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Trump's Influence on Political Violence00:14:04
unidentified
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Encouraging Public Disagreement00:15:18
unidentified
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.
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'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.
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?
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'd honestly, I just have to agree with a lot of what Doug, the Republican caller from Falls Church, said.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rudy's Execution?00:10:29
unidentified
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.
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?
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'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.
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.
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.
From the halls of our nation's most iconic libraries comes America's Book Club, a bold, original series where ideas, history, and democracy meet.
Hosted by renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein, each week features in-depth conversations with the thinkers shaping our national story.
Among this season's remarkable guests, John Grisham, master storyteller of the American justice system.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, exploring the Constitution, the court, and the role of law in American life.
Famed chef and global relief entrepreneur Jose Andres, reimagining food.
Celebrated biographer Walter Isaacson, chronicling history's most remarkable lives.
The books, the voices, the places that preserve our past and spark the ideas that will shape our future.
America's Book Club, premiering Sunday nights this fall, only on C-SPAN.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, Braver Angels, which you co-founded, you're now the president of Civic Life.
unidentified
What are these two groups doing to lower the political rhetoric?
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.
Defeating Evil Without Becoming It00:03:39
unidentified
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.
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?
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?
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.
Using Persuasion Wisely00:10:32
unidentified
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ceasefire This Fall00:03:41
unidentified
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.
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.
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.
Multiple Cultures, Mixed Heritage00:03:28
unidentified
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.
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.
NRA's Grip on Politics00:06:59
unidentified
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
We'll go to William, Rosalind Heights, New York, a Republican.
Hi, William.
unidentified
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Polarized Climate: Instigation and Impact00:03:05
unidentified
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.