||
| So this has to be something that the citizens do. | ||
| And if we can begin to go in a better direction, the politicians will follow. | ||
| What's your reaction to hearing some members of Congress, some politicians saying they will actually curb their public engagement? | ||
| They are fearful and are contemplating engaging with the public less, not holding town halls, for example. | ||
| Your reaction. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I can understand that. | |
| Town halls have become terrible in many places, just shouting matches and a way to shout at people. | ||
| So I understand. | ||
| I also understand the personal safety issues involved. | ||
| I do think it's a time for some courage in the country and to not succumb to fearfulness. | ||
| Although, of course, at the human level, you have to understand people's concerns. | ||
| We're going to go to Chuck, who's in Smithfield, North Carolina. | ||
| Democratic caller. | ||
| Good morning to you, Chuck. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| What are your solutions, Chuck, to the rise of political violence? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm so alarmed of how we give all the hate speech such soft commentation. | |
| It's like we just let it go on and on and we let them say what they want and we take up form. | ||
| Yes, we all have freedom of speech. | ||
| But do you not think that your hate speech can bring on more problems like somebody shooting at you, whatever you bring? | ||
| You can't just say anything out your mouth and don't expect it could bring some problems. | ||
| So he wasn't the best guy in the world when it came to talking against people. | ||
| I mean, he was very, very, very crucial against black people. | ||
| I mean, I listened to his tapes and I'm saying to myself, this ain't the same guy that they're speaking about, talking about how he shouldn't have been this or shouldn't have been that. | ||
| Of course, you never kill anybody. | ||
| But don't think you can't bring stuff among yourself. | ||
| You can bring a danger against yourself by your mouth. | ||
| It's in the scriptures. | ||
| It says your mouth is your, it can cost your death in your mouth. | ||
| Chuck, we'll take that point. | ||
| David Blankenhorn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Could not agree more. | |
| Just could not agree more. | ||
| I remember Margaret Thatcher said once that your thoughts lead to words, your words lead to action, your actions lead to character. | ||
| And yeah, that caller's absolutely right. | ||
| Here's another viewer this time in a text. | ||
| If we could all agree on objective facts, it would reduce the political violence. | ||
| Algorithms have fragmented reality into subjective echo chambers that thrive on discourse. | ||
| Your reaction. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's a lot of truth to that. | |
| I do think that the reason we don't agree on facts is not that we become stupid or that we've become delusional or that we've lost interest in what the facts are or that the other side is too stupid to know what the facts are. | ||
| I don't think any of those things are true. | ||
| I think we don't agree about the facts because we don't have any shared trusted sources of information. | ||
| We sort of individually have to find in this very fragmented environment who we're going to trust. | ||
| And so it's not that we're stupid people. | ||
| It's that we have a stupid system that doesn't help us find the proper way to figure out what is true. | ||
| I really recommend to your viewers a book by Jonathan Rausch called it'll come to me. | ||
| All right. | ||
| David Blinkenhorn is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's a friend of mine. | |
| He wrote a great book called The Constitution of Knowledge, and he talks the whole books about this, about why we can't agree on what the truth is. | ||
| And so, yeah, I think the call, I think your viewer has, your person who wrote in has a has a good point, but it has to do with the social breakdown, not individuals becoming unwilling to think about what the truth is. | ||
| Related to that, listen to what Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine had to say this week about politically motivated violence in the United States. | ||
| This was during a foreign affairs hearing. | ||
| Here he is. | ||
| One thing that's a little bit sad, and I suspect all of us have this experience, we travel as members of this committee or the Armed Services Committee, and we meet with people overseas, and they just think this is who we are. | ||
| You know, I don't think this is who we are, but when we meet with people abroad and they sort of think this is who we are, it's sort of hard to mount the evidence and make the counter argument. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, you're shaking your head. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think he's making a great point. | |
| And people historically have looked to the United States as a beacon, you know, a beacon. | ||
| And as we become weaker as a democratic republic, as we seem to be increasingly unable to work together for the common good, our friends in other countries are sad and they're disappointed in us. | ||
| And I don't blame them. | ||
| We'll go to Mike in Salinas, California, Independent. | ||
| Mike, good morning to you. | ||
| We're talking with David Blankenhorn this morning. | ||
| He's our guest about solutions to political violence. | ||
| Go ahead, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| And I appreciate you guys continuing this dialogue on solutions with your guest after the open forums. | ||
| First, C-STAN is doing its part in the upcoming ceasefire. | ||
| And that's just so perfect right now, even the name of that. | ||
| But the thing I specifically wanted to mention was I think at this time, changing the Department of Defense to the word Department of War is the wrong message. | ||
| And lastly, I do know, you know, Donald Trump and probably Pete Hegseth, they're probably big fans of, you know, combat sports, mixed martial arts, that type of thing. | ||
| And defense is not a weak word. | ||
| That's why all these different artists are, you know, it's called self-defense. | ||
| So I think this Department of War right now, it's just the wrong message. | ||
| All right, Mike. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, your thoughts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think your caller's making a really good point. | |
| I'll also say that if you go back and look at the most common words that we hear today from politicians and people in public life, probably the most important or the most common word is fight. | ||
| I'm fighting for you. | ||
| We're engaged in a fight. | ||
| And who is it exactly that we're fighting all the time? | ||
| And we're fighting each other. | ||
| And so the language of this aggressive, you know, we're fighting each other. | ||
| I think it's related to the point the caller's making, which I think is a very good one. | ||
| We'll go to Harrisburg. | ||
| Elijah, Republican, welcome to the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| I think somewhere along the way, the ministers stopped talking and they started using words like the left this and the left that with like hatred and bitterness, like Pat Robertson and Rod Parsley and these types of things got into the conscience of America. | ||
| Maybe the pastors should come together and have a conference and kind of try to bring us together publicly. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, what do you think of that idea? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's a terrific idea. | |
| The religious communities should be leading us in a better direction. | ||
| And I think, as your caller suggested, they're more just reflecting and in some cases contributing to the divisiveness. | ||
| And so I just could think rare, I wish I'd thought of that idea to say earlier, it's terrific. | ||
| And I wish that some of the leaders of some of the denominations would do exactly what this caller is saying. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, Braver Angels, which you co-founded, you're now the president of Civic Life. | ||
| What are these two groups doing to lower the political rhetoric? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Braver Angels, I'm no longer the president, but I really urge your viewers to check it out. | |
| We bring people together at the grassroots and also at the national level to really engage with one another rather than shout at one another. | ||
| So we bring together conservatives and progressives and independents on equal terms to clarify disagreements in a good way, look for common ground, which there's more of it than we would think, and then try to take action in the community. | ||
| And it's, you know, there are many, many local Braver Angels groups all over the country. | ||
| There will be some of them meeting tonight to focus on this kind of issue. | ||
| There are many wonderful groups, but I would suggest if your callers want to do something to help, a step you can take to, yeah, reach out to Braver Angels or another group, but take an action, get involved. | ||
| Don't just, you know, we can't be passive about this. | ||
| Civic life is an effort to strengthen citizenship, to strengthen some of the fundamental, fundamental things that we seem to be not, we're kind of losing our way on, to live out the principles of citizenship that the founders bequeathed us that are really necessary for our form of self-government, and we seem to not be doing a good job. | ||
| So it's an educational and action program to strengthen citizenship and civic life. | ||
| And yeah, it's new and it's civic.life.org. | ||
| And I'm happy to have people visit there too. | ||
| But the active thing to do today would be to reach out to Braver Angels, I think, or a similar organization. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We'll go to Thomas, Fresno, California, an Independent. | ||
| Thomas, welcome to the conversation this morning. | ||
| What are your thoughts on solutions to the rise of political violence? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm listening to like Charlie Kirk about debate. | |
| I've always wondered, how do you defeat evil without becoming evil itself? | ||
| If you can't have a conversation with another without marking someone as Black Lives Matter, Nazis, whatever form of vitriol that people use with one another, how do you defeat evil when you're espousing to harm someone that you don't know? | ||
| Transphobia, African Americans, Hispanics, calling whites Nazis or saying white men or a danger to society. | ||
| Aren't we running down a path that is divisive for American citizens? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, as an African-American male 71 years of age, I consider myself an American. | |
| I don't consider myself an other or someone that is a threat to my neighbors or to society. | ||
| But what I hear is people get on television or people chat with one another and they pick out these evil things to say about people they don't know. | ||
| So my thing is, how do you defeat evil without becoming evil itself? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Understood. | ||
| Thomas, David Blinkenhorn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, my friend, you're making great points. | |
| I met a guy once at Braver Angels and he said, it's hard to hate somebody you know. | ||
| And I think that's worth thinking about. | ||
| These people you're talking about who go on television and so forth. | ||
| And of course, C-SPAN is a rare exception. | ||
| I mean, what a wonderful thing that we can have this kind of conversation. | ||
| But you often see people who will say terrible things about other people that they don't know at all. | ||
| And so the solution is to get to know other people you don't agree with. | ||
| Lincoln said, if you want to persuade someone of something, you first have to persuade them that you are their sincere friend. | ||
| There has to be caring for the other that's real before persuasion is even possible. | ||
| Gandhi said that the true essence of civility is the inner desire to do good to your opponent. | ||
| So if you want to persuade anybody of anything, calling them names is the worst possible solution. | ||
| The only thing that really works is to communicate sincerely that you wish them well, that you care about them as other people. | ||
| Once that happens, and the kind of thing that my brother on the call says stops happening, then that's the only chance you have to really persuade anybody of anything. | ||
| We'll go to Greg, Fort Washington, Maryland, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Greg. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I've been calling 100 times. | ||
| I honestly believe that it's the government's fault in terms of the people that are in office spearing this language and this ideology. | ||
| I mean, it's like the rich people are trying to take everything from everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They want everything, and they act like they don't have enough. | |
| And they're just raping our country. | ||
| And they're causing the dissension between whites and blacks and Hispanics. | ||
| And, you know, they're just turning everybody against everything. | ||
| And they're just so wrong about everything that they're doing. | ||
| Donald Trump came out of his mouth with nothing. | ||
| Greg, it sounds like there's two people, groups of people that you're laying blame on. | ||
| Not just our politicians, but corporate America as well. | ||
| Can you explain why you are upset with corporate America, if I have that right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, they don't act like they have enough. | |
| The more they get, the more they want. | ||
| And they're not trying to give back to the public for the riches and things that they have because of the public. | ||
| It's like they're trying to rape the country of everything. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Understood, Greg. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, let's take those thoughts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think both of those thoughts are good and worth thinking about. | |
| The only, you know, maybe this is not a disagreement. | ||
| I'll just say with respect to the politicians, we get the politicians we vote for. | ||
| So it's a little bit like if you order something from the restaurant and you don't like it, you know, you don't really blame the waiter. | ||
| I mean, we get what we're asking for. | ||
| So that we need to change the way we, the voters and the citizens, are thinking and behaving. | ||
| And then we will get better politicians. | ||
| But I think your caller, I hear the passion there, and I have a lot of respect for both of the points he's making. | ||
| Dallas, North Carolina, Mike, a Republican. | ||
| Hi, Mike. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Words, you know, you don't shoot the person that's trying to, you know, send a message. | ||
| It's like Malcolm X got killed because of words. | ||
| You know, Martin Luther King got killed because of words. | ||
| John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy. | ||
| You know, it's because of words. | ||
| But we're sitting here. | ||
| Most of the callers I hear today are blaming the victim. | ||
| It's like a girl walking around in a dress. | ||
| Oh my God, she gets raped. | ||
| It's not her fault. | ||
| It's because of the dress. | ||
| You know? | ||
| I mean, you're blaming the victim. | ||
| You know, I mean, I don't know why people think you've got to shoot the messenger, but that's not the way it should be. | ||
| I mean, as long as we're talking, you know, that's a good thing. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Let's hear from Connie, who's in Richmond, Virginia, Independent. | ||
| Connie? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I just wanted to say, for example, the language needs to come from the top. | |
| In any organization, they tell you the organization's culture comes from your top. | ||
| The language that comes out from the president on his 24-7 posting on his social media seems to be inflammatory, seems to be mostly divisive. | ||
| I don't get the sense he understands he is president to everyone in the United States, Democrats, independents, undeclared Republicans, not just people he likes, not just people that agree with him, and not just Republicans that agree with him. | ||
| I don't get a sense that he realizes anytime he's president, all of us, not just those he likes. | ||
| And the only other point I'm going to make is he's on Fox News right now. | ||
| In my time, and I'm older and old-fashioned, the president appeared in the Oval Office and addressed the American people as a whole. | ||
| He did not appear on a network that, in my opinion, is also a slanted network. | ||
| So it's just, it has to come from the top, is all I can say. | ||
| All right, Connie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's it. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| David Blinkenhorn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think our best leaders have always been people who think about the country as a whole. | |
| And they think about their responsibility and their accountability is to all of us. | ||
| And so the idea that we would assault other citizens with the kind of harsh words and accusations is not, it's not what our best leaders have done. | ||
| It's not what the founders wanted for us. | ||
| And it's a form of, you know, the fundamental idea of our liberal republic is that we don't have to use coercion. | ||
| We should use persuasion. | ||
| And in order to use persuasion, you have to treat people a certain way. | ||
| So, yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to the point that's been raised here. | ||
| In Michigan, Henry is watching their Democratic Caller. | ||
| Hi, Henry. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Mr. Blinkenhorn, first of all, I'd like to thank you for stating the obvious. | ||
| The investigation has not ensued and been completed, so we don't know the motives behind why what happened to Mr. Kirk happened to him. | ||
| And I'd like to try to change the, I'd like to try to change the tenor of the conversation a bit. | ||
| And I'd like for you to take us to a place where you envision America as a singular, nondescript human being being born in this country and raised in this country on certain morals and values and virtues that they're taught from the time as a child of truth and justice, | ||
| equality, caring for your neighbors and loving each other, and then juxtaposing that with the reality of what America has been since 1776, all the way up through the civil rights era, all the way up to the Trump era and the 2020 elections. | ||
| And I want you to tell me, what do you think that individual would have for mental health? | ||
| What would be that person's state of mental health? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Well, it's a very profound challenge that thought you just offered. | ||
| There are different ways to go at it. | ||
| I will say one way is that what the founders gave us is a kind of a little flickering flame. | ||
| It wasn't a big, it was just this little flame of possibility that said that we can live together and that we can care for one another and that our moral reach, the warmth, could extend to everyone. | ||
| And we were very bad at that for, you know, we've never been perfect at this. | ||
| We've always had people that we've excluded that haven't been welcomed into that warm circle. | ||
| But over time, I think that flame has gotten bigger. | ||
| We've made some good progress as a country with being a little bit better at welcoming each other and working together as a very, very diverse people. | ||
| I think in the last several decades, we've gone backwards on that flame is kind of going down a little bit. | ||
| And so the person you mentioned might look at today and say, gosh, there's something really wrong. | ||
| I mean, what's wrong? | ||
| But you remember the famous poem by Langston Hughes, Let America Be America again? | ||
| He says, he says, oh, yes, I say it plain. | ||
| America never was America to me, but this, I swear, America will be. | ||
| That's the flame. | ||
| That's that little flame. | ||
| It hasn't been America to me, but it will be. | ||
| That's the hope. | ||
| That's why your person that you're talking about should feel that sense of possibility for what we can be as a society and what we have been and what we have been and what the founders gave us. | ||
| And so maybe that counterbalances the sense that we're in a period of decline right now. | ||
| David Blankenhorn, we're going to end on that final thought here this morning with you. | ||
| Thank you for the conversation. | ||
| We appreciate it with our viewers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| It's a great program you have. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| We're going to take a short break. | ||
| Later on on the Washington Journal, we're going to turn our attention to health care. | ||
| We're going to talk about the future of Obamacare subsidies. | ||
| Joining us for that conversation will be KFF Health News Julie Rovner. | ||
| But first, when we come back after the break, we'll be in open forum. | ||
| We can continue talking about political rhetoric and violence in this country, as well as other public policy debates. | ||
| There are the lines on your screen. | ||
| Start dialing in. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story this weekend. | |
| As America celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026, join American History TV for its new series, America 250, and discover the ideas and defining moments of our founding. | ||
| At 11 a.m. Eastern, finalists for the 2025 George Washington Book Prize discuss their books on the nation's founding era. | ||
| The book prize is an annual award sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Washington College, and George Washington's Mount Vernon. | ||
| Then at 2 on the Civil War, the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies features conversations on the Civil War, including a look at the relationship between Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, the fight between Midwestern abolitionists and anti-war activists, and Abraham Lincoln's relationship with General George McClellan. | ||
| At 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, University of Kansas political communication professor Robert Rowland on the 1992 Republican National Convention speeches by former President Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination that year against incumbent President George H.W. Bush. | ||
| And at 9.30, the White House Historical Association profiles former First Lady Barbara Bush against the backdrop of the forever stamp, issued in her honor. | ||
| Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN 2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. | ||
| Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend. | ||
| At 5.45 p.m. Eastern, Justice Amy Coney Barrett discusses her book, Listening to the Law, about her journey to the Supreme Court and her views on the Constitution. | ||
| Then at 7, blogger Lee Tillman, author of If You Don't Like This, I Will Die, an influencer memoir, describes the impact of making a career on social media. | ||
| At 8 p.m. Eastern, Fox News contributor Joe Concha with his book, The Greatest Comeback Ever, sharing his take on President Donald Trump's return to the White House for a second non-consecutive term. | ||
| And at 10.15, author and researcher Matthew Facciani and his book, Misguided, Where Misinformation Starts, How It Spreads, and What to Do About It. | ||
| Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. | ||
| And past president nomination. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
| This is a kangaroo clause. | ||
| This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity. | ||
| Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Join Political Playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground. | ||
| Ceasefire, this fall, on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Welcome back to the Washington Journal. | ||
| This morning, we're an open forum. | ||
| Any public policy or political issue that's on your mind, we'll begin with the investigation into the killing of Charlie Kirk. | ||
| Here is Fox News with an updated headline this morning. | ||
| Charlie Kirk's suspected assassin captured after fatal shooting of influential conservative voice in Utah. | ||
| The president talked about this in an interview this morning on Fox and Friends. | ||
| Here's what he had to say. | ||
| Any updates on the suspect? | ||
| Yeah, can I always say I think just to protect us all and so Fox doesn't get sued and we all don't get sued and everything else, but I think with a high degree of certainty, we have him. | ||
| We're in custody, right? | ||
| In custody, everyone did a great job. | ||
| We worked with the local police, the governor, everybody did a great job. | ||
| You know, getting somebody that you start off with absolutely nothing. | ||
| And we started off with a clip that made him look like an ant that was almost useless. | ||
| We just saw there was somebody up there. | ||
| And so much work has been done over the last two and a half days. | ||
| You know, it's amazing, actually, when you start off with that and then all of a sudden you get lucky or talent or whatever it is. | ||
| But yeah, I think we're in great shape. | ||
| That's the person who's in custody. | ||
| Any updates on the suspect? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Can I always say I think just to protect us all and so Fox doesn't get sued and we all don't get sued and everything else. | ||
| But I think with a high degree of certainty, we have him. | ||
| We're in custody. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay? | |
| In custody. | ||
| President Trump. | ||
| Fox and friends this morning saying with a high degree of certainty we have him, that he is in custody. | ||
| We're going to hear more from Utah officials this morning around 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time. | ||
| We're expecting a briefing and there is the live shot on your screen this morning. | ||
| A briefing from Utah officials over the past couple of days. | ||
| We've heard from the FBI special agent in charge there along with the Utah Public Safety Commissioner and the governor from Utah. | ||
| So if we get a briefing around 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time, hopefully we can bring you some of that here this morning on C-SPAN. | ||
| Until then, we are in open forum this morning. | ||
| We can continue talking about political violence in this country as well as other public debates. | ||
| We'll go to Robin, who's in Towson, Maryland. | ||
| Republican caller. | ||
| Robin, you're up first here in Open Forum. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| I'd like to thank you for having an open forum and your programming. | ||
| The situation is a lot of things that are happening in this country. | ||
| I'm not anti-immigration, okay? | ||
| First, many people in my ancestry came from other countries and a mix from Africa and from Cuba and from Spain. | ||
| And I have a Native American. | ||
| What I would like to do is say that a lot of people are trained, were trained previously before 1971 by American military when they went overseas to be anti the American people in different aspects of our society. | ||
| They taught, for example, the American female that was born here was demanding, overbearing, even though at the time the majority of females of America did not stand up for their own rights, even though after the 1920s they had the right to vote. | ||
| Many women did not vote, including black women, because the males in their family suggested to them that as the head of the household, they had the right to vote, but they still didn't have the right to vote. | ||
| So socially and culturally, America has never become one defined group of people. | ||
| This is what is wrong in the concept of America, the United States of America. | ||
| The United States has never become one single culture. | ||
| So we are made of multiple cultures and cultures that come into this country. | ||
| Then we have groups, all of our groups that are political and social groups that are teaching about the United States. | ||
| Even them, they are not totally accurate. | ||
| They give us some truths and some falsehoods. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Robin, I've got other people. | ||
| I'm going to go to Gary in San Antonio, Texas, an independent. | ||
| Gary, what's on your mind this morning? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a pleasure. | |
| I can say I put myself independent this morning because this is an independent opinion and a couple of things. | ||
| This is my first time ever get through. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Well, welcome. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| I don't want to belittle the debt of Charlie Kirk or any other one. | ||
| But we are the poor Charlie Kirks that they are killing around the corner. | ||
| The black man, the other man, and nobody's looking for anybody. | ||
| Now they put all the resources into one thing because of this one man. | ||
| Yes, I'm sorry, and my condolences go to the family. | ||
| But this is what's causing some of the problem. | ||
| They focus on only the top, top, top and the poor little man who has nobody to defend him. | ||
| They're not looking for him. | ||
| They're not looking for us. | ||
| Okay, the other thing, I've been listening to the program this morning. | ||
| And somebody should take up the phone because I don't hear the word G-O-D. | ||
| God. | ||
| Are they calling on God? | ||
| The president can't do nothing, absolutely nothing, but talk. | ||
| Talk. | ||
| And all of them, they only talk and they don't call God for anything. | ||
| Are they praying when they go to their bed, take up their Bible, holding it upside down? | ||
| Could you tell them to quote a scripture? | ||
| They have to focus on God. | ||
| And if we don't focus on God, I don't care who you are this morning. | ||
| We are not getting anywhere. | ||
| The world is not getting any better. | ||
| Did the war in Ukraine stop on the first day? | ||
| The prices of gas, is it going up and down? | ||
| What is happening here? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Gary there in Texas with his thoughts on the economy this morning, the Hill newspaper with this headline, Trump's top economist on track to join the Fed before the pivotal meeting next week. | ||
| That's Stephen Myron, who the president nominated to serve on the Federal Reserve Board. | ||
| He was confirmed by the committee and is on track to be sitting in the board meeting next week when the Federal Reserve members gather. | ||
| The Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell, will hold his news conference, as he always does, after that meeting. | ||
| It's on Wednesday, September 17th, around 2.30 p.m. Eastern Time is when we expect to hear from him and whether or not the Federal Reserve Board of Governors decided as a group to cut interest rates or not. | ||
| You can look for our coverage on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| If you go to c-span.org, you can also follow along if you have the free video mobile app, C-SPAN Now. | ||
| Also happening next week, the fired CDC director, along with the chief medical officer who left in protest, they're going to be testifying next week on Capitol Hill. | ||
| And we're also expecting to hear from Kash Patel, the FBI director, in an oversight hearing on Capitol Hill. | ||
| Follow along with our coverage of Congress and the White House at c-SPAN.org, our free video mobile app, C-SPANNow. | ||
| David, Corpus Christi, Texas, a Republican. | ||
| David, good morning. | ||
| We're in open forum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I'll try to be brief. | ||
| You know, it's more important for these politicians to lower the flag, to have staff, to voice their condolences, but to do nothing. | ||
| When we had the Uvalde shooting here in Texas, the first thing that our governor said, it could have been worse. | ||
| Or it's not worse if only one child is killed. | ||
| A weapon should not be sold to anybody without them first taking weapons training, like they do in Switzerland. | ||
| There should be a safety device sold with every weapon. | ||
| And any weapon used in any crime, not only should the perpetrator be taken to court, so should the owner of that weapon for not safeguarding it. | ||
| But our politicians will not do any of that so long as they're in the pocket of the NRA and other gun lobbies. | ||
| Follow the money. | ||
| See how much our politicians get from the NRA for their hope chest. | ||
| All right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, thank you. | |
| David in Corpus Christi, Texas, a Republican with his thoughts. | ||
| And Lynn is an independent in Kernersville, North Carolina. | ||
| Hi, Lynn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, Greta. | |
| I just wanted to say that people or psychologists know that people respond to what is called the herd instinct. | ||
| And politicians very much use that. | ||
| People that want power very much use that. | ||
| So they have parties. | ||
| And then people choose their teams. | ||
| And the teams seem to get more violent toward one another because they have to win. | ||
| So why not go to something like ranked choice voting, where the voter will be basically forced if they want to vote with any kind of, well, what am I trying to say? | ||
| Knowledge to research the individual candidates. | ||
| And then you will have people in power who come from all parties or maybe no party at all because they're just a good candidate. | ||
| And so people voted for them. | ||
| And that's all I have to say. | ||
| All right, Lynn, with her solution on the political rhetoric in this country. | ||
| Matthew and Dearborn, Michigan, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Matthew. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'd like to talk about the violence and specifically debate. | |
| Now, I'm all for open debate. | ||
| People can say what they want, but what we need to talk about is the philosophy behind it. | ||
| And like, Mr. Kirk, I hate to say it, was like a victim of his own philosophy. | ||
| And then here's another bad idea. | ||
| I mean, this is about ideas. | ||
| We have to decide about which ideas we think are more important or at least wiser. | ||
| That's a better word. | ||
| The Utah legislature in March, they signed into law the governor that you can possess a firearm on a campus. | ||
| So Mr. Kirk, they kind of facilitated Mr. Kurt's death. | ||
| I mean, that's, I hate to say it, but that's, and there's more rhetoric out there than ludicrous. | ||
| Mrs. Mace this morning said she's going to carry a firearm, but that does you no good against a sniper from 200 yards away. | ||
| And lastly, our president is putting soldiers in the street. | ||
| And if something goes bad there, a lot of people are going to get hurt. | ||
| These are not very good ideas. | ||
| I hate to say it, but they're not very good ideas. | ||
| And they're facilitating bad outcomes. | ||
| I guess that's all I have to say. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Matthew in Michigan. | ||
| In case you missed it, on Capitol Hill yesterday from NBC News, Senate Republicans trigger nuclear option, changing the rules to speed up Trump nominees. | ||
| The new rule established by the GOP on party lines will enable it to confirm Trump nominees in groups rather than individually. | ||
| It's the latest move to erode minority powers in the upper chamber. | ||
| And of course, we brought you gavel-to-gavel coverage of this debate on C-SPAN 2, our coverage of the U.S. Senate. | ||
| Here are the leaders John Thune and Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor yesterday speaking about the rule change that will speed up the confirmation of President Trump's nominees. | ||
| Democrats and their political base cannot deal with the fact that the American people elected President Trump. | ||
| And so they're dragging out every confirmation in retaliation. | ||
| Mr. President, it would be fine if this Democrat temper tantrum didn't affect anyone else. | ||
| But Democrats' historic obstruction is having serious consequences. | ||
| In addition to the obvious problem of delays in filling important positions in the administration, having to engage in the time-consuming cloture process on every nominee ties up the Senate floor, preventing us from considering important legislation. | ||
| Advice and consent on presidential nominations is part of our job as senators, but it's not the only part of our job. | ||
| The Senate is first and foremost a legislative body. | ||
| But that primary role is getting crowded out by the need to be constantly considering nominations. | ||
| Mr. President, when I became majority leader, I made it clear that one of my priorities was to get the Senate functioning again. | ||
| And the Senate can't function effectively as a legislative body with the confirmation process in the state that it's in right now. | ||
| So today, the Senate will move forward on amending the rules to restore the long-standing precedent of confirming presidential nominees expeditiously. | ||
| It would have been nice not to have to go through this process. | ||
| I think there are a lot of Democrats who are aware that they've created an untenable situation. | ||
| And it would have been nice to see them acknowledge that and to move to return to longtime Senate precedent. | ||
| What Republicans have done is chip away at the Senate even more, to give Donald Trump more power and to rubber stamp whomever he wants whenever he wants them. | ||
| No questions asked. | ||
| That is not the Senate's job. | ||
| We're supposed to debate and take votes on nominees, especially when the executive branch is grossly breaking norms by sending us woefully unqualified, unscrupulous, and in some cases, deeply dishonest individuals for powerful and important positions. | ||
| By going nuclear today, Republicans are saying we don't want to do our jobs. | ||
| They're saying whatever Trump wants, we'll do it. | ||
| Make no mistake, because of the harmful step Republicans took today, the historically bad nominees Donald Trump has sent to the Senate all year long will get even worse. | ||
| From Thursday and C-SPAN 2's gavel-gavel coverage of the U.S. Senate, there it was on your screen, and you can find more of our coverage on C-SPAN 2 of the U.S. Senate every day and also here on C-SPAN coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives. | ||
| We're going to take a break and when we come back, we're going to be joined by KFF Health News Julie Robner. | ||
| We're going to switch our topics this morning and talk about the future of Obamacare subsidies and this week's release of the Make America Healthy Again report focusing on children. | ||
| Stay with us. | ||
| We'll be right back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story. | |
| This weekend, as America celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026, join American History TV for its new series, America 250, and discover the ideas and defining moments of our founding. | ||
| At 11 a.m. Eastern, finalists for the 2025 George Washington Book Prize discuss their books on the nation's founding era. | ||
| The book prize is an annual award sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Washington College, and George Washington's Mount Vernon. | ||
| Then at 2 on the Civil War, the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies features conversations on the Civil War, including a look at the relationship between Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, the fight between Midwestern abolitionists and anti-war activists, and Abraham Lincoln's relationship with General George McClellan. | ||
| At 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures in History, University of Kansas political communication professor Robert Rowland on the 1992 Republican National Convention speeches by former President Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination that year against incumbent President George H.W. Bush. | ||
| And at 9.30, the White House Historical Association profiles former First Lady Barbara Bush against the backdrop of the forever stamp, issued in her honor. | ||
| Exploring the American story. | ||
| Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| Julie Robner is back with us this morning. | ||
| She's the chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News here to talk about debates over healthcare. | ||
| And let's begin with the Obamacare subsidies. | ||
| And Julie Robner, a recent poll by KFF found that 73% of Americans had only heard, quote, a little or nothing at all about these enhanced subsidies. | ||
| Let's begin there. | ||
| What are they? | ||
| Well, during the Biden administration, Congress expanded the ability of people who buy insurance on those marketplaces that were created by the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| They took off the cap. | ||
| Until then, there had been a cap that if you earned more than 400% of poverty, that's about $100,000 a year for a family of three. | ||
| You didn't get subsidies. | ||
| And they also put a cap on how big your premiums could be. | ||
| So if you were eligible for subsidies, you wouldn't have to pay more than 8.5% of your income on premiums. | ||
| Those two things together lowered premiums for so many people that the number of people who were able to buy insurance on those marketplaces doubled from about 12 million to about 24 million. | ||
| So if these subsidies expire as scheduled at the end of this year, those people are going to lose this additional help and some of them will see their premiums double or perhaps even more. | ||
| So people don't know this yet because they won't see next year's premiums for another several weeks. | ||
| But when they do, there's going to be a lot of sticker shock. | ||
| According to KFF and the Congressional Budget Office, some premiums could go up as much as 75%. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| And in some cases, it could be even more. | ||
| You know, we've got two things going on at once. | ||
| We're seeing premiums overall rise for a variety of reasons, including the ending of these extra subsidies. | ||
| Insurers assume that if the premiums go up too much, that healthier people will drop out of the insurance pool. | ||
| And therefore, they'll have a sicker pool. | ||
| So they're going to have to raise premiums. | ||
| We're also seeing health care costs go up in general. | ||
| Tariffs are having something of an impact, although they haven't had much yet. | ||
| So we're already seeing sticker shock for people who have just, you know, employer-provided health insurance, not through the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| But we're going to have that on top of these expiring subsidies. | ||
| And it's going to come, as I say, as a real shock to a lot of people. | ||
| Well, these were originally set to expire in 2022, and then they were extended to the end of 2025. | ||
| Was there bipartisan support? | ||
| Not really. | ||
| You know, this is partly the Republicans don't love the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| They've sort of stopped trying to repeal it outright. | ||
| Although, letting these subsidies expire and some of the other changes that they made in the big budget bill that passed earlier this year are going to have the impact of cutting back quite a bit on the Affordable Care Act and the way it works. | ||
| So it's sort of, you know, you've heard of a pocket veto. | ||
| This has sort of been a pocket repeal of the ACA. | ||
| Also, according to KFF and the Congressional Budget Office, it would cost $350 billion to extend these subsidies for 10 years. | ||
| Julie Roger, talk about the price here. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| It's expensive. | ||
| I mean, this is basically the federal government giving money to people for health insurance. | ||
| We do it in a lot of ways now. | ||
| We, the federal government, spends an enormous amount of money on tax subsidies for people who have employer-provided insurance. | ||
| It's one of the biggest tax expenditures that the federal government has. | ||
| So this is just another way that the federal government helps subsidize people, basically to have private insurance. | ||
| That's what we as a country have decided how we're going to do it. | ||
| Many other countries have government-provided insurance. | ||
| We have mostly private-provided insurance that we subsidize for people who can't afford it. | ||
| And the extent to which we're subsidizing it is basically what's being debated right now. | ||
| And the Hill newspaper reports that 90% of those who use ACA receive the subsidies. | ||
| That's right. | ||
| They receive some subsidy. | ||
| Not everybody receives, you know, large subsidies. | ||
| But yes, most of the people who get their coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, those 24 million people that I mentioned, get some sort of subsidy. | ||
| If these expanded subsidies expire, people will still get subsidies. | ||
| They just won't be as big. | ||
| And some people won't get subsidies at all. | ||
| Those people, as I mentioned, who earn more than four times the amount of poverty. | ||
| What has KFF found in your polling and in your talking to lawmakers and others about this issue resonating with the American people ahead of the 2026 midterm elections? | ||
| Well, as you mentioned, a lot of people don't know it yet. | ||
| You know, the Republicans, when they were writing that big budget bill and they made a lot of big changes to Medicaid and some big cuts to Medicaid, and most of those were not intended to happen before the 2026 midterms. | ||
| But I think they didn't think real hard about these subsidies that are going to hit right now in the next several weeks. | ||
| One of the other things we know is that in states that didn't expand the Medicaid program for people with very low incomes, and that includes some big red states like Florida and Georgia and Texas, a lot of those people ended up taking advantage of these subsidies and buying insurance on the ACA exchanges as they were intended to. | ||
| But these are very red states. | ||
| A lot of them are very red voters and they're about to see their health insurance costs go way up. | ||
| And I'm suspecting that as voters, they're not going to be real happy about that. | ||
| So I know there are a lot of Republicans who are uncomfortable with what is about to happen and they're sort of balancing that against their general ideological dislike for the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| We heard from the two Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, yesterday holding a gaggle together before reporters with Democrats standing behind them. | ||
| And they said, if Republicans want us to join them in this pending government funding deadline, then they have to negotiate with us on health care. | ||
| What are they looking for? | ||
| Yeah, it was a little vague. | ||
| You know, there has been a lot of chatter, particularly this last week or two, or since Congress came back from the break, about the possibility of even a short-term extension of these subsidies. | ||
| There's debate even within the Democratic Party. | ||
| It's like, okay, this is something that the Republicans are doing to themselves. | ||
| Why are we going to help them stop it? | ||
| On the other hand, as I mentioned, it's a lot of people who could be losing their health insurance fairly soon. | ||
| So there's a lot of Democrats who feel very strongly about this. | ||
| The other possibility that's being kicked around is maybe rolling back some of the Medicaid cuts that were made in the budget bill as part of this. | ||
| There had been some buyer's remorse, if you will, from a number of Republicans after that budget bill passed. | ||
| People like Senator Hawley from Missouri, who said he wanted to maybe scale back a little bit some of the Medicaid cuts that were made. | ||
| So that's also a possibility. | ||
| So far, it doesn't look like the two sides are coming together. | ||
| So far, it doesn't look like the Republicans want to negotiate with the Democrats on anything, although Republicans need Democratic votes in the Senate if they're going to avert a government shutdown in the next three weeks. | ||
| All right, we're talking health care with Julie Robner this morning. | ||
| Democrats dial in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| Before we get to calls, earlier this week, the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy discussed key strategies to improve children's health by the end of this year, releasing this Maha report. | ||
| He made comments, and this is what he had to say. | ||
| Including removing harmful chemicals from our food, including the nine petroleum-based food ties. | ||
| We'll either have removed them or have committed deadlines to remove them. | ||
| Defining for the first time ultra-processed food, the front-of-package labeling for ultra-processed foods, requiring nutrition and metabolic health courses in medical schools, something that is not happening except in a very limited way today. | ||
| Closing the grass loophole, improving food for our military, our schools, and our hospitals, updating water quality standards, including PFAS, removing Medicaid quality metrics to measure real health improvements through fitness and nutrition, working across the government to provide more assistance to farmers to support soil health, | ||
| unleash innovation and remove the barriers that hamper small farms, removing SNAP, reforming SNAP, working with states to remove soda and candy from the program. | ||
| And I want to thank Brooke for her very, very aggressive work and encouraging states to, which we've gone all across the country talking to governors and legislatures to encourage states to file SNAP waiver petitions on establishing, | ||
| again, front-of-pack food labeling for sugars, for sodium, for ultra-processed foods, reforming infant formula standards and acknowledging and addressing vaccine injuries. | ||
| RFK Jr., the health secretary there, and details on this new report. | ||
| Julie Robner, have you dug into this report? | ||
| And what did you find? | ||
| I have dug into it a little bit. | ||
| You know, it's surprisingly lacking in specifics about what the administration plans to do. | ||
| Not sure whether that was something that was in there and that the White House took out or whether they're just still a little bit uncertain about how they plan to go about this. | ||
| So, you know, there's a lot of goals in there, but not a lot of specifics. | ||
| The New York Times this morning, Julia Robner, with the headline, Maha Panel report, falls short on addressing food quality, according to the experts that they talked to, and some promising ideas, but little pressure on the food industry. | ||
| Yeah, that's right. | ||
| You know, the pesticide industry also, we expected more. | ||
| We expected that there would be some, you know, if not recommendations, then at least, you know, we're going to change this regulation or we're going to do this. | ||
| And there's not very much of that. | ||
| There's a lot of kind of wishing and hoping that industry goes along with some of these things, which, you know, frankly, there is some power by the administration, you know, just the jawboning. | ||
| And we've seen some of this already with some of the food dyes that companies have agreed to take out of their products. | ||
| But it is a little bit lacking in teeth, I think, that were more expected. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We'll go to Flyer first, who's in Salisbury, North Carolina. | ||
| Democratic Caller, you're up first in our conversation about health care. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I'm a trouble native man. | |
| I have got an opinion about this. | ||
| I think that the Republican administration has been pecking at Obamacare since it came out. | ||
| And I think they've reduced it down to it's just about nothing for the American people. | ||
| I think they better think about single payer again. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, Julie Robner, what does the ACA look like today? | ||
| Well, as I said, we're undergoing sort of a scaling back of the Affordable Care Act, which is what the Republicans had said they wanted. | ||
| And they're in power. | ||
| And, you know, they have the House, the Senate, and the White House. | ||
| The president has already issued a number of regulations that would make it more difficult for people to renew their coverage, make it harder for people to get their coverage. | ||
| As we talked about, they're letting these additional subsidies expire. | ||
| So we are expecting a constriction, if you will, in the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| We're also going to see, most likely, according to the Congressional Budget Office, big cutbacks in the Medicaid program as a result of the budget bill, things like work requirements that make it more difficult for people to, not so much to keep their Medicaid, but to prove that they're working so that they can keep their Medicaid. | ||
| So we are seeing a constriction of it. | ||
| You know, there's been this continual debate. | ||
| How do we want to ensure that Americans get health care? | ||
| Do we want to do it? | ||
| So far, as a country, we decided to do it through private insurance and through subsidizing private insurance. | ||
| There are a lot of people who would like to see some sort of single payer or national health program. | ||
| We haven't gotten to that point yet. | ||
| It hasn't sort of reached a majority. | ||
| It's been this sort of plurality for the last 20 years or so. | ||
| But we'll see if maybe scaling back the ACA and we could end up with many more people without insurance and that maybe we'll have another national debate on how we want to proceed as a country. | ||
| Yesterday on C-SPAN Networks, we covered a conversation about employer health plans. | ||
| And the conversation centered around reforms to our health care costs and how we address it in this country. | ||
| And the gist of it was that it really needs to come from employer health care plans. | ||
| Julie Robner, how many people get health care through their employer versus the ACA? | ||
| Many more. | ||
| I think it's about 150 million people get their coverage through employer plans. | ||
| As I said, it's about 24 million people get their coverage through buying the ACA, and then another. | ||
| I'm not sure exactly how many million people are now getting coverage because of the expansion of Medicaid in the 40 states that expanded Medicaid. | ||
| So it's a good chunk who are getting it through the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| And of course, we have many millions of people in Medicare and Medicaid. | ||
| So we're a very sort of hybrid, if you will, coverage. | ||
| A lot of people with government coverage, a lot of people with government-subsidized private coverage, and a lot of people with private coverage. | ||
| That's how we have chosen as a society to do it. | ||
| It's not very well organized. | ||
| It's mostly kind of, it just happened and nobody planned it that way. | ||
| It's just sort of how it grew. | ||
| But that's where we are as of now. | ||
| All right, we'll go to Audrey in Sumter, South Carolina, Democratic Caller. | ||
| You're next, Audrey. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why are we not talking about the increase on Medicare of the $25 increase going to be in 2026 on people that's on fixed income? | |
| It's going to be a little over $25 increase on Medicare. | ||
| Why are we not talking about that? | ||
| All right, we'll take that. | ||
| Julie Robner. | ||
| Yes, we are seeing, as I mentioned earlier, we're seeing health costs in general go up. | ||
| And when health costs in general go up, costs for Medicare go up as well. | ||
| People who buy their own coverage, who buy, you know, the private coverage, just the regular government Part B premiums do go up. | ||
| I don't think we've seen the exact number yet, but we are seeing this acceleration in health costs, which we haven't seen now in a decade or so. | ||
| That where health costs are going up faster than the rest of the economy, what ends up happening is that, you know, people get an increase in their Social Security. | ||
| Most people on Medicare also get Social Security. | ||
| People see an increase in their Social Security, but sometimes that can be eaten up basically by the increase in their costs for Medicare. | ||
| Well, how are states reacting to these Medicaid cuts that you've talked about in the One Big Beautiful bill? | ||
| What are they doing? | ||
| It's interesting. | ||
| We're seeing states cutting back already, which I think a lot of Republicans did not expect. | ||
| As I said, these cuts were sort of timed to take effect after the 2026 midterms. | ||
| But states are already sort of seeing what's happening. | ||
| And it's not just states. | ||
| You know, we're seeing clinics and hospitals close because they project that they're just not going to be able to have enough money to stay open. | ||
| So we're already seeing cutbacks in the availability of care due to these cuts. | ||
| You know, a lot of it's not just you'll be impacted if you're on Medicaid. | ||
| If you live in a place where your health care system is supported largely by Medicaid and there's less money coming in through Medicaid, you're going to have trouble accessing health care. | ||
| It's just not going to be there, even if you have private insurance or even if you're trying to pay out of pocket. | ||
| So Medicaid is a huge piece of what supports not just the safety net, but a lot of health care in a lot of the country and particularly in rural areas. | ||
| We're going to go to Jenny, who's in Stowe, Ohio, Democratic Caller. | ||
| Hi, Jenny. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Trying to pay out of pocket. | |
| Hi, I'm sorry. | ||
| I've got to turn this on mute. | ||
| Yes, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Well, I knew this was going to happen eventually. | ||
| But I have private insurance, okay? | ||
| And what they did already recently is they raised my premium up to $150 on the month. | ||
| And now my co-pays are $50 if I want to see a doctor. | ||
| And I just don't think that's right, okay? | ||
| When you already pay for your premiums yourself, I don't get Obamacare or anything, but I sort of thought this would probably happen. | ||
| And a lot of people don't know, but I believe that it's going to happen to probably everybody. | ||
| And it's going to affect everybody, you know, with going so far away to a doctor or whatever. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| All right, Jenny, let's take your points. | ||
| Julie Rodner. | ||
| Yeah, that's exactly what I said. | ||
| We're seeing this is part of the overall increase in health care spending in, you know, demand for health care, in wages for health care, in the cost of prescription drugs, in the cost of hospital care and doctor care. | ||
| What we're seeing is people who have employer insurance. | ||
| Employers are passing along these increases. | ||
| Sometimes, you know, in a very tight labor market, employers will try to kind of eat the increases and keep it from impacting, you know, their workers because they want to attract workers and have generous benefits. | ||
| But right now, health costs are going up so fast that a lot of employers are passing it along. | ||
| So people are seeing both their premiums and their out-of-pocket costs go up. | ||
| And I think you can expect that pretty much across the board. | ||
| I've seen that at my own job. | ||
| We've seen our cost sharing rise just going forward for next year by a considerable amount. | ||
| I think that's going to be pretty universal. | ||
| We'll go to Readstown, Wisconsin. | ||
| Kent, independent caller. | ||
| Welcome to the conversation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I get VA care, and it's excellent care. | |
| And I'm concerned about the privatization of VA care. | ||
| Julie Rodner, have you heard a debate about that? | ||
| Yes, well, there's a long-standing debate about the privatization of VA care because VA care is not as available in all places as I think those who oversee it, meaning Congress and the president, would like. | ||
| One of the things that we're seeing now is, you know, when Doge came in and there were a lot of cuts to VA care, they insisted that they weren't going to cut actual, you know, medical care, but that's not really what happened. | ||
| So we have seen some pretty dramatic cuts in care to the VA health care system. | ||
| And we'll see if Congress is going to try to restore some of those cuts in the spending bills that they're working on right now. | ||
| Carol, Brookhaven, New York, a Republican. | ||
| Hi, Carol. | ||
| Question or comment about health care this morning? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it's a question and a comment. | |
| Number one is I was a widow from the age of 31 years old. | ||
| I raised my kids by myself. | ||
| I'm a registered nurse. | ||
| I never had medical. | ||
| Until I became a senior citizen, I never once had medical. | ||
| I had to live without it. | ||
| But now that I have medical and I bought into a secondary, you, as the last caller said, I have to pay $50 if I go to see a doctor. | ||
| If I go to see a physical therapist, it's $50 three times a week. | ||
| Nobody's using the medical fields because unfortunately they can't afford the $50 each time you go to the doctor. | ||
| And they also need to make employers, literally make employers. | ||
| You work 20 to 40 hours a week, you get medical. | ||
| People are on social services, not because they need to be on social services. | ||
| They're on social services because they can't get medical. | ||
| Their drugs for their illnesses are too expensive. | ||
| I know three people who are on Medicaid because they cannot afford their medical. | ||
| All right, Carol, and your question for Julie Rodner. | ||
|
unidentified
|
When are we going to get Social Security to have employers pay the insurance? | |
| I worked the last portion of my life. | ||
| I worked for Suffolk County government. | ||
| They could very easily pay the medical, but unfortunately, I have to use Medicare after the age of 65. | ||
| Julia Robner? | ||
| Well, most employers, as we've mentioned, do offer health insurance. | ||
| The ACA sort of pushed that along, although small employers will point out that they can't afford it. | ||
| That was why they created the exchanges for the Affordable Care Act, basically for people who work for small employers so they could get some assistance in paying for their health insurance. | ||
| You know, it is a debate that has gone on. | ||
| I've been doing this almost 40 years, and it's gone on the entire time I've been covering this. | ||
| And I sort of feel the woman's pain. | ||
| I broke my wrist at the end of July. | ||
| I am also going to physical therapy, and it is expensive, and I'm having to pay out of pocket. | ||
| And I have very generous employer insurance. | ||
| So it is a problem, and we'll see when it gets to be a big enough problem. | ||
| If people complain about it enough, then perhaps our lawmakers will go back and take another good long look at where we are. | ||
| Bridgeton, Missouri. | ||
| Lynn, a Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I didn't even realize that it was even up for debate that they were talking about reducing the Affordable Health Care Act because I have my sister and brother-in-law are farmers, and that is all they have for their insurance. | ||
| My son, he has a medical condition, and that's his only form of insurance because he works part-time. | ||
| As an example, he was in the hospital and had blood clots, and when he got out of the hospital, he did not even get his prescription renewed for blood dinner because it was too expensive. | ||
| So, my question is: are they even considering expanding the Affordable Health Care Act, not reducing it? | ||
| Are they considering expanding it? | ||
| No. | ||
| And it's funny, in 2017, when Republicans were talking about repealing the Affordable Care Act, it was very front and center. | ||
| This year, even though there were some provisions that went almost as far as some of those went in 2017, it just didn't sort of make it into the public consciousness. | ||
| So, this bill passed and got signed into law that does roll back a lot of pieces of the Affordable Care Act. | ||
| You know, as I said, the cuts to Medicaid, the changes to Obamacare enrollment, the changes that the administration has done by regulation, and then finally the allowing of these expanded subsidies to expire sort of together are a partial repeal of the ACA. | ||
| There is not discussion of expanding it at this point. | ||
| There's discussion of whether to let this rollback continue. | ||
| Carl is in Indian Trail, North Carolina, Independent. | ||
| Hi, Carl. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hey, good morning. | |
| Appreciate the discussion. | ||
| You know, the exuberance of the big, beautiful bill, I think it was not really thought out well, and that it's going to have serious repercussions in terms of increasing the emergency visits for people who are now in a segment of our population who have now there exists, will exist a gap where they're not going to be able to receive medical care. | ||
| This is really sad in this country where we cannot find ways to provide insurance to people who are really economically not able to really pay it because insurance is so high. | ||
| Another thing is that. | ||
| Hey, Carl, I'm going to have Julie Robner respond to your prediction there. | ||
| Yeah, I think, you know, there's a combination of things. | ||
| There's going to be people who are avoiding using the health care system. | ||
| We've heard some of the callers this morning because it's too expensive, because their out-of-pocket requirements are too high. | ||
| Plus, if we, you know, as we see these cutbacks to Medicaid take effect, there's going to be a lack of access. | ||
| We're going to see medical facilities closing down. | ||
| So people even who have insurance will have to travel further to get care or won't be able to get care at all. | ||
| So it's a real concern. | ||
| We're seeing it from huge swaths of the medical care, the medical industrial complex, if you will, consumer groups, doctor groups, hospital groups, who are all very concerned about sort of the fragile state of our health care system. | ||
| Julie Robner, a veteran reporter on healthcare, the chief Washington correspondent with KFF Health News. | ||
| Thank you, Julie Robner, as always, for explaining the health care policy in this country. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
| My pleasure. | ||
| We are going to go to open forum here for the remainder of today's Washington Journal. | ||
| That's any public policy debate or political debate that's on your mind. | ||
| Here are the lines: Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also text us with your thoughts at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Just include your first name, city and state. | ||
| We'll begin with the latest from Fox News. | ||
| This is the headline from the president's interview with Fox and Friends earlier saying that they have a custody, excuse me, a suspect in custody in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. | ||
| And the Associated Press is reporting, confirming that, that the suspect is in custody in connection with the shooting. | ||
| A 22-year-old from Utah, according to an AP source. | ||
| Let's listen to the president earlier this morning on Fox and Friends. | ||
| Updates on the suspect? | ||
| Yeah, can I always say I think just to protect us all? | ||
| And so Fox doesn't get sued, and we all don't get sued and everything else. | ||
| But I think with a high degree of certainty, we have him. | ||
| We're in custody, in custody. | ||
| Everyone did a great job. | ||
| We worked with the local police, the governor. | ||
| Everybody did a great job. | ||
| You know, getting somebody that you start off with absolutely nothing. | ||
| We started off with a clip that made him look like an ant that was almost useless. | ||
| We just saw it was somebody up there. | ||
| And so much work has been done over the last two and a half days. | ||
| You know, it's amazing, actually, when you start off with that and then all of a sudden you get lucky or talent or whatever it is. | ||
| But yeah, I think we're in great shape. | ||
| He's in custody. | ||
| Any updates on the suspect? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Can I always say I think just to protect us? | ||
| That's the president on Fox and Friends from earlier this morning saying that the suspect is in custody, AP confirming that. | ||
| Now we are waiting for FBI officials in Utah and Oram, Utah, to brief the public on the investigation. | ||
| We'll hear more details from them coming up here, live coverage on C-SPAN. | ||
| Let's go to Elizabeth, who's in Schenectady, New York, an independent. | ||
| Elizabeth, let's hear from you first here in open forum. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for taking my call. | |
| Yes. | ||
| My concern concerning the recent assassination of the gentleman is that now I'm worried that our president and the Republican Party, | ||
| especially the MAGA section of the park, are going to have retribution X, that they are going to try to silence the voices of people who may defent or have critical views of what happened. | ||
| And this is a problem in our country, and I think people must demand that there be total transparency who the person is. | ||
| If the person is the person that they do feel committed the act. | ||
| We want to know all along the way who he was and what his motive was if they can find out. | ||
| Well, Elizabeth, we're waiting on some of those details from an FBI briefing that's about to take place on your screen. | ||
| You can see the live camera there in Orem, Utah. | ||
| We've heard from the Public Safety Commissioner of Utah this week after the shooting of Charlie Kirk, along with the FBI special agent in charge in Utah. | ||
| And we'll see today if Kash Patel shows up at this briefing, because the Washington Times reported this morning on their front page that the FBI director flew to Utah as the manhunt continued then. | ||
| And an update on that is that President Trump, you heard from him on Fox and Friends saying that they do have a suspect now in custody. | ||
| So potentially we hear more from these FBI officials in Utah. | ||
| Michael in Oregon and Independent. | ||
| Michael, what do you say? | ||
| We're an open forum. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I wanted to address the issue of political violence and controversy. | ||
| And I'd like to reinforce the comments of the lady from North Carolina in your previous session. | ||
| You know, we have separation of church and state, or at least we hope we do. | ||
| I'm an advocate of separating party and state. | ||
| We're approaching September 17th, and we're going to hear the President Washington's farewell address read in the Senate here pretty soon. | ||
| And I urge people to listen to it carefully about what Washington said about parties and factions. | ||
| And I think most of our problems stem from the two-party system. | ||
| We need to do something to get rid of that system. | ||
| Now, I don't mean we need to get rid of parties. | ||
| You can belong to parties just like you can belong to churches. | ||
| But there's no reason why we should be registering by parties when we register to vote. | ||
| And there's no reason to have partisan elections. | ||
| We don't have partisan elections for cities and counties. | ||
| We need to eliminate partisan elections entirely. | ||
| And I think that would go a long ways. | ||
| And it wouldn't take anything in the way of constitutional amendment. | ||
| Congress can do this all by itself, can eliminate the artificial aisle that separates the blues from the reds. | ||
| They can seat all the members of Congress alphabetically and to heck with this separation by parties. | ||
| So that's my opinion. | ||
| All right, Michael. | ||
| Well, the opinion of the New York Times editorial board this morning is this. | ||
| Kirk's horrific killing in America's worsening political violence. | ||
| And they say this is a moment to turn down the volume and reflect on our political culture. | ||
| They say that it is a moment for restraint rather than cycles of vengeance or the suspension of civil liberties, as some urged on Wednesday. | ||
| It is also a moment to engage with people who have different views from our own. | ||
| When society loses the ability to argue peacefully and resort to violence to resolve their political debates, it usually ends very badly. | ||
| Danny in Arkansas Democratic Caller. | ||
| Danny, good morning to you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, young lady. | |
| Just thinking about this red and blue thing with political violence, political interactions. | ||
| It goes back to the race thing, black or white. | ||
| And I've challenged kids over the years, and especially their adult parents, you get a box of 64 crayons and a coloring book. | ||
| Okay, if it's race, you take out the black and the white crayon. | ||
| Work with your book with the 62 other crayons. | ||
| With the red and the blue thing, you take out the red and the blue crayon. | ||
| You get that same 62 crayons with your coloring book. | ||
| See what you can do from there. | ||
| All right, Danny. | ||
| Jose in Springfield, Massachusetts, Democratic caller. | ||
| We'll go to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hi, Greta. | |
| You do a great job. | ||
| I was just wondering, the rhetoric starts from where? | ||
| Starts from the top. | ||
| That's the president. | ||
| So I think he should calm down his rhetoric and let Americans know he should be a president for all people, not just Republicans. | ||
| That's my view. | ||
| And Greta, you do a great job. | ||
| Thanks, Jose. | ||
| We'll go to Duane in Michigan, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Dwayne. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I was just wondering if anyone could tell me one positive thing that Charlie Kirk has done for this country besides electing the fat pig again. | ||
| All right, Dwayne, we are going to move away from name-calling, especially on a morning like this. | ||
| We're getting your thoughts in open forum here this morning on any public policy or political debate. | ||
| We want to hear from you. | ||
| If you're a Democrat, dial in at 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, your line, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And remember, you can text us as well. | ||
| Include your first name, city and state, at 202-748-8003. | ||
| The Washington Times this morning with this headline, and we heard from the president announced this yesterday when he marked the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, the 24th anniversary. | ||
| At the Pentagon, the president announced that he will honor Mr. Kirk with the presidential Medal of Freedom. | ||
| The President also talking to reporters last night before he left for New York and telling them that he expects a funeral could occur as early as next week, and he will be attending. | ||
| That follows the vice president, JD Vance, who flew to Utah yesterday, and he, along with the second lady, escorting Charlie Kirk's body on Air Force 2 to his home state of Arizona. | ||
| Beverly in Bellwood, Illinois, Democratic caller. | ||
| Beverly, we're waiting for an FBI briefing in Utah. | ||
| While we wait, tell us your thoughts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm calling about political violence. | |
| And I think it starts at the top. | ||
| I don't know why people can remember everything that Democrats said about violence. | ||
| They can't remember anything about this president. | ||
| This man, when he was running for office, he told Cheney that he was going to hang her or put her, hire a firing squad against her. | ||
| You know, he has promoted all this rhetoric over violence almost day one. | ||
| You know, I may be exaggerating, but he is the culprit. | ||
| He was behind the January 6th insurrection, although they don't want to, they're denying that now. | ||
| They don't want to even call it an insurrection anymore. | ||
| I mean, this man is all about violence. | ||
| If anybody disagrees with him, he calls him the radical left, and he persecutes him. | ||
| He is a culprit. | ||
| I'm not saying he's the sole culprit, but don't you agree that it should come from the top? | ||
| Decorum should come from the top. | ||
| I have never heard President Biden say anything negative about Trump to the point that it would cause violence toward him. | ||
| Okay, calling him a fascist, if he acts like a fascist, that doesn't call violence toward him. | ||
| I'm talking about serious, talking about seriously trying to hurt someone. | ||
| He even got rid of the. | ||
| Beverly, if the president says radical left, how is that different than President Biden calling President Trump a fascist? | ||
| What's the difference there? | ||
|
unidentified
|
To me, he used it in the terms of persecuting, accusing this guy of being a leftist. | |
| He didn't even know what he was. | ||
| We still don't know what political affiliation this man has. | ||
| But to call him a radical left, what radical left person did some shooting? | ||
| I mean, I don't understand. | ||
| What's the purpose of calling somebody radical when there's somebody that has been shot? | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why can't you stick with the decorum of that? | |
| We are so sorry all this happened, even though we might disagree with his beliefs and everything. | ||
| He's the only president that went out. | ||
| He's the only political figure that went that way. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Beverly, the president also said yesterday when he talked to a reporter before leaving the White House, when he was asked, how do you want your supporters to respond? | ||
| He said, nonviolence. | ||
| Here are two quotes from Republicans in the Wall Street Journal. | ||
| This morning, Representative Thomas Massey, who is a Republican from Kentucky, a regular critic of the president, said the president needed to work on his own language. | ||
| He said it's amusing sometimes, and it doesn't offend me that he's over the top with the rhetoric. | ||
| But some people take it literally, and he should probably tone that down himself. | ||
| And then asked if Trump should present a unifying message, retiring centrist Republican Don Bacon of Nebraska said, quote, I wish he would, but I'll just say this. | ||
| He's a populist. | ||
| Populists dwell on anger. | ||
| Let's go to Ernest, who's in California, Republican. | ||
| Ernest, good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was just wondering why it seems to be that the Democrat Party is calling for all of this violence. | ||
| You remember Maxine Waters? | ||
| She got up there and said to get in their faces. | ||
| You accost them. | ||
| And what does she think that meant? | ||
| They were inviting them to an ice cream social? | ||
| That woman is dangerous, and they ought to take her away somewhere. | ||
| We'll go to Chuck in Arkansas, Democratic caller. | ||
| Chuck, we're in open forum. | ||
| We're waiting for an FBI update on the Charlie Kirk shooting in Utah. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I was wondering why we just cannot register to vote without putting a Democrat, Independent, or Republican. | |
| Just register to vote. | ||
| That way they can't single anyone out. | ||
| So thank you very much. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| All right, Tim in California, Republican. | ||
| Hi, Tim. | ||
| What do you have to say? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hey, my opinion is I'm a Republican. | ||
| I have five kids. | ||
| I homeschooled them. | ||
| So I think everyone's really missing points. | ||
| First of all, the media stokes a lot of this. | ||
| They call MAGA Nazis. | ||
| And yes, Joe Biden called us Nazis and we're a danger to the Republic. | ||
| So that stokes violence. | ||
| And in the schools, this is what Charlie Kirk was trying to do in the schools. | ||
| They're indoctrinating. | ||
| You can't give your conservative side in school. | ||
| They'll shut you down. | ||
| And they'll teach discourse where, hey, we agree to disagree. | ||
| I don't teach civics. | ||
| They don't teach the true founding of this republic. | ||
| And there's a lot of anger. | ||
| And the media is part of it. | ||
| The media stokes. | ||
| If you watch these people, Corey Burker said, I wish somebody would punch somebody in the face. | ||
| That is stoking violence, and the kids are impressionable. | ||
| They're young, and you're indoctrinating them, and they're filling their minds full of, you know, violence and anger. | ||
| And, you know, and they're acting out. | ||
| It's no surprise. | ||
| This is a young man, the suspect. | ||
| Now, he's only a suspect. | ||
| But, you know, they probably have pretty good evidence that he's the shooter. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So, Mark, we're going to find out more details when we see the FBI officials in Utah come out on your screen right now and talk at that podium. | ||
| They've been giving updates this week since the shooting happened on Wednesday at Utah Valley University. | ||
| You can see the reporters are in the room as well. | ||
| They're ready to ask questions of those FBI officials, and we're going to bring you live coverage as soon as we see them come out. | ||
| Mark in Middlefield, Connecticut, an independent. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mark. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| You know, if you really want to tone this down, if you listen to people talk to each other either on your program or read them back and forth online or online or even in public, me and my friends, old family members who have differences of opinions, it turns into a shouting match. | ||
| There's no more, for some reason, I don't understand a free and exchange of open ideas. | ||
| And I think obviously, yet we don't know, and if we ever know what the motive was for this heinous crime, but I think everybody today needs to sit and reflect that, and I truly believe that every American citizen's First Amendment right, this was a direct assault on our First Amendment rights. | ||
| You know, when somebody cannot say something that they believe without upsetting somebody else into violence or name-calling, it's a sad state of affairs. | ||
| And I think everybody today needs to just look in the mirror and say, you know what, I may not agree with you, but I will defend your right to say it. | ||
| So, you know, God bless America and thank you for your program. | ||
| And have a great day. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Deetris in Chicago. | ||
| Good morning to you. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| I am a registered Democrat from Chicago. | ||
| Voted for President Trump because he's at the forefront of change and making this the golden era because this is the greatest country in the world. | ||
| Number one. | ||
| Number two, the political violence is out of control. | ||
| They already started this thing with the president being shot at. | ||
| And then Charlie Kirk, one of the dopest, most humane, concerned with the policies and the way the direction of the country is going is dead. | ||
| I'm outraged. | ||
| I will never, I don't have to pay this. | ||
| I have to pay the fees to become a registered Republican. | ||
| I'm going to pay it as soon as my money gets right. | ||
| I will never vote Democrat again. | ||
| Brandon Johnson go Pritzker goal. | ||
| This political violence is outrageous. | ||
| Rest in perfect paradise. | ||
| Charlie Kirk, he's from Whitney Young. | ||
| He went to the same high school that I went to. | ||
| This guy is a heavenly angel. | ||
| Save America. | ||
| The golden age is now. | ||
| We love Donald Trump. | ||
| Get the National Guard to Chicago. | ||
| Memphis is already on the line. | ||
| Get Chicago, get the violence resolved. | ||
| Political violence and violence in our neighborhood. | ||
| The left has encouraged this. | ||
| The legacy media has perpetuated it. | ||
| In this, America is the greatest country in the world. | ||
| God bless America. | ||
| All right, Dietrich. | ||
| We'll go to William, Rosalind Heights, New York, a Republican. | ||
| Hi, William. | ||
|
unidentified
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And to say it better than the last caller, I couldn't agree more with that Democrat, that woman from Chicago just said was like brilliant. | |
| So I hope she can hear me. | ||
| You know, I reiterate the fact that the tragic loss of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old father, a husband, an advocate for open debate, and she, as she called him, an angel whose faith was so important to him, reminds us of the fragility of life and the urgent need for unity in our nation. | ||
| Our hearts are heavy. | ||
| My heart is heavy. | ||
| And his passing leaves a grieving family and a country grappling with division. | ||
| And there's no place for violence or hate in our society. | ||
| And politicians like to keep saying that over and over: there's no place for this and there's no place for that. | ||
| But yet the politicians in this country stoke this and they do it to divide us. | ||
| William, for others who are not familiar with Charlie Kirk and his ideas, as you mentioned, he's gone across to college campuses. | ||
| That was part of his mission with creating Turning Point USA. | ||
| He's also spoken at Republican conventions and gatherings over the years. | ||
| He started Turning Point USA at 18 years old. | ||
| And if you go to c-span.org, you can find a webpage dedicated to the times that he has appeared on our network. | ||
| And folks can find his many appearances there and listen to him in his own words. | ||
| We'll go to Joe in Butner, North Carolina, Democratic caller. | ||
| Hi, Joe. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes. | |
| As far as his political violence is concerned, my mother used to say if there are animals out in the dark in the night outside your window, throw a rock in there. | ||
| And the first one that comes out barking is the dog. | ||
| Within an hour of Charlie Kirk's death in Utah, eight HBCUs in the east and the south of the country were threatened with political violence against their student bodies. | ||
| Ma'am, you know, if he wasn't a white supremacist, what was he? | ||
| Utah has a 1.2% black population. | ||
| 1.2%. | ||
| The obvious suspects were white men. | ||
| So why were HBCUs immediately threatened with political violence after his death? | ||
| I guess he was a suit-wearing, well-shaved, Christ-conscious white supremacist. | ||
| Those are Joe's thoughts there in North Carolina. | ||
| Aaron's in Upper Marlborough, Maryland, Independent. | ||
| Aaron, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thanks for taking my call. | |
| I think Donald Trump has incited probably the worst example of political violence in the last 25 years. | ||
| I'm talking about January 6th. | ||
| To call January 6th a riot is like calling Hurricane Katrina a storm. | ||
| And I think Donald Trump, he's doubled down on that. | ||
| He's even managed to erase history in the sense that he pardoned the insurrectionists for January 6th. | ||
| That's like he's, how can you have a crime if you have no criminals? | ||
| That's what he's done. | ||
| That's all I got. | ||
| Oh, and one last thing. | ||
| To say this, both sides, they would be happy to have that false equivalency like it's 50-50. | ||
| It's not 50-50. | ||
| It's more like 80-20, 85-15 towards the radical right. | ||
| I mean, they have the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Boys, the Nazis, the neo-Nazis, the KKK. | ||
| And on the other side, you have Antifa. | ||
| Antifa is anti-fascist. | ||
| If we win World War II, the United States Army would be Antifa. | ||
| I don't get it. | ||
| I mean, 50-50 on both sides. | ||
| It's not 50-50. | ||
| It's not both sides. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Aaron, there in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, happening soon here. | ||
| We're expecting an FBI briefing, an update on the shooting and killing of Charlie Kirk after the president has said that a suspect is in custody. | ||
| Let's go to Bob in Terrell, Texas, a Republican, while we continue to wait here. | ||
| Bob, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
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I love it. | |
| I love C-SPAN. | ||
| Boy, you really got on that guy for calling everybody Nazis and fascists, and you wonder why this happens. | ||
| You sit there and let these people go on this diatribe. | ||
| Then you wonder with the question out there: would you kill Hitler when he was younger? | ||
| Yeah, sure. | ||
| Diana, Lake Mary, Florida, Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
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Diana? | |
| Good morning, and I'm very excited to be on C-SPAN. | ||
| I am totally against Trump. | ||
| He's a cheater. | ||
| He's a liar. | ||
| He's a felon. | ||
| He's everything. | ||
| A good man would not do those things. | ||
| My husband does not do those things. | ||
| Now, I think he would kill anybody in a minute. | ||
|
unidentified
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And they're all, every life one that he has picked is nothing. | |
| Diana, why do you blame the president? | ||
| Why do you blame the president for what happened? | ||
|
unidentified
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Because he talks Reddit. | |
| He talks nicely. | ||
| He puts people down. | ||
| He's just taking all of our rights away. | ||
| And he's also gathering up all of the immigrants. | ||
| So who's going to pick your fruit? | ||
| Who's going to pick your vegetables? | ||
| I don't think my husband's going to get out there and do it. | ||
| All right, Diana. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We'll go to Richard, who's Rockport, Texas Independent. | ||
| Richard, we're in open forum here this morning on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I've got quite a diversity of comments there. | ||
| I see President Trump wants to give Charlie Kirk the Medal of Freedom. | ||
| What I'd like to see is a statue in the Capitol of Charlie Kirk wearing a t-shirt that says freedom on it. | ||
| That's my suggestion. | ||
| All right, we'll go to Houston, Texas. | ||
| John is watching there, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
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John? | |
| Yes, ma'am. | ||
| If you have any doubt about the views of Charlie Kirk, you know, he actually has a Democratic counterpart. | ||
| And that he's about 10 years younger than Charlie Kirk was, but he's a young man, articulate, handsome, but their views are polar opposite, and the delivery is polar opposite. | ||
| And that individual is David Hogg, who was the vice president of the DNC. | ||
| And the guy was such a lunatic that the DNC kicked him out of his office. | ||
| John's point there in Texas, a Republican. | ||
| We'll go to Herndon, Virginia. | ||
| John, a Democrat there. | ||
| Go ahead, John. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I really am so disappointed that you just say the lady who just called, why did you bring the president? | ||
| I don't know whether you listen to president when he talked and how he sent a message to the people, but that's not the reason I call. | ||
| I think that go back and see your first call this morning that you take. | ||
| He brought the Hillary Clinton. | ||
| People need to understand you can't have this hate all your life. | ||
| When you get up in the morning, you need to understand that you need to change the way you have the day. | ||
| That you need to say to yourself that you are healthy, you have a good friend, think positive. | ||
| The problem is the people, they have this hatred that you can't take away, whether you are a Republican, majority, I will say the Republicans, because they think that something has been taken away. | ||
| That's not how this young man, I respect him because he does go to universities. | ||
| I might not like it, what he say. | ||
| I always teach my children: if you don't like the other person, what he's saying, walk away. | ||
| But you have to understand if you want to be respected, your opinion, you have to listen to the other side. | ||
| That's how it should be. | ||
| But the problem is, we going back to Hillary Clinton, and it's so sad that these people, they listen to Sean Hannity, 9 o'clock, and Laura Ingram, and they wake up with the negativity in the morning and attacking people. | ||
| Please, Republican, those guys who have this disease, be nice to yourself and understand there is a good thing out there that you can change your life. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| All right. | ||
| John there in Herndon, Virginia, Democratic caller. | ||
| We are waiting for the FBI officials to come out here in Orem, Utah. | ||
| That is the live shot on your screen. | ||
| And we're waiting for them to come out and give an update on the investigation into the killing of Charlie Kirk, the president on Fox and Friends, earlier this morning, saying that they have a suspect in custody. | ||
| The Associated Press confirming that, that the suspect is a 22-year-old from Utah. | ||
| And we expect that we will hear more details about this suspect from the FBI officials in Orem, Utah. | ||
| While we continue to wait, Rosetta in Canton, Ohio, Republican. | ||
| Rosetta, go ahead. | ||
| Rosetta, we're listening to you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| You are on. | ||
| All right, I'm going to go to Jenny, who's in Tampa, Florida, Independent. | ||
| Jenny? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning. | |
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| What I want to say about the political violence that we're living is, yes, it is horrendous. | ||
| But the political violence doesn't come out of nowhere. | ||
| The hate doesn't come out of nowhere. | ||
| I think somebody like Charlie Kirk is part of the problem and is a huge part of the division, the political division that we are now seeing. | ||
| You can't go around and say you love Jesus Christ in one sentence and then say that standards are lowered for hiring minorities. | ||
| Black women don't have the mental capacity to obtain governmental positions because they had to do it. | ||
| And how they got there is by stealing a white person's place. | ||
| You cannot say these two things in the same sentence, either you're one or the other. | ||
| He was spewing a lot of racist comments. | ||
| He was igniting this political violence. | ||
| Remember, political violence isn't just shooting a gun and killing somebody. | ||
| It's also words. | ||
| It's also words. | ||
| Saying that you don't recognize an entire state is saying that you don't recognize the people that live in it. | ||
| And these types of rhetoric is the one that is affecting our communities directly. | ||
| Minority, our communities that are made up of minorities. | ||
| Look at our political or look at our social climate now with, and political climate against immigrants that are being directly targeted. | ||
| Somebody like Charlie Kirk is spreading that type of rhetoric. | ||
| There's nothing wrong with saying, I disagree with your point, but there is something wrong when you're standing for something that is affecting people directly, especially the existence of somebody, their rights, the fact that we're not white. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I am not a white person. | |
| Jenny, there in Tampa, Florida. | ||
| I'm going to hear from John, who's in Oklahoma, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
John? | |
| Yes, ma'am. | ||
| What I am seeing, I've watched the documentary, Ukraine on Fire, where they list Antifa as one of the problems in Ukraine in 2012 and 13. | ||
| I think we've got foreign adversaries supporting what's going on here. | ||
| They are trying to overthrow our government. | ||
| You think this is an instigation, an instigation by our adversaries to yes, ma'am. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think we are getting, I'm not sure they list in that George Soros was supporting a part of that. | |
| What went on in Ukraine? | ||
| And that was in 12, 13, and 14. | ||
| So John in Oklahoma. | ||
| Gene, in Wisconsin Democratic Caller. | ||
| Gene, we'll go to you next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi there. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| A couple things. | ||
| First of all, I knew Donald Trump in the 80s and 90s in the business world in New York, and nobody would work with him. | ||
| His character was always that question. | ||
| And it's sad that we get these kind of people to go into politics because rhetoric is what wins. | ||
| The challenge I have, and I have voted on both sides over my life, and I was thankful that I never had to be polarized to do it. | ||
| I have yet now, as a more leaning Democrat, you know, I'm more of a conservative Democrat. | ||
| I have yet to see one Republican who will say, why do you feel that way? | ||
| I have yet to see anyone who has a Trump sign saying, let me understand what you are thinking. | ||
| And you just don't see that. | ||
| So my challenge to people on both sides is get to the middle. | ||
| Once in a while, change your view for the other side, even if you affiliate with a party. | ||
| But it has really gotten polarized. | ||
| And I want to thank the caller who was about three before me, who talked about the core values of Kirk. | ||
| His values were bad. | ||
| He did not like really women's rights. | ||
| He did not like minority rights. | ||
| So he was a polarized candidate, you know, probably likely being passed for president. |